Chapter Twenty-Two
We woke up a few hours later to the news that the storm had worsened overnight and washed out part of the road connecting the cottages to the highway. It would take at least a day to repair, and so our stay was extended for another night at no extra cost.
I’d never been so happy to be stuck somewhere.
We spent the rest of the weekend with Jace and Shae drinking coffees on our deck, hiking the Niagara Escarpment, and cooking s’mores over a campfire. On our second night in the cottage, Owen brought me to orgasm again with his fingers and then pulled me into the shower so I could watch him come.
If it hadn’t been for Aed and the Shadowbane and the fact that Charles was still missing, it would have easily counted as the best weekend of my life.
On Monday, I received an email notification that Marion’s journals were ready for viewing. As we waited for them to be brought to us, I drummed my fingers on the table and pursed my lips.
“You look like you’re plotting something,” Owen said from across the table.
I didn’t bother denying it. “We’re done with Sylvia and Todd. They’re the ones plotting something, and we can’t trust them. We’ll find the Emberstone and save Charles ourselves. Sylvia never mentioned Aed, and she’s so secretive when it comes to her book. I think she’s hiding something.”
“They do seem to have their own reasons for helping us,” Owen agreed, “though I can’t say what those might be.”
“All I know is that we don’t have all the information, and I hate that. Feels like we’re running around blind.”
“You’re starting to sound like me.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Not at all. What do you propose?”
“The only way we’re going to get all the information is if we take it ourselves.
We need to read Sylvia’s book. Get pictures of the pages or something.
I’d ask her for the book, but you’ve seen how possessive she is with it.
Pretty sure it would be a hard no, and I don’t want to tip her off that we’re suspicious.
We’re going to need to break into her shop. Will you assist me on this mission?”
“You’re becoming quite the lawbreaker. I’ve never had a client ask me to break and enter.”
“But I’m not a client, am I?” I gave him a saucy look.
“You most certainly are not,” he said with a grin. “Besides, I promised to protect you, and there’s no way in hell I’d let you do something illegal by yourself. So, it will be my honour to support you in your criminal endeavours.”
My smile faltered. If we got caught…if Sylvia found out… But we needed to save Charles, and I needed more information. I covered my face with my hands. What was I thinking? Before, I would have never considered this foolishness. And now…
“Hey,” Owen said, leaning forward and taking my hands in his. “You have a gut feeling. An instinct. Go with it. I’ve got you. Besides, how much security can one little antiques shop have?”
“This is so risky.”
“Sometimes the greatest rewards come from the biggest risks.” He rubbed my knuckles with his thumbs.
“Are we still talking about breaking the law?”
“No.”
I laughed at his honesty. “Ugh. I wish we were back in our cozy cottage. Drinking coffee and hiking and—”
“Getting naked?”
“Yes! So much yes. Not worrying about magical Druids and breaking the law. I had so much fun this weekend. And did you see the way Jace and Shae kept looking at each other? Jace says he doesn’t date. But that man is smitten. What’s with this policy of his anyway?”
Owen leaned back in his chair. “His parents got divorced when he was young. There was cheating on both sides. It was messy. He spent a lot of nights sleeping at my place, growing up with my family. Then my parents got divorced, too, though we were twenty by that time. Still. I think he has a hard time believing in love and commitment. For as long as I’ve known him, he’s had this rule against long-term commitments or getting too attached to women. ”
“You don’t have that policy, though?”
“No. I want the kind of love my grandparents had.”
We shared a look.
“Do you think it will be different with Shae?” I asked finally. “Do you think he’ll hurt her? If she’s expecting more and—”
Owen immediately shook his head. “Jace has always been upfront with women. He tells them from the beginning not to expect anything permanent from him. Plus, Shae seems like she can handle herself.”
I nodded, even as I continued to worry about her getting hurt.
Owen heaved a sigh while he checked his watch. “Where are these boxes? Do you think I scared the archivist? She seemed nervous around me, and I don’t think it was the scars.”
I laughed. “You have a certain effect on people.”
“Good. I work hard to put up an aura of unapproachability. Glad it never worked on you, though. When I accused you of scamming Granddad, you returned my glare and went toe to toe with me in that hallway, and I knew I had met my match.” He winked at me.
“And now I know the true Owen.” I paused for dramatic effect, knowing my next words would rankle him. “A big soft teddy bear.”
Owen did not disappoint. “‘Soft’? Who are you calling ‘soft’? Get over here, woman, and I’ll show you what’s not soft.”
I had to cover my mouth to prevent my laughter from disrupting the other researchers.
I suspected no one else saw Owen the way I did. Maybe Jace saw some of what he kept hidden, though not the flirty, playful, softer side. That part of Owen was, I suspected, reserved only for me.
We turned our attention to research as an archivist arrived with a cart holding four banker boxes filled with Marion’s geological journals and field notes, ranging from the early 1960s to the late 1990s. Wearing white cotton gloves, we handled them with the utmost care.
