19. Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Nineteen
Rafa and Aveline
RAFA
Medina, Washington
The morning after his visit with Vicky, Rafa answered Willow’s call only to hear Sal’s voice. “My love,” she said.
“Sal? Why are you using Willow’s phone?”
“My phone is missing,” she said with a huff.
“Where do you think you lost it?”
She explained how it happened and how upset she was that her favorite leather tote bag was now damaged with a large slice. “I’ll try to get a replacement if the budget allows. We can call each other using Willow’s phone for now, and maybe email?” she suggested.
“Sure,” Rafa said. He would adjust.
In the days that followed, their email exchanges became longer but less frequent, and he shared everything that had happened to him so far: the family business had some major operational changes, he had to close their Portland operations, and that St. Stephenshire, apparently, had supernatural origins.
When he was writing one of his emails to Sal about the topics in the black books, he paused.
Could there really be some sort of witchcraft behind the town’s origins?
No sane man could believe in anything such as witches, magic, and spells.
This was real life, not some kind of Harry Potter revival, right?
By the time he parked at his home in Medina, his head was swarming with questions, so much so that when Aveline greeted him at breakfast, he didn’t say as much as a terse hello.
The small diamond studs she wore sparkled as she cut through her morning toast. “You’re doing it again,” she said in a flat, sarcastic tone.
“Doing what?”
“Getting lost in thought.” She smirked. “What’s gotten you obsessive this time, brother?”
“I’m not obsessive.”
Aveline tilted her head. Her upturned eyes smiled, but her lips did not follow. “You mean you’re not the type to obsess about people like they’re projects?”
Rafa scowled. Normally, he was used to a little sibling banter, but he wasn’t in the mood. “What’s your point, Achi?” he asked, annoyed.
Aveline shrugged. “Just wanna know what you’ve been up to.”
He told her what was on his mind and asked if it made any sense—about the witches, about the spells, and how Cedarthorne and Autumn Town were linked.
Aveline listened patiently as she sipped her morning coffee. Knowing his sister, she was already connecting the dots.
“And then there’s Sal…”
“Ah, your project?” she responded with a knowing grin.
“My fiancée,” he snapped.
“Sorry. What about Sal?”
“She’ll be away for a couple of months because she’s trying to fix a threat against Autumn Town.” He looked down at his breakfast plate, which hadn’t been touched, and then at his coffee that had gone cold. “I just want to help her.”
He peered toward his sister, who was staring thoughtfully at him. “You know…” She looked at him pensively, as though measuring what she was about to say. “St. Stephenshire always creeped me out.” She exhaled softly and then continued, “I always felt like there was something more to that town.”
“How so?”
“Oh, you remember all the bedtime stories, right? The three old witches who lived in the woods and cast a spell making the town the way it is…?” She rested her chin on her palm, looking bored.
“What did it say again? There was the forest witch who nourished our land, the lake witch who healed our wounds, and the autumn witch who offered warmth…” she recited.
“Yeah, it was one of my favorites growing up.”
“Mine too. But one summer when we were younger, the local kids found an abandoned cellar somewhere in the woods. Sybelle and I were curious, so when they asked us to join them and look for it, we went.”
“Where?”
“To Cedarthorne, where else?”
“Wow. I didn’t picture you as the adventurous type.” He teased. His sister wasn’t the type to share details that would make her look irresponsible.
Aveline rolled her eyes. “It was Sybelle’s idea. Naturally, I had to tag along to make sure she didn’t get into any trouble. Anyway, we got a little lost in the woods. I think we took a wrong turn somewhere, and that’s when we saw it…the ancient-looking cellar.”
Rafa’s eyes widened. “What happened next?”
“I wanted to leave the moment I saw it. It felt…scary. Like someone was watching us in the woods. Sybelle insisted we check it out. There were locks on the cellar, and vines had grown over it. Like someone chained it up long ago to stop people from getting in—”
“…or keep something from getting out,” Rafa said, finishing her sentence.
Aveline nodded, and her expression grew dark, but she continued, “I really wanted to leave, but Sybelle couldn’t be reasoned with.
You know how she gets when she finds something new, right?
We got the vines off a little. There were inscriptions carved into the cellar door’s wood.
I dunno if it was just my imagination, but…
I heard a voice that told me to run. It boomed in my ears, and so I grabbed Sybelle and ran until my legs throbbed.
I don’t know how long we ran, but when we reached safety, we promised each other never to go back there. ”
Aveline looked at him after she finished talking. “What?” she asked, looking uncomfortable.
“Achi, I think you’ve just told me where to look.”
“For what?”
“For something I can use to help Sal win.”
***
Rafa spent the rest of the day begging his sister in between business meetings to locate the ancient cellar together, but each time he asked, she told him how much she regretted telling him that story.
“Rafa, it was over twenty-five years ago!” she said. “This is just you obsessing again. Leave it alone, will you?” She walked through the office as if trying to ignore him.
“I know it makes little sense, but there must be something there that ties Cedarthorne to Autumn Town and might help Sal!” he said while holding the two black books.
“Okay, time out!” She leaned against her desk. “Think about this clearly. How is Cedarthorne connected to Autumn Town? Even if you found something there, it wouldn’t help your cause.”
“I read in these books…” he said as he proffered the two black books from Hearthstone and opened to a few pages he’d marked.
“It says here that the land of Cerdarthorne and Autumn Town were built on belonged to the Spencers. There is no proof of sale on Autumn Town’s land.
Only that it was given to the Campbells before the family moved away…
but then read here…” He flipped to a page from the black book entitled Conjurers.
“It says here the earliest settlers of St. Stephenshire settled on that land for years before the Spencers arrived. With the cellar, I might find a clue.”
“About what?”
“About what Cedarthorne is, and how it’s connected to Autumn Town!”
“And when you find this out, what are you gonna do?”
“I can use it as leverage against that prick Harmon Moon.”
“How?” she asked.
“I don’t know. But I have to find out if there’s anything there I could use as leverage against him.”
Aveline balled her fists and took a deep breath. “Rafa, we don’t have time for this,” she said, and he knew she was right. “We have a business to run, and partners to convince that we can still run it,” she punctuated her words, so he understood.
The business meant so much to him too, but he had a gut feeling there was something in those woods, and his mind would never be silenced if he didn’t find out. Maybe his sister was right; maybe he was obsessive.
“But okay, fine…” Aveline said with an annoyed look. “If I help you with this, will it clear your head so you focus more?” She crossed her arms and raised a brow.
“Yes.” He hugged her. “Thank you!”
Aveline rolled her eyes and folded up the sleeves of her black dress. She looked like she was forcing herself not to smile. “Now, you said there were earlier settlers based on the books…who were these settlers?”
Rafa grimaced. “I haven’t gotten to that part yet.”
“Well, we can start there,” she said, grabbing both books and leafing through them. “And if I go with you to locate that damned cellar, you owe me big time.” She paused and gave him a brief glance. “Just…don’t tell Mom, or Sybelle and Arthur.”
Rafa grinned and patted his sister’s back. “I promise.”