Page 31 of Unhaunt Me

“Need more time?” Roary asked.

“I think seeing is believing,” Tritus shook his head.

“I’ll give you an hour and then I’m bringing you back out. Might have to do a few sessions if you don’t get through everything. An hour is more than enough to be in the past on another planet.”

Tritus nodded at his friend, and I swallowed hard.

“Ready?” he asked me.

No, I wasn’t ready.

I’d never be ready for this.

“Yeah,” I nodded anyway.

“Let’s do it,” Tritus said to Roary.

Something clicked on the remote they held and the stone under my feet vibrated. Tritus met and held my gaze through the transparent divider. Then the world fizzled and dissolved.

Chapter Sixteen

Tritus

I came to standing outside a big three-story house. It was a work of masonry wonder. It seemed the Moonscales were as decent at building as our own flight was. I glanced around. I didn’t see my Casimir nor his past self. It wasn’t uncommon for ‘memory travelers’ to end up at different starting points. Most of those who carried memories were shy or concerned that the memories they were about to share would impact how their traveling companion felt about them.

A truck roared in the distance and burnt rubber as it swung around the corner, revealing itself to be silver and shiny, as it skidded to a halt in front of the house. Casimir – past Casimir – nearly tore the hinges off the door getting out and Castor wasn’t far behind him from the passenger’s side. They barreled past me and tried the knob, finding it was unlocked. It was only once the door swung open that two of my senses lit up as if the apocalypse were upon us without a doubt.

I heard her first – the roaring keen of a mother in pain. Delivery? No, that wasn’t the smell assaulting my nose. It was fresh blood – not the blood of a womb – but the blood that ended a life and something more fragile. Casimir roared and the woman inside (Ren?) roared back. I sprinted inside, desperate to help, but remembered that I couldn’t help past anyone. The past was set in stone and scale and nothing would change it.

There!

There he was!

There was my Casimir knelt in the big nest with his sister. He couldn’t touch. She couldn’t hear him or see him because she wasn’t real. She wasn’t a ghost or a spirit even. She was aphantom inside his head. This was how he remembered her. A man lay disemboweled in front of the nest. She’d done it. There wasn’t a doubt that she’d ripped his insides out. It took me a long moment to grow brave enough to look at his face. He looked so much like my mate – right down to the curve of his cheek bones and the shape of his nose. This man – this dead and gone man – could only have been his brother.

My Casimir wouldn’t look at me. He stayed in the nest with Ren. Pieces of eggshell lay here and there all smashed as if the hatchlings had crawled out recently. Too recently.

“Where are the kids?” I asked my Casimir as Past Casimir and Past Castor yelled back and forth at each other. I couldn’t make out what they yelled about but that was probably because my Casimir didn’t remember the heated discussion with any clarity.

My Casimir raised his hands and held them out in front of him, gesturing to the nest. Ren’s eyes were red. The pupils and the white parts. She was covered in the quickly drying blood of her sibling. I didn’t want to get any closer. One should never approach an enraged dragoness. Still, she wasn’t real. She was a phantom and I had to remind myself of that. I needed to see the kids. He had lost kids, hadn’t he? His nieces and nephews? Had his brother killed them?

“He fell on the eggs. He was---” My Casimir started but stopped as the memory morphed. We were inside the truck with Past Casimir and Castor. They were silent now. It was a ringing sort of silence that echoed around the cab of the truck. When the truck stopped again, Past Castor exited the passenger side. I thought his part was finished but we waited while he politely knocked on the door and asked an old woman if someone was home. He was and she’d get him. She was short for a dragon. Maybe she wasn’t a dragon at all. I sniffed the air.

“Wolf,” my Casimir said. “She was a wolf. He wasn’t. That’s sort of important.”

“He?”

Just hold on. Hold on.

That’s what the woman had said as she turned to go back inside.

My Casimir held on to me. The man came out and shut the door behind him. He was skeevy looking with eyes that darted in every direction. He was a dragon. He had the shoulders and the height, and he towered over Castor but the fearless not-yet-ship captain didn’t stand like a man who could ever be towered over. He was nice and calm as he pulled out a wad of paper money and nodded toward the truck.

The skeevy dragon opened the front door and told the old woman he’d be back later. Then he was inside the truck. They put him right between them and Castor chatted like nothing had happened. Though, something was about to happen. It was clear in how both Casimirs flared their nostrils. He was angry. Past Casimir more than present Casimir. My Casimir was more sad than anything.

“What does he have to do with it?” I asked aloud.

My question echoed around the cab of the phantom truck.

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