by Diane Farr
Governments can be so stuffy, you know. They take a dim view of baby-stealing. So it’s bad news when the child you have informally adopted and made the center of your world develops any trait that makes her ... uh ... newsworthy. The last thing Nonny wanted was for her little girl to become the subject of media scrutiny. Or any kind of scrutiny, for that matter. We generally lie low, staying out of the public eye in all sorts of ways. We don’t join groups. No clubs, no church, no Neighborhood Watch, no nuthin’. We don’t even go to the stadium for fireworks on the fourth of July.
No wonder my broccoli-into-ice cream stunts scared Nonny half to death.
“So,” I said. I looked at Lance. He looked at me. Magic throbbed against the ceiling, making my heart pound. I felt lightweight and urgent, poised on the edge of something life-changing. “That’s my story. What’s yours?”
He was standing close to me. Too close. But today, I wasn't backing away. Today, too close was just close enough.
His face filled my field of vision. He was beautiful by any measure. Strong planes and a firm, sculpted mouth ... masculine. Pale, fine-textured skin and a lock of dark hair falling across the forehead ... feminine. Eyes the color of newly-opened leaves when the sun shines through them ... unique.
"Come here," he murmured. "I’ll take you sight-seeing, just like I said." And he slid his hands into my hair, splayed his fingers, and cupped my skull with his palms.
The magic poured down on us, unleashed by our contact. It engulfed us. Power stabbed into me through his fingertips and knifed all the way through me. Nothing existed but Lance and me. His hands holding my head. The blood roared in my ears. I could hear my heartbeat. I could hear his.
Memories rose sharply to the surface of my mind. They were Lance's memories. I viewed them from the outside while he viewed them from the inside, but we both saw with equal clarity.
Secrets ... the air was heavy with secrets in this place, this place he remembered.
Trees towered overhead. Waves crashed in the distance. I was in a forest by the sea. The air was cool and spicy, fragrant with evergreen. Immense trunks, like pillars, surrounded me. The trees were so tall and their canopy was so dense, high above our heads, it was difficult to tell what time of day it was. The forest floor was as dim as the interior of a church, but brilliant sunshine slanted down in shafts here and there, dazzling the eye.
It was a remarkably clean, uncluttered forest, virtually free of undergrowth. Ferns, mushrooms and shamrocks were the only living things able to flourish in the filtered gloom. Magic and power were everywhere, sensed in whiffs like perfume ... intangible but ever-present, tantalizing.
It was beautiful. A powerful, hushed, holy place. The high ceiling and the shafts of light pouring down made it feel like a cathedral. And I was safe. Sanctuary. Yes. This place was a sanctuary. Nothing could harm me here.
I closed my eyes, the better to concentrate on Lance’s vivid memories. He showed me another image of the same place. More tall trees, more shamrocks and ferns. But this part of the forest floor was paved with large, flat stones. Paved ... but you mustn’t walk on the stones. Narrow footpaths ran between the stones and among the trees. Stay on the path. Don’t step on the stones.
Why not? I directed my gaze—our gaze—downward and Lance remembered, showing me: names and dates were carved on the stones. I couldn’t read the names, because Lance didn’t remember them that clearly.
It must be a cemetery. What else could it be? But the stone Lance remembered most vividly had his name carved on it. What on earth—?
As the questions formed in my mind, Lance snapped back to the present moment. When he did, I received another image, sharp and swift, of what he was seeing: Zara Norland, eyes closed, her face a mask of concentration; her head cradled in his hands. Then he took his hands away, breaking the connection.
It’s beyond strange, to see yourself through someone else’s eyes. The face that I’m so used to seeing in the mirror is, to Lance, a new and miraculous thing.
Are my features really that perfect?? Maybe I look better viewed from a height. I’ve only seen myself at eye level.
And I had no idea, naturally, that my eyelashes look sexy when they sweep down above the curve of my cheeks. Hello, I’ve never seen myself with my eyes shut. I’m flattered that he thinks I’m pretty, of course. But he also thinks I’m weak. And ... naive? Gullible? Something. I couldn’t get it into focus before the image broke apart.
