And, wow, was he looking good today.
Gwen almost didn’t notice Morgan standing beside him.
“Oh, great,” Cei mumbled under his breath, making Gwen aware that he had followed her gaze. She expected Tony to ask what was going on, even saw him glance at Rhein and Morgan, but he didn’t. Instead, he straightened in his seat and began gathering the trash that was the remnants of their lunch.
Morgan saw them first. He smiled as he changed course, heading toward their table rather than the front counter.
“Hey, Gwen,” he said, pushing her with his hip to make room for himself on the bench where she was sitting. “Fancy running into you here.”
“What are you doing here, Morgan?”
He shrugged. “Rhein and I were just out, looking for trouble, and thought we’d grab a bite to eat. What about you? What are you doing here?”
“We were doing research at the university library.”
Morgan shook his head. “Child, has no one ever told you that you aren’t supposed to do school work on a Saturday? It’s against the rules of childhood.”
“Of all childhood, huh?”
“Yes,” Morgan said, clearly very serious about his subject. “Only adults should have to work on the weekends. Kids are supposed to have fun and be kids.”
Gwen nodded her head slowly, contemplatively, even as her eyes moved to Rhein—he was standing casually against the back of the booth behind Tony, his eyes scanning the room as though he was looking for something a little more interesting to do.
“You should know better, Cei,” Morgan said. “Can’t you teach this girl anything?”
“It’s an extra credit assignment for Ms. Dru. We’re working on it together.”
Morgan grabbed his chest and leaned back, dramatically moaning. “Oh, you’ve wounded me,” he said, peeking at Gwen out of one very dramatic eye. “You’re doing extra credit and you didn’t invite me to work with you?”
“Ms. Dru wanted it to be me and Cei.”
Morgan shook his head. “Did you even ask if I could help out?”
“It wasn’t her choice, Morgan,” Cei said. “Let it go.”
Morgan just shook his head. “Ms. Dru knows me. She knows I’m going to need all the extra credit I can get.”
“Maybe you should just work harder in class to get better grades.”
Again, Morgan made that wounded gesture, grabbing his chest, even as he winked at Gwen. “You are one tough lady, Miss Reese.”
“She is that,” Cei agreed.
The compliment made Gwen feel strange inside, as though her intestines were melting, turning into water. It wasn’t Morgan so much as it was the admiration she heard in Cei’s voice. Again, it confused her. The way he talked about her, the way he looked at her sometimes…was there something there?
Did she want there to be something there?
“We should probably head out,” Tony said. “These two have chores.”
“Sure, professor,” Morgan said, uncharacteristically respectful. “We were about to get some lunch, anyway.”
Tony stood, forcing Rhein to move back a foot or two. “I’m sure the three of you can catch up at school on Monday.” He gestured to Cei to follow him.
Morgan climbed to his feet and reached back to offer Gwen a hand. She thought about refusing it, but Morgan was trying. He wasn’t really a bad guy, just a little heavy handed.
As he pulled her to her feet, Morgan caught Gwen briefly between the back of the booth and his body. They were so close that his breath washed gently over her face in a not so unpleasant way.
“Maybe we can have lunch together sometime. Just us.”
Gwen tilted her head slightly. “Maybe.”
Morgan smiled, a triumphant smile, as though he had just won a bet. Before he could say anything else, or tried to turn her maybe into a concrete yes, Gwen slid around him and moved close to Tony. As they headed toward the door, Gwen stole one last look at Rhein.
He was smiling.
Chapter 14
Every time Gwen moved one stack of papers or books, another stack appeared behind it. She didn’t understand how someone could be this disorganized. But, then again, Tony wasn’t really disorganized. He knew where everything was. The problem was, no one else did. And every time she put something away in what should be its rightful place, he was suddenly lost, unable to find a thing.
She’d been working in Tony’s office for the better part of a week now, and she only had a quarter of the office organized. Granted, she could only work there three hours after school each day, but surely in a normal world that would be enough time to put away papers and books and other materials that had a rightful place, but just wasn’t in it. Should have been.
But Tony was a unique creature.
Gwen was sitting on the floor, moving piles of paper, magazines, and books into more organized stacks. Tony sat at his desk, largely ignoring her. She hadn’t realized he was capable of such a deep degree of concentration, but even the crash of one of the stacks falling over did nothing to move him.
She scooted over on her bottom and began to sift through another stack. Books on European history, Middle Eastern history, a couple of biographies on historians—go figure—and a couple of books on archaeology. She had to admit that Tony’s reading style was quite eclectic. She’d found a biography on Marilyn Monroe in one stack and a book on the Beatles in another. There were even a few novels stuck into the stacks here and there, including one that one of Gwen’s foster mothers would have called a bodice ripper.
Eclectic didn’t seem to give his taste true justice.
