Eternally Yours (6 page)

I looked at him, unable to reconcile this with the Daisuke of today.

“I worked for anyone,” Daisuke continued. “Traveling from town to town. I became morally weak, almost unable to tell right from wrong. It would have been far better for me to commit seppuku and spare the world my worthless existence, but that would have required me to recognize what I had become, and I… couldn’t. And of course, it wouldn’t have worked anyway. Just made a horrible mess.”

I looked down. I too had tried to kill myself before I knew I was immortal. My husband had died; my family had been destroyed; I lost the baby I was carrying. There had seemed no point in going on. But an immortal is forced to go on. And on.

“I didn’t age, didn’t die.” His voice was a monotone. “I believed I was too evil to be granted another life in which to live more usefully. I lost count of how many murders I committed, how many treacherous acts I visited on strangers. The years blurred together; each life I took less important than the one before.”

My throat got the familiar tightness I felt when emotions hit too close to my heart. I swallowed and focused on a wisp of hay that stuck out from a crack in the pen’s boards.

“Then one night I was approached by a messenger. He
wanted to hire me to kill the local lord’s two nephews, who were due to inherit their father’s land. If they were dead and the brother had no more children, then the lord would one day own the combined estates and become very powerful. The two sons were five and seven years old.”

Oh no, I thought, feeling his anguish. This was the person who I thought was the most advanced of all the students, the one who seemed the closest to achieving peace.

Kneeling, Daisuke picked up one of the barn cats and cradled it, stroking it softly. “That commission changed something in me,” he said. “I couldn’t do it, and it shocked me out of my miserable complacency. That day I gave away everything except the robe I was wearing and became a beggar, making myself the lowest of the low, the most humble of the unfortunates.”

I nodded sympathetically.

“One day, a monk in saffron robes came up to me. It was one of the monks who had taken me in, more than a hundred years before. An immortal himself, he had seen me as one when I was very small. I said, ‘Why did you never tell me?’ He said, ‘Because you never deserved to know.’ And he was right. But he took me in once more, and I began the long, painful path toward redemption. Eventually I met River. This is my fourth time here and the longest I’ve ever stayed—five years so far.”

“Holy moly,” I couldn’t help saying. Five years was a long freaking time in rehab.

“But you worry about your baggage—” Daisuke said, his face solemn. “Four years ago, a man came here to kill me.”

“Here to River’s Edge?” I asked.

“Yes,” Daisuke said. “He had suffered at my hands—one of the younger samurai I had bullied and tortured, almost a century before—and he came for retribution. He was immortal, obviously, and he’d spent a lot of his life looking for me, increasing his power for when he found me.” Daisuke’s voice trailed off.

“What happened?” I asked.

A thin, bitter smile surprised me. “He was still pissed. But he chose not to fight me one-on-one. Instead he bided his time and waited until I was in the hex barn—the one that was painted with a Pennsylvania Dutch hex pattern.”

I frowned. “There is no barn painted with a hex pattern.”

“Hiroshi locked me in the barn and set it on fire,” said Daisuke, ignoring me. “He set spells on the doors so they couldn’t be opened from the inside, even if we broke through the locks. He had planned it well—most of the household was at a local farmers’ market.

“Unfortunately others were in the barn with me. Asher, Jess, and two other students at that time, Ivan and Solidad. Soli raced up the ladder to the hayloft and jumped out the little window at one end. It was about twenty-five feet from the ground, and she broke a leg. Jess wouldn’t jump, and Asher wouldn’t leave Jess. So after Soli, I jumped, then Ivan, and we managed to finally put out enough of the fire
so we could axe our way through the doors. The rest of the building was completely aflame.

“We flung open the doors. Thick, choking smoke poured out. Inside, both Jess and Asher were unconscious from smoke inhalation. Three horses were already dead, and one’s lungs were so badly damaged by heat and smoke that he had to be put down. Soli’s leg was broken. Ivan’s hands were badly burned. Ivan and I were covered with burns. Hiroshi had disappeared.”

His face showed a wealth of regret and guilt and sorrow and horror, a mirror of how I had felt after following Incy to Boston.

