“Do you really think that’s possible?”
“Anything’s possible. Including your winning this thing. If we work very hard between now and then. Are you willing?”
“Work is something I’m entirely willing to do—if it will help me rid the world of that bastard.”
“No time like the present,” Arianna said. There was a familiar hiss as she drew her blade and faced me, dropping into a ready crouch. “Let’s get to it.”
Sighing softly, I felt my lips pull into a reluctant smile. “Damn,” I whispered. “You can make me smile no matter how bad things get, you know that?”
“Don’t smile,” she said, though she was disobeying her own order even as she said it. “Fight.”
So we fought.
* * * *
Arianna and I walked side by side along the route that led through the center of Sanctuary the next day. All but invisible, or we tried to be. We’d honed our talent for blending in with our surroundings, drawing so little notice we might as well have been invisible—one of the skills we’d learned from Trees Speaking long ago. Invisibility, he’d taught us, was not a physical state, but a mental one. It came in handy when one needed anonymity. And an immortal witch living in a mortal world always needed that.
“Did you learn anything at the cafe?” I asked softy, leaning close to her.
“My waitress—Shelly, the redhead—said she didn’t recognize the name, but that someone had recently moved into the old courthouse building on Main.”
I nodded. “Jeremy at the herb store heard that someone was converting the courthouse building into some kind of museum.”
Arianna frowned. “That makes no sense. Why would Dearborne want a museum?”
I shrugged. “One way to find out.”
She nodded in agreement and we turned at the corner, walked to the old courthouse building, a truly lovely structure. I remembered when it had been built just over a century ago, all the hoopla of the brass band playing as the mayor cut a ribbon and the townsfolk applauded. Women in layered skirts and bonnets. Whiskered men in bowler hats. Children in knickers, pushing hoops with sticks.
Arianna’s arm came across my middle to stop me, so I bumped into it with my next step, then paused to look at her. “Look,” she said, pointing.
I did. And saw the two of them, Nathanial smiling in that frozen way he had, so that it didn’t look like a smile at all, but an icy grimace suitable for a Halloween mask. And Duncan, looking slightly confused, a bit uncertain, but so hopeful.
Of what, I wondered?
My heart felt as if it were in the grip of a large, contracting fist, just for a moment. It did every time I looked at Duncan. I could still barely believe I’d finally found him again. After all this time.
My narrow gaze returned to Dearborne. The man who would try to tear us apart all over again.
“We’ll wait,” Arianna said, drawing me with her toward the park, just across the little circle that made up the center of Sanctuary. There was a fountain in the center of the circle, pavement all around it. This was the point of the teardrop-shaped Coast Road. From here, the road ran out along the northern edge of the peninsula, broadening, circling around near our home on the very tip, and then running along the southern coast all the way back to this very spot. From here one could also head northwest, back into the mainland.
We sat down on a bench near the fountain—a piece I’d always found vaguely distasteful. A scene of a group of Puritans gathered round their preacher, a mean-looking fellow, book in one hand, the other one pointing skyward. It was sculpted in bronze. The water flowed up through its base and cascaded down several levels to pool at the bottom.
“What, exactly, are we waiting for?” I asked, staring back toward the courthouse.
“For them to leave,” she said. “We’ll take a look inside when they do.”
“They lock it up.”
“Not if we make them forget to.” Arianna turned halfway to study the fountain. “Does this guy remind you of anyone?” She tipped her head toward the bronze preacher.
“Arianna, that’s manipulative magic and you know it.”
“Ah, but with harm to none,” she told me. “And you didn’t answer my question.”
I glanced at the sculpture. “Certainly not Duncan,” I told her. “He never looked like that. So haughty and threatening. When he wore the robes of clergy, they seemed more like blankets than bronze. Inviting, warm. Safe.”
She sighed, lowering her head. “You really do still love him, don’t you?”
“You know I do.”
