Bernadette looked at Fable, her expression clearly going soft, then she nodded. “I’ll see what I can do, otherwise, the watch may transport them without you.”
Ben took a step closer to the waitress. “Who are you that you will ‘see what you can do’? You seem to know much.How? You latched onto me the instant I stepped through that door yesterday. You must have known there was a connection between me and my father yesterday when he came in. But you said nothing.”
“I didn’t know,” she assured him. “And even if I did, I’m not permitted to help you find one another.”
“Yet you helped us find my mother.”
She shook her head. “Fable did that. I could have sat at that stool for the next two days searching on my phone, but I wouldn’t have found Thea W. Halstead.”
“Who won’t permit you?” Fable asked her.
“I can’t say. I believe it’s God but I can’t prove it. I don’t hear a voice. I just know I’m not permitted.” She shrugged. “My family has been given gifts in some areas, yet we lack in others.”
“What do you know about the pocket watch?” the Lt. Colonel asked her. “Are you the one who left it in my garden?”
“No. But it was left there for a purpose.”
“What purpose?” the older warrior asked, reaching for his hilt.
Bernadette smiled cooly at him. “There are hawks in this city. Eagles too. Put your weapon to me and the birds will flock here and pluck your eyes from your head the instant you step outside.”
“You’re a witch,” Ben’s father accused in stunned disbelief of her words.
“No, the power to communicate with animals is in my blood on my maternal side, of course–and you’re all going to have to sit again if you plan on staying,” she told them, looking over Fable’s shoulder. “My manager is watching.”
She led them back to their table, brought them more coffee, then sat with them, no longer concerned with what her manager thought.
“You seem to know much about this. Tell us, what was the purpose of separating my family?” Ben lamented. “This has brought only sorrow and years of hatred and rage to my life. My sister and I had to eat garbage from the street. I listened to her cries every night, and I vowed to pay everyone back. I lived with hatred that held my heart captive for almost twenty years–because of this. It almost destroyed my life. It robbed my parents and my sister, and everyone in Colchester of seventeen years.” He looked up. Fable wanted to slip her arms around him, but his lamenting was over. Now, he slammed his fist on the table, drawing the attention of the other customers. “Why was the pocket watch left in our garden?”
“We don’t know why the pocket watch ended up in your mother’s possession. We believe it was one of the items created to destroy the Ashmores. When my grandmother and Aunt Tess found out that it was found and used, they set out to make things right.”
Ashmore. Fable’s blood felt as if it had just been set on fire. Her belly knotted up and her heart drummed an erratic litany in her chest. Ashmore.
The name spread a mist over her memory, exposing holes…summer sunshine lit the private garden where two two-year-old girls sat in the grass. Around them, plucking worms from the ground, or seeds from the swaying grass, birds enjoyed the day with them…along with a few rabbits, and a brown squirrel. The little girls had the same red hair. One child’s eyes were the color of the sea, while the others were the color of the earth. A man dressed in fine clothes with dark hair and sparkling, blue-green eyes and a kind smile came near and knelt beside them in the grass. “Do you like Papa’s garden?”
Fable blinked her eyes, returning to the present. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She wiped them, not knowing why theywere there. When she looked up it was to find Bernadette’s eyes on her.
“Who are the Ashmores?” Ben demanded. “What do they have to do with us?”
Bernadette’s attention shifted to him. “In this case, it has to do with Captain Thoren Ashmore, and right now it’s what he has to do withyou, Captain West,” she corrected. “He’s the only male born to my ancestors for a millennium.We don’t know the extent of his pow–gifts. On November 10th–in just two months–he will be falsely accused of being a pirate. On November 18 he will be hanged. You’re the only one who can save him. You’re friends with the king. You must go back and convince him that Captain Ashmore is innocent.”
“So,” Ben’s father said through clenched teeth, “you did this to my family to save one person from your family.”
“It was done to save your family, as well, and Thoren is first-born male to–”
“I do not care about that!” the Lt. Colonel said through clenched teeth.
Ben ran his hands down his face. “I don’t care about the Ashmores or anyone else. Either Fable returns with me or I don’t go back.”
“You have to return–”
“I will not.”
“The watch will pull you back with or without her,” Bernadette told him. “That’s how it works.”
“Then I'll go to the king and make certain Thoren Ashmore is hanged. If you don’t want that to happen, then you better make certain I don’t leave without her.”
Bernadette was quiet. Everyone at the table was quiet.
