The conclusion to Part 1.
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The scene Peter stumbled upon in the barn was a punch to the gut, and it turned his blood to ice. Joseph had a shotgun trained on his daughter who was kneeling on the dirt floor, her hands up in a defensive position. A flashlight lay on the ground, casting long harsh shadows of the two of them on the opposite wall.
"You don't want to do this. Put the gun down, Joseph," Elisa said calmly, but Peter could see the fear in her eyes. They darted quickly over to him as soon as he stepped into the barn, and the fear turned to hope.
"You're just like her," Joseph seethed, and he put his finger on the trigger.
"No!" Peter cried out, and he threw himself in front of his daughter and between Joseph and his shotgun.
"Get out of the way, boy!" Joseph barked.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Peter shouted.
And then a figure appeared in front of Peter. Solid this time. She stared coldly down the barrel of Joseph's shotgun.
Elisa stood up from where she had been kneeling and put her hands on her father's arm.
"It's her!" she said amazed.
"You see her, too?" Peter said shocked by all of the events that were unfolding.
"No! It can't be!" Joseph yelled, and he stumbled and tripped, falling backwards. He squeezed the trigger of the shotgun, and it went off with a loud roar, spraying buckshot into the frame of the barn behind and off to the side of where Elisa and her father were standing. It left a large hole in the wall as wood splintered off in a wild spray, but no one was hurt.
The shotgun fell from his hands and onto the ground, and he gasped in shock.
"It can't be," Joseph cried weakly from where he lay.
Peter dove forward and grabbed the shotgun from where it had landed, then he swiftly unloaded it with practiced hands.
"Are you alright?" he asked as he gathered Elisa up in his arms and held her fiercely.
"Yeah, I'm fine, Dad," Elisa said as she hugged him back. "but...there's something you need to see."
She pulled away from her father and retrieved the flashlight from the ground and shined it down onto a freshly dug hole and the skeletal remains that lay inside it.
"Oh my god!" Peter uttered with disbelief. "Is that—"
Elisa nodded hesitantly. "Yeah, I think so."
He recognized the dress and the turquoise necklace, and then he turned and looked at the woman who stood before them. She gazed curiously and sadly down at the corpse in the dirt.
Peter gazed back at Joseph as everything fell into place. He didn't know how or why, but he knew the truth now. His mother hadn't run off. She had never left.
He handed Elisa the shotgun and stormed over to his uncle, rage and pain consuming him. He grabbed him by the front of his shirt with both hands and pulled the old man's torso up off the ground as he bent over him.
"All these years," he seethed through his teeth. "We all thought she had run off, but you killed her! Didn't you?!" He was shouting now.
Joseph gasped weakly, his mouth forming words he couldn't get out, and Peter realized it wasn't just from fright.
"Go inside. Call the police. Tell them we need an ambulance. I think he's having a heart attack," Peter ordered Elisa.
Elisa hesitated, not wanting to leave her father, and then she ran out of the barn and to the house.
His uncle looked up at him, his eyes wide, and he gasped repeatedly, making fish like movements with his mouth, and then he took one big gasping breath and lost consciousness.
"You're not getting off that easily!" Peter growled angrily as he laid him back down and checked his pulse and his breathing before he began CPR.
He continued for several minutes until the woman he had completely forgotten was even there spoke to him.
"He is gone, Peter Maza," she said gently, her voice otherworldly, and a distant part of his mind realized it was different from the voice he had heard before in the house.
He stopped compressions and sat down numbly in the dirt.
When Elisa returned to the barn after calling the tribal police, she found Peter staring up at the woman who had appeared so many times to them both the last few days.
"I know what you're thinking, child, and although the body in the ground is indeed your mother's, it is not mine," the woman said compassionately.
And then they both saw it. Although the woman before them shockingly resembled Carmen Maza, there were several differences. She was taller, the face shape was a little wider, the eyes more cat-eyed, and her ears were delicately pointed instead of round, but the resemblance was uncanny.
Elisa knelt behind her father and put her hands on him as she buoyed him up and took strength from him at the same time.
"Who are you?" Peter demanded.
"I have many names. Angwusnasomtaka. Tümas. Crow Mother."
"Crow Mother…" Peter said with disbelief. "Forty-five years ago, my mother performed the Bean Dance as the Crow Mother kachina the day she disappeared."
Crow Mother nodded.
"Your mother once took on my mantle, and with her faith she took a part of me into her. Her sudden and violent death made it so I could not get it back...until now," she replied. "Oberon's laws being what they are."
"Oberon's laws…" Elisa muttered. "You're one of Oberon's children then."
"I am."
"You were the one I kept seeing," Elisa said angrily. "You appeared to me several times over the last few days: at the bar…in the street...in my god-damn hotel room! I thought I was losing my mind!"
"I apologize for the brief, and what must have been frightening encounters," Crow Mother explained. "I was…evading those who were trying to force me back to Avalon before I could complete my task, and I could only appear irregularly for fleeting moments," Crow Mother explained.
