Chapter 6
SIX
I’d gone through a plane door. Over the course of the past year, I’d become intimately — against my will — familiar with openings to other worlds. I wasn’t a big fan of plane jumping. Yet here I was.
“Oh, man.” I immediately looked over my shoulder for an exit. “Galen is going to be ticked.”
Moonstone Bay’s plane door situation was obviously getting out of control. Why were there so many? This world looked vaguely familiar.
It wasn’t lush and green like the world I’d left behind. The landscape was dark and barren. In the distance, a volcano chugged smoke.
“Leave it to me to land on a plane with an active volcano,” I muttered to myself.
“Yes, leave it to you,” a soft voice said.
I jerked in its direction, prepared to fight to the death, and almost fell over when I saw the woman standing only ten feet away. I knew her. Well, I didn’t know her, but I knew who she was.
“Mom,” I squeaked, dumbfounded.
Inherently I knew she couldn’t be Emma Hunter. My mother had given birth to me and her body was in the Moonstone Bay Cemetery. Sure, she got up every night and shambled around with unseeing eyes and an unquenchable desire for human flesh, but I’d seen her grave.
“Hadley.” The woman wore a dark shapeless dress. She had my black hair and inquisitive eyes. Her smile was exactly like mine.
It physically hurt to see her. I’d never laid eyes on her in life. “What are you?”
The woman cocked her head. “What do you think I am?”
“If I knew I wouldn’t be asking.”
The woman held out her hand toward me. I stared at it. There was no way I was holding hands with whatever this was.
“I don’t think I’m going to touch you,” I offered. “No offense or anything, but with my luck I’ll develop a case of scales or lizard tongue.”
Mom — I couldn’t think of her as anything else despite my best efforts — threw back her head and laughed. “You have your grandmother’s sense of humor,” she said when she’d recovered.
There was that pang again. I was legitimately worried I was about to have a heart attack I was so worked up. “How … .” I couldn’t finish.
“How do I know that?” she asked in a soft voice. “Because despite what feels like endless time here, I haven’t forgotten the other side. It’s impossible for me to forget because it’s all I hold on to.”
It felt like a trap. My mind was everywhere and nowhere all at once. “You … are you … I … .”
She sent me a sympathetic look. “You want to know if I’m your mother.”
She looked pensive. “I am many things,” she said finally. “I am your mother, but I’m also not the woman who gave birth to you. Does that make sense?”
“Not even a little,” I replied.
She laughed again. “Yes, you definitely have your grandmother’s sense of humor. I’m glad.” She beamed at me. “Tell me about your life.”
“Don’t you know? I mean, you recognized me. Shouldn’t that mean you already know?”
“I only recognize you because I was told you were coming.” Her smile disappeared. “We will talk about that in a bit. Let’s talk about other things, better things, first.” Her bright smile was back.
“Um … no offense, but shouldn’t I be trying to get out of here?” I looked around at the bleak landscape again. “As happy as I am to see you, I don’t want to stay here.”
Mom’s expression turned fierce. “You’re not staying. I promise you that. There’s no way for me to get you back home just yet. These doors … they don’t stay open. You understand?” She looked hopeful.
I did understand. “You’re saying the plane door only opens at certain times. Does that mean it was just bad luck that I entered when I did?”
She was solemn as she shook her head. “That door was created specifically for you. It’s a one-way door.”
My stomach hollowed out. Did that mean I couldn’t go back?
“You can’t go through this door again,” Mom replied sympathetically, “but there is another door. We will go there in a few minutes. We’ll have to move fast when it’s time.”
I wanted to question her further but for some reason I trusted her. Sure, it was entirely possible she was an evil witch who had adopted my mother’s face to lure me, placate me, and kill me. Heck, that was probably exactly what I was dealing with.
Part of me still trusted her, and as long as she wasn’t lurching at me in an attempt to eat my face, I was willing to play this out. Besides, she knew the way to the plane door.
“What do you want to know?” I asked, resigned.
She smiled. “Are you happy?”