I met her eyes, and Arianna pitched a penny into the well, making a wish in silence. “I wasn’t talking about Duncan, anyway,” she said softly. “Look at the eyes, the belly. No doubt the artist underplayed its true girth. Look at the jowls, Raven.”
I did, and then my own eyes widened. “My goodness, you’re right. He resembles Elias Stanton!”
Laughing, Arianna got to her feet, turning to face the sculpture. “Hello, Elias, you filthy old pig. Did some witch get angry enough to turn you to bronze, I wonder?”
“Oh, what a thought,” I said. But on looking, even I wondered if it could be true, though I’d certainly never heard of a witch, even an immortal High Witch, with that kind of power. Still, the resemblance was uncanny. And in a moment I was laughing, too.
And then the courthouse doors swung open, and Duncan emerged, his father behind him.
We sat down at once, as if on cue, and I focused my attention on the color and texture of the bench. Sun-bleached granite, hard and cool, slightly rough. Focus, focus, until my body seemed to soften, and to blend in with the bench on which I sat.
Arianna’s gaze remained on the two men while I did this, and I knew she was willing them to leave the door unlocked. Sending her thoughts, though gently. If she was too obvious, too aggressive, Nathanial might well sense her thoughts. If she was too gentle, on the other hand, he would be unaffected. If she was perfect, “thinking” at him with just the right amount of force, he would simply forget to lock the door.
Seconds later Nathanial and Duncan came down the steps and toward us. Arianna put her back to the fountain, and she, too, went still and granite-like. Sinking into the granite, my body melding, it seemed, with the stuff, I watched as Duncan and his father approached us and kept on walking, passing within five yards of where we sat and never even noticing we were there.
When they were out of sight, I pulled myself from the heavy, slumberous pose of stone as if waking from a short nap. I drew a breath, wondered if I’d breathed during that time. Granite benches didn’t, so I might have forgotten to myself.
“All right,” Arianna said. “Let’s go.”
“I don’t like this.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, do we want to know what’s going on in there or not?”
“Well, yes, but–”
“Then come on!” She took my hand, and together we crossed the curved portion of the street and headed up the courthouse steps. Arianna gripped the ornate doorknob, gave it a twist. “Unlocked. Lord and Lady, I am good.” She pushed the door open, and the next thing I knew, we were standing inside.
It was a large room, the entry hall. Towering vaulted ceiling and gleamingly finished cherry woodwork everywhere. On the floor were boxes and crates in various shapes and sizes. Standing hither and yon were small stands and shelves, some assembled, some still in pieces.
And in one corner a large, old object that made me gasp and look again. Old, rough wood, rusted hinges. Stocks.
My stomach convulsed a little, and I gripped Arianna’s hand, squeezed it, and inclined my head so she’d see them as well.
“That vile bastard,” she whispered. “Look, Raven.” And as I met her gaze, she nodded toward something. So I turned.
The huge sign, elaborately painted in elegant Gothic letters of black on a shining red background, stood upright, propped against a pair of crates. It read: OLDE WORLD WITCH MUSEUM.
But it go
t worse. Underneath in smaller block letters it went on: GENUINE RELICS FROM WITCH TRIALS AROUND THE WORLD.
Bile rose in my throat. For a moment I neither moved nor breathed.
Arianna had no such reaction. She bent over the nearest box, tearing the cover off and pushing aside the protective paper. “Candleholders,” she said. “A pentacle, a staff–my Goddess, they have some witch’s staff. And there’s more. Shackles, fire irons. Raven, these are instruments of torture.”
Shaking my head from side to side, I, too, opened a box. “Diaries,” I said, gently opening the cover of one such book, so old and fragile its pages were like butterfly wings. “Oh, no, it’s a grimoire. And there’s an athame, and...and a cauldron.” I closed my hands around the small, stout iron pot, with its three squatty legs, lifted it, and saw the rose painstakingly painted by hand on the front. “No,” I whispered. “No, not this.” Tears burned in my eyes, and anger rose to overwhelm the sickness all of this brought upon me, as I stared for the first time in well over three centuries at my mother’s own sacred cauldron. It had been taken with every other possession when the villagers–or someone–had ransacked our home in England.
