Changespell Legacy (20 page)

She knew they meant to be kind, that they were worried about her . . . a woeful woman waiting for her friend to show up, every word out her mouth making her seem odder than the one before, every passing moment increasing her worry . . . surely her friends would know to come look for her here. Surely they'd made it to the main parking lot safely once she'd distracted the ranger and they had had the wet nature trail to themselves. Surely they'd somehow gotten Ramble under control . . .

She shivered, trying to remember if she'd felt this sick after the first time the newly crafted world-travel spell had brought her here. Probably . . . she just hadn't known it. Hadn't known what this human form was
supposed
to feel like. That it shouldn't tremble like this, and that her vision shouldn't grey out when she stood up. That even weak human limbs shouldn't be rubbery beneath her.

With a tug to pull her sweatshirt sleeve down over her hand, she caught it in her fingers and rubbed the back of her covered wrist over her brow, trying to ease the ache there. When she looked up, the naturalist was heading toward her with purpose, and with the ranger on her heels.

"We've been talking," the woman said; her name tag, now that she'd removed her poncho, was readily visible.
Mary Carter
. Jess stared at it, strangely mesmerized, her thoughts foggy and drifting. Mary Carter crouched down to Jess's level; the ranger stood behind her, thumbs hooked into his belt, one moment too uncomfortable at the impending conversation to look directly at Jess, the next raking his gaze over the rain-darkened color of her hair, her larger-than-normal irises. The woman's skin around her eyes wrinkled more deeply, and she said, "We're not comfortable with the fact that you can't give us a contact number, and that you don't look well. We'd like to take you to a hospital."

Jess shook her head. "This is where my friends know to find me."

"It would be easier," the ranger said, "if you could tell us where to find
them
."

She could only shake her head again, trying not to let them see her shiver. Not shivers from being damp on this warm, humid spring day. Shivers from within, from a body too harshly wrenched from one state to another. If they thought she was truly sick, they'd never leave her alone. She said, "We are new to this spot. I don't know what road inn to use."

They exchanged a glance, and she wondered what she'd said that wasn't quite right this time, even knowing the way she formed her words alone might bring those expressions. "But this Mark fellow lives here," the ranger said. "That's what you told us. Don't you even have a last name? We'll look him up in the book."

She remembered the hugely thick book of thin pages and tiny print, and shook her head yet again.

Caution, this time. If they found his name in the book once, they could find it again. They could find
him
.

They might try to check up on her . . . they might tell someone else. They—the local peacekeepers and guards—might stumble across Ramble. And she knew from her early days here, from what had happened to the chestnut gelding turned red-headed man, what they'd do if they discovered Ramble.

They'd take him away. They'd put him in a small, closed-in space with no way to communicate with him, or to understand what he really needed. She shivered again, this time purely from memory.
The chestnut,
dead in the street . . .
"Jessie," said Mary Carter, "you aren't leaving us much of a choice. Your friends will know to check the hospitals when they don't find you here."

"No," Jess said, unable to hide a hint of panic this time. Her heartbeat pounded loudly in her ears, fast and uneven and somehow stealing the breath from her lungs.

The ranger reached down and took her upper arm, not an unkind grip but enough to draw her to her feet. "It's best this way . . . Mary and the park volunteers will be here for the rest of the afternoon—if your friends come looking, they'll learn you're at Marion General."

They'd ask her questions she couldn't answer, they'd find all that was strange about her, they'd take her to that iron-barred place where they'd kept the chestnut— "No!" she cried, trying to yank herself free, not caring that several people near their cars—locking doors, shucking raincoats, loading up with binoculars and water bottles—looked over to stare at her.

The woman said, "Bill, maybe we should let the police handle this—"

True panic gripped her even as she struggled to think through it, knowing if only her heart would stop racing and her legs didn't feel so weak she wouldn't be so scared and unable to stop herself from pulling against him—
just like the horse she was
, an astonishing revelation that made her laugh out loud with the absurdity of it all—something she shouldn't have done, she saw that right away. Saw the doubt flee from Mary Carter's face, and felt the ranger's fingers clamp more firmly on her arm. The laugh turned to a sob.

