CHAPTER 3
THAT NIGHT CONNOR HAD A hard time falling asleep. Half his mind was still reeling from his incredible night. The other half was asking why Randolph had called her “Larentia” and what was that other word he had used—Beastia?
A few years back, Connor came to the realization that Google was the answer to practically everything. He got up from his bed and crossed his small room. A large window sat across one wall, blinds drawn. His bed was in one corner, a computer desk, and an old wooden dresser that had seen to many years of service rounded out the furniture in his room. Sitting at his computer in a cut off sleeve shirt and black shorts, he started with her last name. Pages upon pages of information came up as a result from his search.
The Abelardus family was one of the wealthiest names in New York. They owned hundreds of acres of property, acres of property that had been developed as well as land that was still forested. In fact, they even owned a large portion of the Catskill Forest Preserve.
One website brought up a list of properties they owned, everything from luxury apartments in the city, to small businesses like his mother’s. It seemed as though they had their hands in everything. Try as he might, Connor couldn’t find any pictures of the family. Website after website was full of info on the family’s rich heritage matching the information Laren already told him and the meaning of their last name, “noble strength,” but no pictures.
Abandoning that search, Connor tried a different route, looking up the meanings of Larentia and Beastia. His eyes widened as Google responded to his request.
One belief in Roman mythology held Larentia, a modest shepherd’s wife, as the adopted mother of Remus and Romulus. Larentia saved their lives and nursed them when they were babies. As the two brothers grew up, they discovered their royal heritage. Romulus eventually killed his brother, Remus, over a land dispute and the empire he built, Rome, was named after him.
The other mythological view told a similar story of the infants being abandoned in the wilderness and a female wolf providing for them and nursing them until they were found by humans and cared for. This wolf’s name was also Larentia.
Connor didn’t know if this held any new information. Laren told him that her family was very traditional, so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that they had named her after the provider of the founder of Rome and possibly an ancient ancestor.
Turning to his last word, Beastia, Google told him that it was the Latin translation of the English word, animal. What was the context that Randolph had used when he had referred to Laren?
‘My fellow Beastia? My fellow animal?’ What had he meant? Was it some kind of insult? But he had said it more as a fact, not so much as a slight.
Now Connor wished he hadn’t even opened the question. It was like finally escaping a maze only to realize that the end of this maze was the beginning to a larger one.
Connor forced himself to fall asleep that night and he woke thankful the next morning that his sleep hadn’t been disturbed by any sinister dreams.
Connor woke late and had to skip his run. It was Wednesday. That meant it was delivery day at his mother’s store. Grabbing a brown banana, Connor headed out the door. Jumping into his truck, he rambled down the suburban road on the way to his mother’s shop. The day was cool and Connor was thankful he had decided on a flannel shirt, work jeans that pleaded for the washing machine, and brown boots.
He pulled up to the store and was greeted with a warm smile. “Well; hello sleepy head. I was going to wake you but you looked so peaceful, I decided to let you sleep in.”
“Thanks, after my date with Laren last night, I was beat.”
His mother gave him a quizzical look. “Laren is—?” Realization hit her like a hammer. “Connor, you’re not going out with the daughter of our landlord, are you?”
Connor stuck out his lower lip and raised his eyebrows. “Maybe.”
“Connor Moore, you stop teasing me and be serious.”
“Whoops, look at the time. I’m going to be late with all those deliveries. Got to go!”
He left his mother in the store shaking her head. More than likely, she was rolling her eyes and laughing, but Connor was already out the door.
Grabbing the delivery order form from the back wall, he began loading his truck with supplies that customers had ordered. His mother used to hire men to do all the deliveries for her. Seeing the money she was paying for this service, Connor insisted that she allow him to make all the deliveries himself. They had agreed he would do the majority of them, save the orders that required a heavier truck due to weight issues or the need for more than one man to lift the material.
Donning a pair of ancient work gloves, Connor attacked this assignment with fervor. Having missed his morning workout, he used this opportunity to get some exercise. Lifting, pulling, and tugging, he loaded his truck with the supplies for the day’s deliveries in record time. Perspiration gathered on his brow as Connor pulled from his seemingly unlimited supply of energy.
As he finished lifting the last bag of mulch into his vehicle, he saw the other delivery truck pulling up. It was a burly F-350 with added support to the rear axle to compensate for weight. At one time the truck had been bright fire engine red, but that time had passed many moons ago. Now it was a chipped, dented, faded maroon. The color resembled a piece of clay after being shaped and placed in the furnace.
