Charles and Martin had made it back sometime after Eleanor had passed. They survived once Phineas turned his attention to Sam and made an escape. They arrived to see Eleanor, still and lifeless in the darkness of the living room. They were sullen and silent with us in the back yard.
“I don’t sense…” Charles spoke out right before he vanished into the house.
“Charles?” Martin rushed in behind but was instantaneously back behind the house. “Carter… she’s gone. She’s not where we left her.”
I got up as soon as he said the words. “What?” I sprinted through the house to the living room, where I had last seen my wife alive.
Everyone stormed through the house in a fury. When we came upon the last place where we saw her, all that was left was a few drops of tainted blood on the carpet. She had vanished.
A quick flutter of hope teased across my mind; she was okay. Maybe the venom hadn’t actually killed her, only put her in some kind of state. It left as quickly as it came.
“Someone else was here,” Jane noticed as she examined the cracked window on the front of the house. “There’s another scent that leaves through the window with Eleanor’s.”
We all followed Jane outside, except for Charles and Martin, who stayed in the shelter from the encroaching sun in the front yard. Autumn was right there with Jane and her family, hunting for some kind of clue. She had to have some sort of control in the situation. She hadn’t felt in control like she usually did. None of us felt the same after the last few days.
Jane shot out towards the woods, roamed around the edge of the trees, and then returned in a slow jog. She had bad news on her face.
“Both of their scents disappear at the tree line, Carter,” she apologized. “I can’t track her past there… I’m sorry.”
“What do you mean you can’t track them?” I angrily barked.
“Its like they just disappeared into thin air…” Jane couldn’t explain it.
I screamed in an angry fit, “FUCK!” I paced through the yard just wanting something to hit. I wished I had someone in front of me that I could just let loose on. I started eyeing one of the Talbots standing in the yard. I didn’t care that they weren’t the enemy. I wanted blood. I needed to let it out.
“Carter,” Wayland’s calm voice came from the front door. “You need to come and see this,” calling us back inside.
Moments later, Autumn and I walked into our secure room. Our security system’s brains were in that hidden room. It was a secret room, and its existence wasn’t known by the others outside our immediate family, until now. At this point, it didn’t matter. What was left to protect besides my daughter? I wouldn’t let her out of my sight.
Clara was at the controls and had already pulled up the footage that would show what happened. She had the hidden camera looking at the majority of our living room. It looked directly at the back of the couch where Eleanor’s body rested.
“Watch this window,” Clara pointed to the same window that had been opened. She clicked the play button, and my heart immediately sank.
A figure was standing just outside of the window, for a moment, before slowly sliding it open. The person steadily stepped through the opening, silently. As we grieved in the back patio, the person moved like a wraith in the front of the house. We were never aware of his presence as he walked over to the couch, where Eleanor laid covered with a sheet. The large man stood directly in front of her, looking straight towards the hidden camera. His head was cloaked with a familiar hood, but we could still make out his even more familiar face in the darkness of the living room. It was Sam.
“Dad…” Autumn choked out. “That’s Sam. What’s he doing with Mom?” She said, pointing into the screen. She was confused. Nothing about Sam made sense. He seemed like he was trying to help us at times but using us to his own end at others. Now, this…
“I don’t know, sweetie…” Where was she? Why did he take her, what could he possibly need with her body?
We watched it over and over. We kept hoping we would see something new every time we played it. The reality was that we were all just as fazed by this as we were by her death, and nobody knew what to do. None of it made any sense. We felt like something else had been taken from us. Even though Eleanor was already gone, it was still her body. She was always my wife. She was still Autumn’s mother. We didn’t get to say goodbye… that was taken from us too.
God only knew what Sam was going to do with her. We had never seen anything like him before, so we knew nothing of how he survived. I pictured him devouring my wife’s body in that gigantic form… it was too much. I had to literally shake my head to banish the thoughts.
I watched him creep back through the window frame with her limp body in his arms over and over again. Why did he take her? Why did we have to keep losing family? First Allen, then Eleanor, now we wouldn’t even get to bury her. I was angry, but more so I was scared. I kept looking to Autumn, like she was going to be taken away at any second. I kept picturing it happening in different ways; a vampire, an accident, even Sam. He seemed more intertwined in the supernatural world than any of my family was, and this has been our life since we were born. How old was he? Was he some kind of ancient creature that had been around for lifetimes?