Bound in worn leather, the journals bore the scuffs and stains of decades spent in the field.
Some were more weathered and sun-faded than others, their corners soft and the edges of the paper frayed, but all smelled of earth and dust. Handwritten notes filled the pages in a looping script, and many contained sketches of rock strata, mineral samples, and cliff faces.
Owen turned the pages slowly and reverently as he read his grandmother’s notes. His fingers trembled as he traced her name on the inside cover of an older notebook.
“I hadn’t realized how much of her work had been preserved,” he said in a hushed tone after some time.
“Based on everything I’m reading, she was incredible. I don’t think there were many women in geology back in the 1960s.”
He chuckled. “Listen to her note from this 1969 journal: The samples are fine. My male colleagues less so. They still ask whose assistant I am. Wow.”
I snorted and then sent a silent thank-you to all the women who had fought for the right to vote or attend higher education. When applying to my university programs, not once had I ever worried about not being accepted or taken seriously by my colleagues simply because I was a woman.
“Listen to this,” I said and began to summarize Marion’s academic accomplishments, which were detailed in a 1998 awards ceremony program. “She wrote a landmark field study that later became a foundational reference for regional mapping projects in the 1970s.”
Owen leaned back and crossed his arms while he listened.
“By 1980,” I continued, “she was heavily involved in the Geological Association of Canada where she championed safer, more inclusive expedition policies and pushed for women to have equal access to research funding and field leadership roles. She founded a program that paired female graduate students with senior researchers for mentorship and field experience. Many of her mentees and protégées became professors and leaders in the scientific community. She even started a scholarship program to help fund students who couldn’t otherwise afford to travel or camp for extended field studies. ”
“Amazing,” Owen murmured. “Granddad was an archaeologist, and he would often travel with her into the field. They would bring my mother, too, when she was younger.”
“That’s unusual, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but my grandparents made their own rules. God, I miss them. I hope Granddad’s okay.”
I clasped his hand. I tried to give him an encouraging smile, but I was worried, too. He squeezed my hand in gratitude.
“Have you come across any mention of Druids yet?” I asked, sitting back again.
“I found a few references she made to something called A History of the Druids. It sounds like a book or manuscript she was writing, but I don’t see it in these boxes.”
“Let’s see.” I leaned over to get a closer look at the 1985 journal, squinting at the small note Marion had made in the margin: Work continues on A History of the Druids. F&S great help. Hendricks wants to assist. She has knowledge of Celtic history, but I don’t trust her.
My eyebrows rose into my hairline. “Hendricks?!”
“Who’s that?”
“Sylvia. Sylvia Hendricks. What do the other references say?”
Owen picked up a 1987 notebook and read aloud from it. “H. asking too many questions about Druids. What does she want?”
He opened another notebook. “And here’s the last one from 1991: H. knows the truth. She will use Druids and my research to sell the stones. Wretched woman.”
I took pictures of all three references, then picked up a 1963 journal. As I lifted it from the box, a photograph fell out of a back pocket and landed on the table between us.
The faded Polaroid showed Marion and Charles in front of a large yew tree.
A second couple stood close beside them and, though they were much younger, I recognized them immediately as Freya, the woman who had helped me with the spilled punch at Marion’s celebration of life, and her husband, Shamus.
The four of them smiled at the camera, looking wind-blown and triumphant.
But there were two things about the photo that made my world tilt. One: Marion held Owen’s sword, its tip resting on the ground.
Four symbols etched onto the blade and four people who clearly knew one another. Coincidence? Unlikely.
Two: I recognized Freya from somewhere else.
“Freya is the Waterstone Guardian!” I exclaimed.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
Everything fell into place at once, and I looked at Owen with equal parts excitement and dismay.
“Let’s go over what we know,” I said. “Marion wrote a book called A History of the Druids. She knew at least one of the Guardians, who have firsthand information about the Druids and everything that happened with Craos and Aed.”
“Sylvia took an interest in Marion’s research and discovered information she wanted to use for herself,” Owen continued.
“We don’t know what that information was, but Sylvia was definitely looking for something when I saw her at Marion’s celebration of life.”
“You don’t think…” Owen’s words trailed off as his eyes darkened with anger.
“I do.”
“Who would steal something during a celebration of life?!” he thundered. Several people looked at us. One woman even shushed us until Owen turned his glare on her. She quickly looked away.
“Sylvia, that’s who,” I said. “That’s not her book in the shop. It’s Marion’s!”
“When I get my hands on her… Forget breaking and entering. We’re going to confront her and take it out of her Goddamned hands!”
“Hold on. If we do that, then we’ll be the ones stealing. She could call the police. Make a scene. We might even risk losing the book for good. I hate to say this, but I think stealing it from her shop will be the fastest and easiest way of acquiring it.”
“But not nearly as satisfying.”
“At least now I feel a lot less like we’re breaking the law. We’re going to take back what rightfully belongs to your family.”