Dream Under the Hill (Oberon Book 8)

by P. G. Forte

  “I might not have been completely truthful about Dan,” Paige continued after a moment’s pause. “You see, he wasn’t the only man I was seeing that summer. The summer before you were born. But, we... well, he would have married me, you know, just like I always told you, if that bitch Lucy Greco hadn’t come back to town. It was just bad timing, that’s all and really bad luck. He and Lucy... okay, I don’t want to talk about that now,” Paige said, pausing again, as she always did at this part, looking almost too upset to continue. “It’s not important.”

  Deirdre waited, watching her mother’s face, wondering again what had been going through her mind when she made the tape. Had she really meant what she was saying? Had she even known she was lying about Dan’s feelings for her? Or had she made herself believe it?

  “The thing is, baby girl, I never wanted to mention it before, because... well, like I just said, it’s never really seemed that important to me. But there is a slight chance that – technically – Dan’s not your real father. I mean, he should have been. I wanted him to be... well, you know, the one. And I know he would have wanted that, too. He would have loved you, just like I do. But, see, the thing is... I never really told him that much about you... or, anything, really. And we never really checked it out, for one reason or another. So, he never had a chance to be a father to you the way…well, the way we all would have liked him to be.”

  Paige shook her head. “I don’t even know why I’m bothering to tell you this. I know it’s not something you’ll ever have to worry about. Hopefully. I mean, I’m sure you won’t. I guess I just must have needed to get it off my chest, or something. But... well, just in case you do. Just in case you ever need a blood relative for anything, or some kind of biological information, or a donor, or anything like that, I made a list of names, which should be included with this tape. A list of men who... well, you see,” Paige shrugged, and once again coughed nervously. “Well. Wow, this is a little tougher than I thought it would be... ”

  Deirdre smiled sadly, fingering the list her mother had mentioned, knowing what was coming next.

  “So, okay, I know that if you’re watching this, you’re eighteen. I know you’re old enough to know what I’m talking about. You’re not a little girl anymore—I have to remember that. It’s just that…well, right now you are and…this isn’t the kind of thing I feel I should be talking with you about.”

  She shook her head and coughed again. “So, I suppose you’ve probably taken a look at my list by now, and maybe you’re a little surprised by... well, by how lengthy it is. All I can say is, it was a different time. I don’t know how things are going to be when you’re an adult, but they suck now, I can tell you that. Back when I was younger, before you were born, things were... more... free. People didn’t worry as much, or judge as harshly. It was a nice time. I hope you get to experience something like that in your own lifetime. It’s sure not the way things are now.”

  Paige sighed. “In any case, what’s done is done. I can’t change anything in the past and as far as the future goes, if you’re watching this, then I guess that means I don’t have one to worry about, huh?” Paige shrugged a little, and glanced away, her expression clouding suddenly.

  Deirdre paused the tape. She took a deep breath and blinked back the tears that were once again in her eyes. Damn it, Dee, get a grip! It was silly, but, no matter how many times she’d watched this tape, that shrug always got to her. And that look– Had Paige gotten a premonition of what was to come? Was that why she looked so sad? Is that why she made this tape, less than six months before she died? Questions. A billion questions, and no one left to answer them...

  She hit play again, and watched as Paige continued speaking. “So, these guys... most of them are still around, so hopefully you’ll have no trouble finding them. A few of them are jerks, but I won’t go into that, just in case, well, you know… one of the jerks turns out to be your father. I’m sure that’s not the case, though. And, anyway, they’re mostly good guys. For the most part. And fun – although, you probably don’t want to hear about that, I guess, huh? And, yes, a couple of them are married now, but, you know, don’t worry about that. I figure that’s their problem, not yours. You didn’t do anything wrong – just remember that. If there’s any confusion it’s my fault, and I apologize for that. Maybe I should have done something sooner to clear things up for you, but... well, it’s too late now, isn’t it?” Paige laughed and looked away again. Deirdre waited.

