Tamara baked fresh cookies daily in case the day was the day that Edward came home. Edward had disappeared the day before becoming a teenager, and it was his birthday in a few days. The cookies had become a comforting ritual over time. It helped ease the pain.
A local writer who had written an unofficial biography on John had asked him to attend the opening John figured any publicity was good publicity. Well, except for the false accusations of him being arrested that was in the papers a few weeks ago.
Emily attended with the pretense of getting an autographed copy. "How is Mum coping?, it must be pretty hard for her at the moment with Edwards birthday just around the corner?", Emily asked. "I think she has accepted we may never see him again, we still have no idea if he ran away, or was taken. I think that has been the hardest part for her", John explained. "Let's find somewhere a bit more private to continue this.", John suggested.
"I know you starved yourself for fifteen years, but you might want to slow down with the fish, you are stacking on weight.", Edward joked when Isabelle drew his attention to her enlarged belly. Inwardly, Edward was terrified, what if it was anything other than a ghost baby and he attacked it, what if there where complications, it's not like he could take her to a hospital. Isabelle's ability to physically manifest had grown stronger since meeting Edward, but her form faded when she slept.
"Don't blame this all on me! You need to stop bringing home big, fat, juicy fish, and just bring home skinny ones!", She retorted. "Besides, you have more important things to do right now, like set up that cot and rub my back and shoulders!" Edward changed out of his ninja stealth clothes and began assembling the cot.
"Where did you find it, it's gorgeous!", Asked Isabelle excitedly. "There's a vacant house down the road for sale, and the owners left it behind.", Edward began his explanation. "Wait, you stole it?", demanded Isabelle.
"No I didn't steal it, I left a bag of fish behind as payment.", Edward clarified.
"Now, about that massage?", Edward suggested attempting to steer the
conversation away from his minor criminal activities.
"He kicked!", Isabelle blurted, "Quick, put your hand here!". Edward hesitated for a second too long.
Izzy exploded, "Don't give me any crap about being am evil Gobbler Edward Jettstar, I've known you your entire teen span, and the only person you have ever eaten is me, now come and say hello to your son, or you'll be sleeping by yourself for a long time." Edward knew that when Izzy used that tone, you had better listen, even if you had the maker on your side. He couldn't help but grin at Izzy like a schoolboy when he felt the next kick.
"The major benefit of being pregnant, is there is no such thing as pregnanter..", suggested Isabelle, leading Edward towards the bed. 'He can be just like the puppy I had, 'Scooter' needed constant reinforcement too, but I still love him', Izzy thought suddenly.
"Oooh, wait up a second!", Isabelle gasped.
Isabelle grabbed Edwards shoulder as the pain coursed through her body.
Edward held her hand while she squeezed it so hard it felt like it would break.
Izzy screamed in pain. Edward told her that everything was going to be okay,
he had no idea what else to do.
At four A.M, after what seemed like an eternity to them both, the pain ceased and the bunker went silent. The silence lasted half a heartbeat, and then was broken by the healthy sound of a babies first cry. "Is he, is he.. like me?", Edward asked, the hint of fear unsteadied his voice. "She. She has your eyes, and your chin I think. She has a cute button nose, hopefully that turns out like yours and not mine.", Izzy held her up and faced her towards Edward. She knew his major concern during the pregnancy was that she might give birth to a green skinned Gobbler.
"I want to name her Jessica if you like the name, after my twin?", Isabelle asked Edward. "Jessica Jettstar, it has a nice ring to it.", Edward agreed. "Wait, you have a twin, why didn't you tell me?"
"Aw crap, I just realized we don't have any baby clothes or even nappies!", Isabelle realized. "We are going to have a feed and a sleep I think. Do you want to feel like scrounging up something pretty for little Jess?"
"The sun will be up in a few hours, which will make it really difficult, I might not make it back until after dark.", Edward stated as he leaned in and kissed his girlfriend on the lips and then his daughter on the forehead. "We'll be fine, just remember, I like Hot Pink, and Chocolate choc chip ice cream if you see any!"
Edward changed into his dark skulking clothes and slipped out of the bunker. Edward breathed a sigh of relief when he climbed topside. 'I'm pretty sure I love Jessica as much as I do Izzy, but it's going to be hard not to devolve into a Gobbler with a child around.', Edwards internal monologue pointed out.
'We'll be fine, just make sure you keep Izzy between you and Jessica, and if you feel like nibbling fingers or toes, it's time to leave.', suggested his inner voice. Edward jogged towards the city at a brisk pace, once the sun came up, people would drag themselves out of bed and off to school or work, making what he was about to do so much more difficult.
