by Alex Gordon
“You look so deep in thought.”
Lauren turned to Peter to find him eyeing her. “Trying to think of something to say. I’m guessing that the conversation would be different if I weren’t here.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Peter stirred the remains of his sorbet into mush. “More of the same ol’ same ol’. Sometimes I think we could use a little shake-up.”
Okay. You asked for it. Lauren set down her spoon. “I don’t know how to couch this, so I’m just going to say it. Yesterday. In Seattle. I saw a woman who—”
“Let me help.” Carmody pulled a wine bottle from a nearby ice bucket and refilled his glass, then Lauren’s. “You saw a shade of my missing wife.”
Lauren looked from Carmody to Peter, to the others. She expected pushback, argument. What she didn’t expect were the slow nods and matter-of-fact gazes, as though she had told them she had spotted a Steller’s jay or heard a western meadowlark singing in the garden.
“We’ve all seen Fernanda.” Peter pointed his spoon to the others. “I’ve seen her in New York. Chicago. Andrew? I recall you saying you encountered her in Paris.”
“Late last year, while crossing Le Pont Neuf.” Carmody massaged his ring finger at the spot where a wedding band would have been. “Her first photos were taken there. It was one of her favorite places.”
“I saw her in my apartment, in Seattle. She came to me a crone. She pointed to her face, then to mine.” Stef shrugged. “Perhaps she sought to insult me in the only way she had left to her.”
“So you assume she’s dead?” From the corner of her eye, Lauren saw Carmody set down his spoon and sit back, hands braced on the edge of the table.
“We have assumed that for quite some time.” Stef’s voice sounded soft, but careful, the tone of a doctor explaining a tricky diagnosis. “Fernanda was wild before she and Andrew married. It’s reasonable to suppose that she resumed her old ways after she left.”
“But wild ways are usually pretty public, and no one has seen her since . . . ten years ago.” Lauren paused as something she had read during her library search finally clicked. “Ten years ago this week.” She sensed the stillness, the held breath, as though the mood of the room were a stone that teetered on the edge of a cliff and needed just one more push to send it tumbling.
“No one has seen her alive, no. There have been rumors, but aren’t there always?” Stef studied Lauren with a lighter expression, as though they had just met. “You seem surprised. You of all people should appreciate that the netherworld is all around us all the time.”
“I am. I do.” Lauren struggled to think what to say next. They don’t want to talk about this. Well, could she blame them? “I expected you to tell me I was full of it.”
“We still might.” Heath sniffed. “But we’ll give you the night off.”
Lauren tipped her glass toward him, which was as much of a toast as she could muster.
“Strange she should appear to you, though. She never knew you.” Peter hid his bite better than did Carmody, but it was still detectable. “Or did she?” Feathers of frost, sharp outlines in winter sun, earlier warmth a memory.
“No. I never met her.” Lauren stretched out her foot under the table, then kicked the air. Shook things up. Sent a stone tumbling. “So where do you see Fernanda around here?”
“We don’t.” Carmody smiled, a social curve of lip that indicated that the subject was now closed.
Silence for a few moments. Then Sam cleared her throat.
“Can I ask a question?” She raised her hand, like a child in class. “I know it’s a silly thing, but . . . those showers. In the winter? Really?”
Carmody’s brow furrowed. Then the famous smile bloomed and he laughed while Heath groaned and Peter and Stef eyed one another and shook their heads. “All the glass walls can be disassembled and moved. When it starts getting chilly, we enclose the showers. It’s still a little cold, but you can’t beat the views.”
With that, the conversation revived, starting with talk of the history of the Carmody house, then moving on to houses in general, and awful bathrooms they all had encountered while traveling. Lauren said little, all the while pledging that she would have a very long talk with Gene Kaster when he finally made his appearance. Misrepresentation. A nice way of saying that he lied to her about what she was getting herself into. Friendly gathering of like minds. Like minds? Maybe. Friendly? Not so much.
