Never Been Witched

by BLAIR, ANNETTE

  Since she’d come to the lighthouse, he no longer felt that awful need to fly the earth screaming for something he didn’t understand. He could finally land safely in her sheltering arms.

  But who would shelter Destiny? Would a woman who needed a center as much as he did, a woman both as strong and goal-seeking as him—a kindred spirit—feel comfortable depending on him?

  He thought he’d be comfortable depending on her. But permanently?

  When they got home, Meggie disappeared right away, or so Destiny said, probably because he and Destiny were so filled with each other.

  They went to bed that way, their emotions so fragile, sex had no place. Kisses, strokes, touches graced with reverence. Their gazes locked, they drifted into sleep entwined in comfort, support, tenderness . . . and love?

  Morgan woke early, his need for her so enormous—his need, not his—well yes, his boner, too. But he wanted a spiritual, emotional, and all-encompassing relationship with Destiny. He wanted her beside him whether paddling a kayak, planting crazy-named asters, painting a door, or facing his parents.

  He might be joking with himself, especially about his parents, but the whole loving Destiny thing scared the breath out of him, punched him in the solar plexus, and nearly brought him to his knees, because logic didn’t enter into it. For a man like him, mistakes made more logical sense than an emotion as elusive and life-altering as love. He got up quietly, grabbed his sweats, and took the kayak out to think.

  He would not run from love, but he did need to figure it out. He didn’t fear it so much as he didn’t understand it.

  Maybe he was as mad as his mother thought. Maybe, maybe not.

  Unsure how long he’d been on the water, he looked up at the sky and thought that dawn might not make as sunny a debut this morning as it had yesterday.

  Eventually, dark clouds scuttled overhead, as if a storm might be brewing. Made him think of spending a rainy day in bed making lo—yes, making love with Destiny.

  He heard the fog bell calling to him, and a great abiding forever love for the woman who sounded it welled up in him. Joyfulness infused him. He turned the kayak toward home—his home, if Destiny was there—surprised he’d come so far. Facing shore, the wind whipped at his jacket, and sea spray lashed like ice picks at his face and hands.

  As if Destiny sensed his trouble, the Fresnel light went on, like a candle in the window leading him back to her. She must have awakened alone and gone looking for him. He waved, assuming she’d brought the binoculars up there. “I’m coming,” he shouted, grinning like a fool.

  As if she could hear him.

  Destiny, his beacon, sending rays of faith, hope, and love in dark and stormy seas. Maybe he’d fallen in love with the lighthouse because it was known for granting safe harbor to lost travelers, which he’d surely been when he first went there. Lighthouses directed lost travelers like him safely to shore, toward their destinies. His Destiny.

  He loved her, and he couldn’t wait to get back to tell her. When he’d come out here earlier, he hadn’t been running from love but from need. It was scary to need another person as much as you needed your next breath. It implied a need for unlimited faith and trust. You had to believe your love would be there for you always.

  Would she?

  A sudden gust whipped the wind around him, making the water choppy and difficult to navigate. The kayak rolled, taking him by surprise. One minute above water; the next minute below. Morgan rolled himself and the kayak upright.

  Thunder and lightning joined nature’s frenzy.

  His heart nearly pounded from his chest. The muscles in his arms clenched as he tried to paddle against the storm-tossed sea. He looked toward the lighthouse.

  Knowing Destiny waited there gave him strength.

  He rolled again, kayak side up, and got a premonition, a vision in slow motion. “No!” he shouted.

  Chapter Forty-three

  MORGAN rolled and resurfaced, again, pulling air into his lungs.

  He’d lost his bearings, couldn’t see the lighthouse anymore, but when he spotted it, he watched an instant replay of his vision in quick, terrorizing action.

  Before his eyes, a lightning ball raced toward the lighthouse, hit the tower, and brick by slow brick, it collapsed. “Destiny!” he screamed, his mournful wail lost in the frenzied wind.

  Had she stayed in the tower? Gone back down? Was she hurt? Safe?