My fury, my outrage, became a deep buzz in my ears, and a red haze formed before my eyes, so that I didn’t even hear the sounds of Duncan and his father opening the front door.
Not until Nathanial Dearborne said, “Oh, good. Trespassers.”
Chapter 16
Duncan stood in the huge arching doorway, not sure what to think, much less what to say. Raven St. James stood facing him, one of his father’s antiques in her hands. A pot of some kind. Stout black iron, encircled by slender, pale fingers that moved restlessly over its surface. Red nails, glossy red, and smooth, and he thought of fire. Wondered if it showed when his blood heated, and quickly lifted his gaze.
She wasn’t looking at him, though, and that surprised him. Instead, she stared at his father, and the hatred in her eyes was second only to the horror he saw there. Potent emotions that shook him. Then they worried him.
Beside her was her blond pixie of a friend, who didn’t look any more amused than Raven did. Unlike Raven, though, she hadn’t lost the power of speech.
“I didn’t see any signs,” she said softy. “Last I knew, the courthouse was public property. Besides, the door was unlocked.”
“It’s not public property anymore,” Nathanial said, and he spoke softly, his voice odd. Challenging. It had a dangerous edge to it and a frisson of something he couldn’t hide. Something that sounded a lot like fear.
Duncan felt the tension in the room, thick enough to slice through, but he didn’t know why.
“It’s privately owned now,” Nathanial went on. “And you know that.”
“Ease up, Father,” Duncan said sharply. He didn’t know what the hell Raven and her friend were doing in here, but he didn’t like the edge to Nathanial’s voice. “They said they didn’t know.”
“They knew,” Nathanial said.
“Oh? And are you a mind reader?” the blonde asked, glancing down at the wooden sign on the floor. “What’s the meaning of this?”
“I think it’s fairly self-explanatory. It’s a museum. We’re going to open it on Halloween–or, um, should I say, Samhain?”
The blonde gasped. Raven’s eyes went wider and her lips parted. Her words were spoken so softly it was as if they emerged without a single breath pushing them. “Even you couldn’t be this vile, Nathanial Dearborne.”
“Wait a minute,” Duncan said in confusion. “You two know each other?”
Nathanial didn’t look at him. Neither did Raven. The blonde only glanced his way briefly, then focused on the other two again, her gaze nervous, darting. Her stance poised, knees very slightly bent, as if she was ready to spring into action. What was she expecting here? An actual fight?
Raven lifted the cauldron. “This was my mother’s. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
Duncan stepped forward, touched Raven’s shoulder, putting himself between her and his father in the process. His hand on her was gentle, and he squeezed slightly, instinctively wanting to calm and comfort her, even though it looked very much as if she’d come here to pick a fight with his old man.
Maybe because that was an emotion he could understand.
“Raven, look again. Come on, that pot must be a hundred years old.”
“Three hundred,” his father said from behind him, but Raven blurted the same words at the same moment. And Duncan only blinked and told himself this was all some kind of twisted dream.
“Regardless of who it belonged to, it’s mine now,” Nathanial said. “And it will be put on display with the other items confiscated from executed witches.”
“No, Father. It won’t.” Duncan’s tone was hard, firm. He didn’t know why, but the idea obviously made Raven sick inside. And the paleness of her skin, the wideness of her eyes, was all it took to tell him which side he had to take here. Right or wrong.
“You’re a murdering thief, Nathanial Dearborne,” Raven stated passionately.
It surprised him. His father might be an insensitive, argumentative, unfeeling bastard, but he’d done nothing to deserve that.
“Raven.” Her friend’s voice held a warning. But Duncan didn’t let her finish.
“My father’s political correctness might be in question here, Raven,” he said, still standing between them, both hands on her shoulders now when she moved to step around him. “But I don’t think he’s a murderer or a thief.”
