chapter 15
Alex stared in shock. “Holy—what the heck was that?” He looked at the windows and the papers still settling around the room. “Oh my God, who are you?”
The being that surely did look like his mother rolled her eyes, adjusting her wrap. “Alex, settle down, I’m your mother.”
“Oh, no!” Alex exclaimed. “No, no, Mom, I’ve known you my whole life and you’ve never slammed a door with your mind, and we slam a lot of doors.”
“I didn’t slam it with my mind,” she said simply, taking a seat.
“I just watched you; one minute I’m leaving and the next minute you’re going all Carrie with the doors and the windows.”
Dad scoffed lightly, smiling some. “She did it with a spell.”
“A spell?” This was too much. Alex ran his fingers through his hair again, pacing. “Since when, I mean—I mean, we don’t do these things. These things don’t happen! When did you start using spells?”
“When I was about your age, actually,” she said.
In the back of his mind, a snippet of a conversation played, something Director Carreras had said: We allknow about Amanda.
What does that mean?
It means that if not for your mother, your father would probably still be with the Polidorium, Sangster had said. But Carreras had meant more than that, hadn’t he?
“Back up, back up, back up,” Alex said.
“Do you want to sit?” his mother said, indicating a chair.
“No.” He frowned.
His father spun the empty chair around and sat down, resting his arms on the seat back.
Alex turned to his dad. “I mean, what—what was all that growing up about this doesn’t happen. ‘Oh, that thing you just saw in a movie, no, that doesn’t happen. Van Helsing name? Coincidence.’”
“I’m sorry, Alex. It seemed like the right way to go about it all.”
“Dad! Mom! I don’t know if you know, but there are vampires out here. Actual vampires with, you know, fangs. There’s this one with punky hair and crazy eyes and I can’t seem to lose her. These people want my hide. There’re no spells, though, that’s an all-new little surprise!”
“Witches are actually fairly rare,” Dad said.
“And now you’re all professorly about the witch-to-vampire ratio, Dad! When were you going to let me in on this?”
The three of them looked at one another. His mother’s arms were crossed, and she looked a bit defensive, his father with his fingers laced together, gazing down. He couldn’t hide that he seemed to think this was funny. Finally his father said, “We discussed it on the plane and honestly, we came to the conclusion that you probably knew most of it by now.”
“That’s not—that doesn’t even come close to—that’s just about whether you were going to talk about it, when were you going to tell me?”
“You know how when you’re little and you believe in Santa Claus? We need some fresh air,” his mother interrupted herself. She whispered something in a language he didn’t recognize, and one of the windows slid open. She looked back at him, flipping her hair out of the way. “Anyway, it’s always nicer if the kids find out first by themselves.”
“Yeah!” Dad agreed. “They see you taking down the presents, and then they help.”
“This isn’t Santa Claus,” Alex spat. “Santa Claus turns out not to be real. The vampires went the other way.” He sighed, shaking his head, and breathed slowly. “When I got kicked out of Frayling, the boy I fought with was—”
“A werewolf,” Dad said. “And we talked about telling you then, but we thought we could give you a few more years of, you know, innocence might be the word.”
“Did you know that the Polidorium was here at Lake Geneva?”
“Well, I know they’re everywhere, but no, I did not know that they had a large base here. And I also didn’t expect that you would wind up working with them.”
“They gave him a motorcycle,” his mom said, clucking in disapproval.
“I didn’t expect that either.”
“I don’t understand,” Alex said, “I mean, any of it, but right now I don’t understand what you know. How much—what do you—?”
“What do we know about your activities here?” Mom asked.
“Right, that’s a start. We’ll trade information.”
“I would advise you not to do that unless we ask,” his father said rapidly. Ever the company man.
“It started with a vision,” Mom said, “during a meditation session. It was a vision of a powerful witch, angry with you, but weak, unable to stop you.”
“I haven’t met any witches,” Alex said again. “Do you mean someone at the Scholomance?”
