She rubbed her arms as if that could warm up the chill that had taken root inside her. Her palms were slick with blood again. The sweet copper taste of it sprang to her tongue as if she had licked her skin, which she hadn’t. Which she wouldn’t . . . She wouldn’t.
But the fountain had. The water had. The water that probably came from the river, where the magic of the Fire Carrier created a barrier to keep the yunwi confined to Watson’s Landing.
Barrie stared at the smears of blood on her arms. She grabbed the bottom of her shirt and scrubbed at the drying streaks until she had scoured off every trace from her skin, and then she wiped her hands, too, over and over as if she could get rid of the water and the taint of whatever she had done.
Stories of water sacrifices crowded her thoughts, lessons learned in history class, on museum visits, in books of mythology. So many stories about sacred wells and objects dredged up from lakes or rivers: swords, knives, daggers, bowls. Things that might have once held blood.
Blood magic. The oldest magic.
Barrie’s heart threatened to pound through her ribs. She met the Fire Carrier’s silent stare. “What did I do?” she whispered.
His features didn’t change. He didn’t say anything. Yet Barrie got an impression of a deep and weary sadness as he nodded and turned his back. Bending low, he spooled the flames back into a ball.
Barrie wrapped her arms around herself. She glanced around again, half-dreading, half-hoping to see the woman there again, but she found plain water splashing into the basins as usual. She bent and righted the ceramic bowl that she had tripped over, setting it back beside the fountain, where Pru had left it.
Sleep, that was what she needed, she told herself. She needed to burrow under her covers and forget. Maybe she would wake up and find it had all been some crazy nightmare inspired by frogmore stew and an overdose of Colesworth dramatics.
She limped toward the house. Her feet stung where she had cut them on the shells, now that the first flush of adrenaline was fading. Her socks were damp, and she was leaving pinkish footprints on the gravel. Shadows swarmed behind her as if the blood attracted them. Barrie felt their curiosity, their need, their want. That was even more appalling than the rest.
Oh, what the hell, why not?
“Have these, too, then.” She peeled off her bloody socks and threw them down. “Enjoy. Eat up.”
But then she had a thought and snatched the socks back off the ground. She felt a chorusing howl of outrage. Felt the howl as if it tickled her skin instead of her eardrums.
“Ours. Ours. Ours,” it seemed to say.
“I’ll give them back to you.” Barrie forced the words past cracked, dry lips. “But you’ll have to trade for my phone and anything else you’ve taken.”
The vibration of silent voices shivered through the air, making Barrie’s skin erupt in goose bumps. Burning eyes and flashes of shadow rushed toward her from all directions and then sped away again. She waited, fingers curled tightly into her palms, not sure what kind of reaction she was expecting. It was silly to think they would listen or even understand what she had said. Ridiculous, really. Clearly they didn’t understand, because one by one they all milled around her in a circle some fifteen feet in diameter.
So, that was it. Barrie turned and started back toward the house—and nearly stepped on her phone, which lay on the path. Her shaving razor was there too, along with her copy of The Night Circus, her sketchbook, two pens, and the cap to her hair gel. She hadn’t even realized any of that was missing. The pile of knobs, nails, wooden pegs, and shiny screws was at least more expected, though larger than she could have imagined. She didn’t even want to think where all those had come from. The stairs and shutters, the broken chair leg.
“No more breaking things!” she yelled. “No more taking my stuff. Anyone’s stuff.”
She threw down the socks, scooped up her belongings, and made a makeshift bag to carry them in by doubling up the bottom of her bloody shirt. She left the rest of the items where they lay gleaming in the moonlight. “And put those back where you found them,” she added more quietly.
With as much dignity as she could muster, she stomped toward the house on her lacerated feet. The shadows provided her an escort, running alongside, racing ahead, and doubling back as if she were moving too slowly for them. Barrie squashed down a small thrill of triumph. In the scheme of things, getting them to listen to her was a very small victory, and she wasn’t sure exactly what it meant.
