Joss had only spoken to her once. It had been on a summer’s day after school. She’d sneaked to the forest behind the schoolyard because she’d known she’d find him there. She’d stand behind a tree and study the movement of his hand as he smoked a forbidden cigarette. She’d memorize the manner in which he pulled his fingers through his rebelliously long hair, and the way he laughed loudly into his gang of friends even when his eyes cried or blazed.
That day however, he wasn’t with his friends. He was with a girl. Her name was Thiphaine and she was the most popular girl in school. She was blond, slim, and beautiful with blue eyes and red painted fingernails. Clelia watched from her hiding place as Joss backed Thiphaine up until her body pressed against the trunk of a tree. It was an athuja occidentalis, but the townsfolk called it a witch tree because of the tangled roots that resembled crippled limbs and the branches that looked like knobbed fingers. The setting was eerie for a romantic adventure, and yet it suited Joss. He seemed right at home, whereas Thiphaine looked around nervously. His hand went to her cheek, his palm huge, dark, and rough against the porcelain paleness of her face, while his other hand slipped under her blouse. His gray eyes looked like melted steel when he lowered his head.
When he pressed his lips to Thiphaine’s, his hair fell forward, and he moved his hand from her cheek to brush it behind his ear. Clelia recalled the deliberate movement of his jaw, the way the muscles dimpled in his cheek, and the hand under Thiphaine’s blouse. All the while, Joss maintained his composure as Thiphaine came undone under his caress. The beautiful girl made low moaning sounds. Her knees buckled, but Joss, without breaking the kiss, grabbed her waist and pulled her so tightly against him her back arched. Keeping her up with his arm, he made her weak with his touch and tongue.
Watching them stabbed into her chest. Hurt speared her heart. The ache was greater than the heat of shame in her pores and on her cheeks, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the forbidden sight. It was Iwig, a boy from her class, who broke the spell when he discovered her behind the tree. He was a tall, blond boy with a strong build who she disliked for his habit of hunting abandoned cats with his pellet gun.
“What do we have here?” His eyes darted to the distance where Joss and Thiphaine were embracing. “A peeping tom.” He took a step toward her.
When she tried to back away, he grabbed her braid, inviting a yelp.
“Not so fast, witch.” He hauled her closer by her arm, making her stumble against him. “You like to watch, don’t you?” He grinned. “How about a taste of the real thing?”
She opened her mouth to tell him to go to hell, but he’d already brought down his head and kissed her so hard his teeth split her lip. Swinging back her arm, she slapped him with all the force she could muster. The blow was strong enough to fling his face sideways.
They both froze. When he looked back at her, his eyes simmered with fury. He glared for a second, baring his teeth, before lifting his fist. Unable to free herself from his grip, she steeled herself for the blow, but another pair of hands grabbed Iwig by the shoulders and flung him to the ground.
Her gaze collided with Joss’s violent expression. Her lips parted, words refusing to form, as she stared at him with shock and relief tangling in her stomach, leaving her feeling slightly sick. Before she could find her voice, Joss had lifted Iwig by the lapels of his jacket. Iwig’s legs dangled and his arms flayed like fish flapping on soil. Letting go of one side of the jacket, Joss hooked a fist under Iwig’s chin. The impact sent Iwig flying through the air. He hit the ground with a thump. With his arms wide and fingers flexing, Joss stepped over a cowering Iwig.
“If you ever lift your hand to a girl again, I’ll hang you from a tree under a pack of wild boars and let them eat you from your feet to your useless dick,” Joss said. “Understand?”
He’d spoken very softly, but the woods had gone quiet. No birds chirped. Not even the leaves rustled. Thiphaine stood aside, hugging herself.
Iwig tried to scurry away on his elbows, but Joss stepped on his jacket.
“I asked you a question,” Joss said.
Iwig started crying. “Yes.”
When Joss lifted his boot, Iwig scrambled to his feet. He didn’t look at Clelia before running down the path toward the school.
Only then did Joss turn to her. After a moment of studying her, he gripped her chin and tilted her head. Trailing his thumb over her lower lip, he said, “You’re bleeding.”
Then he did something that shocked her wildly. With his gray eyes locked onto hers, he brought his thumb to his lips, slipped his finger into his mouth, and licked it clean.
She couldn’t move. She didn’t dare as much as blink.
He saw her. It felt like he saw through her. She couldn’t speak with the power of the knowledge weighing her down. He was a god, a rebel, a cruelty, a stolen sight, and he saw her.
He’d tasted her.
He’d swallowed her DNA.
He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood from her lip before pressing the ball of fabric into her hand. “He won’t bother you again, but you better go home.”
He was so tall she had to crane her neck to look up at him. He shifted, and then the shadows obscured his face and the sun at his back blinded her, breaking the spell.
Her flight instinct kicked in. She remembered wondering if he’d forgotten about Thiphaine who still stood to one side with wide eyes as she hurried down the path.
“Wait,” he called after her. “It’s Clelia, right?” he asked when she’d stopped to look at him.
“Yes.” Everyone knew who everyone was in town, but he hadn’t acknowledged her until that day.
