They read together, sitting like that, for most of the morning and early afternoon. Every once in a while, she'd read a passage out loud to him. She had yet to learn anything all that useful about the curse, but she was learning a lot about Migisi; who her friends were, which spells she found difficult, her thoughts about the French voyageurs in the area. She did not have the world's highest opinion of them.
She was just about to call it quits for the day. The spell was starting to wear on her, and that weird emptiness that had seemed to have left her for a while was coming back, distracting her, making it harder for her to hold her magic in such a focused way.
She read faster, jumping ahead, then sat up with a jubilant shout.
“What?” Calder asked with a laugh, watching her. She scrambled onto his lap, straddled his thighs.
“Found him. Listen to this.”
“I'll listen to anything you say as long as you're sitting on me like that,” he said with a grin.
Sophie smacked his arm. “Behave and listen.” She started reading.
“He finally caught me. The trapper I have been thwarting managed to trick me this time. He must have circled around after I'd sabotaged his traps. It is the only thing that makes sense, and I am irritated with myself for my carelessness.
Maybe I wanted to meet him. Perhaps, I would have been more careful otherwise. We have been playing this game for weeks now. When I am being honest, I admit to myself that I enjoy our game. This has gone beyond me protecting my territory from interlopers, though there is still that. I enjoy outsmarting him. I enjoy the way he tries to work around me, the way he growls in frustration.
Perhaps, I enjoyed the flash of his eyes a bit too much.
Perhaps. Perhaps I am lonely.
At any rate, he caught up with me. He confronted me, and I was impressed by the way he kept his irritation under control. He was respectful, if angry. And the way he looked at me— I would very much like someone to look at me like that regularly.
No. Not just someone. Him. I am embarrassed over how much I've thought about him. How I've dreamt about this brash, rough Frenchman.
To have someone see me not as a healer and wise woman first, but as a woman, period— to not have someone's hopes and dreams, someone's biggest fears laid bare at my feet — it is a relief. Under his gaze, I feel free.
And it is exhilarating.
We spoke. His voice is deep, so deep it reaches right into the depths of me. He is much more intelligent than I gave him credit for. He towers over me, pure strength. He wears a beard, as many of the white men do, and I find that I rather like it. It makes him look wild, which suits him. He is the most wild thing I've ever known. More wild, even, than me.
Look at me, writing about this man like a maiden with her first infatuation.
We will meet up again in the morning. And I will show him where it is acceptable for him to trap. Certainly nowhere in my forest….”
She looked up at Calder. “I mean, she doesn't name him, but it has to be him. It sounds like she was crazy about him from the beginning.”
“It does,” he said slowly. “I wonder how he felt about her. Like she says, she was messing with his trapping. I wonder if it went both ways, or whether she was the only one who felt it.”
“I wonder,” Sophie said quietly, running her fingers over the words. “If he didn't reciprocate, and she felt this strongly about him, you could see it hurting her over time. I mean, not that I can imagine that ever being a reason to curse someone, but still.”
“Or maybe he was just as nuts about her. Maybe it started fast, and ended badly.”
“Maybe,” she admitted. “She doesn't write like someone who was evil.”
“It's pretty much been established that she wasn't. I see that much now, at least.” Calder leaned forward and kissed her, claiming her lips, and she leaned into him, and he pulled the journal out of her hands, set it aside. Her concentration was totally gone, anyway, and she was starting to get a headache from the strain of using her magic for such an extended period of time. When he pulled back, he did so with a sigh.
“I have to go,” he said.
“Okay,” she whispered.
“I promised Jon I'd stop by today,” he explained. “Can I come see you again later?”
She nodded. “You can come to me whenever you want.”
“Just like the old days,” he said, smiling in a way that warmed her entire body.
“But with more kissing,” she said, and he laughed.
“Thank god,” he murmured, lowering his lips to hers again. He stood up, holding her body against his, and she wrapped her legs around his waist to keep herself up. He held her tight to him, and she held on to him just as tightly. When he finally broke their kiss, he did so reluctantly, slowly, as if trying to hold on to the taste of her lips.
“I'll be back in a while,” he said, finally lowering her to the floor. She walked him to the door, and he took her hand, brought her wrist to her mouth. He inspected the lines across her wrist, the same scars he'd noticed before. His eyes met hers, and he pressed his lips to the sensitive flesh at her wrist. Something in his eyes blazed, and she knew, because she knew Calder, that he was angry on her behalf. “I wish I'd been there,” he said as he gently released her hand.
“Me too,” she said “But you're here now.”
He nodded, gave her another quick kiss, told her he'd see her in a while. She watched him walk across the road and get on his motorcycle, felt something in her tighten at the sight of him riding away from her. She'd had the same feeling whenever they'd parted ways as kids. Some things just never seemed to change. Apparently, they were one of them.
She looked down at her wrist. Three scars. Two attempts as a teenager, one after David had died. Guilt, loneliness. She looked down the road in the direction he'd headed. She wouldn't let him meet the same fate. He was stronger than David, and she was no longer a naive, terrified girl.
