Chapter Twenty-Two
Devon had the keys in the ignition, but had yet to turn on the Chevy’s engine when I opened the passenger door. She was aimlessly tapping the steering wheel with her index finger, a faraway look in her big blue eyes.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked, as I fastened my seat belt.
Devon turned to face me. “Let’s go talk to the old man.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Mr. Haverty?”
Devon shrugged. “We’re here. Might as well.”
The Moonlight was as busy as I’d ever seen it. A bluegrass song played over the speakers, the artist’s crooning with a pronounced twang accompanied by a depressing melody. Mr. Haverty was standing in front of the griddle, frying ham steak unless my nose deceived me. A middle-aged woman with teased bangs and too much blue eye shadow greeted us at the front door.
“Two?” she asked while smacking her gum.
“We were hoping to have a word with Mr. Haverty, if he has a minute?” I replied.
The woman’s cement gray eyes scrutinized first me, then Devon. Curiosity mingled with suspicion as she slowly nodded. “I’ll check his schedule.”
She turned on the heel of an orthopedic sneaker and headed towards the back of the diner. Her broad hips swung as she moved between the tables. Devon and I exchanged a glance, both of us trying not to snicker.
The waitress conferred with Mr. Haverty, who glanced over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of his visitors. He smiled and waved one wrinkled hand in our direction. Pointing to two empty stools at the counter, he gestured for us to sit.
“Be with you in just a second, Endora,” Mr. Haverty called once we were seated.
“Thank you, sir,” I replied.
The waitress set plastic cups of water on the placemats in front of Devon and me. “Menus, ladies?”
“Just coffee for me, please,” I replied.
“Same,” Devon echoed.
Between the restless sleep the night before and the mentally taxing morning, I was exhausted, and the pot of dark roast brewing behind the counter smelled amazing. By the time the waitress returned with two steaming white mugs, Mr. Haverty was finished with the order he was working on. He leaned against the counter in front of us.
“Nice to see you again, Endora,” he told me.
“You too, sir.” I gestured to Devon. “This is my friend, Devon Holloway.”
“Hello, dear.” He glanced back and forth between the two of us. “Why do I get the impression this isn’t a social call?”
“Mr. Haverty, we were hoping to ask you some questions about Endora’s father,” Devon responded.
I was glad she was taking control of the situation since I didn’t even know where to begin.
“Of course. What would you girls like to know?”
Devon hesitated a moment, shooting me a sideways glance before launching into a round of twenty questions. “When was the last time you saw him?”
“Been about two weeks now,” Mr. Haverty said. “Mark told me he was going out of town for a couple of days. Research trip, if I recall correctly.”
“Did he say where he was going?” Devon pressed.
Mr. Haverty drummed gnarled fingers against the countertop while he considered the question. After a long pause, he shook his head regretfully. “Don’t reckon that he did.”
“Did my father talk to you about his work?” I interjected before Devon moved on to a third question.
“A little,” Mr. Haverty said slowly. For the first time in our brief acquaintance, the older man appeared uncomfortable. He began twisting a gold signet ring that encircled his middle finger.
“That folder you gave me had a list of people and their contact information. Do you know anything about them? Were they helping Dad with his research? Are they professors, too?” The Moonlight’s owner became visibly agitated, straightening packets of sugar and artificial sweeteners. His hands shook slightly, causing the band of his ring to knock against the small dish of creamers that sat next to the sugar container.
“Oh, I don’t know much about that.” Mr. Haverty’s chuckle sounded forced.
“But you did know that Dad was studying Greek mythology?” I pressed. Mr. Haverty had said as much when I was in the diner with Kaydon. “Do you have any idea if he had a specific area of interest?”
Mr. Haverty studied me carefully while he considered his next words. “He had a particular interest in some of the more obscure myths.”
I bit my lip and tried to rein in the sudden rush of excitement. Was it possible that we were finally going to get some concrete answers?
“Like myths about the Egrgoroi?” I asked hopefully.
He nodded slowly. “Among others.” I held my breath, willing him to continue. Mr. Haverty didn’t disappoint.
“He was interested in finding these so-called Egrgoroi. He wanted to learn as much as possible about them.”
“Did he find any?” Devon asked excitedly.
“He did. But a lot of them refused to speak with him. They’re a secretive lot, you see. He did find a handful that agreed to be interviewed. He’s traveled all over the world to meet with them.”
I digested this new bit of information. The names in the folder, they were the Egrgoroi he’d interviewed, I realized. But why? What was he hoping to learn?
Devon spoke up next. “Is that where he went this last time? To meet with one of them?”
Mr. Haverty didn’t answer right away. He cleared his throat and resumed the nervous twisting of his ring. “No. Mark got a lead on the location of a gate to the underworld. He wanted to follow up on it.”
“But he didn’t tell you where that was?” Devon pressed.