At around the same time, John was telling his customers "Last drinks ladies." Angel had let John know that Lil had been able to arrange a very talented tracker to drop by for a few days. John wasn't exactly sure a tracker was supposed to pick up a years cold trail, but John kept an open mind. John knew that his Great Grandmother was connected to the most powerful circles of magic in existence.
Edward walked around the edge of the city, scouting for houses to break into, or shops to 'lift' from. He hardly had burglar skills, and he only ever stole what he needed to survive, he avoided getting caught by not being seen, and planning his exit before planning his entry.
It took nearly all day to find what he needed. There was an old rundown looking thrift shop, it didn't look like it had electronic security, and with a ladder he could enter through a second story toilet window, and then bend the metal louvers that held the glass plates in. There was a ladder in the yard two doors down that would do the job.
Edward took the ladder and a small screwdriver from the yard, and entered the second story window. He should have waited until after dark, but then he would have needed to find a torch as well. Edward took a look around the second floor in the dimming light, there was an assortment of stuff, but no clothes, he made his way down the creaky staircase as quietly as he could.
Edward found a large heavy duty backpack among some camping gear, and stuffed his much smaller backpack into it. He moved closer to the front of the store. "Bingo!", he whispered to himself, there was a table full of newborn jumpsuits on the table in front of him, some of them still in unopened original packaging.
Isabelle and Edward did their washing by hand in a sink, so he stuffed all of the new suits into his backpack before moving on to the next table. The next table held baby clothes, but almost everything looked too big. Edward crept closer to the front of the store. The sizes only seemed to increase.
Edward spotted a display full of dolls and teddy bears, he had never been interested in those kinds of toys as a child, but he had not been a normal child, and maybe Jessica would be. Edward crept quietly to the front of the ship and slid a few of the fluffy toys into the backpack. As he reached for another, he realized that a police car had just pulled up at the front of the store. Edward briefly panicked. Isabelle and Jessica needed him, needed what was in the bag, he fought back against the fear of being caught and made his way back up the creaky stairs.
Edward poked his head out of the upstairs window, there was no sign of the police in the alleyway, so he descended the ladder as quick as he could, and dropped it off back in the yard where he had found it.
Even if he made a clean getaway, the shop would know it had been robbed, in his haste he had forgotten to put the glass panes back in place, but that couldn't be helped now.
The sun had already set when Edward returned and he had twenty minutes of light left at best. As Edward rounded the corner he saw fencing around the property, it hadn't been there in the morning when he left.
The house had been bulldozed, and there where several vehicles parked on the lot. Instead of returning the screwdriver with the ladder after his 'break and entry', he had grabbed the few other tools that he could see. Edward dug frantically through the backpack pockets looking for something to cut his way through the fence.
The shed door was gently swaying in the breeze when Edward made his way to the bunker, the secret side door was still closed when he got there, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Edward flicked the secret catch and scrambled down the ladder, he entered the code '1234', and tapped enter before he realized that the code panel wasn't even lit. "Dam, no electricity, no electric doors,dummy!", Edward chastised himself.
Edward tried unsuccessfully to pry the doors apart with his fingers, when that failed he used the recently acquired screwdriver. The added leverage opened a small gap in the doors, and he pushed his fingers into the space and pushed as hard as he could, eventually opening them enough to slip through. What Edward assumed was the battery powered emergency lighting system was on, and by the small feint amount of light they where giving off Edward had assumed they had been on for hours.
"Izzy, Izzy where are you?", Edward called out softly, "Something bad is happening, and we need to leave now! Izzy?". 'Idiot!', stormed his inner voice, 'Don't you think she would know that, if she was here?'.
Edward ignored the logic and checked the bathroom, just in case. He stuffed his old sleeping bag and anything else he thought they might need into his backpack. He scribbled a note and left it on her pillow, before scooping up Jessica.
'Iz. J & I will meet u were I met your parents. Love E'
Tamara and John sat inside as the mercury slowly rose, when it finally hit ten degrees Celsius they were going for a jog around the block. Tamara went to the sink to rinse out her coffee cup. "John, there is a very unusual fairy sitting on a horse at the letterbox.", Tamara said quietly, "and I think she is watching us."
