“A maiden from the mist,” he said, his hand was almost at her shoulder.
Riley heard another voice, deeper, call out, “Donahue.”
The boy winced and gazed at her without touching her, his hand still so close she could feel the heat from his skin.
She started to speak, but stopped, drawn to his heat, and touched her hand to his. The shock of his skin against hers rippled through her, and she saw him smile and look wonderingly at his hand. She thought she saw bright white light glow briefly at his fingertips as he brought his hand to his lips, but the library’s lights began sputtering in sporadic waves, and footsteps sounded emphatically near the doors.
“Go and come again,” he said and his hand went to the lantern to dim its light.
The hinges creaked on the door behind her, and she willed herself to be in her room. Again there was the sensation of falling until she no longer felt dizzy.
The light was brighter and her eyes had to adjust to the lamp light at her shoulder. Her room was warmer. She sat up, and Belle gave her a contemptuous look.
Riley pulled the long gown up to her knees and opened the journal again. She flipped through the pages, stopping when she saw the smudged drawing Sean had done of a woman standing, looking back over her shoulder. Riley gasped. It was her gown. It was her startled face. Sean had seen her. She was the girl he was seeking in his journal, the one she’d read about this whole time. She was his maiden of mist.
15
Riley sat looking at the picture Sean had drawn in the journal. How had she projected into the past? She needed to get back there, but she wanted someone to know what she was doing. If she didn’t come back …
Immediately, she thought of Eric.
She knew escaping before Brown had seen her was more luck than skill, and she didn’t want to chance it. So, now what?
The purring cat beside her had chosen to begin cleaning herself and was licking her black paw. There were bursts of light bubble out with each lick. Riley rubbed at the goose bumps on her arms. She hadn’t once used the hag stone to look since the kitchen. She had forgotten to look at the library walls.
Riley closed the journal and rushed off the bed. She dug into the damp pocket of her jeans and pulled the hag stone out. She slid it onto her right ring finger and tried to coax Belle off the bed.
“Here, kitty, kitty. Here, Belle.”
The cat took another lick, jumped off the bed, and sped past her beyond the doorway.
Riley followed. The hallway was dark again. If her grandpa was working on the phone lines, the lights could be out too so he wouldn’t accidentally mess with a power line.
Riley felt along the walls for a switch and found none. She remembered the holes in the floor and went back to her room. It was dangerous to go without light. She had kept the flashlight he’d had given her that first night by her bed. She retrieved it and started back out toward the library.
The flashlight shone brighter than she expected. Riley aimed it ahead and followed Belle toward the library, stepping over the rotted plank and avoiding the uneven warping to the far left. The cat sat waiting outside the library doors, swishing her tail and scratching against the wood.
“We’re going in. Be patient.” Riley pushed the doors open and turned off her flashlight.
The waning sunset outside still gave off enough light without the chandeliers, but Riley wondered over to the couch to look for the switch. She turned, flipped it, and smiled when the lights flickered to life. Belle jumped up on the couch and walked the ridge of the back, keeping her green gaze fastened to Riley.
“You’re kind of creeping me out, Belle.”
The cat meowed and leapt onto the ottoman beside the leather reading chair. From there she slunk over to the stair case and sat on the first step, watching.
Riley pictured the kitchen below her, realizing that the door to the outside was below the wall where the fireplace was.
“This wall,” she said and peered through the hag stone. She saw the same grid from the kitchen. Looking still through the hole, Riley walked over to the wall and flattened her palm against its surface. It was warm. Her hand stilled at the left of the grid where the red lines were brightest. Lowering the hag stone, she focused on feeling the wall and saw it swell outward like it had taken a breath.
She tried to see her hand as sand again but was distracted by the heat at her fingers. It felt just as it had when Eric had touched each of his fingertips to hers, only the tingle traveled the length of her body like the touch she had shared with Sean.