“I am,” I confirmed. The slim chance that this woman might really be my mother made me want to give her peace. “I have a very happy life.” I reconsidered. “Okay, I had some ups and downs as I was trying to find myself, but I’m very happy now.”
Mom nodded in understanding. “When did you find yourself?”
That was an easy question to answer. “When I came to Moonstone Bay.”
“To live with your grandparents?” She didn’t look hopeful as much as resigned. What was up with that?
“I never lived with May and Wesley,” I replied. “I grew up with Dad. I didn’t even come to Moonstone Bay until I was well into adulthood.”
“I didn’t realize,” she said dully. “I thought … well, I thought Mom and Dad would reach out to your father to see you.”
“I think they did. Dad kind of admitted that. He shut them down. He didn’t want me coming here. In fact, he did everything in his power to make sure I wouldn’t come.”
Mom looked as if she was trying to understand. I’d imagined a million conversations with my mother since first seeing her shambling through the cemetery. Never once had I envisioned her asking this question, and I was sad to be the one to have to tell her some hard news.
“Grandma died,” I blurted. There was no way to sugarcoat it. “She left me the lighthouse in her will.”
“I see.” Mom looked troubled. “How long ago?”
“More than a year, less than two years.”
“And you moved here to live in the lighthouse?”
I bobbed my head.
“And you’re staying?”
“I am.” I held up my hand to show my engagement ring. “This is home now.”
Her eyes lit up when she saw the ring, then she frowned. “Who?”
“You wouldn’t know him.”
“Try me.”
Could this information be used against me somehow? Could it be used against Galen? Ultimately, I couldn’t think of a single reason not to tell her. “Galen Blackwood.”
Mom’s eyebrows lifted. “Marjory Blackwood’s boy?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.” She pursed her lips. “Is he like her?”
That made me laugh. “The exact opposite. He’s pretty happy-go-lucky, although he can be intense. He’s the sheriff.”
“Really?” Mom almost looked tickled. “I guess that means he’s nothing like his father.”
“He’s put distance between his family and himself. He wants to be his own man. His mother isn’t even talking to him right now. A half-brother came out of the woodwork — DNA tests prove it — and Marjory is angry.”
“It sounds as if you know her fairly well.” Mom cocked her head. “Do you trust her?”
“Sometimes,” I replied. “She tries to steamroll people. She wants Galen to be a specific man. I wasn’t her first choice for him, but he does what he wants.”
“You wouldn’t be,” Mom agreed. “She’d want full shifter grandchildren.”
“That was a concern … for her.”
“But not for Galen?”
“He doesn’t care about things like that,” I confirmed. “He just wants to be happy.”
“And you make him happy.” It wasn’t a question.
“We make each other happy,” I clarified. “We’ve surrounded ourselves with a great group of friends. We’re a tight-knit group.”
“I’ve only ever wanted you to have people to love,” Mom replied. Her eyes scanned left and right. “I’m glad you’ve found that.”
I followed her gaze, uncertain. “What are you worried about?”
“You shouldn’t be here,” she replied. “I hoped he was lying when he said you would come through.”
“Who told you I was coming?”
Mom shook her head. “We can’t get into that. There’s no time … and I’m afraid that if I tell you the wrong thing you’ll make a bad decision that will get you killed.”
“I don’t make bad decisions.” I said it fast and in matter-of-fact fashion.
Mom arched a dubious eyebrow.
“I hardly make bad decisions,” I corrected quickly.
That nudged a small smile out of her. “You got that quirk from your father.” She wagged her finger, then pointed. “We must go. It will take a few minutes to get to the door. We can’t linger. He will come looking. There’s something I must show you on the way.”
I hesitated. I’d grown comfortable talking with her, but I didn’t know if I could trust where she was taking me.
“Hadley, I understand that you don’t trust me. I don’t blame you, but I don’t have time to build trust. Follow your instincts. What do they tell you?”
“That I should probably trust you,” I replied on a sigh.
“If I don’t get you through this door, it will be a long time before I can get you through another.”
“How long?”
“A few hours.”