John looked up from the newspaper, where he had been reading an article on the 'Fisherking Thief', who apparently stole random things, and left fish behind. "Unusual, as in black horse, black wings, black clothes?", John asked casually. "Is this your new mistress, do I look that old already?", Tamara joked lightly, although she was a little annoyed that John had invited a guest without forewarning her.
"I've never met her before, or any of her kind, lets go meet her.", John said mysteriously.
The Black Fae introduced herself as Dahlia Bindthorn, first lieutenant and combat mage of the Royal Black Fae Guard. "You will have to excuse me for bypassing any and all formalities, but my time is extremely limited, I have but two days to help find out what I can about your missing son."
"Don't you think you left it a little late to help? He has been missing for his entire teen span!", Tamara vented at the mage. "As a Royal Black Fae Guard, I answer firstly to the throne, and secondly to the personage seated upon said throne. The king is more interested in the safety of his own personage and his immediate family, than a missing child who is four hundred and twelth in line for the throne.", Dahlia replied, "I risk execution for dereliction of duty for just being here, but Lady Liliana requested a favor, and I could not deny her such a thing, even if it cost me my second life."
"There's a stable at the back of the house, settle your horse and come inside.", John suggested. As Dahlia led her horse, John took Tam firmly by the arm and led her inside. "Aunt Angel reached out to the Vampire criminal underworld, and risked revealing herself to the great enemy to find our son, my mother exhausted herself psychically, and this woman is risking her last life by leaving Fae territory to help us, you will be polite or you will be silent!", John insisted. Tamara sat in shock, John had never been that blunt to her in his life.
"I learned the art of tracking from my father as a child, when I took up mage studies I learned many things that I could bend to the use of tracking before I was allowed to learn combat magic.", Dahlia explained.
"Poppy, our units combat psychic would be of great assistance here, if she where not laid up in the Altheatorium healing from a dozen arrow wounds", the mage continued. "As is Carnegia and Zinnia, the rest of my unit. The war is not going well for either side, while the enemy is constantly at our gates, it cannot breach our walls. This presents a tiny window of opportunity for me to help you."
"John said you have left Edward's room almost untouched?", Dahlia asked Tamara, "May I see it?"
Tamara and John lead Dahlia to the bedroom room. Dahlia removed a pinch of fairy dust and a few other components from the various pockets and pouches on her person. She rubbed the ingredients together in between the palms of hands, as she cast a spell she sprinkled a pinch of the sparkly concoction on her self and another pinch on the cat.
"Why do you disrespectfully disturb my nap, winged one, do you not remember that my ancestors where worshiped in Ancient Egypt as gods?", Chloe purred lazily. "I have a very long memory fluffy one, I gave not forgotten a thing. I knew your lazy, cruel, self indulgent ancestors to be tyrants fluffy one, tell me what you know of the missing child shapeshifter, or I will show you what a tyrant I can be, and I will feed you to my horse.", Dahlia challenged.
"He left a comfortable bed for me to nap on, that is all I know, the child was before my time.", sneered Chloe, who curled herself up into a ball and returned to her vigorous napping schedule.
"Did he have any favorite toys or similar?", Dahlia inquired. "Well, there's this bear, he slept with it when he was very young, but he started throwing it out of his cot as soon as he could stand.", John offered. Dahlia scrounged through her pouches, she had an idea, and all the ingredients except Bumbleleaf.
"Do you happen to grow Bumbleleaf?", the mage asked. "No sorry.", John replied. "Hrm, I could substitute with a Ginseng and Red Valerian concoction, with a pinch of Glow Orb powder. Do you have these things."
"The Glow Orbs aren't powdered, I tend to cook with them, not cast with them.", John stated.
Later that night Dahlia worked a spell over the bear, she spent over an hour coaxing the information she needed from the inanimate object. "A Psychic reader like Poppy, who knew what they wanted could have had that information in seconds.", Dahlia detailed as Tamara handed her a chamomile tea. "Edward ran away because he was scared of a monster, not without, but within."
"I will need to rest for the night to regain my magic, but I will set out at first light, I was able to obtain a rough feeling for his signature, and if he remained in Bridgeport, I should be able to find some trace of him.
That night, John held Tamara tightly in his arms as she cried herself to sleep.
Dahlia steed was saddled in the faint predawn light, as the sun began its ascension, Dahlia cast her favorite tracking spell aligned to Edwards unique magical signature, and began her search. The horse with no name, as where all Black Fae steeds, trotted for several blocks before Dahlia gently pulled him to a halt, she had found her first signature line, it was feint, old enough that she could not judge the direction of travel.
