The Mother

Julia Calathea Ishan was a product of her time—technologically inept, socially awkward, but above all else, a mother. A damn good one, she'd tell you if asked. Compassionate yet unyielding, loving yet stern. Motherhood had been her test of character, and she'd passed with flying colors.

"Mom? What's wrong?" My heart jumped at the caller ID. She never called.

"Oh, Jace, I'm so glad you picked up. Could you come over?"

"What's going on? Is it an emergency? Are you okay?" Panic crept into my voice. With everything happening, my mind raced to dragons, looters, worse.

I gestured at the TV. Dan understood, flipping through local news channels for anything near Mom's place. She lived in the converted military base just outside town center, those old townhouses where everything was within walking distance of our little New England hamlet.

"Mom, are there people outside? Is there a fire? Should I call the police?"

"No, Jace. I just need you to look at something in my backyard." Her voice carried that familiar, distant tone. "There's some sort of marble arch by the garden. I don't remember putting it there. Maybe someone lost it?"

"Lost it? Mom, it's a marble arch. How does someone lose that?"

"I don't know, honey. Maybe the wind took it." She paused. "Oh, and while you're here, can you look at my computer? I can't find my pictures again."

"Yes, Mom."

"Oh—someone's out with the arch now. Maybe they lost it?"

My throat tightened. Julia's mind wandered sometimes, seeing things others couldn't. Years of diagnoses had never quite captured what was wrong. Paranoid delusions came closest, but they ebbed and flowed unpredictably. I'd learned to be there when she needed me.

I hung up without goodbye. Her house was isolated, set back from the road with no close neighbors. No one should be there.

I burst outside, my new body responding with impossible speed. One foot after another, I pushed harder with each stride. Wind whipped past as I overtook cars on the main street, their thirty-mile-per-hour crawl nothing against my newfound power. I ran faster, embracing the primal urge to chase, to hunt.

Minutes later, I reached the base. A black-clad figure approached Mom's door. I crossed the distance as the door creaked open, seizing their wrist before they could push it wider. Bone shifted under my grip. The hood fell back, revealing a face twisted in pain—and pointed ears catching the setting sun.

I released my grip but stayed between them and the door. Silver hair spilled from the hood, framing moon-white eyes in a face of silk-smooth gray skin.

"Greetings, young Daywalker. I take it by your reaction that this abode belongs to one of your House?" The woman's voice carried ancient formality.

"Are you an elf?" I blurted.

"Not one for idle chatter, I see. Indeed, I am of elven kind. You may call me Cer'teras, follower of the Ever-moving Moon." Those pale eyes studied me. "How is it a Daywalker has come to the real without knowing of the elven?"

Something about her formal speech stirred my dramatic side. I bowed low, kissing her hand. "Jason Ishan, pleasure."

"Oh, a newborn?" One elegant eyebrow raised—the first real expression I'd seen from her. "I thought I was the first, but clearly you have been turned. Who is thy sire?"

"Sire?" Fury erupted in my blood at the mention of my father. "What do you know?"

"You are freshly turned. You must have a sire. I feel the fury within you. Were you turned against your will, mayhap?"

"I do not speak of that man," I spat.

"I speak not of your father, but of thy sire. The one who turned you to the path, who gave you their blood."

The anger drained as quickly as it had come. She thought I'd been turned in the traditional way—through vampire blood. Perhaps she had answers about what was happening to our world. I texted Dan, asking him to bring the guild. If this elf needed to speak with my mother, we'd get some answers first.

"My mother owns this house," I said. "She doesn't know what's happening. Hell, I barely do. Come in, and we can exchange information."

"That will suffice. Thank you, young Lord Ishan."

"Just Jace is fine. Please." I gestured her inside, wondering what other surprises this day would bring.