“I think so. First, I need you to practice manipulating your own breath. Like this.” He puffed rings like a smoker would and turned to her. “It’s all in imagining how you want it to look. The hard thing is manipulating them once they’re out.”
The rings became hearts and then dissipated.
Riley smiled. She focused her breathing, filled her lungs, and blew softly. Spheres popped out like little planets.
“Good. You’re silver quick, I’ll give you that. Now make them do something.”
Nothing happened.
“Try, go on.”
Again, nothing. “Dang it.”
The spheres wobbled and exploded. Riley jumped back, and Eric threw up a protective arm.
“Saints! What happened? Couldn’t you make them move?”
“I don’t know. I was trying to think of what I could do with them, and I got frustrated and wished I could just blow them up and start all over.”
“Just blow them up?” Eric laughed and pulled a twig out of his hair. “You destroyed that low-hanging branch.” He pointed to the stub at the end of the limb. “We’ll come back to that.”
“Okay, now what?”
“Got any other metal, other than those do-dids?” He nodded to her necklace.
“Not really.” Riley felt around her body. “Wait, I have a metal button on my jeans.”
“I, uh,” Eric stammered. “D-d don’t you want to keep that latched?”
Eric’s face flamed, and she blushed. “It’s just for decoration. See? Not needed.”
“Oh, well, then. That’s okay.” He dug the toe of his shoe into the mud.
“Here.” She forced the tiny clasp into his hand. “What do you do with it?”
“I’m going to expose its morph-ability. You have to know what it can and cannot do. I am going to concentrate on fashioning this into a small slug, bullet, I mean. How’s that for over-the-top impressive?” He warmed the metal between his palms and shook it as though he were playing dice. “Watch.”
He opened his fist and tossed the metal into the air. It hung suspended, a perfect brass bullet. Eric expelled the breath he had been holding, and the bullet dropped into his hand.
“Here, you work it back to its original shape.” He passed it to her and crossed his arms.
“How do I do that?” She peered at the bullet. It was hard to imagine it had ever been anything else.
“Can you see it in your mind?”
“Not exactly. I didn’t think about it.”
“Then you have to trust yourself to feel it into form. How it should be, not how it was.” He uncrossed his arms and brought her hands together. “Just envision it.”
Riley tried to picture the metal clasps that she held, but her mind kept going back to the nail she had twisted.
“Here, I can’t do it.” Riley dropped the metal into his hand. It paused in the air, flattened slightly, narrowing, and landed a shiny nail.
“Did you mean to do that? You were just putting me on, Miss.” Eric twirled the nail between his thumb and forefinger.
“No, I was just thinking of that nail I twisted.”
The nail in his hand wobbled back into a bullet.
She felt deflated. “Crap.”
“That’s okay. Sometimes, it doesn’t last. But you can use metal to do locating or projecting. You need something that has been a part of the place you want to be. For example, I could use this metal to find you if I wanted to.” He covered it between his hands and stood, staring off into space for a few minutes.
“What are you doing?” Riley waved a hand in front of his face. “Yoo-hoo?”
“I was putting energy into the metal, making it a thing of power so that if I wanted to project with it, it will bring me to wherever you happen to be, or at least to your pants.”
Riley giggled, and Eric blushed again. He slipped the bullet into his coat pocket.
“Moving on. There is one other thing we could try.” He led her over to the edge of the woods and pulled a withered leaf from an oak tree. “Living tissue. For instance, this hearty wood. Basically, what can be known is …” He stopped.
Riley heard a branch snap. Eric backed away, pushing her behind him.
“What is it?” she whispered, feeling the adrenaline course through tired limbs, readying herself for flight.
The brush began to rustle. Eric pulled something ivory from his pocket. A blade shot out as he held it at ready.
“Meow.”
The small underbrush parted and a white cat stood half in, half out of the forest, its front paws dingy and caked slightly with mud.
Relieved, Riley leaned into Eric, all her strength gone.
