CHAPTER SIX
Cedar didn’t remember much about the drive from the Fox and Fey back to her apartment. But she would never forget the cold feeling of utter dread that had engulfed her, the sensation that the whole world had dropped out from beneath her as she was sucked into a spinning vortex of sheer panic. Rohan and Riona had stuffed her into a car and had driven through the streets of Halifax at twice the speed limit, Maeve following in her own car.
When they arrived at the apartment complex, Cedar took the stairs two at a time and flung open the door, screaming Eden’s name. Jane was still on the line, and Cedar yelled into the phone, “Jane, she’s not here! Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Jane wailed. “Honest to God, Cedar, I’m not making this up. I don’t know how I got here. I remember you asking me to look after her; I remember driving over to your place, but that’s it. After that, I woke up feeling like I had been drugged or something, and I was in Times Square of all the bloody places. I wasn’t robbed or anything; I still have my wallet on me, thank God. But she’s not here with me, not as far as I can tell. Ceeds, I’m freaking out here. What’s happening?”
Cedar was so panicked she could hardly speak. “Just come home as soon as you can. And call me if you remember anything.” Jane promised to be on the first flight home, and Cedar could hear her trying to hail a cab. Then Cedar hung up.
“Why did you leave her?”
Maeve was standing in the empty doorway to Eden’s room. The doors were still off their hinges—all except for one. Jane had insisted Cedar put the bathroom door back on when she had arrived to watch Eden.
“Why did you leave her alone, knowing what she could do?” Maeve repeated.
“I was looking for answers,” Cedar said in a strangled voice. “And I didn’t leave her alone. I left her with Jane.”
“Jane isn’t…” Maeve shook her head as if to clear it. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter; what’s done is done. I’ll tell the others to leave. Then we’ll talk about what we should do to find her.”
“We need to call the police!” Cedar said frantically, her voice still shaking. “Can you call them? I can’t think straight.”
Maeve spoke slowly. “I don’t think calling the police is the best idea. First, we need to get rid of the people in your living room. Then we’ll decide what to do.”
Cedar followed her mother into the living room, where Riona and Rohan were standing. Riona immediately came to her side. “It’s going to be okay, Cedar,” she said, putting an arm around her. “We’re going to do whatever we can to help you. I’m sure it was all just an accident. Eden will be home safe before you know it.”
Maeve cleared her throat loudly. “Actually, if you don’t mind, Cedar and I would prefer to be alone right now. I’m sure you understand.”
Riona glanced at Rohan, who stepped forward. “This matter concerns us too, Maeve. The girl is one of us.”
Riona, who was still standing with her arm around Cedar, said, “We can help. Cedar, look at me. All we want is to help you. We’ll find her much faster if we work together. And I’m sure she’ll be back at any moment.”
“Why do you keep saying that?” Cedar asked, her mind still clouded by panic and fear. “How do you know?”
“Think about what she can do! Jane was here, now she’s in New York. Eden must have opened a sidh and gone through it.”
“But Jane says she’s not with her!” Cedar said, shaking off Riona’s arm. “We have to call the police in New York so they can look for her there!”
“And how will you explain how she got there?” Rohan asked.
“Rohan’s right; we don’t want to involve the police,” Riona said. “They would never believe you. And we don’t even need them, Cedar. Don’t you see? Eden can get back whenever she wants. She just needs to open another sidh.”
Cedar nodded slowly, and the incredible pressure under her rib cage lessened slightly. Riona was right. Wherever Eden was, she could get back on her own as long as she could find a door. But then why wasn’t she back yet?
“That’s enough,” Maeve snapped suddenly. “Thank you for your willingness to help, but this is a family matter now. Cedar and I will handle things from here.” She went to the door and held it open, looking expectantly at the others.
Rohan ignored her completely and addressed Cedar. “I know we haven’t known you for long. We’ve only known about our granddaughter for a few hours. But she is part of our family, and she needs our help. We are the best hope you have.”
Cedar looked between the pillar of a man in front of her and her small gray mother at the door. Maeve’s face was ugly with anger as she glared at Rohan. Cedar nodded.
Maeve let the door swing shut and looked at Cedar. “May I talk to you alone, please?”
Rohan cleared his throat and said, “Maeve…” She ignored him and took Cedar by the arm, steering her into her bedroom.
“Mum, what’s going on?” Cedar said as soon as they were alone, though the lack of doors in the apartment meant that every word they spoke could be easily overheard. “Why don’t you want them to help? Eden is missing! We need to do everything we can to find her! And I still think we should call the police.”
“Believe me, there is nothing I want more than to find Eden right now,” Maeve said. “But why didn’t you tell me about Eden’s ability? Why did you go to them first? If I had known, I could have kept all of this from happening in the first place.”
Cedar felt a wave of anger—and guilt. “I thought about telling you. But you hate Finn so much. Still. And I thought this might have something to do with him.”
Maeve pursed her lips. “Yes. I did tell you to stay away from him, and for good reason. They are nothing but poison. You need to stay away from them.”
