“When did you learn about this portal of the blue moon?” Liz asked awkwardly.
Despite the situation, Cadence was tempted to chuckle at her mother’s phrasing. “Grandma told me about it last week. I had no idea that she was intending to use it. In fact, I didn’t even know that you could go through it that way.”
“What do you mean by ‘that way’?” Brandon asked, and Cadence peered around her sister to look at him, a bit surprised to hear him speak up.
“Well, we knew that once, a long time ago, a Guardian had used the portal to come back after death, but there were huge ramifications from that, and it hasn’t been used in over two hundred years,” Cadence explained.
She saw the same question in his eyes as she had asked herself just over a week ago, wondering at the possibility, and she attempted to distract the conversation before they all got ahead of themselves. “I know that Grandma is in a better place, that she chose to go there so that she could be with Grandpa. I have no doubt this is what she wanted. It’s just… hard to imagine being without her.”
All eyes shifted to her dad, who was nodding solemnly. “Well, it’s definitely a shock,” he agreed. “But I do think it is best if we try to focus on the positive. I suppose I’ll need to drive over and let my sister and her family know. We’ll need to make… arrangements.”
“She already bought an urn,” Cadence offered. “I’m not exactly sure how the portal works when a living person goes through, but we found her urn next to Grandpa’s in the back yard.”
Her father’s eyes showed more disbelief now than they had when she’d initially told him of her grandmother’s decision to go. “So, she’s essentially cremated?”
“Something like that,” Aaron nodded. “She set up a video camera, but we haven’t watched it yet. It appears as if she had a better understanding of how the portal works than we do. She just stepped out of this world and into that one.”
“I’m not sure I’ll ever be prepared to watch a video of my mother disappearing,” Eli said, running a hand through his thinning brown hair.
Before Cadence could comment, Brandon interjected. “This portal… you said it had been used in the past for a Guardian to come back from death?”
“Yes…” Aaron began, but he was interrupted.
“Why are we just hearing about this?” Cassidy asked, the blank look replaced with the seething look of contempt only a teenager can muster.
Cadence caught his eye before Aaron continued. “There are a lot of adverse effects to using the portal. When the Guardian Cadence was referring to came through, something evil came through as well, and it took us a very long time to defeat this particular Vampire. Additionally, we’ve discovered that, once a Guardian comes through, he or she can never ever go back. So we’ve essentially decided not to use it anymore. For anything. Ever. Until this week. I had no idea that your grandmother had been using it.”
“That’s stupid,” Cassidy said, crossing her arms across her chest. Her mother called her name in admonishment, but that did not stall her resolve. “If we know that we can use this portal to bring someone back, then we should do that. I don’t care if Satan himself comes out. I’ll send him back quickly enough.”
“Cassidy, I’m sure the reasoning is legitimate,” Brandon offered, though a glance at his expression told Cadence the conviction wasn’t there.
“So did something evil come through when Grandma left?” Cassidy asked, ignoring Brandon’s rationality.
Cadence’s attention immediately flew to her fiancé’s face, her forehead crinkled in concern. Cassidy had a point; if letting Elliott come through allowed something evil to pass, what would happen when something good, such as her grandmother, went through the portal?
“Honestly,” he began, running his hand through his hair, an indication to Cadence that the question made him feel uneasy, “I have no idea. I would think, yes, that each time the portal opens, there’s a very good possibility that something bad will come through, but last time it took us decades to establish what had happened, and by then, we were fighting the most prolific monster we’d ever encountered.”
“Dracula,” Cadence said, looking at her sister and then Brandon. She thought she may as well just come out and say it. “Dracula came through last time.”
“The Dracula?” Cassidy asked, her eyes narrowing.
“No, Phil Dracula, a great tailor known for his impeccable seams,” Brandon chimed in elbowing her as he did so. “Yes, they mean the Dracula.” He shook his head, clearly more in disbelief over the question than the original statement.
“Well, I didn’t know…” Cassidy spat back, slamming her shoulder into his armpit where his arm surrounded her. “It just sounded a little crazy!”
“Said the Vampire-hybrid,” he shot back.
“This happens all day long,” Liz shouted over them, her tone apologetic as if they were both her bickering children. “So you’re saying it wouldn’t be safe to bring anyone back from the other side, Aaron?”
He nodded firmly. “Yes, that is absolutely my stance.”
Before her sister or Brandon could begin to argue with the Leader, Cadence reached her arm out in front of both of them. “However, I disagreed.”
“What’s that?” Cassidy asked, slowly turning to look at her sister, her spat with her unofficial boyfriend momentarily forgotten.
“I disagreed. I found out about the portal because Elliott left me a letter at Grandma’s. When I read the letter, Grandma told me about the portal. I didn’t think that the risk was too great to take the chance.” Aaron removed his arm from around her and folded his arms across his chest. She wasn’t sure if this was an intentional show of disapproval or if it was subconscious, but she continued. “So… I ran the theory by some people that I trusted, including Christian who was there the first time the portal was used. And I concluded it was worth a try.”
“Is that where you went?” Brandon asked. “Were you trying to contact my dad?”
“Yes,” Cadence nodded.
“And?” Cassidy asked. “Did it work? Could you talk to him?”
The answer would have to wait. There was a knock on the door, and all heads turned toward the sound. “Why don’t you go answer that, Cassidy?” Cadence said, timidly.
