Raintree: Oracle

by Linda Winstead Jones

  This was a weird town, and Echo had to wonder if someone in the pub, or outside it, was responsible for the sudden wind. Someone who had a gift for manipulating the weather. Someone who could bring the wind and the rain.

  Duncan caught her eye, and a voice—his voice—whispered in her head.

  That someone is you, love.

  Chapter 7

  “I don’t control the weather,” Echo said succinctly when she and Rye were finally alone. She’d been about to burst with questions for the past two hours, but she’d held it in until everyone else had left.

  “There was little bleedin’ control involved, I’ll grant you that.” She’d come to him in order to master the visions she did not want, and it was clear that she fought natural empathic abilities, as well. Now this? What other surprises were hidden deep in that seemingly delicate body?

  The guitar she’d borrowed from him lay abandoned on the small stage; all the customers, as well as Doyle, had gone home. As they’d left, a few had whispered that a fierce storm might be coming.

  They were not entirely wrong.

  “You were upset to see Maisy flirting with Doyle, I expect, and that...”

  “I was not!” Echo snapped defensively.

  No, it had not been Doyle. Rye had seen into her mind clearly enough to know better, but she didn’t need to know everything he saw or sensed. He didn’t like how easily he slipped into her mind, how oddly near her thoughts were to his. The ability to see so much wasn’t normal for him, not now. Even before, such connections had been all but impossible.

  “Something upset you, and the wind came,” he said. “Was it a missed note? An unexpected thought of your parents?”

  She leaned back, pursed her lips and then said, “I did think about my parents and wonder how long it would take Gideon to get them to Sanctuary.”

  “That was likely it, then.”

  Echo seemed to relax a little. “Maybe there was just a perfectly normal shift in the weather,” she argued.

  “Wishful thinking, love.” The endearment slipped out. Love. Maybe she was so upset she’d miss it. “There was nothing normal about that change in the wind.”

  She narrowed one eye. The expression was likely meant to be fearsome, but it was not. There was not a fearsome bone in her fine body. “By the way, speaking of not normal...stay out of my head!”

  He remained calm. “You invited me in, or I could not have been there.”

  “Did not.”

  Rye leaned back in his chair, thrusting his legs out and trying for a casual pose. He felt anything but relaxed. “You have a gift for song.”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “I’m not. It’s time we started your lessons, properly.” The sooner it was done, the sooner he could send her away with a clear conscience. “You have a gift for song,” he said again, “as you have a gift for other things.”

  This time, she remained silent.

  “Do you burst spontaneously into song without warning? While in the market, or on the street, or sitting in church, do you begin to sing without control?”

  She looked confused, and perhaps a little insulted. “Of course not.”

  He edged forward, placed his elbows on the table between them, and lowered his voice. “It is the same.”

  She did not hesitate to respond with heat. “It is not at all the...”

  “It is the same,” he whispered. “As you learn to play the guitar, to hit a certain note with that lovely voice of yours, to sing the right words in the correct sequence. It is very much the same.”

  She was quiet as she considered his words. “You make it sound so easy.”

  “No, love, it is not at all easy. Neither is it impossible.

  “You are more capable than you realize,” he added.

  Echo Raintree was beautiful and she possessed incredible talents, but she did not give off an aura of strength. No one would ever see her coming and be afraid. She did not, could not, instill fear with a glance. She was a pretty girl, always lost, always searching for answers. But he saw the strength within her, trapped. Hiding, even from herself.

  She fought her strength, denied it. That denial was why she was here now. It was why she was late on occasion, why she ran from the truth of who she was. All her life she’d made light of her abilities, as she’d tried to tamp them down. The result was the mess that sat before him. Echo was definitely a beautiful, out-of-control mess. In order to move on, she would have to not only accept her great abilities, she would have to embrace them.

  “I don’t feel capable at all,” she said. “I feel weak and as if my entire life is out of my control. Not just the visions, but...everything.”

  She needed a teacher; he had no choice but to become one, for her. One more time. One final student. “The strength is in you. Find it.”

  Unexpectedly, she reached out a hand and cupped his cheek. The darkness he had buried deep leaped; his body responded to that simple touch. He instinctively jerked away from her touch.

  She leaned back, moved away from him. “Sorry. I...” She stood, grabbed her sweater and purse and headed for the exit. “Sometimes I’m a complete moron.”

  He heard the unspoken end of that thought as she walked through that door without looking back.

  Where men are concerned.

  * * *

  It was her day off. She could very easily get into her rental car and drive to a bigger town where she could buy a nice meal, see a movie, shop in a store where she didn’t get the evil eye and—miracle of miracles—pick up a cell signal and Wi-Fi on her phone!

  Instead, Echo left the boardinghouse and her rental car behind and started walking. Down the road a bit, then easily over a low stone fence and into a green field.

  She’d heard that Ireland was an amazing green. The Emerald Isle. It was the kind of visual that couldn’t be explained in mere words. Even pictures didn’t do it justice. She walked until the boardinghouse was well behind her, allowing her mind to wander as she moved farther away from Cloughban.