I opened my eyes. It was odd to still be standing in Nonny’s sunlit kitchen. “What was that?” I asked him.
“Spellhaven.”
“Very nice. All it needs is a few Ewoks.”
He gave me a crooked smile. “Do you like it?”
“I like it.” I laughed a little. “Which means nothing, except that you like it. Since I’ve only seen it through your eyes.”
“Don’t be so sure.” He glanced around. “Can we go somewhere? This isn’t the right place to talk about this stuff.”
That reminded me. My heart sank. “I promised Nonny that I’d stick to public places.”
He shrugged. “So we stay outdoors. Come on. I’ll meet you in the meadow.” And he vanished.
For the first time, his vanishing didn’t bother me a bit. I followed. I didn’t even hesitate. It didn’t occur to me until later that I’d never skatched by myself. Bing, there I was, standing with Lance where we’d first met. It was practically effortless. In fact, it was so easy that I said, “Wait a minute. I forgot my shoes.” And skatched back to my bedroom.
This could get to be a habit.
I caught sight of myself in my dresser mirror as I was slipping my feet into a pair of high-heeled slides. I guess Nonny was right; I was dressed up. These were not my Wal-Mart capris. They were expensive, and they looked it. The cami was my prettiest one, too. And the lace shrug? Downright hot.
I couldn’t possibly don sensible shoes. The whole effect would be ruined. I’d probably turn my ankle, tittuping around the meadow in heels. But I’d look great doing it.
Flash, I was back in the meadow. Lance’s eyes flicked down my body, taking in the shoes. “Nice,” he said.
“Thanks. Now take me to Spellhaven.”
He shook his head. “Can’t. Not until we know if you’ve been there already.”
Oh, yeah. That little detail.
“Rats,” I said.
“Although you’ve probably been there,” he said. “Should have been, anyway.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s easier if I show you. Come on.” He reached out his hand.
I looked askance at it. “No way am I taking your hand. I never know what’s going to happen when we touch.”
“I just want to keep you from slipping.”
“Thanks, I’ll take my chances,” I said. “Lead on, MacDuff.”
I followed him in among the oaks and scrub that bordered the meadow. He led me downhill to the creek—not much more than a trickle, this time of year. “What are we looking for?” I asked.
“Still water.”
Huh? He picked up the image of distilled water in my brain. That made him grin. “Not distilled. Still water. Water that isn’t moving. Here we go.” He hauled a chunk of fallen log over to the edge of the mud and, with a flourish, whipped a handkerchief out of his pocket. He spread it on the log. “Have a seat.”
I rolled my eyes. “Great. We’re going to sit and stare at a puddle. I’ve heard about cheap dates, Donovan, but this takes the cake.”
He gave me a sly look. “I’ll make it up to you at lunch.”
Actually, I was pretty excited beneath my cool exterior. If he was about to do what I thought he was going to do, it was one of the things Meg had read up on and told me about. We even tried it once. I had peered into a basin of water for fifteen minutes and hadn’t seen a thing. Yet another experiment that didn’t pan out.
I had a feeling the result would be different today.
I sat, rather gingerly, on the handkerchief. Sp
ellspinners don’t need to worry about bugs, but their clothes can get just as dirty as anybody’s. Lance sat beside me, on my right. “Brace your forearms against your knees,” he said.
“What for?”
“Trust me.”
“Hah.” But I leaned over, resting my forearms on my knees. My hair fell forward like a curtain. Lance scooped it carefully back, in a gesture that was almost tender. I felt color creeping up my neck, but I didn’t pull away. Not this time.
I didn’t even pull away when he put his arm around me. Okay, weird stuff happens when we touch, but I knew it was necessary this time. Besides, I was almost getting used to the sensory overload. At least it didn’t startle me anymore.
Scare me, yes. Startle me, no.
