“Not at all, I was just thinking about yesterday, when he told me the offer still stands.”
It was her turn to freeze as mixed emotions played out across her face. “I don’t … that can’t be right. He … he kidnapped you and he put spells on you and … how many lines did he cross and you still forgave him?”
Quite a few. Some of them still rankled, when I dwelled on them, and I had dwelled on them lately. It’s not like he’d changed personalities after we’d gotten married – he was still the same man, determined to protect me and get his way.
But I had forgiven him. He and I had compromised and found ways to work things out, because we loved each other.
“I love him,” I said simply.
“He wouldn’t really give you back your magic,” Juliana said, almost desperately now. “Say yes. Go ahead, say yes and see what happens. See if he goes through with it.”
“You listen to me,” I said, feeling my temper rising yet again. “I don’t want it. I’m a seer, and there’s no such thing as a seer-sorcerer.”
She frowned. “There isn’t?”
“No. I can’t have it both ways. I made a choice, and it was mine to make.” There was more to the choice than that – far more. The truth was that I’d chosen to love him. I’d chosen to forgive him. But I’d said all that before, and apparently it wasn’t penetrating, so maybe this would.
“Is that why you won’t even use Ana’s magic?” she asked.
“Yes,” I lied. I wanted this conversation over.
She shook her head. “I didn’t know that, about being a seer.”
“Why should you? You’re not a seer.”
“I need to think.”
“Think all you like, but you and the kids are coming to stay with me while you do it.”
She shook her head. “Take the kids. Fine. But I’m staying with Aunt Sherry.”
“Juliana,” I began.
She held up her hands. “No. I need to think.”
“It’s my life. It’s my marriage. It’s my business.”
“How can you forgive him? There are some things that aren’t forgivable.”
And that’s when it struck me – none of this was about me or Evan at all. It was about her.
“Who hurt you?” I asked.
“Who do you think?”
“Mom?”
She hesitated. “And you. You knew how bad things were, and you abandoned us.”
My stomach twisted with guilt. Is that what had happened? I had just been trying to live my new life with my new husband and new baby, but maybe to Juliana, it had happened just that way. And maybe she wasn’t wrong.
“I’ll drop you at Aunt Sherry’s on the way,” I said finally.
* * *
We were a subdued group that night. I had no idea what to say to the kids; when the pizzas arrived for dinner, I put on a movie so we didn’t have to make conversation. Isaac was the only one who asked after Juliana. He cornered me in the kitchen as I cleared away dinner; the others were still watching the movie.
“She decided to stay with Aunt Sherry instead,” I told him.
He almost looked like he was in pain. At fourteen, he had truly become a young man rather than a boy. He was taller than me, with a tiny bit of facial hair, and when he opened his mouth to speak – well, he sounded exactly like our father. It was eerie. Nicolas might be the brother who looked most like Dad, but Isaac was the one who sounded most like him.
“I can’t believe she didn’t want to stay with the twins, at least,” he said.
“She had some things to work out.” I didn’t want to tell him about Juliana’s thoughts on Evan, in case he didn’t know. Apparently, I needn’t have bothered hedging.
“You mean because she hates Evan?” He shook his head.
“You know about that?”
“Of course I do. She and I have been the adults in the house for over a year. I think we’ve told each other everything by now.”
I felt another pang of guilt at the idea that a fourteen-year-old and a seventeen-year-old had taken on these responsibilities.
“For what it’s worth, I told her you could take care of yourself,” Isaac added.
I gave him a hug, which he resisted for a moment before settling in. I didn’t hang on for too long, but I appreciated his vote of confidence more than I could say in words.
“I guess I didn’t realize how much she hates him,” Isaac said.
Again, guilt twisted my guts. “I think she hates me as much as she hates Evan right now. She thinks I abandoned you.”
This seemed to surprise him. “Really? Because every time I told her to call you, that we needed help, she was the one who said no, we could handle it.”
