Eternity: Immortal Witches Book 1 (The Immortal Witches) (31 page)

Wait, someone was there. Hands, cool and soft on his forehead. For just a moment he saw Raven’s face in the glow of a candle, saw her hair, tumbling freely over her shoulders. “‘Tis you, lass,” he whispered in a brogue not his own. And then he realized that it couldn’t be her, because Raven was dead.

Dead. No, that wasn’t right, but even as he thought that, the images faded from his mind. He wasn’t on a boat anymore, and her hands were not on his skin, nor was she soothing away his fever. No. The hands on him now were hard, strong, callused ones. And he struggled against them.

In front of him was a gallows, and upon it he saw Raven, with her mother beside her, and his own father standing with his gnarled hand on the lever. “Do you confess?” his father demanded.

“My soul is less stained than yours, Nathanial Dearborne. You’re a murdering thief. You enjoy the harm you cause. You stole my mother’s cauldron.” Raven said those things, and Duncan sensed he was mixing her words together with more recent ones. But it didn’t matter. His father’s hand closed around the lever.

“Nay!” Duncan screamed. “I willna watch her die!” But he heard the horrible groan of the hinges, and the sudden slam of the trapdoor flinging open, slamming downward. He even heard the snap of delicate bones when the two women plummeted to their deaths.

And then he was standing there in the snow, gathering Raven’s broken body into his arms, cutting the filthy rope away from her bonny neck, kissing her hair, her face. He couldn’t believe the force of the pain that engulfed him. He felt empty inside, crippled, devastated. He’d lost her. Lost her!

“Dinna die,” he whispered hoarsely. “You canna die, Raven, I love you.”

Her body stirred, then, and he brushed the hot tears from his eyes to look down at hers, and saw them open. “Don’t cry, my love,” she whispered. “See? I’m not dead.”

He felt his heart leap in fear. Sitting up in bed his eyes flew open wide, and he drew in fast, open-mouthed gasps in an effort to catch his breath. His skin beaded with cold sweat, and real tears burned paths on his face.

“Damn!’’ He flung back the covers, put his feet on the floor–not far away, since his bed was just a mattress–and then leaned over, elbows braced on his bent knees. “Damnation, lass, what’re you doin’ to me?” Then he clapped a hand over his mouth, for he’d shouted the words in some other man’s voice. The accent...Scottish and archaic and....

“What’s the matter with me?” he whispered in his own voice.

Her. That was what. It was all her. Raven St. James. What he could do about that, he didn’t know. Was she really some kind of witch? Could she possibly have powers he never would have believed in? Making him obsessed with her? Making him think of her ahead of his own father, for God’s sake? Subconsciously, at least.

Right, right. And making him dream crazy dreams and wake up speaking with an accent. It wasn’t even possible.

But some small part of his mind didn’t believe that.

All right, all right, enough. There was a library in town. First thing tomorrow he’d go there and read up on this nonsense. He’d find out once and for all if there was such a thing as magic, or witchcraft, or whatever she called it. And then he would confront her, armed with at least a small amount of knowledge, and he’d tell her to stay the hell out of his life. And out of his father’s life.

And most of all, out of his mind.

Chapter 17

I need to see him. Alone. Without worrying about that bastard Nathanial bursting in on us at any moment.” I paced, as I’d done most of the night, wringing my hands and wondering if anything I could say or do would ever make a difference, when I could see so clearly the feeling in Duncan’s eyes for that bastard. He cared for Nathanial. Dearborne had made him care. Learning the truth was going to break Duncan’s heart. And for that I hated Nathanial even more.

But Duncan had to know. He had to.

“I have to make him believe me,” I told Arianna.

“He doesn’t want to believe you.”

She sat at the table in our small breakfast room. The octagon-shaped area was completely surrounded by windows, and the sun streamed in like a warm yellow waterfall, drenching us both. Arianna bit into her bagel and sipped orange juice. I was too ill with tension to eat a bite.

Chewing, she mumbled, “As for you seeing him alone, that won’t be hard to arrange. I doubt it will help anything, though.” She swallowed, sipped, set the glass down. “I don’t remember Duncan being so dense last time.”

“He didn’t love the man last time, Arianna.” My stomach churned at the words, and in my mind I heard those I hadn’t spoken. Back then, it was me he loved.

