Always

by Jude Deveraux

  Simone had to repress the urge to make a cross of her fingers and tell Darci to get out. The truth was, Simone had seen more about Darci than she had ever seen about anyone else. It had been her grandmother who was the real soothsayer, a woman who saw things many years ahead. Simone regretted not having written down what her grandmother said. But all of the family had dismissed the old woman’s ranting.

  Her gift had been passed to her daughter, Simone’s mother, but it was diluted. Simone’s mother had hated seeing the future and had stayed at home, refusing to meet strangers or to touch them. Simone had inherited only about a quarter of her grandmother’s ability and her daughter Tula, none at all. All Tula had was an old recipe book that Simone’s grandmother, who couldn’t read or write, had paid a man to write for her. There were about a dozen herbal “spells” in there that Tula used to make her living and support her two children after her husband left them. Simone never doubted for a moment that her grandmother had foreseen Tula’s future need and had supplied it.

  Now, this young woman had come to Simone and she wished she could tell her more. As always, based on nearly eighty years of experience, Simone didn’t tell all she knew. She didn’t tell Darci that it wasn’t important whether or not she found her lost husband. However, it was very important she leave this place and go back to her own time.

  Simone also didn’t tell Darci that the beautiful golden light around her was fading fast. In the few minutes since she’d entered Simone’s house, the light had dulled.

  “You need to find out why you’re here, then go back,” Simone said. She wasn’t sure if Darci was from another time, another planet, or the next town over, but she didn’t belong here. Here was killing her rapidly.

  Darci held up the egg and looked at it. It was rusty and pitted, but there was no seam along its side from where it had been manufactured. It looked to be one piece of metal. “Have you tried to open it?”

  Simone smiled. “When I was a little girl I remember my grandmother cursing quietly as she tried to open that thing. She hit it with hammers, threw it in a fire, then into the snow. She took it to a blacksmith and he couldn’t dent it. She boiled it and chanted over it.”

  Simone looked at Darci. “On her deathbed she told me that I would be the one who would find the person who could open it.”

  “Ah,” Darci said as she put the silver box in one pocket and the egg in the other. “One of the twelve, not that that’s any use to me now since I’m stuck here.”

  “Don’t say that!” Simone said. “You must find your way back. I feel that you must.”

  “But how?” Darci asked. “If I could find the key to the box, maybe I could get back. You don’t have a little ceramic man about four inches high, do you? Blue clothes, brown cap, big ears?”

  Simone smiled. “No, but my grandmother used to talk to a rock. We children laughed at her, but she said he was a little man, the oldest object on earth and completely amoral. She used to keep him—”

  “In a cage made of string,” Darci said in a faraway voice, “because nothing else will hold him. And he eats—”

  “The salt from Jerusalem,” Simone said quietly.

  “And one raspberry a year. He likes raspberries.”

  Simone’s face was white. “You know of this creature?”

  “Sitting before you is the stupidest person on earth. I had him. When I was a little girl I found him by a stream and I knew everything about him in an instant. I made him a cage and he stayed with me for years. He’s very funny. And old. He thinks alligators are newcomers.”

  “Where is he?” Simone asked.

  “Either my mother threw him out or he’s in a closet in my hometown. I’ll probably never see that place again.”

  Leaning forward, Simone took Darci’s hands. “You must return. If I know nothing else, I know that you must go back to wherever you came from. You can’t let your body be destroyed tomorrow.”

  “How do I go back?” Darci asked. “And does Jack go with me? He wants to stay here with Lavender.”

  Simone leaned back and thought. “Do you think if you contacted this spirit Devlin or the man Henry you could find out more?”

  “I hope so,” Darci said eagerly. “I’m ready to do anything, try anything.”

  “Not far from here is a town called Drayton Falls. About three years ago a young woman there died. I don’t think it was her time to go, or maybe the grief of her family has kept her on earth. Whatever the cause, her spirit stays here and she haunts the house she loved. Her spirit is such a strong presence that no one can live in her house. If anyone has the strength to contact another world, she can.”