  “The thing is, you’re so much like Dan. Okay, not in looks exactly, but... in all the ways that matter. So, I never felt like I needed to know more. But lately... well, I’m wondering if that was such a good idea. Anyway, Dee, you should go to him first. Even if he’s not your dad, I know he’ll do right by you. He might not have always done right by me, but... I’ve seen him with his other kids, and I know he’ll take good care of you.”

  Paige shook her head sadly. “You know, I really have only one regret. One mistake I made with Dan. I thought for too long that he was the love of my life, but I was wrong about that. Funny, that it took me so long to realize it. But there’s been only one real love in my life... and, you should know who I’m talking about, ‘cause I’m talking to her right now. And... oh, crap.” There was a muffled sob as Paige leaned forward suddenly, and then the screen went black.

  Deirdre wiped her eyes, while she waited for her mother to re-start the camera. There wasn’t much left on the tape, and what there was, she had memorized, but she waited, just the same.

  The screen cleared and Paige resumed her seat, still smiling, blinking back her own tears. “So, anyway, that’s really all I have to say. I think I’ve covered everything. I hope you’re not too disappointed in me. And I hope you have a wonderful life, Dee-Dee baby. I know you will, though. I know you’ll do everything you set out to do – everything we’ve talked about. I know you’ll be fabulously successful, and happy and... and I just wish I could be there to see it, that’s all. Good-bye, baby girl. I love you.”

  Deirdre stopped the tape. She pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her head in her arms as she waited for the sorrow to pass. It was the same each time she viewed the tape, maybe slightly easier with each repetition, but not by much. Her mother’s death had torn the pattern of her life in two. Since then, she’d been left with nothing but loose ends, and no way to tie them all off.

  Locating her father, learning who he was... well, she sometimes thought that was the only way she’d ever find the missing pieces of herself.

  She raised her head and glanced again at the list her mother had made. Paige hadn’t really given her a lot of information about them, other than their names. Probably ‘cause she was hoping I’d never look any of them up, she thought. But, thanks to the Internet, she’d already found email addys for most of them. It was only a matter of time before she located the rest. But, for now, she had enough to get started.

  She sighed as she straightened up, returned her feet to the floor and pulled her chair closer to her desk. It was time to get to work.

  As she waited for her Internet browser to open, she glanced at the letter pinned to the wall above her desk. The letter welcoming her to the University of California at Abraxas. In two months time, she’d be moving to Oberon to go to school there. UC Abraxas had been her mother’s alma mater. It was the only school Deirdre had applied to – a move her guidance counselor had been dead set against. But what was the point in applying anywhere else?

  It was the only school she’d ever wanted to attend. The only one she would attend. Period. For as along as she could remember, that had been her plan. She’d get in there, or else.

  Ever since she returned from her first visit to Oberon, from her disastrous, aborted first attempt to find her father, she’d put all her energy into her school work. She’d been obsessed, possessed, driven.

  She’d worked too hard to fail.

  She had thought her life had fallen apart when her mother died, but that had only been the start
of it. The real crash had occurred eight months later, in Oberon. Since then, she’d been haunted. By the mysteries surrounding her mother’s death and her father’s identity. By the loss of her heart and her innocence.

  No matter what anyone told her, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the only way to get her life back on track was to return there; to the scene of all those crimes.

  A billion questions. Maybe more...

  Maybe she’d never learn the answers to all of them. Only one thing was certain. The answers she sought would be found in Oberon – or nowhere at all.

  * * *

  It was another Saturday night at The Temple Garden and Chenoa was once again surrounded by happy couples. The feeling was no longer merely getting old, she decided; it had arrived.

  “What’s wrong Chen?” Jasmine asked, returning to their table from the dance floor. “Hard day? You look tired.”

