One thing that I obviously had to ask before we went anywhere else with this particular conversation was a simple, “How? How’d you guys get out of the house? How did you get away from the werewolves? They said–they said it looked like the wolves were killed by a bunch of Heretics, but I know it wasn’t–I mean, if it was some of Gabriel’s people, he would’ve said so.”
“Not a bunch of Heretics,” Dad corrected. “Just one, actually. A powerful one, I think. Not that I have a lot to compare it to, but from what I saw, she’s pretty damn powerful. Scary powerful. She’s the one who weakened that memory suppression thing so I’d have a chance to break through it. Pretty sure if it wasn’t for her, I’d still be clueless. Not to mention dead right now.”
“One Heretic?” My eyes widened as I echoed those words. “You mean a Heretic broke the Bystander Effect for you? Or helped you break it. But who–what–how? What do you-”
“She was part of the Committee,” my father interrupted with a statement that made me give a choked gasp. “The uh, Crossroads Committee? That’s the group that–the leaders, right?”
“Th-the Committee?” I managed through a strangled voice. “The Committee as in that Committee? But–but who–what? You said she. As in a woman. Who was–I mean which one-”
“She said her name was Calafia,” he answered quietly. “Does that… mean anything to you?”
Calafia. Wait. Calafia? As in the dark-skinned woman who had never really said that much? I tried to think back to the single interaction I’d had with the woman while meeting the Committee.
She hadn’t said that much, I remembered. She’d spoken up to say that Litonya hadn’t been accusing me of anything, and to tell me that anytime I needed to take a break, I could. Other than that I couldn’t really remember anything she’d done. Mostly, she stayed in the background.
“She said that she owed your mother,” Dad interrupted my tornado of rebounding thoughts and confusion. “She said she owed Joselyn more than she could ever repay, but that one thing she could do was make sure her husband learned the truth. I don’t know what that meant.”
It made sense. Gabriel had said that the person who helped break the Bystander Effect for my dad had wanted to help, and that they did so because they owed my mother. And if anyone was going to be powerful enough to make it so that a normal human could break through the Bystander Effect, it would be someone who was part of the Committee. Still, I was stunned.
I was going to have to talk to her. Somehow, someway, I had to find out more about Calafia and what she owed my mother. I had to talk to her about my mother, about everything. If she could help… I shook that off, along with all the accompanying paranoia. Or tried to, at the very least.
Finally, I took a breath. “I guess you kinda want to know how my year’s been going so far, huh?”
“That’d be nice,” Dad replied dryly. “Why don’t you start from the beginning and we’ll go from there?”
“From the beginning?” I echoed before nodding. “Alright, here goes…” So I started to tell him what had happened, from the beginning. Starting with right after I left our house that first day.
“So let me get this straight,” my father asked in a tone that betrayed some combination of curiosity and indignance. “You just woke up on that bus, alone and in the middle of nowhere?”
Coughing, I nodded to myself. It felt like so long ago. It had only been a few months, but somehow, it seemed like that had happened at least a couple years back. “Yeah, I guess they still hadn’t quite decided what to do with me right up until the very last second. The Committee ended up with an unbreakable tie, so they had to have Gaia–Headmistress Sinclaire come in and break it. That’s why I didn’t get the normal orientation that all the other Bystander-kin got.”
Pausing briefly, Dad started slowly. “Bystander–oh, that’s what they call… what, like Mug–”
“Ordinary humans, yeah,” I interrupted while shaking my head. “Bystanders. People like me, the ones that were raised in ordinary families are called Bystander-kin. Or Silverstones. As in–”
“Alicia, Clueless,” Dad cut in before grunting. “Not exactly a ringing endorsement or praise.”
“You got that faster than I did,” I muttered before taking a breath. “But yeah, that’s the term they use. And you should see the school here, Dad. It’s on this tropical island, with this ocean and a jungle everywhere. A real jungle, with all these wild animals and everything. It’s really pretty, gorgeous I mean, which is totally purposeful and–and you’ve gotta meet my sharks, and–”
“I’m sorry, what?” Dad interrupted while sounding completely incredulous. “Did you just say I have to meet your sharks? Wait a second, kid. I know I’ve been pretty cool about this whole secret society of monster hunters thing, but did you go and join a finger-snapping gang that spontaneously breaks out into song too? Because I honestly don’t know if I could handle that.”
