Post by StoryGirl83 on Nov 10, 2011 0:43:19 GMT -5
Chapter Twenty-Four – Truth, Love, and Other Illegal Things
With one last look at her friend and boss, Cassia returned to her brother. “Do Ash and Belle know about this?” she asked without preamble.
Daniel looked at her surprised. “So you admit it?”
She nodded. “Do you have even the slightest idea what I am risking here?”
He sighed. “I’m sorry, Cass. I just couldn’t let it go. I had to know.”
“You realize that this will likely be the only conversation we will have and most likely you won’t even remember it tomorrow,” she pressed.
He nodded.
“Then, why?” she asked looking at him. “I don’t get that. Why do it at all, Danny? Why not leave it as is, with the knowledge that most likely I was out there somewhere, helping people?”
“Because I couldn’t,” he informed her. “Cass, do you have any idea how hard it is to . . ?”
Cassia gave him a look. “Really? You have to ask that?”
He made a face. “It wasn’t adding up,” he announced. “No self respecting whitelighter would get caught on film.”
“Oh, so not true,” she laughed. “But what do you know about whitelighters, anyway?”
“As much as I could learn,” he hedged.
“Do you even know any witches?”
“Other than the obvious?” he pressed.
“And who is the obvious?” she asked, curious.
“A couple of sisters who are former classmates of ours and their younger sisters,” he said only slightly cryptically.
She chuckled. “Oh, those obvious. Yeah, other than those, though I didn’t know you knew about them.”
“Apparently they are some sort of big deal in the world of magic, so when I researched whitelighters, I learned about them,” Daniel informed her. “And apparently my classmate married their whitelighter, so apparently personal relationships are allowed.”
“Not even close,” she informed him. “Their relationship was one hundred percent forbidden. And he’s not in contact with anyone from his past even now.”
“I doubt any of them are alive,” Daniel retorted.
“Actually, he’s got a living nephew who has living descendants,” she passed on. “And his ex-wife’s kids by her second husband are alive and would recognize him from pictures, though of course they never met him. And I’m pretty sure all of their descendants would recognize him, too.”
Daniel stared at her and then he just shrugged. He didn’t much care to hear about his former classmate’s former whitelighter husband. It was his currently whitelighter sister that he was interested in. “Who is that guy, the one who wanted to talk to you? And what did he say that changed your mind about answering my questions?”
“That’s my boss, Kevin,” she grinned. “He just wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into. I have to get out of here, Danny.”
“He seems . . . nice,” Daniel glanced past her to where Kevin had turned his attention to a young lady who was clawing the ground with her bare hands.
Cassia smiled and turned to look at Kevin. “He is nice. You’d like him, Danny.”
“I doubt it,” he decided. “After all, he’s one of the elders that brought you back and refused to let us see you, again. If they hadn’t done that, we could have at least found someone to summon you, eventually.”
Cassia giggled. “Considering he was still in diapers at the time, I’d say Kevin had a pretty air tight alibi for that.”
Daniel frowned. “What do you mean he was still in diapers? Doesn’t elder imply a certain age?”
“Generally,” she agreed, “but there are some cases like Kevin’s where that’s not the case.”
Daniel exhaled slowly. “What happens when I get you out of here?”
“Can you do that?”
“Immediately,” he replied confidently.
“Impressive,” she commented. “How?”
He pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to her.
Cassia took the envelope and looked at it. It was addressed to her parent’s home in Sacramento. She glanced at the post mark, September 3, 2009. She looked up at him. “What’s this?”
“Look inside,” he urged her.
She shrugged and slid a folded piece of paper out of it. She unfolded it and realized that it was a birth certificate. She read her name, Cassia Marie Reynolds, listed. She shrugged, again, and looked up at him, again. “I don’t get it.”
“Look at the dates.”
She looked down at the place where date of birth was listed and her eyes widened. “2009! Since when was I born in 2009?!”
He put a finger to his lips. “Shh. Do you think anyone looking at you would believe that you were born in 1970.”
“No,” she admitted. “But this is illegal.”
“So Tony informed me repeatedly,” Daniel agreed, “but he still helped me with it. Most of the information is identical to what is on your real birth certificate. Out of necessity I had to claim you were born at home, but since you actually were born in Sacramento, I didn’t have to change the city.”
“And the fact that your ‘younger’ sister was born when your mom was in her sixties was irrelevant how?” she pressed.
“Dealt with but ‘you’ don’t know anything about it, so don’t worry about it,” he shrugged.
“And the fact that I share a name with your older sister and I’m identical to ‘her’, how does that fit in?”
“Also dealt with,” he assured her. “I’ll explain later.”
“There is no later,” she informed him. “We leave here and I have to go before a meeting Up There where they will decide my fate for disobeying one of their bigger rules. I won’t have another chance to talk to you, Danny.”
“We made a story between us that you were a clone of our dead sister,” he admitted sheepishly.
Cassia stared at him for several seconds, mouth gaping. “And they say I’m the one who’s insane.”
“If it works, I don’t care,” he admitted.
“It’s illegal,” she reminded him. “It was illegal then and it’s illegal now,” she pressed. “Not to mention how do you explain a twenty year gap between my death and when you would have somehow used by DNA to create this mythical clone.”
“Trust me, okay?” he requested.
She shook her head with a slight smile on it. “Not for a minute, little brother.” Before he could respond she reached up and hugged him tight. “I love you. You may not remember this conversation, but you will remember that. Thanks for coming for me, Danny.”
He hugged her back. “I guess there’s no time like the present, huh. I love you, Cass. Let’s . . . I’d say get you home, but I guess that’s not really an option, so let’s at least get you out of here. Ready?”
She nodded. “I’m ready.” She glanced behind her and saw no sign of Kevin anywhere. He trusted her. As much as it would pain her to leave Daniel so quickly, she would do as she must and that was something she must. She only hoped that when this was all over she would still be allowed to see them when they weren’t looking from time to time.