“Sean?” Her hands splayed against the wall. She took away the hag stone and tried to see without it. Her eyes strained to see the grid. Nothing. Riley let her eyes go slack and watched the wall blur into wide strokes, concentrated into smaller points near the corner. The shape of a man came into focus.
A rhyming verse her father had made her memorize came back to her and she repeated it now. “Open to me, free to me within these walls as said. For time is slow and life is fast when blood and wine run red.”
She reached toward the wall where the image’s right hand would be, watching her own dissolve into thousands of grains again and merge with the stones.
A hand grasped hers. Cold lips brushed against the back of her hand before she was pushed away and forced out of the wall.
“I’m not leaving you,” she said and pushed back, this time getting her arm farther in. She felt fabric and skin as she reached. He was alive. Sean was alive.
“Riley!”
Her grandpa’s voice startled her and she jerked away from the wall. Her arm reformed and became flesh again. Her grandpa clutched his chest and sucked at the air. She hurried to face him.
“I can exp—Oh, my god. Grandpa! What’s wrong?”
“Call ...vAileen,” he gasped and fumbled in his pocket. Riley helped him to the couch and opened the bottle of pills he pulled out. He swallowed a few and leaned back, pointing to the old phone sitting on the shelf above the globe. “Call…”
“Oh, Grandpa, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I didn’t mean to scare you. God, I’m so sorry. Please be okay. Please, Grandpa. I’m so sorry.” Riley grabbed for the phone and knocked it off the shelf. She cursed herself for being so clumsy and held it up. “I don’t know the number.”
“Press the green button.” His words were faint, but clear.
Riley prayed for Aileen to pick up. When she did, Riley sobbed into the phone. “Thank God. Aileen, this is Riley. I think Grandpa’s having a heart attack.”
* * *
Riley sat in the cramped waiting room, twisting the hag stone around her fingers. She had rubbed red rings around them and continued twirling it until Aileen’s husband reached across the cluttered coffee table and put a cold hand on hers.
Eric sat beside her, his arms locked in an awkward cross that had his hands touching his back. He kept looking at her and darting his gaze back to the desk where one nurse was filling out paperwork. In front of her, Aileen sat motionless, staring unblinking at the double doors that led to the operating room.
“Carter is a strong old man.” William lifted his wife’s hand and held it between his. “He’ll be dancing a jig through those doors come tomorrow, no?”
“I should have made him see a doctor days ago when I saw him clutch at his chest. I lied to myself that it was just anxiety over Riley. I should have made him.” Aileen covered her eyes with one hand and clutched at her own chest with the other.
“No. It’s all my fault.” Riley faced Aileen and William. “I knew he didn’t feel well, but I ignored it, being selfish about my, um,” she paused and thought, “my new gifts. And getting obsessed with finding Dad and Sean.”
“No, girl, it wasn’t you that was obsessed. Carter brought you over here for that very reason.” William nodded at Eric. “Son, will you get your mother a drink over there? Take Riley with you, stretch your legs.”
They got up, Eric leading the way. He didn’t speak until they were on their way
back with a paper cup of water.
“He’s not going to die, you know.” Eric halted in the hallway.
Riley peered in and caught sight of Aileen leaning on William’s shoulder.
Eric put a hand on her shoulder. “I have far-seeing, and I know he’s not.”
“You mean like knowing the future?”
He nodded. “Yes, something very like. It’s not perfect, but as it stands now, he won’t die.”
Riley was afraid to meet his gaze. “I didn’t want any of this.” She gestured around and then held up the hag stone in her palm. “This, what is this? Why did I get sucked in?”
“You’re not sucked in, Riley. You were born to it, and it’s good, not bad. Remember what your father told you?” Eric patted her shoulder and sloshed liquid from his cup onto the stone. “You can’t deny what you are anymore than I can. We’re different, yes, but it’s worth it.”
“Worth it?” Riley took a breath and lowered her voice. “Worth it? He might be dead. My Grandpa might be die because of it, because of me.”