Something had changed tonight, of that she was certain. She had changed something. But she had no way of knowing if she had changed it for the better or made it worse.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The scream of the peacock startled Barrie from an exhausted sleep. The sun was still painting the clouds lavender and orange, and she lay disoriented awhile before memory flooded back. Bolting upright, she checked the desk. Her phone was safely charging, and her book, sketchpad, and razor lay beside it. That was a good sign.
On the flip side, her elbow hurt, her palms were scraped, and her feet were sore and tender. And shadows stirred to life in every corner of her room as if they, too, were just now waking.
God, she needed coffee. She wasn’t ready to deal with shadows.
They milled about her as she dressed hurriedly, and ran around her down the hallway like a herd of little children. It was almost cute until they darted into the unoccupied wing. The loss that usually clung to that section of the house rushed out to meet Barrie even more grotesquely than before. But that was another question that needed to wait until she’d had her caffeine.
Turning toward the staircase, she found her aunt kneeling below the broken step with a hammer in her hand. Pru beamed at her. “Well, hello, sugar. Isn’t it a wonderful morning!”
“Is it?” Barrie was reserving judgment. “Then why were you scowling at the step?”
“Oh. That.” Pru frowned again, climbed to her feet, and dusted off her knees. “I woke up full of energy and decided to whip the house into shape. But see this?” She jumped on the step, which didn’t budge. Next she tried to shake the railing. It didn’t so much as wobble. “I don’t suppose you got up in the middle of the night and hammered everything back into place for me? And found the missing knobs and drawer pulls and put them back in the kitchen?”
Barrie resisted the urge to turn and stare at the shadows as she trailed her aunt down the steps. “Maybe the yunwi have started fixing the house instead of breaking it,” she said.
“Wouldn’t that be nice. Although I suppose it’s as good an explanation as any. It doesn’t matter, I’m in too good a mood to worry about it.” Pru stowed her tools in the closet under the stairs and wrapped her arm around Barrie’s waist. “Come on, sug, let’s get some breakfast.”
After Pru had swung the kitchen door open, Barrie paused to squint against the light. She could smell the ripe summer scents of honeysuckle, roses, and bougainvillea even through the sharp tang of the scones Pru pulled from the oven. Low notes of music trickled from Pru’s radio on the counter, and marsh birds called to one another over the soft lapping of the water against the dock. She shouldn’t have heard so much. She shouldn’t have smelled so much. And yet she did.
“Are you coming down with a bug, honey?” Pru gestured for her to sit at the table, which was already set for two. She dropped a sour-cherry scone onto Barrie’s plate. “I may have gotten in a good night’s sleep last night, but you surely didn’t. Those bags under your eyes could pass for suitcases.”
Lovely. Barrie managed a feeble smile. She swallowed a sip of orange juice, and then winced at the aftertaste of toothpaste and oranges and the suspicion that she was about to ruin Pru’s effervescent mood.
“Out with it,” Pru said, pausing beside her. “Something’s bothering you. Are you still worried about Cassie?”
Barrie broke off a piece of scone and stared down at it. “I found my phone last night.”
“You did?” Pru dropped into her chair as if
her knees had given out. “That’s . . . wonderful. Where was it?”
“In the garden, where the yunwi left it after I told them to give it back. I also asked them to return the pile of nails and wooden pegs and kitchen cabinet knobs, and I told them to stop breaking things.” Barrie ventured a glance at Pru from beneath her lashes.
Pru looked as if Barrie had hit her with a plate of grits. “You asked the yunwi to fix the house. And they fixed it.”
“Well, I was mad. And I figured it wouldn’t hurt.” Barrie gave a hunched-shoulder shrug.
Pru laughed, a rusty creak of a laugh that built until Barrie couldn’t tell if her aunt was laughing or crying or some combination of the two. She picked at her scone and watched warily until Pru finally mopped her cheeks with the corner of her apron, took a shaky breath, and leaned across the table to take her hands.
