Changespell 01 Dunn Lady's Jess

by Doranna Durgin

  "Oh, no. Uh-uh," Eric said, shaking his head before she even looked at him to ask. He shifted his load of books to the crook of one overworked arm and took her hand. "You get through these, and I'll take you in to get a library card. You don't have to pay for those books!" He glanced at his watch, bringing her hand up within his as he twisted his wrist. "Besides, we're out of time. We've got another stop to make."

  She sensed he would say no more, and didn't ask. She was content enough to trail along, thinking about how she would be able to get books about horses, and see just how close they were to the way she knew it really was.

  Eric dumped the bag of books into the cargo area of his hatchback and drove further into the small town of Marion, where the roads narrowed and offered a confusing array of one-way streets. Jess clung to her well-developed sense of direction, comforted by the fact that she could always find her way back to Jaime's if she had to, even if it was cross-country. Eric parked in a graveled town lot and led her down the street to a building he called the courthouse. Jess knew it was an important place just by the look of it—steepled, ornate, and based on big slabs of cut white rock.

  "What?" she asked Eric, after they'd stood there a moment.

  Eric glanced at his watch. "Just about the right time. Jess, do you remember that man we saw on television the first day you were at Jaime's?"

  "Roy Rogers," Jess supplied, although she had a flashing memory of a chestnut-headed man eluding those who chased him—the cousins of the uniformed officer in the fountain.

  "Well, yes, but I mean the other man. The one who reminded me of you."

  "The chestnut," Jess allowed reluctantly. Something about that scene had been hard to face.

  "Right. Today, he has to be at this building for an important meeting. I can't help but think you two are connected somehow—you both show up in almost the same spot, almost the same time, and you had a lot in common."

  She wanted to deny this, as it made no sense to her—why should she be connected to a man she'd never seen, in this place she didn't belong? But she, too, had seen familiarity in his athletic movement, in the very wildness of his demeanor. She thought again of the chestnut horse that had carried Derrick.

  Eric looked down at her, the only one of her friends who was tall enough to do so. "I didn't bring you here to upset you, Jess. Do you want to leave?"

  "He will be here?"

  "Any minute. It was on the back page of the paper this morning, so I thought, why not? He has to go to the courthouse. They're having a hearing to decide whether he can take care of himself, or if the state needs to be his conservator."

  Jess made a rude noise at that last gobbledygook, and Eric looked abashed.

  "Sorry about that," he said. "When someone can't look after himself, the court asks the state to take care of him."

  "Then he has to do what . . . the state . . . says," Jess surmised. After all, Carey took care of her, and she followed his rules, listened to his Words.

  "Right. They'll give him a place to live, food to eat, that sort of thing."

  "Rules."

  Eric grinned wryly. "Plenty of 'em."

  Jess just looked at him, thinking of all the rules she'd encountered here. How to behave—no playing in delightful fountains. How to dress—the shirt part must always be closed, the feet isolated from the messages of the ground. She had the feeling the rules of the state would be stricter, so tight it was impossible not to fight them. At least Carey, with all his Words, sometimes let her choose the path they took; his hands were careful and light on the reins. With the Words at his disposal, he nevertheless asked her, gave her decisions and freedom.

  Didn't he?

  Suddenly she couldn't remember all that clearly. At the time what had seemed like requests came through in her new human thoughts as orders, pure and simple. She had seen Jaime ride, day after day. She isn't allowed to have opinions, Jaime would say, when Silhouette wasn't pleased to channel her energy into a collected, balanced frame instead of rushing unchecked around the arena.

  It was with utter relief that she saw the chestnut. "There," Jess said, pointing at the trio of people approaching from the sidewalk. One was a middle-aged woman, striding briskly, confident. The second was a police officer, and he loosely held the arm of the third, the reason Jess was there. The man was cleaner, dressed in clothes that didn't quite fit him, and clearly uneasy. Jess read it immediately in his widened eyes, the tilt of his head and the flare of his nostrils. His steps were light on the ground, his body poised to move in any direction.