"Jess!"

A sweeter voice she'd never heard, instantly recognizable in spite of the time since she'd last heard it.

Deep and easygoing and always sounding like there was a smile behind it. "Mark!"

She found him by following the gazes of the naturalist and ranger, too rattled to place him on her own.

There, striding across the parking lot, more breadth to his shoulders than the last time she'd seen him but still with a carefree quality in his movement, even facing two uniformed park officials with a squirming handful of nearly hysterical— "Jess!" he said again, not so loudly this time, just making the point. He opened his arms slightly and the ranger looked at the naturalist; she gave the slightest of nods and Jess was free, sprinting gracelessly to throw herself at him with such force that he staggered, laughing.

But it was a quick laugh, and he ran a hand across her back and said, "Easy, there, Jess, everything's fine," in a way that told her everything
was
, that the others were safe—though he didn't neglect those two uniformed park officials, both of them coming across the brief strip of grass to join him. "I'm sorry," he said. "She's . . ." and he hesitated, finally adding, "a special child, if you know what I mean."

"She seems like more than that," Mary Carter said. "She seems ill. Not to mention
barefoot
."

"Lost the shoes again, eh?" Mark buffed the damp sweatshirt across Jess's back; she rested the side of her face against his windbreaker and—
just like the horse she was
—let herself rely upon his strength and confidence. "She's just scared," he told the naturalist. "She gets that way. I thought she was with a friend, or I never would have taken so long to get here."

"Mmm," said Mary Carter, not sounding entirely convinced.

But not arguing. Not talking about taking her to official places where people would ask questions and Jess wouldn't be able to answer them. Not stopping Mark as he guided her around in a clear intent to leave.

And as she let Mark lead her away, calling back thanks to the unconvinced naturalist and ranger, as she trusted in his feet to take them the right direction and his knowledge to reunite her with Carey and Dayna, some small part of her started thinking again.

Thinking about Ramble. That
he
had no one to trust, and no one to follow. He was here in this strange world at the behest of people he didn't even know . . . and he was truly alone.

Carey took an impatient glance inside the stall where Ramble slept off the effects of travel and changespell . . . not to mention a heavy dose of Valium. Unlike Jess, who had a sweetness in repose even when at her most horsey in nature, Ramble's strong-boned recalcitrance somehow came through despite his slack-jawed position in the fresh and deeply bedded stall. He lay as a horse on his side, twitching occasionally as though his fear and uneasiness had worked its way through the drug.

Thank the guides Mark had been able to bring the tranquilizer—and even that his mix-up in the timing between here and Camolen had made Dayna's somewhat panicked phone call from the park a necessity so he could grab the old dental visit prescription on his way out. By then Ramble had become irritated and balky, and Carey had twice twisted his ear to bring him back into a state of better manners, feeling a supreme
wrongness
about the need to do so to another man. He very much doubted they'd have gotten Ramble into Mark's battered vehicle without the drug, which had hit Ramble's stressed system fast and hard.

Now they just needed for him to wake up, so they could start working with him . . . so Carey could get a sense of just how long it would take before Ramble could convey something of what had happened to him. Jess was using single words within days, he'd been told, and very simple sentences soon after. But along with whatever boost the changespell had given her, Jess had had the benefit of a human-intensive upbringing . . . and Carey had had the habit of talking to her on the trail.

He doubted very much this changed palomino had any such advantage. For a moment, looking at the long, ragged flaxen-and-orange-streaked hair of the man inside the stall, looking at his rugged frame and exotic skin tones—more of a golden tan than Jess's smooth toasted brown skin—he very much doubted they could overcome the disadvantages the palomino's basic training gave them.

For a moment, he believed Jess had been right from the start . . . their journey here was nothing but folly.

But it was a short moment, brought on by stress and worry . . . Jess, gone off somewhere with the park naturalist, sick from the change and no doubt frantic with worry. Mark hadn't even gotten out of the car as Carey and Suliya dragged Ramble out; he'd peeled back out of the driveway with the tires spitting gravel, on his way back to the park to try to find her.

