A Breath of Magic

by Tracy Madison

  He dropped back into his seat and stared at me, questions and confusion and hope and want combining into a dangerous mix, darkening his eyes and coloring his expression. “What does she need?”

  “I—I think to talk to you. Her memories are broken. She knows she was angry at Sara, and that Sara was sad, but she doesn’t remember why. I think she feels your pain and your confusion, and until you can let that go, let her go, she’s somehow stuck here.” That was the best explanation I had. “But now that I know everything, I—I might be able to help.”

  “What do you mean, she was angry at her mom? Do you know how the accident happened, Chloe?”

  “The séance. I told you we had a séance,” I whispered in a rush. I didn’t want to share this with him. I hated bringing him more pain, but he deserved the information. “Me and my cousins, and I…Sara came through. She showed me what happened.” I told him the rest, trying to keep my voice steady, reciting every single detail.

  When I finished, he appeared as if I’d struck him. Empty, shell-shocked eyes held mine, the angles of his face seemed sharper, and his breaths were short, raspy huffs. “That’s why the accident happened? She was upset, and she needed me, and I wasn’t here. I was supposed to be here! If I had been, she wouldn’t have heard that phone call.” Ben covered his face with his hands, and his shoulders shook in silent agony.

  “Let me help you. Let me help her. I…I think if I can speak with her again, I can relay information from you to her, and from her to you. I know it’s not the same as talking to her yourself, but…but Ben, I can see her and I can talk to her.” But would that be enough? God help me, I just didn’t know.

  He raised his face and searched the room. “Is she here now?”

  “No,” I whispered. “Not now.”

  He jumped from the chair and grabbed my hand. Yanking me up, he tugged me down the hall. “You said she was in her room the other night. Maybe she’s there now?”

  “Maybe.” But I didn’t think so. If Mari was ready to see me, she’d show up wherever I was; I’d learned that much. Still, I couldn’t refuse Ben this tiny bit of hope, so I let him pull me up the stairs and into Mari’s bedroom. Naturally, it was empty.

  I fought back tears and shook my head. “But she will come to me, Ben. When she’s ready. I’m sure of that. She hears her mother calling, and she really wants to join her. But she doesn’t know how to go when you’re feeling everything you’re feeling.”

  He placed his hands on my shoulders and swung me around. “If you’re lying to me, Chloe, I will never forgive you.”

  “I swear to you, I am not lying! I promise you with every part of me, with how much I love you, with how important you are to me, that I am not lying.”

  His eyes widened. “What did you just say?”

  “That I’m not lying…that I love—”

  Every muscle in his body tensed. “I can’t say those words to you. It’s too soon, and right now I’m…” He thrust his fingers into his hair. “I’m trying to understand what’s happening with my daughter. I’m stunned you would use my moment of weakness to—”

  I scowled at him, at his statement and body language. “You think that’s why I said I love you—to get you to say it back? This isn’t about me, Ben!”

  I recoiled, startled by my own vehemence, but also by my verbal admission of the feelings I’d only so recently acknowledged. So much of this was about me, had been for so long, that it came as a shock to know that this moment, this second in time, had nothing to do with me. And that he thought I would try to manipulate him both saddened and confused me. It ticked me off too.

  “I’m not asking you to confess your feelings. I’m telling you why I wouldn’t lie to you. Why I am being honest.” I cringed, knowing how much he still didn’t know about me. About my family. About my magic.

  He gave me a hard stare. “For now I’m going to take your word on this, because you have a belief system that I don’t understand. So I’m relying on you. If my daughter needs me, if she is stuck here, then I need to help her. And if what you say is true, I need you in order to make that happen.” He pushed a breath out. “When…when we’ve taken care of my daughter, we’ll go from there.” Scanning the room again, he walked over to her bed and sat down. “So, what do we do? Just sit here and wait?”

  “If you want,” I said carefully. “Or we can go back to the kitchen, or we can keep talking, or we can watch TV, or we can go to sleep. She’ll find me—us—when she’s ready.”