And then there was her host. In Seattle, the things she had read about Andrew Carmody had seemed like so much baseless gossip, but now that she had met the man, she wasn’t so sure. Intense. Oh yes. With bonus mood swings. Even better.
And I came here hoping for a job. Lauren laughed softly, which drew an odd look from Carmody. She waited until the staffers arrived with dessert and coffee, mumbled an apology, and made her escape amid the bustle. Paused outside the door to get her bearings, and heard the raised voices as soon as the servers had departed.
“—coached her. Of course, he coached her. He’s not an idiot.” Stef, as heated now as she was all coolness before.
“If she saw Fernanda, I’m the Queen of Sheba.” That from Heath, whose voice cut through wood and wall like an ax.
“It’s a matter of trust, Andrew.” Peter, words soft and measured, the eye of the building storm. “We’ve known you since you were a boy. If you had questions, you should’ve asked us directly.”
Then Carmody, words softer still, because men in his position never needed to yell in order to be heard.
Lauren pressed her ear to the door and held her breath, but could catch only the occasional word or phrase.
“. . . Gene . . . business . . . trust, as you said . . . questions—”
“They really don’t like you.”
Lauren spun around. The voice had come from the beneath the central staircase, an elfin whisper that rattled her skull.
Then Nyssa Carmody emerged from the shadows. She still wore the same cutoffs and tank top as she had in the garden, over which she had thrown a faded green zippered hoodie that skimmed her knees. “They think you work for Gene.” She walked toward Lauren, bare feet silent on the hardwood, and looked her up and down. “You’re not the type Gene usually hires, but maybe that’s the point.”
Lauren found herself backing away from the girl, and stopped. It’s the eyes. Nyssa had inherited her father’s eyes. Hypnotic. Disarming. “But if I work for Gene, that would mean I work for your father, wouldn’t it?”
“No.” Nyssa twitched one shoulder. “Gene handles all the grubby stuff so Dad doesn’t have to get his hands dirty.”
“But why would they think Gene hired me?” Lauren shook her head. She felt turned around, confused, as assaulted by noise and color as if she had entered a crowded football stadium or a casino. “I mean, he didn’t. To tell the truth, I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
“Well, maybe you’ll find out.” Nyssa stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jacket. “Gene’ll be here in the morning. He likes to skip the first-night dinners because Stef and the others don’t like him.” She stopped just beyond arm’s reach. “He set you up to take his heat. He’s good at that.”
Lauren leaned against the wall and pressed her hands to her temples. Amid the color and the noise, the intermittent sounds of argument from the dining room leached through, waxing and waning likes cries in the wind. “You need to back off.”
Nyssa took a step closer, her voice a quiet touch amid the battering. “Why?”
Lauren lowered her hands and dug deep, mined the place in her core where Virginia had shown her that her own power rested, a place where she didn’t like to go. Dark. Cold. She imagined plunging into frigid, black water, felt the chill envelop her, numb her limbs, work its way through skin and muscle to bone. “Because it’s not nice.” Her head cleared, and when she met Nyssa’s eyes again, the girl took two steps back. “With strangers, you ask permission.”
Nyssa’s jaw worked. “I’m—I’m sorry.”
Lauren looked around. She could still see with her inner eye, still detect the dark space. Saw the girl’s power coloring the air like smoke. “You’re still doing it.”
“I don’t know how to stop.”
“Imagine closing a door, and being in a quiet room.” Lauren sighed. “Sometimes that helps me.”
Nyssa squinched her eyes shut, bundled her fists in the sleeves of her jacket, and pulled them close to her chest. “I don’t know what quiet is.”
Lauren stepped closer to the girl and lowered her voice. “Sun on your face. And your favorite song playing in your head.”
“That’s not quiet.”
“Then think of something that relaxes you. Something you like.”
Nyssa nodded. A minute passed. Two. Then her breathing slowed, and the white-knuckle grip she’d had on the cuffs of her jacket loosened. She opened her eyes. “Is that okay now?”
