Seaspun Magic (3 page)

"Oh," Arianne swallowed quickly, trying to cover her dismay, "it...it's nothing, just a bauble. Please don't worry about it."

Reassured he hadn't done something unforgivable, he was drawn back to the crystal shimmer. "Where did you get it?"

"Oh, um..." She groaned to herself, wondering what to say to best allay his interest. The truth, Arianne supposed… "My mother owns a little magic shop. She ordered it for me from a catalog."

"'A catalog'? A magician's catalog..." he mused, and another smile slid over the curved line of his mouth. "That I'd like to see."

"I doubt you'd be interested in a collection of newts' eyes and rabbit hats."

"'Rabbit hats'?"

"Yes, you know, the top hat with the bunny inside that keeps popping out." She sounded properly bored, she hoped.

"'Newts' eyes'?"

Arianne sighed, her aggravation complete. She snapped, "Rock candy, actually!"

"Could I get one of those crystal balls if I wanted one?"

"Mm-hm. You could get a quarter pound of swamp frogs, too, if you cared to," she added sarcastically, then suggested, hoping the offer would keep his mouth shut, "Would you like a cookie?"

He eyed them skeptically. "Gee, I don't know."

"For heaven's sake, those are chocolate chips, not.. .not—" Arianne gulped down a spate of temper. If only he had called before coming!

"Not liver lips?" he finished for her, grinning. He laughed easily, she noticed, unlike her, and right then his green eyes were laughing at her, tempting her to smile back, challenging her to relax and enjoy their conversation.

She supposed she was probably taking things too seriously. It was just that she wasn't used to company any more, or to total strangers traipsing through her house. Easing slightly, she took a deep breath and tried to smile in what she hoped was a welcoming way. If only she weren't so self-conscious, or at least, so conscious of him.

"Come along," she ordered, picking up the tray and moving to the kitchen door. "I'll settle you in the living room with your coffee—" she saw the regretful look he gave the kitchen table with its inviting chairs, and briefly felt most inhospitable "—while I make sure everything's ready for you upstairs." He hesitated, but then fell into step behind her.

She felt as though he were looming over her. Gritting her teeth, she straightened her shoulders and carried on down the hall. A line had to be drawn somewhere, and as he was in her home as a customer, it was best to keep things businesslike. Leaving him in the kitchen with Rae while she went upstairs just didn't seem right. He'd be sure to poke around, or fool with the crystal ball, and even though she sensed he was safe enough, there was something about him that made her doubtful.

Without a word he followed her back down the hall and into the living room at the front of the house. She placed the tray on a small table by a matching armchair and hassock, cozily arranged beside the fire, and turned to see him standing there behind her, watching her steadily, as if she were an animal in the zoo. A stiff shiver of irritation tickled up her spine. Why should he be looking at her like that? The situation was too awkward for words. She slid past him, cracking a faint, perfunctory smile before disappearing. He calmly watched her all the while.

No doubt he thought her somewhat peculiar, living in this great big old house in the trees all by herself with only her baby and a huge gypsy crystal. Damn. The rabbit was out of the hat now, and all she could do was trust he wouldn't be in the local pub first thing tonight, blabbing about his landlady's absolutely gigantic crystal ball.

No one in town knew her or anything about her except Jill, who had seen her do things such as picking up the telephone before it rang. But having sworn not to tell a soul, Jill kept the secret to herself. Could he also be trusted? But what could he tell, she reminded herself; she hadn't done anything. Still, if he'd seen the tarot cards on the table— But wasn't it normal to have such paraphernalia around, seeing as her mother owned a magic shop? That her mother was a medium need not come up in conversation.

Arianne was up the stairs two at a time. There were five bedrooms on the second floor, plus the spacious old bathroom, tiled in white and royal blue. Which bedroom would she give Leo Donev?

She ended up choosing the one opposite the staircase, not so much because it was farthest from hers, but since it was almost as big and had a sea view. It also boasted the best bed and the most comfortable mattress. Whisking back and forth, she brought in a couple more chairs and another small chest so that his room wouldn't look quite so bare. Continuing the raid on the other bedrooms, she exchanged the braided rug for a bright rag model and collected extra pillows and cushions and a reading lamp for the table.