  It did wander. To songs and visions, to her family and to friends she hadn’t seen in a very long time. It even wandered to Ryder Duncan a time or two. Those annoying thoughts she attempted to push aside, but they always came back.

  Duncan was necessary, nothing more. The fact that he was gorgeous and had those great, dark eyes, that he sometimes made her heart beat faster than it should, those were simple distractions. Nothing more.

  And, if she were being honest, not so simple.

  After she’d been walking twenty minutes or so a strange, thick fog moved in. It carpeted the green fields, hid what might be over the next knoll from her curious eyes.

  There were a few odd cottages here and there. Beyond the few primary streets of the village, there were no neighborhoods. No subdivisions. Just small cottages spaced randomly, as if someone had sprinkled them across the countryside with a casual wave of their hand. All the houses she saw looked as if they’d been built a hundred years ago, or more.

  In the distance she caught a glimpse of something unexpected. Stones. Lots of them. A few more steps and a shift of the fog and she realized it was—or had been—a structure of some kind. As she drew closer she realized that what she’d spotted had once been a castle. A small castle, but still...a castle. The fog danced around the base of the stones, thick and white. Not much of the castle was left, but a large part of what had once been a tower remained standing. Not very sturdily, but still standing.

  What little girl didn’t dream of being a princess in a castle? She had, long ago. She’d had her share of plastic tiaras and scratchy princess dresses.

  It wasn’t until years later that she’d decided being queen would be much better. Queens answered to no one. They commanded; they did what they wanted to do when they wanted. I
f a queen ordered a princess to dance until she dropped, the princess would do so.

  Wishes aside, she had always been a princess. She danced to a tune that was not her own, and always had.

  Echo stopped for a long moment; she stared at the picture before her. Green grass and ancient gray stone, nothing and no one for miles around. This was the Ireland she had always dreamed of. She had the unexpected thought that she could live here. She could stay in this quiet and beautiful place.

  No, beautiful as it was, it was not her place.

  “Hello.”

  Echo recognized that voice, and then she caught sight of a head of red, curling hair coming out of the fog.

  “Cassidy!” Echo said, surprised and pleased. The child was not a hallucination. At least, she didn’t think so...

  “You found the fairy fort,” the redheaded girl said as she drew closer, her figure moving out of the fog and into the light. “Be careful or one might try to hitch a ride home with you.”

  Echo smiled. “Fairies. This castle is their fort?”

  “Don’t be silly. The fort is over there.” Cassidy pointed to a slightly raised mound not far from the ruins.

  “And these...” Oh, she could hardly say it! “Fairies. They’re a problem?”

  “They’re usually quiet and well behaved, as long as you don’t disturb them.”

  It took Echo a moment to realize the child was serious. “I will do my best. What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see you, of course.”

  Echo glanced around her. True, the fog was thick but...where had the child come from? “How did you know I would be here?”

  “I just know things,” Cassidy said in a matter-of-fact voice, and then she dipped her chin and looked up at Echo with eyes too old for one so young. “So do you, sometimes.”

  If Cassidy was a hallucination, she wouldn’t feel solid to the touch. Echo took a step toward the girl, intent on placing a hand on her shoulder. Just to be sure. Girl? Ghost? Pure imagination?

  Cassidy smiled and took a step back. “He likes you. He likes you a lot.”

  “Who likes me?”

  The little girl giggled, and then said, “You know who.”

  “I don’t...” Echo began. She was almost close enough to touch the child. Almost there. She reached out, slowly, so as not to alarm the kid. Up close Cassidy looked real. She appeared to be solid.

  Just as before, Cassidy disappeared without warning. Poof. Gone.

  “Dammit!” Echo stomped her foot on the lush, green grass. Then she turned and looked toward the fairy fort. She’d always put fairies in the same classification as the Easter Bunny. Pure fantasy. But there was definitely something odd going on here. Was it possible...?

  She shook her head and turned away. No. She would not go there! She’d seen a lot of inexplicable things in her life; she knew magic existed. Magic those who were not a part of her world would dismiss without a second thought. Ghosts, premonitions, elements that could be manipulated with a wave of the hand. Again, she looked toward the mound. She drew the line at fairies. And leprechauns.

  At that moment a gentle breeze kicked up. Tall grass around the fairy fort danced as the wind whistled around what was left of the castle.

  “No way.” Echo turned and headed back toward town. She had a long walk ahead of her, a long walk in which she’d have time to think, and to talk herself out of what she’d seen and heard. A nap, that’s what she needed. A nice long nap.

  Strange or not, this was a beautiful place. An enchanted land. She’d never seen grass so green or fog so thick. She’d never seen a child—or an adult, for that matter—appear and disappear at will.

  As the village ahead came into view, Echo wished she’d had time to ask Cassidy again, “Who likes me?”