She straightened back up. She was shaking, she realized, and she tried to hide her trembling hands behind her back.
“Meow?” The cat looked up at them imploringly, licking its whiskers and blinking its green eyes.
“I think it’s hungry.” Eric parted the branches of the oak and looked into the forest. “And alone.”
He retracted the blade and put the knife away. Riley knelt beside the cat and let it sniff at her hand. It didn’t back away. It stared steadily at her and then licked her knuckles once before returning its gaze to her face.
“Are you lost, poor baby?” Riley put both her hands under its front legs and lifted it out of the brush. She cradled it to her chest and stroked its head and back. “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”
“Would soothe me, sure enough.” Eric laughed and wiped at his forehead.
Riley noticed the fine beads of sweat on his face. “You were pretty brave there, Eric.”
“Truth be told, I was scared to death. I thought for sure we had revealed ourselves. We do need to be more careful. I shouldn’t have had you out here in the open like this. Next time, we practice at my house. Thank God this time it was only a cat.” He gave it a tentative pat, but his hand trembled.
“She’s sweet, isn’t she? See how she nuzzles right into my neck?”
The cat burrowed its cold nose under her chin, and she cuddled it closer. “Let’s take her back to the castle and give her some food.”
“Okay, Miss. I could use some myself. And a bath wouldn’t be in the way of hurting either.”
She smiled, already headed back toward the castle with purpose. “A nice hot bath would do us good.”
Eric grinned and jogged to catch up with her. “I meant for the cat. See how dingy she is? One of her back paws is completely black. Must have stepped in some, uh, unpleasantness.”
Riley stopped walking and jostling the cat and paused to held up its back legs. It squirmed and meowed at being handled, but didn’t try to escape. Riley’s breath caught in her throat.
“Belle?”
* * *
“It can’t be the same cat your Emma whatshername was talking about.” Eric glanced at the sleeping cat curled up by the kitchen’s fireplace. They were alone in the kitchen. Her grandpa and Aileen were gone and so was the purple car.
“She said one of her cats, Belle, had one black paw.” Riley rolled her eyes and grabbed some food from the fridge. “There can’t be that many cats on the whole of Ireland, let alone white with a black paw that shows up where we are. I mean, what are the odds she’d be here? But where’s Emma?”
She pulled the chunks of lamb apart from the container of leftovers, separating the strings of meat into bite-sized pieces, and laid it at the cat’s feet. The cat didn’t acknowledge the food. Riley sat down across from Eric at the dining table.
“Call her name again and see if she comes.” Eric rested his elbows on the table and cupped his chin with both hands. His eyes were red and watery, and he kept rubbing them.
They were both too tired for solving puzzles.
“We’ve tried that.” She didn’t know what else to do. She reached for a napkin and wiped her hands. “You watch her. Don’t let her go off, okay?”
“Okay.” He yawned, and Riley patted him on the back.
“You’re a g
ood guy,” she said when he looked up. “Thank you.”
“Thanks, Miss.” He blushed and looked uncomfortable.
“Call me Riley.”
“Yes, Miss. Riley, I mean.” He grinned and winked a red eye. “Habit.”
“K. I’ll be right back.”
Riley hurried up the stairs to her room. She hadn’t made the bed, and her clothes and luggage littered the floor. For a moment she was blank, trying to recall where she had put the stone Emma had given her.
“The music box,” she murmured to herself, glad not to have to look for it. She grabbed the box off the dresser and rushed back down to the kitchen.
Eric was dozing at the table, his dark head pillowed on his arm, his face half hidden by a shock of hair that curled over his cheek. Riley came in softly and sat in the wooden chair by the fireplace. The cat swished its tail, purring. It raised its head slightly and lifted its right front paw in question.
“You can go back to sleep,” Riley whispered. The cat closed its eyes and curled itself into a tight ball on the rug. It was like it understood. Then again, all cats were magic, weren’t they?
