by Nicola Marsh
I paused, knowing she’d grill me down to height and weight if I mentioned a boy. “Cute, too. Taller than me, amazing green eyes, kind. And smart? The guy’s a brainiac. Funny, he’s a nerd just like me. And he laughs all the time. And makes other people around him smile, which is really great. We’ve been hanging out, studying together, they’ve been great … ” That made my deception even harder. Raven and Quinn were my only true friends I had in this topsy-turvy world, yet I consistently had to lie to them. They thought I was spending the weekend with Nan, cleaning the cottage and sleeping at the nursing home.
Little did they know.
“I’m studying really hard. But you’d know that, right?”
What she didn’t know was the subject matter and how I totally sucked at everything. In subjects like algebra and English and chem, my brain rocked. Give it a hint of otherworldly stuff and I was a dunce with a big fat D, sitting in the corner with my pointy hat. As for the start of my formal lessons in Eiros this weekend, I wouldn’t go there. I could just imagine Oscar’s disdain and Mack’s disappointment when they got a whiff of my failure in all things Innerworld.
Though visiting Eiros wouldn’t be all bad. Joss …
I had to admit, he was the one bright spot in all of this, and a small part of me was excited to be heading back to Eiros for the simple pleasure of seeing him again.
Knowing Nan would get a real kick out of my crush, I moved my chair closer to the bed. “Want to know a secret, Nan? Quinn’s cool and I like hanging out with him, but I like another boy. He’s hot. Smoking, burn-your-fingers-if-you’re-brave-enough-to-touch-him hot, hotter than that amazing chocolate fudge sauce you make. He’s strong, super confident, and really tall, about a head taller than me. And his eyes … bluer than the lake on a summer’s day, the color of that old dude you crush on all the time, Frank Sinatra.”
I wished with all my heart I’d hear a faint chuckle, see her eyelids flutter, some sign she could hear me. Staring at the face I loved, I willed it to happen, focusing my meager power.
Nothing.
Emotion clogged my throat and I swallowed, then continued. “Though I’m on to you. I see the way you perv on George Clooney.” I forced a laugh. “Careful, Nan, your friends down at the Rec Hall will start calling you a cougar.”
Not a flicker, her face remained perfectly serene and motionless.
I couldn’t stand it a second longer. “Anyway, I have to get back to school. I’ll visit again next weekend, okay?”
Swiping away the tears trickling down my cheeks, I bent over and kissed her forehead. After a last glimpse at the only person I truly trusted in this world, I headed out the door for my date with destiny.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Glad you’re back.” Joss couldn’t appear less glad if he tried. He frowned and folded his arms, glaring at me like I’d mucked up before starting. “You’ve mastered teleporting?”
“No,” I blurted, not sure which annoyed me more. The fact I still used Maisey’s crystals to get here but had no idea how they worked, or the fact Joss could read my mind. “I’m having trouble with all things … odd.”
No matter how many times I evaluated this situation logically, I came to the same conclusion: This was nuts. An average girl from innocuous Wolfebane, New Hampshire, was the Scion. I never even got picked to be on the track team, so how the hell did I wind up being chosen for a quest this monumental? Handling the visions was bad enough, but throw in the expectation I master those Eiros tasks against a ticking clock and I was starting to panic, big time.
I glared at Joss like it was all his fault. “But I guess you already know that, right?”
His lips thinned in an unimpressed line. “I don’t always hear your thoughts, remember?”
“Just when it’s convenient?”
He studied me as though trying to read my mind, and I held my breath, wondering what he’d say, but as his frown deepened I sighed in relief. He hadn’t been able to get a read on my thoughts.
“Stop doubting yourself. You’re a descendant of Bel, you have his gifts in you, otherwise you wouldn’t be here in the first place. You’ll finesse teleportation and master the rest.”
“You really have that much faith in me?”
“I have to,” he said, and as he glanced over his shoulder toward the housing nearby, I only just caught his muttered, “I have no choice.”
