Daughter of the Spellcaster

by Maggie Shayne

  “Millions.”

  “Billions,” he said. “But if we passed that cost on to consumers, no one would be willing to convert. Most couldn’t afford it even if they wanted to. This way the investors take it on the chin, absorb the loss and accept that it might be up to twenty years before we can expect to see any of this even begin to turn a profit.”

  “Then why do it?” she asked, watching his face, awaiting his answer.

  “Somebody’s got to.” He shrugged. “I don’t want my father’s money. I’d give it all to Paul if I could.”

  She was completely stunned. “How long have you and...Paul been working together on this?”

  “Five years. But I only handed over the big bucks last year.”

  “I wish you’d told me.”

  Sighing, he closed the computer. “You worked for Dad. You were his PR wizard. Him getting involved in something like that would have made for excellent press. I just...didn’t want that.”

  “You didn’t trust me.”

  He lowered his gaze, so she knew she’d nailed it.

  “But it was more than that. I told you, I pretty much haven’t told anyone. This was mine. My own thing. I wanted to keep it that way. And Dad had taken enough from me.” He rolled his eyes. “I mean, not from me, but—”

  “That’s exactly what you meant.”

  He frowned.

  “I get it, Ryan. I don’t think you do just yet, but you’re getting closer.” She put her hand over his. “I’m sorry I jumped to the wrong conclusion. So then, you’re not planning to fight me for custody?”

  He met her eyes, held them steadily. “Losing my mother was the worst thing that ever happened to me, Lena. I would never deliberately put my own child through that.”

  She believed him and nodded to tell him so. “Okay.” And then she smiled a little. “Okay.”

  He seemed relieved. She got up from the bed, ridiculously glad she’d decided to just be direct and ask him for the truth instead of keeping tight-lipped and making flawed assumptions. “Thanks for telling me about it, Ryan. And you can trust me to keep your secret until you’re ready to go public.” She smiled again. “But when you do, man, is New York society in for a shocker. ’Cause you’re right about one thing—this is going to set your irresponsible, lazy, entitled image on its head.”

  “I don’t care what New York society thinks about me. I really don’t.”

  “Good for you.” She nodded slowly. “Good for you, Ryan.” Then she indicated the books. “If you want a little more info on magic and ritual, let me know. Okay?”

  “Thanks.”

  She backed out of the room, pulling his door closed behind her, and then stood there for a long moment, just feeling.

  A huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders, that was the first and clearest sensation making its way into her awareness. She believed him. She knew, though, that there was more. Lots more. His issues and feelings about his mother, his father, even Bahru, were all tangled up with this new zeal for her and the baby. And though that interest might be real, it wasn’t...gut-deep. It was all mental. He wanted them on a practical, logical level. But she still didn’t feel it was coming from his heart.

  And though she would far rather err on the side of believing in him completely, she still sensed he was holding something back, maybe keeping a secret.

  But it was progress, that was for sure. It was progress.

  * * *

  The crack of dawn found Ryan kneeling on the damp ground, digging in the soft soil and tugging out the magic blade. He had the box open beside him, because he didn’t want to handle the thing too much this close to the house. Lena had said the key was practice. So practice he would.

  He tugged the knife out of the cold, wet earth still encased in the sock he’d used as a temporary sheath. Then, holding the toe of the sock, he more or less poured the blade out into the box, managing not to handle it much in the process. Even just nudging it with his fingertips to get it into place for transport made him jumpy.

  But no flames shot from the thing, and he sighed in relief.

  It was only seven, and barely light outside. He’d noticed that the women tended to get up and around by nine, and today had been no exception. No one else had been awake yet. He had time to work with his dagger. Besides, he’d been wanting to get back to those woods where Selma had been wandering to see what he could see in the light of day.

  It had grown colder overnight, so the rain had turned to snow. But now the sun had returned, and the temps were already above freezing. The dusting of snow that had fallen overnight wouldn’t cover much—assuming anything was left—and it would probably be gone within a couple of hours.

  Clutching the box under one arm, he walked around the house and down the driveway to the dirt road that flanked the field and then the woods on the left, opposite Bahru’s cottage. He had to walk right past the place but didn’t sense any movement from within. Maybe the guru was still asleep, too. He hoped so. He wanted privacy for this.

  The field was mostly weeds and dead grasses, stiff and brittle now. It had been a vineyard once, and he could easily visualize it being one again. Grapevines abundant in neat rows, lush and deep, dark green leaves, heavy bunches of purple fruit dangling, glistening with morning dew.

  It was a nice vision, one he would like to see realized.

  If he wound up staying.

  Hell, he’d pretty much given up the idea that he would be living anywhere else. If Lena and his child were here, he would be here. If Lena wanted them to be together as a family—well, he could get into that. It made sense. They got along, they had great chemistry. He honestly loved being around her.

  Yet, when he thought that way, there was a part of him that wrapped itself up in emotional Kevlar. As if just thinking along those lines made him vulnerable to the same old patterns his life had shown him so far. People didn’t stay. He had to keep that in mind right from the get-go, so it wouldn’t hurt as much when they checked out.