They'd make it work, and she'd keep him safe. There were no other options.
Chapter Eighteen
June 22, 1856
Migisi lay on the bank of the stream near the waterfall on the other side of her woods, in a patch of warm summer sunlight. Dragonflies flitted over the water, iridescent flashes in the still air. Birds called nearby, and the breeze kissed her naked skin. She glanced sleepily to her left, where Luc lay on his back, hands folded under his head, eyes closed. They'd been practically inseparable other than those times, twice each year, when he went to visit with his business partners. They'd spent every day, every night together in the tiny wood cabin he'd helped her build. One room: four walls, and a roof. It was all they needed.
He knew her. He was familiar with her magic, and she was used to seeing him in both his human and bear forms. He was equally breathtaking either way.
Most of the time they spent together, they spent in silence, reveling in one another's presence. The way he looked at her was like nourishment for her soul; the way he smiled made her feel lighter than she could remember feeling in her entire life.
The years had passed as if they were days. He'd quickly become the center of her world, and that was something Migisi never would have thought possible. She loved letting her gaze travel the well-honed muscles of his arms and back, the straight line of his nose. She found that she could stare into his eyes for an eternity.
“Staring again, my little ghost?” he asked, his voice relaxed, droll.
“Thinking of how horribly ugly you are,” she answered, and he grinned at her.
“You are hideous as well,” he said, and she laughed. Then she sobered, and his gaze focused more as she quieted. “What's wrong, Migisi?”
She shook her head and looked away.
“We have never had any trouble being open with one another, not in these last few months, anyway.” It was true. She'd told him anything he'd asked, and he did the same with her. They'd explored one another's bodies without shame, done things to one another Migisi couldn't have imagi
ned. There was no shame between them, no discomfort. “What is it?” he asked, sitting up and resting his elbows on his knees, watching her.
“What are we doing, exactly?” she asked quietly.
“We're enjoying the first day of summer,” he said, and she closed her eyes in irritation.
“You know what I mean, Luc.”
He was silent.
“Is this forever?” she asked, feeling stupid. Needy. These were things she did not feel. There was never any time or any reason to feel them.
“As far as I am concerned, yes, it is,” he answered without hesitation.
She couldn't look at him. She felt like she had just lost all dignity.
“Is it marriage you need? Because we can do that. I would marry you today if that would assure you that I mean to spend my life with you. I have never pushed for that. You are fiercely independent, and I don't want to scare you off. I know you, Migisi. You love your solitude, and you don't do a damn thing until you want to, and the idea that you'd accept marriage because you felt like you had to… But if you want that, we will do it.”
She looked at him then. “It's not that. In my heart, my soul, I'm married to you already. There will be no other.”
“Then what is it?”
She swallowed. She took his hand, a hand that had explored every inch of her body, and she placed his palm on her abdomen, watched his eyes.
Confusion, and then he understood what she was trying to tell him, trusting that he'd understand, because she was terrified to say the words. He rubbed his hand gently over her abdomen a few times, and she shivered.
Luc stood up, reached out his hand, and she took it. He pulled her up gently, though of course she didn't need any help. She found that she liked letting him help anyway. He pulled gently, and she glided into the refreshing water of the river with him. They entered the water together, becoming more immersed with each step until they couldn't even touch the bottom. At any other time, Migisi would have been scrambling in the water to reach a firmer footing. With him, she let herself lose contact with the lake bed.
Luc pulled her into his arms, his eyes searching hers.
“How do you say 'I love you' in your native tongue?” he asked her.
Migisi bit back the sob that inexplicably wanted to surface. “Gi zah gin,” she whispered.
Luc lowered his lips to hers, and the second their lips met, she felt like she was home, as if he was the life she'd been missing all along. She kissed him, let out a low whimper when he ran his tongue along her lower lip.
“Gi zah gin,” he said, his voice a low rumble, his eyes on hers again, his lips a breath away from hers. “Je t'aime. Migisi,” he said, and the need in his voice went straight through her, and then she did sob, leaning forward and claiming his mouth again. She gave him everything he wanted, took everything she needed, and by the time they left the water, she felt as if she'd been reborn and nothing felt the same.
“Our child is going to be so beautiful, Migisi,” Luc murmured as he helped her into her light dress, which she'd left, folded, beside where they'd been sunbathing. “Let's have this, forever.”
“I can't imagine it ever being otherwise, my heart,” she said, watching with tenderness as he fumbled, trying to tie the belt at her waist, his normally steady hands shaking.
His eyes met hers again. “Same,” he said. “I am yours.”
He said it, and he said he loved her, and Migisi believed every promise he made her, because he was her heart, and the heart never lies.
Chapter Nineteen
Sophie vacuumed the room she was cleaning, well aware that she had a stupid grin on her face. Calder had tried to stay with her last night and had had to leave, which was for the best, considering she was pretty sure she would have done just about anything he asked if he'd stayed, and, while she was all for the idea of doing that, the weird feeling she had lately only seemed to get worse the longer she was with him.
