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"When you begin to search for your past, the key to find the truth will be under your nose, Josephine. Be safe, beautiful girl. Show these to Stefan. He will understand." Armes kissed my cheek, pressing two small items in my hand before she disappeared into the increasing darkness.
***
My eyes flew open and I sat straight up in bed. My chest was heaving, my breath coming in ragged pants as I struggled to make sense of what had happened. Was I alive? Was seeing my mother a figment of my imagination, some sort of bizarre dream?
This experience was similar to my visions I’d had before I’d met Stefan. Had those been real as well? Had we shared some sort of strange reality in our dreams, preparing me to meet what was to be my destiny?
The only glaring difference was that my mother was dead. I'd watched her die in Nikolaus' memory, her lifeless eyes staring into nothing as she lay at my father's feet. There would be no happy reunion for my mother and me. I only had this dream, one single fleeting moment in time where I had the chance to meet her.
I was unsure how I should be feeling. Of course there was a part of me that was happy to have had the chance to see my mother, if only in a dream. The other part was irritated that I was left with more questions than answers. Nothing she said had made sense. Mentally, I’d prepared myself to chalk the entire experience up to an over-active imagination and too much to drink when I glanced down at my hand that was clenched into a tight fist. Opening my fingers one by one, I was amazed to see two acorns in my palm. My mother had pressed them into my hand before she disappeared. She said Stefan would understand… Gasping loudly, I dropped the nuts on the bed as if they had burned me. Scooting closer to the headboard, I nestled closer to Stefan. Deep in sleep, he was laying on his back, the sheets draped enticingly around his waist. Placing a shaking hand on his chest, the solidness of his body made everything seem real again. I needed to know everything wasn’t an altered state of reality.
Either my touch or panic woke him. His blue eyes opened and met mine, instantly rising on one arm to my side. I didn’t give him a chance to talk. I pitched forward, throwing myself against his chest and burying my face into his neck.
"Josephine? Tell me what has happened." I could hear the confusion and controlled alarm in his deep voice. His arms surrounded me, tightening and securing me to him.
"My mother. It was a dream," I mumbled against him. It was amazing how his embrace calmed me, “She said you’d understand.”
A few seconds of hesitation hung in the air between us. "Josephine?"
"Let me show you." I insisted. Placing my hands on his face, I pushed my vivid recollections of the dream with my mother to him. I could sense his presence in my mind, silently watching my exchange with Armes. He inhaled sharply when he watched her press the acorns in my hand.
"She was correct about the acorns. I understand what she was attempting to communicate to me. Acorns are the Nordic symbol of life and immortality. What I do not fully understand is her comment about the blood bond. She said you chose me and I accepted. We were already linked by blood. It makes no sense." Stefan ran a hand through his blond hair before picking the acorns up between his fingers, staring at them intently. "Choice, fate, destiny all entwined. You are more."
"You said that to me that the night we met," I reminded him. He rolled the acorns between his fingers thoughtfully. He was methodically thinking through the entire event I had shown him. He was as puzzled as me.
His blue eyes shifted from his fingers to meet mine and he nodded. "Then I was correct from that very moment. It has always been you, vackra. Even though I do not remember, we have always been together."
"What more could I be?" I asked. Kicking back the covers, I sprang out of the bed and hastily pulled open drawers to grab at the first articles of clothing I could find. I yanked on a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt.
I could feel his eyes following my restless movements as I moved around the bedroom. “Where are you going?”
Glancing over my shoulder at him, I hesitated in the doorway. “I have to find my uncles’s journals.”
Hurrying down the hall, I headed into the guest bedroom. One wall was stacked with boxes that had arrived two days ago from Bali. I hadn't had the chance to unpack anything. There had been no chance with Anna's change and the upcoming Council meeting hanging over us.
Grabbing the first box marked ‘books’, I was preparing to rip into it when I felt Stefan's hand on my shoulder. Staring up into his handsome face, a sense of calm flooded our bond. He smoothed the hair away from my face, sweeping his thumb over my lower lip.
“You want answers, as do I. Let me help you."
He was true to his word. He was by my side hour after hour as we sorted through boxes of the same books we’d packed together. It was at best a wild goose chase; I had no idea what I was looking for. I knew that I didn’t have any journals from Garrett in my physical possession. There had to be a clue hidden somewhere. But where?
Stefan ripped open the tape on the final box. We exchanged a tense look as he began pulling book after book, flipping through them at lightning fast speed. He barked out a loud laugh and shook his head in admiration.
“Your uncle and mother share an interesting sense of humor. I would have liked to have met them.” Stefan flipped the book around so I could see the cover.
“Cyrano de Bergerac?” I took the book from his hand. Paging through the book, I choked back a gasp when I came to the back cover of the book. Taped inside was a small skeleton key with the words ‘William J. Prior Virtue & Knowledge’ written underneath in Garrett’s handwriting. Gently pulling the tape away, I palmed the key and closed the volume to glance at the cover. My mother’s words floated through my mind. ‘When you begin to search for your past, the key to find the truth will be under your nose, Josephine.’
I’d underestimated Garrett when I was a teenager, sometimes growing exasperated with his obsessive bookworm behavior. Like Stefan, I now appreciated his activities in an entirely new light. His twisted sense of humor and eclectic choice of books was beginning to make sense to me. From The Picture of Dorian Gray, his impassioned letter to me in a hardcover biography of Napoleon and finally, the key to finding his journals had been tucked away in a book about Cyrano de Bergerac. Everything had a meaning behind it.
“Do you know what this key belongs to, vackra?” Stefan asked. His voice broke through my reverie, drawing me back to the issue at hand.
“No, but I think he gave me another clue. We need to find a book by William J. Prior. Possibly it’s called Virtue & Knowledge.” I said. Stefan quickly scanned the piles until he found what I requested. Smiling crookedly, he brandished a paperback with the title Virtue and Knowledge: An introduction to Ancient Greek Ethics. He tossed it to me and I slowly poured over each page for a hint or a clue. Stefan moved to sit behind me, reading over my shoulder as I slowly turned page after page.
His deep voice sounded thoughtful as he pointed to a section of the book that was marked with bright yellow marker. “The section on Eudaemons is highlighted. Does that mean anything to you?”
Engrossed in my reading, I barely responded to his question. “No. But Garrett studied many things.” I was halfway through the book when I noticed my uncle’s scrawl again at the top of the page with a highlighted section. It was a series of numbers: 39°192453N 82°52463W.
Coordinates.