  Incredibly, his companions seemed not to notice his unease—or surely they would have made those that followed them, those with the black chunky objects held before their eyes, move back. In sympathy, Jess took a step forward. She wanted to be able to tell this man that it was all right, that even though this place was strange and hard, the people were trying to take care of him. She didn't feel Eric's hand on her arm as she lifted her head and stood tall, a call of reassurance hesitating in her throat.

  He saw her, saw in her the same familiarity she'd seen in him. He called to her, an odd throaty cry strangled by his human throat.

  "Here, now," the officer said, not unkindly, as his formerly loose grip clamped tightly down.

  Some horses will obligingly accept a lead rope tossed over a fence, while a securely tied knot sends them into a rage. With lightning speed and amazing ease, the man jerked his arm free, his leg flashing out in a kick that took the officer in the side of the knee; the man's cry of agony didn't quite cover the sound of popping ligament and cartilage.

  "No!" Jess cried in fear, knowing there was no turning back from that transgression. She ran a few hesitant steps forward, her gaze never losing the man's even when Eric's ready arms closed about her like a cage, gentle but unyielding. The man gave a snort in sudden decision—she was one of them—and bolted away from the downed officer and the lady who no longer seemed quite so brisk or confident.

  He ran directly into the street, in front of drivers who had no warning and no chance to react, where he hit the grill and then the hood of a diminutive foreign pickup truck. The thud of impact was inordinantly loud in Jess' ears, blocking out all other sounds—including her own screams. The chestnut rolled to a stop against the curb and lay limply, without any sign of the vitality that had pervaded and created his every action.

  And Jess screamed again and again, until Eric turned her around and his restraining arms became comfort, pulling her into his chest where she hid her face as he walked them back to the car.

  * * *

  "What on earth were you thinking?" Jaime's voice, strident and demanding, easily made it past the door of Jess' room to her sensitive ears. Eric's reply was lower, but still audible.

  "Jaime, we know so little about her, I didn't think we could afford to pass up the chance at any answers. Tell me you didn't see a similarity between those two."

  "Oh, it was there all right. Was," she repeated. "I understand your motives, Eric. But such an uncontrolled situation!"

  It was easy for Jess to visualize her friend shaking her head in dismay. Jaime was a strong woman, with strong opinions.

  But Eric, for all his mild and amiable moments, had strength of his own, a quiet strength. It came through in his answer, the voice of a man unshaken by another's doubts. "We wouldn't have gotten in to see him without answering a lot of questions. And then maybe it would have been Jess on her way into that courtroom, facing conservatorship."

  Jess let her attention wander away from the eavesdropping, which had been more of an attempt to keep away unwelcome images than a desire to listen in. Though she'd calmed a little by the time Eric pulled into The Dancing, she was shaken and shaking, and Jaime had listened to only a few words before guiding Jess into the den. There, sitting together on the couch, she held Jess until the shaking stopped. Afterward she offered her cinnamon apple tea and the comfort of her favorite barn kitten. Only later did it occur to Jess that the strict no-cats-in-the-house rule had
been deliberately broken.

  Now the tea was gone, and the kitten, although still purring, was all but asleep on Jess' bed. Jess, still victim of a fat, unexpected tear now and then, stared at the head of her bed. Snugged between the mattress and headboard were Carey's saddlebags. At night she could smell the weathered, well-cared-for leather; she could touch them and feel the security of the days under his care. She was very well aware that, bereft of Carey and thrown into this new existence, she could very well have ended up just like the chestnut.

  She pulled the saddlebags out and ran a hand over the spare, tooled design, pausing over the scratches acquired on some of their unusually rough rides through brush. Several of the marks were still lighter than the surrounding area, testimony to their newness. Emblematic of the last moments of Jess' old life.

  Somehow, no matter how long she stared, she couldn't recall the innocence and security of Dun Lady's Jess. Another tear rolled down her cheek as she considered that maybe she never would—that even finding Carey would be insufficient to render her back into that bold and carefree individual.

