Bound In Blue: Book One Of The Sword Of Elements (3 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

Impatience was crimson, yellow, and grey all twisted together into one butt-ugly mix.

Stuck in the back with an enormous sports bag that reeked of an entire summer of forgotten gym clothes, I was forced to endure Peter’s scenic route home. Oshawa was nice enough, but every minute spent driving past a local tourist trap to impress the new girl was a minute less I had to get to the lake before sunset.

When Peter finally pulled up in front of my little house, I didn’t wait for them to pull away before rushing inside. Throwing everything I thought I might need into my purse, I retrieved the urn with Mom’s ashes from the top shelf of the book case.

I’d expected the funeral director to give me something more like a vase—I had vague memories of seeing a movie where a rich man’s ashes sat above the fireplace while his heirs fought over his money until they were killed off one by one—but this was a wood box with a gold latch. When Mom got sick, she made all the arrangements without telling me.

I put the urn in my purse and took it out to my car where I set it on the passenger seat and fastened the belt over it. With the air conditioning not working, a lifetime of nightmares awaited me if I somehow managed to lose my mother’s ashes out the open window.

Two hours later, I parked at the top of the steep path that led down to the cottage Mom had rented every summer since I was eight. I’d picked up the key from the rental agency on the way, but when I tried the front door, it was unlocked. The place was so secluded that security wasn’t a problem.

I stepped inside and put my purse down on the kitchen table, disturbing a thick layer of dust that made my nose itch. In the main room nothing had changed—two plaid couches, a coffee table with a couple of coasters propping up one leg, a small box of a TV that got one channel, and a bookcase made out of planks of wood and old bricks. There was a faint smell of mildew. Anemic light filtered through the curtains and an intermittent brushing sound could have been the scratching of mice in the walls or the fluttering of bats inside the crumbling fireplace. The door leading to one of the bedrooms was partly open.

I had the strongest feeling something was hiding behind it and watching me.

Citrine swept through me. Grabbing my things, I hurried back out into the sunshine. Skidding a little on the grassy path, I ran down the hill to the water’s edge and then stopped and looked back. The cottage was the same as it had always been—a clapboard building with cracked windows and curtains with faded strawberries on them.

The stain of my emotion faded, but there was no way I was going back inside.

Slipping off my sandals, I stepped onto the long dock that jutted out from the shore. As I passed out of the shadow of the trees, I squinted at the gold glare of the early evening sun bouncing off the lake. The lake was small but deep, and only a few feet from shore you couldn’t see the bottom, just fallen trees stretching into the wet darkness like an ancient shipwreck.

Pushing my purse into the center of the dock, I lay down at the edge with my stomach pressed against the warm wood and peered into the water. When I was little, I used to pretend the drowned trees were the entrance to an underwater kingdom. I would dive in and try to reach them, but always got spooked halfway and had to swim back up.

Mom loved the water. On warm nights, we would sit on the dock in silence, watching the reflection of the stars in the lake and the turning of the moon. Now all that was left of her was going to be mingled in the water and maybe even the very air. Mom never asked me what I wanted—if I wanted her to be buried rather than cremated. She didn’t even tell me she was sick until almost the end. The tears in my eyes burned away in the rise of a red emotion.

It’s not fair.

I batted at the water just to see it disturbed, but stopped when I noticed the reflection of something moving towards me. For a moment, I thought the color of my anger had taken shape.  Fishing the object out of the lake as it drifted into reach, I held up a red baseball cap.

“Hello! I almost didn’t see you there.” A man in a canoe glided towards me. As he approached the dock, he back-paddled fast and bumped against it lightly. He held out his hand and it took me a moment to realize he was reaching for the hat. I handed it to him and he put it back on. Between the gold light bouncing off the water and the shadow of the brim of his cap, I couldn’t get a good look at him.

The man placed his paddle across his knees and put his hand on the dock to keep the canoe from drifting. “Thanks. I burn something wicked without a hat.”

I got to my feet and backed away as I pretended to brush off my clothes. I’d never seen the man before and there was only a handful of cottages on the lake. “How did you lose it?”

“Well, that’s a wee bit embarrassing. I was getting hot, so I took it off for a minute and managed to knock it out of the canoe with the paddle. Every time I got close, the water whisked it away. I guess it prefers the company of pretty girls.” He winked at me, and while it seemed like a friendly wink and not a pervy one, I hadn’t been winked at enough to be sure. Or ever.

“Are you visiting?”

“Sorry?”

“You don’t sound like you come from here originally. I thought maybe you were on vacation or something . . .” I trailed off lamely.

“Ah,” he said, nodding in understanding. “I’m Scottish. Originally.” He winked at me again and my cheeks went hot. “But I haven’t been back for so long I’d probably sound out of place there too. I had a powerful urge to go somewhere green and quiet, so I found myself here.” He sighed. “It reminds me of home.”