  Darci’s eyes brightened. “I’ll have Tom take me there now.”

  “No!” Simone said. “If you find the way back, you must take the two people you came with.”

  “How did you know that I came here with two people?” Darci asked suspiciously.

  “Their spirits are with you. Behind you. I see them. Their existence is linked to yours. If your spirit returns, they must go with you.”

  Darci smiled up. “I think you’re more like your grandmother than you know.”

  “A high tribute, indeed,” Simone said.

  Darci stood up. “It’s nearly time for tea with Jack and Lavender. I’ll get them to go to Drayton Falls with me.” She turned toward the door, then stopped and looked back at Simone. Pulling the egg from her pocket, she put it on a little table. “I came with the silver box so I think I’ll go back with it, but this egg might disappear. I’ll look around Camwell and see what I remember, then I’ll tell Tom where to hide the egg so I can get it later. All right?”

  “Does Camwell survive the coming war?”

  “War?” Darci asked, then drew in her breath. The War Between the States. That horrible war where more men died from disease than from weapons. Brother against brother.

  Simone watched Darci’s face and it told her more than she wanted to know. “My children are too old for the fight, but my grandchildren aren’t.”

  “Send them west,” Darci said softly. “As far west as possible. And, yes, Camwell survives. The buildings last a long time, but its reputation doesn’t.” She put her hand on the door handle.

  Simone started to stand up, but then sat back down. “I think maybe you’ve aged me today.”

  “If I can, I’ll see you again before I leave.”

  “No, you go back to where you came from. You’re needed there.”

  “If I return and I get my powers back,” Darci said softly, “I’ll find you. Wherever you are, whatever body you’re in, I’ll find you.”

  “I’d like that,” Simone said. “Now go. Go to Drayton Falls with your friends and see what you can find.”

  Smiling, Darci left the house.

  When Simone was alone, she looked at the fire and thought that she should get up and put on a piece of wood, but she couldn’t move. The girl said she had no powers, but the energy around her had drained Simone. What had she said? That some old blind man was probably the most powerful person on earth? He’d have to go some to beat that girl, Simone thought, and closed her eyes.

  She instinctively knew that she had one more thing to do, which was to bury the egg, then she’d leave the earth. She wasn’t sure, but she thought perhaps she’d just done what she was supposed to with her life. Everything else, all the people she’d helped in her long life had been lagniappe, that term from New Orleans that meant “something extra.”

  Smiling, Simone relaxed in the chair and let herself doze.

  On the drive back to Camwell, Darci tried not to allow all that Simone had said to frighten her—but it did. “Must” was a strong word. She must return to her own time, and Lavender and Jack must go with her.

  They were nearly back at Camwell when Darci saw a cemetery and called to Tom to stop. As he helped her down, he gave her a sidelong look that told her he knew everything. Obviously, he’d been eavesdropping again.

  She had no time to think about what
he thought of her; she brushed past him on her way to the cemetery. Some of the headstones were quite old, some new. She wandered about a bit, listening and trying to open her senses to receive any vibrations from any spirits. But all she felt was a soft summer breeze on her stiff hair.

  For a moment she thought back to all the times she’d been plagued by spirits swarming around her and how she’d been contemptuous of them. Such a nuisance!

  Was that what this was all about? she wondered. To make her appreciate her powers?

  Or maybe someone was trying to make her find out about herself. Past lives had never interested her much. As a child she’d been concerned with feeding herself and making sure she had a place to sleep. She’d spent a lot of her life envying other children with mothers who tucked them in at night, and fathers who flew kites with them. No, she’d never developed an appreciation for an ability that set her apart from the rest of the world.