  Then, with abrupt resolve, she knew she couldn't afford the doubts, not if she was going to function here. Not if she was to have any chance of finding—and helping—Carey. She took a deep breath, returned the saddlebags to their space and went out past Jaime and Eric to attend to the evening stall clean-out.

  * * *

  The thing was, Dayna told herself several days later, waiting for Derrick to walk by the office unit, that she had already noticed his oddness, the dichotomies in his appearance and manners. Jaime's request poked at the place in herself that was already curious, and gave her an excuse to do something she otherwise never would have allowed herself.

  Unfortunately, the LK was a small hotel, and its twenty-four units each opened to the outdoors. Waiting for Derrick—for that was the only name he'd given, and as he'd paid each of three weeks in advance, the manager was inclined to leave it at that—wasn't as easy as watching for him to come through a lobby. For all she knew he'd left hours ago, while she was sitting on the washing machine to keep it from lurching across the floor during the spin cycle, or when she was behind the ice maker, tightening a loose flange fitting so the casualty zone caused by its small leak would dry.

  It was noon before she finally corralled Cindy, the housekeeper, to ask if the room was vacant.

  "That Derrick guy's not there, if that's what you mean," Cindy told her. "But I've been meaning to talk to one of you office folks about him. He never wants me to clean his room—always has the DND sign out. He's let me in a couple of times to do a good thorough cleaning, but I don't like letting the room go. Besides, I know he's registered as a single, but it sure looks to me like both beds're being used."

  "That doesn't go over too well with me, either," Dayna frowned, then realized this was the ideal excuse for her excursion. Perfectly legitimate for a concerned employee to inspect the room. And the room was empty.

  Dayna thanked the woman, took a deep breath, and snagged her work keys from the hook behind the counter. Then she was out the door and down the walk, her back prickling with the surety that Derrick would come up behind her, somehow knowing her intent. She looked straight ahead, not allowing herself the furtiveness of checking for him—until she came to his unit, No. 26, nonsmoking, right at the end. Then she couldn't help herself, and she quickly glanced around. Not only was there no sign of Derrick on this still, bright day, but very little else was stirring. The heat of the spring noon had become something to be reckoned with, and Dayna slipped out of it into the dark coolness of Derrick's room.

  Ugh. She wrinkled her nose as the full force of the room's odor hit her; the air conditioning unit was set and running—she herself had explained the controls to Derrick upon his arrival—but she took a moment to flick the air supply from "recirculate" to "outside."

  As her eyes adjusted to the low light, she realized the odor itself was nothing malignant—merely the smell of an unwashed man, well steeped. Or, she saw with a sudden sharp intake of breath, the odor of two men. And one of them was here. Sleeping.

  She stood frozen until her aching lungs made her realize she hadn't even been breathing. Okay, Dayna. He slept through your arrival. Just take it easy—no reason to think he'd be roused by a quick strategic retreat. She squeezed back between the AC unit and the cheap laminated table that graced every room. In this case the table was piled high with gear, much of which looked similar to the stuff they'd found by Jess, except for a small pile of syringes, used and new, and a half empty drug vial. You're leaving, she reminded herself as her hand reached out, seemingly by its own volition, and touched the leather of saddlebags, and the quiver beneath. Quiver? Yes, there was the bow, unstrung, leaning into the corner.

  The figure in the bed had not stirred and, in fact, seemed unnaturally still. Come to think of it, he—though she became aware that the gender was an assumption on her part—was stretched in an awkward-looking position. Biting her lower lip, Dayna took a step toward the far bed, cast an anxious glance at the door, and studied the bed from this closer vantage. Maybe because of the low light, or maybe because she simply wasn't expecting to see such a thing, it took her several long moments to visually decipher the ropes that stretched from one exposed wrist to the headboard.

  Without thinking, she moved the rest of the way to the bed and its captive, rounding to the side opposite the door, where the covers fell back and clearly showed her who was in the bed.

