Storm of Shadows

by Christina Dodd

  Aaron put his hand on Irving’s shoulder. “It was a tragedy, but we’ve got to look to the future.”

  A woman’s voice spoke. “Isn’t that why Rosamund is here?”

  In unison, Irving, Aaron, and Rosamund turned toward the door. A buff, handsome, grim-faced man stood there, but it was the tall, gorgeous, platinum blonde beside him who drew Rosamund’s gaze. The blonde wore leather gloves with the fingers exposed, and had the most peculiar amber brown eyes. . . .

  She walked in slowly, holding her ribs as if she was in pain, and Rosamund saw a ring of bruises around her throat. Sometime in the very recent past, she had been attacked and hurt badly. Yet she scrutinized Rosamund so acutely, Rosamund was mesmerized.

  Aaron said, “Rosamund Hall, this is Jacqueline Vargha and her fiancé, Caleb D’Angelo.”

  “How do you do?” Jacqueline stripped off her gloves, then offered her bared hand. When Rosamund took it, Jacqueline placed her other hand on the crystal ball.

  Rosamund felt a warmth flow to her from Jacqueline, a comfort, a confirmation. Without volition, she relaxed back into the chair.

  In a tone of surprise, Jacqueline said, “Rosamund! You have come to find the prophetess.”

  “Has she?” Irving seated himself in his leather easy chair and smirked at Aaron in ill-concealed satisfaction.

  “She has,” Jacqueline assured him.

  “The prophetess? The prophet is a woman?” Rosamund looked at Aaron in reproach. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “I . . . didn’t know it mattered.” He had a twist on his lips that looked like pained amusement.

  She didn’t have time for pained amusement. “Of course it matters. If the prophet is a woman, that greatly cuts down on the research. Traditionally, female prophets don’t get as much respect as male prophets, for in the great span of history they were frequently illiterate, so their prophecies are mentioned as mere footnotes by the men who recorded the divinations. Even if they were literate, they were usually a lot less verbose than men. The men always had to brag about themselves and give their credentials. The women said what they had to say and shut up.”

  Jacqueline listened, still watching Rosamund as if she were the most interesting woman in the world. “That’s all true. The prophetess knew what she wanted to say, but she refused to say it until she was free.”

  “Until she was free? What does that mean?” Caleb moved closer, standing behind Jacqueline with an air of protectiveness Rosamund found endearing in such a tough-looking guy.

  “The prophetess was black, a slave, and there’s a”—Jacqueline’s eyes narrowed—“there’s a white house.”

  “A white house? Like the White House?” Aaron asked.

  “I don’t know.” Jacqueline looked back at Caleb and shrugged.

  “George Washington owned slaves. Maybe she lived in his household?” Aaron looked between the women.

  “George Washington didn’t live in the White House. It wasn’t yet built when he was president,” Irving told him.

  “The facts of history trip me up again.” Aaron’s mouth quirked in self-mockery.

  Rosamund remembered what he had told her. He hadn’t even finished high school. For all his obvious wealth and sophistication, he would of course have gaps in his education. “A southern plantation house, perhaps?” she asked.

  “I wish I could tell you more, but that’s all I was told. We’ll have to discover the rest ourselves.” Taking her hand off the crystal ball, Jacqueline gave Rosamund’s hand a final, kind squeeze, then released it.

  Rosamund looked at her hand, then at Jacqueline. Either this woman had an odd way of being kind, or Rosamund just didn’t understand human relationships. Ruefully, she admitted it was probably the latter.

  Caleb gave a sigh that sounded like relief. Wrapping his arms around Jacqueline, he pulled her against him, her back to his front, and held her loosely.

  She relaxed against him with a weary smile, and pulled on her gloves.

  “Who told you? Perhaps I could trace their sources and discover more,” Rosamund said.

  “My mother helps me with my . . . research.” Jacqueline closed her eyes in pain. “And I’m afraid she has recently died.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Rosamund remembered her own scorching grief of losing her mother, and touched Jacqueline’s arm.

  Jacqueline’s eyes sprang open. “I am sorry for your losses, too. Please. Consider us your family now.”

  Rosamund felt the warmth, muted this time, and a concern that made her want to relax and just be in this world at this time.

  But she couldn’t. If she stopped working and thinking and seeking the truths of other times, she would have to face the truths her emotions had presented her. And she didn’t dare do that.

  So she turned to Aaron. “Why didn’t you tell me the details about the prophetess? That narrows the search parameters.”

  He spread his hands. “Silly me.”

  “I can help. I have some texts that I believe would greatly interest you,” Irving said eagerly.

  She looked hungrily at the books he stacked at her elbow. “I would love to.” She glanced at her watch and half rose. “But I have to get ready for my date.”

  “Of course you do.” Irving was everything that was amiable. “But first, here’s Martha with a special afternoon tea she made just for you.”

  A woman, dressed all in black, pushed a laden tea cart into the room.

  “Martha escaped the blast that destroyed the Gypsy Travel Agency building, and we are very grateful that she transferred her loyalty and service to us.” Irving’s fingers trembled.