Finally she looked at him. He’d been waiting, expecting, hoping she would. But when she did, he wished she hadn’t, because there was such intense pain in her eyes. Round, wounded eyes, searching his for something he didn’t think she’d find. The woman was traumatized, that was clear now. By him, by his father, or by the things she saw here, he didn’t know. Nor did he know why it stabbed at his heart to see her hurting like this–but it did.
“You’re involved in this obscenity as well,” she whispered.
Unsure how to answer, he hesitated. And then it was too late. She tried to speak, swallowed hard as if she couldn’t, as if something was blocking her throat, and then tried again. “So this is what he’s made of you, is it, Duncan? How could you be involved in something like this? How could you?”
“Like father, like son,” Nathanial almost sang.
Whirling, not even aware he was about to move, he snatched his father’s lapels in fisted hands and glared at the man. “Not another word, dammit.”
But Raven’s hand was gentle on his shoulder, easing him aside. He didn’t have to move, but he did. He looked down at his hands, trembling as he clutched the front of his father’s jacket, and he wondered what the hell he was doing. She touched him, and he let go–shocked, angry, but unsure where to direct that anger.
Shaking his head slowly, he stepped aside. “Someone tell me what the hell is going on here.”
He shouldn’t have moved. It left Raven facing his father, and whatever was between them, it was potent and it was ugly.
“It ends here,” she whispered.
His father tensed, Duncan frowned, and Raven’s hand shot to her waist, disappearing beneath her draping, dark blouse. Duncan got the sickening sensation that she’d pull a gun in a moment. Instinct took over.
He swept his father behind him with one arm and gripped her wrist with the other, stopping it where it was.
She met his eyes, and hers were hurting. And there was a message in her eyes, or he thought there was. Him or me, Duncan. Him or me.
Her friend lunged forward, clasping Raven’s hand in hers and dragging her away from Duncan, both from his touch and his sight, blocking her with a small, slender body. But he could still see Raven’s hand, and just beneath the hem of her blouse a small jeweled hilt clutched in her fingers. My God, a knife?
“No, Raven,” the blonde whispered. “Not here. Not now.”
For one tense moment Raven’s white-knuckled grip remained tight, half hidden in the
folds of the blouse. But then it relaxed and the blood flowed back into her small hands as she lowered them to her sides.
“I think you’d both better leave,” Duncan said. His hands were shaking, his vision blotchy with the shock of knowing she’d just come very close to attacking his father with a knife. And here he was wondering just what the bastard had done to her to make her want to gut him.
Some chance he had of building a relationship with the man, he thought grimly, when he trusted him so little. Or maybe it was just that he knew him so well.
No, it was neither of those things. It was Raven. He’d defend her against the Devil himself or God Almighty without giving it a second thought.
The women hadn’t moved.
“Go on. We’ll talk later, Raven.”
“You don’t understand what he’s doing,” Raven said, very softy. “I know that. But even so, you ought to know how wrong this is.” Her friend released her and stepped aside. Raven lifted her head, dark eyes wet, probing. “These were the most cherished possessions of real women. Wives, mothers, daughters, sisters. Grandmothers, Duncan. Some were witches, but most didn’t even know what a witch truly was. And regardless of that, they were people. Human beings, Duncan. And here you have the plunder, the booty taken from them after they were brutally tortured and murdered.” Her voice grew louder with every sentence. “You have the weapons that hurt and killed them. The hot irons that seared their flesh until they broke or until they died. The stocks that held them like cattle in the streets. You have objects they considered sacred. And you plan to put them on display on Samhain, of all times!”
He lowered his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t.”
“And just why does this bother you so much, anyway?” Nathanial boomed, reaching for the cauldron Raven held, only to have her pull it away, holding it protectively at her side. “Anyone would think you considered yourself a witch the way you’re taking on.”
Duncan blinked. Instantly the image of Raven standing on the cliffs in the light of a full moon, head back, arms extended skyward, wind blowing the dark gown she wore, replayed in his mind.
Eternal Love: The Immortal Witch Series Page 23