Autumn and I sat in the living room, right where Eleanor had laid. Everyone spread out around the house. We all just grieved separately, confused, and hungry for answers.
----------------------------------------
It was almost eleven. The whole morning had drug by in a silent eternity. Autumn had fallen asleep beside me on the couch, laying her head on my shoulder. I was glad she could sleep and escape this nightmare. I wished I could just go to sleep, but I thought if I did, I’d awake to find Autumn missing.
My attention was grabbed by Jane, who was pacing straight to the front door. She looked like she was preparing to attack someone.
“Someone’s here,” she warned me quickly, trying not to wake Autumn.
Just then, there was a knock on the door. It was a weak but rapid knock. It didn’t sound like a threat.
I jumped up to prepare for whatever might come next. At this point, I had no clue what to expect. Autumn woke as soon as I jolted up from my seat.
Everyone converged right in the living room as Jane opened the door. She had one hand on the door, and the other twisted behind her back, morphing into a deadly weapon that could flay you alive.
As soon as the door opened wide enough, I connected eyes with the smallest and oldest of the Wicklows. Annabelle stood in our doorway, smiling earnestly at me. She didn’t say a word for a moment. The gypsy almost looked like she was about to cry, just as we had been. Yet, hers looked like they’d be tears of joy.
“I need to prepare you all for something,” she finally spoke.
“What is it, Mom?” Bartley asked. He had more questions, like how she made it out alive.
“Everyone needs to remain calm and let her regain her bearings. She’s been through quite a lot,” Annabelle said as she turned towards her right.
There beside her, leaning tiredly against the railing of our front porch, stood someone else. Annabelle guided her into view. There, right in front of our very eyes, was… Eleanor. She was alive.
I couldn’t describe what I felt or how fast it came upon me. There she stood, soaking wet, covered in a towel to keep her warm. Her dark hair was all slicked back and still slowly dripping excess water from their ends. Her brown eyes were swelling with water that was about to break past the emotional dam that held them back. She looked just as confused as us, and even scared.
As soon as we connected eyes, we both started crying. I blew past Annabelle and collided into Eleanor, who was coming at me just as fast. I squeezed her into me so tight I thought I was hurting her. It felt so good to touch her, to feel her. I never thought I would have this again. I thought she was gone… forever. I kissed her on her lips, her forehead, her cheeks. I pulled her in as close as possible, probably making it hard for her to breath, yet she squeezed me just as tight, only more shakily. I felt someone clawing at us, to get into the tight embrace. Autumn had snapped out of the initial shock and had realized she wasn’t still dreaming on the couch. Her mother was alive, right in front of her.
We all three just stayed there together, holding on like if we let go, we’d never see each other again.
“Come, let’s get her inside,” Annabelle said. “She’s cold and wet.”
Everyone slowly made their way in, unsure of what had happened but speechless over what they were seeing. It was really her. We were reunited. Everyone was together; the Chasses, the Wicklows, and the Talbots. Our entire extended family was there in our house. Everything was going to be okay.
After we all calmed enough to return inside, we got her cleaned up, got her dry clothes, and sat her down in the living room. She sat in the literal spot that she had died, right in the middle of the couch.
I still feared I would wake up. I started to think I fell asleep on the same couch right there with Autumn, and this would all fade away. Yet, here she was. It was all real. I wasn’t waking up.
“What can I get you?” I asked Eleanor, trying to make her as comfortable as possible. I felt like I was treating her like she was made of glass, scared that something else would hurt her.
“Coffee,” she answered weakly, “please.”
I bounded into the kitchen to put some on to brew. I turned the corner to see Charles already pouring a cup. He handed it to me, “Here, go back to your wife,” he offered it to me.
“Thank you,” I said, gripping his hand gratefully.
He was just like Martin. He cared for a family of his own, just like ours. I could see Martin gratefully gazing towards his creator as he tried to be of use to our family in this charged moment.
El sipped the coffee as she warmed on the couch, her hands shaky and pale. Everyone had slowly spread out in the living room to give her space. Autumn and I stayed with her right on the sofa. Annabelle was seated just beside the couch, leaning forward out of her chair, keeping a watchful eye on Eleanor. She looked like she had a few questions of her own. We all had so many questions.
Autumn, nor I asked anything. We just sat silently watching Eleanor. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Autumn wouldn’t let go of her mother’s arm.
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“What happened, Annabelle? How is this possible?” Clara asked.
