Neal tugged Andrea to his side and got out of the way as Brenna took more tentative steps, one hand extended in front of her. Then her hand fell to her side and she advanced, faster now, through the dining room, into the foyer.
"Where's she going?" Noreen asked, but no one could answer her.
Brenna went to the front door and stood for a moment, staring into it as if it held secrets only she could see. Her hand fumbled for the knob and turned it back and forth until Max reached over her shoulder and opened it for her.
"Gran," they heard her say. She stepped onto the porch and went toward the steps.
"You're letting her walk out of here?" Kerry protested.
Max barely glanced at her. "We don't dare try to wake her when she's this deep into whatever state she's in. It's too dangerous."
Brenna murmured, "Stop." A moment later she said it more loudly. "Stop." She stared ahead, unblinking, and walked down the steps to the courtyard, face twisting as if in pain.
"No!" she screamed suddenly, and the others froze in shock. She threw a punch at the air and before they could react she was speeding across the cobblestones toward the fountain.
"Quickly," Rose ordered. "Don't let her hurt herself on the stones."
Neal ran after her, Max close behind, but before they could reach her, she stopped at the wall of the fountain and yanked a rock from its edge. She raised it with both hands and hit the wall, hit the wall, hit the wall and a larger stone fell to the bricks where she stood.
Max bent to pick up the rock and moved it carefully out of the way. Behind him Aura Lee was crying, and both Rose and Noreen had their arms around her. Andrea and Kerry were ashen-faced and trembling.
Brenna stood swaying.
Neal drew closer to her, but before he could touch her, Dink ran past him. As he reached Brenna she fell to her knees, shouting, "I set you free! I set you free!"
Dink knelt beside her and was able to catch her as she slowly toppled sideways to the ground. He gathered her to him, whispering softly, when an engine roared to life and he swiveled around to find the source of the noise.
Rose's pickup, parked beside the main house, jerked into motion, the tires turning to aim straight for Brenna and Dink. He scooped her into his arms and lurched to the side, falling and rolling with her as the truck plowed into the wall of the fountain with a tremendous crunching sound.
Brenna lay on the cobblestones, covered by Dink's body. Her eyes opened and she looked up at him, and then struggled to get out from under him. He helped her sit up and put one arm around her. "I did it," she said in a breathless voice. "I saved Gran, I set her free."
Neal ran to the truck and forced open the passenger door. He reached across the seat to turn the key and take it out of the ignition. The acrid smell of ozone spilled from the cab.
Water from the fountain reached Brenna's legs and she scrambled to her feet, finally noticing the others grouped around her and Dink. Noreen and Rose still had hold of Aura Lee, and Kerry and Max were walking nearer to the fountain.
"I saved Gran," Brenna said again.
"From what?" Andrea was the worse for wear, leaning against Kerry.
"From Them. I don't know who they are, but they were holding her prisoner. She said they trapped her in their cold."
"What?" Max said sharply.
Kerry shuddered. "We know about that, don't we?" she said to Aura Lee. The older woman nodded wanly.
Tears trailed down Brenna's cheeks. "Gran said they're hunting for it, that they have to have it." She wiped her face with both hands. "They're evil and they're coming for us."
Neal came around the pickup, keys in hand. "The keys were in the ignition."
Noreen's wise eyes met Max's troubled gaze. "It. Could it be the talisman? Could it be that insanely simple?"
"Simple?" Kerry's voice cracked on the word. "Nothing about any of this is simple. What in the world are we going to do?"
Rose took several steps toward the fountain and gingerly sat on an undamaged portion of its wall. "In a minute we'll go turn off the fountain pump." She looked at the pickup, frowning, and then met Neal's eyes. "I never leave the keys in the ignition."
Neal nodded and turned his head to the fountain wall. "That stone she pulled out was cemented in. I checked the mortar last week."
Brenna pulled away from Dink to walk around the pickup, staring at the crumpled fender, sloshing through the growing pool of water spreading across the cobblestones. As she came round the box of the truck, a shaft of sun reflected off something metallic at the fountain's edge. "Hey, look at this." She shoved a few rocks off what appeared to be a strong box and pulled on the handle. It was wedged against a piece of the wall and didn't move. "A little help here?"
Dink came to her side and pushed aside the pile of stones and bricks. Brenna gripped the handle and lifted the box out of the water.
"You want me to carry it?" Dink asked.
"It's not very heavy." Brenna took it to a dryer spot but as she lowered it to the cobblestones, she lost her hold on the wet handle and dropped the box, the lid snapping open.
Inside it was a book. In gold letters the title shone in the sunlight. My Personal Journal: 1946 to 1955.
"By the Goddess." Aura Lee's gazed moved over the trashed pickup, the broken fountain, her friends in varying degrees of shock. "Another of Cottie's journals." She looked at the water spreading further and started to laugh.
"What is it?" Neal came to her side and put his arm around her shoulders. Aura Lee laughed even harder, turning to rest her forehead against his shoulder.