  The lens must have broken to form huge, heavy slivers of slicing glass. Oh God, let her be safe. He called her name as he fought the waves battering the kayak. It flipped him again, and this time he freed himself from its grip.

  He floated to the surface too slowly because the tossing water fought to keep him down, his lungs about to burst. The minute he surfaced, he sucked in air, cleared his mind, and began to swim against the tide, in a lightning storm, by damn.

  He looked in every direction, but he’d lost the shore.

  Lost.

  Hopeless. Exhausted. Frozen. It would be so easy to give up. Praying didn’t even seem worth the trouble, except that Destiny needed him. He’d save her, but he needed to rest first, to gather his strength.

  Morgan closed his eyes for a minute, just a minute, but water closing over his head woke him.

  “Morgan,” Meggie said. “Follow me.”

  “Meggie! I can see you. Your beautiful face. Finally, I can see you. Can you hear me? We’re beneath the water, but I can hear you.”

  “We never needed sound to talk, did we?”

  Morgan gave in to his fear. “Does seeing you mean that I’m dead, too? Did I drown?” He looked for Destiny, afraid she’d died in the collapsing tower, but he saw only water all around him. “Is Destiny okay? Did she make it?”

  “I love you, Morgan,” Meggie said. “I stayed because I knew that someone else you loved would be trapped in a tower, and I couldn’t let you blame yourself this time. You couldn’t have saved me. It was my time. I always knew I wasn’t meant to grow up. But you’re different.”

  “What about Destiny? I can’t live without her.”

  “Destiny is buried alive, but Buffy is with her, so she has a chance, a small chance.”

  Denial. Loss. Rage. Sanity. “I’ll do anything, Meggie.”

  “Can you believe in me enough to follow me?” his sister asked.

  “I’ve always believed in you. I just got lost in the dark for a while, until Destiny led me to the light.” And the thought of saving her gave him the physical strength to go on, while Meggie gave him the emotional strength. “Lead the way, Megs.”

  “Follow me.”

  Morgan no longer felt the cold as he swam after his twin—yes, Meggie did, indeed, walk on water, like Jake said.

  Hours later, or so it seemed, when Morgan reached the island, he could barely stand, but he didn’t have a choice. With bricks and a giant, battered Fresnel lens blocking the kitchen door out back, Morgan staggered to the front door. “I can’t let Destiny die like you did, Meggie. If she’s—if she—”

  “Destiny,” he shouted when he got inside. He stopped to call her from the bottom of the stairs.

  “You’re wasting time, Morgan,” Meggie said. “She’s in the tower.”

  Adrenaline surged through him as he stood in the keeper’s room and tore bricks away from the tower entrance, Meggie encouraging him. He could see his dead sister, miracle of miracles. Now he wanted another miracle. He looked beyond the lighthouse ceiling and angry storm clouds. Please, don’t let there be a life limit on miracles or forgiveness.

  He resumed calling Destiny’s name.

  For every brick he removed, twenty fell. He couldn’t move them fast enough, and for a minute, he wanted his world to end. Without Destiny, his life meant nothing. “No! I will not let the tower have her!”

  “Morgan,” Meggie said. “You’re the logical twin. Think.”

  He took a minute to catch his breath, and he tried to calm enough to think logically. “The lighthouse keeper,” he said. “Horace? Meggi
e, where’s Horace?”

  “Here he is,” Meggie said, holding a uniformed man’s hand.

  “Thank you for taking care of my sister,” Morgan said, shocked to see that the old lighthouse keeper was so young. “Destiny told me about a maze in the basement. Can you lead me through it?”

  Horace nodded. “No one better. Follow me.”

  They crawled beneath the planking that led from the marsh to the porch to find a stone arch that seemed just above the ground beneath the plank, but it covered a set of stairs leading down to a door deep in the earth. “No wonder I never knew it was here. It looked like part of the foundation.”

  It wasn’t so much a maze in a basement as it was a kind of landfill of pilings holding up the lighthouse. Horace, with Meggie behind him, led Morgan through the underground horror house, but the maze led to a dead end, or as good as.