“And that’s why there is no barn with a Pennsylvania Dutch hex symbol painted on the side,” he said. “And why we have only six horses in a ten-stall barn.” He straightened and put the cat down, then rolled his shoulders as though to roll away those years of torment. “So you see, Nastasya, you are not the only one who has drawn darkness to this place. And after you are gone, another person will come here. And he or she will be guilty. And have baggage.”

I was processing the tragedy of what he had described, but I looked up as he took a deep breath.

“And I think we’re late for breakfast,” he said, sounding more like himself. “And no doubt they’re waiting on that milk.” He held out his hand to me and I took it. I picked up the milk pail and we walked back to the house.

W
e had missed breakfast entirely, so I grabbed some bread and wrapped it around some bacon. I was shaken by Daisuke’s story—the parallels to my own life were unnerving, though I hadn’t gone around killing people. At least not on purpose. That set me to wondering if all—or maybe just most—immortals shared similar traits in the patterns of their lives. Was anyone born good and just stayed good, all along? Had anyone lived who hadn’t needed saving, eventually?

I was pondering this train of thought and heading back into the kitchen for more bacon when Asher came down the stairs.

“Oh, there you are. Thought you were hiding in your room.” He grinned, and I gave him a smarmy smile in return.

“I’m telling you!” Ottavio’s voice rang out from the library, and Asher and I both turned to look at the doors as if he might burst through them. We heard River’s much quieter murmurs, and then, “Always were you
insensible gibberish I couldn’t understand, old Italian, likely, words words
and you see where it has gotten you!”

Asher smiled at the doors, then turned back to me. “Anyway, lick the bacon grease off your fingers, grab your coat, and come with me. Time for a lesson.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Are you sure you want to teach the devil spawn any more magick? Aren’t you afraid I’ll turn you into a jackass? You can see what I’ve already done with
him
.” I motioned my head toward the parlor.

“You know there isn’t any devil, much less spawn of one,” Asher remonstrated. He pulled me toward the front door and handed me my coat. “Besides, I’m afraid Ottavio was like that long before you came on the scene.”

I knew I shouldn’t ask, but when has that ever stopped me? “How long have you and River been together?”

He held the front door open and we went out into a morning that had turned not mild but definitely less frigid.

“I’ve known River for about two hundred years,” he said, surprising me by answering. “And was in love with her since the first day. But she saw me as more of a brother type.”

I wrinkled my nose.

“Exactly,” Asher said, leading me toward the side yard. “We lost touch off and on, especially during World War Two. But right after the war, I found her in Italy. And we’ve been together since then.” He looked thoughtful. “Sixty-six years. It’s the longest I’ve ever gone steady with anyone.”

I laughed, then remembered hearing that Asher had been in Poland during the war and that he was Jewish. What had happened to him?

“Okay now,” he said, all business. “Today we’re going to practice spellcrafting. As you, I hope, know by now, focus and concentration are a crucial part of making successful magick. The quicker you can achieve a pure, focused state, the quicker you can craft magick—until it’s all second nature for you.”

“Okay.”

“Now, find something around here—anything—and use that to focus on,” he directed.

I looked around and saw piles of mushy leaves. And… okay, a twig. I bent over to get it and saw a chicken feather next to it. Focusing on a feather seemed all cool and Native Americany, so I picked it up and showed Asher.

“Fine,” he said. “Use the feather as a focal point, and sink into concentration the way we’ve been teaching you.”

“Then what?”

“Then craft a spell to make this walnut husk split open.” He held out his hand to reveal one of the katrillion walnuts we’d harvested last fall. My hands had been stained brown
for weeks. We’d hammered most of them out of their husks and shells, but not all.

“Split the husk open?” It was a round, dark thing, dry and wrinkled. Last autumn it had been green and slightly patterned like an orange.

“Yes.”

I opened my palm, and Asher placed the walnut in it. A spell to split a walnut husk. At first my mind went blank, and I tried to keep the panic off my face.

“Use the feather,” Asher said softly.

Oh, right. It was small, fluffy, speckled brown and white. Not as impressive as, say, a falcon’s feather. But I concentrated on it, praying for a spell to pop into my brain, fully formed and walnut-appropriate. Obviously it would be much easier to use a hammer here, but it seemed bad form to point that out.