She scooted again, reaching for another book that had fallen behind the first stack. As she leaned over, another stack fell over. Another mess to clean up. She was about ready to wash her hands of the whole thing for the day and turn her attention to next week’s schedule, which he had wanted her to print off of his computer. But then something caught her attention.
She moved the books aside, stacking them without concern to subject with her other piles, moving them out of the way to expose a book that was barely peeking out from under the deep corner of the shelves that adorned the walls—shelves where the books actually belonged, but he, for some reason, preferred to fill them with more stacks of paperwork and magazines and other sundries.
She could only see a little corner of the book, but even with that she could tell that it had the same sort of cover as the book she found on the windowsill outside her bedroom window. She grabbed it, but it seemed to be stuck on something. She had to move more books out of her way in order to get a better grip on it. She tugged again, managed to make it move just an inch or two.
“Everything okay?” Tony called to her from his desk.
“Yeah.” Gwen sat back on her haunches, glancing around her at the circle of books and magazines she’d unintentionally built around herself. “Just sorting through these books.”
“Too many books,” Tony said. “Most of them should be in the library at the house.”
Gwen started to respond, but then she realized that Tony had already turned back to lesson plans he was working on.
She turned back to the corner. There were so many books…she didn’t think she had enough room to move any more of them out of her way so that she could get a better position on the stuck book. So she cleared off a bottom shelf and began shoving books onto it, setting them in so close to one another that the last one barely slid all the way in. But it cleared the floor enough that she could get an unobstructed position from which to pull the book free. And—of course—it came free with just the smallest tug.
DIALANN NO IRIS, was embossed across the front cover.
Gwen ran her hand over the letters, the hills and valleys unique to books that were made generations ago. She loved old books like this. She often wondered what it was like when it was new, who the person was who first held it, the person who first read from its pages. She closed her eyes now, trying to imagine that person. At first, she c
onjured the image of a woman in a hoop skirt and a feathered hat, kind of a caricature of the Southern belle. But then the image melted into one of a redheaded woman dressed in a very crude dress of a dark, drab color. She was sitting at a desk, something like a feather quill in her hand, tears rolling thick and slow down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” the woman whispered. “I never…”
She didn’t seem capable of finishing whatever she had been about to say. She bent her head forward, her tears falling on the pages of a book—this book—as she wrote a few words in a language Gwen recognized from the book she had in her bedroom. And then the door burst open and a tall, blonde man burst into the room.
“You know why I’m here?”
His words were…odd. He didn’t seem to be speaking English, yet Gwen understood him as well as if he were Cei or Tony, as if he were speaking in the same, clear, modern English that everyone around Gwen spoke.
“I do,” the woman said, her words shrouded in that same, odd…whatever. “All I can say is that I’m really sorry about the way things happened. I never meant—”
“You knew what was going to happen. You planned it.”
“But I thought…no,” she whispered. “It doesn’t matter what I thought.” She stood up, turning to face the man. “I’m ready to accept whatever punishment you have for me.”
The man seemed a little surprised by her sudden complacency. But he inclined his head, gesturing for her to move closer to him. From inside his long, thick cloak he pulled a thin stick. It took Gwen a second to realize it was a wand, like a magician in a fantasy movie might have. He waved it above her, and she cried out just as she disappeared.
Gwen jerked away, dropping the book as her back slammed against the wall, sending a shudder through the shelves that was enough to rain papers over her.
“What’s going on?” Tony asked, barely looking up from his work.
“I tripped,” Gwen said, her words coming in quick puffs of air.
“Be careful,” he admonished her.
Gwen’s gaze fell to the book, curiosity making her want to touch again, but fear keeping her fingers at bay.
What had just happened?
Had she really seen something? Was it a vision from…what? The past? Something that really happened? Or was her imagination working overtime?
She suddenly felt as though the room was closing in on her. Her chest felt heavy, as though some great pressure was bearing down on it. She had to get out of there. She somehow managed to get to her feet, sliding her back against the wall and using it as support. The door was right beside her, but it seemed so far away. She stumbled through it, wishing that Tony’s office wasn’t on the third floor. Normally she would enjoy the little bit of exercise that using the stairs offered. But today…speed was the order of the day.
Thank goodness most of the other professors and staff that had offices on this floor had already gone home. The last thing she wanted was to make a fool of herself, but she had to get out of here.
She stabbed her finger into the elevator button and nearly fell as the doors opened immediately—a wonderful blessing. She settled into a squat, concentrating on her breathing as she waited for the short trip to the ground floor to come to an end. She almost couldn’t stand as the doors opened.
“You okay?”
A familiar voice boomed over her, unfamiliar hands reaching out to help her to her feet. She wasn’t sure what she would have done without the support of another human being guiding her the hundred feet or so out to the main doors. But the moment they stepped through, the soft autumn breeze caressed her face, and it was like the hands of a loving mother, offering comfort that immediately began to heal Gwen’s soul.