  Chenoa shrugged. “Not hard, exactly, just tiring. I did some chakra work this afternoon – just one session but it ran longer than usual. Most of the time they’re pretty energizing for me, as well as whomever I’m working on, but this one... this one left me drained.”

  “Well, that doesn’t sound right,” Jasmine said, frowning slightly as she took the seat beside her. Her forehead puckered up in concern. “How come?”

  “I don’t know,” Chenoa sighed, she took a sip of her iced tea and thought about it. “It was pretty intense. He needed a lot of work done, but... ” but it might have had nothing at all to do with Liam’s stressed out condition. More likely it was the result of the twenty-four hour fast she’d only broken a couple of hours before he arrived. Maybe even a by-product of her first ever pipe ceremony, which she’d performed that morning at dawn.

  Thinking about that, she could not conceal a satisfied smile. She’d been humbled by the experience; humbled and empowered, in almost equal measure. The studying she’d done on the subject, all the readings on the various tests and lessons the pipe would put its carrier through, had not prepared her for the sheer power of the experience. As she watched her prayers ascend to heaven on plumes of white smoke, she’d felt more connected to The Great Mystery than ever before.

  She’d prayed for many things this morning. For wisdom, for the clarity of vision and purity of heart that she knew this path would demand of her. And she’d prayed for a partner; someone to walk this road with her.

  She didn’t know how long it would take for her prayers to be answered, certainly she never thought it would be so soon. She’d been more than a little surprised when Liam had shown up at the bakery this afternoon, and she still didn’t know whether to be dismayed or elated by what could very well be nothing more than coincidence.

  Although she found him attractive, he was not the man she would have chosen for herself. But, perhaps the pipe had other ideas. And, perhaps he’d been chosen for her?

  “So, who’d you work on, anyway?” Chay interrupted her thoughts to ask. It was an innocent enough question, but there was nothing innocent about the look in her brother’s eyes.

  Chenoa felt her inner Badger bristle at the query. “Why? You checking up on me, Chayton?”

  “I don’t know, Chenoa,” he replied. “Do you need checking up on?”

  “No.” She stared at her brother in surprise. “I don’t.” It wasn’t like Chay to challenge her so directly. Other people, yes. But, not her. Not now.

  Even though Chay was her elder by several years, Chenoa had staked her claim as head of the family several months ago, following their grandfather’s death.

  At the time, her brother had seemed to respect that. But, tonight? Don’t take it personally. He’s upset about something, an inner voice warned. Was it her own intuition that was telling her so, she wondered, or was this something more? Was this, perhaps, the first glimmerings of discernment?

  “I worked on Liam, if you must know,” she told him, watching closely for his response.

  Chay nodded, as though the information was no more than he’d expected. “He say anything about what he’s been up to these days?”

  Once again Chenoa felt her eyebrows rising. “I don’t interrogate the people who come to me for assistance, Chay. That wasn’t Paco’s way and it’s not mine.”

  And, once again, Chay nodded. “I know. I was just wondering if he told you anything about the people he’s hanging with lately?”

  Chenoa shook her head. “I don’t know anything about that. But it sounds like you do?”

  “Not really.” Her brother pulled his chair a little closer to hers and then amended, “Not yet, anyway. I’ve only caught one glimpse of them. The other night – in the woods, out by the vortex. I didn’t like what I saw.”

  Not yet? What the hell did that mean? Chenoa frowned. “What have you been doing, Chay? Spying on people? What gives you the right to do that?”

  A glint of amusement shone briefly in Chay’s gold eyes. Amusement, and something else, something harder, darker, angrier. He leaned in closer still, and lowered his voice until he was speaking only for her ears. “You’re forgetting something, my sister. You’re not the only one who grew up under Paco, you know. You’re not the only one with a path to walk.”

  Chenoa rolled her eyes. “Oh, right.” She knew all about the stupid patrols Paco used to send her brother out on; all the nights he’d spent while he was still in his teens, hiding in shadows, following people around town. As far as she could tell from the other teenage boys she’d observed, they’d all been doing pretty much the same things – only louder, with more silliness and a lot more alcohol.