  As soon as she graduated from college, she’d gone to New York and met Adam. Since then she’d…Lived, she thought. She’d lived as normal a life as she could, with a husband and child, with her father who’d married Adam’s sister, and their child. For a very short time, Darci had been the happiest person on earth.

  Looking around the graveyard, she thought perhaps she should have done what Simone said and tried to find out why she’d been given such marvelous power. Perhaps she should have looked into her own past—if she had one. Had Simone been right when she said Darci had never lived in another body before? Why didn’t Darci know that about herself? Had she been afraid to look?

  “I apologize,” she said, in prayer, and to the spirits that she knew were around her. “If any of you can hear me, please contact Devlin. Or Henry. Contact—” She broke off as it hit her what Simone had told her. Maybe tomorrow it would be she, Darci, who was thrown off a roof, not Lavender. Maybe Lavender would be wearing her wedding dress as she bent over Darci’s broken body.

  “It won’t be me,” she said firmly as she headed back to the buggy. If she had to get Jack to lock her in a closet she’d not leave the ground floor of any building.

  On the ride back into the town, she strengthened her resolve to go home to her family. And when she got there, she told herself, she was going to conduct her life differently. She was going to appreciate and learn.

  On the edge of town was a church she recognized. She told Tom where to hide Simone’s egg, then had him drop her off at Lavender’s house.

  “Whatever it takes,” she told herself. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  Chapter Ten

  “I’M NOT GOING TO SOME HAUNTED HOUSE!” JACK said to Darci. “I’m not going to do anything to help you take me away from her. I like it here. I like the people. I like me here. You go back if you want to, but I’m staying.”

  They were in the little garden behind Lavender’s house and Jack was shouting as quietly as he could. When he started back into the house, Darci put her body in front of him. “Lavender is going to die and I think maybe you kill her.”

  “What?!” Jack said, anger making the blood rise in his face. “You’re insane.”

  She put both her hands on his arm, trying to keep him from leaving. “Please calm down and listen to me.”

  Jack took a couple of deep breaths, but his face was still red. “All right, I’m listening.”

  “This is the nineteenth century, not the twenty-first, and morals aren’t the same. Here women who get pregnant out of wedlock have their lives ruined. Things that to us are nothing are horrible to them. I don’t have your memories, but is there anything about your past or maybe your father’s that someone could tell Lavender that would make her unable to marry you?”

  She watched Jack’s face go from red to white as the blood drained from his face. Heavily, he sat down on an iron bench. “I’ve not been a saint in any life,” he said softly. “And our father…”

  “Has a mistress?” she said as she sat down beside him.

  “With dyed red hair and a horse laugh and an illegitimate son. She’s an embarrassment to everyone, but he’s mad about her. He’s not here because we had a fight. He said he either comes with her to my wedding or he doesn’t come at all. I told him not to come. Or John did, but I agree with him.”

  “How much does Lavender’s family know of this?”

  “Nothing. I’ve worked hard to keep it from them. I’ve told so many lies I can’t keep them straight.”

  “I wish I knew what happens tomorrow.” Darci smiled. “Somewhere on this earth is a magic mirror that will show the future if you ask it the right questions. If I could get that mirror…” She sighed. “Jack, you and I’ve never been friends so I don’t expect you to trust me, but I’m telling you that something is very, very wrong here.”

  Dully, Jack turned to look at her. What she’d said about some ugly secret being told to Lavender had jolted him. “What could be wrong? It’s paradise here. I love everything about this place, the people, the food, even the clothes. I never want to leave here. This place suits me.”

  Darci stood up, her hands on her hips, and glared at him. “Life in the twenty-first century would suit you, too, if you didn’t have some crazy dead woman hanging around you! We’re here to keep Lavender from killing herself, then we’re to return to our own time.” She had to take a few breaths to calm herself. “I’ll make you a solemn, sacred vow. I promise you that if we go back to our own time, I’ll find where Lavender’s spirit is in the twenty-first century and you can go to her.”