“I think she wanted me to know.” I laughed, the sound echoing mirthlessly around the room. “I should have known. I am clairvoyant.”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe Nicolas should have known too. Or cousin Robert. Or the school, when our grades dropped.”
“You’ve gotten wise in the last couple of years.” The transformation was almost hard to believe. Two years ago he’d been caught robbing banks because he felt inadequate due to his lack of a unique gift, even if he did have magic to channel.
“I’ll show you how to do bedtime,” Isaac said. “You can’t read about anything real to Christina or she might try to see it with farsight; it’s got to be totally make believe. And the twins take a bath together, unless you want Maya to scream the whole time and swallow half the bathwater. Elena and Adam are reading a chapter of Harry Potter every night – I usually read that to them while Juliana handles the bath.”
“I’ll manage the bath,” I said.
He turned to leave.
“Thanks,” I whispered to his retreating form.
* * *
I nursed Ana before starting the bedtime rituals. When I finished, Evan took her to the master bathroom while I filled one of the three other tubs for the twins. Elena helped Christina with her bath down the hall while Adam, who announced that he was plenty old enough to take care of himself, claimed the last free upstairs bathroom.
Bath time with the twins gave me another chance to watch them, this time with my full and undivided attention. I don’t think I’d ever given them my undivided attention before – there were always other things going on. Even yesterday, when I’d watched them eat, there were distractions.
Now there was just me, a tub full of water, and two slippery two-year-olds protesting the need for soap. Actually, that wasn’t entirely true. Michael was okay with the soap; Maya was protesting.
I tried to distract Maya with a bright pink rubber ducky while I slid the wash rag between her and her brother, angling for patches of skin I couldn’t get with their bodies melded together. She stared right past the toy, almost as if she didn’t see it.
“Find the ducky,” I said in a sing-song, giving it a squeeze.
Michael stared at it and smiled. Maya looked at him and raised her arms in the air. The next thing I knew, the toy had disappeared from my hand, reappearing an instant later in hers.
“How did you do that when you weren’t looking at it?” I asked, though of course I didn’t expect an answer.
Summoners could only summon what they could see; it was actually a fairly limited gift and I sensed Mom was disappointed when she’d discovered what Maya could do. Having been a disappointment myself, I planned never to so much as hint at the possibility that summoning wasn’t every bit as cool as fire starting or farsight or healing or any of the other gifts running through our family.
Kids were becoming more powerful, though. There was more magic in the world. Maybe I shouldn’t assume her summoning gift worked the same way my great-grandmother’s had.
“Can I have the ducky back?” I plucked the rubber duck from Maya’s hands, meeting only slight resistance. Then I put it behind my back. “Can you summon it now? Go on. Get the ducky.”
She smacked the water, splashing her brother, who scooted away. Pred
ictably, Maya let out a screech and Michael returned to her side. He handed her a washcloth and she took it, dragging it through the soapy water.
“Peek-a-boo!” I cried, letting the ducky come out from behind my back for a moment.
Michael noticed and smiled. Maya didn’t look; she didn’t seem to be looking at anything, not even the washcloth. Her face was tilted toward the faucet as if she were staring at the taps.
“Peek-a-boo!” I cried again, letting the little pink ducky come out once again.
Michael and Maya both squealed in delight, but Maya still wasn’t looking at the duck.
“Can you get the ducky?” I asked, making sure to keep it firmly behind my back.
She held her hands up, still facing the faucet, but nothing happened. I frowned, then let the ducky come out one last time. The second Michael squealed, the toy was gone from my hands, magically appearing in Maya’s.
“What’s wrong with you, Maya?” I whispered under my breath.
“She’s afraid,” said a small, childish voice from the doorway. I looked up to see Christina standing there, long hair dripping-wet enough to leave a large damp patch trailing down the front of her Disney princess nightgown.
“Let me help you dry your hair a bit better.” I grabbed a towel from one of the racks and began toweling off her hair.
