The Eldritch Trials

Chapter 11: Missing Kids

Alec

"He what?" I'm not doing very well right now.
You see, Gale is an obedient kid. He's a good child. He listens to what he's told. He doesn't do stupid things. Despite that moron Shane's best attempts, he's never once gotten locked in the catacombs or upset the spirits or—anything. He's never been in trouble. I think once, maybe, we got called to his school but that was him being bullied, nothing he did wrong. No, Gale has not prepared me for any level of rebellion or misbehavior or anything of that kind.  That's okay. This is okay. He's allowed to act out that's what kids do. This is fine. I just need to revert back into the mode when I was trying to parent fucking Shane. That's okay what was that mode? Oh yeah, alcoholism and a nervous breakdown.
"He was upset last night, asked to see a doctor, said he'd been having awful nightmares. I said yes, obviously, he didn't want to tell you. I figured he was just you know, wanting to be brave in front of his dad. Well, today I took him to the doctor, the doctor said he was acting—crazy, threatening to kill himself—I don't —I assume he's under some sort of curse or spell or something because he leapt out the window, and he's vanished," Anita says, clearly trying to remain calm.
"Okay—okay, I'll go fetch him, it's fine he probably—," I can't breath this is bad. This kid so didn't prepare me for this. He could have given me a warning or something that he was going to rebel so I could have a Valium on hand.
But not Gale. Gale is my little pal. He likes reading books and doing things quietly. When he was little he'd sit in my office while I worked, reading for hours. He's quiet and likes playing catch with the forest fairies and that's it. He doesn't run away.
"What if—have you searched the grounds? I mean what if he's just hiding out here—," he always comes home, doesn't he? God, I can't breath.
"The servants are looking everywhere, I asked  the pond nymphs you know he always goes out there to cry when he's sad they haven't seen him," she says, she's much more composed than I am.
"He'll be—I'll fetch him it doesn't matter," I sigh.
"I couldn't do a tracing spell," she says, her voice catching in her throat. Of course she can't. She isn't biologically related to him. That only works with the blood of a relative. Naturally I am related to Gale, sadly I'm not his father. But.  It will still work.
"Right—yeah, I will, I'll go bring him home, as you said someone's probably put a curse on him, again, these things happen," or is that what I want to believe?
How many nights did I spend searching the city for Shane?
How many hours shouting through the door arguing with him?
How many times did he lock me in the crypts so he could sneak out?
He spent more damn nights in the crypts playing with the ghosts than in his own bed.
Our parents gave up.
They didn't care. They said he was reincarnated. Likely some murderer. They didn't want him in the house. He wasn't a Soren, as far as they were concerned.
Our mother wouldn't touch him. After he was born she'd leave him in his room just crying. Gave him a room across the house so she wouldn't have to hear him sob.
When he learned to walk he ran everywhere. Our father gave up then. No spell in the world could convince the boy to mind, there was no hex strong enough. He didn't want to obey. He wanted to run about the entire house. He was mad. Our mother barely spoke to him. She said he was a menace. He was a menace. He was our menace. He set my coat on fire in a family picture (last one he was in). He stole endless amplifiers and magical items from our father's stores. Everything in this manor is bolted down and double hexed because of him.
And yet.
When I was sent to bed without dinner, he'd inevitable show up, cheeky grin on his face, sticky with blood, bearing arm loads of scones and cakes stolen from the kitchens.
The night my first girlfriend dumped me it was Shane who pilfered our father's beer and sat with me on the roof while I poured my heart out.
When I told my father I wanted to marry Anita, Shane's the one who stood up for me. He said if she made me happy he liked her fine.
And when I left for my trials, who grinned at me and said he knew I could do it? The only person to believe in me as our father was sure I'd get killed. That I'd never reform the seal. But not Shane. He leapt into my arms when I came back. He told me he thought I was brave. Nobody thinks that.
He's my crazy brother. My crazy brother. And he's a wildfire ninety percent of the time and yet the rest—his kind heart. His sweetness. He'd do any thing for anyone. Including me.
And that's what I saw in Gale. He has all of his—real—father's tenderness. His compassion, sense of justice. He's got all that without the anger or the wildness.  But now, with this?
I knew what I was getting into.
At first I was furious. I knew damn well that it was Shane who'd been sleeping with that girl. He wrote me, as much as admitted it. Saying that if any of them he wasn't naming names, wasn't exactly a virgin then it was technically his fault however consider how stupid the whole virgin thing is anyway, promise everyone had a good time, and whatever. Well, I knew she had fallen pregnant. And I was jealous. I'd spent years trying to conceive. My wife was deeply depressed. We were childless nearly ten years into our marriage. And of course my stupid idiot brother got the first actual woman he'd slept with pregnant.
And then he was gone. And we thought he was dead. And well, with that I felt guilt for his child. And the idea came to me and—why not raise it as my own? He didn't want it. He didn't know about it. And we thought him dead anyway.
When he showed back up it wasn't like I could tell him. I consoled myself that he would never know. That he got to see his son. It wasn't like he wanted the child, or even knew he'd fathered it, probably never spoke to the mother again knowing him. He's just like that. It wasn't bad. And the child was fine.
But that's still his boy.
And that is the thought I cannot shake.
That's his son. Of course he jumped out a three story window and ran off. That's Shane's kid. It was bound to crop up sometime. Not my son. No. My sons, and daughters, are dead. My children weren't strong enough, we failed.
"I'll come with you," Anita says, waking me from my thoughts.
"No, no, if he's not here he's probably run off to try to complete the trials to prove himself—no, I'll go, I'm quite fine," I say, quickly, "You would be better off to wait here, what if he is just hiding out at a friends and tries to come home?"
"You're tracking him?"
"Yeah, um—," his fucking sire found a way to throw off the trace spells using copious amounts of blood and idiocy, again, I'm not putting it past Gale to do the same thing, "Even so. He could double back. Look, he can't get far. He might just need me to have talk with him. One on one."
"Okay," she relents.
"It'll be fine," I say, kissing her cheek, "I'll bring him home."

Nel

Shane for once turns up when I need him to. That's kind of mean, it's really significantly the one time when I was pregnant with his child, that he did not show up, however that time is very significant to me.
"Hello—where's the kid?" He asks, stopping in the doorway as I was coming out of it.
"Gone, he thinks I'm stupid so he's making Ozzie lie for him because he thinks I don't know how a trace spell works, this is the tracer," I hand him a pebble, "Go find him."
"What—why would he run off?" Shane asks, shaking his head.
"To help his cousin complete the trails," I sigh.
"Oh that would do it, right, on it, do you wanna come?" Shane asks, backing out the door to the flat so we can both leave.
"No, I have a different errand," I say, pulling on my coat, "Just hurry."
"Okay," he doesn't even ask gods I love him so much.  And I feel so bad. I could tell him the truth now but it would take too much time. He needs to go and get the boys the truth sadly remains irrelevant.
But not completely.
I did the trace for both boys (I keep Shane's blood around), and I know they are both going. Which means that Mac can use the amplifier to defend them in an emergency.
Anita doesn't have that knowledge.
Anita who stole my son so many years ago. No, not stole. I gave him away. And I stole her son. She doesn't know he lives. Right now, Mac and I are the only ones who know the truth and that he can wield the amplifier. She'll be panicking knowing that Gale's on a suicide mission considering he's got a useless amplifier.  The truth is about to come out that's why Mac went I know, and I know he lied to me so that I wouldn't be upset.
But it's time. The truth must come out. And Anita deserves to hear it from me.