“Yes, you can. There’s nothing to stop you.”
“Your protections are still in place.”
Reg knew that wasn’t true. If it were, she would be able to feel the spells. And to see the auras glowing around the wards and charms.
“What about Starlight? Look how he’s behaving.”
Corvin looked at Starlight. The cat hissed at him. Corvin hissed back. “He’s acting the same way as always.”
“But he’s treating me like that too.” Reg took a couple of steps toward Starlight, and he backed away, but then held his ground, letting out a low growl.
“Maybe you smell like me,” Corvin suggested. “He often gets grouchy when he knows you’ve been around me. You said so yourself.”
“Yes… he gives me a look. He disapproves. But not like this.”
“What was the first thing you noticed?”
“Just when I came into the house. Starlight behaving like that… and then I noticed how… sterile the room seemed. Like someone had just come and swept all the supernatural away.”
“It’s still here. At least you can be reassured of that.”
“Then there’s something wrong with me.”
“Will you let me into the house? Then you and I can sit down together and discuss this.”
Reg stood there, waffling, wavering back and forth on whether to let him in and give him access or not.
But things couldn’t get much worse.
Reg took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay,” she said finally. “Come in.”
Chapter Eight
Reg saw Corvin out. For once, he wasn’t trying to convince her to let him stay over, maybe to watch over her as she slept or to give her the comfort she needed. She didn’t know if she would have had the strength or ability to fight him in the condition she was in. He assured her again that everything seemed to be normal and that it was only her perception that was off.
She closed and locked the door and went to her bedroom.
As soon as she opened the bedroom door, Starlight burst out in a frenzy of fur and claws. Reg yelped and jumped back, but didn’t manage to avoid a couple of nicks. Starlight flew past her to the front door, where he crouched down and watched her, waiting for her to attack.
Reg instead turned away from him, going into the bathroom. Anything she did was just likely to get him more wound up. She would do what Corvin suggested, and in the morning, everything would be back to normal. She started warm water running and shed her clothes. If they were tainted with some sort of substance that triggered Starlight to turn into a devil cat, she would have to dispose of them. Maybe even burn them. But for the time being, she hoped that just changing out of them and having a hot bath would do that trick.
She added bubble bath and soaked until the water started to turn cold. She didn’t light any candles; Davyn had warned her against even having candles in the house until she could take full control of her fire casting powers. Reg was too nervous about the loss of her abilities to even test to see if she still had the ability to cast fire. She couldn’t bear to face the loss she would feel if she no longer had the ability.
Reg started the tub draining and wrapped a fluffy towel around her. As she left the bathroom, she looked toward the front door to see if Starlight were still there, or if he had gone on to do other catly duties. He was still crouched there, right where she had left him, watching her with cold, steady eyes.
Reg slept restlessly. She had dreams of searching for something, but didn’t know what it was she was looking for. She awoke a few times looking for Starlight, but he wasn’t sleeping on the bed or sitting in his usual perch on the windowsill.
She probably would have slept better if she hadn’t had so much to eat before going to bed. She was so full, it was nearly impossible to find a comfortable position.
Each time she woke up, she tried to push her worries and questions to the side and go back to sleep again. But as the room started to get brighter with the sun peeking over the horizon, she found herself unable to shake off her anxieties. She lay staring at the ceiling, worries bubbling away in her stomach, dreading finding out whether everything was back to normal or if she could still not access her usual gifts. If she didn’t have her gifts, then who was she? Even though she had known nothing of them during her childhood, they had still shaped her experiences and her personality. They were a part of her and she didn’t know what she would do or who she would be without them.
Starlight jumped up on the bed with a yowl, startling her.
Starlight began rubbing against Reg, eager for petting and scratching. Reg stroked him, scratched his ears, and kissed him on top of the head.
“Well… at least you seem back to normal. Whatever was bothering you yesterday seems to be better.”
He purred and rubbed against her, nipping at her fingers. He gave a throaty yowl that meant his dish was empty and when was she going to get around to putting something good in it? Reg smiled and hugged him to her.
“You’re hungry? What am I going to do about that?”
He yowled again.
“I know, I know,” Reg agreed, stretching. But she didn’t make any sign she was getting out of bed. Starlight rubbed against her hand. With their big ugly paws, humans could do many things that a cat could not do for himself, but they were harder to train than a few-weeks-old kitten. And Reg slept half the day away, hours when Starlight was hungry and needed to be fed.
Reg stared into Starlight’s eyes, realizing suddenly that she was reading his emotional state much more clearly than she usually did. She scratched his jaw. With this initial revelation, she was not so scared to reach out with her other senses to see if she could see and hear the things she normally could.
The bedroom was rich and warm, laden with the emotions and memories attached to objects that she surrounded herself with. Not white and sterile like it had been the night before when it might just as well have been a hospital room awaiting the next patient. Reg let her breath out in a long, slow release, relieved and finally able to relax her tense muscles.