  * * *

  It rained for three days straight. Echo couldn’t help but wonder if it was her fault. Her mood was definitely gloomy, and if Duncan was right and she’d discovered a new unwanted power in Cloughban...great. Just what she didn’t need. She wanted to dampen—or even better, get rid of—the powers she possessed, not pick up another one she didn’t know how to control.

  The weather was so persistently wet she braved her way to Brigid’s shop and bought a dark green raincoat and matching waterproof boots. While the shop owner didn’t refuse to sell merchandise to her, she also wasn’t the friendly, welcoming woman she’d been before Echo had spoken her name.

  She wanted to ask the woman straight out what had happened. Why the change in attitude? But as curious as she was, she didn’t see the point. Brigid didn’t like Echo. Her friends didn’t, either. If she was going to stay here maybe she’d feel compelled to find out what had happened and try to address the issue. But she was temporary here, and it didn’t matter.

  The rain didn’t keep customers out of Duncan’s pub. With raincoats and galoshes and umbrellas, they came. Sometimes they came for the beer—and the cider, which Echo much preferred. They gathered to talk, to share stories of their lives.

  Sometimes they came to hear her sing.

  Her sets were short, the crowds were small. But she sang, and the music soothed her in a way nothing else could. She sang love songs and sad songs, a little country, a little folk, a little new-age stuff. Normally Echo loved to channel Joan Jett, but not without a band behind her. So she settled for the softer stuff.

  It was that softer side that was getting a little fixated on Ryder Duncan. Rye, most of his friends and customers called him. It was more than his good looks that made him interesting. He had secrets, probably lots of them. Men like him always did. Why no girlfriend? Every single woman in town flirted with him, some more outrageously than others. A few of the married women were just as bold. He kept his distance from them all. He smiled politely; he was never rude—to anyone but her, at least—but there was always a part of himself that he held back.

  When she looked hard enough she could almost see the shield he’d built around himself, the shield that kept all those women at a distance. Not just the women, she realized as she watched him speak to a young man who was seated at the bar. His energy was contained, separate, as if he lived in another world and simply observed this one. Why?

  Had his heart been broken so badly he didn’t dare to love again? Did he have a heart at all?

  She needed to stop thinking about Ryder Duncan as anything other than a teacher. For the past several rainy days he had been trying to instruct her in the quiet afternoons when they had the pub to themselves for a couple of hours. He worked with her on learning how to recognize when a vision was coming and how to control it. He insisted that she master the ability instead of allowing it to master her. That sounded good, in theory.

  For three days of rain and moping and daydreaming about a slightly surly pub owner, there had been no episodes. There had been no opportunity to practice what she was trying to learn.

  Control.

  It would help if she actually thought control was possible.

  Gideon controlled his abilities, to a certain extent. So did Dante. If not, they’d live in the midst of complete chaos. Their abilities were potentially dangerous. Dante and his fire, Gideon and his lightning. She could not imagine what their lives would be like if their abilities ruled them, rather than the other way around.

  Just that afternoon Duncan had asked her, “Are your royal cousins better than you? Stronger? More capable of control?”

  When she’d hesitated he’d answered for her.

  “No, they are not.”

  She wished she could believe him.

  Echo was about to start the final song of the set when a warning tickle in the back of her brain caught her attention. A niggling feeling, the kind you get when you sense that someone is watching. But this was different. It was deeper; it was a part of her.

  It was
the warning Duncan had been telling her to keep watch for. A vision was coming, and she did not want that to happen in front of the handful of customers that remained in the pub. Duncan would be able to explain it away, she imagined, whisking her away and telling everyone she had a medical condition, but she needed to learn to handle this on her own. That’s why she was here!

  It took great effort, but she smiled, set the guitar aside and said good-night. Her fingers trembled; her vision began to turn gray at the edges, taking away her peripheral vision. Her knees went weak. She eased down off the stage carefully, watching her step. One step, then another. Please, please, not yet. She headed for the door that opened on the stairway that would lead to the room where Duncan slept. It was her closest escape route—her only chance of getting away from prying eyes before the vision took her.

  She heard voices behind her as she placed her hand on the doorknob. They seemed far away, and might as well have been spoken in a foreign language. A few words reached her brain. Strange girl. Guitar. Another ale. Raintree...

  If she could just get to the bed. Shoot, she’d be satisfied just to make it beyond this door...

  And she did. Barely.

  Echo closed the door behind her, took two steps—difficult steps, as her legs now felt like lead and her knees shook—and dropped to the stairs. There was just enough control in her fall to keep her from hurting herself.

  Forehead resting on one wooden step, hands pressed to another, she closed her eyes and let the vision come. Instead of fighting it, instead of trying to force it down and back, she embraced the scene playing in her head. It was beyond hard to embrace the very thing she’d spent a lifetime fighting, but she took a deep breath and allowed herself to go there, to live in the moment.

  Fire, again. God, she hated fire most of all. The heat, the way her lungs burned, the air being sucked away...

  But this time there was some semblance of discipline, a sense that she was amid the flames and at the same time not, as if she were having a vivid dream. She made herself survey the scene as if she were truly distanced from it.