  “Is this the place you last saw my daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’d like to wait here.”

  “Okay, then that’s what we’ll do.” I joined him on the bed, wanting to touch him, wanting to kiss him, wanting to comfort him, but unsure if I should. Instead, I just crossed my legs and stared straight ahead. I hadn’t lied. Tonight, my focus was on Mari, on Ben and on helping them figure this all out. But I would be lying if I said my heart wasn’t breaking just a little at his response to my declaration of love. I wanted him to love me.

  My power came alive then, unbidden, swirling inside, mixing with my emotions, pouring out in a rush of energy. I tried to stop it. I centered all of my thoughts on Mari, on Ben’s loss, on his pain, hoping to rein the magic in.

  Ben stroked my cheek and then repositioned himself on Mari’s bed. He was half-sitting up, his legs open and bent at the knees. “Come here, Chloe. I’d like to hold you while we wait. I’d like to talk to you about Marissa.”

  Relief and tenderness and love spilled into me as I scooted into his waiting arms. “I’d love to hear more about Mari. Anything you want to share.”

  His arms came around me, and his chin settled atop my head. My power ebbed and flowed, wrapping around him, around me. Weirdly, the energy seemed comforting, as if it were easing the ragged emotions we’d both just gone through.

  “Rissa loved practical jokes. It started when she was…hm…probably around six. She’d learned about April Fool’s Day at school, and came home with a dozen or so pranks.” He laughed, and in this laugh I heard a joy Ben hadn’t shown before. “Every year afterward, she’d try to get me with one prank or another. By the time she was a teenager, April Fool’s Day had turned into a major holiday.”

  I loved this: learning about his daughter, about their life together. I settled more deeply into his arms, content and at ease. “What’s the best joke she ever played on you?”

  Another warm laugh rolled out of him. “It wasn’t funny then, but the year before her accident, she called me at work in the middle of the day. Smart, because she knew I had several meetings lined up. She told me she was running away with a boy from her English class, but if I’d allow her to marry him, and if they could live together here, she’d stay.”

  I chuckled, imagining. “How long did it take you to catch on?”

  “Only a few minutes, but those nearly killed me.” I heard the smile in his voice. “It was the first year she completely had me, and she loved it. She told me that she had something even better planned”—his tone dropped, heavy with emotion—“for the next year.”

  I reached up and squeezed his hand. “Memories are a bitch, aren’t they? Sometimes they fill us with so much happiness, and in the next they…they’re heartbreaking.”

  “That they are.” He gave a little cough. “Hey, Red? How could you tell that Gabe wasn’t me without even knowing I had a twin?”

  “I don’t know. My body told me. My instincts told me. I just knew.”

  “Whatever the reason, I’m pleased you did. Thank you for knowing.”

  I couldn’t speak. I just nodded. As his arms tightened around me and he lightly kissed the top of my head, a stream of happiness brought a smile to my lips, easing my worries about us and our future. I reveled in this feeling for all of thirty seconds. Then his earlier comment floated into my head, the one about most of his adult life being consumed by lies. In that second, everything inside me turned cold. His prior life had been built on a lie—on
a series of a lies, really. Look how well that had worked out. And here I was, using my magic to get us where I thought we should be.

  The coldness swept me, filling every muscle and nerve, swallowing me up. Oh, God. How often had I used my magic on Ben? I tried to think of the whens, wheres, whys and hows. I closed my eyes as pain shot through me. Had I learned nothing from my experience with Kyle? How was I any better than Sara? She’d coerced Ben into marriage because she was pregnant. And I…well, I’d been coercing him all along in one way or another.

  Elizabeth’s question from what felt like forever ago came at me again, and this time I had an answer I couldn’t ignore: yes, I wanted Ben to want me for me. Not because of a spell. Not because of magic. I had thought—stupidly—that where we ended up was what was most important. I’d been fooling myself. Lying to myself. Pretending that because of that drawing, anything I did, whatever measures I used, were okay. Now? I wanted the journey itself to be real, to be meaningful, and to pave the way to a future that had nothing to do with Gypsy magic.