“Are you insane?” Cedar lashed out. “This isn’t about you, or Finn’s family and whatever quarrel you have with them. We have to find Eden!” She pulled out her phone. “You’re all crazy. I’m calling the police.”
“Think about it for half a second,” Maeve said. “What are you going to tell them? That your child disappeared through a magic portal? They’ll think you’re the one who’s crazy, or that you’re trying to cover something up. And if you weren’t their primary suspect, Jane would be. No. As much as it pains me to say it, Riona was right. This was probably just an accident, and Eden will come back at any time. But we need to be the ones who are here when she does, not these people who are strangers to her. Think how frightened she must be, and how she would feel if she’s found by someone like Rohan.”
Cedar narrowed her eyes and asked, “How do you even know what she can do? I haven’t told you anything.”
“I had an unexpected visitor today,” Maeve said. “Your new friend Riona called me the minute you left their house, and showed up not long after. She told me you came looking for Finn, asking about their medical history. She insisted on meeting Eden, but I refused. I knew what it meant.” She shook her head. “I’ve always worried that Eden would be like her father. You should have told me when she manifested. Instead, you went to them.”
“Mum, you act like you know them so well and yet you haven’t said anything about them other than ‘stay away.’ Why didn’t you tell me you knew Finn’s parents? You knew I thought they were dead. Who are these people? How are they different from us? Why can Eden open these doors? Give me some answers here!”
Maeve’s jaw stiffened. “Answers will come soon enough. But you need to send them away, tell them this isn’t their concern. You and I will find Eden ourselves.”
Cedar let out a roar of frustration. “That’s not good enough!” She pushed past her mother and back out into the living room.
Rohan and Riona were standing close together, talking quickly in hushed voices.
Cedar looked at them fiercely. “Well?” she said. “You said you could help. How?” Maeve followed her into the room and stood glowering in the corner.
“We’ll know more when Jane gets back and we can question her more thoroughly,” Riona answered.
“Except Jane says she doesn’t remember anything,” Cedar pointed out.
“Well, it may have been the shock. She may remember more during the flight,” Riona said. “Why don’t you tell us more about what Eden can do? It may help us anticipate what she’ll do next and how she’ll come back. How does she open the sidhe?”
“The ‘she’?” Cedar asked.
“Yes. S-i-d-h-e, not s-h-e. It’s the name of the portals, the gateways Eden can create,” Riona answered.
Cedar started pacing. “It happened a couple of days ago. She was emotional. She ran to her room, and when she opened the door, her room turned into, well, Egypt. I know it sounds insane, but we could see the pyramids. Inside the doorframe, the air was all shimmery. We went in, and it seemed real. It was warm and there was sand and we could walk around. The door stayed there, and we came back through it just fine. I tried closing the door but the portal, the sidh or whatever you call it, was still there when I opened it again. I didn’t have any effect on it. But when Eden closed the door and then opened it, it became her room again.”
Rohan’s eyes were narrowed in concentration as he nodded slowly. “So she can both open and close. Could she close the sidh from the other side? From Egypt?”
“We didn’t try,” Cedar admitted. “I was afraid we’d get stuck, that the door would disappear. So we always left it open until we were home.”
“Always?” Riona asked.
“We tried a few other places,” Cedar admitted. “The library, the cottage. We tried to go to Vancouver, where I went to university, but it didn’t work, not even when I drew a sketch of it. It seemed like we could only go somewhere Eden could picture perfectly in her mind, places she’d either visited or seen on TV or in a picture. But wherever we went, she could always just close the door once we were back home again, and things would return to normal.”
Riona looked thoughtful. “So Eden uses an actual physical door to open the sidh?” she asked. Cedar nodded.
“Interesting. And when you go through the sidh, the physical door can still be seen on the other side?”
Cedar nodded again. “I worried that it might go away if we closed it. And that we’d be stuck.” Cedar felt the panic rising up again and tasted bile in her throat. “She’s probably stuck right now, and we have no idea where she is.” She paced faster.
“Shh, don’t think like that, dear,” Riona said. “If, as you say, she uses a door to open the sidhe, she just needs to find another door she can open. She’s probably looking for one as we speak.”
“But what if she’s hurt? Or in the middle of a desert or New York City? What if she can’t get back?” Tears started to run down Cedar’s face, and her whole body trembled. “There has to be a way to find her!” Cedar looked through tear-blurred eyelashes at her mother, who was still standing a few feet away, arms crossed. “Mum, tell me, what can we do?”“I told you what I thought we should do, Cedar. But it seems that you’ve decided to throw your lot in with these people instead of with your own mother. That’s fine. It’s your decision. But I have my own way of doing things, so I will go and do them.”
“What? You’re leaving? Now? Aren’t you going to help me?” Cedar asked.
“I am going to help you, Cedar; I just can’t do it here. I’m going to do everything in my power to find Eden and keep her safe. And believe me, I have considerable power.” With that, she turned and left the apartment, leaving Cedar to stare at the closed door, mouth open. What did she mean by that?