  Martha did not smile. She didn’t look as if she knew how. The woman was anywhere between sixty and ninety; the braids in her gray hair were wrapped around her head in a traditional European manner. She looked serious and grieved and . . . Romany.

  Trapped by empathy and guilt, Rosamund sank back into her chair.

  Aaron pulled up a seat next to her. “Martha is a superb cook, and remember, you didn’t eat lunch.”

  “Martha, did you make the chutney and cheese sandwiches?” Irving asked. “Those are my favorites.”

  “And the watercress and roast beef sandwiches.” Martha indicated the three-tiered, flowered platter. “Of course there’s scones and clotted cream, with pumpkin and mandarin orange marmalade.”

  The scent of the tea and the fresh bread wafted toward Rosamund, and her stomach growled. Aaron was right. She was hungry. And really, it was better if she didn’t go to dinner with Lance Mathews when she was starving. If she ate now, she could concentrate on his glorious self. “I surrender. The aromas are too compelling. I must give in to temptation.”

  As Martha poured tea into dainty cups and placed food on the flowered china, Irving moved to a seat close to Rosamund. “This is a piece that fascinates me, called Bala’s Glass.” He held a rounded clear dome about two inches wide, with a flat bottom, and he stroked it with his fragile, warped, old fingers. “By good fortune, I brought it here from the Gypsy Travel Agency to study on the very day of the explosion.”

  She looked up at Aaron.

  He watched her with cool eyes, making her think once again that the moment of communion in the park could never have happened. This man, this Aaron, was sophisticated, offhand, impersonal, without feeling . . . but he had friends who seemed to cherish him.

  Today at the zoo, he had told her a lot about himself and his past. He had comforted her in a way no one ever had. Yet something about him made her skin prickle with wariness. When she glanced up and caught his dark eyes gazing at her, some primitive instinct told her to hide herself.

  He hunted too well. He observed too much. If she weren’t careful, he would see who she really was.

  “Would you like to hold it?” Irving asked.

  She stared at him blankly, then recovered. “Oh! Bala’s Glass. Yes, please.” She took the ornament from him. It was heavy for its size, gloriously smooth, almost warm to the touch, a
nd deep in its core, all the colors of the rainbow glowed as if captured by the shiny surface. “From India?”

  “Or Sri Lanka. Have you heard the legend of Bala of the Danavas?” Irving accepted a plate of artfully made little sandwiches from Martha.

  “I have. Bala of the Danavas was a great warrior who defeated the gods, so in the guise of a favor, they asked him to sacrifice himself.” She placed the flat side of the glass on her palm, turning it from side to side as she pulled the tale from the depths of her memory. “So pure was his courage, he agreed, and to humiliate him, they bound him with thirteen strings and killed him in slow agony. Because of his pure birth and his deed, his bones became the seeds of diamonds and had the power of the gods in them.”

  “Very good! Not many know that story.” As if he couldn’t resist touching the reading glass, Irving slid his hand over the smooth dome. “This is old, very old, and if the legend is to be believed, was created from Bala’s bones.”

  “Irving.” Aaron was in shock. “This is a diamond?”

  Chapter 10

  A aron watched in amazement as Rosamund laughed up at him without a trace of self-consciousness. “As my father would have said, that’s the problem with legends. When they come up against facts, they fail to pass the test.”

  “Why would you say that?” he asked cautiously.

  “Because this”—she held the artifact out—“has no faults or inclusions. It’s too big to be a perfect jewel, so it’s just glass.” She chuckled.

  “Oh.” Aaron chuckled along with her, and fought the urge to cup his hands underneath the glass. Diamond. Whatever it was. “I should have realized.”

  “Of course, if it is ancient, a piece of glass this size and weight and clarity is an extraordinary accomplishment and nothing to be mocked.” She gently placed it back on the table.

  Aaron said, “Right. Even if it’s nothing but a magnifying glass, it deserves respect for its age.”

  “As I said, I didn’t have the chance to study the, er, glass. But I’m sure, Dr. Hall, that you’re right.” Irving waited while Martha set a plate in front of Rosamund, and she took her first bite of a cream scone.

  She licked her lips, took another bite, exclaimed in ecstasy and thanked Martha, and Aaron saw her focus shift from leaving Irving’s mansion to eating and translation.

  For the first time since Aaron had met Rosamund, he relaxed.

  Lance Mathews had been forgotten.

  Irving continued talking, working to keep her busy. “What I know is that Bala’s Glass is a reading glass. In the hands of the right person, it can translate languages so ancient or obscure they’re indecipherable.”

  “That’s absurd!” She took a bite of sandwich and a sip of tea, pulled a manuscript and Bala’s Glass toward her, and went to work. “I can read this with Bala’s Glass.” She took it away from the text. “But of course it’s early Latin, no reason why I couldn’t.”

  With a conspiratorial smile at Aaron, Jacqueline took Caleb’s hand and they slipped out of the room.

  Martha poured more tea, refilled the plates, and quietly left.