  My earlier proclamation that I was in charge now seemed absurd. I loved Ben, and I yearned for his love to be true and unencumbered. If I continued in this direction, I would lose him. I was sure of that. I would also lose everyone else I cared about. After all, I hadn’t hesitated in using my powers on Alice to get what I wanted. This magic was turning into an addiction, and while there were a few times I’d resisted the pull, the temptation was becoming stronger each day I possessed it.

  My instincts had been right in the beginning. Alice’s drawings had indeed been a test of fate. And wow, had I failed. The only question that remained was whether it was too late to alter my path. I blinked away the tears behind my eyes, and for the first time since starting this partic u lar journey I truly felt lost, scared and—even with Ben holding me—entirely alone.

  I unlocked my apartment door late the following Monday, exhausted and grumpy from the long day and the even longer weekend I’d spent at Ben’s. We’d barely slept, with our ongoing lookout for Mari, but she hadn’t shown. I’d thought I sensed her once, but in my sleep-deprived delirium and the residue from my emotional meltdown I might have been mistaken.

  So now, before heading to Ben’s for another long—and, I was fairly certain, fruitless—night, I had one very specific purpose I wanted to accomplish at home: talking to Miranda. I needed her help, and if this particular ghost also refused to show, then I was going to make Verda, Alice and Elizabeth sit in on another séance. I had some questions for my great-great-great-grandmother. Namely about the magic, the drawings and what I might and might not be able to do to rectify all the mistakes I’d made.

  Working quickly, I brought out the blue, white and purple candles I’d used before, the first time Miranda visited me, and once again I placed them atop my dresser. After they were lit, I sat on my bed and crossed my legs. She’d said that they’d helped her connect with me before, so maybe they’d do the trick tonight. And hey, it would come in awfully handy if I figured out how to bring her to me instead of waiting around and being surprised when she did pop in. Even better, if this worked, I could try them on Marissa. Helping her move on had become a primary objective.

  Closing my eyes, I breathed in deeply and brought the image of Miranda to mind. I imagined her voice in my thoughts, the tinkling way she spoke. Once I had the whole picture, I pulled in another breath and relaxed every muscle in my body.

  “Miranda,” I whispered. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do or how I’m supposed to help Ben and Mari. I need your help. Please don’t leave me alone on this.”

  Nothing happened, so I repeated my words and waited. When Miranda still didn’t appear, frustration and anger rose up inside of me so fast that my voice shook. “I call you to me, Miranda! I call you to me now. I need your assistance, I need your wisdom, and you are to heed this call!”

  A blast of wind hit the room, blowing hair into my face, extinguishing the candles and leaving me quite unable to breathe. I focused harder, grabbed hold of my magic and shouted for Miranda with everything I had, “Come to me, Miranda! You cannot ignore this call!”

  Colors so bright they hurt my eyes darted through the air. A solid, almost suffocating pressure wrapped me, pressing inward, stealing the rest of my breath away. I held on, refusing to give up, refusing to let Miranda off the hook. And then, in another flash of brilliant, eye-watering color, she hazed into being directly in front of me. And oh, was she mad.

  “How dare you pull me to you!” Her body pulsated with power, and for the first time ever I saw with my own eyes how frightening a woman Miranda must have been. “I come to you when I’m ready, not the other way around!”

  My own anger grew. “Then where have you been? I’ve tried to figure all of this out on my own, but I don’t know what to do, and there’s a girl who needs my help and I can’t seem to help her!”

  “This is your journey! I’ve given you all the information you need to solve this, Chloe,” Miranda snapped. “You are extraordinarily powerful. You brought me to you—no one has ever been able to do that. You brought Sara to you! So why haven’t you used your magic, your will, to pull Mari to you?”

  Oh. “I didn’t know I could.”

  “Well, you know now.” She glared at me. “If you don’t find the way to solving Mari’s dilemma, she’ll remain just as she is, locked to this world with no hope of moving on. This should be your focus! Not dragging me around.”