  He wasn't a big man—although that still put him a foot or so taller than herself—and he was wiry, muscled but still lean. Long stubble, darker than the unkempt, oily mass of his blond hair, covered the long, clean angles of his face. A crusty mess of a bandage wrapped the bicep of the free arm, and it was tied with a tight sling that rendered it as useless as the other. His lips were dry, his eyes mattery, and he definitely smelled.

  Then the eyes were open, and looking directly at her, the light brows crinkled in disorientation. "Who—" he started, and it came out as more of a croak than a question.

  "I work here," she said quietly, as if Derrick could hear her no matter where he was. "Would you like some water?"

  He closed his eyes and nodded, and she quickly filled one of the cheap plastic cups provided by the hotel. "Here," she whispered to the eyelids. They flickered open long enough to locate the cup, as he tried to raise his head enough to meet its rim. With only the smallest of inward grimaces, she supported the back of that filthy head, until he turned away from the water to indicate he'd had enough. She was unprepared for the sudden pity she felt for this poor creature, and had the impulse to untie his bonds, to ferret him away from this room.

  But no. The real Dayna took over, insisting on explanations and complete understanding. "What's going on here?" she asked, her voice still low.

  He swallowed, licked the dry lips. Didn't bother to open his eyes again. "Help me," he said. "He's given me something . . . I can't think—" his brows lowered, his eyelids spasmed, in the painful frustration of the moment. "If he finds Lady . . . he can't. Can't let him get the spells—" he opened his eyes and stared directly at her, focused for one moment of intense effort. "Help me."

  She stared back, impotent. Help him? How? Call the police? He was probably on the wrong side of the law to begin with. Untie him and muscle him out of here? Sure, when she was reincarnated as Arnold Schwartzenegger. Then his words tickled at her awareness. "Lady?"

  "Lady," he repeated wearily, his head falling back, his eyes closed again. "Sweet Lady. Ran her heart out for me . . ."

  Oh, God, she couldn't believe it. Didn't believe it. But the coincidence was too much to resist. "Jess?" she whispered.

  "Lady," he murmured, drifting away from her.

  All right. So she didn't know what she'd do with him. Whatever was happening here, it wasn't right. She had to start somewhere. She plucked at the tightly tied ropes with nerveless, fumbling fingers, breaking first one, then another of her nails, without ever gettin
g a good hold of the cotton fibers. Another grimace, and she bent over the rope, applying her teeth, getting the first sign of compliance, a spark of hope—

  A key fumbled in the dead bolt. With a small squeak, Dayna started upright, staring at the door in panic. Then she dove to the floor and scurried under the empty bed, oh-so-thankful for her diminutive stature and her size 2 frame.

  A brief burst of light sliced across her limited field of view; two worn boots passed by and the door closed with a negligent click.

  "Stir your bones, Carey," Derrick said, his voice discordantly loud after the hushed tones of Dayna's recent conversation. "If you want something to eat you'll show a little life. You might even get a chance to take a piss."

  Carey! The name barely registered against Dayna's fear, but some small part of her did hear it. Heard Carey's mumbling response as well, hoped he had enough wits about him to keep from giving her away. Clenching and unclenching her fists in an attempt to distract herself from almost unbearable terror, Dayna was otherwise as still as she could be. She listened while Derrick dealt with the bindings that had stymied her, heard the snake of rope against rope and the moan as he hauled Carey upright. It was easy to follow their clumsy progress to the bathroom, not so easy to force her petrified muscles to respond. But she managed to scrabble to the door; trembling so hard she could barely get the doorknob turned, Dayna literally crawled from the room.

  * * *

  Dayna and Eric showed up, midday, at The Dancing. Jess saw them arrive, watched from the tack room window as Eric, more focused than usual, escorted Dayna to the big double sliding doors at the end of the aisle, taking them out of her sight. Jess carefully hung the bridle she'd just cleaned, and went to the tack room door to pick them up as they entered, staring unabashed at Dayna.

  The small woman was always a little stiff; it came along as part of her many rules for self and others. But today she seemed smaller, tighter. And wasn't she supposed to be working today? Wasn't that the reason Mark had the day off?