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Chapter Eleven

  After Fallon’s initial protest that, indeed, the bird had been housed in Aidan’s room, his dad ended the matter. The bird was gone and the issue was put to rest.

  Dinner was finished in silence, and Holly said no more about the incident with the blackbird. She merely glanced at Aidan when no one was looking and winked. It all made Aidan uncomfortable—it was like she knew it was him that captured the crow, and her wink made them in on that secret together.

  “Well, I guess these dishes won’t clean themselves,” Mom got up with napkin in hand and started to collect the plates as the rest of the family retired to the family room.

  Once everyone else was out of earshot, Aidan intervened. “I got it, Mom. Go sit out on the porch and read.” He hefted the stack of plates out of her arms and awkwardly carried them over to the sink.

  She began to protest, but Aidan merely shook his head at her. He untied the apron that she hadn’t taken off since helping Holly make dinner. Shrugging her shoulders and giving up, she shuffled out the kitchen door and onto the porch, grabbing her copy of Rogue Warrior on the way out.

  Aidan cleared the dirty dishes, scraping remnants of scalloped potatoes and meatloaf into the garbage as hot water steamed, filling up the sink.

  “Whatcha doin’?” Holly stood in the doorway to the kitchen, the muffled sitcom laughter of the living room blurred by Fallon’s Gameboy.

  “Just doing some dishes,” Aidan replied. He remained hovering over the trashcan, his back facing her, afraid that initiating further conversation with Holly would only lead to discussion of the trapped bird.

  He thought about the voice in the woods when he was capturing the crow. It was Holly’s voice; he was sure. Despite her warning, he had ignored it and continued his plan.

  She’ll probably bring that up if we keep talking. Aidan turned off the water, its suds nearly overflowing the sink, and slid in the pumpkin-colored dishes.

  “Mind if I help?”

  “I don’t care.” He hurriedly reached for a plate to get his work done as soon as possible, ignoring the searing pain in his hands from the boiling water.

  Holly took her station next to the sink, ratty dishtowel in hand as Aidan scrubbed at the steaming dish. Now he knew why his mom always wore her rubber gloves – aside from the whole OCD issue. He rinsed the plate and handed it over to Holly, cautiously grabbing the next plate from the water.

  “Do you still want to help me out tomorrow?” Holly looked at him from the corner of her eye, needlessly drying the plate for the second time, her hand running over both sides in swift circles.

  What will we be doing on the water with plants, anyway? He could picture waders, nets, and water sampling but it didn’t sound too appealing. Of course, neither did a cleaning day around the cabin with Mom or heavy labor with Dad and Quinn. But if he went with Holly, she’d have plenty of time to interrogate him about the bird—if she really thought he was involved.

  He didn’t miss a beat with his work, continuing his scrubbing and handing a new plate over to Holly who had just put the dried one away on its shelf. “Why not?”

  “Well, you didn’t say a word to me during dinner, so I thought that maybe you would rather stick around here tomorrow.”

  “I just don’t know what we’re doing tomorrow. That’s all.” Aidan mumbled an attempt to avoid promising Holly anything, and hurriedly rinsed a plate.

  “Well, good! I already asked your mom and she said it would be just fine!” Holly beamed at him as she snatched the plate from his hands. “I have a feeling you’re going to love it!”

 

  It was settled. Aidan would be helping out Holly again.

  As he pulled his old green and white Ireland jersey over his head, readying for another night on the Futon of Woe, Aidan stared at Quinn’s medals dangling on the wall above the desk.

  Hildegrass Award for… He squinted, trying to make out the inscription. Courage, Decency, and Selflessness.

  Aidan scoffed. Quinn? Selfless? I’d like to see that.

  The red ribbon next to the Hildegrass Award held a triangular shaped silver medallion with one fleur-de-lis at the top.

  Taking a step toward the desk, Aidan brushed his hair out of his face, peering in for a better look.

