I bit my lip and nodded firmly. “I do. I won’t let you down, Indira. I won’t let any of you down.”
“I know you won’t,” she told me. “Now go, before you’re caught down here. That would ruin our whole plan.”
I clasped her hand, moved it from my head to my lips and pressed kisses to it. “I love you, Indira. And Magdalena and Lilia, too. I love you all so dearly. Please tell them that for me when you see them. And that I’m so grateful for all you did to make my life better. I will never forget you. Tell them.”
“I’ll tell them.”
“I don’t want you to go,” I sobbed as she took her hand away.
“There’s no need to grieve, child. We’ll return.”
With a vengeance, I thought, but I didn’t say it out loud.
Chapter Seven
“Now you remember.”
It was Lilia’s voice I heard, even though I knew that was impossible. I was still lying on that basement floor, and I was staring up at Lilia, all silvery blonde, not dark like before, but aglow, like an angel. She wasn’t real—and yet she was.
“I remember,” I whispered. Vaguely, I was aware of the sounds of violence—Harrison and the priest, fighting it out. The box, though…the box was still in my arms.
“Then you know how important it is that you get the box to safety. It won’t be long now before Indira will return. She’ll need it.”
“How long?” I asked her.
“Within your lifetime.”
“Shall I keep it, then?”
“They’ll never leave you alone if you do. Father Dom, others like him, they’re obsessed. But I know a safe place.”
“Where?”
“With a woman. Her name is Meredith Guillome. She works at Cornell University. She has a calico cat with her wherever she goes. She’s a witch. Give it to her. No one else.”
“I will. Will I see you again, Lilia?”
“Twenty years,” she told me. “If all goes well, that is.” And then she looked toward the fighting men. “Best save your dear soldier before it’s too late. He was always such a brave one.”
And then she shimmered and was gone.
I scrambled to my feet to see the two men struggling and knew I had only been out for a few seconds. And I also knew that my beautiful Harrison had risked his life to save mine before.
I spotted a shovel in the corner and, setting my precious box down, snatched it up, raced over to the men and swung it hard.
The priest went down like a sack of feed.
And Harrison just stood there staring at me like he’d never seen me before. “Wow. That was…that was…awesome.”
I smiled. “Just returning the favor.”
He frowned a little, but came closer as I set the shovel down and bent to pick up the box again. “I’ll carry it. It’s not exactly light.” He took it from me, tucking it under an arm, and I just stood there, staring up at him and loving him with everything in me.
“This isn’t the first time you’ve helped me find that box, you know.”
He blinked. “It isn’t?”
“No.” I kept watching, waiting, thinking he would remember like I had when I’d held the delicate treasure. But I didn’t see any rush of recognition in his eyes. Instead I saw something else.
He slid his free arm around my waist and held me close to his side as we turned and started up the basement stairs, then through the church and out to his Jeep. “So what happened last time?”
“We ran away together to some faraway land beyond the desert.”
“Oh, so this happened in Iraq?”
“Before it even was Iraq. It was another lifetime.”
“You don’t say. So we rescued the box, and then we ran off together.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
He opened the car door for me but didn’t let me in. Instead he set the box on the seat and looked me in the eye. “And then what?”
“We got married and had a pile of kids and lived happily ever after.”
He smiled. “You remember all that?”
“I do now.”
“You mind if we put the marriage part off for a few months? Maybe date for a while first?”
“I don’t mind at all. We’ve got all the time in the world. Lifetimes, apparently.”
“Come here,” he said, and he pulled me into his arms and kissed me, long and slow. It was heaven. It was perfect. It was full circle.
Indira was right. Death was not the end. It never had been.
Epilogue
The old woman with the calico cat knew the young couple was surprised to see her pushing her cleaning cart through the hallowed halls of Cornell University’s Uris Library. But she thought they were wise enough not to judge. She knew, as soon as she saw the way they looked at her, and then at her cat, that they were the ones she’d been told to wait for.
She didn’t know what any of it was about. Only that they would be coming, they would give her something important, and she would put it…away.
The girl, clearly in love, seemed reluctant to part with the ancient looking box. Pretty thing, she was. As exotic in appearance as the miniature treasure chest.
“You’re Meredith Guillome?” the girl asked.
“Would you like to see my ID?” As she said it, Merry held up her name badge, which bore her smiling photo, minus a tooth in the front. Dropping the tag, she held out her hands for the box.
The girl looked at the man—and a strikingly handsome man he was, too. What a beautiful couple. He nodded at her, and she reluctantly handed the box over.
“Don’t worry, child,” Merry told her. “Don’t you worry at all. I know your family have been the keepers of this box for a long, long time now. Well, I belong to a long line of keepers, too. Secret keepers. We’ve had lots of secrets entrusted to us since this university was inaugurated back in eighteen-sixty-eight. And we know well how to keep ’em safe. Trust me on that now.”
And she winked and she twinkled, and knew the girl saw it. Then she tucked the box under some towels in her cart and walked away.
*
As we watched the old woman go, I felt the most intense feeling of relief. As if a huge burden had been lifted from my shoulders. I turned to my Harrison and said, “We did it. We actually did it.”
He wrapped his arms around me and held me close to him. “I have the feeling there’s not much we couldn’t do together, Amarrah.”
“I have the same feeling,” I told him.
“Lilia said it would be another twenty years, if all went well. I hope I get to see them again.”
“I hope to be right by your side when you do,” he said softly. “What do you think my chances are?”
I looked up at my beloved and smiled. “We’ve been together for three thousand, five hundred years, one way or another,” I said. “What’s another twenty?”
He kissed me then, and I knew we would be together forever, lifetime after lifetime, and beyond.
*
Look for Indira’s story in MARK OF THE WITCH, Volume One of “The Portal,” the new trilogy from New York Times bestselling author Maggie Shayne, available in October from Harlequin MIRA
wherever books are sold.
Don’t miss the rest of The Portal series, coming soon from Maggie Shayne and MIRA Books:
Mark of the Witch
(October 2012)
Daughter of the Spellcaster
(December 2012)
Blood of the Sorceress
(February 2013)
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ISBN: 978-14268-7557-1
Legacy of the Witch
Copyright © 2012 by Margaret Benson
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