He was talking about the geis, but for a moment his latent resentment scared me, like he didn’t want to protect me, but was being forced into it.
“Where am I staying?” I couldn’t help sounding abrupt, my awkwardness at misreading our entire relationship making me want to run and hide.
For the first time since I’d met him he appeared less than confident, his gaze fixed on an elm behind my left shoulder. “With my mom.”
My mouth dropped.
“I’ll bunk at Oscar’s.”
“Lucky you,” I muttered, grateful we wouldn’t be under the same roof.
“Mom’s cool. You’ll be okay. Just don’t believe everything she tells you.” He shuffled his feet and glanced down. “About me, that is,” he clarified, his bashful embarrassment as adorable as the rest of him.
There was something so utterly appealing about a big strong guy nervous about the revealing stuff his mom would say. And the fact he cared what I might think. Delighting in his tortured expression, I rubbed my hands together. “Bet she’ll show me all your baby photos.”
He winced. “No bet. Just don’t check out the … ”
“Naked ones?”
His blush made me want to tease him more. Clutching an imaginary pen, I held up my other hand as a notebook, I said, “Note to self. First task of the weekend. Check out naked pics of warrior.”
“Stop that,” he said, grabbing my hands and lowering them. Our laughter tumbled over us, mingling like mist on the crisp morning air.
Our smiles faded as we stood less than two feet apart, holding hands, caught up in something indefinable and inexplicable and magical.
“Are there any pics of you I can peek at?”
“Only the ones of me winning the annual axe throwing contest.”
Incredulous, I searched his face for signs he was teasing. “Axe throwing? What are you, part warrior, part Neanderthal?”
“And part crazy,” he murmured, his thumbs caressing the pulse points of my wrists, sending bolts of electricity shooting up my arms. “Though I’ll let you in on a little secret.” He leaned closer and I held my breath. “I lied about the axe throwing.”
He released my hands and I whacked him playfully on the chest, wishing I could linger and explore the hard ridges lightly outlined beneath his T-shirt. His eyes darkened to midnight, but all he said was, “Come on. Uriel’s dying to meet you.”
I didn’t know what freaked me out more, the thought of staying with his mom or the fact he had such a great relationship with her he used her first name. As I lengthened my strides to keep up with his long legs, I glanced around, hating the permanent grayness, but seeing nothing out of the ordinary. It was all so … so … normal.
“It’s a peaceful community, but appearances can be deceiving.”
Casting him a sidelong glance, I said, “Now you’re back to the mind reading thing.”
His eyes clouded, as if he wasn’t entirely comfortable with knowing my innermost thoughts. “Sometimes I can’t help it. When your thoughts are particularly loud or forceful or opinionated, it’s like you’re inside my head.”
Another note to self: When thinking how hot he is, make it subtle.
His fleeting grin had me silently cursing my inability to do anything right when it came to all this psychic crap. Determined to divert attention from my pathetic crush, I pointed to the rows of trees.
“Why are the trees lined up like that?”
“You haven’t read up on ogham yet?”
I shook my head. “Think it’s on my study list but I haven’t started yet.”
He beckoned me towa
rd the nearest tree and caressed its leaves with a tenderness that made my breath catch. “Ogham is an ancient Celtic alphabet of twenty characters, each character represented by downward or upward strokes, and each of these symbols represents a sacred tree.” He squatted, picked up a stick, and beckoned me to kneel next to him.
“This is the ogham symbol for holly.” He drew a vertical line downwards, with three horizontal strokes on the left, sort of like a backward E. “In English, this would represent the letter T. Its ogham name is Tinne.”
Intrigued, I traced the letter in the dirt with my fingertip. “What does it mean?”
“Action, assertiveness, objectivity.”
Three of the least likely adjectives I’d use to describe myself.
“Don’t do that. Don’t undersell yourself.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t intrude into my head.”
He shrugged, his smile making me forgive him anything. “Occupational hazard.”