“You’re fourteen.”
Of course he knew. There was only one school. He had to know in which class she was.
His voice became soft and dark again like when he’d spoken to Iwig. “You’re too young to wander alone in the woods.”
His intense stare was unnerving. That was when the insight hit her. Catching Joss’s attention was dangerous. A girl couldn’t survive it, not with her heart. Her body wouldn’t stand a chance. She realized it instinctively, even if she was much too young to know.
The way he scrutinized her with a smirk tugging on his full lips and knowledge burning in his eyes told her he knew. He knew what she was doing here. Shame crept through her veins. Scarlet heat rose to her cheeks. She wished the path would open up and swallow her.
His gaze continued to consume her for another moment, and then, as if nothing had happened, he turned. Just like that, she’d been unseen, going back to how it had always been.
She went back to nothing.
Without sparing either of the lovers another glance, she sprinted home with his bloody handkerchief in her hand, shaken and disgusted with herself while something that refused to be quieted tingled under her skin, a kind of exhilaration, the kind you feel when you fall in love.
They’d never spoken another word. Joss had left the village that same year in August, the summer he’d finished school, just after the fateful incident in his life.
Nine years was enough time for fixation to bloom into unrequited love. The pain of knowing her feelings would never be returned only made them stronger. In a twisted way, it gave her one-sided love a poetic edge. Besides having heard via the grapevine he’d gone to New York, she hadn’t had news and she’d refused to look at the house in which he’d grown up. Being reminded of her hopeless crush was too hurtful.
Now she stood facing it, taking it all in with a mixture of mounting fear and premonition. It was the biggest house—three stories high with two turrets framing the pointed roof—for miles around. The once pretty garden had been transformed into weeds strangling rose bushes and climbing the fence. Nine years ago, there was a swing bench on the porch overlooking the grassland that flattened out to the sea. The white shutters had stood out against the gray of the stone walls and the silver slate of the roof, but now the wood was the color of ash, faded, cracked, a
nd splintered in places, hanging askew in front of the narrow turret windows.
His bedroom was on the top floor in the west tower. Sometimes he smoked a cigarette on the balcony with his gaze trained on the ocean or maybe what lay beyond, what the eye couldn’t see. It was the room in which the light burned the latest. Often, when Erwan was out fishing at night, depending on how the tides turned, she’d sneak out here on her bike and stood in the road until his light went out.
After that night, the house had been barred and sealed. It belonged to Joss now. People wondered if he’d sell, although it would have to be to foreigners, they said, from Paris or England, because no one in his right mind, no one from Larmor-Baden or the islands, would ever want to live there.
A trickle of perspiration ran down her spine. The summer was warmer than usual, and the July sun already high. She pulled off her denim jacket and checked the time on her phone. She had to hurry or she’d miss the bus.
She arrived at Tristan’s stables on the outskirts of Carnac just before eight. By nine, busses full of tourists arrived to visit the three thousand mysterious prehistoric standing stones. A number of the tourists would rent horses and a guide to explore the oldest part, which dated back to 4500 BC and ran from the border of the stables over four miles toward the sea.
When she pushed open the door of the office, Tristan, almost the age of Erwan, lifted his head.
He grimaced. “Every morning I pray you won’t show up, but here you are again.”
“Where else will I go?” She dropped her backpack by the desk and opened the book in which they noted the tour reservations.
He flicked through some papers on the desk. “To Paris. To university. Anywhere but here.”
“This is my home.”
“You’re wasting away, throwing your talents to the wind,” he said, lifting and slamming down books and old telephone directories.
“Who will take care of Erwan and my animals?”
Tristan looked up. She smiled.
“If it wasn’t for that old man, you wouldn’t be here.”
“He’s all I’ve got,” she said gently.
“No.” He waved a finger at her. “You’re all he’s got.” His expression softened. “Kompren a ran,” he said with a resigned air. I understand.
He plucked open a drawer, rummaged through it, and banged it closed again.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“The damn receipt book. It was here,” he pushed his finger on the desk, “just yesterday.”
She walked to the stack of plastic trays they used for organizing their filing and lifted a blue book from the top. “You left it here last night.”
He grabbed it from her. “What will I do without you?”
“Asks the man who wants me to leave,” she said as she took her seat behind the desk.
“You know I have to say things that are in your best interest. I never mean them.”
She smiled with affection. “I know.”
Nobody from here truly wanted anyone to get away. It would be proof that a world existed beyond theirs. As long as they remained here with the people they grew up with, they felt secure. Joss’s return had turned her safe world upside down. The meaning of her dream was a mystery, but the message was clear. Larmor-Baden had become the least safe place for her to be.
Chapter 2
The last group of tourists came back with the horses shortly before eight in the evening when the megalithic sites closed. Tristan had already counted the money for the day, taken the petty cash box, and left for his small farm ten miles from Carnac. The stable hand, Rigual, and the guide, Golven, took care of the horses. As soon as they were finished, all Clelia had to do was to lock up the office.
