Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 47894 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 239(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47894 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 239(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
“Unless something’s different this time.”
“Possibly, but I couldn’t begin to guess what that would be.”
“I have a question about the time part.”
“And I am ready to answer.”
“Can he go to the future?”
“Nope. Only the past.”
“Can he go back further than when he was born?”
“Yes. He can go back as far as he wants. To the first of our line, and apparently has. There are reports of him for centuries, small footnotes in many journals.”
“Why can’t he visit the future?”
“I suspect that, as it’s unwritten, he can’t go someplace where there’s no path. But regardless, he can’t travel forward beyond the last of us. So since I’m it, this is as far as he goes.”
“Maybe he’s here to check on you, to see if there’s another Corey.”
“But all he’d have to do is arrive here to know he was in the same place again, still firmly grounded within my lifetime. Nothing new to see yet.”
“Have you ever seen him?”
“No. I only know what he looks like from journal entries.”
“I wonder why he’s here.”
“I wish I knew.”
“So Corvus will let him roam around because he’s not evil and doesn’t pose an outright threat to me or you.”
“That’s right.”
“And thus far, he hasn’t tried to speak to either of us.”
“Nope.”
“And also, he can’t come into the house without an invitation, like a vampire.”
“Most things can’t enter without being invited.”
“Which is why welcome mats are bad.”
“So very, very bad. It’s like leaving your front door open for all manner of paranormal creatures and entities.”
“That’s actually really comforting that he can’t come in.”
“If Giles is here, he won’t stay long. He never does. From everything I’ve read about him, he’s a wanderer.”
“That sounds like what hedge-riders do, right?”
“No. They normally have families or covens, lending their talents and learning to a specific place.”
“But because Giles learned to do more, he’s not tied to any one place.”
“That’s correct.”
“What if he wants something?”
I shrugged. “Well, there’s nothing I can do about that if he doesn’t want to talk. Hopefully, the fact that you’re the one seeing him, means he doesn’t need to speak to me and will therefore be on his way soon.”
“I really want that to be true because the skulking around is creepy as hell.”
I couldn’t very well argue.
TWO
When Lorne left Boston, he had done it to move James, his brother, and Cassidy, his niece, away from where they had lost a wife and mother. It had been somewhat abrupt, and there were friends of James and his late wife, Ellen, that had not seen them since their departure. Their friends traveled together often, antiquing for fun, and after spending the holidays in Quebec, had decided to spend a long weekend, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, with James and Cass.
I thought it sounded really nice and was especially touched that James had included Lorne and me for dinner the second night they were there.
“It’s thoughtful of his friends to want to see you too,” I expressed to Lorne.
“I never liked any of them. They’re all rich and conceited, all doctors and lawyers, and they’re the kind of people who ship their kids off to boarding schools. Cass was the only one who went to public school and lived year-round with her parents.”
“You can’t judge them for that. Maybe their kids love the opportunity of going to a school that’s academically rigorous.”
He groaned. “Just stop. You’ll see, they’re all so fake. They were all actually Ellen’s friends from college. They had all gone to prep school before Harvard.”
“Did Ellen come from a wealthy family?”
“Oh yeah. When Cass turns twenty-one, she’ll have quite the trust fund.”
I absorbed that information while my husband sat beside me in his Jeep, not putting it in drive, hesitant, it seemed, to leave our home. “Are we going?”
“Is it safe to leave Corvus?”
“We’re already outside, love.”
“Yeah, but we can go back inside and stay home.”
“As I told you the first year you lived here—and reminded you again this past Thanksgiving—Corvus sleeps like everything else in the winter. During the dark time of the year, it’s hibernating. The land is covered in ice and snow and frost, resting, communing in silence with the natural world.”
“But it’s still vigilant, that’s what you said.”
“To a degree, yes, and for us, certainly.”
“And Arawn’s dogs, they’re not here either.”
“No, they’re here, but they’re resting too. Best not to wake them.”
“I…I’m worried this hedge-riding ancestor of yours will hurt our home somehow.”
“Argos is asleep in front of the fire,” I reminded him.
“Which I love that we can leave roaring in the hearth, but Argos has a what’s-in-it-for-me attitude about protection.”
I chuckled. “Very true.” The daemon masquerading as a housecat was a bit of an opportunist. “But remember, even at rest, the land is powerful, and so are the wards. Giles can’t poison anything. And again, everything I’ve read about him says he pops onto the land, stays a few days, then moves on. Most members of my family only know he’s visited as there are odd sightings.”