At last his room was transformed into a habitable place, crisp sheets turned back against the bedspread, pillows plumped against the headboard, soap and royal-blue towels laid out on the oak washstand. Some dried flowers borrowed from her bedroom stood jauntily on the windowsill, defying the cold bluster outside. Looking out to sea for a second, Arianne could just make out the curl of whitecaps foaming in the moonlight.

Satisfied she'd done her best, she left to return downstairs, but at the stairs remembered her lingerie in the bathroom and bolted to retrieve it. With one arm full of lace and fluff and the other cradling a yellow rubber ducky and a little straw basket of cosmetics, she almost collided with her guest. He had just gained the top of the stairs, a suitcase in either hand.

Brought up short, she accidentally squeezed the duck, and it squealed sharply.

"You should have left it in the tub for me," he suggested. He was smiling again, sort of lopsidedly, rather lazily.

"Rae sleeps with it."

"In that case..." He shrugged one elegant shoulder.

"Your—your room is this way." Pointing to the right, Arianne realized she was pointing with a handful of panties, and hastily dropped her hand, absolutely hating Jill at that moment.

She turned away toward her bedroom. She could feel him looking after her before he swiveled to go the other way to find his room.

Her next immediate problem was what to do with him while she had her dinner. Should she offer him some, and if so, how much should she charge? Or did Jill's bed and breakfast include dinner, too? "Unprepared" was an understatement!

Should her guest demand his rightful dinner, Arianne started hunting through her fridge in search of supper fare. She kept one eye on Rae, who was toddling about, and racked her brains for an exciting menu that could be concocted from a particularly unexciting bunch of leftovers. She was still down on her heels staring dejectedly at the contents, when her guest appeared in the kitchen doorway.

"I'm going out for a while."

"Oh, all right."

He waited politely for a second, then added a little dryly, "Do you think I could have a key?"

She was glad when the front door closed behind him. Looking out, she saw him heading down the hill toward the fort below. Through the briars there was a path that plunged to the beach. Once down on the sand one could go either way, left into the fort, or right, the long way around to town.

Why had he come, she wondered. To stroll on the beach after dark? What was he supposed to be recuperating from? Not a physical disorder, obviously, but a mental one, perhaps? Was he stress-worn from a dizzy executive position? Were his spirits down? She couldn't quite accommodate either alternative.

That easy grin of his certainly did not indicate harassment. And his clear pale eyes were unclouded. A healthier human she hadn't seen in a long time. Maybe he was just taking a rest. She could empathize with someone wanting to be left in peace for a few days, un-harried by phone calls and doorbells. There was a time when those shrill rings had interrupted her life continually; they had torn her marriage apart—

After he left she suddenly didn't feel like dinner, and instead sat staring into space. Rae began to doze against her shoulder. The house felt uncannily still and the wind unusually mournful.

She put the baby to bed, reading to him awhile, even though he didn't understand much of what she said. She'd heard reading to babies accustomed them to the sound of words and the rhythm of language. This was supposed to help them learn their ABC's. The tip made sense to her and reading seemed to soothe Rae to sleep, so she read him a fairy tale or a poem every night. Tonight's narration was a poem, "The Pirate Don Dirk of Dowdee." With the waves crashing in the distance and the wind soughing through the pines, the poem made suitable reading material. Rae was sound asleep before the third verse was done.

Arianne wandered through the house, collecting anything that might give Leo Donev the wrong idea. Nothing more should stoke the flicker the crystal ball had sparked. But the cards and the crystal could be hidden—out of sight, out of mind—whereas there was nothing she could do about her secret. It was rather like having freckles. No amount of vanishing cream made either trial go away. Not that she had ever had freckles, but Jill had informed her how she felt about them, and Jill's diagnosis matched her feelings toward her sixth sense exactly.

Yet freckles were harmless— ESP could be alarming. At best it was a nuisance.