She turned away to avoid crying again.
“Riley.” Eric grabbed her hand and made her face him. “Look at me. He’s not going to die. And magic didn’t cause this.”
He pulled her hand up to his chest and flattened it over his heart.
“This is a very human condition. If my heart breaks, it’s not a fault to lay at the feet of magic.” He looked into her eyes, and she blushed.
Guilt gnawed at her. She thought of Sean’s touch and how it had felt. She tried to figure out what she was feeling now as Eric’s hand pressed against hers. She could feel the force of his heartbeat against her palm.
“Where then?” Riley refused to meet his gaze.
“At my own awkward feet, Miss, my own awkward feet.” He dropped her hand and walked quickly back to the waiting area.
Riley stood gathering her thoughts. She leaned against the slick wall between the bathroom doors and fanned at her face. She felt tired and weak, helpless and homesick. A wave of dizziness crashed into her skull and her vision blurred. Riley steadied herself, holding on to the doorknob to the men’s bathroom, fighting against passing out.
The sound of footsteps neared. Riley blinked at the flashing colors reaching toward her but never touching her. Suddenly, the dizziness passed, and nausea welled up and out. She heaved, and finding nothing to expel, gagged and choked on antiseptic air.
Someone stopped in front of her. “Everything will be okay, girlie.”
Riley followed the white shoes up white legs and settled on the carmine sweater tied loosely around the woman’s neck. Swaths of color shimmered around the woman’s grey hair. An aura with many colors.
“Emma? You’re glowing colors.”
A smile reached the woman’s two mismatched eyes.
“So are you, my dear, so are you.”
16
“What happened, girl?” William’s face wouldn’t stay put on his head. It warbled left and right, floating in front of a steady blue glow. He touched her wrist and asked, “Better?”
Riley nodded and the nausea returned. She groaned.
“Just lie still. It will pass.” William rubbed something oily on her temples. “This always helps me when I get the woozies. Sure cure. Little Ylang Ylang, patchouli, and peppermint blend.”
“Where’s Emma?” Riley closed her eyes against the blue light and put the back of her hand over her mouth.
“Emma?”
“Carter’s friend.” Eric’s voice cracked. “The one who sent Belle, I’m guessing, and gave her the seeing stone.”
“We haven’t seen anyone else, just you passed out against the men’s bathroom door.” William lifted Riley’s arm. “Can you hold that there?”
“Yes.” Riley moved her other hand from her mouth and sat up. They helped her into the waiting room. She lowered herself into the same chair she had been in earlier and closed her eyes again. “I’m okay.”
“What did you see? This Emma person, did she do something to you?”Aileen hissed, leaning toward Riley.
“No, I thought you knew her. Don’t you? She’s the nurse with the red sweater tied at her shoulders.” Riley risked opening one eye and then the other. Aileen’s purple glow startled her and she gripped the chair arms.
Aileen glanced around. “Never saw her. You okay?”
“What is it, girl?” William scooted forward, and Riley winced at the brilliant blue surrounding him.
“I see you all in color.” Riley squinted at Eric and saw pulsing green shot through with rays of amber enveloping him. “Without the stone.”
“If we were in black and white, then I’d worry.” William laughed, only to be cut off by a touch from Aileen.
“What color?”Aileen asked.
“You’re purple. He’s blue as it gets,” she pointed to William, “and Eric is green with gold in it, like your eyes were in the stone.”
“Look at me, Riley.” Aileen held up her hand and showed her undulating fingers. “What do you see?”
Riley watched for a second.
“Points of white. I hit my head harder than I thought, didn’t I?” Riley tried to joke, “Don’t worry, I won’t go into the light.”
“Actually, that’s exactly what you’ll do.” Aileen clasped her hands together, and Riley shied away from the sparks. Aileen dropped her voice to a whisper, “Tell us what happened at the castle. Carter kept saying your name over and over. I first thought it was his worry for you, but something else happened, didn’t it?”