“How… I do not know. What happened? I can tell you some,” she spoke to us all. Everyone hanging on her every word. “It was Sam. He brought her back,” she stated plainly.
“What? How?” Bartley was dumbfounded. “Nobody can be brought back from the dead. We’ve talked about this so many times, and we all know the rules. Even with necromancy, they aren’t the same. They’re just a shell,” he was almost arguing with himself. He couldn’t believe it.
“Yet,” Annabelle gestured to El with both hands, “here she sits.”
“How did you end up with Eleanor? Also, how did you survive?” Wayland asked Annabelle from the corner.
“Now that is an interesting question, Wayland. However, I am afraid that the answer is the same. It was Sam.”
“What happened? What happened to Phineas and Mercy? She would have never let you go,” Charles asked her.
“Well,” she began, “if anyone is still behind on the details, that big, dark creature that we’ve all been hunting; that was Sam the whole time. When he turned into that thing, there was nothing the chimera could do. Sam did to him what he did to you two,” Annabelle said, looking to Charles and Martin. A slight grin saying at her lips. “I’ve never seen so much power. The fire that Mercy conjured up was overwhelming. She kept me alive in its epicenter, if only just to watch everyone else die first, but I was safe there. After he killed Phineas, he walked straight into the flames. He was focused, never afraid.” She looked almost sorry as she spoke, “The flames ripped him to shreds with every step, but he kept coming, overpowering the flames by sheer willpower. He was almost through when he finally fell to them. Mercy burnt him until his body was almost unrecognizable from what it was in the monstrous form.” Annabelle gave a sad look at the carpet as she remembered our old friend burning. “Once she thought, for certain, that he was dead, she turned her attention to me. Then, he stood back up,” Annabelle recalled. “It was… horrific. His body was missing too much. He shouldn’t have been alive. Yet, he stood back up all the same. He called out a name. It was her true name… Mucia.”
Charles and Martin looked to each other, connecting some kind of dots within their minds. It all reminded me of the story that Charles had told us from his childhood. The man that came with a name and then slaughtered his corrupted village.
“As soon as he spoke her name, she was powerless. He ran her down, toying with her for a moment, before destroying her. He healed fast, almost fully recovering before he finished with Mercy. Once he had ripped her head off, that’s when I went to him. I spoke to him,” she said.
“You talked to him? What did he say?” Autumn asked, speaking for the first time since sitting on the couch beside her mother.
“Sweetie, it was me that spoke more than him. I knew that he needed to come here. I had seen Eleanor lying in this living room, days ago. I could feel that she was gone, that she would die. Yet, when I looked even further ahead, I saw her here, as she is now.”
“You knew this would happen,” I said deadpan. I felt an anger rising within me.
Eleanor quickly grabbed onto me, “Stop, Carter,” she weakly begged. “I’m okay now. It had to happen this way…”
“How? That doesn’t make any sense. None of this makes any sense,” Bartley was struggling to make connections and accept what was happening.
“I am so sorry, Carter, but all of this was beyond me,” Annabelle apologized. “I didn’t want to try and interfere with making a change once I saw how it would end. I just had to play my part. Nudging events to produce our desired outcome is always a game of fine adjustments. Not being able to see the whole picture hampered my abilities to make adjustments. It was the time in between that clued me into what needed to be done. When I looked forward to Eleanor, I could sense that she had passed away, but then, there was nothing. I could see her body still here on the couch, but then everything about her just went away. It was like she didn’t exist, not even her body. Not until I saw her standing on a riverbank, alive.” Annabelle worded what she said next carefully, “In my entire life, I have never experienced something like this, except for in these last few months. It has been since we’ve been on the hunt for this stray monster. Any time I looked forward to any of our futures, there would be these certain gaps in time that I couldn’t account for. It was a blind spot. It happened every time I looked, specifically, for whatever had been killing in the city these past few years. To be honest, I thought my age was finally getting the better of my powers, as it has with this old body, but then I heard about a new hunter. When Bartley told me that you all had found another to join us, I looked for him. I wanted to see who he was. That’s when things got interesting.”
“What did you see?” Frank asked, more curious about him than ever.
“When I looked for Sam, I saw absolutely nothing. It was just like the voids around the monster. When I looked into our family, I saw a patchwork of gaps in times and futures. If he was involved, I couldn’t see any of you. You had me really worried in the beginning, sweetie. It seems that you were with him the most, for I saw you the least,” she said to Autumn.
