Stolen Dreams

by Christine Amsden

  The smile fell from my lips. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Is she likely to do that?” Abigail asked.

  I shook my head. “She hates him right now.”

  “So why did you think of that name?” Abigail asked. “How do you feel about Jason?”

  “I ran into him the other day.” I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone else, but I found myself eager to confide in someone. “I don’t think he’s a vampire, but he’s in trouble.”

  Abigail pursed her lips, thoughtfully. “Your subconscious is working on that problem at night. You could only see a small piece of it, because of the dream catcher. If you could tap into the rest….”

  I had known this was coming, but to my surprise, she didn’t tell me to throw out the dream catcher and work harder. She only sighed and said, “I want so badly for you to overcome your block.”

  “We don’t have much time left together, do we?”

  She shook her head, and my insides twisted, but I didn’t push her. I didn’t need my full, unblocked subconscious to sense that Abigail was afraid, nor to guess the nature of her fear. She had said someone would die. She had said she had the power to decide who. My first thought, unfairly, had been to imagine her choosing someone in my family over hers, but that wasn’t her way. She was one of those rare people who hadn’t been corrupted by power, and she wouldn’t sacrifice people to her cause, whatever it was. She might, on the other hand, sacrifice herself.

  6

  ABIGAIL REMAINED FRUSTRATINGLY CLOSE-MOUTHED ON THE subject of her visions over the next few days. I kept trying to catch her off-guard, hoping she would let something slip that might tell me how I could fix things. I was so worried about her that I even broke down and e-mailed Evan, telling him very little, but asking him to look in on his grandmother.

  I remembered several more dreams over the coming nights, anytime I used the dream catcher. Most of them were about Kaitlin’s new baby, although Madison appeared in a few. Those were the strange ones. She was engaged to marry my brother, Nicolas, but I never dreamed the two together, despite seeing them that way nearly every evening. Usually, I dreamed of her with Evan, apparently having forgiven him for holding her hostage. Once they even embraced, but not like lovers. It was all very confusing, and Abigail either wouldn’t help, or didn’t know how. She withdrew a little bit every day, just when I felt I needed her the most.

  The following Monday was Valentine’s Day, though it held no particular attraction for me. Not that it had ever held much attraction–Braden hadn’t exactly left college to be with me on that day during the three years we were together, and before that I had drifted in the belief that I was inherently unlovable to men. Only later had I discovered that the mere aura of Evan Blackwood’s well-cultivated menace had prevented anyone from approaching me. Chalk up one more slight on the scoreboard–and I was keeping score. No way would he later try to back me into some kind of debt situation because this time, I would have evidence to throw in his face.

  I think the day was particularly hard on Kaitlin, pregnant without the father in sight. (And after running into him at Aunt Sherry’s shop, I was looking.) Aunt Sherry sent her chocolates and flowers, which Kaitlin promptly handed to me, saying she didn’t want them. I wasn’t in a place in my life where I would willingly throw away good chocolate, so I kept them and only ate five pieces before shoving the rest of the box in a bottom drawer where I hoped–but didn’t believe–I would forget about them. The flowers went in a vase on my dresser, rather than in a public area where they would remind Kaitlin of things she wanted to forget.

  Which left Madison, the only one of the three of us with a chance at enjoying Valentine’s Day. And it was a good chance, since she and my brother, Nicolas, had become engaged on New Year’s Eve. I still had trouble picturing them together, even though I saw them almost every day. (Which might explain why I didn’t picture them together in my dreams.) Madison was sober and serious, whereas Nicolas was passionate and immature. Maybe opposites attract, but that didn’t explain why Madison refused to talk to me about anything more important to the impending marriage than the cut of her wedding gown. Bridal fever, Kaitlin called it dismissively, but I thought Madison was too sober and serious to succumb to something like that.

  Our little trio had pretty much stopped eating dinners at home, opting instead to join in the Scot clan’s chaotic evening gatherings. Kaitlin knew all she needed to know to control her channeled magic now, but she had grown used to the noise and found it helped distract her from her own problems. Madison had joined Kaitlin there while I was away, so she didn’t have to eat alone. When I returned the week of Thanksgiving, I simply bowed to the inevitable.

  We carpooled there after Madison got home from work. She had completed her semester of student teaching in the fall, and was now the full-time music teacher at Eagle Rock Elementary School. She must have loved it because she had recently come into a large enough inheritance that she didn’t have to work at all if she managed it properly (and she would), but she continued spending her days teaching music.

  I knew as soon as I opened the front door and stepped inside that something was wrong. It was too quiet. None of the kids were downstairs, except for one of the newborns–Michael or Maya–suckling at Mom’s breast. All the rest, from Christina up to Juliana, were nowhere in sight. Nicolas sat on the edge of a recliner, his face pale, his eyes following Dad’s progress as he paced back and forth across the room.

  I almost stepped right back out of the house, but they saw me. Dad stopped his pacing to level all of his barely-contained fury on me, reminding me forcibly of the time Juliana had accused me of sleeping with Evan. I hadn’t escaped that encounter unscathed, and I didn’t think I would escape this one intact either.