Riley looked over to the nurse. There were no colors there except the coral lipstick that was poorly painted on her lips. She whispered back to Aileen, “I reached into the wall.”
“What wall? In the kitchen?”
“No, in the library.”
“How? Why?”
“Sean is in there.”
Aileen leaned closer. “And how do you know that?”
Riley could feel the red rising from her chest to her neck and registering on her face.
“How do you know, girl?” Aileen repeated, staring into her eyes. Her purple intensified, radiating over the sitting area.
“Because ... I don’t know, okay? I’m just pretty sure it’s him. Someone is there. Whoever it was gripped my hand and tried to push me out.”
“Of the wall?”
“Yes.” Riley’s voice rise an octave and she tried to calm herself. “Why does reaching into a wall freak you out? The rest of it is so normal!”
The nurse stood over the desk and shushed them. Eric gave a chortle of nervous laughter and uncrossed his arms.
“She’s got you there, Mum. You can’t just expect her to fondly practice the little things, play at magic and have tea. If what Sam said was true, she needs to know everything she can to go up against this Brown person, and if she wants to pull people out of walls, so be it. Besides, I taught her to play with stone. Rest your blame on me.”
He rose slightly, and Riley walked over to him and patted his shoulder. He gave her a half smile. He turned to Aileen who stood.
Aileen closed her eyes and spoke slowly from clenched teeth. “She needs knowledge before she goes willy nilly messing in magic.”
“Calm down, Aileen.” William pulled her back into her chair. “The girl didn’t do anything wrong. And neither did you, son.”
He looked at Riley. “It’s going to be okay, girl. And don’t get it into your head that what happened to Carter was your fault. It wasn’t, okay? No one is blaming you.”
Her breath caught remembering her grandfather’s ashen face and her fumbling mess at trying to help him. Grief rose in her chest. It tore at her heart, clogged her throat, and burned her eyes until she let the tears fall.
She mumbled something unintelligible and ran to the ladies room. Inside, more sterile and cold furniture lined the wall across from the toilet. Two chairs and a low table with a long mirror above them were grouped near the door. Riley sat sobbing when the door opened and Aileen walked in
, crying too. Her mascara branched into several tributaries on her cheeks.
“I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just got worked up over your admission there about seeing the colors. That’s what I do, see the colors around people, their aura, if you like, but what you are talking about seems slightly different, like an ability to see people’s actual power reveal itself. You’re making gains, and I’m worried we won’t be able to help you. And maybe that something will go wrong.” She started toward Riley and stopped, wiping at her eyes. “And I know how you must feel. Carter is like a father to me. If he, if he …” Aileen broke off, weeping loudly.
Riley stood and hugged her.
“It’s okay, Aileen,” Riley soothed. “I know.”
Someone knocked on the door.
“In a second,” Riley called and went to the sink to wash her face. Aileen stood beside her and toweled at her ruined make-up.
“William has gone to see who’s on call today. Since it’s Saturday, he thinks he knows two of the doctors working.” She dabbed at her raccoon eyes, smearing the eye shadow into the mascara. “He may be able to go back. He used to be a doctor here.”
“Oh.” Riley remembered the calm examination he had done the first time she met him.
“He’s a natural healer. We rarely have to go for meds.” Aileen smiled. “He said he tried some healing on Carter before he got here, and he thinks he’ll be fine. I do trust William to know. It’s just, well, faith is a hard thing.”
She opened her arms and gathered Riley to her chest.
“I’m sorry, dear. Want to get out of here and get something to drink?”
“Yes, please.”
Aileen hugged her again, almost dancing her away from the sink like her mom sometimes did when she got good news. Riley again felt empty, missing her mother badly, especially now, with her grandpa lying rooms away fighting for his life.
Shadows and Sorcery: A Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 249