Jumping out of the truck were two men, Joe and Pete. Physically, two people couldn’t be more different. Joe was a stocky middle-aged man with a button nose and a smile that was too big for his face. Pete was tall and about the same age as Joe. Pete’s ears seemed to get larger every time Connor saw him and every year that passed brought more and more wrinkles to line his ever-grinning face.
Joe and Pete saw Connor and waved. They had both been working for his mother ever since Connor could remember and seemed more like uncles than anything else. Connor walked over to the two men as they discussed the best way to arrange the supplies they needed to deliver in their truck.
“No, we should put the two palm trees in first so they’re not leaning up against the tailgate,” Joe explained in a motherly tone to Pete.
“Joe, how many times do we have to go through this? The heaviest items need to stay in the rear right over the axle, where there’s the most support.”
“Pete, you have to trust me on this one. You know I aced math in school.”
“That was eighth grade!”
“Well, I still did.”
“Are you guys arguing on how to load the truck again?” Connor reached the two with a smile on his face from hearing their debate; it reminded him of two dogs arguing over a bone.
“Just discussing the proper way, Cowboy,” Joe explained.
Because the two older men had known Connor for so long, they had taken to calling him ‘Cowboy.’ When Connor was little, he would run around his mother’s store with a cowboy hat and a homemade horse, a wooden broomstick with a brown, stuffed animal horse head attached to one end. Since then, the men had called him Cowboy and the name stuck.
“You two need any help?”
“Thanks for the offer, but that’s why your mom pays us,” Pete reminded him.
“Where you headed today?” Joe asked.
“Haven’t looked yet. Just finished loading up the truck.”
Joe took Connor’s delivery sheet and whistled, “You have yourself a drive today.”
“What do you mean?” Connor asked.
“You’re delivering to the Hubers and you have a run into Catskill.”
Connor grabbed the delivery manifest. Sure enough, Joe was right. He had a total of five deliveries that day: two to jobsites he had already been to the week before, one to Morrigan Hayes, who was a regular; one to Katie’s family, the Hubers; and the last one didn’t even have a name, just a place—the Catskill Forest Preserve.
Connor said his good-byes to Joe and Pete. He left them to discuss who got better scores in eighth grade math and how to position the plants.
Peeking his head inside the shop, he saw his mother watering some hydrangeas by the flower display. He asked, “Mom, did you see this last delivery to the Catskills? That’s two hours away, we don’t usually deliver that far.”
His mother looked up and smiled, “Yes, I hope you don’t mind. They called in first thing this morning, insistent about the delivery. I told them it would be an extra fee and they said that was fine. Even stranger, did you see what they ordered?”
Connor looked down at his sheet. Whoever had phoned in the call had only asked for a small container of bug spray, two bottles of generic water, and a very large, very expensive, silver-headed pickaxe.
“Okay, I’ll be back,” Connor said with a confused look.
“Be safe.”
Getting into his truck, Connor decided to do the two construction jobsite deliveries first, head over to Mrs. Hayes’ house, the Hubers’ next, and save the Catskill delivery for last, since it was by far the furthest.
The first two deliveries went smoothly. He had delivered to both jobsites last week and the foremen knew him. The next delivery, however, was to Mrs. Hayes. Mrs. Hayes was a widow of at least eighteen years. Connor couldn’t ever remember meeting her husband. She must have been in her seventies or eighties by now but it was hard to tell with how active she stayed. Being an avid gardener, she ordered from the shop at least once a week.
Pulling up to her light brown house, Connor exited his truck and unloaded her order of fertilizer, an assortment of seeds in small pouches, and a new pair of gardening gloves. Walking up to her fence, he admired her immaculate yard. It seemed as though not a blade of grass was out of place. Her rows of vegetables were neatly placed on the right side of the house and to the left were flowers of every kind. An assortment of colors entertained the eye, bright yellows, deep reds and luxurious purples were radiant with life, and this is where he found her, hunched over her work.
She was wearing a large flower-printed shirt that was much too big for her, tan pants that reached just shy of her old brown boots, and a floppy straw hat that kept sliding into her eyes. Looking up from her work, she smiled at Connor.
Most people would have taken her smile for a threat, her crooked teeth were stained yellow, the way her eyes disappeared when she grinned also didn’t help the effect. Connor knew differently, having been acquainted with her for so long. She was harmless, crazy maybe, but completely harmless.
“Well, hello there, young Mr. Connor.”
“Hello, Mrs. Hayes. Here are the items you wanted. Where should I put them?”
“Just there. We have bigger matters to discuss now.”
Connor placed her things down beside the house and looked at her as she stood up and approached him. Her usual wild grey and white hair was stuck up in her straw hat and her light brown eyes twinkled with excitement.