She pulled away from her mysterious rescuer and stepped out onto the impressive lawn that spread out in front of the building. The weight lifted from her chest, her breaths coming in normal, nourishing inhalations. It had never felt so good to be outside.
Until that voice addressed her again.
“You okay? You looked a little pale back there.”
Gwen turned with a polite thank you on her lips that turned into an embarrassed blush when she realized it was Bran who had become her knight in shining armor for a brief moment.
“Thanks,” she mumbled as a sense of uneasiness settled on her shoulders. She wasn’t sure where it came from. She hadn’t felt uneasy the last time she met Bran. In fact, it almost felt as though the uneasiness wasn’t coming from her. It was almost as though it was coming from the wind, the grass, the bushes that surrounded her.
How weird was that? She must be going insane.
“No problem,” he said, a crooked grin making his already handsome face that much more attractive. “It’s always a pleasure to rescue a lady in distress.”
Gwen looked away, his gaze so intent that she had to move away from it for a moment. She turned slightly, dragged her fingers through her hair, made all the nervous gestures she always made when she was uncomfortable.
“Anyway…”
“What were you doing on the administrative floor? One of your professors give you a bad grade?”
“I’ve been working for Professor Langley.”
“Hmm, now I understand. Being anywhere near Professor Langley tends to give me a panic attack, too.”
Gwen smiled, unable to resist his easy charm. But even as she began to relax, able to finally look him in the eye without blushing so darkly that her cheeks felt like they might melt from the heat, that uneasiness that seemed to come from all around her increased, enclosing her like a heavy jacket.
“Are you feeling better?”
Gwen nodded. “Yeah. I just needed a little fresh air, I guess.”
“I can understand that. I can’t stand to be cooped up inside for very long.”
“I guess being a college student makes that difficult? All the studying and everything.”
“It can.” He stepped forward a little, raising a hand to lift a piece of hair that had gotten caught along the curve of her cheek. “They should hold classes outside.”
“That would be pretty cool. I think I’d get better grades that way.”
“Me too.” He tilted his head slightly, as though considering something about her. But then his entire demeanor changed. He backed away, glancing over his shoulder as though someone was coming that he didn’t want to run into. “I should go,” he said, even the tone of his voice a little lower.
“I guess I’ll see you around.”
He didn’t acknowledge her. He simply disappeared.
And with him, the sense of uneasiness that had settled on Gwen’s shoulders.
Chapter 15
Gwen lay in the semidarkness of her room, that strange book resting open on her chest. She’d been looking at it for hours, trying to figure out how to decipher the words inside. She couldn’t keep picking out a dozen words here and there and checking them on the computers at school. And she couldn’t afford to buy herself a smartphone so that she could use some app to do it. The Langleys had one computer, but it was almost always being used by one of the twins or Anna for their school work. And it was old, so it worked slower than a snail in a race.
When she picked it up after returning from Tony’s office, she almost expected to have the same experience she’d had with the other, the one she left behind on his office floor. She hadn’t had a chance to go back and do anything with it…not that she was sure what she would have done. She could have asked Tony about it, but his scattered thoughts were so unreliable. Either he wouldn’t know where it had come from, or asking the question would send him on a tangent that would not answer what she needed most to know. Two weeks she’d known him and already she knew what to expect.
She closed her eyes now, trying to recreate what had happened with the other book. But it had no result, just as it had the last dozen times she had tried. She didn’t understand.
The two books were similar in so many ways. Like this one, the other book was long and thin, ma
de of leather and paper heavier than anything available now. There was no title on this book, but the word had that same feel to it, as though it was from the same language.
There had to be a connection. And if the two books were connected, then wasn’t it possible that this book had been meant for Tony? Maybe it ended up outside her room on accident.
Though she couldn’t imagine who would risk climbing up to the third floor of the house to leave a book on the wrong window sill. Why not bring the book to the door, or drop it off at Tony’s office, like a normal person?
It was all so odd.
She closed the book and set it on her bedside table. It was Thursday night. She should get some sleep before school tomorrow. But, somehow, she couldn’t make her mind stop.
She got up and went to the window, pushing it open so that the slight breeze could come inside. She sat on the sill, balancing somewhat precariously on the edge. She closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of the night—crickets, the rustle of the wind in the trees, a few late season cicadas singing in the distance—her thoughts drifting over the events of the last few weeks. She had to admit that living with the Langleys was a lot better than she had expected it to be. The last foster home she’d been in, the couple had three kids of their own and only wanted a foster daughter to help them care for the two youngest. A nanny they not only didn’t have to pay, but they got paid for taking in. It was the perfect solution for them. Not so good for Gwen.
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