“Warrior geis is a bitch,” I muttered, earning another grin.
“What’s your symbol?”
“Ash.”
He drew a vertical line with five horizontal lines to the right. “Nion.” Before I could ask, he added, “Means connection, wisdom, surrender.”
He’d drawn the symbols back to back, and as I scrutinized them, a cold clamminess spread over my skin and I squeezed my eyes shut. I hadn’t had a vision all week, had been grateful for the reprieve considering the bombardment of new information my brain had to cope with. Now I resented it, resented the intrusion when I was getting in some serious bonding time with my warrior.
My blood chilled as the image in my mind shimmered and coalesced.
Cadifor meeting with the same man as last time in a cave. Issuing inaudible orders.
The man stands on Cadifor’s right, his rigid posture and clenched fists indicating barely restrained violence, rocking on the balls of his feet, itching for a fight.
He strides out of the cave, leaving Cadifor peering into a steel bowl of black liquid.
Seeing the Sorority.
Maeve, gorgeous in a flowing white gown, dancing with Mack, the smile on her face pure joy.
Oscar, playing a fiddle, his serene expression at startling odds with his usual scowl.
Joss, standing beneath an oak tree, wary, as he watches something or someone among the revelers.
Revelers at a festival.
Dancing, singing, happy crowds.
Oblivious to the faceless man walking among them, a shadow of death …
I gasped and clawed at my throat for air, sweat trickling down the back of my neck and into my hoodie. I couldn’t breathe; the fear clogged my throat, a rancid burn that extended down into my stomach and left me wanting to puke.
Cadifor had sent that guy to harm the Sorority or someone in that crowd, there was no doubt in my mind. Suppressed violence had shimmered off him like the auras I’d learned about at C.U.L.T., and whoever he’d set his sights on didn’t stand a chance.
Or did they?
For the first time since the visions had started, I wasn’t resentful or annoyed. I was glad that I now had the power to do something about Cadifor and his merry band of monsters sent to do his dirty work. Mastering my visions—my clairsentience—was on my to-do list on the way to facing off with Cadifor, and if I really got a hold on it, maybe I could foretell and therefore prevent bad stuff from happening.
As my fear subsided, my throat relaxed enough for air to gush into my lungs and I gasped. I blinked several times, fragments of the lingering images overriding Joss’s concerned face before he eventually glimmered into view.
“How bad?”
I grimaced, pushing up into a sitting position when I realized I lay sprawled in the dirt. So much for my knight in warrior armor protecting me.
“It’s best not to touch a person having a precognitive episode. It may interfere with the vision.”
“Right,” I said, feeling uncharitable and a tad bruised where I’d landed on my elbow. Bending it several times, I waited for a wave of nausea to subside before I tried to articulate what I’d seen.
“Does Cadifor have a minion? A right hand man he trusts?”
Joss nodded. “Keenan. He’s Cadifor’s main man. Does his dirty work.”
“They’re planning something,” I blurted, rubbing the sudden goosebumps on my arms. “They were gawking at a bowl of black stuff, watching the Sorority at some festival.”
He stiffened, glanced over his shoulder. “Are you sure?”
I raised an eyebrow at his skepticism and he quickly amended, “What I mean is, is there anything else?”
“That was pretty much it.”
He leaped to his feet, started pacing. “This isn’t good.”
I’d never seen him anything but cool, so to see my big, brave warrior rattled? Not good.
“You know what the festival is?”
He stopped pacing and nodded. “Beltane. Next weekend. It’s Bel’s official feast day, when all fires are extinguished and relit from Bel’s fire at the Temple of Grian.”
He wasn’t telling me everything. I could tell by his evasive, generic retelling of a festival I could’ve gotten out of a textbook.
“And?
Respect gleamed in his eyes, making me feel like I’d finally done something right.
“And it’s to be your official welcome into the Sorority. Kind of like a baptism.”
“Baptism by fire. How poetic.”
