Page 116 of Balance

“Ah.” The woman—Kathleen—pushed past Miles, honey eyes washing over me. The air seemed to stir at her movements.

I knew that whatever she had to say would be profound.

“You’ll need to forgive him. Ghosts are terrifying creatures,” she said, nodding solemnly. “When confronted with one, it’s every person for themself.” She tilted her head, studying me, lips pursing. “But I get the impression you can handle yourself against spirits. Do I know you?”

Before I could even begin to think of a reply, Miles had pressed between us, pulling me to my feet and behind him once more.

Meanwhile, I could only blink as a sense of foreboding trickled my spine—how in the world would she know me? I’d never met this woman before in my life.

But there was something strangely familiar about her.

“Her name is Bianca,” Miles said, his hand lowering down my arm until our fingers entwined. “Bianca.” He turned, glancing at me, trepidation and stress written into the squared lines of his jaw. “This is Kathleen Geier. She’s Jonathan’s mother, and my oldest proxy Er Bashou.”

My fingers tightened into fists, and my nerves—which had been causing my stomach to churn—deadened. I’d been avoiding thoughts of my adoptive parents. With Miles gone, and my worry for him, it had been easy to forget they even existed. It wasn’t difficult either. Not once had they tried to seek me out.

Even though I was married to Bryce, out of their reach, I thought they’d care—at least a little.

But they hadn’t even tried to contact me. It was as if I never existed to them at all.

That was a good thing. That was what I wanted.

So why did my chest hurt and my palms sweat?

Miles misread my silence as confusion. “Sorry,” he was quick to explain. “An Er Bashou proxy is when—”

“I know what it is,” I interrupted, letting go of his shirt and stepping around him. The moon clouded briefly, and Kathleen’s expression was thrown into shadows. “Did you know about it too?”

My adoptive father told me his mother was dead. So that, too, had been a lie.

“Know about what?” She frowned as her weight shifted to the right, putting more pressure on her cane.

Miles wrapped his arms around me and rested his chin on my head. “It’s not what you think.” His voice smoothed over the edges of my anger. “Kathleen has been gone for a long time; way before I moved to France. I doubt she’s talked to her son since then.”

“You moved to France?” She narrowed her gaze at him, and her hair fanned around her with the next breeze. “Is that why you haven’t graduated yet? What in the world happened?” Her gaze turned to me, and she leaned her cane slightly in my direction, pointing me out. “And where did you find this one? I thought Mu had already been reborn into this life.”

“You’ve missed a lot,” Miles said, his arms tightening around me. “I—”

“Wait,” Kathleen interrupted, holding up her other hand too. “Before we start anything, I only came to pick some basil. I’m not going to stand around talking, and from the looks of you, you shouldn’t either. We’ll go back to my home.”

My pulse was soaring a thousand miles a minute. Miles had relaxed since this woman appeared, but I wasn’t sure if I trusted her. Especially since she was related to my adoptive parents.

But there was something more I couldn’t quite figure out.

Why, if Kathleen was so willing to help us and was so connected to our world, had she left in the first place? Why did my adoptive father say she was dead?

I didn’t want to go to her house. It was impossible to move past this sense of foreboding. It threatened to drag me under and make me sick.

I wasn’t sure what it was about her, but I had the feeling that after this, nothing would ever be the same.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Bianca

Surrounded

The open stone hearth was tiny but was more than enough to warm the rest of Kathleen Geier’s house. The shelter was a cozy, one room home made up entirely of what appeared to be dried mud and stone. Considering that we were miles away from civilization, I assumed this was a repurposed hunting cabin, because it was hard to believe she’d built this place herself.

She was short—almost as short as me. And she seemed strong. It hadn’t escaped my notice that, upon our arrival, she had no problem lifting a large, cast iron cauldron without breaking a sweat.