“Thank you,” Pru said. “I’m sorry, sugar. I know this isn’t funny. It’s just that, Lord knows I’ve asked them to stop often enough, and they never have. It didn’t occur to me to ask them to fix things. Maybe I should have. More than likely they’ll start dismantling the house again tomorrow, but I don’t care. I’ll take whatever good news we can get. You can’t imagine what it’s been like this past week. I thought I was going to go crazy.”
“Wait. It’s only been a week since the yunwi started acting up?” Barrie hadn’t expected that. “Was that before or after Lula died?”
Pru sat back, and her smile faded. “They stopped for a bit when Daddy died, and then started up again a day or so before the lawyer called me.” She shook her head. “How could I not have made that connection? Mary was right last night: I did bury my head in the sand, hoping that if I ignored the problems, they would all somehow go away.” She crossed to the kitchen sink and stood with her back to Barrie. “It’s too much, you know,” she continued. “All of this. Watson’s Landing. The yunwi. Wyatt. I’ve been exhausted with worry, and while it’s nice to think the mischief might be over, I’m not sure I like the idea that they listened to you and not to me. Or that it started when Lula died. What if they do something worse than the steps? I can’t let anything happen to you.” She turned back, and her expression hardened with determination. “Yesterday, going as far as Charleston seemed an impossibility, but I could do it now. I feel like I could leave. Migraines and panic don’t matter when it compares to your safety. You want to go to art school next year anyway. Pick a place, sugar. Pick a place you want to live, and we’ll go. Tomorrow. Today. Right this minute if we need to.”
Barrie’s chest seized into a fist of panic. “No! We can’t leave.”
“You can finish high school just about anywhere.”
Barrie got up and paced across the kitchen. “We’re supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be here.”
Saying the words only made her realize what her heart knew already. The fountain and the Fire Carrier had bound her to Watson’s Landing. How else could she explain the claustrophobic feeling she got at the thought of leaving? It made no sense, and yet it did. She felt the opposite of Pru’s newfound lightness.
She couldn’t leave.
“What would we do with Watson’s Landing?” she asked, fighting to stay calm. “We can’t sell it, and we can’t just leave it to rot. Anyway, I don’t want to go.” Which was the simple truth. The realization scared her spitless. She didn’t want to end up like Pru. Like Lula. She didn’t want to wake up and find that she had waited, endured, half her life away.
Locked in a prison—wasn’t that what Mrs. Price had said?
What was Barrie going to do? Between her arrival and last night, Watson’s Landing had imprinted itself into her DNA. Now the plantation belonged to her and she belonged to Watson’s Landing.
The land itself seemed to welcome her as Pru coaxed her out into the garden on the pretext that they both needed to get some air. More likely, judging by the worried glances Pru kept sending her, her aunt expected her to have a hysterical meltdown any moment and didn’t want her to be in reach of any plates she could throw. Either that or Pru was trying to issue a not-so-subtle reminder of how much hard work it took to keep Watson’s Landing going, in the hope that an apartment somewhere in Rhode Island or New York City would sound more enticing.
Being outside had the opposite effect. The slow music of the river sang through Barrie’s blood along with the rustle of reeds and brush and branches. Her chest finally loosened and her shoulders relaxed. She refused to let herself think about anything except weeding as she and Pru worked side by side in the flowerbeds. But even that simple task seemed to have been altered by the binding. Barrie’s fingers went unerringly to the tiniest buds of alligator weed and spiderwort; the weeds practically leaped out of the earth before she touched them. The white peacock wandered around beside her and pecked up a worm before settling into a meal of weeds. In spite of her best intentions, Barrie’s thoughts drifted to the fountain and the Fire Carrier and gifts and bindings and—
Oh, God, Lula’s letters! She had left them out last night. What if her aunt found them in the library before Barrie had a chance to prepare her? Barrie hadn’t even decided whether Pru should see them at all.
“I’ll be right back, Aunt Pru.”
Dropping her gardening gloves into the flowerbed, Barrie hurried toward the house. With her head down, she almost bumped into Eight before she registered the finding click that always preceded him.
“You need to quit doing that.” She pressed a hand to her chest, while her clueless heart flopped over in capitulation like a dog exposing its belly just because Eight had smiled at her.
