Elemental Earth (Paranormal Public)
Read Elemental Earth (Paranormal Public) Online
Authors: Maddy Edwards
Elemental Earth
(
Paranormal Public, Book VII)
by
Maddy Edwards
Copyright © 2013 by
Maddy Edwards
Cover Design © K.C.
Designs
This novel is a work of fiction in which names, characters,
places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, places, or events is completely
coincidental.
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or
reproduced in any manner without the written consent of the author.
My
blog:
http://maddyedwards.blogspot.com/
My goodreads page:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5288585.Maddy_Edwards
Table of Contents
Chapter One
“We need to
talk,” said my stepfather. I was lounging on the couch, waiting to return to
Paranormal Public the next day after a short visit home to see Ricky. Now my
little brother was at a friend’s house, but we had spent the weekend talking
and playing and eating. Every time I came home it was harder to leave him,
possibly because I knew very well that I might die fighting the Nocturns before
I had a chance to see him again.
I glanced up from my book. I had
wanted to read something about Queen Ashray, but I didn’t want my family to be
suspicious, so I had picked up some weird science fiction book I didn’t really
care about instead.
I was so surprised at what my
stepfather had said that at first I didn’t respond. He hadn’t said a word to me
since I had come home, not one word. Ricky had given up badgering us into
talking, and the silence only bothered me because I knew it bothered Ricky.
Otherwise, I had expected this visit to go the way of the others. There would
be several uncomfortable silences and then I would leave and return to
Paranormal Public.
This weekend, though, I had
caught my stepfather giving me several strange looks. I had simply ignored
them. We had so many problems back at Public - like where was the Globe White
and why had elementals murdered my mother and what was Caid’s possible
involvement with Malle - that having my stepfather act strangely didn’t concern
me.
“Okay,” I said, carefully closing
my book and laying it on the couch next to me. I sat up and raised my eyebrows.
“Where is safest? Outside?” he
asked, motioning to the window to point out the great outdoors. My stepfather
was not an attractive man. Not that I cared, but I had always wondered what my mother
saw in him. He was short and balding, with a slight potbelly and wispy bits of
dull-colored hair. He didn’t say much, and he spent his evenings watching TV.
He worked at a lumber hauling company and we had a small house. The only good
thing I could say about him was that he was dependable. In all the years they
were married, I don’t think he ever missed a day of work. Mom claimed they had
taken a honeymoon, but there were no pictures of it, so I didn’t really believe
her.
His question surprised me so much
that my mouth fell open.
“It’s going to be difficult to
talk if you can’t get a word out,” said my stepfather. “Come on.”
I quickly pushed myself off the
couch, which wasn’t very comfortable anyway. I liked to sink into my couches,
and this one was too hard too allow much sinking. My stepdad had gotten it
after my mom died, and I had taken it as a comment on what kind of man he was.
My mom would have picked a better couch.
It was a stormy day, with gray
clouds threatening rain from early morning. I had walked Ricky to his friend’s
house and told him to call me so I could walk him back. He had informed me that
he was too old for that and he’d walk himself home.
I hadn’t argued, but it was
normal boys who were too old for that.
Boys whose older sister was the
last elemental would never be too old for that.
My stepdad was already grabbing a
jacket, even though he was never cold. I was always glad to leave the house,
because he and Ricky were fine with the place freezing at a time when I wanted
to be under eight quilts.
I grabbed my coat and put on my
boots, because there was still snow on the ground from December. Then I pulled
on a knitted cap, covering the long brown hair that was so like my mother’s.
When I grabbed the doorknob to go out, I had a sudden flash of when Cale had
visited. We hadn’t heard from him since he had joined the Paranormal Police
Academy, and I wondered how he was doing. At least he was away from his
ex-girlfriend, Camilla Van Crazy.
My stepdad was standing on our
porch, looking at one of the old trees in the front yard.
“The woods?” he asked, pointing.
I nodded. Our house was half surrounded by forest, and it had been a long time
since I’d been in any other woods than the ones around Public.
We fell into step next to each
other, neither of us saying a word. I wondered if my stepdad was going to ask
me not to come home anymore. I was surprised he hadn’t already, given how
little liking he had for my presence. We both knew it would hurt Ricky if I
stopped coming, but Ricky was getting older. Soon he would be able to visit me
instead of my coming to him. I wondered if I would ever come back here after
that.
“You and I have never seen eye to
eye,” said my stepdad, squinting up at the treetops as we walked.
My hands were shoved deep into my
pockets, and I could see my breath billowing out in front of me. I merely
nodded. So, this was it.
“It was difficult with you,” he
said. “I knew you weren’t mine, and you made no secret of how much you despised
me. Your real father was always a presence, even if neither of us knows who he
was. I blame your mother for not telling you more about him. You had all these
fantasies of what a great father he would have made, a far better father than
me.”