Really, it was pretty much impossible. His beast started acting up when they were together, and she started getting that weird, empty, edgy feeling, as if, for whatever reason, she was very near to lashing out. And it made no sense, because when she was with Calder, it was everything she hoped it would be. Better than she'd dreamed it could be, with him. He was warm, and attentive, and sexy as hell, and he made her feel like the single most important thing in the universe.
He'd always done that, though, she thought with a smile as she turned off the vacuum and started making the bed, tearing the old sheets off.
The previous night, he'd come over and they'd baked a couple pot pies (chicken for him, vegetable for her) and sat watching Game of Thrones, which she hadn't yet watched, on his laptop. He'd held her, and there had been plenty of kissing and touching, and then he'd had to leave.
Cold showers, it was becoming clear, were going to be a normal part of her life with Calder.
He'd shown up this morning. She'd walked out the back door to take care of the animals to find him already out there, pounding more stakes into Merlin's fencing. Merlin was bleating at him in a bad-natured way, and Calder was calling him a “cranky old bastard.” Once he'd seen her there, he'd helped her with the milking, then taken her inside, and, once they'd cleaned up, he grabbed a bag off of the back porch, where he'd left it. Inside was a chocolate cream pie from the bakery in town.
“I remembered you liked these,” he'd said, and she'd sat and had breakfast with him.
It was so easy to love him. And so hard to love him at the same time. His curse, her weird issues with her magic, the fact that, like it or not, he was still holding her house over her head. The fact that, despite her brave words, she was more worried every day that she wouldn't be enough to save him, and the equinox was fast approaching.
During her lunch break, she went into the empty employee lounge and pulled out Migisi's journal. She leafed through it, waiting for more mentions of the French trapper. There were many entries about people she'd healed, spells she used to do so, as if she was trying to ensure she'd remember them. In one, she'd ended with the words, “The darkness rises, and some days, I fear it will swallow me whole.”
Sophie stared at the words, chills running up her spine. “What caused it, Migisi?” she asked under her breath. She kept reading. The writing, for the most part, remained intelligent and straightforward, but the penmanship changed, getting bigger, messier. She wondered how much time had passed as she saw the writing degrade over the course of many pages. Her break was nearly up when she saw Luc's name on the next page she was supposed to read. She focused, determined to hold on to the spell for a while longer, pushed herself to hold it. And she read.
“Nothing is right. I am wrong in my own body, unable to do even the most basic spells. My healing elixirs fail. My garden withers.
Even the tiny life growing inside me has failed. Luc mourns.”
Sophie blinked back tears, looked at the words again. She sent a prayer of mourning, hoping Migisi, wherever she was, would hear it and know. Sophie tried to pull herself together to read on.
“I am a failure in every way that has ever mattered to me. Darkness clouds everything, and I have no more power to fight it back. My only comfort is Luc, and he grows distant as the darkness becomes harder to fight. I am lost, and I do not know how to fight my way back. Some days, it is as if there is a glimmer of light, just off to the side, and if I could only turn my head quickly enough, I could see it fully. But I am never fast enough, and it slips away. Everything feels corrupted. Luc was the most beautiful thing in my life and even that feels wrong, because of me. He mentioned going south before the snows fall, to update his business partners on his whereabouts and bring them their share of the furs he's stockpiled. I encouraged him to go. Perhaps, alone with my thoughts, I can shake this darkness from my soul.
I fear I may have lost everything already.”
“Damn it,” Sophie murmured, closing the book and resting her face in her hands, trying hard to get her emotions under control s
o she could go back to work.
Her heart ached for Migisi. But more, she feared she knew exactly what Migisi had gone through. And she saw where that road ended.
She just had to save him before it all fell apart.
Sophie made it through the rest of her shift, even managing to be polite to the few guests who were staying at the resort. Migisi's words kept running through her mind.
It really didn't make sense. What was causing it? Why was she feeling this way? Why had Migisi turned to the Shadow, when, from what Thea said, she was among the best of the best?
She decided to stop by the reservation and see if Thea could tell her anything else. Thea had called the night before, but Sophie had missed the call, wrapped up, literally, in Calder.
She considered going home first to change, but she didn't really want to get stuck driving home in the dark, not with Marshall out there again. Instead, she did her best to clean up a little, pulling her hair up into a messy bun, swiping on some lip gloss and a little bit of concealer, not that it did much for the dark circles under her eyes.
She grabbed her bag, which contained the three journals of Migisi's, and headed out to her car. After she climbed in, she dialed Calder's number to tell him she'd be late. He'd be worried otherwise. She got his voice mail, told him she was stopping off to see Thea. She ended with a breathy “love you,” almost afraid to say the words. But she wanted him to know. He needed to know.
She hung up and drove out of town, past the campgrounds and kitschy tourist shops, down the highway. Her mind wandered, and she was there before she knew it. She pulled up in front of the meeting house, got out, shouldering her bag. Thea was just coming out of the building as she was heading up the walk.
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