I closed my eyes, ignoring the self-pitying voice in my head, talking above it to drown it out. “In those days everyone believed in witches and magic, though they barely knew the meaning of the words. Today no one does.”

“Today no one believes in anything” Arianna said. “It’s pathetic.” I sighed my agreement, while she tilted her head in thought. “But there’s nothing we can do about that. What I can do, though, is keep Nathanial out of your hair long enough for you to see Duncan alone. He probably isn’t going to listen, but I suppose you have to try.”

“Of course I have to try.”

She nodded. Rising, she moved closer to the glass windows that surrounded us, shielding her eyes and facing the sea. “Duncan is still at the lighthouse. And I don’t see any other boats there. Go on, pay him a visit before he decides to go into town to babysit his so-called father.”

I blinked, stopped my pacing, and studied her stance, the tilt of her head, the shape of her brow. Everything. In three centuries you begin to know a person too well to miss anything. Even the slightest change in Arianna’s breathing would have told me a tale.

“You won’t confront him,” I said, looking hard at her. “You won’t even let him know you’re there.”

“Not unless it looks as if he’s heading out to interrupt you. And then, I swear, I’ll make it casual. Public, even.”

“You won’t challenge him?” I asked, suspicious.

“He wouldn’t take me up on it even if I did, Raven. The man has an agenda, and I’m not on it. Not yet, anyway.”

I believed her, and nodded at last. “All right. Now is as good a time as any, I suppose.” I glanced down at my clothes. Unremarkable. Jeans, a snug black T-shirt with a flannel shirt pulled over it in deference to the autumnal chill in the air.

“Don’t even think about changing. He might leave while you primp. He already left the island once this morning. Thank goodness he came back in short order. You might not be so lucky next time.”

I sighed, shaking my head.

“Go, will you?”

I knew she was right. I was only putting it off out of fear, really. His reactions–well, so far they’d fallen short of what I’d hoped for. I didn’t expect they were going to improve now that I’d accused his father of murder and not only claimed to be a witch, but informed Duncan he was one, too. He probably thought I was a lunatic. And goodness only knew what kinds of lies his father had told him after we'd left that horrible place yesterday.

Arianna looked at me, making her eyes big and impatient.

“All right.” I sighed. “I’m going.”

My big sister smiled, touched a hand to her blade, and then got to her feet.

We parted at the door, Arianna heading into the small garage where we kept our car–an old Volkswagen Beetle we’d both grown too fond of to replace–while I walked toward the cliffs. We rarely used the Bug while we were in residence out here. Walking to and from the village was so much more pleasant, and less damaging to the earth and the air. But I supposed in this case Arianna felt she might need the advantage of speed on her side. She could beat Nathanial back here and signal me if anything went wrong.

I hoped nothing would.

The path began at the top of the cliffs, wandered at angles down them, zigging this way and that way and finding the shallowest route. As I started my descent I heard the VWs deep, froggy-voiced motor come to life, growl a few times, then fade as it moved away toward town.

The path was old. It had been here longer than I, and, Aunt Eleanor had confided, longer than she, as well. I often wondered whose feet had first trodden here, and if they’d been feet at all, or perhaps paws or hooves.

Sand-covered stone lay beneath my feet, slippery and gritty all at once. A chill breeze blew salty moisture onto my face, dampening the flannel shirt I wore with its misty droplets. I could smell the sea, taste the salt when I licked my lips, and feel it leaving wet sloppy kisses on my hair.

At the bottom my boat sat on the narrow strip of sand, dry and safe. I pushed it into the water and hopped aboard, then, crouching in the stern, tugged the rip cord and started the motor. All that remained then was to steer the little craft as the propeller whirled and pushed me forward. I sat down, felt the dampness of the sea creeping through the denim of my jeans, wished I’d brought something dry to sit on.

And then the shore was fading behind me and Duncan’s island grew larger, closer. I bit my lower lip as I stared ahead, wind blowing my hair back and chilling my face until my nose went numb and my cheeks burned with cold.

He heard my approach. I knew it a moment later when he stepped out onto the front step and stood there, hands deep in his pockets as he watched me all the way in. His face, so beautiful, just as it always had been to me. Those deep brown eyes, and dark, thick brows. His full lips and strong jawline.