The man in the canoe bobbed up and down as he gazed at the high hills stretching up from the lake. He was nice—and kind of hot for an older guy—but I was discovering that despite what I’d always wished, being noticed all the time was exhausting. Hoping he would wander away and simply forget he’d ever seen me like most people did, I looked out into the water.

And saw something strange.

A large fish was slipping in and out of the drowned trees, but I’d never seen anything bigger than a sunfish in the lake before. The pale shape was difficult to track and I kept squinting from the sun on the water and losing sight of it. I edged closer. It was really too big to be a fish. Maybe it was a piece of sail from a boat. I discarded that idea when the shape changed direction and started coming towards me. It couldn’t be, but it looked like a person, and I realized the sparkling yellow almost blinding me wasn’t from the sun after all.

Holy crap, there’s a naked girl in the lake.

She had light hair parted in the middle and pulled back from an oval face, and while she was definitely moving, her pale arms and legs hung limp. She was like a fish being reeled up on a hook.

Even though yellow worry and white fear warned me not to, I leaned out over the water to see. It wasn’t until the girl was a few inches below the surface that I realized I was staring at the fixed expression, closed eyes, and slightly smiling mouth of a corpse.

“Get back!” the man yelled just as waxy, wet arms surged to life and grabbed me by the ankles.

I overbalanced and hit the lake in a painful belly flop. Cold hands pulled me down deep and fast. Flailing in panic, blinded by florescence, I broke loose. Pain exploded in my knee as it connected with a jagged branch on one of the drowned trees; I’d finally made it to my underwater kingdom.

Kicking hard, I reached for the surface, but when my fingertips touched air, I stopped. The girl—
the thing
—had my legs again. As I struggled against its grip, my foot hit something soft and yielding. Looking down, I saw that the water-filled skin on the creature’s face was now dented and loose. Stomach heaving, I exhaled precious breath. I was going to be forced to breathe in water. Color faded as a voice in my head promised to take me down to the place that erased all light and hid all sorrows in the deep dark.

I opened my mouth.

There was a flurry of motion around me and my legs were suddenly free. Strong hands grabbed me under my arms and pushed me up out of the water. Clutching the edge of the dock, I pulled myself onto it, coughing and spewing. The man from the canoe hauled himself up beside me. “Are you all right?” he asked when he caught his breath.

“Did . . . did you see that?”

The man—who had somehow managed to keep his cap on—didn’t answer as he got to his feet and looked out over the water. “L'Inconnue de la Seine, you are far from home and this place is too small for you. Go and find deeper channels and leave the children of the land alone!”

I noticed he kept back from the edge, even though his canoe was upside down and sinking. The sun dropped behind the hills and when the stranger turned back to me, I could see his face clearly for the first time.

His eyes were amber and rimmed in red.

“Thomas Redcap,” I whispered and the name unlocked the gate to my memories. “Mom,” I whispered again as I remembered everything. I’d been saved from that creature in the water by a monster. 

The man stared at me and when he spoke, his accent was stronger. “Since I saved your life, I don’t mind us being on a first name basis, but what do you know of a redcap?” He said it like it was a thing, not a name. “It's strange you should be attacked by L’Inconnue, a creature of the old world. Stranger still that I should feel compelled to come here at all. What are you, then? A little
bana-bhuidseach
meddling in powers too big for herself?” His shadow blocked the setting sun.

The sun!

Scrambling to my feet, I pulled the urn out of my purse and fumbled to unlatch the lid. It released with a soft click, but then I hesitated. What if that thing down there was waiting for me to throw the ashes, scattering them like fish food for her pale mouth to gobble up?

One glimpse of the sky told me I had to decide fast. Hoping I was doing the right thing, I opened the lid and heaved the urn into the air as high and as far as I could. The dying rays of the sun flashed off the metal latch as the box dropped into the lake and sank out of sight.

“Viviane!” Thomas Redcap cried.

Searing pain assaulted me and for the second stupid time in two stupid months, everything went completely black.

CHAPTER FIVE

It was cold. A tight band restrained me around the waist and my knee was sore and hitting against something hard.

“So we’re awake now, are we?”

There was a flash of dazzling white terror, but then my eyes adjusted to the gloom and I was able to see and think again. I was cold because my clothes and hair were damp and the air-con of the Celica was pumping out frosty air into my face. I was wearing my seat belt and my knee was knocking against the door on the sore spot where it had connected with the tree in the lake. Moving my legs a bit, I could feel my purse and sandals on the floor at my feet.

There was still a faint glow on the horizon and I could see quite clearly that Thomas Redcap was driving my car.