Rohan cleared his throat. “We should go as well, and brief the others so they can help. We’ll spend the night searching, and reconvene in the morning to question Jane.” He looked expectantly at Riona.
Riona put her hand on Cedar’s arm. “We’ll call you as soon as we know anything.”
“No, I should go with you,” Cedar protested. She walked over to her desk and grabbed a notepad and pen. “We should make a list of all the places she could have gone. If Jane is in New York, shouldn’t we start there? Or, she really wanted to go to Disney World…” Cedar sat down and put her head in her hands. “She could be anywhere.”
“We’re going to look everywhere we can, Cedar,” Riona said in a soft voice. “We have considerable resources, and we can cover a lot of ground very quickly. But someone needs to be here for Eden when she comes back. Wherever she is, she’s going to get tired and hungry, and then she’s going to come home. And I’m pretty sure the person she’ll want to see most is her mother. That’s how you can best help, by making sure Eden has someone to come home to.”
Cedar closed her eyes. Her rising panic was beating away at the remnants of her resolve. She took a deep, slow breath, trying to quell it before it reached the surface.
“Okay,” she said to Riona without looking up.
Riona gazed at her worriedly, and then followed her husband out the door. Cedar breathed deeply, attempting to loosen the knot in her stomach. She tried to tell herself that Riona was right, that it would be okay, that Eden had just gone exploring somewhere and would be back soon. She repeated it to herself over and over again, a mantra that would hopefully help her hang on to her sanity.
A strange sound broke her concentration. It was muffled and seemed to come from the direction of the front door. She jumped up, her heart racing. “Eden?” she cried, rushing toward the door and flinging it open. There was nothing there. Then she looked down. Of course. It was the neighbor’s cat, who spent as much time in Cedar’s apartment as she did in her own.
“Oh, hey, Watson,” Cedar said. “Did you get locked out again?” The cat walked past her into the apartment, and Cedar shut the door. She dug around in the cupboard for the small bag of food she kept for the cat’s visits. Watson ignored the proffered food and jumped up onto the sofa. Cedar went and sat beside him, and the cat curled up in her lap and started to purr.
“Eden’s not here, Watson,” Cedar whispered as she stroked his fur. “She’s missing. And it’s my fault. Of course she wanted to show Jane. Mum was right—what was I thinking? And now something has gone wrong, and she could be anywhere in the world.” She looked at her phone, wondering if she were making a huge error by not calling the police. She pressed her hands to her forehead and repeated her new mantra. It was just a mistake. She’ll come back. She can come back. Everything she had learned in the past few hours pressed in on her—Finn’s parents, their claims that Eden was “one of them,” her mother’s bizarre behavior. Cedar had the feeling she had just stepped into the middle of something much bigger than herself, and she felt completely out of her depth.
She moved to stand, and Watson jumped off her lap. She started pacing again. She made a pot of coffee. She made a list of everything she knew about the situation, and then stared at it incredulously. She paced some more, every nerve in her body tensed, waiting for a door to suddenly appear in front of her, waiting for Eden to walk through it. She forced herself to keep moving, as though that could distract her from feeling completely helpless. She wiped down all the counters in the kitchen, swept the floors, and dusted every surface in the living room. All the while, Watson sat and watched her or circled around her legs or jumped up into her lap if she happened to sit down.
It was 3:00 a.m. when Watson wrapped himself around Cedar’s legs, purring loudly, then walked into her room and jumped up on the bed. Cedar felt ridiculous, following this cat around her own house, but the warmth of his presence was no small comfort to her. So she made sure all the lights were on, and then curled up beside the small, warm body on her bed. She stared at the ceiling for a while, not moving, letting silent tears run down the sides of her face and into her hair.
As her body yielded to sleep, she dreamed of a man walking through a field of the dead. It was a dream she’d had before, a recurring nightmare she’d experienced since childhood. It was always the same. A tall figure, hooded and cloaked, walking with arms open wide through a barren field piled high with bodies. The bodies were torn apart, limbs missing and entrails spilling onto the ground, and Cedar’s dream gaze tried to avoid them. A thick mist rose from the ground, and the air was filled with a high-pitched keening coming from somewhere far away. The hooded figure walked on, and it seemed as though the field of bodies would never end. Tonight, however, something was different. Usually she just watched from a distance, but tonight she followed him, stepping around dismembered limbs and trying to look at anything except the staring faces of the bodies around her. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a scrap of pink lace. She tried to look away, but her head turned as if forced by unseen hands. She tried to close her eyes, but they stayed as open as the unseeing eyes around her. The lace was torn, hanging by a thread from a little girl’s nightgown. Cedar felt her feet move until she stood so close she could have reached down and touched it. Eden’s lifeless body lay limp at her feet, her nightgown shredded and her face caked with blood. Her eyes and mouth were open. Then, as Cedar watched with horror, Eden’s head turned, and she looked directly into Cedar’s eyes without blinking. Her mouth moved and emitted a ghostly whisper, “Where were you, Mummy?”