But that beloved face was expressionless this morning. It told me nothing of how he felt at seeing my approach. And I wondered if perhaps he might not know how he was feeling about that.

When I killed the motor and stepped out, he came down to the beach. Bending beside me, gripping the squared-off nose of my vessel, he tugged it up, out of the water. Then he stood facing me, and I straightened and turned to face him in return.

“I decided last night to tell you to leave me alone,” he said. No greeting. No welcome. Just that.

“Did you?”

He nodded, his eyes roaming my face like a touch. “I can’t do it, though. I’ve been rehearsing the words from the moment I saw you start down that path, to the boat, and the whole time you were crossing. But it didn’t help.”

“I’m glad of that.”

He sighed, lowered his head, no longer looking at me. “Raven, I got some books on this witchcraft thing. This morning. Now I haven’t had time to read a lot, but–” He broke off, perhaps because I was smiling at him, slightly, but smiling all the same. “What?”

“Why?” I asked him. “Why did you go to get the books, Duncan?”

He took his time about answering, licking his lips, looking skyward as if for help. “Because I thought you were crazy, and I didn’t want to think that, so I thought if I understood what you were talking about, I might see that...that it made some kind of sense.”

I nodded. “And not because you were curious about your own abilities,” I said softy.

“I don’t have any abilities.”

“Oh.”

He looked down at his feet, quiet for a long moment, while I stood, waiting, knowing.

“Sometimes I know who’s calling when the phone rings.” He shrugged, looking up again. “Sometimes I reach for it before it rings without even realizing it. And then it does.” He shook his head as if to negate everything he said. “But that’s nothing.”

“Of course.”

“I mean, everyone does that. It’s like when you hum a song and then turn on the radio and it’s playing. Or when you wish the guy ahead of you on the highway would change lanes just before he does.”

“Or when you mentally tell the red light to turn green and it happens,” I added with a nod.

“Exactly.”

“Exactly,” I repeated.

That stuff happens to everyone.”

I didn’t speak. He looked at me, as if awaiting my confirmation, my agreement. I met his eyes and shook my head. “No, Duncan. It doesn’t.”

He looked away, hands plunging into his pockets. “Yeah, it does,” he said. “It has to.”

I was trying to go carefully, gently. He didn’t seem ready for any of this, and I was pushing it on him. But I didn’t have a choice. “It’s my fault you’re having trouble accepting all of this, Duncan. I didn’t explain things as well as I could have.”

He shook his head. “Maybe not, but it’s all right now. I think I understand. There’s nothing supernatural going on here. And as for witchcraft, according to the books, it’s pretty much just a belief system based on–”

“No.”

He looked at me, brows knit in frustration.

“For some, that’s all it is–those things you’ve found in the books. A religion, a belief system one can study and learn and adopt. But those things are not what it is to us, Duncan. We’re different. We were born different. Witches, yes, but not like all those others practicing the Craft. Most of them don’t even know we exist, for it’s a secret we guard of necessity. We’re born with something extra, senses beyond the five. Weak, unpracticed, raw, but real.”

I was losing him. I could see the skepticism in his eyes even now, but like a fool I rushed on, because it had to be said. “We’re immortal, Duncan.”

“Immortal.” He closed his eyes and bent his head. “Dammit, dammit, dammit,” he whispered. His voice was harsh, raspy, emotional. Then he looked up again, his hands gripping my shoulders gently as he probed my eyes, and his were worried, filled with some kind of concerned sympathy that was all wrong. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I told myself it did, that I should stay the hell away from you, but I can’t do that, Raven, no matter how....” He stopped himself, closed his eyes briefly, then went on. “Listen to me. I have a wonderful therapist in Boston. He helped me beat my fear of heights, and the water thing, helped me deal with all the baggage my father has dumped on me over the years and–hell, he even helped me get rid of the dreams...” He stopped there, his voice trailing off as he frowned hard.

“Dreams?” I swallowed the hurt I’d felt at his insinuation that I was mentally unstable, and focused instead on Duncan. On his pain, his confusion.

“Damn, I’d forgot all about the dreams.”

I sighed at the way his face paled, just slightly, and closed my hand around his, turning him, beginning to walk beside him along the shore. ‘Tell me about the dreams.”