We leaned against each other, our heads almost touching, and gazed at the dark water. I was expecting to see things. You know, like a movie about Spellhaven playing on the surface of the puddle.
I got a teensy bit more than I expected.
The surface of the puddle began to ripple. Pictures I couldn’t quite make out flickered and swirled there, like colored smoke. Then, with no warning, the images seemed to rush toward me. They took up my whole field of vision; they rushed past me and surrounded me. I felt like I was falling forward, tumbling into space and plunging into the unknown.
Frightening? I guess so.
It was nothing like watching a movie. It was more like ... becoming a hologram. The images were real. I was the flickering shadow, standing among the enchanted trees of Spellhaven.
Lance was standing with me. I never thought I’d be so glad to see Lance. “Agh,” I said. Or words to that effect. He was semi-transparent, and his body seemed to be outlined with white light. I looked down at myself. I looked the same way.
“We’re not completely here,” he told me.
“I gathered that, thanks.” I sounded a little testy. “You know that thing you said in the kitchen? The thing about wanting to know what scares me, so you can keep from scaring me? Try preparing me a little before you spring crap like this on me.”
His typical silent laughter shook him. “Hey, I tried. I let you see my memories first.”
“So what’s the deal?” I looked around me. The forest was amazing. No shafts of light, though, like in Lance’s memory. The trees were shrouded in mist. It was just as beautiful in fog as it had been in sunshine. Maybe more beautiful. Mysterious-looking.
I couldn’t feel the fog at all. I could hear the distant crash of surf, but the sensations were missing; my feet did not bend the shamrocks beneath me and the mist did not cool my skin. I sniffed the air experimentally. The fragrance it had held in Lance’s memory was missing. It smelled like the muddy creek that ran behind Nonny’s property. “We’re really still at the creek, right?”
“I’m not sure what you mean by ‘really.’ Part of us is really there. Part of us is really here.”
I didn’t feel like hearing a lecture on the astral body vs. the corporal body. Maybe later.
“In other words, it’s actually foggy in Spellhaven at this very moment? In real time?”
“Yeah. And in case you don’t know it, you’ve just stumbled on one of the rules.”
Ah. Now he had my interest. I looked at him expectantly and waited. A faint, ironic smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “I forget how little you know,” he said. “Okay. The rule is, you can move around in space. But not time. That’s true when skatching, and it’s true with watersight. No time travel. I can use my mind to show you images of the past—or the future, for that matter—but the images will be either memories or speculation. This, on the other hand, is real. The part of us that is here is really here.”
“Wow.” I took a deep breath and looked around me again. I was really in Spellhaven. Sort of. “This is so cool.” I had an idea. “What about that trip to Honolulu? Can I do it this way?” Evidently I wouldn’t be able to smell the flowers or feel the sand between my toes, but I thought maybe we could take in a hula show or something.
“You can, but not with me.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve never been there.”
Fascinating.
I quirked an eyebrow at him. “So ... if I’ve been there, I can skatch. In which case, all of me will be there. And I don’t need you.”
“Yep.”
“And if I haven’t been there, but you have, you can take part of me with you, but not all of me. Like this.”
“Right again.”
“And if neither of us has been there, we can’t go at all.”
“That’s basically it. And one more thing. Watersight is dangerous.”
“Watersight. That’s what this is, right?”
“Yeah. Our bodies are back in Cherry Glen, staring at that puddle. So you have to keep track of what’s going on in both places—the place where your body is, and the place where the rest of you is.”
“And how do you do that?” I asked politely. Just a casual inquiry, you know. (Yeah, right.) I knew he wasn’t going to tell me. Because I was already clued in to the fact that Lance is going to teach me exactly what he wants to teach me, and nothing more.
“You’ll get the hang of it,” he said. Evasively, in my opinion. “In the meantime, I’ll look out for you. Because if somebody back in Cherry Glen wanted to sneak up on you and do you some harm, now would be a good time to do it. You’d never know what hit you.”