  Had he found out about my apprenticeship with Abigail? It was the only thing that could explain his ire, but how would he have figured it out?

  “What’s up?” Kaitlin asked, apparently oblivious to the tension in the room.

  “I received an invitation today,” Dad said. “The whole family, in fact, has been invited to a wedding.”

  “Ooooookay.” I didn’t see how a wedding invitation could have put him in that state, but at least it didn’t have anything to do with Abigail Hastings.

  “To your wedding, Cassandra,” Dad continued.

  “My wedding?” My first thought was of Alexander’s proposal, and of our betrothal announcement in his newsletter the very next day. I had embarrassed him when I’d refused his proposal, but what did he think he could possibly accomplish? “He wouldn’t dare.”

  “He wouldn’t dare what?” Dad asked. “Warn us of this impending violation? Were you going to elope?”

  My own ire was rising to meet his, so I said through gritted teeth, “I’ll tell you this one more time: I’m not marrying Alexander DuPris.”

  Dad’s face went strangely blank, and slowly, reason began to reassert itself into my thought processes. Not Alexander? Then who?

  “What’s going on?” Madison whispered in my ear.

  The three of us were still framed in the doorway, but Kaitlin pushed past me, waddling across the room with her unborn baby well in the lead, until she found her favorite spot on the sofa. Madison only moved when Nicolas ventured forward to guide her away–out of the line of fire.

  Behind me, the front door slammed shut.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. “I’m not getting married.”

  Dad held up the charred remains of a crumbled square of creamy card stock. I would never get to see the words draped across it in an elegant font, but Dad had apparently memorized them for me.

  “Abigail Hastings has cordially invited us to the wedding of her grandson, Evan Warren Blackwood, to you, Cassandra Morgan Ursula Margaret Scot.”

  My mouth fell open slightly, but I had no words. For the moment at least, I had no thoughts either.

  “The wedding will be held in Evan’s own home on April 2nd.” Dad paused before adding, “At two o’clo
ck in the afternoon.”

  My brain rebooted, and I recalled all my fears that Abigail was setting her own death in motion. Now here she was, poking a metaphorical dragon in the eye, one who could literally breathe fire.

  “Oh no,” I found myself saying. “No… no… no….”

  “What do you know about this?” Dad asked.

  Only that it couldn’t be happening, not like this. Surely… surely Dad wouldn’t kill her for this?

  No, he wouldn’t, but he would get angry. And when he got angry, accidents happened. People got hurt.

  “She didn’t send it,” I blurted. “I did.”

  Dad’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything in response to my ludicrous pronouncement. It was probably better that way.

  “That is to say, I asked her to look into my future, and she, um….” Now, where was I going with that? Abigail had put me in an impossible situation and I had a feeling words wouldn’t get either one of us out of it.

  “You went to see Abigail Hastings?” Dad asked, latching onto part of what I had said.

  “I, um, thought she might be able to help put an end to all this fighting.” That much was true.

  “She’s one of them.” Dad held up the charred invitation as if it contained proof of her duplicity. “This can’t happen. You can’t marry Evan.”

  I hadn’t considered the invitation from that angle, and still couldn’t. Abigail might be a seer, but I didn’t believe this was a prediction. It was more like waving a red flag in front of a bull.

  “It won’t happen.” I allowed myself a small shudder at the idea.

  “He almost forced you into it once.”

  I hesitated, because I had never been certain whether he had forced my hand or not. At the time, I thought I was in love with him, but had it been real or a product of a debt and a powerful kiss? I had learned enough since then about manipulative magic to question everything I thought and felt. It was an exhausting way to live.

  “Cassandra,” Dad said, his voice a warning.

  “Yes, he forced me into it.” I glanced at Mom, who wouldn’t look at me. I had talked the possibilities over with her, trying to figure out which feelings had been the real me and which had been manipulated, but the conversation had gone in circles. I hoped she hadn’t gone to Dad with it, but I suspected she had.

  “So, how do we stop this?” Dad asked.

  “Stop it?” I gaped at him. “There’s no way it’s going to happen. I hate him.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.” I looked him straight in the eyes, imploring him to see the truth written there for anyone to see. How could he think anything else, after everything Evan had done to me? How could he feel threatened for so much as a second?

  I was still pondering those questions when the house phone rang. I ignored it; nobody called me on that line any longer. Mom, still nursing a baby with a tiny pink bow just visible above a yellow blanket, couldn’t move, so Dad grabbed the nearest handset.

  “Hello?” he said tersely. Then, after a few seconds, “Who is this?” Another short pause. “WHO?”

  The phone exploded. I ducked, taking cover in the nearby dining room, while bits of plastic shrapnel sprayed the living room. Madison got a few pieces in her arm, Kaitlin in her legs, and at least one lodged somewhere in Maya’s tiny form because the baby started shrieking, Mom’s voice echoing the cries shortly thereafter.

  “I’ll get Juliana,” Nicolas said as he disappeared down the short hallway leading to the main stairs.

  “Edward!” Mom cried. “You promised!”

  I don’t know what he had promised, but he either didn’t hear her, or didn’t care, because he was rounding on me once again.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Why was Abigail Hastings calling for you?”

