“How is she?” Elliott asked as Aaron stepped through the back door, joining him on a large wraparound porch that consumed most of the outside of the house.
“Not good,” Aaron admitted, shaking his head. “She’ll be all right in a few days, though.” While he would like to say this was just optimism, unfortunately, he’d seen his fiancée go through enough deaths to know about how long it would take her to begin to recover. “How are you?” he asked, turning to face his friend.
“I’m… okay,” Elliott said slowly, with a nod. “It’s a bit surreal for me, too. I mean, I don’t remember exactly what it was like over there, but I know it was beyond anything we are even capable of imagining. Janette is definitely not missing us.”
Aaron smiled and nodded along with his friend, the man just last week he was certain he would never see again. He saw no point in asking why Elliott was willing to give all of that up in order to come back to their mundane-in-comparison existence. There was nothing that could be done about it now. “I think we will all eventually come to that conclusion. It’ll just be a little harder on some of us than others.”
“Right,” Elliott replied. “Want to see what I found?” he asked, changing the subject.
With a gesture that said lead the way, Aaron followed him down the steps to the back yard which included a lovely flower garden and a small orchard where Janette had grown apples, pears, and peaches.
There was a little clearing in the middle of the garden next to a bench that Aaron noticed was carved with moons, a detail he’d noticed before but hadn’t ever made the leap to connect the significance. On the ground in front of it sat two urns and an outfit he’d seen Janette wear on more than one occasion. The urn on the left was Jordan’s, which usually sat on the mantel over the fireplace in Janette’s living room. The other one, which was of similar shape and decoration, though it was green and the first was brown, was new. Both were full of ashes, the lids sitting nearby.
Bending to carefully pick up the unfamiliar green urn and its lid, Elliott said, “It’s got her name inscribed on the side.” He placed the lid on top and took the few steps closer so that Aaron could see.
Taking it, Aaron read Janette Josephine McCumby Findley clearly etched on the side as Elliott continued his explanation. “The outfit looks as if she stepped through the portal and it just fell to the ground where she stood.”
Aaron looked closely at what Elliott was alluding to and confirmed his assessment was true enough. “I wonder how she knew it would work.”
“I don’t know. Hell, I’m still trying to figure out how it works at all. But lucky for us, we will at least have some interesting footage to examine.”
Elliott was gesturing to the top of a nearby lamppost. At the top of the ten-foot-tall structure was a security camera. “Grandma Janette became technology savvy in her final days,” he muttered.
“Yep,” Elliott agreed. The camera mounting didn’t appear to be very complicated, and he easily managed to leap up and pull it down unharmed. “This should be fascinating for our friends in the lab.”
“You mean Christian?” Aaron asked, still carefully holding what could only be Janette’s remains.
“That’s the bastard I was referring to,” Elliott nodded.
Aaron couldn’t help but laugh at the paradox. He wasn’t exactly sure how, but he knew Christian was definitely helping Cadence with her plan to get Elliott back. How bizarre that someone who seldom saw eye-to-eye with the deceased Guardian would fight so hard to return him to the team? “He may have just done you a big favor,” Aaron offered.
“Maybe. Or maybe not,” Elliott shrugged, as if he was thinking about where he might be at that moment if he hadn’t agreed to come through. “What do you think we should do with the clothes?” he asked, changing the subject.
“Take them in, I guess,” Aaron replied, not knowing what they would do otherwise. “And we’ll return Jordan’s urn to its rightful spot, Janette beside him.”
“All right. I’ll take care of this. You go check on Cadence,” Elliott insisted.
With a nod, Aaron turned to go, still holding Janette’s urn. Before he got more than a few steps, he turned back around to face his friend. “Glad to have you back, man,” he said clasping his hand one more time.
Elliott laughed. “I’ll remember you said that the next time I screw up one of your perfectly planned hunts.”
“Yeah, well, if things end up as I suspect they will, we will definitely need you out there. Nothing will go as planned from here on out if you weren’t the only thing to come through that portal.”
“Right,” Elliott agreed. Aaron could see that he wanted to say more, but he didn’t and before embarking on what could potentially be an uncomfortable discussion of how risky using the portal could be, he headed back toward the house, hopeful that Cadence was all right and that she wouldn’t question exactly what—or who—he was carrying.
The ride from Des Moines to Shenandoah could take anywhere from two hours to three depending upon who was driving and how much lead they had in their foot, though it was still a lot quicker than driving with a human. Cadence had asked to go back to the airport to get her bike so she could ride solo with her thoughts, but Aaron didn’t think it was a good idea, so she found herself in the backseat of the Jeep Patriot piloted by her fiancé and navigated by her best friend, headed straight for the most uncomfortable conversation she’d ever have in her life.
A few hours of introspection had left her feeling a bit better. Rationally speaking, she knew her grandmother had made the choice to go on to the other side and join her grandfather, and she had no doubt the woman she loved so very much would be happy with her decision. The idea that she likely couldn’t remember Cadence even existed now was a little unsettling, but most of all, she couldn’t believe that she would never have another intimate moment with the woman who had taught her who she was and all that she could be if she only believed in herself.
She’d phoned her mom to tell her she had some news and that she wanted to have a family meeting as soon as she got there. By then, Cassidy would be home from school, but her father would have to leave work early. Her mother was alarmed but didn’t question her too extensively over the phone; Cadence did her best to keep her voice calm. She wasn’t prepared to tell her parents her grandmother was gone on the telephone.