  “High Keeper of the Northern Gates,” he read to himself. “Weird. Wonder what that’s supposed to mean.” Aidan dropped down on the futon, his head sinking into his pillow. “Probably some compound he’s in charge of.”

  Aidan’s mind drifted into the supple arms of slumber, darkness lulling him into drooling snores.

 

  He woke with a crick in his neck, another victim of the futon’s dastardly deeds, and shuffled to the door. Before he could touch the handle to give it a turn, the door creaked open, revealing the dimly lit hallway. Everyone else seemed to be asleep, and the entire cabin was eerily quiet like the eye of a storm.

  He reached up to rub his eyes, but then realized that he wasn’t feeling the normal morning grogginess that usually plagued him. The cottony mouth, the gluey eyes, and the lethargic limbs. None of it. He felt ready to run, ready to help Aunt Holly with anything and everything. He hadn’t felt this great in a long time.

  He rounded the corner to the living room, but was unable to move. Not only could he feel some kind of force paralyzing his body, but also he saw it in the center of the room, its eyes staring at him like it had before.

  The green dog’s untamed hair was unmistakable, but it wasn’t panting at him like it was the last time he saw the beast.

  Last time I remember seeing… His mind drifted.

  The scene was so familiar, and yet there were those subtle differences, but one thing was clear to Aidan. This room was the same room from his previous dream. He had been here before in his mind, and it was Uncle Quinn’s home that had been the setting when he dreamed this before.

  The dog didn’t even blink as it continued staring at Aidan. Aidan could see the broken door and the axe across the room.

  He heard her scream, just like he knew she would.

  Mom? Holly? Kaylee?

  He knew it was a her, the blood-chilling scream coming from somewhere beyond this room. The kitchen? Outside? He couldn’t tell the exact location.

  Inside he surged to run forward, past the dog, through the house searching for who was in trouble, searching for their pain. But he couldn’t will himself to move. He was frozen.

  As he stared past the dog, he saw the axe half-embedded in the broken door. This time, the blade was covered in blood.

  Aidan’s heart leapt and even though he didn’t know what to do, he knew he would have to help whoever was in trouble.

  I have to see. I have to find out what’s happening!

  He willed himself forward, struggling against the immobility of his body, like a magnetic force holding him back from those he loved.

  I have to! He struggled to raise his arm. He knew that if he could raise his arm, it would be one move toward freedom.

  Arggghhh! His mind focused on his fingertips that were barely in view. The fingers twitched. Then slowly his arm rose, reaching into the living room.

  Aidan looked at the dog and managed a smile.

  The green beast’s bearded mouth opened and time slowed. ”Brrrrr-ROOF! Roof! Roof! Roof…” Its bark reverberated off the walls, deafening Aidan, who now held his ears with both hands, desperately trying to quell the nausea-inducing twang that resounded in his head.

  He slowly raised his head to look at the dog once more. It was staring at him again, but he swore it was smiling at him. Aidan used the last bit of energy he had to reach forward one more time.

  Again the blast of the canine’s thunderous call, and Aidan doubled over on the floor, smothering his head with both arms as he lay curled in a ball. The pain that had once been only in his head was now flowing through his entire body, and his mind went dark.

 

  Aidan slipp
ed into some jeans and his requisite t-shirt, trying to forget about the nightmare that had left him sweat-ridden and achy.

  It was just a dream, he kept telling himself as he got ready for his day with Aunt Holly.

  Aidan ambled down the hall and into the kitchen, trying to keep the echoes of numbness from his nightmare at bay. He stopped short at the sight of Holly bent over with her foot on a dining chair, slathering her bikini-clad body with lotion.

  “Ahem,” he coughed, trying to keep from thinking about Holly, even though she stood right in front of him. He diverted his eyes and tried to picture Mrs. Harbisher, hoping her ghastly image would keep him from turning red… or worse.

  “Oh!” Holly popped up her head. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you coming down the hall.”

