Testimony of Children (Alice Gray Book 2)

11

When Emily entered a few minutes later, I was still stood, dumbfounded, in the middle of the kitchen.

"Where's Mary? I've been dying for one of her breakfasts for ages."

Emily looked fresh and well rested. Her usual outfit of skinny jeans, black t-shirt and biker boots was clean and as smart as it was possible for Emily to get. Long blonde hair fell in a smooth sheet down her back.

I shifted uncomfortably, suddenly feeling grubby inside and out after what had happened with Mary.

It couldn't have been me. Could it?

Emily looked at me suspiciously. "What's happened?"

"Hey, don't look at me like that. I barely spoke to the woman. Surely it couldn't have been anything I said?" Far less sure of myself, I recited the short conversation.

Emily was silent for a few moments. "Look, there are some things that you need to know if we're going to get through the next few days without killing each other. I was hoping that Stephen would fill you in on the drive over, but it looks like he's left that pleasure to me. Again."

"You've already told me about his family, Em, there's no need to tell me anything private," I interrupted, not really wanting to carry the burden of Stephen's drama when I had enough of my own.

I was supposed to be staying detached.

"I'm sorry, Alice, but you need to know this. It may be relevant to your, um, power struggles?" she finished, not really sure how to summarise my shitstorm of issues.

"Fine," I said, childish sullenness creeping into my tone. "But at least let me get a cup of coffee first."

After the first few minutes of Emily's story, the hollow ball of doubt in my insides was swiftly filling up with something deep and tender. Emotions that I sure as hell didn't want to be feeling where Stephen was concerned.

Mary had been Stephen's guardian after his parents had died. At fifteen he was still a minor, and despite the family's wealth, Social Services had a duty of care to provide for him in the event that no suitable guardian could be found. There were slim pickings and when the lawyers finally tracked down Mary, a second cousin of his mother, everyone was happy with the arrangement.

Mary and Stephen shared a genuine bond. The only two left in the family, I could understand why.

Emily's eyes drifted up from her coffee cup and fixed on a spot above my head, compassion softening her features. I shifted in my seat to see Stephen loitering in the doorway. His arms were crossed over his chest, muscles rigid. As he started into the room, he smoothed out his face as though his history was nothing more than a distant tale, told to pass the morning's leisure hours.

"I'll take it from here, Emily. Why don't you go and pick up the things that Alice will need for her stay?"

As Emily passed by Stephen she reached up on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on his cheek. It was the softest gesture that I had ever seen from her.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't pleased that Emily had been dismissed like that. I didn't want to test my control by being alone with him. But there was a gravelly texture to Stephen's voice that stopped me from arguing. He'd been crying.

I longed to reach out to him, to offer him a comforting touch, but I held back. I had to stay professional.

Professional. Like the pair of security pros who had tricked me for five years.

Yep. That'd do it. All the warmth and compassion that had built through Stephen's sad story was scattered to the wind.

He moved into the room and sat in the chair that Emily had just vacated. Dark rings under his eyes stood out against his pale skin. His face was sharper than usual, stress having eaten up all excess weight. But his jeans were immaculately pressed and his pale blue sweater was soft and clean. His dark hair fell artfully over his forehead.

I shifted in my seat, the grime agitating my skin making me itch and sweat simultaneously.

"Mary has a kind of dementia," Stephen started, with no preamble.

"What, like Alzheimer's?"

"Yes, and no. I need you to be honest with me Alice. I know your powers started to develop when you returned to your family home. Can you detect anything unusual about Mary?"

It felt strange to admit to him that I was something other than human. But I knew now that the same might be true for Stephen. He was attempting to be candid with me for perhaps the first time since we'd met, five years ago. I wasn't going to waste the opportunity.

"She has a green life-force. I'm not experienced with my power yet. It looks like witch energy," I said, each word slow and cautious.

"It's as we expected," Stephen shook his head in dismay. "When Mary began to show the signs of dementia, we went to every specialist in the city. Not one could find any neurological signs of degeneration. I turned to other sources. Tapping my contacts in the paranormal community, I finally found something."

Face pale, Stephen rubbed away the sheen of sweat coating his forehead. His eyes shifted to the side as he spoke. "There was a trial. The Southern Coven accused the leader of the Northern Coven of using blood magic. The penalty for that is death. The Southern Coven's case rested on the evidence of one young girl. She was a witch child from one of the Southern Coven families. At the time, the leader of the Northern Coven was a witch by the name of Evelyn Gray."

"But my mother was never the coven leader, she left when she was barely more than a child herself," I said.

"Your mother was not the first Evelyn Gray, it's a family name isn't it?" Stephen paused, waiting for me to fill in the blanks of the family history that I'd been researching with Anne. I finally got there.

"My great-grandmother was the accused witch."

"Yes, and Mary was the child witness."

The layers of history are starting to converge! Are Stephen and Alice are more connected than they though?
Read on to find out!