“It’s better. You need to practice.” Lauren passed her hand through a remnant wisp, felt its tingle. “You really need to practice.” She broke the connection with her own inner self, a nasty sensation like hooks tugging under her skin. The air cleared, the only sound once again the occasional snatch of dining room discussion.
Nyssa jerked her chin in that direction. “The others don’t sense me like you do. Does that mean you’re stronger?”
“No. It’s like people who can’t stand cilantro because they’re supertasters. I’m like that, only with respect to sensing the magical.” Lauren took a step back so she could look Nyssa in the face. She’s taller than Katie. Five ten, at least. With flawless skin and corn-silk hair and eyes wide and glittery as those of a child just awakened from a nightmare. “We all have different talents, different affinities.”
Nyssa studied her, then managed a smile. “They find out everything about you, they’re really not going to like you.”
“Not my problem.” Lauren looked back at the dining room door. The voices had quieted, which probably meant that some sort of agreement had been reached, and the breach healed, at least for the time being. “Nyssa, can I ask you a question? It’s about your mother—” But when she turned back, the girl had gone.
CHAPTER 11
Lauren hunted for Nyssa throughout the main floor of the house, then hesitated at the foot of the stairs leading to the private suites. Does she know about her mother? Anyone as powerful as she seemed to be must have seen Fernanda. The first person a mother would seek out would be her child.
Nyssa, we can get through this. What else could Carmody have been referring to?
Any number of things, really. Nyssa faced legal problems, possibly another date with rehab. She was a troubled teenager saddled with a power she could barely control. The list of things she and her father needed to get through had to be formidable.
I need to talk with Carmody first. Lauren didn’t particularly care for the man, but he was Nyssa’s parent. If nothing else, she hoped he would tell her how much training Nyssa had received to that point, if any. Then I can call Virginia—Lauren checked her watch and calculated the time difference—tomorrow. Ask the woman how best to go about helping an untrained witch who possessed more power than she knew what to do with, and ignore the muffled laughter that she felt sure would be forthcoming.
Every parent’s curse—that their child would grow up and have a child just like them.
Lauren drummed her hands on the railing, then headed for the rear of the house. Nyssa Carmody is not my problem. At least, not yet.
She checked to see that the dining room door was still closed. She had kept an eye on the place all during her search, and saw that no one other than staff had entered or left since her departure. Either Carmody and the others were in the midst of the longest dessert course in history, or talks were still ongoing. I wonder what happened. Why were Stef and the others so concerned about the possibility of Kaster planting a mole in their midst? Peter’s words replayed. It’s a matter of trust. Then, Nyssa’s. Gene handles all the grubby stuff so Dad doesn’t have to get his hands dirty. So what grubbiness had Stef and company done to merit Kaster’s subterfuge?
So much to think about, on what was supposed to have been a restful getaway.
Oh Gene, we need to talk. Lauren walked out onto the patio that led to the first level of the sculpture garden, stopped to give her eyes time to adjust the dark, then passed through the levels she had already explored. The house itself emitted enough ambient illumination to navigate by. In addition, pinlights had been installed in the stone steps, and electric torches placed throughout the shrubbery. Not quite enough light to read a newspaper, but sufficient to pick out the flowers, the shapes of the sculptures, and help prevent inebriated guests from tumbling into the poisonous herbs. Enough to swamp out the stars.
She continued to descend, past the planter behind which she had hidden after coming upon Carmody and Nyssa, then lower still. At that point, the lighting ended, and she had moved far enough away from the house that the spillover no longer reached her. These were the areas of the garden where visitors seldom wandered, apparently, where the soft scent of roses gave way to earthier odors of damp and dirt. Now she felt the signals of unease from the primitive depths of her brain, but ignored them because she felt more herself in places like this than any other. She had come to think of the night as truth, as a time that revealed the world as it actually was, a fact so easy to forget when surrounded by streetlights and neon and the 24/7 life. Here were sounds that sent the heart hammering, snapping branches and soft growls and the silken slice of wings through the air. There were the shadows where none should’ve been, the red reflections of watchful eyes that would hide its identity as predator or prey until too late to evade one or capture the other. The night of the wilderness, where Man was just another animal who needed to watch where he walked.