  “The hidden door is a trapdoor in the ceiling?” Morgan remembered and confirmed. He pushed against the metal square but to no avail. “It won’t budge. It’s covered with bricks. How can I get it open?”

  “Pull on it,” Horace said.

  “What?”

  “Don’t push. Pull.”

  Morgan wedged his bloody fingers beneath an edge of the trapdoor and hung from it until he fell to the floor as it opened, bricks pouring down on him.

  He crawled away as he got pummeled. Eventually, it stopped raining bricks, and Morgan climbed the brick mountain to wedge himself into the opening, shoving bricks aside, and slip through the trapdoor to come up in a corner of the ruined tower.

  He faced Meggie and Horace, and shouted in surprise, as if he’d seen a ghost, well, two. “Hades. That’s some trick. I just left you behind me, and now you’re in front of me.”

  Meggie giggled, a sound he’d cherish forever, but right now, he needed to find Destiny. “Destiny? Darling, are you here?”

  A good section of the circular stairway stood intact, though it was broken with great gaps in places and strewn with bricks. Not as many as in the entryway, which made sense, since the tower was hollow.

  Samantha and Caramello came slinking through the trapdoor behind him, yowling and yapping. He bent down, and they jumped into his arms. “We gotta find her, guys. You gotta help me find her.”

  “Destiny?” he called again. “Destiny, where are you?”

  No sound alleviated his anguish.

  Chapter Forty-four

  DESTINY drifted on the soft, feathery wings of a dream cloud.

  Morgan walked toward her, almost as excited to see her as she was to see him. No hidden emotions for either of them. They were both putting their love, hopes, and dreams out there and lapping them up. Devouring each other with their gazes is what they were doing.

  He spoke her name, but it came to her through a tunnel.

  She opened her eyes and realized that the feathery wings of the cloud belonged to Buffy, Meggie’s angel. Had she died in the tower then? Ooh, she’d died like Meggie. How weird.

  Her heart raced. No, she didn’t want to die. She wanted more time with Morgan.

  She wanted a lifetime with him.

  Fine place to realize she’d fallen head over heels in love. Not that they could ever be together, not forever, not in her wildest imaginings—not with him making peace with his faith and her being a witch—even if she could get out of here, but oh Goddess, did she love him.

  She was so sorry his tower lay in ruins like in her painting. Sorry her vision had been correct.

  Morgan? Her heart sped, her hands began to sweat. She remembered now that he’d been on the water in a thunder and lightning storm.

  “Morgan?” she called, but she had no voice. She had to save him with the best means at her disposal:

  “God of fire

  No death bell.

  Save the man

  That I desire.

  “My heart he holds,

  For me, he’s right.

  Though worlds apart,

  My soul needs his.

  “Air, fill his lungs.

  Water, wash to shore.

  Earth, bind to land.

  Spirit, pump his heart.”

  Destiny tried to move, but Buffy held her still. Her body ached almost everywhere, but she couldn’t be seriously hurt, because Buffy had broken her fall.

  “Destiny? Can you hear me?” Morgan called. “If you can, call out. Make a noise. Anything, so I know you’re okay. Please be okay. Wait! Chant a spell to get yourself out. Can witches do that?”

  Safe and asking for a spell. His own faith returning and maybe a little faith in her beliefs, as well. Two miracles, thank the Goddess. “Morgan,” she called, but she’d swallowed so much dust she could do little more than whisper a gasp.

  Make a noise? How could she make a noise, caged, or cocooned, as she was by buckled stair rails covered in bricks?

  She looked around and found a small opening, like a window in her brick-and-iron cage, that allowed her to see a section of the stairs down below.

  With difficulty, she raised her sore arm and tentatively pushed on a loose brick near the opening, afraid that dislodging it would cause another avalanche.

  Angel bright,

  Wings so light,

  Guide my hand.

  Make it right.

  Protect my love

  Within my sight.

  Guide his eyes

  To me here, right.

  She didn’t know what she’d do if Morgan got hurt as a result of her response to him.

