Raintree: Oracle

by Linda Winstead Jones

  No, he had no regrets. Still looking her in the eye, still seated, he said, “She was my wife. Cassidy’s mother. Her name was Sybil.”

  Echo went pale; she took a long step back so that her spine was pressed against the door. She was ready to make a run for it; she was terrified of him and he hated knowing he was the cause of the fear in her eyes. The past was the past, and he’d done his best to leave it there. Unexamined. Unexplained.

  He’d never bothered to explain himself to anyone. Had thought he never would. Echo was just a distraction, a bit of fun. He had never fooled himself into thinking that they might have more. He was who he was, and she...she was Raintree. She was also, perhaps, his only chance to identify the threat to Cassidy before it was too late.

  As he watched, Echo relaxed. He could see it, feel it. She didn’t like what she’d seen—she’d been shocked by it—but she knew him. She accepted him in a way no one else ever had. After she’d taken a moment to think about what she’d seen, she was no longer afraid.

  Maybe she should be.

  “Did she give you that scar on your chest?” she asked. “Is that why you killed her?”

  The truth. Nothing but the ugly truth. “Yes and no. She did stab me, minutes before I killed her, but that’s not why I did what I did.”

  “Why, then?” He saw the flicker of hope in her eyes. She wanted to believe the best of him, but was having a difficult time of it. He couldn’t blame her.

  Rye stood slowly. He took a step toward Echo, one single long step. She didn’t run. He didn’t dare get too close, though. She was still uncertain. She wanted to believe in him, but she’d seen a bit of his past that he’d tried, for nine years, to deny. To forget.

  “Do you remember how I told you that your powers could be removed but there would be a high price to pay?” He didn’t give her a chance to respond. “After Cassidy was born, Sybil begged me to strip away her powers. She controlled fire, but like you she was afraid of her ability and sometimes it got out of control. When Cassidy was nine months old Sybil accidentally burned her. It was a small burn, but the baby screamed and then Sybil screamed.” He still heard those screams in his nightmares. Both of them, a nightmare in stereo.

  “We were both young, too young to be proper parents, but we did try. What had happened scared us. Terrified us, to be honest. I agreed to strip away Sybil’s abilities. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I realized there were risks, but...” He looked at her; she had to know.

  “I believed we had no choice, so I did as she asked. I did it for Cassidy, because a child deserves to have a mother who can hold her without fear of what might come of a close embrace.” He had tried to shove the memory to the back of his mind, but it came roaring back in vivid detail. “We conducted the ceremony under the full moon, at the right time of night.” And in the center of the stone circle, though he wasn’t ready to tell her that much.

  “It worked, the spell was successful. But as I warned you when you asked me to remove your abilities, there was a cost.” A high cost, one he had never expected. “More than her powers were taken. After that night, Sybil was never the same. She no longer controlled fire. She could no longer hurt her child with a touch. But her personality was entirely different, and her memories were muddled. She knew me, but she didn’t love me anymore. She was often confused about the smallest things, and the baby...”

  He took a deep breath so he could continue. “Cassidy was always special. When she was less than a year old, her favorite toys would drift across the room into her arms. Music, lullabies, drifted out of thin air. Sometimes when she cried, it would rain. In the house.” He had been so confused. So...young and lost and alone. To have a daughter who revealed her abilities so young, and so strongly, had turned his life upside down. “Sybil became jealous of the baby. She also missed her own abilities, felt empty without them.” The combination had been a deadly one.

  The truth. The dark truth he had tried for so long to shove to the back of his mind. “When Cassidy was two, Sybil attempted to take the child’s powers for herself. The spell she found and attempted to use required the sacrificial death of her own daughter.” He didn’t tell her that he’d found them just in time, that Sybil had stabbed him when he’d interfered and then she’d gone for Cassidy.

  He didn’t tell Echo that he’d spun Sybil around and carried her into the next room of their small cottage before driving the knife through her heart, because he didn’t want Cassidy to see her mother die that way. As close as he and Echo were, as easily as her thoughts touched his, perhaps he didn’t have to. He tried so hard not to think about that night, not to remember the pain. Did she see?

  “If I had to do it again, I would,” he said so she would know that he had no regrets.

  Echo walked toward him, and he knew her well enough, saw into her strongly enough, to see that her anger and shock had faded. She was no longer afraid of him. She understood in a way no one else ever had. For that alone, he could love her.

  She walked into his arms, tipped her face up and kissed him. Gently, tenderly. With love. Her fingers found the scar on his chest and she caressed it through the shirt he wore.

  “You still don’t trust me,” she whispered.

  “I don’t trust anyone but my daughter,” he said honestly.

  His statement didn’t anger her, didn’t hurt her feelings. “I won’t tell my cousins or anyone else about Cassidy, I promise you. And I won’t tell them about the stones, either.”

  He grimaced. This was the price he paid for letting her into his heart, into his mind. “You saw them through me?”

  “I did.” She pressed a warm palm to his chest, directly over the scar. “There are many stone circles in the world. Yours is just one of them. It’s a very powerful place. I suppose it’s the reason so many gifted people live in Cloughban.”