He didn’t smile. “In your vision, did Cadifor see you in the scrying bowl, or only the Sorority?”
I dredged up the recent images, and they clarified. “Only you guys.” Thank goodness. Cadifor scared the bejeezus out of me. It was bad enough having to battle him for this Arwen thingy, but to have him know about me before I mastered all my tasks would ensure I was doomed from the start.
“Good; he doesn’t know about your role at the festival. Yet.”
I could’ve done without that final little add on.
“We need to keep it that way.”
“I’m all for that plan.” I gave him two thumbs up and he finally cracked a smile.
“Did you see anything else that might give us a clue as to when Keenan will strike?”
“Don’t think so.”
I closed my eyes and swallowed the instant fear that bubbled up. It wasn’t like I’d hurl headlong into another vision; guess I should be thankful I usually got some warning with that cold clammy crap. But the darkness behind my eyelids was reminiscent of the darkness in that cave, of the darkness that clung to Cadifor and Keenan and everything associated with evil.
Determinedly ignoring the numbness building from the base of my spine, I concentrated. “I told you. Cadifor issuing orders I couldn’t hear, that rough dude Keenan leaving. Cadifor staring into the bowl, seeing Maeve and Mack dancing, Oscar fiddling, you watching the crowd—”
“He’s going to wait ’til after the ceremony to strike.”
My eyes flew open, my heart thudding with trepidation at the hint of alarm in his low tone. “So what I saw helped?”
His expression softened. “You did great.”
Gnawing on my bottom lip I nodded, at a loss for some smartass comeback for once. I could barely comprehend the enormity of what I was facing, and all I wanted to do right then was go someplace else and fill my head with anything other than the visions of Cadifor playing on rerun like a bad movie in my mind.
Sensing my need to do something—or reading my mind, I didn’t really care this time—Joss gestured for me to lead the way.
“We need to get you settled, formalize your lessons for this weekend, and prep you for Beltane. Ready?”
Was he kidding? I’d never be ready. But I guess I had to start somewhere.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I followed Joss to the last house in a long grove, admiring the way he walked, long easy strides of a guy comfortable in his own skin. I loved his quiet inner confidence that extended to everyone around him. I felt
safe when I was around him; handy, considering he was my warrior and I had to trust him implicitly. He had a presence, an aura. I mentally winced, remembering studying auras with Quinn, how laid back and cool he’d been, how normal, while being with Joss accentuated everything about me that wasn’t.
Joss represented everything in my life I didn’t want to acknowledge at the moment, while Quinn … well, Quinn made me remember how I used to be before any of this crap started. I wanted to hang on to that feeling, wanted to remember Nan healthy and Sundays at the cottage and reading by the lake, all perfectly safe, uncomplicated things that encompassed my life not that long ago.
While Quinn didn’t make me feel half as flustered as Joss, I wanted to be close to him for the simple fact I needed to hang onto my sanity, that last, tiny, remaining piece of me deep inside insisting I was still normal despite everything.
I pointed to the abundant fruit hanging from every tree in the house yards. “Apple?”
Preoccupied with glancing around—seemed like my vision freaked him out a little and he’d taken his warrior role to extremes—he nodded. “When you meet my mom, you’ll know why we live in the apple grove.”
“What’s the meaning behind apple?”
“Beauty, love, generosity.”
“That’s nice.”
“That’s my mom.”
My heart did a weird little skip thing. Did he have any idea how amazingly appealing it was to hear a macho guy talk about his mom like that? I wondered what the ogham symbol was for abandonment, selfish, traitor? Probably some obnoxious weed. That’s where I’d find my mom.
Joss held a gate open for me—manners too, wow—and as I stepped onto the path leading to his front door, a strange sense of déjà vu washed over me.
Uriel’s herb garden could’ve been Nan’s, transposed. It had the same profusion of lavender, thyme, sage, oregano, and basil. As I closed my eyes and breathed deep, I was transported back to a time when Nan was clipping herbs and I read under a tree.
