The Keep (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #4)(31)

What happened to you? Where did you go? he asked his father silently.

With a jerk, the vision shifted.

Before Alex’s eyes, flashes of his parents’ life together blended in and out, kaleidoscopic to behold. It was hard to keep up, but the visions filled him with bittersweet joy as they played out in front of him. He saw his mother in a way he had never seen her before, so much younger and healthier, without as many worry lines upon her face.

He couldn’t deny there was a strangeness to it, and he made sure to skip quickly over any romantic moments that came along, but there was a pleasantness to the rest of the memories—to wander with her on warm, sunlit walks and to hear her laugh again, the sound ringing comfortingly in his ears. His mother had always loved to laugh, and it was heartwarming to see that she had once been deeply in love. Her affection glimmered in her eyes each time she looked at Alexei. She had truly adored his father.

The images slowed for a moment upon the sight of his mother holding up a plastic, pen-like object with two tiny displays that showed pink double lines. She looked scared but excited, and Alex wished he could see his father’s expression, but he could only feel the emotion his father had felt. It echoed his mother’s—there was fear and excitement bristling within.

“I’m pregnant,” she whispered. “We’re having a baby.”

“I can’t wait,” he heard his father reply, his voice choked with emotion.

Alex moved swiftly on, leaving them to their moment in the bathroom, not wanting to intrude upon it, even though he had technically been present at the scene anyway.

In the next image, Alex realized they were in the house he had grown up in, though there were subtle differences. The walls were the same color, but the carpet was different, with a garish pattern Alex was sure hadn’t been popular since the seventies, and there were paintings and pictures on the walls that he had never seen before. Many of them were of Alex’s mother and Alexei, grinning into a camera, posing against beautiful backdrops of glistening lakes and bright forests. There was one of his mother standing beside a giant redwood that towered over her like a skyscraper. It seemed somehow familiar in Alex’s mind, but he could not place where he’d seen the picture before. In the shoebox under the bed, perhaps? He wasn’t certain. He realized his mother must have taken the pictures down when his father went away, wherever it was he had gone.

A feeling of sudden panic shivered through him, not one of his own emotions, as the visions shifted onto a street. Alex recognized it as Main Street in his town, with most of the shops unchanged, even now. He smiled with invisible lips—not a lot ever changed in Middledale, Iowa.

Alex could sense that his father was behaving strangely, his mood shifting rapidly, his eyes constantly looking over his shoulder as he walked beside Alex’s mother, though Alex couldn’t see anything untoward in the direction his father kept glancing. It was as if Alexei were trying to find a face in the crowd. To Alex, there was nothing but plain old Main Street, with the grocery store, the clothing boutiques, and the antique shops he had only ever seen old people go into, the displays unchanged since the 1940s. Cars beeped their horns and people wandered up and down the sidewalk, minding their own business. Nothing seemed out of place. But perhaps that was the problem. There was definitely something worrying Alexei, and that, in turn, worried Alex.

In every vision afterwards, Alexei’s mood felt tense, his eyes perpetually looking all around, scanning the horizon, flinching at the smallest sound. Even Alex’s mother seemed concerned by her partner’s behavior, always asking if he was all right, always getting the same response.

“Just tired, my love,” he replied.

To Alex, Alexei still seemed happy, still brimming with love for the beautiful mother of his unborn child. It didn’t feel as if his father was planning to up and leave, in the way that Alex had always thought he had. There was no hatred, no animosity, no lack of love—but there was a permeating chill of dread running in Alexei’s veins.

What had he been so afraid of? It didn’t add up to Alex—they seemed so happy.

With another jerk, the vision jolted forward.

Alex’s mother and father were walking through Middledale Park in the early evening, the sun heavy in the deepening azure sky, casting a bronze glow upon the world below as it sank. It was a balmy evening, signaling the arrival of a baking hot summer. As they wandered, his mother turned to Alexei with a mischievous grin.

“Feel like some ice cream? I think the little kidney bean is after some mint chocolate chip,” she said, contentment clear in her soft voice.

Alexei nodded. “Whatever the kidney bean wants,” he replied, leaving Alex frustrated that he couldn’t see his father’s expressions. It made him feel strange, to hear himself referred to as “the kidney bean”—somewhere between happy and sad. “You want me to go?”

Alex’s mother shook her head. “No, it’s okay. My treat.” She grinned, bounding off toward the ice cream truck parked beside the children’s play area. There were still a few kids scrambling over the brightly colored, somewhat rusted jungle gym, and Alex watched as his mother paused for a moment, watching them with a wide smile upon her face, gently rubbing her stomach. She wasn’t visibly pregnant yet, her belly still mostly flat, but Alex knew he was in there, and he knew what she was thinking. She was picturing a bright future for herself, her child, and the love of her life.