Was I taking too long? Should I already have the spell together?

Come on, feather, speak to me.
Suddenly I wished I were holding my mother’s amulet, and I wanted to ask Asher if he’d fixed it yet. I bet I could split this shell wide open with
that
.

Concentrate. Breathe. Release all thought. Open yourself to the universe.
Anne’s quiet words came back to me.

And… the more I calmed down, the more I was able to push other thoughts out of my head, and the more my spellcrafting lessons came back to me. Without deciding to, I began to hum my mother’s song, the ancient tune of unrecognizable
words that she had used to call magick to her. But unlike her, I made pathways to channel magick
through
me, not
to
me, protecting the feather and everything around me so I wouldn’t take their magick from them.

The walnut grew heavy in my hand. It was the only thing I could see. My surroundings faded but also sort of melded with me so that the lines between us blurred. The feeling of power, of magick, rose up inside me, the familiar chrysanthemum of light and joy. I felt part of everything, and everything felt part of me. Including this walnut. I smiled. After that, all I had to do was think,
Split open, reveal yourself.
And the hard brown husk bloomed in my hand, peeling back like a fruit rind. I gasped in delight and saw the walnut shell break in two, showing the tan, convoluted nut inside.

I breathed in, and the crisp sounds of nature came back to me. I blinked, and Asher’s face was near, his brown eyes solemn.

Excited, proud, and way impressed with my newbie self, I held out the walnut. “It’s beautiful,” I said. “That was a beautiful spell. It felt so easy, once I got out of my head.” I beamed at him, waiting for him to clap me on the back and tell me how awesomesauce I was, how brilliant and advanced.

Instead, Asher coughed slightly and pointed off to the left.

My eyes widened as I saw a young maple sapling maybe ten feet away—that had been completely stripped of bark. Its bare, pale wood gleamed in the sunlight.

“Did I do that?” I squeaked. “I didn’t mean to. I made all its bark fly off?”

Asher nodded. “Did you remember to set up limitations?”

“Jeez, I guess not enough. I’m sorry.” And then I saw the chicken. River’s chickens ran loose through the yards during the day, being all free-range, and this chicken… had apparently wandered too close, during the spell? “Um… that chicken,” I said faintly. “It’s… naked.”

Asher nodded again, then captured the featherless, very indignant chicken and tucked it under his arm. “I’ll take it into the barn,” he said. “It can’t be outside till its feathers grow back.”

“Will they grow back?”

“I hope so,” said Asher.

“What about the tree’s bark?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I hope that comes back, too—if it doesn’t regrow soon, the tree will die.”

Well, now I felt like crap, my proud victory turned into an embarrassment. “I need more practice,” I said glumly. I know, right?

“You did very well, my dear.” I could hardly hear him over the squawking of the angry chicken. “You need practice, and you need to set up all boundaries of limitations, not just some of them. But you still did very well. We’ll practice again tomorrow, or this afternoon.”

I rubbed my forehead.

Asher and I were headed for the barn when we heard the
big-throated growl of a powerful engine coming up the driveway. This was something new and different, and we stopped to watch.

Sure enough, a neon-yellow, low-slung sports car pulled too fast into the unpaved parking area, sliding to one side and spewing gravel as it stopped a mere six inches from the red farm truck. The top-hinged door rose, and a dark-haired man unfolded himself from the car. He looked around with interest and with one hand removed his sunglasses.

“Daniel,” said Asher.

“Have you seen him yet?” Brynne practically hissed in my ear as we headed down to dinner.

“Only from a distance,” I said.

“Well,
mreow
,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows.

So another of River’s four brothers had decided to vacay here in rural Massachusetts. Excellent.

I’d slithered away while Asher and the naked chicken waited to welcome Daniel, and once inside I’d gone up to my room wishing I’d never have to leave it again. Just how dangerous was I? Could I be this bad without knowing it? What were these guys doing here?

When the dinner gong had sounded, Brynne had stopped by my room, and then I was on my way to what was no doubt going to be another intensely unpleasant dinner with the Two Horsebutts of the Apocalypse.