“Jules washes my hair better,” Christina said.
“I’m sure Elena did the best she could.” I finished toweling her hair dry and looked around for a brush, but didn’t see one. Deciding the brush could wait, I went back to Christina’s earlier comment. “Why’s Maya afraid?”
Christina shrugged, again.
“Hey, listen,” I began, thinking back to the other night when I’d been attacked by a hell hound in front of my childhood home, “the other night, there was a hell hound at the castle. I called your name, and it went away.”
“What’s a hell hound?” Christina asked.
“Big, black dog with glowing red eyes.”
“You mean Max?”
I hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, apparently I mean Max.”
“He’s Maya’s. But he listens to me too.”
“He’s Maya’s? Where did he come from?”
Christina shuddered, her eyes lowering to the ground.
“Christina?”
Her eyes snapped back up, but they weren’t looking at me. They were somewhere far away. I glanced at Maya, at the way she never seemed to be looking at anything, and wondered if she had two gifts instead of just one. Dual gifts didn’t run in my family; they ran in Evan’s, but not mine. Which didn’t make it impossible. But when I looked back and forth between them, I decided they didn’t have the same looks in their eyes after all. Christina seemed to be seeing something profound, but very far away. Maya didn’t seem to be seeing anything, almost as if there was something wrong with her eyes …
“Christina?” I asked again. “What do you see?”
“An eyeball. Looking out at us.”
“Where is it?”
“Not here yet.”
“Okay, then where–?”
“Don’t let it come in!”
“I’ll try. But I don’t know anything about it.”
“Not you, her.” Christina pointed at Maya, who had grown bored with the rubber ducky and was now splashing half the water out of the tub.
“Maya?” A sick sort of dread washed over me as I tried to understand what Christina was saying.
“There you are,” Elena said, her soft voice barely audible over the ringing in my ears. She started to usher Christina away.
“Wait!” I said.
Elena froze, frowning.
“What did Maya do, exactly?” I asked Christina.
But my five-year-old sister was done, shaking her head and sobbing softly. “It’s my fault. I’m the one who saw them.”
Elena led Christina out and I let them go, my head buzzing with uncertainty. I stared back at Maya and jumped when I saw something silver flash across her eyes. She started to raise her hands and without thinking, I grabbed them.
“Let’s get you out of this bathtub,” I said, trying to inject some cheer into my voice. “We’ll get you all dried up and read you a book.” I kept talking as I lifted her, keeping her hands pinned so she couldn’t do whatever it was she’d been ready to do.
She struggled to free her hands and didn’t even cry when I parted her from Michael. Not good. Very not good.
“Evan!” I called.
I strained to hear if he was finished with Ana’s bath in the other room. I couldn’t leave Michael in the tub, but I also couldn’t let go of Maya’s hands. I had no idea what would happen, or if it had anything to do with the eyeball Christina had seen, but I wasn’t taking chances.
“Evan! Isaac! Someone!”
Isaac was the one to appear in the doorway, looking from me to the squirming toddler in my arms with a question in his eyes.
“Take care of Michael,” I said as I walked past him and into the hall.
Immediately, Maya began to howl. She had apparently noticed the absence of her brother.
“You can’t separate them,” Isaac said. “What are you doing?”
At that moment, Evan appeared at the end of the hall, emerging from our bedroom carrying a wet Ana. “What’s going on?”
“I need you to do a binding.”
Evan looked from me to Maya, then back again. “I can try, but didn’t you say Nicolas had already done a binding?”
“More than one,” I confirmed. “Please, just buy us some time.”
Chapter 21
EVAN DIDN’T ASK QUESTIONS. HE RAN straight up to his lab on the third floor and began arranging the binding circle just as he’d done for Haley. While he worked, I did my best to distract Maya, who was having none of it. Her screams grew louder and louder until Isaac shoved a damp Michael into my arms.