  He never wanted to feel again what he’d felt at the death of his mother. He never wanted to feel the way he’d felt when his dad just up and left him.

  But mostly he never ever wanted the death of one person to have the same life-altering impact on him that the death of his mother had had on his father. It had destroyed him.

  He would never let that happen to him. Never.

  The field gave way to trees, white birch and pine, looking like a Christmas card. He kept walking until the dirt road ended in a T junction at the pavement. Then he turned left, walking along the front edge of the woodlot until he reached the spot where Selma’s car had been parked. The tire tracks were deep enough to still be visible on the soft shoulder. He left the road, hopped the shallow drainage ditch and entered the woods right where she must have.

  Only a few steps in, he had to stop for a minute just to indulge in the sensory feast of this place. There were so many birds singing that it was hard to believe it was real. It felt like an overly ambitious Disney soundtrack, but it was real. There were squawks and caws, but also tiny little flute solos and full symphonies being played just for the sheer joy of it. And the smells! God, he’d never breathed such delicious air. The pines and their tang, and the rich, earthy scent of damp soil and decomposing twigs, leaves, conifer needles and cones, all mingled with every breath. He wished he could bottle that smell, but he knew he couldn’t, because it was all tied up with the coldness of the air and the touch of the morning sunshine. And you couldn’t capture that.

  This place was amazing. No wonder his father had wanted his grandchild to grow up here.

  After basking in his surroundings for a couple of minutes, he shook off the pleasure and continued on. He had a two-pronged mission this morning, and he hoped to get back to the house before anyone knew he’d been gone, so it was time to get moving
.

  He followed the occasional print where Selma’s small foot had sunk deep enough into the soft, wet earth that an impression still remained, and when he couldn’t find any more prints he chose a landmark: a pine tree that stood taller than those around it and had a large bird’s nest way up near its crooked top. From there he walked in increasingly larger circles, keeping the tree as his center, in hopes of finding anything that might qualify as a clue.

  On his third circle, he did: a charred log that stood in sharp contrast to the dusting of white snow clinging to one side of it and to the ground nearby. Moving closer, he bent and brushed the snow away. No question, the log had been burned. And as he explored the area around it, he found other partially charred branches and several blackened coal-sized chunks on the ground.

  Someone had made a fire out here, then scattered its remnants. To make it harder to spot?

  He straightened, looking around the area. If those bits of wood were from the fire Selma had photographed, it must have been nearby. He doubted the robed figures in her pictures would have carried charred logs far—especially if they’d still been hot, even smoldering. Hell, most likely they would simply have kicked the smoking coals around and called it good.

  So everything must have happened here. Right here.

  Looking around, he asked himself where he would make a fire if he were looking to start one in this vicinity and noticed that the trees here seemed to form a natural circle. The middle, about five yards to his right, would make a good spot.

  He walked over and looked at the ground in search of any sign of a fire, certain he was in the right place but not seeing anything to prove it. And then he stopped and shivered. Damn, the temperature seemed to be dropping all of a sudden. He’d expected it to get warmer as the morning progressed.

  He flipped up the collar of his denim coat, looking up as he did, and found himself staring at the trunk of a white birch tree dead ahead of him. It had been smeared or splashed with red paint. In fact, so had the one beside it.

  Frowning, he turned in a slow circle and realized that all of the trees surrounding him had been daubed with red. A near-perfect circle of red-stained birch trunks.

  And the red, he knew with sudden perfect clarity, was not from paint at all.

  * * *

  Lena headed downstairs to put on the coffee and found her mom in the kitchen making her famous blueberry waffles. Well, famous to the two of them, anyway. And to Ryan. Lena had spoiled him with her mother’s recipe before they’d split up.

  “Ahh, perfect timing,” Selma said, smiling at her daughter. “Admit it, you smelled them all the way upstairs.”

  “I did. Ryan better get his butt out of bed soon or he’ll miss out.”

  “Oh, he’s up. I just saw him outside, sticking something in his shiny new truck. Did you notice he bought the one with the backseat?”

  “Why would I notice something like that?”

  Her mother gave her that “we both know better” look, and Lena didn’t argue. Of course she had noticed. He was thinking about the baby.

  It also occurred to her that she was dying of curiosity to know what he had just been putting in that truck. And yet snooping on him had only led to a horrible misconception earlier. She wasn’t going to go against her own values and repeat the mistake. If she kept looking for trouble, she would surely find it. Right?

  He came in through the front door with an armload of firewood, stomped the mud and snow off his boots, and deposited the logs in the rack near the fireplace. A good thing, too, as the fire had burned down to embers overnight.

  “It would have taken me four trips to bring in that much,” Lena called.

  “Would’ve taken me five,” her mother said. “You’re getting extra blueberries in your waffles this morning, Ryan.” She reached into the bowl for a handful and sprinkled them into the already blue-stained batter, moving her hand in a clockwise circle and saying, “You fit right in our little nest. I hope you’ll stay. I think it’s best.”