  Why lie? She would know. “Yes.”

  “Do the stones feed your abilities?”

  “Yes,” he said, waiting for the next question. “They also help me with my own control. I know that sounds odd, that they can make my abilities stronger and at the same time allow me to find that control, but that’s the way it’s always been.”

  She leaned in, sharing her body heat, showing him in every way that her short-lived fear was gone. He liked having her there more than he should. No matter how close they were, no matter how connected...she could not stay.

  “What exactly are your abilities?” she asked. “You’re more than a teacher and a mayor. More than a barkeep and a concerned father. What can you do?”

  He sighed before looking deep into her amazing green eyes. “Everything.”

  * * *

  Everything? Impossible. That kind of power would drive anyone insane. But it did explain why he was called wizard, why people traveled from far and wide for his instructions.

  Ryder shook his head slowly. “Except out-of-body travel. That’s one thing Cassidy can do that I can’t.”

  Out-of-body travel! That explained so much about the two times she’d seen Cassidy. The girl had been there in spirit only. Fascinating...

  “The stone and the wristband you wear.” Echo waved a finger at her own throat. “They help?”

  “They dampen.”

  Dante and Gideon had worn such talismans; they had fashioned the same for her on more than one occasion. But she knew no one who wore dampening cures constantly. It simply wasn’t natural. The power of the objects always—well, almost always—faded with time.

  “In my vision, I saw you rip away the stone and toss it aside.”

  “No,” Ryder said sharply. He tensed along the length of his body. “That was wrong. It had to be wrong.”

  She would admit that since the scene had taken her so far in the future, nothing was certain. Still...

  Her mind was spinning; this was almost too much information to take
in. Everything? What did that mean?

  “Last night,” Echo began tentatively, “did you... Was it...?”

  “Last night was just us.”

  She relaxed. No matter what had happened to this point, she believed him. “So you haven’t used your woowoo on me?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  She sighed and stepped away. As much as she loved being close to him, as much as she loved holding on, she couldn’t let her emotions make her accept anything and everything. Crap!

  “Explain, please.”

  He looked guiltier than he had as he’d explained how he’d killed his wife. “I’ve influenced you to forget a few things you’ve seen here. That’s all.”

  “That’s all?” Her feeling that something was off about this town, the way she had somehow missed the large number of foreigners, the way she occasionally forgot Cassidy. It all made sense now. He’d been poking around in her brain! That was unforgivable. “If you’ve been playing with my memories, how can I even know what’s real?”

  “My influence has been minor, I promise you.”

  Echo crossed her arms, adopting a pose that said, Stay where you are, buster. She needed to think about this. She didn’t know many people who had the ability to push or remove thoughts from another’s mind. It was a rare ability, and there was an unspoken rule about using that ability on friends and family.

  She had the distinct feeling Ryder Duncan cared very little for unspoken rules. She calmed herself with the knowledge that he had been protecting his daughter. His daughter and his home. Cassidy didn’t need protection from her, but...he hadn’t known that.

  Echo allowed herself to relax a bit. If Ryder was right about what he could do, he could’ve made her leave Cloughban at any time. She would’ve climbed into her rental car and hit the road believing it was her own idea. He could’ve sent her away and wiped the memory of this place, and him, from her mind. But he hadn’t.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m all but dormant.”

  All but. That was nonspecific. And insufficient. He had enough power to join her in a vision, to affect her memories, to send the Cloughban history book flying into his hand. She wouldn’t call that dormant, but those talismans were dampening something. Everything, he said. How was that possible?

  “Why are you ‘all but dormant’?” she whispered.

  For the first time since this strange conversation had begun, he looked angry. At her? At life? It was impossible to tell.

  “Because I choose to be,” he snapped. “The control you need, the mastery over your abilities, there’s a reason some come to me to learn. I learned long ago that too much power is not a good thing. Not for me, and certainly not for my daughter. She needs a father, not a resident wizard so enamored of his own powers that he can’t...”

  “Can’t what?” she asked when he faltered.

  “Can’t love. Not a child, not a woman. The old saying about absolute power corrupting absolutely? It can be true.”

  Was it true of Ryder? Had he been corrupted?

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  “Get out of my head.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Use your damned control! You keep telling me how easy it is, use it now!”

  “I never said it was easy, and where you’re concerned it’s damned near impossible.”

  They couldn’t be connected, not like this. He was everything she didn’t want! Wanting him physically, enjoying each other in his bed, that was one thing. But to be connected, mind to mind, soul to soul... No. She would never be free of the magical world if she fell in love with a wizard who was damned mayor of a damned enchanted town filled with damned strays!

  “Independents,” he whispered.

  * * *

  She knew! Somehow the damned Raintree woman knew.

  What was the old saying? It’s better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission? She would make no more phone calls. She’d not ask for guidance. The time for action was now. Tonight.

  Maisy collected her special knife from its hiding place at the back of her dresser drawer. She wadded up the ceremonial robe and stuffed it into an oversize purse. The robe wasn’t necessary, but she liked it. When she’d tried it on she’d felt so powerful...so much more powerful than she’d ever been. Her abilities were annoyingly minor. Why have magical powers if they were going to be so insignificant she could barely qualify for a sideshow?