  Her brick let go, eased from its wedge, and fell down the stairs, actually widening her window and allowing her to see the separation—a big break—in the stairs.

  He would never be able to reach her.

  “Do you think Destiny did that?” she heard Morgan ask. “I mean, it was only one brick. It could have fallen by itself.”

  One minute he was talking, then there he stood, on the last step before the split. Destiny looked up, beyond her angel cradle and gasped, as much as she could. Vexing vetiver, it looked like she was hanging on a section of stairs severed at both ends yet still connected to the wall by a steel thread.

  Sweet sassafras tea. A flying trapeze cage.

  Wait. Morgan was talking to Meggie and Horace. He could see them, which meant he remembered, believed, embraced his psychic ability, or he wouldn’t be able to see his sister, never mind Horace. Somehow, in the midst of this, he’d been set free, totally free, of his past.

  Destiny heard a ringing in her head. That couldn’t be good.

  She closed her eyes against her headache and thought of how Meggie must have felt in the same situation, a worse situation, where fire surrounded her. Poor Meggie . . . who must sense her presence.

  Wait. Had the clever, clairvoyant Meggie stayed here all these years, because she knew this was going to happen? With a second collapsed tower, Morgan must feel like he was reliving a nightmare.

  “Destiny?” he called again.

  She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain of moving and nudged another brick. Several fell . . . and Morgan shouted her name.

  She heard other shouts, different men’s voices, banging, pounding, sledgehammers, jackhammers.

  Destiny croaked Morgan’s name again and pushed her hand through the mini window so he could see it.

  Caramello jumped the break in the stairs, came closer, and yowled at her. Great, her cat could see her waving, but Morgan couldn’t. Then her dear, sweet Caramello yowled at Morgan, and Samantha the schnoodle barked and ran back and forth toward him and the stairs, so Morgan would look up at Caramello.

  Morgan whooped. “Destiny! I see your hand. I’m coming, Kismet. I’ll save you.”

  But he couldn’t reach her, because he didn’t know yet that this part of the stairs wasn’t attached at the top. If he put any weight on this section she was trapped in, it would break away from the wall, and she would fall . . . about sixty feet to the floor, and maybe take him down with her.

  She’d rather not think of it as a death t
rap, but a cocoon, a chrysalis of her very own. She couldn’t reach her butterfly necklace, but she’d pretend to be a growing butterfly, and she’d bide her time until she could emerge and fly free.

  Shouts erupted from several directions. Destiny got a peek of a seaman with a pickax breaking through from the keeper’s room.

  “Coast Guard,” one of them said. “What happened?”

  Morgan explained from the break in the stairs while Destiny rested her tired hand. One of the seamen suggested that Morgan go back down to the bottom, because she might be safer if he got off the stairs. Sounded smart to her, except that she liked being able to see Morgan. Made her feel connected to him. She needed that connection right now.

  He said something she couldn’t hear, then he cupped his hands around his mouth. “Kismet, they’re going to brace the section of stairs you’re on, then set up some scaffolding to get you down. You might be up there a while.”

  She touched her thumb to her forefinger, giving him an okay signal, telling him she understood, then she let Buffy rock her to sleep.

  DESTINY opened her eyes in time to see the stranger who lifted her from her open cage. How had they opened it without her hearing them? The first stranger handed her to another, then another, down lower, and so forth, until someone finally handed her to Morgan.

  His amber eyes were full. A tear slipped down his cheek. “I love you,” he said. “I realized it on the water before all Hades broke loose.”

  “I love you, too,” she croaked, pleased that he was still trying to use positive words after all this, but he had to lean close, and she had to repeat herself before he heard her.

  Their tears mingled when they kissed.

  “I’m carrying you up to our bed where a medic is waiting to check you out. Do you understand?”

  “Not deaf,” she croaked, her voice a bit less raspy. “You?”

  “Not deaf either.”

  She made a fist at him but couldn’t raise it.

  He raised it himself, to his lips. “I have scrapes on my hands and cold feet from my icy swim. That’s all.”