“Three of the Five Families have been reunited, whether they know it or not. It’s a very exciting and dangerous time now, Connor. But you’ll be safe because they don’t know it’s you, now, do they? She has a feeling, though. She is drawn to you and she is more than you think.”
Connor looked at her with a blank expression. This was normal. Mrs. Hayes had been babbling things every time he saw her. She was constantly going off about how she knew of secret things and secret people. Connor was always polite and amused, but today, with the sun beating down on them and still two more deliveries to go, one all the way to the Catskill forest, he decided to cut it short.
“Yes, yes. The three families, so, anyway I have to get going. Your yard looks great. Let us know if you need anything else.”
But she wouldn’t let him go that easy. “Connor Moore.” She ran to him incredibly fast for a women of her age and grabbed his hands in her own.
Her worn, wrinkled palms contrasted his young, strong hands. She looked into his eyes and held his gaze for a moment, much like Randolph had at the restaurant the night before, looking into him rather than at him.
“You are meant for great things. You are about to see. Be aware that all is not as it seems. There are strangers in town that would seek to help you. Others, if they knew who you were, to undo you. Do you want to know? Are you ready to know?”
Connor nodded his head in agreement, anything to get going. “Okay, I will. Thank you, Mrs. Hayes, but I have to get going.”
She nodded her head now, pursing her lips as though she were in deep thought.
And that’s where Connor left her. It was just after eleven o’clock now, and with his meager breakfast that morning, Connor’s stomach was staging a protest against hunger. Pulling into a drive-thru at the local hamburger joint, Connor shook his head, remembering the words Mrs. Hayes had told him. Three families, he was meant for great things, strangers in town. Could she have meant Laren and her brother or Randolph? No, what was he thinking? It was foolish trying to make sense of the words of a crazy old lady. Shaking his head free of these ideas, he ordered his food and was soon working his way through mid-day traffic, burger in hand.
The weather hadn’t changed much in the last few days. It was cool with a few clouds rolling lazily through the sky. Traffic wasn’t horrible, and soon Connor found himself in the nicer part of town.
Smaller shops like his mother’s gave way to name brand stores. Burger joints like the one he had just passed through were nowhere to be seen, and instead, fancy restaurants with five star ratings appeared.
Houses seemed to grow in size with each passing block. Connor was all too familiar with his current destination. He had driven the same way numerous times to pick up and drop off Katie. She lived in the biggest house on the block. It was a massive structure, any bigger and one could have called it a castle. Large red brick walls made up most of the house, with four white pillars in the front and white trim complimenting the building.
The large black iron gates that stood sentry around the estate were adorned with a huge emblem of a sun. The sun was the same color of the gate and about three times the size of a basketball. It was a large flat orb with flames shooting out in every which direction like fingers pointing everywhere.
Connor pulled up to the intercom and pushed the talk button. Very soon a familiar voice came through the line. “I was hoping it would be you delivering today and not Pete or Joe. They’re nice, but they always argue about the best way to unload the truck.”
“Well, open up the gate and you and I can argue how to unload the truck.”
“Hmmm. How about I open the gate, we don’t argue, and while you unload the truck, I’ll get you something to drink.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Kat, but you have yourself a deal. Where do you want this stuff?”
“Probably in the back near the guest house. See you soon!”
The gates swung open and Connor drove through. Passing the house on the way to the backyard, he recognized all the familiar vehicles: there was Katie’s father’s BMW, her mom’s Cadillac, and of course her Volkswagen Passat. Aside from all of these there was one car Connor had never seen before, a newer, white Audi. Connor was unsure of the model, but one thing he was sure of, it was very expensive.
The guesthouse looked like a smaller version of the actual house. It was made out of the same red brick and white trim and had a walkway that snaked through the backyard and connected with the rest of the property.
Connor stopped his truck, and as he began to unload, he had to laugh. Here he was, a small time local boy in a beat-up truck, in the middle of what might have well been the White House. It would have taken three or four of his trucks to equal the value of just one of the cars he saw when he drove in.
The money factor had never bothered Connor when he was dating Katie and it still didn’t now, Connor just couldn’t help but find it ironic.
He picked up the various insect repellents and bug sprays from his truck and headed over to place them by the guesthouse. No doubt it was for the same bug infestation Katie mentioned when he ran into her in town.
As he approached the guesthouse, he could tell someone was inside. The door was open and he caught the figure of a man walking through the front room. Connor had never known anyone to actually stay in the house, it was more of a added amenity for the Hubers than anything else.
“Hello?” he called, placing the anti-bug equipment by the door. He knocked and stuck his head in. “Hello, is anyone there?”
“Why, what are the odds? It was Connor, right?”
Connor recognized the German accent and saw its speaker at the same time. There in the doorway was Randolph, fake smile and all.