“I was…” she remembered, sadly, as we were all still unsure about his status.
“So, I knew Eleanor was going to be killed by Phineas,” she said, placing her hand on El’s knee, apologetically. “I also knew that Sam had to come here, to you. He had to be here to block out that period. So, after he had killed Mercy, I made sure he would head this way and see that you had gone. That is all I did. If he would have come on his own, I’m not sure, but I just nudged him this direction.”
“He took Eleanor, but where is he?” Wayland asked.
Annabelle replayed the early morning events, “I knew where Eleanor would climb out of the river this morning, reborn into our world. So, as soon as Sam disappeared into the woods, I got in my car and made my way to where I felt she would be. Then, I waited.”
Nobody had really questioned Eleanor yet. She didn’t look ready to talk much. Whatever had happened looked like it had taken a toll on her. Plus, as Annabelle narrated the events that took place, Eleanor looked like she was re-living it all… or living it for the first time. I was unsure.
“I was only there for half an hour before I saw them,” Annabelle stated.
“Them?” I asked.
“Yes. I saw Sam walking through the trees, carrying Eleanor…” she got emotional. I imagined her old eyes cried much harder in the silence of her car, as she saw Eleanor’s body for the first time. “He looked like he was talking as he walked towards the river. He was… emotional. He should have spotted me in my car from how close I was as he walked by, but he never looked my way. He was focused… like he knew exactly what he was doing, but… I could see the fear in his eyes. Even still, he walked right into the waters until he was gone. They were both submerged, and I couldn’t see them. I started to worry that maybe I had done something wrong, maybe she wouldn’t come back as I had seen. I thought I made a mistake. But then… i felt you.” Annabelle patted Eleanor’s knee a few times.
Annabelle finally started crying as she spoke. Eleanor got up suddenly, pulling away from Autumn and me. She squeezed Annabelle in for a long and emotional hug. So thankful that she had come for her there in those woods on the river.
“I felt you as soon as you came back out of that water,” she said, patting Eleanor’s back. “You crawled out of that flowing current downstream a little, so I got out and stumbled through those trees to find you. I brought a towel from home, and as soon as I set my eyes on her, I wrapped her up. She was wet and shivering, so I brought her back to my car.”
“What about Sam?” I asked. “What happened to him?”
Annabelle took a deep breath, regaining her composure as she parted with Eleanor, who came back to sit in between us on the couch.
“I don’t know. He never came back up. We sat in the car for a few minutes as I felt outwards, up and down the riverbanks, for him. I could sense everything up and down that river, which meant he hadn’t returned as Eleanor had.”
Autumn started crying again. She sat silently by her mother, in tears at what we were hearing. She was happy that her mother was safe, yet so depressed about everything that had happened with Sam. Everything he had done for us, saving Autumn, helping us, and even now with Eleanor. Yet, our last interaction with him was what pushed him away.
“He’s okay, sweetie. He’ll be alright,” Eleanor spoke clearly for the first time. She seemed confident with how she said it.
“What do you mean, El?” I asked.
“It’s all still blurry, but,” she fought to remember, “I saw him… somewhere.” She shook her head, “It’s hard to explain.”
“Slowly then, Eleanor,” Annabelle eased her.
“I was there, with Sam. We were somewhere else. We weren’t here anymore?”
“Here?” Clara asked.
“This world… its hard to put into words. It looked like a farm… or a field. It’s all hard to remember, but I do remember standing there with Sam. He was talking to someone else. There was this feeling that came on me as soon as I woke up there. It made it hard to focus.”
“What did it feel like, Mom,” Autumn asked.
“It was like,” she struggled to find the right words to describe it, “like impending doom. It felt like something was coming down on us. Something nobody could stop… not even Sam.”
“Who was the other?” Wayland asked.
“His name was… Jon,” she surprised herself as she remembered. A glint of happiness lifted her spirit as her memory cleared. “Yeah, Jon was his name. Sam was talking to him like he knew him. But he just seemed like a normal guy. The force I felt wasn’t coming from him, or Sam. It came from out in the distance, out in those fields.”
“Fields?” Annabelle asked.
“Like an empty field, ready to be planted. It was just dirt, neatly plowed into rows. There were other fields in various stages of growth. They went as far as I could see, all the way to the horizon.” She shook her head again, struggling to put the pieces back into clear order in her mind. “I remember being there, but it’s like there’s a fog over everything. It’s all there, just out of focus. Even what they spoke about.”