His smile faltered. “And here I brought you a present.”
“Another rose?”
“Better.” He pulled a black-and-silver box from a shopping bag. “It’s a new wireless receiver for the gate. We can program it so you, Mary, and your aunt can all call it from the house phone or your cell phones. Genius, right? I even picked up a cell phone for you, Miss Pru.” He raised his voice as Pru drifted toward them. “Dad said you didn’t have one. He said to tell you ‘lawyer’s orders.’ ”
Pru glared at the box as if it were full of rattlesnakes. “That man thinks he runs the world.”
“Must be a Beaufort thing,” Barrie muttered.
Eight laughed, his eyes brightening. She couldn’t be mad at him. This wasn’t a simple intercom just any store in Watson’s Point would carry. He had to have driven all the way into Charleston first thing to be back with it this early. Even then, he and Seven had to have called in special favors. The whole gesture was typically bossy and presumptuous—and very sweet.
It was also useless. The stirrings in Barrie’s subconscious finally coalesced into a semicoherent thought. The gate wasn’t what worried her. Wyatt could come across the river anytime. He wasn’t rational, and who knew what innocent encounter or idle bit of gossip from town might set him off? They needed to defuse him, to use Eight’s word for it. They—she—needed to find a way to end the feud.
Eight slipped the box back into the bag. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” Barrie frowned absently at the shadows peeking from beneath the bushes.
“Nothing. Right.” Eight shook his head and tucked the bag beneath his arm. Then he turned back to Pru. “Is it okay if I borrow your car, Miss Pru? I promised Barrie a driving lesson, which would be easier without a stick shift. I thought we could drive up to install the receiver.”
“Of course,” Pru said. “The keys are probably still in it, I suspect. Oh, and Eight? Thank you. And thank your father for me.” She softened her tone for Eight, but she sounded as if she hoped Seven would choke on her thanks.
Eight draped his arm over Barrie’s shoulder and cheerfully led her away until they were around the corner and out of sight. Then he bent his head until his lips were poised a hairsbreadth above hers.
“Now you can thank me properly,” he said.
She kissed him briefly and ducked away, running toward the car to escape the disorient
ed feeling she got whenever she was close to him. He caught up and, infuriatingly, seemed unperturbed.
“Did you ever find out what went on between Pru and your father?” Barrie asked.
“A crowbar couldn’t pry that out of Dad.” Eight climbed into the driver’s seat and pulled the car out of the circle until it was facing the straight shot down the oak-lined lane. They switched places, and he pointed out the controls and pedals, leaning in close, too close. Barrie relaxed when he drew back and finally let her get the car rolling. She pushed on the gas too hard.
“Easy. All you have to do is go straight. Practice slowing up and stopping to get a feel for the brakes and the accelerator.”
“It’s fine. I’ve got it.”
“What is it with you this morning?” He frowned over at her from the passenger seat. “I hoped you would be glad to see me, but I can’t tell if you are or aren’t. It’s like you keep changing your mind.”
Which was exactly what she was doing. “I need to think.”
“About what?”
“Many things. Us. Wyatt and Cassie. The Fire Carrier. Pru and Lula—oh, hell.”
“What?”
Barrie sighed. “We have to go back to the house. Right now. I found a packet of letters my mother wrote to Pru, although I don’t think Emmett ever let Pru see them. And like an idiot, I left them out in the library. I don’t want her to find them like that.”
“We’ll be back before she even comes in from the garden. Don’t worry. Besides, there’s no place to turn around until we get to the gate.”
Barrie sighed and gave him a sidelong look. “Emmett did know Lula wasn’t dead,” she said. “He gave her money and told her to stay away.”
Eight’s eyes widened. “Why? That makes no sense.”
Concentrating on keeping the steering wheel and the car’s speed steady, Barrie wondered how much to tell him. If she explained that Lula had mentioned Wyatt, Eight was likely to pitch a fit if she had anything else to do with Cassie. And Pru, too, for all her understanding the night before, was likely to balk.
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