To her marriage it had been the coup de grace. Of course Reggie liked her to help him wheel and deal using her powers, but he didn't like her to help anyone else. After the wedding she'd agreed to give up her thriving practice in the back of the magic shop.

Clairvoyance and precognition were the scientific terms for what she did to relocate everything from missing pets to missing persons. She read fortunes, too, but didn't really enjoy it, for fear of something dreadful or sad ahead for the customer. How could she say to an eager, hopeful face that, "No, so-and-so doesn't love you anymore and never will, and wait, next week will be even worse..." and then charge the poor soul ten dollars! Arianne left fortune-telling and the spirit world to her mother.

She stuck to the simpler, straight question-and-answer mode. Specific questions only, not ones such as, "What's out there in the universe?"

Four times she had helped an insurance firm with uncertain claims, and on three occasions the police came with particulars. Most of her clientele were locals, friends and the usual trickle of curious parties.

Then she married Reggie, and everything came to an abrupt end. Her career was something she had to give up if she wanted him, and she'd been fully aware of her choice. Her mother, of course, couldn't abide Reggie, but, then, she'd never been chummy with Mrs. Sutherland, either. As both mothers-in-law kept repeating, "Politics and magic don't mix!"

Then one morning the young detective from the insurance agency came to the house begging for her help. Her part in the case would be kept utterly quiet, he promised, even lowering his voice secretively. But the matter was urgent. A claim was to be paid the following day, and he was at his wit's end for proof that it was phony, which he strongly felt it was. Plus, he hadn't been doing so well at work lately; he desperately needed to crack this case.

One job led to another and another, and then the insurance detective wasn't her only client anymore. Relay of information had to be conducted clandestinely, of course, and nowhere near the house; she was adamant about that. The intrigue of it, while abhorrent to her some days, on others considerably brightened a sometimes dull existence. The risk she was taking was huge. She rationalized that it was for a good cause, but she knew if she was caught the outcome would be ruinous.

Her husband would hate her for jeopardizing his political life; her mother-in-law would hate her for being a blemish on his perfect record. And if word actually leaked out to the public, well, Arianne would be extinguished in their cross fire.

And that was about what happened, except that the public annihilated her first. Then Reggie and his mother learned about her perfidy and were infuriated that they were the last to know. Suffice it to say that Arianne went up in a puff of smoke.

Right from the beginning her last case had been a disaster. It had started so badly, with her would-be client accosting her in the grocery store, demanding help in finding a will the woman's sister had apparently lost. Heads turned when Arianne gasped a horrified, "Leave me alone!"

She convinced everyone the lady was just a crackpot on the loose. The woman followed her home. Put on edge by her intensity and scared to death Reggie or one of the maids would discover them, Arianne tried desperately to get rid of her. She suggested the woman go to the police if the missing will was such an important document.

Three days later, in the evening, Mrs. Sutherland had just walked in the front door, when this plague of a woman sneaked her way into the back. Arianne couldn't help her and didn't want anything to do with her. She pleaded with the woman to call the police and leave her out of it. At last the unhappy creature left, without having aroused the household to her presence, and Arianne thought she'd had the sheer luck to escape detection.

But the next morning the reporters were leaning on the doorbell, screaming for interviews. Her would-be client's sister had not lost the will but had been kidnapped. Instead of going to the police with the ransom note, the woman went seeking aid elsewhere—to Arianne! And realizing that a kidnapping case would be reported immediately, she'd made up a phony story about a will, hoping Arianne would "see" the sister, anyway, and guide her to the captive. Due to the delay in getting the police involved, the sister met an unfortunate demise in a smashup at the end of the car chase between her kidnappers and the police who were attempting her rescue.

The story made such dramatic news that the media snatched it up and chewed it over and over, from every angle. Somehow—she wasn't sure how—Arianne got to be the hex of the piece, and responsibility for the sister's death was laid at her feet. The doubtful merit of high-speed car chases was discussed briefly, but the brunt of the story focused on the unusual element—Arianne Sutherland, the medium's daughter. "A beguiling young witch in her own right," one gossip rag described her.