“It was like that the whole time?” I asked her.
“No. I remember talking to Sam. Everything was clear when I was there. I remember feeling… something,” she couldn’t wrap her head around what was blocking her. “I just can’t remember.”
“That’s okay, sweetie. Maybe with time, it will clear,” Annabelle offered.
“It was raining too, the whole time we were there,” she stated. “I just remembered that.”
Annabelle just nodded.
“We have to go back,” Eleanor urged as she stood from the couch.
“Back?” I asked. “Back where?”
“The river… he could still be out there. Maybe he came back out, just after we left. He might need our help…” she pleaded to us.
“El… you need to rest. I’m more worried about you. I thought I had lost you,” I pulled her in close. “We thought you were gone forever. Now you’re back. You need to take it easy.”
“I just…” she was tired, “I’m worried about him. I feel like something happened there. Something changed…”
“Eleanor, from what we’ve seen Sam to be capable of, I think he’s more than okay without our help. If he needs help with something, I fear we could do nothing if he were in trouble,” Martin reasoned with her. I think his wise words eased some of the rest of us too. I was half ready to look for him as soon as Eleanor was asleep and safe in our bedroom.
“Martin’s right,” Jane added. “He was stronger than any of us realized. Whatever he’s involved in… I don’t think we could assist him.”
“He could very well be older than any of us in this room,” Charles added from the back.
There were no other answers we could gather as we sat in the living room. Eleanor was done sifting through her memories. Annabelle said that once she was up for it that she could help her try and piece her memories together. I didn’t know how I felt about that yet, but if Eleanor agreed, I’d support her. Part of me thought that it might be a blessing for her not to remember the time that she had died and gone somewhere else.
Throughout the rest of the day, all of our friends and family left. All of our immediate threats had been defeated, and we could return to our routine. Well, as normal as we could get after everything had happened. The Wicklow’s house had been turned to ash, so they went home with Shelta until they could rebuild. Lucky for them, I knew a good construction company.
Jane and her few lingering family members left right as the Wicklows departed. Frank stayed for a while longer. He wanted to stick around with Eleanor for a while but, when he left, he went to be with Jane. Wayland and Clara left right after Frank. They needed to get back to Wayland’s parent’s house. Little Delilah had been staying with her grandparents for a little while since her parents were on a ‘trip.’ That was what they told her.
Martin and Charles were the last to leave the house. They had to wait until the sun had gone down enough to move across the city to their own destinations. We were unsure if we’d ever see Charles again. We had all grown fond of his elder knowledge and shocking humility. None of us expected him to be what he now was. We hoped we’d see him again.
“I’ll stay in touch with Martin and alert him if I hear anything. I’ll spin whatever web I need to convince the ones who sent us that the threat has been dealt with,” Charles informed us. “They’ll have a lot of questions, especially that Mercy has been killed. However, I think I can handle that part.”
“Well, thank you, Charles. My family… we all consider you a friend. I hope we see you again someday.”
“Thank you, Carter. You don’t know what that means to me,” Charles clenched his jaw, visibly moved.
He was just like Martin, fighting so hard against his own nature. I’m sure to hear something like that from a human meant quite a bit to them both.
Then, the house was quiet. Only Eleanor, Autumn and I were left in our large home. I knew everything was over, but I locked every door, shut every window, set our alarm system, and activated the wards surrounding our house. It was overkill, but I had just gotten my family back. I wouldn’t lose any more of them.
Eleanor had already been sleeping in our bedroom for a few hours. Autumn slept right next to her. She didn’t want to leave her mother’s side. She was scared Eleanor was going to disappear. She’d loosen her grip with time, but I couldn’t blame her. I felt the same way, but I knew the worst was over. It took me the majority of the day to be able to let her out of my sight, even within the walls of the house.
I was passing through the dark kitchen to the fridge. After the intense day that had passed, I needed a drink. I grabbed two beers out of the fridge and sat at the kitchen counter. I placed the handgun, loaded with silver bullets, down on the table. I had been carrying it around all evening once people had started leaving. It felt safer, even though nothing could get near us with all the warding, not to mention all of our cameras and motion detectors.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement through the kitchen window, looking out on the back patio. I steadily set the beer down, not to make it too visible, and picked up my gun. Once it was in hand, I shifted quickly towards the window, aiming directly into the dark silhouette.