The words mortal enemy floated up from my subconscious. I tucked them away quickly before Lance could glimpse my thoughts. Which were, simply put, that the only person I feared was standing right beside me. So, under the circumstances, I was as safe as I was going to get.
“How come we didn’t do this in Nonny’s kitchen? We had a sink full of water. And no danger of trees falling on us, or people sneaking up behind us, or whatever.”
“No good. Has to be natural water.”
I fisted my hands on my hips. Not that I could feel them. “There’s such a thing as unnatural water?”
“Yes there is, smart-ass. Tap water doesn’t work. Treated water doesn’t work. Kool-Aid doesn’t work. When you pump it full of flouride and chlorine—or mix it with sugar crystals and citric acid—you ruin it. Creek or river water works pretty well, even if it’s muddy. Clear rain water works best. Or snow melt, when you can get it. But you can’t remove it from the place where you found it. You can’t put it in a bottle and try to use it when you get home. It might work, but then again, it might not.”
I remembered the basin Meg and I had tried. Tap water. Who knew?
“I should be taking notes.”
“You should be walking around. Come on.”
He floated off through the fog like a ghost. I followed, trying not to wonder what would happen if Lance ditched me. Could I break his watersight spell and get back to Cherry Glen alone? As usual, I didn’t have a clue.
We drifted, or walked, or swam—I don’t know what you would call it—between the trees and along footpaths carpeted with bark and shamrocks. I was surprised to see dwellings stashed here and there. I say “stashed” because I don’t know what else to call it. No trees had been cleared to make way for them. No roads led to their doors. Some of them were little more than lean-tos, their surfaces cunningly disguised with fern fronds and other discarded vegetation. In the drifting fog, the shelters were all-but invisible; you couldn’t make them out until you were almost upon them.
“Why all the camouflage?” I asked.
Lance stopped and faced me, his shimmering outline making him look weirdly angelic. “Spellhaven is a secret,” he said. “And it’s staying a secret. We’re surrounded by impassable terrain. Backpackers can’t stumble across it. No roads lead in or out. Satellite imagery doesn’t pick it up. You can’t Google it; it doesn’t exist.”
“No roads? Then how—” I stopped before I even finished the question, because I knew the answer. Of course. Spellspinners don’t need roads.
How do you get to Spellhaven? You skatch.
> Sanctuary. I took a deep breath, looking around me with new eyes. Yes, this place was a refuge. The ultimate refuge. No sticks allowed.
“But you have to come here the usual way, at least once, or you can’t skatch,” I said slowly. “How do you get here? Where are we?” I looked at the shamrocks. “Ireland?” I looked at the trees. “Big Sur?”
He didn’t answer. “Come on,” he said. And I had no choice but to follow.
13
This was the place I had seen in Lance’s memory; the cemetery-like place. Flat stones lay among the trees like irregular paving.
Fog was blowing in off the ocean. You could actually see it pouring through the forest. It was like standing in the sky while a cloud streamed past. We were inside a moving cloud, and everything around us dripped with moisture. It was strange to stand in the damp and chill while feeling, back in Cherry Glen, the sun beating down on my shoulders.
Lance turned to face me. “These are the skatching stones,” he said. “There are forty-nine of them. One for every spellspinner.” His face suddenly changed. “Let’s go,” he said abruptly.
I started to say, “What?” but there wasn’t time. The trees, the fog, the stones, all of Spellhaven, broke and rushed away from me.
It was worse than going in had been, because it was more sudden. But it didn’t scare me as much because at least I had an idea what was happening. I don’t know how to describe the sensation, but I’ll try. It was like being at the bottom of the sea with a cable around your waist, and somebody suddenly yanking you up to the surface at about a hundred miles an hour. You get to the surface really quickly, but all the wind gets punched right out of you.
Back on the log, I took a huge gulp of air and grabbed Lance. Because I also was dizzy. “Don’t do that,” I exclaimed.
“Ssh.” His arm around me felt like iron. Lance was tense and still, listening for something.
And then I experienced the most extraordinary thing: Lance sent his Power out.