  “Here, Rosamund.” Irving rose and rummaged in his bookshelves. “I’ve got an exact copy of an Ethiopian first-century scroll, Egyptian hieroglyphics . . . with a twist. See whether you can work your way through this without the glass, and then with it.”

  Rosamund noted the language. Her eyes lit up. “I wish I had my personal notebook. It’s got my mother’s interpretations and my father’s and mine, but I left it at the library. I really need it before I can properly dig into this.”

  Aaron surged to his feet. Here was something he could do. Something besides study the young woman opposite. His instincts were stirring. He had seen the signs. She hid herself from the world for a reason.

  She hid herself from him. And why should he care? She was a mess from head to toe, without any obvious womanly impulse. She could barely practice the merest of social niceties. Nothing here should intrigue him.

  But she did.

  He needed to get away. “I’ll get your notebook for you.”

  She blinked at him as if she couldn’t quite remember who he was. “Can you get through the security without an appointment?”

  Without a bit of a problem. “I can try.”

  “Thank you.”

  She was so polite, as if they’d just met, and yet at the zoo, he’d shared his past with her. Something about Rosamund invited confidences. Perhaps because she was so guileless, he knew she wouldn’t make judgments. Or perhaps something about her pulled the poison from the memories. He never told anyone about his birth, his early life in the mountains, his lack of education; yet within hours of meeting her, he had confessed everything to her.

  The woman seemed so open, so naïve, even immature. Yet when she told him about her father, he had caught a glimpse of something in her eyes—fear and anguish long denied and now freshly exposed.

  He hadn’t been able to resist. He had taken her into his arms, held her, experienced a moment of communion between two wounded souls. . . .

  And right now, he wasn’t sure she remembered.

  She irritated him like a grain of sand irritated an oyster.

  “Irving, if I could speak to you for a minute?” Aaron stepped into the corridor and waited for Irving to join him. With a glance, he verified that Rosamund was busy, and shut the door behind them. Looking directly into the old man’s rheumy eyes, he said, “I saw a woman in Central Park, and she said, ‘Give Irving my regards.’ ”

  Irving lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “How nice. Did she give you her name?”

  “No. Apparently she thought you would recognize her, since she didn’t speak with her mouth—she spoke in my mind.” Aaron cut off Irving with a harsh gesture. “Who is she, Irving? What is she?”

  “Obviously she’s a mind speaker. Not a very good one, apparently. The good ones influence you and you never realize it.” Irving was telling Aaron stuff he already knew.

  “I think she’s good. I think she’s powerful. I think she wanted me to realize what she was doing, and to see her so I could describe her to you.”

  “Why would she do that?” Irving was being deliberately obtuse.

  Aaron wanted to shake him. “She knows you.”

  “My career has spanned seventy years . . . so far. I’ve met a lot of people—”

  “She feels so strongly about you she hunted me down to pass on a message.”

  “I wish I could see her.” Irving tapped his forehead. “That might jog something loose. This is the curse of being an old man. My memory isn’t what it used to be.”

  Aaron wasn’t buying it. Not Irving’s professed ignorance or his pretend innocence. He’d seen the old guy use his age to manipulate circumstances before. He knew he was doing it now. But it didn’t matter; if Irving wouldn’t talk, Aaron couldn’t make him. “All right. You’ve got the message.”

  “Is that all?”

  “That’s all. No! Wait.” Aaron stopped Irving with a touch. “Was Rosamund’s mother one of the Chosen?”

  “No. What makes you think that?”

  “According to Rosamund, Elizabeth Hall had tattoos on her fingers that looked like a primitive alphabet, she was a miracle at translation, and it sounds as if she was murdered. Maybe by an Other.”

  Irving hesitated.

  Aaron exploded with frustration. “Oh, for God’s sake, Irving. What difference does it make if I know Elizabeth Hall was Chosen?”

  The closemouthed old man weighed how much information to release before he admitted, “She wasn’t Chosen. At that time, we didn’t need someone who could translate old texts. But she was one of the Abandoned Ones, and yes, she had a gift.”

  “Was she murdered by the Others?” Aaron insisted.

  “I don’t know that. If it’s true, then the Others have been seeking this prophecy—or a prophecy—for years.”

  “Good to know.” Aaron was playing catch-up, seeking
their prophecy with a girl who, although not gifted, was the translator they needed. Or at least, Jacqueline said so, and so far, as their seer, she had been eerily accurate. “How many more people are like Elizabeth Hall, out in the world with gifts, and we know nothing about them?”

  “Too many, and every day there are more.”

  “Can’t we get them? To help us?” Aaron gestured wildly. “In case you haven’t noticed, Irving, we’re in dire straits!”

  “I didn’t make the rules. I’m old, but not old enough to have anything to do with the rules!” Irving was exasperated. “We’re allowed seven every seven years. We can replace one who is lost, but we can’t have more than seven official Chosen in one cycle. We base . . . that is, the board of directors based their decisions about whom to choose on what our upcoming needs appeared to be, and according to the strength of the talents and gifts given.”