  She’d always suspected that was Paco’s real intent. To allow Chay the freedom to do what he would have done anyway, but with a mission that would set him apart from his wilder-minded peers – at least in his own perception. To imbue the teen with a sense of purpose, a seriousness that was out of all proportion to his age, and a sense of his own importance, for no other reason than to keep Paco’s hot blooded, young buck of a grandson from getting into trouble.

  She sighed. “You don’t need to be doing that anymore, Chay, do you? I thought you’d outgrown that nonsense, by now?”

  “Nonsense?” Chay quirked an eyebrow at her. “And, is that what you call what you’re doing, too? Nonsense?”

  Chakra balancing. Aura reading. Energy work. They were a far cry from what Chay was up to, and she knew they were valid, but, “A lot of people would, you know.”

  Chay nodded. “But, you and I– We’re not like a lot of people. Are we, Chen?”

  Chenoa stared at her brother, startled by the way his words hit home. It was a surprisingly lonely thought, and her first impulse was to deny it, to insist that they were just like anyone else. However, that wasn’t exactly true, was it? “No,” she admitted at last. “I guess we’re not.”

  Still, there were limits. And it was important to set them. “But my personal life is just that, Chay. It’s personal. And, as far as Liam is concerned, you don’t need to be following him around. He’s not your business.” He might not even be my business, for all I know.

  Chay shook his head. “Maybe not. We’ll see. But, the vortex, on the other hand, now that is my business, whether you want to think so, or not. And the animals that are being killed out there? They’re my business, too. In fact, the way I see it, the whole damn park is my business. Mine, Chen. And I’m gonna do whatever I need to do to protect it.”

  Chenoa gaped at her brother, surprised by the seriousness, the intensity, the anger in his voice. She glanced around the table, relieved to see that the others were engaged in their own conversations, and paying the two of them no mind. All the same– “I don’t really think this is the place to be discussing that, Chay. Do you?”

  “Maybe not,” Chay repeated, straightening slightly away from her, veiling his anger, but not completely.

  “You can’t really believe Liam’s involved with something like… like that?” She’d heard the rumors – and too many of the details, thanks to her relationship with Chay and
Jasmine’s connection to Siobhan. Bloodletting. Animal mutilation. Ritual sacrifices. She’d sensed something in Liam’s aura today that she hadn’t liked. A darkness she’d never seen there before – but certainly nothing that dark. And, anyway, how could anyone go from being a cop to... to being involved in something like that? In a matter of months, no less! It was inconceivable. At least, it ought to be.

  “I don’t know,” Chay said. “But I’ve warned you to stay away from him, Chen. And I mean it.”

  Chenoa shook her head. The whole idea was absurd. Yes, she’d sensed that Liam needed some extra help keeping his emotions stable. A lot of extra help, in fact. And, sure, maybe she had focused a little more attention on him today than she should have done; especially all the time she’d devoted to his second chakra – the one that rules the reproductive organs – that might not have been too bright. But the timing of his visit, so soon after this morning’s ceremony, so soon after she’d made her prayers... that had to mean something, didn’t it? She didn’t really believe in coincidences. That was the problem. She never had.

  Despite all her brother’s warnings, or maybe because of them, she couldn’t help but find herself drawn to Liam. As though she were linked to him in some indefinable way. Maybe it was simply the fact that they’d both lost parents at an early age, and shared some of the same wounds – always a powerful bond. But maybe it was more than that.

  She’d asked him today if he was seeing anyone, and he’d told her he wasn’t. He hadn’t volunteered anything more about his feelings, and neither had she.

  She’d usually been faulted for being too direct. It was out of character for her to just sit back and let things happen. But in this case, when her path wasn’t clear – when even her own feelings in the matter were confused – that was just what she intended to do.