“You didn’t really try to be my
father,” I said bitterly.
He shrugged. “I am what I am. I
knew I’d never match up with the idea you had in your head. And I was bitter
that in order to have your mother, I also had to be saddled with an angry
teenager.”
I took a deep breath, fighting
down the anger that bubbled up inside me. I knew he had a point, but it was
hard for me to admit it.
“Okay,” I said, ordering myself
to calm down and not get angry. “So, you don’t want me to come back anymore?” I
couldn’t help it. The words just came tumbling out, and it wasn’t until after I
had said them that I realized how hurt I’d be by it.
My stepfather glanced at me and I
felt sure I saw surprise register on his face.
“No,” he said. He rubbed his hand
over his bald head. “I loved your mother. I knew she didn’t love me back. I
knew that. To this day I don’t know what she thought she was doing, except now
I see you, and I see more than you think. There’s something very strange about
you. It was the same with your mother. I would speculate, except that I
couldn’t possibly believe it to be true. The only good that has come of it is
that I have a better idea why your mother married me.”
I started to speak, but this
common man, who was about to do a very uncommon thing, held up his hand for
silence. “Let me get this out,” he said, “before I loose my courage or change
my mind.”
For the first time since I had
met him, my heart went out to him. So I stayed silent, walking alongside him
through the woods.
“I love Ricky,” he said. “You
love him too. It is the one thing we have always agreed on. Our saving grace.
Our common ground. I love him as if he were my own.” He took a deep breath.
“And I will protect him as if he were my own. Until my dying breath. Until you
figure out how to protect him, as I’m sure you’re trying to do. I do not want
any harm to come to that boy. I am his father. Regardless of his blood. I am
his father.”
I had never heard my stepdad
sound so fierce or so sad.
“How did you know?” I asked
finally, when I realized he was waiting for me to speak.
He laughed bitterly. “It wasn’t
hard. Your mother brought much of her magic stuff with her. I never pried, but
sometimes she would leave it out. Sometimes strange things would happen. I
tried to ask her about it and about you. It wasn’t until recently, when you
went off to college and strange things continued to happen, that I realized
that Ricky -”
My stepdad shook his head. “Ricky
came along soon after your mother and I met. I was a little surprised at the
time, but I was so happy to have your mother and Ricky that I didn’t think about
it very hard. There was never a doubt in my mind that he was mine.”
“He still might be,” I whispered.
My stepdad shook his head. “No,”
he said. “Ricky is my son, but not by blood.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“As am I,” he said. “I wish your
mother had told me, but I see now why she couldn’t.”
I thought my stepdad was being
very brave. For a man who hadn’t asked for any of this, and who had just
figured out that the child he’d been raising as his own was in fact a
stranger’s, he was brave indeed.
“I’ll die protecting him too,” I
said.
My stepdad sighed. “Yes, I know.
Your mother made the same promise about you. I hope she didn’t do it in vain.”
We walked for a long time after
that, wrapped in a silence that went with understanding and sadness. Somehow, I
knew this would be the last time I would see him.
When we returned to the house my
stepdad motioned for me to follow him. “I have something of your mother’s for
you,” he said. “It’s a box, but I can’t open it. I thought you might have
better luck.”
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure
that I would.
“While we’re on the subject,” he
said, “is there anything I can do to help your brother?”
I wasn’t sure what subject we
were on, but I bit my lower lip. I’d been thinking about that as we walked. I
wanted to give my stepdad some way to help, but I wasn’t sure what that could
be.
“There are very strong
protections in place here,” I started.
He nodded as if that wasn’t a
surprise to him.
“But you have no way to contact
me,” I said thoughtfully. “If something goes wrong, you need a way to call for
help. I can give you that.”
“Very good,” he said. He handed
me the box he had been holding, and I took it slowly. My hands slid over the
smooth dark wood and my stepdad let go. I knew we were both holding our breath,
wondering what would happen at my touch.
Nothing.
There were no sparks, no magic
opening. It was merely a wooden box. There was another circle of wood in the
middle, a completely separate piece, but I couldn’t get it to move or come off,
even with tugging.
“You can’t open it?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I remember
your mother putting things in there, pieces of jewelry and some papers. I used
to tease her about it, because she would hide it whenever she left the house.
Why hide a box no one can get into but her? I had to assume that it was because
there was a way to open it, and now I figure that if anyone can figure out what
that way is, it’s her daughter.”
My throat felt tight and my eyes
burned as I looked down at the box. I too remembered it. My mother loved that
box like nothing else. I had known that my stepdad still had it, but I’d been
afraid to ask. Now he was handing it to me.
“You have to tell Ricky,” he
said. “Maybe you don’t have to tell me, but Ricky should know that his life’s
in danger, why his mother died, and that his only sister might also die.”
“I don’t know why mom died,” I
cried. “I still don’t know. All I know is that she was killed by friends.”