“It’s all here. Everything is back. Right?” Reg explored her own mind, looking for anything that was missing or out of place. It seemed like everything was there, but had subtly shifted. The same feeling Reg might have if she came home and knew instinctively that someone had been looking through her things. Picking something up to look at it, setting it back in the same place again so that to the eye, it did not appear to have been moved, and yet Reg would have known that it had been. Reg was left with an uneasy feeling that someone or something had intruded there.
Was it just from having Corvin there the previous night? She had allowed him to use their connection, but her reflex reaction had thrown him back out again immediately. But perhaps sometime before that, when she had been in the restaurant, drinking wine and eating the chocolate sauce-laden ice cream…
Reg’s mind suddenly flashed back to herself in the car with Corvin, smashing her hand down on the control panel. She had broken the display screen. Who knew how much damage she had done to the other controls and how much it would cost Corvin to fix it. She couldn’t even put her finger on what exactly had upset her so much. She was used to dealing with Corvin and had never reacted to him like that before.
Starlight let out a particularly loud meow and pawed at Reg’s arm, claws extended, to get her attention.
“Ouch! Okay. I’ll feed you,” Reg promised, rubbing the pinpricks. He hadn’t really hurt her, but he had startled her. Starlight looked at her suspiciously. He didn’t jump down and head for the kitchen right away. He realized from past experience that even after telling him that she was getting out of bed and going to feed him, she might just curl up, pull the covers over her head, and go back to sleep. Or maybe wait until he left the room to lead her to his dish, and then close the bedroom door so he couldn’t bother her. She was sneaky that way. And then no amount of yowling outside her door and clawing at it would convince her to get up at a decent hour. If he
were lucky, Sarah would stop by and give him some food.
“I am getting up.” Reg slid her feet off the bed and padded to the bedroom door. He jumped off the bed and followed her, letting her go through the door first. Reg led him to the kitchen and opened the fridge. He still had crunchy kibble in his bowl, she noted. It wasn’t like he was starving. He just wanted some of the good stuff.
“See, I told you I was getting up.” Reg popped the lids on a few Sarah-supplied meals, looking for anything that might interest Starlight or be suitable for breakfast for herself. Despite the big meal the night before and the fact that she didn’t usually eat until noon, she was starting to get hungry.
“Let’s see. There’s some chicken and rice. Some kind of… meatloaf, I think. Oh, here’s tuna. Sarah must have opened this for you before.” At least, Reg couldn’t remember the last time she had made a tuna sandwich, which was pretty much the only other reason she would have opened a can herself.
Starlight purr-meowed and rubbed against Reg’s leg in approval. He didn’t jump up onto the island, but he stretched, reaching his paws up to the edge of the counter.
“Stay down. I’ll get you some.”
She grabbed his other bowl and plopped a large spoonful of tuna into the middle of it.
“There you go.”
Starlight attacked the tuna as if he hadn’t had anything to eat for days. Reg decided the chicken and rice didn’t look too bad and pulled it out. A couple of minutes in the microwave and a dollop of sweet and sour sauce stirred into it, and she was ready to eat.
She wondered if it were too early to call Corvin. She wouldn’t want to wake him up, and she had no idea what time he usually got up. She always slept later than he did.
The phone buzzed in her hand. Reg looked at the phone and carried her bowl of chicken and rice over to the couch to sit comfortably while she talked.
“I was just thinking about you,” she told Corvin.
“Why am I not surprised?” He chuckled. “How are you doing this morning?”
“I’m good. I guess… everything is back to normal. So that’s good.”
“Glad to hear it.” Corvin hesitated for a moment. “So I guess… maybe it was just the wine or a temporary reaction to something. You haven’t ever had an episode like that before?”
“No.” Reg took a big mouthful of rice and chicken and spoke around it. “The only time I’ve felt anything like that was… well, when you took my powers. But… this wasn’t the same.”
“Are you eating?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes.” Reg swallowed and licked a bit of sauce from her lip. “Why?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat in the morning before. And I thought that with the amount you ate and drank last night, you might be feeling a little under the weather this morning.”
“No. I’m not hungover. I feel pretty good. And I was hungry.”
“Very strange.”
Reg shrugged. “I guess so. A little.”
“What are your plans for the day, then? I don’t imagine you have any clients lined up for this morning.”
“No. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go out and sit in the garden. Or go for a walk.”
“That doesn’t sound like the Reg I know. No danger? No adventure?”
“I don’t actually look for those things.”
“Maybe not, but you seem to find them. I’ll be disappointed if all you do is bum around the garden all day.”
“I won’t stay in the garden all day.”
“I should think not—”
There was a crash and Reg shrieked, rocketing out of her seat. She didn’t know which way the bowl of rice went. She looked around for the source of the noise, immediately thinking that it must be Starlight, having climbed something and knocked it over. That would have been par for the course for Nico. Ten times a day. But it wasn’t normal behavior for Starlight.
Chapter Nine
Looking around, Reg first saw the rock on the floor, looking very out of place. So bizarre that she looked around the room, trying to figure out where it had fallen from. But it wasn’t a decoration that had fallen off the bookcase. There was a gaping hole in the window behind the couch she had been sitting on. There were slivers of broken glass everywhere.