Covering my mouth with one hand to hide the snicker, I took a moment before replying as flatly as I could, “You’re not nearly as funny as you think you are, you know. No, they’re real sharks. They’re like, umm, my friends. It’s sort of a um, a power that I inherited, taming these sharks.”
“A power you inherited by…” Dad started before trailing off. His voice was quieter. “By killing.”
Flinching a little bit, I sat up in bed to put my back against the headboard. “Would it help if I said the shark guy was attacking at the time, and that it was self-defense? And defense of others.”
“Kid,” Dad replied low, his voice quiet, yet firm. “I know you. You may have all this training, may have fought monsters and seen more crazy shit in a few months than I’ve seen in my entire life. But l know you. Of course it was self-defense. I’d never question that. You’ve done what you had to do. I’m not gonna run in and try to take over, try to pretend that I know better than you. Yeah, I’m your dad. But right now I feel about as clueless as…” He sighed, voice going a bit darker. “I’m your dad, I’m supposed to protect you from this stuff. But I’m not gonna pretend I can now. I’m not gonna act like a stubborn ass and start screwing everything up. So just… tell me what happened, all right? Tell me all of it, because if I’m gonna help at all, I need to know.”
Biting my lip, I backed up a bit. I told my father about seeing the light from the Heretical Edge. I told him about my vision, about recognizing Gaia. I told him about meeting my team, playing with Herbie, how much of an ass Deveron acted like at first, and more. I told him about how the food was delivered, how the room keys automatically unlocked our rooms when we got close to them, about choosing my weapon, my first classes, everything I could think of that had been my initial impression of the school over that first day or two. I told him all of it, trying to set the stage.
Then I told him about Professor Pericles. I told him about the man’s death, about how he had been murdered. And I told him about the Peridles attacking Avalon and me in the locked room.
“Wait, wait,” Dad interrupted. “How do you spell that name? The Peridles.” After I told him, he asked how to spell Pericles, then coughed. “Isn’t that weird? They’re only off by one letter. Pericles and Peridles. It might sound different, but spelling-wise, it’s just one letter.”
He was right. There was a difference in sound, with Pericles sounding like ‘Pair-Uh-Klees’ while Peridles was ‘Pair-uh-dulls’. But the spelling was almost identical. “Uhh, yeah.” I blinked a couple times. “I dunno if that means anything or is just a coincidence, but… yeah, they are.”
I continued from there, telling my dad everything I could remember. Or at least summarizing it. Over the next hour, I kept talking until my throat felt hoarse. Through it all, my father interjected a few times, making his own observations and questioning where he needed to for clarification. But mostly, he listened. And there was a lot of listening to do. Hell, up until I’d actually had to explain as much of it as possible, I hadn’t really comprehended just how much was going on.
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“Damn, kid,” Dad finally muttered by the end. “When do you ever eat and sleep? Let alone study. Wait, you do have normal classes up there, right? Not just the monster hunting ones.”
Yup, still my dad. Chuckling despite myself, I replied, “Yes, Dad. All sorts of normal classes. Geography, Trig, Chemistry, the lot. I promise, I’m still getting all that stuff. Maybe a little slower than I would’ve because, let’s face it, there’s only so many hours in the day. But I’m getting it.”
“Good, good. I…” Trailing off, Dad took a moment to search for what to say next, grasping for the right words. “You know, I just… I just want to tell you… I want to tell you to stop all this, Flick. I want to tell you to stop all of it and just come here, to run away from it and hide. I want to tell you to leave it alone. But I get the feeling that,” he swallowed audibly, “that wouldn’t work.”
Swallowing hard, I bit my lip before answering. “No, Dad. It wouldn’t. Fossor, he’s gonna come for me regardless, as soon as I’m eighteen. At least here I can get training. And I have friends, friends that I can’t just abandon. Not with everything that’s going on. I need them, and they need me. It’s scary, yeah. But it’s really important too. It’s important and I can’t just walk away from it.”