Dahlia's only choice was to follow it in one direction until it merged with a fresher one or vanished, in which case she would backtrack to this spot and follow it in the other direction. "If I was a frightened runaway child, scared of what I might become, I think I would run away from the city, not towards it, wouldn't you agree horse?", Dahlia asked. Her steed nodded and nickered.
"You'd agree to anything if you thought there was a carrot in it for you though." The black steed nodded and nickered again. Dahlia slipped a carrot from one of her belt pouches, and after making a quick show of pulling the carrot from thin air, placed the end between her teeth, "Just carrot, no kisses.", she reminded the horse.
The feint trail eventually led to a crossing of dozens of signature trails around a water hole, each time she came to a new junction, she followed the brightest, most recent one. The trail eventually led to a recently demolished house and a large hole in the ground. The trails seemed strongest around the now empty hole.
Dahlia threw a mix of Fairy dust, Kona bean, and Mycena powder into the air. The mage saw a vision of a once grand house burned to the ground, and a young ghost who was bound to it. Where the hole was now, a small but sturdy shed was. Dahlia flung a few more grains of Kona bean into the air, the activities of the past sped up and Dahlia focused on the hole. Eventually a green skinned youth appeared, Dahlia tossed a generous pinch of Mycena powder, bringing the magical replay to a halt.
She dismounted, and circled the image of the youth like a shark circling prey, she absorbed every detail of the image before sprinkling a few grains more of Kona. Edward would have interacted with the ghost girl if he stayed here for so long. The Mage tossed a few grains of Kona at a time until she found what she was looking for, the ghost appeared and introduced herself as Isabelle. No last name.
Dahlia didn't have a few years to watch most of the history of this place. She took a calculated risk, taking a large handful of Kona in one hand, and an equally large fistful of Mycena in the other, Dahlia assumed around a seven year jump, so she sprinkled some of the Kona back into its pouch, better not far enough than too far, she had no cinnamon and lavender for rewinds.
The Black Fae Mage, tossed the entire handful of Kona at the apparition, and followed up with the Mycena powder. The sun rose and set over the image several hundred times, and came almost to a halt. Construction workers were putting up a fence and pulling down the house. A furious red-orange ghost emerged from the ground near the garden shed, but faded into nothingness as the house collapsed.
Dahlia kicked herself, and paused the replay with a sprinkle of Mycena, she raced over to the letter box before it was removed from the vision, the name 'Salter' was barely visible on the letterbox. She should have thought about it sooner. Dahlia began jumping the replay forward thirtyish minutes at a time until she saw a fresh copy of Edward's signature appear. She followed it to the edge of the hole. She was unable to actually follow Edwards path down the ladder, as the cleverly hidden basement was no longer there. She began jumping a few minutes at a time until she noticed Edward writing something.
Dahlia fluttered down into the hole to get a closer look at the note. And the newborn. 'If Isabelle was already dead when Edward met her, there's a good chance that her parents where too, but I didn't see any sign of them, so one might assume if they weren't bound to the house like the girl, they might be elsewhere. Dahlia pulled out a map, then finding the nearest cemetery, looked for a trail leading in that direction, The trail was a day or two old at the most.
The trail lead to a pair of graves marked William and Judy Salter, Beloved parents of Isabelle and Jessica.
Dahlia didn't fear the dead, she'd been there briefly between her old life as a Fae, and her second one as a Black Fae. Most Ghosts had the attention span and memory for detail comparable to a goldfish,
and dealing with them can be most tedious. Again, this would be so much easier with Poppy present.
Dahlia prepared herself for the 'summon ghosts' spell.
Dahlia prepared herself for the 'summon ghosts' spell.
Text To: Johnathan Jettstar
"John, your son is alive, as is your granddaughter, as of yesterday."
"I am out of time. Will send full details shortly."
Authors note:
Oh my maker, my word, I do waffle on! If I had known I was going to be this wordy I would have taken more caps and split it into two or three chapters. I have one game day left before Edward ages to young adult, so I'm trying to squeeze in all the plot I can, and set things up for the gen 4 rolls.
John hasn't sufficiently completed Eco-Friendly (upgrade/create a lot) IMHO, I have one game day to upgrade Knightgarden and with John's income being a comedy festival, and Tam's Eco Friendly restricted Inventorism, combined with Gen 4s rolls, Simoleans are going to be real tight!
Having 'controled' all of the playable life states (except Mummy), I decided to invent some... Such as Goblin, and another in this chapter, did anyone spot the other one?