I pursed my lips. I had no doubt, on the other side of the door I’d wandered through, Booker and Aurora were freaking out and calling Galen.
I didn’t want to torture them but if this was to be the only chance I had to talk to my mother, maybe being absent a few hours wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
I opened my mouth to suggest just that but she was already shaking her head.
“Here it will only be a few hours. On your side it will be a few days.”
My mouth fell open as reality set in. The time difference between planes had been explained to me before. “How long have I been gone from my world?”
“By the time I get you back, twelve hours will have passed,” she said.
I lurched to my feet. “Galen.”
“He’ll be worried,” she surmised.
“He’s going to be a basket case.”
Sympathy flattened her lips. “Then we must be quick.”
She took the lead, understanding that I wouldn’t be comfortable turning my back to her.
I was starting to grow tired, as if the air was thin on this side.
She cut through some ruined bushes and stopped before a garish tableau straight out of a Criminal Minds episode.
Or, more aptly, a Hannibal episode. It almost looked like art.
A really creepy, really gross art exhibit.
A body — a human body — had been strung up like an angel, his insides on the outside.
“What the hell is this?” I demanded, again grateful that I hadn’t eaten before leaving to search for Wesley.
“It’s him,” she replied. “He has … unfortunate hobbies.”
“You call this a hobby?” I was appalled. “Who is he?”
“I can’t. If I say too much, he’ll know and come for me. He’ll get you in the process.” She looked beyond the tableau. “The door is on the other side. He likes to mark them with his … art.”
“Who is that?” I pointed at the body.
“Don’t you know?” Mom shot me an inquisitive look. “He came from your side.”
When I turned back, it took me a moment. The facial features weren’t the same. They’d obviously seen hard times. “Clive,” I realized, my mouth going dry.
“Was he a friend?” Mom looked concerned.
I shook my head. “He headed the DDA. We kind of deposed him from power. He fled through a plane door so we wouldn’t kill him.”
“Well, it doesn’t seem he found a better outcome here,” Mom replied. She clucked her tongue. “He tried to pretend he was powerful and should take over. That didn’t sit well with … .”
“Him,” I guessed.
“It didn’t sit well with anyone,” she replied. “He pushed too far. It was an inevitability.”
“And this man, this thing you’re afraid of, he did this to Clive?” I pressed.
“He did,” Mom confirmed. “He enjoyed it. The whole thing took days.”
Even picturing that was too much. My eyes moved back to Clive. I couldn’t look at him for more than a few seconds. The man had been a monster but this was beyond monstrous.
“The door will open in a minute,” Mom announced, drawing my attention back to her.
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve been here a very long time. You learn things.” She smiled at me, but it was forced. “Don’t come back, Hadley,” she warned, turning serious. “I’ll be forever grateful for this time, but don’t come back here. Not for me.”
It was only then that I remembered Wesley, the reason I’d been in the field in the first place.
I took a step toward her. “Grandpa,” I gasped. “Wesley. I think he might be here.”
Horror washed over Mom’s face before she managed to collect herself. “I don’t think so.”
“I do. I was looking for him when I accidentally crossed the plane door threshold. He disappeared last night.”
Something else occurred to me. “I cast locator spells but they kept running into a wall. The plane door was the wall.” I said that more to myself than her but she had no trouble following my train of thought.
“I’ll find him,” she announced as a door of light appeared next to the tableau. “Don’t come back. I will find him.”
“And then what?” I protested.
“I will figure a way to get him across.” She was deadly serious. “If you come back here, Hadley, I won’t be able to protect you. You won’t go home. Let me find Dad.”
I wanted to believe her but I couldn’t. “I don’t even know who you are. What if you’re not her?”
“I am.” Mom looked sorrowful. “I can’t fault you for being suspicious, but I can’t explain it all. There isn’t enough time in either of our worlds.”
I opened my mouth to argue but her countenance turned cold as panic licked through her eyes. “Go!” she ordered. “Go now! It’s almost too late.”
I walked backward through the plane door, a dark shadow appearing behind Mom as I fell into my world.
The last thing I saw was the shadow advancing on her. Then they were both gone.