"Is she hysterical?" he asked Rose.
"Cottie kept trying." Aura Lee gurgled. "I told you she was trying! All those rocks from Rose's fountains—time after time she took them out. Over and over again she put them in circles. She kept recreating the circular fountain, and all the time her journal was hidden in the courtyard fountain." Aura Lee wiped tears off her cheeks and laughed some more.
"Didn't I tell you?" she challenged Rose. "Didn't I say it was a message for us all along?" She took a step toward the fountain and nearly tripped. Neal grabbed her arm and helped her to the wall where Rose was sitting, easing her down beside her.
Taking Rose's hand, Aura Lee looked up at the sky and called cheerfully, "Hello, Cottie! We're listening now!"
The End
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Want more from Yvonne Montgomery?
Here's an excerpt from
ALL IN BAD TIME
The Wisdom Court Series
Book Three
~
Noreen approached the sink and stretched up on her toes to see what was going on. "They look like—they look like—" She watched for a moment and then turned from the sink. To the horror of all of them, she grabbed a dishtowel and retched into it.
"Noreen!" Rose ran to her side and held her shoulders. Noreen waved a hand toward the sink. Rose walked to the counter as the others crowded in behind her.
The sink held creatures, green, living things, crawling on what looked like leafy legs as they swarmed over each other. From what appeared to be their heads some spat a red substance, and others turned on them, tearing at leafy legs until more of the goo covered the victims.
"That looks like—" Kerry paused.
"Blood." Max stared at them with disgust.
Kerry's mouth twisted. "I didn't put the leaves down the disposal. And they turned into that."
"But why?" Rose stared at them both.
"To scare us," Kerry said in an angry voice. "Look
at us! It worked on me."
Max grabbed her hand and started to lead her back to the table. "So we'll stop reacting."
"Don't just walk away." Kerry pulled him back to the counter. "Give me that spatula, the one in that jar of tools." She took it from him and turned to the sink. "I'm going to shove them into the drain and I want you to turn on the disposal."
"Ewww!" Dolores had come back. "How can you stand to do that?"
"It's a damn sight better than watching them crawl out of the sink." Kerry shoved the soft plastic blade of the spatula into the mass of leafy creatures and pushed them toward the drain. She twisted the faucet handle. "Turn on the disposal."
The machine began to grind as Kerry continued to push the bodies into it. To her horror, some of the red substance splashed onto one sleeve of her sweatshirt. "Ugh, hand me a paper towel."
Dolores gave her one and Kerry wiped frantically at her sleeve. Then she peered into the sink and slumped against the counter. "Turn it off. They're gone."
"So was this magic?" Aura Lee demanded. "Squirmy things that make you sick to look at?" She shuddered. "How can we go on if we have to deal with things like this?"
Rose sank back into her chair. "How many times have we asked that question? We either go on or we walk away."
"When you think about it, they just looked like bugs." Brenna shrugged when Kerry glared at her. "It's a dumb sort of magic spell."
Max flashed a smile. "Dumb but effective. And separating magical elements into the benign and the malignant, we could label the strawberry leaf spiders as malignant."
"I'd agree with that." Rose reached for her coffee.
"There are different amounts of good and evil in magic," Max said. "The strawberry leaf spiders are lightweight conjuring. Old, deep magic, like the talisman Caldicott described, is formidably strong. You can scare people with the shallow stuff, but you can change the world with the deep, dark stuff. That's why the old earl who killed Caldicott's Duncan wanted that talisman—to alter the wishes of millions of people and present England to the Nazis, wrapped in a bow."
"It's scary as hell to think how devastating the talisman would've been if it hadn't been taken away from him," Rose said.
"No wonder he and his followers continue to look for it." Andrea clutched her coffee mug. "We're babes in the woods. How can we fight them if they’re the ones doing these things to us?"
Rose sighed. "We can't afford to look at it that way." Her gaze challenged each of them. "We can't withdraw. I admit to anger that we never had a real choice about becoming engaged in the battle. But I'd rather we be involved in ending it than imagining people less prepared than we are having to deal with it."
"I don't feel like charging the barriers yet," Kerry said in a rough voice, "but I know we're on the front line. Here we are. It's us or nobody."
"We go into battle ill-prepared, but we go. Our tattered banner will stand for imperfect glory. But glory it will be." The light in Noreen's eyes was militant. "Anna Fordham Willis, circa eighteen twenty-two to eighteen seventy-nine."
"Oh, I wish Cottie were here to join us." Aura Lee sniffed mightily.
Rose let out a breath. "I think she is."
One by one they clasped each other's hands until the circle was complete.
~
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All in Bad Time
from your favorite eBook Retailer,
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Yvonne Montgomery became afraid of the dark, after her parents allowed her to see Psycho at the tender age of twelve.
Now Yvonne lives in a shadowy three-story Victorian house in Denver’s historic Capitol Hill where her imagination rises to the challenge when the old floor-boards creak for no reason and the window panes rattle without wind.
A Signal Shown Page 20