“No, dear, he didn’t.”
Gate to the underworld? Dad was trying to find a way into the underworld? My stomach burned with the unpleasant thought. Why would Dad want to go there?
“Do you know why my father was so interested in the Egrgoroi?” My father clearly trusted this man to have shared so much of his research with him. I wanted to know whether he trusted him with my secret, too.
“I’m sorry, Endora, I don’t,” he said sadly.
Mr. Haverty reached across the counter and placed his hand over mine. His ring caught the light and I noticed the insignia for the first time. A polished blue stone sat in the center of the thick gold band. Carved into the center of the stone was a single eye, similar to the one over the pyramid on the back of a dollar bill.
“Your ring is very interesting, sir,” I said, leaning down for a closer look. “Is it a class ring?”
Mr. Haverty ran one finger over the markings on the stone, smiling fondly. “No, it belonged to my father and his father before him. It’s sort of a family heirloom. Supposedly it’s been in the Haverty family for generations.”
Devon shot me a curious, slightly annoyed look out of the corner of her eye, clearly wondering why I was wasting time asking about the diner owner’s ring. I wasn’t actually sure why I was. Something about it intrigued me, though.
“Mr. Haverty,” Devon began, “is there anything else you can tell us? No one has heard from Eel’s father in over a week. As you know, he was supposed to meet her here and never showed. There are private investigators searching for him, but so far they’ve found nothing. We just went to his house, and his car and research are all still there.”
“I’m sorry, girls. I really am. But I’ve told you all I know.” He patted my hand. “He’ll show up. He always does.”
****
That night Kaydon and I had a blissfully normal date. He brought takeout from Amy’s Thai. We ate at the kitchen table while discussing St. Paul’s chances of beating Calvert Hall, their biggest rival, in two weeks. Following dinner, we watched a cheesy horror movie. I was too embarrassed to admit that I’d already seen it, in the theater on opening night. The movie was accompanied by a fair amount of mouth-to-mouth, both on- and off-screen. There was also some over-the-clothes hand-roaming, but that was all off the screen.
I wasn’t sure whether Kaydon was trying to take things slow – we might share a strange otherworld connection, but we’d only known each other for two weeks, after all – or if he was afraid too much skin-to-skin contact would send one of us to the hospital. Either way, I was glad he held back. Kissing, I could hold my own; I didn’t have as much experience as he likely did, but I wasn’t a total newbie. Second base wasn’t new for me either, although Kaydon made the experience pleasurable and not so much like I was being pawed. Anything beyond that and I would need a third base coach. The confident way that Kaydon took charge told me he would be a good teacher.
“I think you have something to ask me,” Kaydon said during a break in our lengthy make-out session. He’d pulled my dream catcher necklace free from its hiding place under my tee shirt and played with the golden feathers, sending light from the center prism dancing across the living room ceiling.
“Ask you?” I said, surprised. There were a lot of things I wanted to ask him, but our non-Egrgoroi-talk date was not the time.
“Isn’t Westwood’s prom in like a week?”
I laughed uncomfortably. Kaydon had done me a favor by bringing up the topic, but that didn’t assuage my nerves. The sense of impending doom I’d come to associate with prom lingered in the back of my mind.
“How do you know I don’t already have a date?” I asked coyly.
Kaydon’s eyebrows arched and his green eyes went wide. “Do you?”
He looked so stunned that I wasn’t sure whether to be offended or laugh. I chose the latter, but couldn’t hide the slight edge in my voice when I said, “Well, no, I don’t.”
His fingers were suddenly crawling over my sides, tickling me mercilessly. I giggled and swatted at his arms while squirming in the small space we were sharing on the couch.
“Stop,” I panted. “Please, stop.”
“Not until you ask me,” he teased. Now his mouth was close to my ear, his breath tickling my cheek as he spoke.
“Who says I want to go with you?” My words came with a wheeze and I gulped air, trying to catch my breath.
“I do.” He kissed my neck. “I’ve seen it.” He kissed my collarbone. “We’re supposed to go together.”
He dipped his head lower but I froze, suddenly immune to his teasing. We’re supposed to go together? He was joking, surely he was joking. But the statement made my heart skip a beat, and not in a good way.
Kaydon stilled, too, sensing my unease. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”
“No,” I shook my head. Fingering my dream catcher, I dared to ask the question. “Did you…dream about us going to prom together?”
When I glanced up, the easy grin Kaydon bestowed on me lessened the tension in my muscles. The flicker of something I couldn’t identify passed over his expression, but was gone so fast I thought maybe I’d imagined it.
“Something like that,” he replied, his gaze never wavering.
His answer, neither a confirmation nor a denial, bothered me. A nagging voice in my head insisted that I proceed with caution. That was silly, though. This was Kaydon, the boy who’d dreamed about us meeting. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibilities that he also envisioned us attending my prom together.