I pushed myself up out of my slumped position. “What did you do to me?”

Redcap chuckled. “Sorry love, but don’t blame me. You went down like a stone. It's lucky for both of us I caught you before you fell back in the lake. I bundled you up in here to take you home.”

Anger mixed with fear was a surprising pale persimmon. “How do you know where I live? Have you been stalking me?”

“I checked your wallet for your address. You know, I’m getting a little offended at being treated like the villain here. After all, five minutes with you and I end up tussling with L'Inconnue de la Seine, and that’s someone I’d rather stay clear of, thank you very much. And then you repay my gallantry by throwing Viviane’s bloody ashes into the bloody lake! So what I want to know is who the hell are you and what do you want from me?” His hands were gripping the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles were white.

I remembered those hands. I remembered everything. “I saw what you did, you psycho! You . . . you . . . defiled my mother’s body! You ate her skin!” Remembering it made my stomach heave and I forced myself to breathe slowly through my nose. How could I have forgotten what this man did to her?

“What are you talking about?” I was thrown hard against the passenger door as Redcap swerved off the road and skidded onto the soft shoulder.

“My mother!”

“Your mother? Are you talking about Viviane?”

“Of course I am! I’m Rhiannon Lynne. And quit changing the subject! I saw you! I was there when you did it, only . . . I didn’t remember until now. . .”

Well that sounds lame.

Redcap took off his hat and tossed it on the dash. “Morgan put you up to this. She’s trying to ferret out Viviane’s secrets.”

Morgan. Goth Barbie’s slutty older sister.

“Morgan’s my aunt,” I said as I remembered that too.

A bark of hard laughter. “Sweet Auntie Morgan—do you expect me to buy that?”

“That’s what she told me. She said she was Mom’s sister.”

“Viviane and Morgan are sisters all right, but that doesn’t say anything about you. Maybe I should just turn you over to the police and let them sort it out. Was it some kind of prank? See if you could steal something valuable and dump it?”

“I was there. I saw you take Mom’s skin and eat it!” I pressed on. “You called Morgan ‘Morgana the Fair and Perilous’, which ticked her off.  You said some guy named
Kernoonos
wanted to know the things Mom had hidden. I was there!”

Redcap drew a long breath. “So the walls did have ears that day, though I would never have guessed it was you,
mo leanabh
. Morgan hid you well. Or perhaps you did it yourself, eh? I didn’t see you at the lake until I was right on top of you.”

“Maybe you were too busy doing something else like, I don’t know, eating my dead mother’s skin, you pervert!”

The man slammed the palm of his hand hard against the steering wheel. It reminded me I was trapped in a car on a lonely road with someone I was very sure was completely and totally dangerous.

And I mouthed off at him and called him a psycho. Haven’t I watched enough movies to know you never, ever tell the villain you’re on to him?

His voice was low and soft. “Don’t make the mistake of comparing me to a common flesh-eater. I’m the last of my kind. I preserve the Great Ones of my race when they pass on. I have within me something essential of Viviane herself. Because of what I did, she will never be lost to us.”

I stared at him without responding while I calculated the odds of getting to the phone in my bag before he could stop me.

Redcap sighed and shook his head. “All right then, I don’t know why I care, but I’ll prove it to you.” He scratched at the shadow of his beard. “About nine years ago, Viviane was careless. She’d been keeping a low profile, but thought she was finally safe. On a whim, she decided to go to the movies for the first time. She’d never had much interest before, but someone—a child— had been pestering her to go.” He paused. “It was you. I can see you through her eyes. You look happy.” He snorted. “Skinny too. And in need of a hairbrush. Anyway, not long after the movie started, Viviane had a strong feeling of danger.”

I thought of the silver-haired man. I’d only seen him that one time, but I knew Mom was always watching for him.

Redcap whistled through his teeth. “She was afraid. I can see it in her face. I can feel the echo of it inside me. I would never have thought Viviane would be afraid of anything. She dragged you out.” He paused and frowned. “She said something to you, something I can’t quite capture.” I remembered.

Rhiannon, listen to me. We cannot be seen. Hide in the shadows and be still and silent.

The man cocked his head and snorted as if he could see it all on the windshield in front of him. “The way you’re glaring at her, well, let’s just say that few in this world have ever dared to look at Viviane that way. The next morning, she went to a bakery and brought back something to leave on your nightstand for when you woke up . . . something small . . .”

“A french
macaron
,” I whispered.

“Yes, that’s it. She knew the confection was your favorite, but there was still so much she didn’t understand—like why the movie with its sound and light and laughing children was even important to you. I can feel she wanted to make you happy—that she tried—but she didn’t know how. You were a creature she never truly understood.”

My eyes filled with tears. “How do you know all this? Did she tell you?”