“Help Elena with Christina and Ana, will you?” I asked Isaac.
He nodded and was gone.
I juggled the twins a bit clumsily, half afraid I would drop them, especially because Maya hadn’t fully calmed down. Her screams had turned into a series of violent, hiccuping sobs and she continued to struggle to get her arms free from my grip.
I could not let her get her hands free, whatever happened. I still didn’t know exactly what was going on, but I knew she wasn’t trying to summon the rubber ducky.
“I’m ready!” Evan called after an eternity that probably only lasted five minutes.
I placed the twins in the center of the circle; it couldn’t hurt to bind them both. The real trouble was that I didn’t want to let go of Maya’s hands, but I couldn’t be inside the circle with her and I definitely couldn’t break the circle by leaning over it.
“I’ve got it,” Evan said when he realized what I was trying to do.
I backed away and sure enough, Evan took over, using his gift to gently keep her hands still. Maya struggled against his hold, but with even less success than she’d had struggling against me. He would never hurt her, but his hold was iron. I’d only ever seen vampires and hell hounds break it.
“What is she trying to summon?” Evan handed me a fire stick to allow me to light the five white candles outlining the circle.
“I don’t know.” I bent over to begin my task, but my hands were shaking so badly I had trouble catching the wick.
I closed my eyes, drew in a deep breath, and opened them again. Michael, smiling proudly, pointed to each candle in turn, lighting the wicks.
“His gift isn’t bound either.” Evan sucked in a deep breath. “Who did the binding?”
“Nicolas.” I knew Evan didn’t have a lot of respect for Nicolas, even if he had come a long way in the past two years, so I hastened to add, “And Clark Eagle helped.”
“Hm. We might need a full circle.”
“Try,” I said.
He hesitated for only a moment longer, then lifted his arms and began to chant. Maya’s screams grew louder and as they did
, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Something was very wrong.
I became acutely aware of everything in the room, and everyone in it. Evan stood at the edge of his permanent casting circle, painted rather than chalked onto the floor. His wavy brown hair hung loose around his shoulders, moving slightly as magic stirred around him. He stared fixedly at the twins, his gaze never wavering, his lips forming the words of his chant.
Michael stared back at Evan, his happy expression gone as if it had never been, his gaze as intense as a grown man’s. He looked like a miniature version of my father, and I had the sudden, eerie sense that he was somehow possessing Michael from beyond the grave.
Maya screamed and clung to Michael’s arm, though he scarcely seemed to notice. Her eyes were open, and in them I saw that silvery glint I had observed earlier.
The candles began to shake. Beyond his workbench, littered with books, star charts, and spell diagrams, a window rattled. Evan didn’t break concentration, but a bead of sweat formed on his brow and I knew he was close. He was feeling the tension too. I only prayed he could hold it, that he wouldn’t be interrupted.
Interrupting a spellcaster mid-spell was a recipe for disaster.
Suddenly, the window burst open and a tiny ball of light zoomed inside. I was sure, for a moment, that we were being visited by the Fairy of Despair. But the quality of the light was different – more bluish, where the other was red. Then the room began to grow colder.
I saw the instant Evan’s concentration broke. Diving forward, breaking the circle with my body even as I rushed to shield the twins from whatever catastrophe was about to befall us, I braced for impact.
It came suddenly and forcibly, a sonic boom that physically pushed me and the twins backwards against a wall and then through the wall – into the hallway. I felt a sharp impact point at the back of my skull, saw stars mixed with plaster and debris, and still tried to keep myself between the wall and the twins, taking the brunt of the damage on myself.
For a minute or so, pain was my whole world. Then I felt Evan’s hand on my face and heard his voice, begging for a response.
“’m okay,” I mumbled. “Twins?”
“They’re fine. Barely a scratch. I put them in an enchanted sleep for now.”
Frozen: a ParaNormal Mystery (Cassie Scot Book 7) Page 19