Lauren lowered to a step, then lay back, shivering as the chill of the stone seeped through her clothes. The air still held on to the day’s warmth, and the skies were clear—she looked overhead at the stars, too many to count, like sprays of white powder across black cloth. The skies of Gideon were sometimes the same. Cloud cover permitting, she would spend hours hunting for the few stars she knew amid the thousands whose names existed only in astronomers’ databases. Occasionally, Virginia would join her, sitting downwind so she could smoke her single cigarette of the day. Sometimes they talked, about lessons past, present, or future, or some bit of Gideon history or current gossip. Other times they sat in silence, teacher and pupil, fellow guardians of the borderland, the unlikeliest of friends.
“I am not homesick,” Lauren whispered to the stars. Gideon is not my home. But aspects of it offered her as much comfort as she ever felt these days, and she longed for that now. Her voices, so insistent for weeks, had gone quiet. Here you are, witch, their silence seemed to say. Get on with it.
“Shut up.” Lauren followed the blinking trail of a plane across the sky, then closed her eyes and listened to the whisper of leaves in the light breeze. The movements of small animals. The distant hooting of an owl.
Then she heard a splash. The musical giggle of a small child.
Lauren sat up. “Who’s out there?” The sounds of splashing and laughter continued unabated, as though whoever it was hadn’t heard her, or didn’t care to respond. She got up and crept down the steps, cracked flagstones crunching beneath her feet, as the scenarios tumbled through her head. A lost child. Trespassing campers.
The steps ended and she walked out onto a stretch of well-tended lawn centered by a pond. It was small, no bigger than a large wading pool, and shallow, with flat stones jutting up along the diameter to form a walkway. She shouldn’t have been able to see anything clearly—the moon had yet to rise above the trees. But she could see the rocky bottom of the pond through the few inches of clear water, the tiny fish that darted through the cracks and crevices. And, here and there, a submerged toy, colors vivid against the dull stone. A red ball. A dark-haired doll dressed in a yellow bathing suit. A tiny blue car.
Then came flashes of light that swirled together to form a reflected scene. Fernanda, barefoot in shorts and a tank top, hair bound in a messy ponytail. And toddler Nyssa, tow-headed and rosy-cheeked, one strap of her white bathing suit slipped down her arm. They played tag around the edge of the pool, first mother giving chase, then daughter, amid squealing and splashing.
Then Fernanda paused, and looked up. When her gaze settled on Lauren, she smiled, the relaxed expression of a woman content with the world and her place in it. Then she looked away, gathered up a towel, and dried off Nyssa, speaking in either Spanish or her native Brazilian Portuguese while Nyssa stared up in gape-mouthed rapture, every so often struggling to repeat one of the words.
Then, in a heartbeat, it all vanished. Lauren looked down and found she stood in knee-high scrub, a few short strides from the woods. She walked to the spot where the pond had been, kicked through the weeds in search of the stones, but found only soil, hard and cracked from lack of rain.
She listened, and heard nothing but forest sounds. “What are you trying to tell me, Fernanda?” She waited. “That you miss your daughter?” Another beat. “That you were happy once?” She heard silken rustling at the edge of the woods, as if someone had grabbed the branches and shook them. Then that stilled. “So what happened? You need to give me a little more than this.” She reached out her hands, and felt for the opening that Fernanda had used to gain passage into this reality. She should have been able to retrace the woman’s path, but she could sense nothing, either good or bad. Only muffled blankness.
Lauren backed up, eyes fixed on the woods. As soon as she felt a step beneath her feet, she turned and ran. She reached the patio in time to see Peter, Sam, and Heath depart the dining room and stroll toward the stairs, and was about to go after them when she heard a heavy footfall behind her. She stopped and looked toward a darkened corner just as Carmody stepped out into the light.