  I stared at him blankly. She had never called me before, and if she had, she would have used my cell phone number. It was the one I had given her.

  “Why?” Dad asked, his face heat-reddened. The air around us grew uncomfortably warm.

  “How should I know?” I asked. “You blew up the phone before I could talk to her.”

  That’s when my cell phone began to ring. I hadn’t had a chance to set down either my purse or potion belt since stepping through the front door. I disentangled it all now so I could answer the phone.

  “Cassie,” Abigail said. “How are you doing?”

  “What are you doing?” I asked, keeping one eye on my father as I scooted away from him. “You can’t do this. It’s–” I stopped short of calling it suicide, fearing that was precisely what it was.

  “It’s complicated, dear.”

  “Uncomplicate it.”

  “Time’s up,” she said.

  “Time’s up? What does that mean?”

  “You said you wanted it uncomplicated, dear.”

  “Time’s up for what?” I knew the answer, but found I needed to hear it from her.

  “Life.” She sounded weary. “People are going to start dying soon. It would have been Laura and Victor first.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

  “If I had, they’d have died.” Her voice went soft. “A mother’s got a right to die for her child. Don’t take this away from me.” With that, she hung up.

  I was still staring at it when Dad yanked it out of my trembling fingers. “What is going on between you and Abigail Hastings?”

  “I–”

  “The truth, Cassandra.”

  “She’s my mentor.”

  It seemed my father had run out of bluster, because as angry as he looked, he didn’t manage to produce another shout of rage. In a way, though, his quiet demeanor was more menacing.

  “You are going to stay here,” Dad said. “You can have the guest room. You aren’t to leave this house until after April second.”

  He was serious. I stared at him, wondering how he could think about holding me prisoner for almost two months. “You’re crazy if you think–”

  “I’m trying to protect you, Cassandra. I’ve always been trying to protect you. You’ve just always been too independent to have been born without magic.” He ran his hands through his hair. “But why did you go to Abigail Hastings? You’re not a witch, Cassandra, and I hate to say it, but you probably never will be.”

  There it was–the clincher. He was still disappointed in me. I still had his love, but not his respect. Never his respect.

  “I am a witch,” I said.

  “I know, I know. You should be. I’m doing everything in my power to get your magic back for you.”

  “I’m a witch now.”

  He looked at me then with pity in his eyes. “Is that what she told you? What has she been teaching you, anyway?”

  I swallowed, not wanting to confess the truth, but not seeing a way out of it. “Dreaming.”

  “Dreaming?” He laughed. “Oh, Cassandra, you know that’s not real. She’s manipulating you.”

  I wasn’t sure he was wrong, but it was beside the point. “I think she’s manipulating you. Don’t do anything about this invitation thing. It doesn’t mean anything unless you make it mean something.”

  Just then, Juliana dashed down the stairs and began tending to the wounded victims of Dad’s outburst, beginning with the youngest–and most vocal.

  “Dad,” I said, hesitantly, “I don’t need the magic back this badly. It’s not worth anyone’s life.” I had told him so before, but he hadn’t listened. I had no more hope that he would listen now, but with Abigail’s prophecy ringing through my mind, I had to try.

  “No one’s dead.”

  “People are dead! Two bounty hunters.”

  “All the more reason to capture Evan, if he’s a killer!”

  “He was defending himself!”

  “How can you defend him?” His hand, still clenching the charred invitation, shook. I had never seen him so angry before. Never.

  “Dad?” I whispered, torn between fear and rage.

  “Maybe you
should have agreed to marry Alexander.”

  Rage won. “How can you say that? He’s older than you are!”

  But dad was beyond sense. The fake wedding invitation had unhinged him. “He said he would support us in this.”

  “You mean back in September?” Alexander had agreed to arrest Evan in exchange for my family’s support in his unification movement; but after I had warned Evan about the arrest, Alexander had not made a second attempt.

  “More recently,” Dad said.

  “Is that why you’re still trying to get Evan arrested? Offering rewards? Getting people killed?”

  In the other room, everyone was staring at us, except for Maya, who was still expressing her displeasure at having been hit by pieces of shrapnel, despite her thorough healing.

  “I’m going to go fix this,” Dad said, heading for the front door.

  “Please, don’t.” It was as close as I had ever come to begging him, but I couldn’t contain the horrible feeling I had about what would happen if he walked out that door, and not just because of Abigail’s haunting words.

  “She’s a seer, Cassandra, and this can’t happen.”

  “Just stop!” I felt desperate now; I couldn’t let him leave this house. I began to babble. “Stop everything! Take down the posters. They’re not working, and they can’t work. If anyone captures him they’ll take his magic for themselves and I’ll never see an ounce of it. There’s no justice in that. Evan said–”

  “Evan? When did you see Evan?”

  Wrong thing to say. “It doesn’t matter. But these people aren’t after the reward money. You can put an end to this right now.”

  “I plan to.” He opened the front door, but paused in the threshold long enough to say, “I’m doing this for you.”

  I shook my head. There was no way this was about me and we both knew it, but he was already through the door, closing it behind him.

  “I hate you,” I hissed.

  Those were the last words I ever said to my father.

  7