Reg looked out the window, but whoever had thrown the rock had already made his escape. There was no one to be seen. As Reg was looking out the broken window, she saw the big house’s back door open, and Sarah took a few steps out into the yard, frowning and looking around.
She saw the broken window and started walking purposefully toward the cottage. Reg nearly gave in to the impulse to walk over and unlock the door for Sarah, but then, looking down at the glass all around her bare feet, decided that might not be such a good idea.
“Reg, are you up?” Sarah called as she approached the house.
“I’m up.”
“Are you okay?”
Reg considered the question, looking down at her body and around the room to compose an answer. She was unhurt, or at least she thought she was. The only thing that had been broken was the glass in the window and Reg herself had not been hit. Whoever had thrown the rock probably had no idea that she was sitting right under that window. Anyone who knew her usual routine would have expected her to still be in bed.
Sarah tried the door and then used her key to unlock it and let herself in. She looked in dismay at the large rock in the middle of the room.
“Oh, my. Who would do a thing like this? Are you all right, Reg? It didn’t hit you…?”
“No. Just scared me. I was sitting right there.” Reg motioned to the seat under the window. Then she looked around at the shards of glass around her feet. Along with a smattering of chicken and rice, though the bowl had rolled out of sight. “Could you hand me my shoes?”
“Of course. What a horrible thing. I can’t understand it. This is just not like Black Sands. The people I have grown to know… they wouldn’t do a thing like this.”
“Well… they are. I don’t know if it’s usual or not. Maybe it’s just because you’ve never known a part-siren before. It might happen all the time. But you wouldn’t know unless you knew a siren.”
“I don’t think so. Witches are peace-loving. Accepting.”
“Most of them, maybe, but there seem to be a few bad apples.”
Reg took her shoes from Sarah and slipped them on one at a time. She was glad to see that she was not shaking and didn’t show any other visible signs of having been rattled by the incident.
Just a rock through the window. Nothing serious. Not a gunshot. Not a bomb. Just a rock that someone had picked up on the spur of the moment and thrown through the window.
Sarah next grabbed the broom and dustpan and hurried over to start cleaning up. “I’m so sorry about this, Reg. I don’t understand what people are thinking. I’m going to bring it up at the next coven.”
“What if they are not in your coven?”
“The members of the coven can help to spread the word.” Sarah’s expression was set. “If the rumor that you are part siren has gotten around that quickly, then the warning to stop this nonsense can spread just as fast.” She flushed a little pink as she swept up the glass, and Reg didn’t think that it was the physical exertion.
Reg looked around to see how she could help. The bowl had rolled away somewhere, and as Reg looked for it, she spotted a glowing rectangle under the couch. Her phone.
“Oops. Sorry, Corvin,” Reg said. She waited until Sarah had cleared a pathway to the phone, then knelt carefully to retrieve it.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Starlight starting to creep closer to investigate the rock and food spilled on the floor.
“No, Starlight! Stay back.”
She grasped the phone and started to get up again. Sarah swung the broom toward Starlight to keep him back and he leaped quickly out of the way, hissing and laying his ears back. He’d seen a broom in Sarah’s hands before and he clearly remembered how violent
ly she had wielded it.
“It’s okay, she’s just keeping you safe,” Reg told Starlight. She walked closer to him to calm him and put the phone to her ear. “Corvin? Are you still there?”
“I’m here. What’s going on? Is everything all right? I was ready to call the bomb squad.”
“Sorry. Yes, we’re okay. It wasn’t a bomb, just a rock through the window. But it scared the heck out of me. I didn’t know what was going on.”
“I’m glad that you’re okay.” He paused for a moment. “You think this was… another incident caused by the revelation that you are part siren?”
“Yeah. What else would it be? I don’t think anyone else here has reason to hate me. It isn’t like I’ve been giving people bad readings.”
“It’s not something to joke about.”
“I’m really not. I can’t think of any other reason anyone would have for doing this.”
“I can’t either,” Corvin admitted.
“Well… I’d better help Sarah. I don’t want her doing all the work here. It isn’t her fault this is happening.”
“Maybe it is time for some protections around the property, instead of just inside.”
“Yeah. That makes sense. We’ll talk about it.”
Chapter Ten
Reg had been talking about going out to the garden, so once she and Sarah finished the inside clean-up and Sarah left to call someone about replacing the window, Reg decided to sit for a while in the garden. At least she would be able to see anyone coming.
In place of the lost chicken and rice, she made herself a peanut butter sandwich and took it outside without a plate. She had a travel mug of coffee. Starlight was still stalking around the house, sniffing anything that might be out of place and looking for someone to blame for the disruption. Reg taped a piece of cardboard over the hole in the window just in case he got any ideas about having an outdoor adventure.
She sat on a bench and tried to relax, looking around at the garden’s lush growth. Bright and dark greens. Blossoms of a dozen different colors. Forst, the garden gnome, had done a spectacular job of rehabilitating it.
Without Foresight Page 5