Riley didn’t want to disturb the cat or Eric, but she fumbled with the latch on the music box. She concentrated her energy on making the latch open for her, like her dad said she could. She pressed her thumb over the metal and willed it to unlatch. When it did, the sound reverberated in the room. Harp music swelled out. She shut the lid quickly, but it was too late. Eric roused up, his eyes darting around the room.
“Where’d you go?” Eric’s voice was low and thick. His chin dug into his forearm as he yawned. “I think I fell asleep. My poor constitution has been plagued heavily by the events of the day.”
“Maybe your constitution needs a nap. Sorry about that. And this.” Riley lifted the lid and let the harp sounds steal out into the warm kitchen. She took out the stone, encircling it on her middle finger and showing it to Eric.
“Where did you get that?” Eric sat upright, his puffy eyes wide awake.
“Emma gave it to me. She said I needed it because I couldn’t do something or other.” Riley closed the box and held the stone up between her thumb and forefinger. “She looked through it like this.”
Riley brought it to her eye, closed the other, and peered through it. She looked down at the sleeping cat. It stretched and sat up. “I don’t see anything different.”
“Look over here,” Eric said, tapping the table.
She turned at his voice. He was standing now, holding onto the table. Slowly, she began to see green lines weaving around his face, traveling down the length of his body, and sparking like static-charged socks.
“Do you see me clearly? See my aura?” He waved his arms around and the lines looked like sparklers on the Fourth of July.
Riley swallowed hard. His face still had the sharp-boned look of a gangly teenager, but his eyes glowed, casting golden lights onto his skin. Riley watched him bring a hand to his cheek to brush back his hair and saw his fingertips erupt in the same golden light his eyes showed.
“What are you doing?” Riley whispered, lowering the stone. He looked different. He had an air of power about him that she had noticed.
“Nothing. You are just seeing what was already there, poor constitution aside. It’s my aura. We all have one. Yours is interesting too. Even animals have them.” Eric laughed softly and pointed at the cat sitting on its haunches and meowing plaintively. “Look again. See past the surface.”
The cat appeared the same. Riley started to pull the stone away when a burst of bright white light came out of its mouth. The light bubbled over the cat like a shield, a moveable shield that shifted with each swish of its tail. It stood and arched, kicking its back black paw to shake off the stretch. As it did, the light became brighter, larger, encompassing Riley, Eric, and most of the room.
The kitchen door opened, and Aileen and her grandpa walked in. The bubble the cat had conjured wavered and was gone. Riley put the stone back in her pocket.
“She protected us!” Eric’s voice was full of amazement. “The cat actually just shielded the whole kitchen.”
He turned to Aileen and her grandpa. “That cat is a guardian!”
“I thought I saw light.” Aileen walked over to the cat and picked her up. “You come to aid us, did you now, wee lassie?”
Her grandpa looked puzzled. “I don’t have your affinity for auras and such, Aileen, but I don’t sense any particular magic about the cat.”
“Perhaps that’s because she’s not using it right now, are you baby? Hmm?” Aileen purred deep in her throat and nuzzled the cat. “Oh, you’re precious.”
Eric rolled his eyes. “Mum, I think you and I should take our leave.”
He raised his eyebrows and inclined his head toward Riley. Aileen sighed.
“Yes, Eric, you’re right. You look tired, love. You okay?”
He nodded, and Aileen transferred the cat into Riley’s lap. “If you need me, dear, I’ll be at the shop. You look like you need some rest too. What did you two get up to?”
“Nothing,” they both said in unison.
Aileen grinned. “I see. Carter—"she addressed him as she joined Eric at the door, “I think we need to set up a practice for Riley. Or she’ll be going behind our backs, getting into trouble, methinks.”
“Yes, she’s like me that way, in a hurry to know things.”
Aileen looked steadily at him. “She’s right though, Carter. Time is not on our side.”
Eric nudged her and pointed to the hag stone in her hand.
Riley put the stone back to her eye and looked first at Aileen. The lines around her were a constant purple, woven in a tight web all over her body. Her eyes however, had the same amber glow as Eric’s, and her fingers pulsed with an almost white light that made Riley look away. She turned her gaze on her grandfather.
