More than he could handle

Mr Scrivens made tea and brought it to Cyrus on a tray with two tablets. 

"Painkillers," he said, noticing Cyrus looking at them.

The apartment was exactly as Cyrus would have imagined. It was tidy and clean, almost to the point of obsessively so. There was no sign of a woman's touch to the place, as far as he knew Mr Scriven had never married.

There were pictures, friends and family he assumed, dotted around the walls. Mr Scrivens, who Cyrus couldn't bring himself to think of as 'John', smiled when he saw Cyrus looking at them.

"Memories," he said. "They're all an old man like me has left of his life."

The old man sat on a leather arm chair and Cyrus took the matching sofa, swallowed the two tablets and washed them down with tea.

"Mr Scrivens," he said. "You said you had pictures of my parents."

The old man's face lit up, "I did, didn't I. Let me see…" He moved to a small chest next to the television, opened it up adn rummaged around inside, eventually pulling out an old photo album.

Cyrus had never seen an actual photograph album before. Everything was online now. His adopted parents hadn't had too many pictures and those they did were kept online. When the old man handed the album to him, he held it reverently, as though it were an ancient relic.

"Go ahead, open it," he said, sitting himself next to Cyrus on the sofa.

The cover was brown leather, padded with something. He opened it slowly, afraid it would break. Inside was a page wrapped in some kind of cellophane, beneath the cellophane a picture. 

It was a much younger Mr Scrivens and three other people. A younger woman, a younger man and another woman, who must have been the same age as Scrivens. 

"That's me," Mr Scrivens said, pointing to his younger self. "That's Greta and that's your mother, Abigail."

Cyrus' heart skipped a beat when he saw his mother for the first time. She was young, not much older than he was now. She had the same colour hair as he did, the same nose and was smiling a genuinely happy smile.

Next to her, a man, tall and handsome, instead of smiling for the camera, was smiling at her.

"That's your father," Mr Scrivens said, though Cyrus barely needed him to say it. "Daniel."

Daniel and Abigail. He looked at his parents smiling and happy in the picture. "It's funny to think that if not for a drunk driver, they'd be here now," Cyrus said sadly.

It looked as though they'd been photographed in movement, on the way to something. Instead of asking any questions he flicked the page over in silence. Then the next, then the next.

"What do you mean, a drunk driver?" Mr Scrivens asked, his face had gone white. 

"The crash," Cyrus replied.

Scrivens screwed up his forehead, making him look older than ever. "Your parents didn't die in a crash, Cyrus."

A feeling of numbness spread down Cyrus. Anxiety churned in his stomach. "What do you mean?" He said defensively. 

"Who told you that?" 

"My parents, I mean my adopted parents."

They sat and stared at each other for a few moments, neither one willing to break the silence. Eventually Mr Scrivens looked away, blew out a held breath.

"They were killed, Cyrus," he said quietly. "The police never found the person. Apparently a robbery, but I don't think they really looked very hard."

Shock hit Cyrus like a truck. Murdered? That couldn't be right. Mr Scrivens was wrong, his parents had told him it was a car crash. Why would they lie?

"Perhaps they wanted to protect you from the truth," Scrivens said, as though he'd read Cyrus' mind.

He nodded quietly, not trusting his voice and turned back to the photo album.

The book was full of pictures, two or three to a page. Mostly of the same four people, though sometimes with others. There were pictures of them at barbecues, in the garden, at the beach. 

The ones he liked best were the ones where they were playing poker, or some other board games, in this very apartment, just the four of them. They always looked happy, comfortable in each other's company.

When he was finished Cyrus felt drained. He wasn't sure what to feel. Now that he had seen them, he wished he'd known them. And to learn how they'd died like this. It was too much.

The pain had subsided in his side and Cyrus knew he had to do something about Thalia. "Thanks for showing me," he said, giving the book back to Mr Scrivens.

He needed someone who could navigate whatever murky mess he'd found himself embroiled in.

He immediately thought of Eugene Coyle, the strange man and his friends who had come to see the tree. He'd hinted at magical knowledge and had known immediately what Thalia was. Perhaps he could help.

"I have to go." Cyrus finished his tea in one long gulp and handed the cup to Mr Scrivens. "I need to find Thalia."

Scrivens put the cup and the book on the sofa next to himself, stood with Cyrus. "Do you want help?" 

He looked completely serious and Cyrus was grateful for the offer, but he couldn't ask that of him. He shook his head. "Thank you, no, it's fine. I have an idea what to do."

"Well, if you need anything, or even if you just want to chat, you know where I am."

Mr Scrivens led him to the door and he half-limped out, his pains mere dull aches now.

He went into his own apartment and looked up a map of the city, entered the address of the bookshop and traced a route to it. It was getting dark, but he was hoping to catch Mr Coyle before he shut up shop for the night.

Before he left, an idea struck him. He went down into the garden, put his hand to the tree.

'Tree,' he thought. 'Can you hear me?'

No answer came, the tree was silent. HE could still feel the faint thrum of power pulsing away at it's heart, but there was no booming voice to blast his mind.

'Tree?'

Nothing.

'Thalia, if you can hear me, I'm coming for you. Hold on.'

With a lingering glance at the tree and thoughts of murdered parents and kidnapped friends racing around his mind, Cyrus left the building and set off into the city, unsure what he was going to find at The Arcanist's Tales. One thing was clear however, he needed help. This adventure was becoming more than he could handle.