Mom shrugged.
Alex asked, “What else did you see?”
“That vision was not mine,” said Mom. “It was—someone I was meditating with.”
“Uh, okay,” Alex said. Briefly he wondered who the other witches in his mother’s life were. She belonged to roughly a dozen charitable boards—was there a coven among them?
“And then I looked for you, spiritually looked for you—that’s hard to explain. But I didn’t see any danger.” She looked at Dad. “But that wasn’t good enough for me; I had your father do some checking up.”
“After that it was easy. The Polidorium can be leaky sometimes,” said Dad. “I got into some minor databases and saw some of the equipment that had been issued to you. I talked to some people I know.”
“Do you know Sangster?”
“Your teacher?” Dad asked.
“Right.”
“What did I tell you about only if we ask?”
“Okay,” said Alex helplessly.
“So it seems like you’ve gotten involved,” said Dad, “a little earlier than we’d hoped, but honestly this conversation was gonna happen sometime.”
“He’s fourteen years old, Charles,” said Mom.
“Oh, come on, Amanda, it’s Alex, he’s a survivalist—we had soldiers in the Revolutionary War who were fourteen.”
“You said,” Alex broke in, “that we need to make a decision. So, who makes it? Would that be me, or would that be you?” He almost wanted the release of them taking charge. When he first started working with Sangster he had felt nothing but the rush of adrenaline every time he saw the Polidorium emblem, but now, with Vienna, and the Merrills, things had gotten . . . complicated.
“Is that what you want?” Mom asked, leaning forward. “Do you want us to decide for you?”
“Well . . . ,” Alex said.
“Because I know what I would choose,” she said intensely. “I would choose that you come home. It’s not safe. It’s too early to give up your life.”
“There’s no reason to think he’s gonna give up his life.” Dad scowled. “They have all the equipment, and a lot more backup than he would in Wyoming.”
“And they wouldn’t come looking for him if he hadn’t gotten involved in your little fraternity.”
“They’re not wearing togas and playing beer pong, Mom,” said Alex.
“How do you know about beer pong? Do they allow drinking at—”
Alex waved his hands. “They don’t even allow video games at this school. And you know what else? The Polidorium doesn’t let me use a gun. Everyone’s looking out for me, okay?”
“I’m sort of surprised at that about the guns,” Dad said.
“Right, because of the Revolutionary War,” Alex retorted. “You know, I saw a picture of you in, like, Prague, with a gun and rubble and stuff.”
“That’s a pretty good description of my time there.”
Alex found himself laughing. He looked at them both. What he said next had to be good. It had to sound like he had his wits about him or the discussion would be over. He took a moment, looking down the mental chessboard again, and then laid it out. “When I found out there was such a thing as the Polidorium, it was like a light went on. It was like this was what I had been looking for. I wanted in. The truth is, I didn’t tell you guys because I was afraid of what this talk here could become. I didn’t want you to swoop in and take me home.”
“And now?” Mom asked.
“Look, I know I’m fourteen and it’s not really normal for me to say there’s a job to do, but it’s very close to that. This is what my life is supposed to be. I can feel that. I have friends here, and I’m learning here.”
Dad nodded. “Alex, I’m not a part of the Polidorium life anymore. We have five children, and two of them are still small. If this is what you want to do for now, we won’t force you to come home. But I have to urge you: Use everything. Pay very close attention. Listen to your instincts. We’ll be staying in Geneva tonight, and then we’re out of here before dawn—we have to be in London for a trust meeting tomorrow afternoon. But look, the instant you want to give up or it gets too hot, call us.”
“What your father is saying,” Mom said, “is that your family has been a part of a war for a long time, but you don’t have to be a part of it.”
Dad chewed his lip. “No, no. No, he probably does. But it’s up to him whether it’s time.”
“Now,” said Mom. “We all have to go to the library, because apparently there’s something called the Pumpkin Show.”