“I know, kid.” Dad’s voice was soft and quiet, and I could almost feel his frustration and helplessness. “I know you can’t. And–and I wouldn’t want you to. Not really. You’re just–you’re my girl. You’re my kid, kid. The more I hear about all this stuff, all these people, the power they’ve got, I just… I can’t do anything about it. I can’t fucking do anything to help you, not now.”
“You’re wrong, Dad,” I objected. “Just talking to you about this stuff, it helps. I can… I can think about it a lot more clearly. It’s less… jumbled in my head just from talking about it. That helps.”
There was a brief pause then before he started slowly, “Your mom, when you… when she talked to you through the… the monkey-thing, are you sure she–I mean are you positive it was–”
“It was her,” I promised him. “It was Mom, I swear. She’s… she’s with that fucking psychopath, that piece of shit. But it was her. She was Mom. Dad, she.. She didn’t–I mean it wasn’t her…” My eyes were filling up despite myself, despite the fact that I’d thought I’d already cried myself out earlier while explaining all of this the first time. “She didn’t abandon us, Daddy.” My voice was weak, even to my own ears. It sounded cracked and frail. “She didn’t really abandon us.”
The emotion in Dad’s voice matched what I felt. I could hear the cracks in it, could practically feel his desire to grab onto me. “I know, kid. She didn’t. She was saving you. She–” There was a brief pause as he fought to get himself under control, at least enough to speak. “She did everything for you. She never stopped being her. She didn’t…” He paused again, and I could almost hear his shudder before he continued quietly, yet firmly. “She never stopped loving you.”
“And she didn’t stop loving you either, Dad,” I added, just as firmly. “She’s Mom. She’s… she’s amazing. She always was. Even when they tried to take that away. She became a sheriff, Dad. She never, never stopped trying to help people. And now she’s–that fucking son of a bitch. That–” I stopped talking, my eyes squeezed as tightly shut as I could manage. Yet even that wasn’t tight enough to stop the few tears from leaking out, sliding down my face. “That monster.”
There was a little more then between the two of us, not all of it very coherent. We talked both to and at each other. Some of what we said was just… noise, emotional noise that was somewhat comforting. A lot would’ve meant very little to any outside audience. We were telling stories about Mom, about what we remembered. Only they weren’t the entire story. They didn’t need to be. One of us would start to say a couple words, and the other would know what we meant. Three words of an entire story, and none of the rest needed to actually be said. And this time, for once in the past decade, the stories weren’t tainted by the idea that she had abandoned us.
From there, I shifted back into talking more about the school. Dad asked questions, some of which I’d already thought of and some I hadn’t. His questions even helped lead me to my own.
It was just like when things were still more normal, when life wasn’t so crazy and he’d help me talk through some story I was writing for the school paper. It helped clear my head, helped me notice little things that I hadn’t before. Maybe none of it would actually pay off, but it still helped.
Mostly I just… enjoyed talking to my dad. Clearing things up, telling stories about my friends, my teammates, about everything that had happened, both the funny things and the scary ones. Bringing up to date on everything would take awhile, longer than this phone call. But I made the very best attempt that I could. We kept switching between my stories and Dad’s reactions, his thoughts, his jokes, his… everything. He had his opinions, his ideas, his thoughts to share.
He also wanted to punch Ruthers in the face. Actually, Dad went on at length about just how much he wanted to knock the guy’s teeth out. In detail and with vivid descriptions. It was nice to listen to, even if it was pretty much a pipe dream. Still, the thought of my dad laying Ruthers out on his ass was a really nice one. I had to smile while holding that special image in my head.
And he asked about Deveron. Not only him, but also Abigail, Wyatt, and Koren. He wanted to know all about Mom’s family. He wanted to meet them. I could hear the slight hesitance in his voice about meeting Deveron. Honestly, I would’ve been hesitant too, in his situation. The thought of meeting his wife’s first husband, the man he had never known about, had to be intimidating. But he still wanted to. He wanted to talk to them, all of them. He wanted to be a part of things. And now that he could remember what was going on, now that the Bystander Effect no longer worked on him, I wanted that too. But it was going to wait. For a few days at least, those reps from the Committee were going to pay entirely too much attention for me to take off. They’d be watching for me to try to disappear, probably thinking I’d sneak off to meet Mom.