There were a few lines crisscrossed around her grandpa’s body. A faint yellow interwoven with a dull red followed like two veins down his left arm and ended there with only a weak charge at his forefinger where he touched it to his pocket watch. Behind him, her eye was drawn to the brilliant red lines converging into a thick grid on the kitchen’s only stone wall.
“Why does the wall have power?” Riley twirled Emma’s stone on her finger and directed her gaze to her grandpa and Aileen who were studying her intently. Eric squinted at the wall and shrugged. “I don’t see anything. Maybe you saw an old power grid. Many masons put magic into their work.”
Aileen shut the door and faced the stone wall. “Wait. What do you mean, power?”
“It has lines just like you all do. Only bright red in like a plaid formation. You know, like a grid or something, like Eric said.” Riley stopped twirling the stone
“Let me see that.” Her grandpa looked through the stone. “I don’t see anything. Here, Aileen.”
Aileen squinted. “No, nothing. Here.” She passed the stone back to Riley. “Let me touch the wall. Maybe I can get a reading.”
No one spoke as Aileen concentrated on the wall. She pressed herself flat, eyes closed, her cheek and palms touching the rough surface. Eric barely made a sound as he joined Riley. His hand found hers. He took the hag stone out of her grip and stared at the wall.
Aileen shook her head as she pulled back from the stone. “I can’t definitively say that I feel anything. Stone is so slow to read. That is, its properties tend to dull our senses with its density.” Aileen kept her hand moving along the wall until she reached a tiny fissure running up through toward the second floor. “Wait.”
Everyone stilled their movements again, except Eric. He looked through the hole at the fissure, following it up to the rafter.
“I think I see part of what Riley saw.” Eric continued to gaze up. “But, it’s, uh, it’s gone now.”
“What do you mean, gone?” Riley jerked the stone back and looked. She could see faint lines fading but still visible on the stone. The only bright spot was nearer the ceiling, like the light was trav
eling some pattern or path.
Aileen nodded. “I thought I felt something, but, like Eric said, it’s gone.”
“What was it? Grandpa? What’s above the kitchen?”
“The library, but I’ve been there working for a few months. I’ve neither felt nor seen anything like you describe.” He glanced at Aileen. “What did you feel?”
“It could have been nothing, or wishful thinking, but I felt, it’s hard to explain. I felt a kind of restlessness maybe?” She shrugged. “I’m sorry. I can’t be sure. I’ve been less myself these past days. If only your father was here.”
Riley looked at Aileen’s eyes. There were dark circles around them, and they looked sad.
Riley took a deep breath. “I have to tell you something. I found him, Dad, and I know how to reach him.”
14
Her grandpa hadn’t stopped shaking his head since Riley told them about her father and what he had said.
“Brown? This is worse than I let myself think.” Her grandpa rubbed at his eyes. “I really did serve Sean up to him that night.”
“We don’t know that,” Aileen broke in, rubbing his shoulders. “Sam just said that the trail was dead here, right?”
Riley tried to recall exactly what her dad said. “Yes. There was nothing more.”
“What about the letter?” Eric asked.
“I still can’t believe you brought something back.” Aileen faced Riley. “It’s so rare a thing you’ve done. Only other I knew was your Da’ Sam and a great grandfather of mine who said he could go back in time, though the only proof he had was a vial of dried ink he swore he had taken from a Jeffrey in the mid-1300s, if you can believe it.”
“Don’t,” Eric said, looping one finger in a circle beside his temple. “He was a literary loon, but a loon, nonetheless. He never met Chaucer, Mum.”
Aileen put her hands on her hips. “Oh, you know, do you? You were there, I suppose. Never you mind. We’ll not bother the arguing of it now, son. Riley, dear, we’ll be letting you read your letter. Don’t want to wear out our welcome. But we’ll be back to work with you tomorrow. You both need some rest.”
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