Post by StoryGirl83 on Mar 19, 2017 22:31:19 GMT -5
Chapter Thirty-One - Insensitive
10:58 AM
Before Hank could respond to his sister’s question the attic door opened and his other sister entered.
Alanna smiled at the sight of their cousin. “Welcome back, Ladybug? Find anything?”
Ladybug shrugged. “Not a lot. Have you heard anything from my sister?”
“Hope’s downstairs asleep,” Alanna offered, glancing at Jani. “I just checked on her.”
Ladybug shook her head. “No, Jani told me that. I meant Cilly.”
“She and Mom went to meet with someone who claimed to have information about this whole mess,” Jani informed her. “I haven’t heard anything since.”
“They’re all right,” Hank announced. “They had a little rough spot and needed my help, but everyone is all right now. Well, not everyone. I mean three of the people they were talking with are dead and they had a fight with some crazy warlock and she’s dead, but Mom, Cilly, and the others they met are fine.”
“Hank!”
Looking at his sister startled, Hank asked, “What’s wrong, Jani?”
“How could you be so insensitive?”
“Insensitive? Elisa Richmond tried to kill our family. She’s psychotic. I’m not going to be sorry that she can’t hurt anyone any more.”
His sister rolled her eyes. “Fine, maybe she deserved it, maybe she didn’t. I won’t get into that, but what about the other three. You said three of the people Mom and Cilly were talking to were dead.”
Hank looked at her, frowning. “What?” Then, he smiled. “Oh, yes. That. Well, it is a shame that they are dead, but they have been dead for centuries, so it’s not as if this just happened.”
“Still insensitive.” She glared at him for a second before giving in and asking, “Just how many people did they meet with anyway?”
“Not sure, but by the time I left they were in conversations with six people including Melinda’s father.”
His sisters and his cousin gaped at him. He loved it when they actually wanted to hear some of his research. Normally, he’d draw this out, but today there wasn’t time.
“You mean to say Melinda Warren’s father’s ghost was talking to Mom?” Alanna asked with a giant grin on her face.
“We don’t know anything about him,” Jani added. “He’s kind of this giant mystery.”
“A mystery, yes,” Hank agreed, deciding he’d best start talking before they expressed more surprise, “but he’s not dead. I can’t explain it, but neither Sam Warren nor his brother, Dave, are dead. The three dead are their parents and sister, Caroline.”
“You said they vanished,” Jani commented. “Before Alanna returned, you said Melinda’s dad and his brother vanished. Are you trying to tell me they vanished from their time in order to come to our own?”
“I really don’t know,” Hank told her even though he was glad to see she had been listening earlier when he’d told her about Sam. “They are here now, but I don’t know what’s going to happen next any more than you do.”
Ladybug pulled out her phone. “I’m going to call Cilly, see if she can tell me what’s going on. I’m curious to find out what’s going on.” She swiped open her phone.
“Ladybug, that can wait,” Jani argued. “You don’t need to . . .” She stopped as she realized Ladybug wasn’t paying attention to her. “Ladybug?”
“Huh?” She looked up, almost startled. “Did you want something?”
“Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It’s odd. I have a voicemail from someone I haven’t heard from in a while.”
“Maybe they want to make sure you are okay with all this madness,” Jani suggested.
“No.” Ladybug shook her head. “No, he knows I’m a witch. And I think he’d have seen enough to realize that protects me.” She tapped her phone and put it to her ear. “I need to find out what he has to say.”
As Ladybug walked over to her side of the room, Jani walked over to her sister and brother. “So what do you have?”
“I have to go.”
Jani jerked her head around to look at Ladybug. “What’s going on?”
Her cousin shivered. “I don’t know, but it’s bad.” Without further explanation, she disappeared in pink and white hearts.
“Well, that was odd,” Alanna commented with a frown. “I wonder what is so important about that phone call that she would drop everything and leave when we are in the middle of trying to solve this.”
“She’ll tell us if she wants to,” Jani pointed out. “We should get back to this.”
“And what are we accomplishing?” Alanna snorted.
“Plenty. We’re learning what started this whole thing and about how people dealt with it in the past.”
“Meanwhile, thousands of people are dead and more are dying every hour.” She shook her head. “I’m going to go check the news. Maybe I’ll find something useful on that.”
“The news!” Jani spat out. “What good is that going to do us?”
Alanna shrugged. “We’ll never know until I try now will we?” Without waiting for a reply, she headed out of the attic and down the stairs.
“That went well.”
Jani glared at him. “We don’t have time for your sarcasm.”
“No, we don’t have time to argue about my sarcasm, which is not the same thing.”
She slumped against the couch Chris was sleeping on and sat down on the arm with a sigh. “I want Mom back. I don’t want to be in charge.”
Hank walked over to her and put his hand on her shoulder. “She’ll be back soon, but you can do this. Mom’s gathering information. Ladybug has information and when she get’s back she’ll tell us what it is. Based off what Seth said, Aunt Prue has information, too. They need someone to look at that information and see how it all connects. You can do that. I have faith in your, sis.”
Looking up at him, Jani worried her lip. “And what if that’s not enough?”