Changespell 01 Dunn Lady's Jess

by Doranna Durgin

  Jaime gave a snort of laughter, but her amusement died away when they didn't laugh along with her. She looked at Eric for confirmation and he gave an apologetic shrug. "Well," Jaime said, her voice too level, "she does have the coloring of a dun."

  Dayna was momentarily speechless, until Jaime smirked; she smacked the equestrian on the arm. "Not funny."

  Jaime's smile faded only slowly. "What else do you want me to say?"

  "We were sort of hoping that just being here would knock some sense back into her," Eric said, looking over both women's heads to the ring, where Jess now frolicked along with the frisky mare. As if inexorably drawn to the sight, the three silently moved down the aisle.

  Unaware of or unconcerned about their presence, Jess played chase with the leggy bay mare, a romp punctuated by abrupt pivots and change of course. Agile and quick, Jess matched the mare move for move, bluffing out her charges and squealing in mock anger when they closed on one another. Dayna's too-small sweats and Eric's too-big shirt did nothing to hide the fluid movement of the body beneath.

  "She's an odd one," Jaime murmured. "As close to a horse as anyone I've seen."

  "You're not serious," Dayna said in horror.

  "Just thinking," Jaime affirmed. "Look at her. The color and texture of her hair . . . she's a dun all right, Dun Lady's Jess. Did you see the way she greeted the other horses?"

  "Great. She's been studying up," Dayna said flatly. She squared off to face Eric. "Look. I want to help her as much as you do, but I don't think there's anything we can do. She belongs somewhere where she can be taken care of. If you don't call the police, I will. I've got to go to work and I can't fool around with this any longer."

  Jaime winced. "Ouch. I can see you've been in complete agreement on this one."

  "But Dayna, she's learning all the time! If we just give her a little longer, she'll be able to tell us just what's happened, and who she is."

  "Eric, we should have called the police in the first place. They'll probably know who she is—maybe who Carey is, if he even exists. I know you want to help her," Dayna shook her head, her voice softening for the first time. "So do I. But—" she broke off as Eric's uptilted eyes widened, and turned around to find that Jess had abandoned her play, and was standing well within earshot. Her eyes were wild and alarmed, and as Dayna took a step forward, hand outstretched in a gesture of reassurance, Jess whirled and sprinted away.

  In an instant, Jaime had nimbly hopped the gate to follow her, shouting behind her, "She's not going to stop!" a warning Dayna understood only when she saw Jess crash into the gate at the opposite side of the ring. By the time she'd followed Jaime and Eric over the first gate, Jess was through, the second gate swinging in her wake.

  "Damn," Dayna panted under her breath, losing ground at every step. She made it to the other gate in time to see Jess confront the five foot paddock fence; she gave an enormous leap and dove over it, then seemed stunned when her arms gave way on landing. She managed to untangle herself and was on the run again, with nothing between her path and fields of waist-high corn, when Jaime shouted the word that changed everything.

  "Whoa!" Her voice was full of authority and Jess stumbled, her trained reflexes betraying her. No more than a moment's hesitation, it was enough to allow Jaime to close on her, to stand at the paddock fence and speak softly, reassuring her with words Dayna couldn't hear. Eventually Jess climbed back through the fence, and Jaime took her hand and held it as they walked together, through the paddock and past Dayna and Eric, and into the ring, where Silhouette waited, exhilarated and pleased by the excitement. Bemused, Dayna followed, and Eric closed the gate behind them.

  Jaime led them into the stable office and seated herself on the short couch, pulling Jess down beside her. Eric perched on the edge of the desk and left the desk chair to Dayna.

  "I don't know just what's going on here," Jaime said firmly, "but I do know you haven't dealt fairly with Jess."

  Dayna felt a scowl form on her face, until she looked at Jess and recognized, with a stab of shame, the betrayal brimming in those dark eyes.

  Jaime nodded at her reaction. "If you're going to make decisions about Jess, I think she needs to be in on the conversation, don't you?"

  "But she doesn't really understand," Dayna protested feebly.

  "No?" Jaime arched an eloquently skeptical eyebrow. "She understood well enough to know you'd washed your hands of her."

  "You're right," Eric said suddenly. "Jess, I'm sorry."