  “Right. I get that,” I snapped back. “I just don’t know how to help Mari or Ben.”

  “Get them in the same room. Your power will lead the way. You’ll be able to heal both of them. That’s what your true gift is.” She narrowed her eyes. “As to the other question in your mind: yes. Because of your ability to alter people’s wills, you, in effect, can shape their fates. It’s a dangerous game you’re playing. I warned you to be careful.”

  And where was that bit of intel when I’d needed it? I shook my head. “I want to stop! This gift scares me and I don’t want it anymore. Is that possible? This magic is too forceful, too overpowering, and…Can’t I give it away so I’m just a normal girl?”

  For once, Miranda didn’t seem to know how to respond. Tilting her head, she looked into my eyes as if she could read my thoughts and emotions. “This gift has always been that, Chloe. A gift. It is your choice to accept it or not.” Then, in an obvious reminder of our last conversation, she heaved a sigh. “Just like with Isobel. But child, your feelings have to be true and sure. If any part of you wants to retain the magic, then you will not be able to lose it.”

  “But it’s possible? If it’s truly what I want, then I’ll be able to become plain old Chloe again?” Hope blossomed inside, quelling some of my despair.

  She smiled in her glistening, glittering way. “You’ve never been plain old Chloe, and I can’t assure you that you’ll lose every drop of magic. But yes, the chance certainly exists.”

  Okay. Good. A relief. “And the drawings—they’re what I think they are, right?” I’d given this a lot of thought, and I was almost positive I was right, but I wanted Miranda’s assurance. “You wanted me to see what might happen if I altered other people’s wills—their fates—and how I’d then alter my own. Is that true?”

  “See? You don’t require my help. Why can’t you trust in yourself? But yes, you have such great power that you can help people beyond measure, or you can deal them—and yourself—incredibly debilitating blows. Everything stems from you. Everything is connected. But as with Alice, there was only so much I could tell you. In your case, I needed you to grab onto your magic with both hands, to experience what you were capable of, so you’d be able to find your true destination. You’re far too stubborn to have just listened to me and nodded.”

  I nearly stuck my tongue out at her, but didn’t. Because loath to admit it as I was, she was correct. Again. “Okay. And what about Gabriel? My heart and my body and my soul tell me he isn’t the man in that drawing. But is that just wishful
thinking?” I bit my lip, waiting for her to respond.

  “You already know the answer to that question! You have some serious self-trust issues, don’t you?” She shook her head as if greatly disappointed. “Besides, my dear—if a little deluded—great-great-great-granddaughter, who is the man who walked into your shop off the street? Was that Ben or was that Gabriel?”

  Oh, God. Thank God. I mean, I was sure of how I felt, of what I believed, but Miranda’s declaration helped. I swallowed and tried to breathe, tried to work out if what I wanted to do would be possible, and if maybe, just maybe, I’d end up where I wanted. A new glimmer of excitement appeared. “I’m sure I don’t want this gift anymore, because if I keep it, I’m going to turn into a person I don’t want to be. But I need to help Mari and Ben first.”

  “Then do what you must. Trust in yourself. Trust your instincts.” She winked, and the colors around her sparkled and jumped, bounced and shimmied. “But listen to this, Chloe: if you ever call me like this again, then I will have a long talk with Elizabeth.”

  I chuckled. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that, Grandmother.”

  Her energy expanded across the room and cascaded around me. In that second, I felt the purity of Miranda’s love, of her belief in me. And I gotta say, it felt really, really good. I smiled through my tears. “I love you too.”

  She nodded, raised her arms and, in a final blast of colors, disappeared.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Tuesday evening, right after locking the door at the Mystic Corner, I dialed my sister’s phone number and waited for her automated, robotic-sounding voice mail to pick up, hoping that maybe she’d actually answer. She didn’t.

  “Sheridan, I’ve purchased a plane ticket to Seattle. I’m not telling you when I’ll be there, because I’m sure you’ll find a reason not to be home then, but I’ll see you soon and I hope you’ll let me in.” I heaved a breath. “I miss and I love you.”