Dayna came down the barn aisle—a wide, airy aisle built to Jaime's specifications, with the indoor ring attached on one end and huge double doors facing the old farmhouse on the other, ten stalls on each side with several of them a huge, double stall such as the one Ramble now occupied. Clean white paint made it bright, and hunter-green trim turned it cheery. The hayloft and storage stalls filled the place with the scent of hay, and even without cleaning spells, Mark and his crew of manure movers kept the place fresh.

Jaime's pride and joy, whether she was in Camolen with Arlen or pursuing her career here in Ohio.

Carey had once blown out all the windows and panicked the horses into shell shock with a bungled spell . . . a decision that kept Jaime from ever fully trusting his judgment again.

In retrospect, he couldn't blame her.

In retrospect, he'd do it again.

And maybe he just had.

Dayna glanced around, double-checking the hay bales stacked across the aisle to block Ramble's end stall from view; Mark had already pinned a cheery sign on the other side to waylay boarders' questions: Hay Overshipment! Sliding double doors at the end of the aisle provided the only access to Ramble, and they'd already installed a chain and lock. She nodded satisfaction, then looked at the sleeping palomino.

"Good thing Jaime has this thing about dentists—we'd never have gotten him here without that Valium."

She sounded as wrung out as Carey felt. "God, I feel like I've run a marathon. Suliya is in the house sleeping it off. I don't see how Jaime does this so often."

"I don't think she does," Carey said. "The only time anyone used the first version of the spell was for the first travel here and back, and that first time out . . ." He trailed off, lost in the memories of the wild courier ride, the fall from the dry riverbed trail that had made him trigger the spell in the first place, wounded and already leaving Lady's saddle. No wonder he recalled little of his arrival here.

Dayna followed his thoughts. "Well, you were hardly in any shape to remember the details."

He gave her a look of exaggerated surprise at her understanding. "Better watch it. You're getting easy."

She rolled her eyes, entirely Dayna-like. "I'll have you know that phrase means something entirely different here, so I'll thank you not to use it when anyone else is around."

But Carey barely listened to her—focusing instead on the sound of tires crunching gravel.
Mark
.

And—he fervently hoped—
Jess
. He headed for the open barn doors, wincing at the unusual complaint of his body at the sudden movement after standing too long, and the sudden realization that neither Ohio nor world travel had been kind to his permanently damaged body.

But after a few steps his movement smoothed out. And the important thing—yes, as he came around the corner of the barn to the curving horseshoe driveway, he spotted Mark's car—and two people inside.

He broke into a jog, and when Jess spilled out the door of the passenger side, he was ready to catch her.

"Ramble," she said, at first making as if to barge past him and then looking from the barn to the house, uncertain which to head for. She gave him an anxious look, her hair in her face like a wild child and eyes to match. "Where is he? Did he calm? Did you all make it here all right? Is he well? I want to see him—"

He'd never seen her like this. Never.

"Jess," he said, barely garnering her attention before losing her again, her gaze going from house to barn to Carey himself, her hands gripping his arms with increasing urgency. He put his hands up, pushing her hair back and capturing her face in the same gesture—and holding her. "
Jess
."

She fastened her gaze on him, looking from one eye to the other. Searching. For what, he didn't know.

Firmly, he said, "Ramble is sleeping. He's fine. We're all fine. Suliya is sleeping. Dayna is in the barn watching Ramble. We're all safe, Jess—including you."

She whispered, "I thought they were going to take me away."

He hadn't known. He hadn't realized what he would put her through, bringing her back under these conditions.

No. He had. He just hadn't wanted to admit it.

He pulled her in close, wrapping his arms around her, rubbing her back.
Ninth Level fool.
And still he wasn't so sure he wouldn't do it again. Jaime was right, he thought, to withhold from him that last bit of trust. "Easy, Jess," he said, automatically falling back to her words. "Easy, braveheart. We've got you now, and you're not going anywhere."