  She regarded him silently, neither forgiveness or judgement on her face, only doubt.

  "Jess," Jaime said matter-of-factly, "Dayna and Eric are concerned about you. They don't understand what's happened to you, or why you behave differently than we do, and they're trying to decide how to best help you."

  Jess held her breath for a moment and let it out in a deep sigh. "Good girl," Jaime said, and squeezed her hand.

  "Did you understand that?" Dayna asked Jess in surprise. At Jess' nod, she added, "You didn't understand us when we found you though, right?"

  "No," Jess said, then hesitated, glancing at Jaime, who nodded encouragement. But instead Jess shook her head and brought her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them to look at no one, obviously not trusting them enough to try to convey her thoughts.

  Eric said softly, "You thought we would help you and we were talking about sending you away. We might be strange to you, but everything else is twice as strange, isn't it?"

  Jess nodded mutely.

  "All right," Dayna said, finally catching the mood of this forthright conversation. "There are some things we need to know. Have you been sick lately? Been in any kind of a hospital?" Jess shook her head, and her hands crept down to the bony knobs of her ankles to feel the dressings that covered her scrapes. "Have you done something wrong, or against the law?"

  A decided shake of her head.

  "Where do you come from then?" Dayna asked in frustration. "Why is everything so strange to you?"

  Jess shook her head helplessly. "Send me away . . . ?"

  "I don't know," Eric's quiet voice took the sting out of the words. "We don't know how else we can help you."

  "Carey," Jess said, a heartbreaking plea.

  "I know," Eric said.

  * * *

  Late afternoon. With Dayna on her way to work, the others retired briefly to Jaime's house to call around in search of Carey.

  "We're calling the places where Carey might be if he was hurt, or if he went for help," Eric explained absently, dialing the first of the emergency numbers listed on the telephone book's inside cover. He perched atop a stool, balancing the white pages on his knee, the phone crammed between his neck and shoulder. Jess sat quietly at the kitchen half-bar while Jaime poked around in the refrigerator, eventually pulling out a plastic soda bottle. Ice, then glasses . . . she felt Jess' gaze on her as she poured the drinks and pushed them across the bar.

  Jaime might have guessed that Jess' eyes would widen at the carbonation, though perhaps the sudden giggle was less predictable. Jess checked to see that Eric's drink was behaving in the same bubbly way and tried a sip, then a swallow. She looked absolutely astonished at the belch that followed; in the background, Eric smirked, but Jaime tried to keep a straight face. "That happens," she said. "But when it does, it's polite to say 'excuse me.' " In the back of her mind, she was trying not to ascribe any significance to the fact that horses were incapable of belching, that Jess was certainly paying attention to the details if she knew her surprise was appropriate.

  "Excuse me," Jess tried dutifully.

  Eric hung up the phone with a clunk and reached for his drink. "No one named Carey in any of the hospitals," he said. "At least, none of 'em within 60 miles. I figure that's far enough, if he was on foot like Jess. Was he naked, too, Jess?" he asked straightforwardly.

  Jess had one finger held above the surface of the soda, where the carbonation fizz bounced off of it. She put the finger in her mouth and said, "Naked?"

/>   "Like you were when we found you. No clothes." At her continued lack of response he rolled his eyes and said, "No blankets, Jess."

  "Blankets, yes," she answered.

  "Blankets?" Jaime inquired, and heard the story of the few objects Jess identified on her own. She absorbed it with a thoughtful finger against her lips, then shook her head. "This is . . . pretty strange." The words she finally settled on were woefully inadequate, but she knew she would find none better. "But as long as we're talking about clothes, my brother's got some things he never wears, and she looks about his size. Let me see if I can't find something better than what she's got on."

  But Jess had been distracted, lured to the doorway between kitchen and family room, where the low murmur of a television had caught her sensitive ears. It took Jaime a moment to realize what had attracted her; her ears had sorted out and chosen to ignore the faint babble when she entered the house. To her it meant her younger brother Mark had left the TV on when he'd left the house, sometime during her morning training sessions. To Jess, apparently, it was a wonder.