  “Are we, uh, going swimming or something?” Aidan couldn’t quite understand wearing a swimming suit to work.

  “Well, you can’t wear those if you’re going to be out on the water with me,” she smirked and pointed at Aidan’s jeans with the bottle of lotion.

  This has to be another joke. It’s way too cold outside to be sunbathing or swimming. We’re likely to get hypothermia!

  Instead of protesting Aidan just shifted nervously on his feet. “I didn’t bring a suit,” he muttered, his face downcast, not wanting to look at Holly’s scantily clad body more than necessary.

  “Well,” Holly snapped the bottle closed. “I’m sure your uncle has something you can borrow.”

 

  Out on the water in Uncle Quinn’s twenty-foot Sport Angler, Aidan stood wearing his uncle’s much-too-large dry suit. He felt ridiculous. Aunt Holly could pull off the whole dry suit look; she looked like a Banana Boat model when she wasn’t wearing her frumpy skirts and baggy tank tops.

  “Ready?” she yelled from the back of the boat.

  “For what?” Aidan yelled back over the roar of the motor. He was so surprised that she had let him drive the boat – Dad would never let him even back out the car or drive on a deserted road, and here was over two-hundred horsepower under his control.

  “Slow it down!” She fished for something in the bottom of the cooler.

  He eased the throttle, bringing the boat to a halt, slight ripples of the lake sloshing against the aluminum sides.

  Holly emerged with a spindly, slimy plant suspended in her hands. “Isn’t it gorgeous?” she grinned.

  “Uhm, yeah. Sure.”

  They were fifty feet away from jagged stone that met the lapping waves. This inaccessible section of shoreline was pristine – grey cliffs emerging majestically above the blue-green water.

  “We’re going to submerge about twenty of these. When they’re big enough, they’ll help with filtering the water and provide shelter and camo for the local fish species.”

  She handed him the plant, and dug around in the cooler for another.

  “Cool.” He scowled at the slimy, octopus-esque plant in his hands.

  “Yes, very cool. They thrive in cold waters. We’ve had problems with some invasive plant and fish species for a number of years, and I’m hoping that this hybrid will help the native species re-emerge, and then we can simply take these plants back out of the system once it’s recovered.”

  “Where did you learn all of this stuff?” He had imagined that all Aunt Holly knew about was planting seeds and fertilization, but hybrids and breeding? Correcting mini ecosystems in your spare time? He had no idea.

  “Where anyone else would, dummy! Ever heard of a university?” She laughed and shoved another plant in Aidan’s hands. “Now, I’ll go down below and you will be in charge of handing these over the boat to me. It gets cold down there really fast, so I’ll need you to be on your toes. Do you think you can handle that?”

  “Down there?”

  “Yeah, how else am I going to plant these babies?”

  Aidan shrugged, embarrassed that he couldn’t put it all together. Water plants, duh. They still needed soil.

  Within minutes Holly was completely geared up – the oxygen tank on her back, flippers on tight, mask and protective head gear in place. She sat on the edge of the boat, mouthpiece in one hand, shouted, “See you on the other side!” and rolled backwards into the water.

  He rushed to the side of the boat where she had gone in, eyes canvassing the water for bubbles. And then she was back at the surface, arms outstretched for the first plant, her masked grey eyes the one point of familiarity. Aidan carefully handed one down to her and she descended back into the murk.

  Some twanging country music played on in the background from the boat’s sound system, and for once Aidan realized that he didn’t care. He didn’t care if he had to listen to redneck music. If no one else seemed to understand him, it wouldn’t bother him. He would just shrug it off if his parents yelled at him for things that weren’t his fault. Anymore creepy dreams about green dogs and axes would be just that—dreams. And most of all, he didn’t mind spending the rest of the week in Winchester. There were the woods’ privacy, seclusion’s silence, and the lake’s mysteries.

  Plus Holly would be around to help reveal their secrets.