We made it to the Reinhardt property just as true darkness fell. The moon had just risen above the trees as Dad drove up the long gravel drive to the white plantation style house. It stood lonely in an empty field, the nearest trees thousands of feet away. He parked the car.
"Here we are, the Reinhardt Plantation."
The house looked a little run down, but nothing some work couldn't fix. The large, floor-to-ceiling windows of the first floor were boarded up, along with the door.
I climbed out of the car, and headed to the porch. The wooden boards creaked under my weight. Poe flew to my shoulder, giving a quiet caw as Dad approached with a flashlight to help me remove the boards before unlocking the doors.
We stepped into the dusty foyer, surveying the grand staircase to the second floor that dominated the entry way. "Do all the families know about this place?" I asked.
"I'm sure the other Heads and possibly a few of the older generation." He searched to the left of the door, and the chandelier over the staircase came to life, bathing the room in light. "It wasn't as serious back then to keep the locations of our homes secret. It was only after what happened to the Reinhardts that we all decided to move and keep our locations hidden."
"And you just happened to have the keys?" I glanced back at him, before moving into an adjoining room. The furniture was draped in large sheets of dusty cloth.
Dad followed me, tucking the keys into his pocket. "The Reinhardts and the Stanwoods always had a close relationship. Our two families often mixed; one of the last marriages before the war was my aunt and uncle's. I came back with my Mom and uncle after Aunt Emily was killed, to help pack the house. Since she was one of the last..."
His voice trailed off as he turned to inspect the fireplace mantel, and I kept moving through the room, not wanting to push. Poe launched from my shoulder, flying back to the foyer to land on the banister.
"How does this place still have power?" I asked, as the thought occurred to me.
"I made some calls last week. Got the utilities working again." He walked over to stand next to me. "I thought you'd at least want to see the place. Maybe, after we fix it up a bit, you and Avery could live here. If you want to, that is. Come on, the office was on the second floor, if I remember right," Dad said, starting for the stairs.
I followed automatically, stunned. He was right, I thought watching as Poe flew ahead of us. I was a Reinhardt now, where else should I be?
We walked along an empty hallway with doors that opened to rooms filled with more draped furniture. Faint outlines of picture frames and nails littered the yellowed papered walls. Dad opened a door at the end of the hallway and stepped in.
"This is it," he said, ducking a little as Poe glided in after him to perch on the back of a draped armchair.
There were dark, wooden, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves built into the walls that reminded me of Dad's study back home. The only difference was these shelves were dusty and bare of books. Instead, file boxes were piled high, hiding the bottom shelves. I pulled the top off the closest one to me and found it full of the missing books.
Glancing around the room, I counted the boxes. There were well over a dozen. "We can't take all of these, there's not enough room in the car."
"I wasn't planning on it," Dad said, lifting a box onto the cloth-covered desk. "I thought we could go through them tonight and see if any would be helpful to you right away. We can come back for the rest later." He started sifting through the books.
I turned back to my box, shuffling through the volumes. Some were leather-bound, and some were so old that the bindings looked like they'd been sewn by hand. Many books were written in languages I didn't recognize.
Poe watched me with a curious look, tilting his head in the way birds do.
"I don't suppose you could tell me which ones I need?" I asked him, knowing better than to expect any sort of answer.
He gave a caw and I heard a loud, hollow click over by the desk. Dad and I stared at each other for a moment, then I straightened and walked over to where I'd heard the sound. As I rounded the corner of the desk, I could see one of the wooden floor boards had popped out of place.
"Did he just..." Dad's words trailed off in disbelief.
I shrugged before kneeling to pry the board free, finding a hidden compartment underneath, and in that, a safe. I tried to move more of the thin wooden boards and found that the few right above the safe door came free easily. The safe itself wasn't very large, it looked about the size that could be found in hotel closets to store valuables.
Poe glided down to the floor, stepping carefully in that awkward bird step until he stood on the other side of the enclosure. He pecked at the combination lock.
"That's interesting. I never knew the Reinhardt's had that," Dad said, leaving the box on the desk to come inspect the safe. "There's a few tools in the car-"
I held a finger to my lips, interrupting him. Poe was still pecking at the safe, which I'd thought was odd at first, until I heard the rhythm: three, long pause, two, small pause, five, followed by another long pause, then one, small pause six. I turned the dial in the combination Poe had given me. Reaching for the handle, power arched between my fingertip and the safe, like a little red burst of static. The small door popped open as a chill swept over my skin. It'd taken enough Talent from me that I was left wishing I'd brought my jacket in from the car.
Dad raised his eyebrows at me. "Impressive."
"I didn't do anything," I said, dismissively, looking to see what was inside. There were a number of heavy, leather-bound books and a velvet, drawstring pouch. I pulled the bag out, undoing the strings to open the velvet pouch into my hand. Pendants, almost identical to my own, spilled out. There were fifteen in all, though smaller than mine, and the stones in their centers were black instead of red.
"I heard that the Witches would take the Reinhardt pendants as trophies. The other Necromancers could never find them when we collected the bodies." Dad picked one up, looking at it closely before returning it to my hand. "These must have been for the children, the ones who hadn't awakened their Talent yet."
Not the whole line. Poe's words from before echoed in my mind. My head snapped up to look at the bird.
"I'm not the only Reinhardt that survived, am I?" I turned Dad. "There are others! If I was able to escape from the Witches, there had to be others. Maybe some who were hidden like me."
Dad looked thoughtful. "If that's true, and it could be possible, we'd need to find them and soon. It'll be safer for them if they're with the Families."
He was probably right. And the thought of helping others out there finally learn the truth about who they really were, appealed to me.
Carefully, I put the pendants back in the bag and tied it shut, before turning my attention to the books. I pulled the oldest looking one out first; the tattered cover looked like it had been repaired and mended multiple times overs the years. Opening the cover, I found a detailed family tree that started with Francis Reinhardt at the top, and spread down the page listing names, dates of births and deaths. Children and marriages. After those pages came journal entries from Francis, all written by hand in a flowing script.
Setting the book aside, I pulled the next one out and found something similar, except in a different handwriting. Another Head of the Family.
"These are journals," I said, looking up at Dad. "From the Heads of the Reinhardt."
Poe tapped at the last one stacked in the safe, shuffling his feathers a little. I pulled it out and found that it was the journal of Alan Reinhardt, the last Head before the fall of the Reinhardts to the Witches. While I was interested in the journal entries, what held my fascination was the family tree in the front.
Under Alan's name, were those of his three children: Connar, Ashton, and Emily. Emily Reinhardt had married Matthew Stanwood, and they had three children; the third of which, Adam, had been Talentless.
"Ezra?" Dad's voice broke through the emotions that welled inside me. My face felt wet; I hadn't even realized I'd started crying. I wiped at my face impatiently.
"Adam and Samantha," I said, looking up at him as I handed the book over. "My birth parents names were Adam and Samantha Stanwood."
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And that concludes Chapter 4! The next part will be posted on 2/15/2016.
Thanks for reading! <3 J.D.