  A Roy Rogers western blazed black-and-white action on the screen, mixing running horses with hopelessly hokey but pleasantly sentimental songs. The hero's horse was faster than anybody else's and Jess watched those chase scenes with complete and rapt attention, on her knees, her weight resting on splayed ankles.

  "It's only a story," Eric tried to explain more than once, causing Jaime to wonder how on earth there had remained this soul uncorrupted by even the very thought that somewhere, there existed this world of television and its play-acted images. She and Eric sat on the short couch behind Jess and the afternoon drifted away as the short movie ended and another began; Eric got caught up in the movies and Jaime found herself watching Jess more than the television. It was she who called an end to it, after a chase scene in which a stand-in horse was wire-tripped at the edge of a high cliff to plunge into the river below. She muted the sound with the TV remote and nudged Eric's attention to Jess, who sat pale and shivering.

  Eric blinked at the sight. "Jess, it's only a story, remember? People make up a story and film it so we can sit here and watch and pretend it's real. But the good part is that we know the guy on that horse didn't really get hurt."

  "Horse?" Jess asked unhappily, brows wrinkled in concern.

  "The horse?" Eric fumbled, and, when understanding hit, hastily added, "The horse was all right, too. It's just pretend."

  Jaime gave him a sharp look, knowing that the movie had been filmed in an era during which the horse's condition would not have been of much concern. But a second look at Jess' distress made her agree with Eric's unqualified reassurance. Jess' dark eyes remained touchingly eloquent, as open and candid as a child's—or certain types of honest horses.

  Jaime closed her eyes and shook the ridiculous notion out of her thoughts, actually shook her head in emphasis. Then it was Eric's turn to nudge her; he took the remote away and turned the sound back on.

  Jaime opened her eyes to a news break featuring a John Doe story. The man had been found wandering Route 23 just north of Columbus; naked, incoherent and violent, he'd been apprehended and sedated, and the search for his identity was on. The newsreel footage showed a middle-aged man with flaming chestnut hair, interspersed with the grainy on-scene video of police officers rounding the man up—with conveniently blurred spots hiding the man's genitals. The officers had had their work cut out for them, for the fellow was agile and fast, long-legged and apparently tireless—according to the report, it had taken an hour and a half to corner him in a drainage ditch.

  Jaime found her eyes unaccountably straying from the television to Jess, who was completely lost in the story. In her mind's eye she saw Jess and Silhouette, wheeling, romping, reveling in their exertions.

  "Is that Carey?" Eric asked abruptly. A glance at his expression showed that he, too, had made some sort of connection between Jess and John Doe.

  But Jess appeared startled at the thought. "No," she said, and pointed to the screen. "Chestnut."

  Jaime gave a short laugh. "She's right about that, although most people would consider that guy's hair to be an unusual shade of red. What color is Carey's hair, Jess?"

  After a thoughtful moment, Jess shrugged. "Dayna," she offered.

  "Sandy blond, like Dayna's," Eric decided.

  Jaime shook her head. "I'm not sure I need this, Eric. I wish Dayna could have dealt with it a little better."

  "You know Dayna," Eric said. "I know you're busy, Jaime, but this is really the perfect place for Jess to take a few days and sort herself out. Besides, I'm sure she'll be a lot of help around the stable. Unless you have some doubts that she can handle the horses."

  Jaime snorted. "Oh, she knows horses all right." She watched Jess in silence for a moment; released from the conversation, Jess was leaning forward, her finger touching the freeze-frame picture of John Doe. Her ill-fitting sweats tugged against her hips and revealed a generous area of lower back. Very lower back. Jaime stood up. "Once upon a time, I was hunting up some clothes for her." Back into efficiency mode, she turned off the television and motioned for Jess to follow her upstairs.

  A change of clothing meant, of course, that Jess had to face zippers, but the sweatshirt pullover was easy enough. The old denims were a little loose but stayed up without a belt. By then Eric had gone back to the telephone to finish his search for Carey—or Carey's body—and could do no more without actually involving Jess with the police. And that, he told Jaime, he was still reluctant to do, not because they wouldn't honestly try to help her, but because they were bureaucracy, and Jess' claims would set them into helping from a different direction—fixing Jess rather than finding Carey.

