Volume 1.27: Answers

Type: Series

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Rating: M

Characters:  Cadence
Word Count: 842

Glossary: Grade 11=11th Grade, Surname=last name

Warning: 

The moment I let go of it was
The moment I got more than I could handle
The moment I jumped off of it was
The moment I touched down

Thank You-Alanis Morissette

It had been years since Cadence visited the library and she had no clue where to start.

The long aisles stacked with ancient books looked scary, and Mrs. Klutz, the now retired kindergarten teacher, sitting at the front desk was just as terrifying, there was no way she’d go up to her and ask for help.

“It’s Cadence, right?” A squeaky voice broke through her haze.

Cadence whipped around and blinked at the guy in front of her. There was nothing remotely interesting about him. He looked like the typical geek one always sees in movies, with glasses and all.

“Yes?” Cadence frowned, racking her brain, trying to figure out from where she knew him, if at all.

“I’m Matt. We were in same class in Grade 11. I don’t think you remember me,” the sudden smile in his green eyes made him a little more interesting.

“Hi, Matt,” Cadence returned his smile.

“So, are you working on a paper?” Her old classmate nodded at the heavy volume in her hands. It was an encyclopedia on Asian Mythology and she had no idea what had made her pick it out from the thousands of books on the shelves.

Cadence shook her head and Matt gave her a curious look.

“So?” He asked again, pushing up his glasses.

Cadence hesitated. She knew it was crazy and she was probably wasting her time looking for answers in history volumes. But with the way things were at home, she wasn’t going to go back to Sonja and beg for more details any time soon.

“I’m working on an ancestry project, and I needed information about my family. My mom doesn’t know much-” her voice faded.

“You won’t find it in history volumes. Your best bet is to check the family history archives,” Matt replied.

Cadence thanked him, but made no attempt to move on. She had no idea where the family history archives were.

“Come on, I’ll show you,” Matt offered as he took her hand and led her to the computer room located next to kiddies section. Suddenly she liked Matt, he was nice. Or maybe it was her gratitude talking.

Cadence was glad to see she wasn’t the only person in Twinbrook looking for long lost relatives; there were three other people in the room, their eyes were firmly glued to the screens in front of them while their fingers kept pounding away at their keyboards.

Matt hooked her up with a PC and logged her on to the Family History archives. He gave her a crash course on the site and demonstrated what each section was for, and how to print things out if she needed to. Unfortunately the library did not allow use of mass storage devices, their network had been badly compromised a few years ago.

Cadence didn’t mind at all, she wasn’t planning on printing out or saving anything really. She just wanted to know more about her father.

“Thank you Matt,” she squeezed his hand gently.

“Shout if you need anything,” he replied as he turned to leave.

Alone, Cadence felt anxious suddenly as she stared at her screen. A part of her told her she should leave it alone, it was done, Warrick Kent was dead, and no amount of research would bring him back. But another part wanted to know him; she wanted factual information about him, details not clouded by Sonja’s emotions.

She clicked on the “surname search” link on the left hand side menu, typed in Kent and hit the “search” button.

In seconds the screen returned her search results. There were numerous Kents, and the first twenty were not the ones she was looking for. She was on the fiftieth Kent when she remembered Sonja had told her Warrick wasn’t from Twinbrook, he was originally from Hidden Spring.

“Bright, Cadence,” she admonished herself as she cleared the results and loaded a new search using her own surname.

“Bingo,” she cried when the screen flashed only one result.

Cadence skimmed through her family tree and history; occasionally she’d spend a few moments staring at the pictures of her ancestors, searching for any resemblance.

The link on Sonja didn’t tell her anything new, but it corroborated her mom’s story about her fairytale love with Warrick.

Tears clouded her eyes when she saw her parents’ wedding pictures; they were the same ones she’d seen on Sonja’s album. She was sad to admit she looked nothing like Warrick. She was all Sonja, from the hair right to her eye color. She wondered if they would have been close if he was alive.

Her whole world stopped when she clicked on the archive titled “Sonja Youngblood’s fortieth” and saw group shots of Warrick posing with Luca and Julian…

“Of course!” She whispered to herself, wondering why everything kept pointing back to Luca.

She didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to give in to his mind games, but it looked like she was about to. She was ready to know the truth…