"Let me guess…the Weird Sisters?" Elisa said.
Crow Mother inclined her head in admiration of her deductive skills.
"Indeed."
"So that was you who warned me that Elisa was in danger a few minutes ago back in the house?"
Crow Mother tilted her head to the side.
"That was not me, child."
"Then…who was that?" Peter asked, confused.
"You already know the answer to that," Crow Mother said kindly.
And Peter did know.
It had been his mother that time, after all, warning him that his daughter's life was in danger.
"Although the tether that has held her to this world has grown weak, she was able to manifest just long enough to warn you, out of the love she has for you."
"Is she…is she still here?" Peter asked tearfully.
"Yes…but just barely. She has fulfilled her task, and it is time for her to go."
"Could you…could you tell her I love her," Peter said, his voice breaking.
Elisa held her father tighter.
"She has heard you," Crow Mother said, and she tilted her head as if listening to someone, and Elisa could almost hear it. A soft whisper like wind in the leaves. "And she wants you to know that she would have never left you if it had been her choice."
Peter bowed his head with grief.
Crow Mother crouched down and reverently touched Carmen Maza's remains in the ground. A faint glow rose out of the earth and into the fae woman, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
"My task here is done...as is hers," she said. "I am sorry for the grief you have borne all these years, and for the grief that lies ahead of you. I wish you comfort in the coming days as you come to terms with the past."
Crow mother turned to leave and glanced back at Elisa and Peter.
"Coyote sends his regards, by the way," she said. "Though I doubt this is the last time his path or mine shall cross with yours," and then she disappeared, leaving a few black crow feathers in her wake that fluttered quietly to the ground.
They were alone now, just Elisa and her father, in the dark of night in the barn where the remains of Carmen Maza had lain hidden and buried for decades.
"My dad…" Peter said, breaking the silence, his voice thick with tears. "I thought he had driven her off. They would fight at times...and they had a really big fight the day before I thought she had left. I blamed him, and it took me until after he had passed to finally forgive him. It ruined our relationship...but it was Joseph's fault. I was robbed of years together with both my parents because of him."
"Oh, Dad…" Elisa said, and her own tears fell.
"She was here…this whole time," Peter said, and something inside him just...broke. He groaned and leaned forward as a sob broke free, and he wept.
Elisa threw her arms around him and tried to comfort him as they waited for the police to arrive.
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...
Crow Mother met Coyote up on a hill that overlooked Kykotsmovi Village.
"Thank you for keeping them off my back tonight," she said gratefully to her son.
"Hey, it was fun. The old birds are easy to goude," he said with a smirk. "Were you successful?"
"I was. Now we should return and face Oberon," Crow Mother said with a sigh. "Before our punishment grows worse."
It was then the three Weird Sisters appeared before them. Angry from the wild goose chase Coyote had kept them on that evening.
"Your antics are over now," Phoebe said angrily.
"Oberon awaits you," Seline said.
"It is time—" Luna began to say, and then her eyes grew wide, and her body went rigid as if someone had shocked her with an electric probe.
"She has returned," Luna said, her voice terrified.
Phoebe and Seline turned to their sister with stark fear on their faces.
And then they all vanished in a flash of fae-green light.
Crow Mother and Coyote turned to each other.
"Who has returned?" Coyote asked, and Crow Mother looked worriedly at him.
"I only recall one being who warranted such a reaction," she said. "And if she is free...we are all in very grave danger."
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One Week Later
Elisa remained in Arizona for several days beyond when she had planned to return to New York to help her parents as they dealt with the aftermath of finding her grandmother's remains and Joseph's death. The investigation was still underway, awaiting results from a forensic anthropologist, but cursory evidence pointed towards Carmen having been strangled to death.
Elisa couldn't help but think of the horrible dreams she'd had, and she knew their memory would linger with her for a long time.
After a longer absence than either of them had anticipated, Goliath and Elisa were reunited at last. He had glided over to her apartment the night she was meant to finally return, and waited with barely contained anticipation.
Elisa dumped her suitcase at the front door and flung herself into Goliath's arms just as soon as she had the door closed behind her.
"God, I missed you," she said as she held him tightly, her arms around his neck. The weight of his arms and wings felt comforting and reassuring around her.
"I cannot begin to express how relieved I am to have you back home," Goliath sighed into her hair as he held her tightly.
They held each other for several moments, feeling complete and whole once more.
"I'm really glad things were a lot calmer here while I was gone," Elisa said eventually, breaking the silence.
Goliath pressed his eyes closed in a grimace, and then he gently set Elisa down on her feet. She looked up at him with concern as she observed the look on his face. He did not want to tell her right now, to alarm her, or put more on her already full plate, but she was sure to find out eventually, and he did not want dishonesty to become a thing in their relationship.
He took a deep breath.
"There is something I need to tell you..."