  Jaime felt she had little choice—not to mention plenty of room in the rambling old farmhouse that had housed two generations of the Cabot family and now stood too quiet with only herself and her brother in occupancy. Jess, she said, could stay. She was short of stable help right now, anyway, and if there was only one thing she knew about Jess, it was that the woman understood horses. She was even resigned to paying for a pair of shoes for the footloose Jess, not to mention some underwear—but that was before Eric hauled the saddle and saddlebags out of his car, and showed her the pouch of gold.

  * * *

  "I knew if I told Dayna about it, she'd insist on calling the police," Eric said, tilting his hand to shift the pile of small square gold pieces. They were crudely stamped in runes that matched the lettering addressing the sealed document, and there were eleven of them.

  Jaime teased a coin off of his hand to fall into her own, and held it to reflect the light from the window. "No doubt about that. But just because Carey had this gold, doesn't mean he did anything wrong to get it."

  "He had it and he was running," Eric corrected. "Jess, you know anything about this stuff?"

  She hadn't been paying much attention to them—she'd found her abandoned soda and seemed disappointed that she couldn't coax bubbles out of it. Now she let it be and took the coin Jaime held out. She considered it a moment, and looked at the pouch that lay on the bar. "Carey," she announced.

  "You mean it belongs to Carey," Eric clarified.

  Jess nodded.

  Jaime looked at the sealed document in Eric's hands. "And that doesn't even give you a clue?"

  "Even if I could get it open, I think it's written in some bizarre esoteric language."

  "If you could get it open?"

  He shrugged, sheepishness coming over his tightly drawn features. "This seal . . . I don't know what it's made of. I can't break it. I tried just prying it off, but the paper—or whatever this stuff is—started to tear. I think if we force it, we're going to destroy it. Maybe it needs some kind of solvent."

  "How about, 'open, sesame'?" Jaime asked wryly. "I do agree with you, though. There's no point in tearing the thing up if it's not likely to tell us anything. I've got to go into Columbus early next week—I'll take a copy of the words on the front to the OSU language depart
ment. If there's someone there who can translate, maybe then we'll try a little harder to open it." She looked at Jess. "It would be so much easier if she could just tell us the whole story." Abruptly, she held out the pouch, and Eric spilled the gold into it. She cinched the pouch closed with a gesture of finality, and took the remaining piece from Jess, holding it up between them. "I'll wait a few more days, keep an eye on the papers. If nothing shows up, I'll see about selling this. After all, she's got to have clothes, and some personal stuff."

  "Selling it?" Eric repeated doubtfully. "Can you do that? Won't they want to know what it is, and where it came from?"

  Jaime dismissed his concern. "Gold's going for about five-fifty an ounce—that's all a gold trader cares about. If you're really worried, five minutes and a propane torch would probably get rid of these weird letters. Of course, I don't know how this Carey guy is going to feel about us spending his money."

  "He shouldn't have left Jess alone," Eric said defensively. "Sell the thing. Get her something really nice."

  * * *

  Jaime spent most of her days in the barn, where Jess was happy enough to clean stalls, feed, and lead the horses to turnout. She found Jess ever reluctant to speak, although she often caught the woman responding to one of the horses with some throaty nonverbal comment. Caught up in her own busy schedule, Jaime seldom had time to devote to socializing with the reclusive newcomer, although she was careful to check the newspapers for any mention of a missing woman. She didn't spend any significant time with Jess until nearly a week had passed.

  One of Jaime's best lesson horses was scheduled for minor surgery in Columbus, an hour's drive from The Dancing. She wanted a companion for the drive; Jess needed clothes. They dropped the horse off at the university clinic and Jaime made a quick stop at a gold dealer, then dragged Jess into a mall—almost literally—and outfitted her with practical jeans and a variety of men's pullover shirts, which turned out to be much easier to fit to her sturdy shoulders than the flimsier women's versions. It was nothing but utilitarian, and nothing more than what she needed. Choosing footwear turned out to be more of a problem when Jess revealed herself to be quite fussy about having her feet either handled or confined. Jaime finally convinced her to accept a pair of sneakers, although Jess scorned them once they left the mall. Jaime took a closer look at her tough soles and let her go barefoot as she pleased.