“I hadn’t seen or even heard of Viviane in an age of the world. She is in me now.”

I rubbed my eyes. “Right, you ate her skin and now you know everything she ever did. Do you think I’m stupid?”

The corners of his mouth twitched. “Perhaps, since it seems you have no idea whatsoever who Viviane was. Maybe there’s a land where the spirits of my kind dwell after death, but I keep some part of them here in this world, within myself.”

“That’s crazy!”

Redcap didn’t respond. Shifting the car into gear with a jerk that rattled the windows, he drove back onto the road. Shivering, I switched off the AC with a snap. Had he fixed it? It was a reassuring thought that maybe he wasn’t planning on raping and murdering me if he’d gone to the trouble of fixing my car.

Maybe he just really likes my car.

I contemplated the man. Except for his eyes, he seemed normal: handsome, well-dressed, older. How much older, it was difficult to tell. Not as much as I’d originally thought. I couldn’t pin down anything exact about him at all.

And I have to admit if you ignore the whole eating my mom’s skin thing, he’s been a perfect gentleman.

“I guess I should thank you for saving me from that thing in the lake. And for driving me home too.” A thought occurred to me. “How will you get your own car back?”

“I don’t have a car.”

That’s weird.

“And you’re welcome. For the air-conditioning too, I might add.”

“You did fix it! Why?”

Redcap was silent for so long that I didn’t think he was going to answer. “I don’t like broken things,” he said finally.

We drove for a while in silence and I began to relax a little. “So what was that thing at the lake? You called it a name—Connie something.”

“L'Inconnue de la Seine,” he corrected.

“Whatever. What was it?

He shrugged. “A story. A legend. In the 1880's, a girl’s body was found in the river Seine in Paris. A common enough result of either murder or suicide, but this one was strange. She wasn’t decayed and bloated as she should have been after her time in the water, and she’d drowned with a smile on her lips. Touched by her beauty, someone at the morgue made a plaster cast of her face.” He chuckled. “More touched by the desire to make a buck or two, he began selling copies. In a few years the girl’s death mask was a common decoration on the walls of the living rooms of Europe. Do you know CPR?”

“I had a demonstration during a baby-sitting course.”

A waste of time since no one’s ever called me up and asked me to baby-sit their kid.

“Then you’ve seen her before. The man who invented the CPR dummy used her face as his inspiration.”

“That’s creepy, but it doesn’t explain anything.”

“Doesn’t it
mo leanabh
? There will always be foolish romantics ready to fall in love with beautiful dead things.”

“But it was real!”

Redcap glanced at me before returning his attention to the road. “Of course it was real. Fools who worship objects never stop to think about the power they’re giving them. But then, how could they know the body they dredged from the river was a goddess.”

“A goddess,” I squeaked.

“She was known by the Gauls and the Celts as Sequana, the goddess of the Seine, but when her worshippers abandoned her, she faded and died. This new generation bestowed adoration upon her image, wrote love poems to it, and gave it the kiss of life every day. That was enough to restore her, but it changed her too. Clawing her way out of whatever common grave her body had been dumped into, she was reborn as L'Inconnue de la Seine—the unknown one of the Seine. The image of her face has spread through the world and now she’s no longer bound to her river.”

I had to swallow before I could speak. “Why was she at the lake?”

He shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but his face looked concerned. "She must have been drawn by Viviane’s ashes as I was. They are alike in some ways after all.”

“What do you mean?”

Redcap sighed as he took the red baseball cap off the dash and put it back on. “Don’t you get it, lass? Just like the original Sequana, Viviane was a creature out of myth and legend.”

“You’re crazy. My mother is dead. Because of you and Morgan, I lost my memories for an entire summer. I want to know what’s going on!”

When the man didn’t answer, I sat back in frustrated silence. After a couple of minutes, we drove through Windfield’s gate and I pointed the way to the smaller road leading up to my house. He pulled in front, turned off the engine, and handed me the keys. With the headlights off and clouds now covering the moon, I could barely see him, and when he spoke, his voice was low and angry.

“
Mo leanabh
—do you know what it means?” Redcap didn’t wait for me to respond. “It means my child in Scottish Gaelic. My mum used to call me that when I was little. But are you just an innocent child? How could you claim kinship with Viviane and not know what she was? How can you be ignorant of the world as it really is,
mo leanabh
?” The impossible red circling his irises burned.

“I don’t understand anything that’s happening to me,” I whispered.

Redcap cursed quietly and got out of the car. I hurried to follow him.

“Rhiannon,” he said and his voice was now gentle, “I don’t know who or what you are, but there’s something I know for a truth—you are not Viviane’s daughter.”

“What do you mean? Wait!” I cried.

But he had turned and slipped away into the darkness.