  “Mother!”

  Selma sent Lena an innocent look and shrugged. Poor Ryan was just frowning at them, clueless that Selma had just tossed a little magic his way.

  Ryan went back out for more firewood, and Lena joined her mother at the counter, wiggled her fingers over the waffle iron. “Free will to all and harm to none—”

  “And as I will, it shall be done,” Selma put in quickly. Then she slanted Lena a look. “Don’t try to out-witch your mother, dear.”

  Lena grinned at her. “Things between us are nowhere near where you think they are yet.”

  “I love that you said ‘yet.’” Her mother shrugged. “They’ll get there. It’s meant to be. He’s your prince, after all.”

  “I hope so. But he’s still very...what’s the word? Practical. Just...too logical, you know?”

  “Hmm. Maybe protecting himself?”

  “I think so. And speaking of protecting, we need to do a little house cleansing while he’s working on the nursery today.”

  Selma frowned as if perplexed. “A cleansing? Why?”

  “I don’t think our ghost is a ghost. I’m starting to feel...very uneasy about it. It spoke to me—twice now. Both times to tell me that Ryan is not to be trusted.”

  Selma’s frown became a look of surprise. “Why would it tell you that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think it might be right?”

  Lena shook her head, surprising herself by her own certainty. “I don’t think so. I mean, what does your gut tell you about Ryan, Mom?”

  “I like him. I’ve always liked him. I think he’ll make a great father. And I think he’s wounded, way down deep, and doesn’t want to address it. I get the feeling it’s festered and healed over, and it needs to be lanced to let the poison out.”

  “Me too. That’s exactly the sense I’m getting. That’s why he’s so...careful.”

  Selma took the first two perfect waffles and dropped them onto a waiting plate. “So if we’re right about him, then it’s our ghost who’s lying.” She tipped her head to one side. “Maybe he’s jealous. I mean, we pick him up as a masculine entity, right? He’s had us all to himself up to now. Maybe it’s just a guy thing. Territorial or something.”

  “Well, even if that’s what it is, it’s negative, and if it escalates it could be dangerous. I think it’s time to send him packing to wherever he belongs. Agreed?”

  Her mother nodded. “I’ve got some asafetida tucked away for just such an occasion.”

  “And some air-freshener for afterward, I hope.”

  “Ryan’s back with more wood. Get the door for him, hon.”

  Lena headed to the doorway but caught her mother muttering something as she dusted Ryan’s waffles in powdered sugar. “Mom,” she warned.

  Selma glanced at Lena over her shoulder and winked.

  * * *

  Ryan had learned a lot last night while perusing those books. More, in fact, than he’d ever needed to know about the lesser known uses of daggers. Or athames, as the witchy types called them. He had already known that they were phallic symbols. But he’d discovered that they were associated with the fertilizing force of the masculine aspect of the divine. A God-Rod, so to speak. In magic, they were used to control and direct energy, and one was never supposed to cut anything physical with one’s ritual blade.

  None of which told him how to wield his. But practice, he thought, would make perfect.

  He spent the day painting the nursery and by mid-afternoon had finished. The ceiling and every bit of wood trim were all done in a soft eggshell color. White would have been too harsh. The walls were two-tone, a pastel sea-foam green from floor to waist height, and a slightly lighter-than-sunshine yellow from there up. The paint needed to dry before he could move on to the small hand-stenciled border an
d the giant animals. He had it all planned out in his mind.

  It was kind of surprising to him how much pleasure he was taking in this project. Probably because it was for his own child.

  His own child. Imagine that.

  Someone knocked on the nursery door. Frowning, he went to it and, standing close, picked up a rancid scent. “Who is it?”

  “It’s me,” Lena said. “I need to come in.”

  “You can’t. It’ll ruin the surprise. God, what is that smell?”

  “Just open the door a crack. I promise I won’t peek. Okay?”

  “All right.” He looked behind him and could have sworn he saw a shadow move in the corner, but then it was gone. So he cracked the door, peeked through and saw smoke, then drew back in disgust. “God, that’s rank!”

  “That’s the idea.” She thrust an oblong shell, filled with smoldering weeds, through the door at him. “Take it.”

  He took it, and she handed him a feather, too.

  “What the hell is this?”

  “Asafetida.”

  “Smells like the ass of something-dead-it-a.”

  “That’s the idea. It’s also known as Devil’s Dung. I want you to walk around the baby’s room wafting the smoke with the feather and visualizing anything negative being driven out. Understand?”

  “As fast as humanly possible. Got it.” He turned.

  “The other way.”

  “What?”

  She pointed. “Widdershins. Counterclockwise.”

  “Naturally.” He pushed the door shut with his foot and, grimacing, waved the smoke with the feather. “Ghosty, ghosty, go away, don’t come back another day. Get your ass away before she finds some stuff that stinks much more!”

  He heard her giggle from outside the door, completed his lap around the room and shoved the shell out at her.

  She poked a small, pretty bottle through next. “Now draw an equal-armed cross—like a plus sign—on every window, and on every electrical outlet and register.”