Before sunset, she’d be on her way, and home by ten. Erwan would’ve had his dinner by then, and if the tide wasn’t suited for fishing, he’d be sitting on the terrace drinking a Telenn Du, his favorite beer. She’d feed the animals and sit with him until ten thirty to watch the sun set over the sea. Then she’d clean the kitchen and stay up to read until midnight.
In winter and out of holiday seasons, her working hours were less. On rainy days, which were plenty, Tristan didn’t open the stables, which was why she didn’t resent the long laboring days of summer. She enjoyed the late sunsets and the boat or bicycle ride home when the day was ready to quit and everything was quiet. At that hour, peace dawned on the island and she could breathe with an easy rhythm, inhaling the fragrance of the pine needles and freshly mowed grass.
Today however, nothing about her rhythm was easy. Disturbing thoughts distracted her mind. Where was Joss staying? Who was his woman? Why was the strange dream plaguing her sleep and how was it connected to the fires that ravaged the town? Everyone was on edge this summer. Although the fires were always set when the inhabitants were absent—with the exception of the mayor’s house—the habitual July Fest Noz had been cancelled. In the light of the damage done to so many properties, the mayor felt a festival was inappropriate. Besides, most people were fearful of leaving their homes at night, worried they’d come back to ashes. A dull spirit had spread through the mainland and islands this holiday.
Up to that morning, Clelia had kept her worry to herself. She knew Erwan had visited every burnt house, not to show his support for the victims, but because he was eavesdropping on the firemen who investigated the mysterious cause of the fires. He was searching for evidence that the culprit hadn’t been his granddaughter even if he’d never admit it. The dream and sleepwalking had thrown her off kilter, but the fact that Joss was here had sent her into a panic.
What was she to do? She’d fretted all day, contemplating leaving, but her responsibility toward Erwan and her animals quickly made her abandon the idea. She had to come forward and hand herself over to the authorities. Maybe they had scientists who could do tests to see once and for all if her unnatural talent had resurfaced. If it had, she didn’t know what she’d do.
Lost in thought, she jumped when the door opened.
The tour agent who’d brought in the last group leaned in the frame. “We’re back.” His gaze slipped under the table to where her bare legs were crossed.
“I saw you returning through the window from a mile. You don’t have to announce it, Ninian.”
“That would take away my excuse for seeing you.”
Squaring a stack of papers, she sighed. “We’ve been through this last year.”
“I don’t see you dating anyone.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m interested.”
He looked her up and down. “Are you a lesbian or something?”
“You’re here for a season and then you’re gone.”
He lifted a brow. “And?”
“You’re interested in a summer fling, and I’m not.”
Fixing his eyes on her breasts, he said, “It’s just a beer at the brasserie and a bit of dancing.”
She crossed her arms. “I’d like to lock up.”
“Need a ride home?”
“No, thanks.”
He grinned. “You’re going to have to give up your precious virginity sometime or another.”
Her cheeks grew hot. Living in a small town had plenty of disadvantages. One of them was that everyone knew everything about everybody. Gossip was a major pastime. Everyone knew she’d never dated. She couldn’t even claim a holiday fling since she’d never set foot outside the village. But Ninian lived in Paris. To the locals, he was as good as a foreigner. It hurt that her own kind—well, adopted kind—would disclose such personal information to a stranger, someone considered an outsider.
She gave him a narrowed look. “That was rude.”
He laughed. “If you’re waiting for Prince Charming to ride into town on a white horse, you’ll wait forever. Your best bet is a fisherman from one of the passing trawlers.” He straightened. “I could take you to Paris. We’ll make it fun.”
She picked up her backpack and got to her feet. “Good evening, Ninian.”
Rigual appeared in the door. “If he’s bothering you, I can give him the wild horse next time. It’ll do him good to come back down to Earth. He needs a good knock on the head.”
She smiled at the man who had a daughter her age. “Thanks, but I can handle myself.”
“We’re done in the stables.”
She nodded. “I’ll close up.”
“Need a lift home?”
“No, thanks. I can do with a walk.”
She needed to clear her head and figure out how to tell Erwan of her intention to hand herself over to the police. It wasn’t a task she looked forward to.
Rigual and Golven got into Rigual’s van. She waved through the window as the van pulled off. The indicator blinked as the vehicle turned right and disappeared in the direction of Carnac.
Stalling for time, she swept the office and cleaned the windows. When only a thumbnail of sun capped the horizon, she couldn’t put it off any longer. She locked the door and left the key under the flowerpot, which defied the purpose of locking it, as that was the first place any burglar would look, not that they’d had any burglaries in all the years she’d lived there, but that was the way Tristan wanted it done. It had been his wife’s habit, and he clung to it as if she were still alive.
She watered the flowers as the final part of her daily tasks. When she was done, the first stars appeared in the dusk. She arranged the hosepipe in a neatly rolled coil and hung it on the wall hook. As she looked up, her eye caught a figure in the distance stumbling down the dirt road. He had to have come straight past her while she had her back turned to the road. She frowned. Had one of the tourists been left behind? It had happened before. If he was hoping to make it to the bus stop, he was going in the wrong direction.
Pyromancist SECOND EDITION: Art of Fire (7 Forbidden Arts Book 1) Page 2