“But Dad,” I eventually put in, “you guys can’t just stay wherever you are. The Heretics are gonna be looking for you. The Heretics, the Seosten, the werewolves, they’ll all be looking for you. I mean, Twister and Asenath are good, but you guys need help. You need…” I paused, lifting my chin thoughtfully. “You need to go to the lake, the place where Gabriel’s camp is. The Atherby camp. They’ll take you in, I know they will. There’s no way anyone’ll find you there.”
“You think they’ll go for that?” Dad asked slowly. “I mean, I’d like to meet them, your mom’s… people, I guess. That… Gabriel guy, he’s really the same guy from the history books?”
I laughed a little. “Yeah, and like I said, Professor Virginia Dare really is that Virginia Dare.”
“And I met her.” Dad’s voice trailed off, the awe apparent before he shook it off. “I’ve got so many questions the next time she shows up. The–the colony, do you know what happened to-”
Snickering despite myself, I nodded. “Yup. But I’ll let her tell you about it. I think she liked meeting you too, Dad. And she’ll like it more now that you know what’s really going on. Soon, the next time you meet. But right now, speaking of that other historical figure, yeah, I know Gabriel’ll take you guys in. The Atherby clan’ll love having you, Dad. Just give me a sec. I’ll call him up and make plans for it. Wait, where are you guys? I mean, where can you get to easily?”
He told me where they were, just a little bit outside of the absurdly small town of Dixon, Wyoming. But it didn’t matter how big the town was. Gabriel would be able to find them there.
Telling my dad I’d call him back in just a minute, I disconnected before quickly dialing one of the numbers that had been magically sealed into my memory with that spell. It rang three times before being picked up.
“Felicity,” Gabriel’s voice wasn’t at all surprised by my call, even this late. “I take it you’ve had a chance to speak with your father.”
“Yeah,” I confirmed, nodding quickly. “And I was wondering if you’d… um, pick them up? They’ve got a lot of people after them right now. I trust Senny, but…”
“But there’s no need to push things,” he confirmed. “Of course. The rest of the clan has been asking why we haven’t gone after them already. But we… it was better to wait for the invitation.”
Quickly, I told him where they were, and he promised to go collect them before anyone else caught up. Then he assured me that Dad and the others would be safe at the lake, and that I could come see them as soon as I could get away
“Um, one more question,” I put in then. “Did you–I mean…” Biting my lip, I explained about what had happened to those other Heretics, about the woman with the golden aura that killed them to save the Alters.
“I didn’t hear about that,” he murmured softly. “Do you think it was–”
“I don’t know, but they think so.” I sighed. “So I can’t get away, not as long as those guys are paying so much attention. Just… take care of my dad, please.”
“You have my word,” Gabriel assured me. “I’ll go and bring them in right now. Tell your father to meet at the post office in town.”
I confirmed that before hanging up, then dialed my father back. Telling him where to go and what to look for, I promised him that we’d talk again soon. He made me swear that the second I could get away from the island, I’d come talk to him in person. Actually, he made me swear it three different times. So I did. And I made him promise to be careful and to stay at the camp.
Finally finished, at least for the moment, I disconnected the phone and set it beside me on the bed.
I meant to run through things in my head some more. I meant to write in my notebook, think everything through again, maybe even get a little studying in. I meant to do all of that. But in the end, after everything that I’d been through that day, after everything that had happened, my brain was just on its last legs.
I blinked, and the next thing I knew, it was morning, and the phone was ringing next to my head. Groggily, I fumbled for it, blinking a few times before managing to hit the button. “Yeah?”
“Hey, Chambers, you busy?” Roxa’s voice spoke.
“Because you’ve got that big stick, and we’re looking at a whole lotta werewolves that probably wanna do worse than play fetch right now.”