I broke eye contact first. “What about Jamieson? Hers is the same night as mine.”
“Is that what you’re worried about?” His voice was gentle. He placed a finger under my chin and forced me to turn my head to look at him again. “I already told her we wouldn’t be going together.” His lips brushed mine. “So, what do you say? You, me, limo, dinner, dancing?”
Smoke, fire, death, Devon, flashed through my mind.
“Endora?” Kaydon smoothed stray strands of auburn hair from my forehead. “If you aren’t ready to be seen together in public…” his voice trailed off.
“No, no, no. Nothing like that,” I said quickly. “It’s just…”
Just what? That the thought of prom terrified me? That something bad was going to happen if we went? How was I supposed to explain that to him? Particularly when he was giving me imploring puppy dog eyes.
I swallowed my nerves. This was ridiculous. My paranoia and irrational fear were ridiculous.
“Kaydon,” I began slowly, “will you escort me to my prom?”
A grin broke out across his tan features. “Why Endora, I thought you would never ask.”
He leaned down, bringing his lips to the hollow of my throat where he’d left off and trailing small kisses up the side of my neck. Electricity crackled everywhere that his mouth touched my skin until our lips met in an explosion of Fourth of July worthy fireworks.
“Kaydon? There is something else I’ve been wanting to ask you about,” I began after another long make-out session.
“Black. I’m traditional,” he said smiling.
“Huh?”
“You were going to ask me what sort of tux I was going to wear, right? My tux is black.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I actually own one. Dad’s company throws all of these parties and my parents make me go with them.”
I laughed uncomfortably. “Black is good. I’m traditional, too. But that’s not what I wanted to ask you about.” I paused, not sure how to phrase my question.
That night at the lake had been weighing on my mind. The more I learned about the underworld and the Egrgoroi, the more I was convinced that the creature was real. And if Kaydon had arrived in time to save me from drowning, he would have seen it too.
“What is it, Endora?” Kaydon adjusted himself so he was sitting up a little straighter. His voice was guarded, like he was anticipating that he wouldn’t like whatever I had to say.
“That night at Caswell Lake, did you see anything weird in the water?”
Kaydon sucked in a sharp breath. I met his gaze, but his eyes remained expressionless. Only the tightening around his mouth betrayed him. He had seen something.
“What did you see?” I asked quietly.
“I’m not sure, it was so dark down there,” Kaydon began cautiously.
I waited for the “but,” except it didn’t come. “Please, Kaydon. I don’t care how crazy it sounds, I want to know. Did you see something?”
Kaydon averted his gaze and ran his hand through his hair, mussing the curls. “Yeah, I saw her,” he said at last.
Her? He saw her? So I hadn’t been hallucinating. “You saw the mermaid?”
He sighed. “She isn’t a mermaid. Well, not exactly anyway. She’s like a mermaid but not quite.”
Could he be any more cryptic?
“Technically, she’s a rusalka,” he continued, still not looking at me. “She is sort of like us. Rusalki are Egrgoroi who died violently, usually in the water. Unlike us they aren’t actually alive anymore. They get the chance to come back to earth to do the work of the gods, but they aren’t human and they don’t have a soul.”
I swallowed thickly. Kaydon had been holding out on me. How much else had he been keeping back?
“What other types of Egrgoroi are there?”
This time when he spoke, Kaydon did meet my gaze.
“I honestly don’t know. I know there are people like us, the traditional Egrgoroi, and then there are those like the woman in the lake – ones who pay a much higher price for their second chance.”
“How do you know all of this?”
Kaydon shrugged with feigned indifference. “I’ve done some research, asked around.”
“And you didn’t tell me any of this. Why?”
“I didn’t know whether you’d seen her. That’s why I asked you what happened in the water, remember?” I nodded. That was the first question he’d asked after making sure I was okay. “When I realized that you didn’t know anything about what you are, what we are, I didn’t want to freak you out further. I figured once you got more used to the idea of being an Egrgoroi that I would fill you in on everything I know.”
His reasons made sense, but I still felt lied to. I sat up and scooted to the end of the couch cushion, rubbing my temples with my thumbs to ward off the headache developing behind my eyes.
“I’m sorry, Endora.” Kaydon’s touch was light on my back. When I didn’t pull away, he wrapped an arm around my waist from behind. “I’m not trying to keep things from you. I just don’t want to overwhelm you with all of this. And there is a lot I don’t know, or only know superficially.”
He pulled me backwards until my back was pressed against his chest, then rested his chin on my shoulder. “Are you mad at me?”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“No, I’m not mad,” I said at last. “But can we not keep secrets like this from each other? I’m a big girl, Kaydon. I can handle the truth. I want to know whatever you know. Okay?”
Kaydon pressed his lips into the hollow behind my ear.
“Okay,” he agreed.