  Her father had been able to control all the elements. With a wave of his hand he could control water, fire, earth and wind. Unfortunately, he’d married a woman with no magic at all. He’d spent most of his life hiding who and what he was from the woman he loved.

  Maisy had been fifteen when her own abilities had come to life. She’d been shocked, though to be honest there wasn’t much about her abilities to inspire fear or amazement. She could control water, to a minor degree. Dishwater in a sink, drinking water in a glass, a narrow stream if she worked very hard.

  Bathwater.

  After her mother had drowned in the bath, with a little help from Maisy, everything had changed. She’d thought without a mortal woman to influence her powerful father, they could travel the world. He could teach her, train her to be what he was. Powerful. It had worked, for a while. He had tried to train her, for a while.

  Unfortunately, he’d eventually figured out what Maisy had done and had been horrified. She’d had no choice but to kill him, too. Her father had always preferred showers to baths, and she’d never been able to figure out how to drown someone in a shower, so she’d taken care of him with a knife. A knife she’d kept near her ever since. It was special. The knife had sentimental value.

  After that, Maisy had been on her own for a time, and then she’d found Walsh. He was convinced they’d been drawn together by the powers of the universe, that like called to like. Maybe he was right. Like her, he was hungry for more than he had in his life. More power. More of everything. And he had a plan to get what he wanted.

  She couldn’t afford to be stopped on her way out of town. Once she had the enhanced powers it didn’t matter what everyone knew. They’d all bow to her. Walsh intended to name his clan Ansara, after his mother’s people. He intended to call others like him, like her, to Cloughban and take over the village and the surrounding land. People would come, of that she had no doubt. Would they care if they were led by a man who called himself Ansara or would they be satisfied with a woman named Payne? She doubted they would care at all. The Payne clan did have a certain ring to it. Why go back when it was possible to move forward instead?

  Walsh intended to take the girl’s power for himself, and she had allowed him to go on believing. Why would he think for a minute that she’d stand back and allow him to reap the benefits of this operation, when she’d been the one to do all the work? He wasn’t that good in bed. No man was. Still, sleep with a man and he became gullible enough to believe anything he was told. That was her experience, anyway.

  He couldn’t come into Cloughban yet because too many people remembered him from his last visit. Years ago he’d come to Rye for help, as so many before him had done. Walsh had been born with some gifts, but like Maisy he wanted more. Much more. When he’d found out about the girl he’d instantly begun to wonder how he could use her.

  It had taken him years to find the spell that would kill Cassidy Duncan and transfer all her powers to the one who wielded the knife. It had taken her just a few weeks to find that spell among his things. She’d searched his room while he slept—drugged just a little bit—and had finally discovered what she needed hidden under the false bottom of a dresser drawer.

  He’d actually hidden the most powerful words she could imagine in his sock drawer. What a moron.

  When this was over, Walsh Ansara would be answering to her, not the other way around. He could lick her boots and do her
bidding, say “Yes, ma’am” when she passed along her instructions. She’d always wanted a lackey, or two. Or a hundred.

  If Walsh didn’t give her everything she asked for, she’d dispose of him with her newfound powers. She wouldn’t need bathwater or a stream. She might rip his heart out or burn him alive. And then...oh, what a life she could have!

  In Maisy’s fantasies, Rye became the man he’d once been. Dark. Powerful. Heartless. Few here knew who he’d been, what he’d done, but she knew. Walsh knew, too, and he’d been foolish enough to share the information with her. Together she and Rye would rule Cloughban until the new Payne clan grew stronger—thanks to the stones, and thanks to her—and then they’d move beyond this small, insignificant town.

  Walsh had used the Ansara name to call a few dark strays to him. His strays were nothing special, nothing at all to write home about. They were far from fierce. But they would do, for now.

  Maisy dialed the sat phone again. Why hadn’t Walsh been answering his phone? He had to be anxious; they were hours away from the end of his plan. Mere hours!

  Chapter 15

  Rye never closed the Drunken Stone on a weeknight, but tonight he hung a Closed Until Further Notice sign on the front door and locked it. He called Doyle and told him to take a couple weeks of paid leave. His chief cook and bottle washer didn’t seem to mind taking an unexpected bit of time off, though he had sounded surprised.

  Of course he was surprised. Everyone would be. Other than Sundays, he could not recall a time when he’d shut the doors to his business.

  Alone with Echo, one kiss led to another. And another. They ended up in his bed. Their place. The only place he had known real peace in a very long time. She offered pleasure and comfort. She offered her body, her mind and her soul. Here, in the dark, they could forget everything for a few precious minutes.

  He loved her. He couldn’t tell her so, couldn’t offer her a life here. But he loved her. That was an unexpected awareness he fought hard to hide. He pushed it down, shoved it back. If she saw or sensed his feelings for her she was wise enough—or kind enough—not to mention them. Like him, she had to realize that their relationship, no matter how deep it might go, was temporary.