  He looked at her in disgust. “I know where it is. It was hanging around me. Remember?”

  “Don’t you think it’s odd that Lavender loves you here in this time but hates you in modern times? What happened to change her so drastically? If she found out something bad about your family and was forbidden to marry you, I could imagine that she’d be so depressed that she’d take her own life. Suicide is a mortal sin, true, but that wouldn’t cause the hatred I felt coming from Lavender’s spirit. She loves you in this life. What changed her? And, most important, how do we not only prevent her death but also prevent a hatred that lasts for centuries?”

  Jack looked at her in silence for a while and she could tell that he was making some decisions. “I guess there are worse things than a night out before the wedding. Does it have to be in a haunted house?”

  “Why not? If there’s a spirit near here strong enough to manifest herself, I want to talk to her. And you need to keep Lavender away from other people. You have to make sure no one tells her something that might make her so despondent she commits suicide. So why not go together?”

  Jack gave a bit of a smile. “So how do we kidnap her? And you don’t expect us to spend the night inside the house, do you?”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts.”

  “I didn’t until I met you and saw that…that thing slime its way across my father’s bookcase. Why don’t you call him?”

  “You think I haven’t tried? You think I’ve been lounging about in the bathtub all day?”

  “From the look of your clothes and hair I’d say you’ve been mud wrestling. You really should have changed for tea, you know.”

  “I was too busy trying to save your soul to—”

  “My soul! Let me tell you that—”

  “I thought I heard loud voices,” Lavender said from the doorway. “Why ever are you two arguing now?”

  “I need to go to Drayton Falls right now,” Darci blurted.

  “We couldn’t go and get back before dinner,” Lavender said.

  “She left her best shawl there,” Jack said, standing and putting a brotherly arm around Darci. “And she has to take it with her on the wedding trip. I promised her I’d get it for her tonight so I thought we’d all three go.”

  Lavender looked from one to the other and back again. “When were you in Drayton Falls?” she asked Darci, suspicion in her voice.

  Darci’s lips tightened. “Lavender, give us a break. The man wants to get you in the bac
k of the buggy and have his way with you.”

  When Lavender’s eyes widened in shock, Jack gripped Darci’s shoulders so hard she nearly cried out.

  Lavender said, “I’ll be right back,” then she turned on her heel and fled into the house.

  “She probably went to get her father and his shotgun,” Jack said. “You have a vulgar mouth.”

  “Me! I’ll have you know—”

  She broke off because Lavender had returned, pulling on gloves, a shawl over her arm, and a bonnet hastily jammed onto her head. “Shall we go? Time’s awastin’.”

  It was difficult even for Jack with his long legs to keep up with Lavender as she hurried through the garden toward the back gate.

  “We’ll take Father’s new buggy, the fast one,” Lavender said over her shoulder. “And we don’t want a driver so we can…” She glanced back at Jack for a moment, her lashes fluttering.

  “Looks like people like sex in every century,” Darci muttered, envious of Lavender’s happiness.

  Jack caught Darci’s arm. “I can drive a twelve-cylinder Jag, but horses? No way. What about you?”

  “Haven’t a clue. Can’t John Marshall drive a buggy?”

  “Probably, but, you know, in the last few hours it seems to be more me than him. It’s almost as though I’m taking his memories, adding my own, and creating a new person.”

  Darci looked at him sharply but said nothing. Was Jack’s spirit stronger than John Marshall’s? Was Jack’s hunger for love and family driving John out?

  By the time Jack and Darci got to the stables, Lavender was already there, and the buggy was hitched and ready.

  “Aren’t we lucky that Father just got home and the buggy is still hitched?” She looked at Jack with such heat that her namesake eyes turned to purple.

  “I guess one night before the wedding doesn’t matter,” Darci said, then caught Jack’s arm. “You can’t…you know…with her. What if we do go back? You’ll have cheated John out of the wedding night he’s waited for for so long.”