Utterly Charming (23 page)

Nora thought of Max. Once upon a time, what they wanted and needed were the same. Then at some point, their interests changed. Their personalities changed. In ten short years.

But they hadn’t been soul mates. She had known that from the beginning. There had been none of that instant love, none of that instant knowledge, the books talked about. Only an attraction, a strong friendship, and then a separating.

“Do you believe in soul mates?” she asked Blackstone.

He continued staring over the balcony for a moment, then he turned to her and smiled faintly. “I’m afraid I do.”

Nora felt a pang in her heart so deep that she nearly gasped. She made herself blink and smile. “When Emma’s ready, I’ll tell her about Ealhswith’s plans. I’ll tell Emma what you did. Maybe then you can see her.”

That faint smile remained on his face. It was a distracted, almost sad look. “As I said, I have time. Now, I guess, Emma does too.”

Nora finished a last sip of her coffee and then stood. “Thank you for lunch,” she said, holding out her hand.

He rose, took her hand as if he were going to shake it, then turned it over in his own. His palms were warm and dry, their touch gentle. Slowly he bowed, just as she had once imagined him doing, and kissed her palm.

It was a strangely intimate gesture, and it sent a wave of desire through her that she tried desperately to ignore. He stood up, still holding her hand, then folded her fingers over the still tingling place where he had kissed her.

“You are an amazing woman, Nora,” he said. Their eyes met and held for a moment.

She was the first to break the gaze. She looked away, removed her hand from his but kept the fingers over the kiss, protecting it. She no longer trusted her own eyes to keep her own feelings secret. How many other women had looked at him with such desire? How many hundreds in all of those years? Only to know that he was bound to a woman he barely remembered?

“Thank you,” she said finally, looking up.

But he was already gone.

***

It took her a while to get to her car. She found, as she left the restaurant, that a lot of people watched her. They had apparently never seen the mysterious Alex Blackstone with a woman. A few members of the staff asked her trivial things, apparently to find out more about her, and she would have had them find Sancho, only she didn’t know what name he was using in this place.

After she left, she leaned against a tree for a moment, willing her heart rate to slow. She wasn’t sure what had happened in there, whether Blackstone had charmed her (but to what end?) or whether he’d been expressing a natural regret or whether he had meant every word he said.

It felt as if he had meant every word. But it might have felt that way anyway, if she’d been charmed.

She shook her head. He said he needed her to think for herself, and he hadn’t charmed her for that reason. Did that standard still apply? She thought so. No matter what kind of documentation Ealhswith had had her attorney send over, for the time being, Nora still had Emma as a client. And Blackstone needed Nora to use her full faculties.

Didn’t he?

She had never been this confused by a man. Not Max, not anyone. She sighed and pushed away from the tree. She wandered to her car, got in, and drove back to her office.

As she got off the elevator, she saw the receptionist pick up the phone. Nora stopped to pick up her messages, and as she did, Ruthie came running out of the back hallway. Her hair was askew, she was breathing hard, and she had forgotten to put on her shoes like she usually did when she got up from her desk.

Nora looked at her in alarm. “What is it?”

“I’ve been trying to reach you all afternoon?” Ruthie said, breathlessly. “What happened to your cell?”

“I forgot it.”

“Of all days to be without a phone,” Ruthie snapped.

“What is it?”

“Your mother’s been calling all afternoon.”

“My mother? What happened?”

“Emma? Your new client? The one that’s been staying with you?”

Nora didn’t like how this was shaking out. “What about her?”

“She’s gone.”

All the way home, parking the car, running up the stairs, hurrying toward the door to the loft, Nora vacillated between anger toward Emma (What was she thinking, leaving now?) and worry (Did Ealhswith know? Did the uninvited words work now that Emma was outside of Nora’s protection?) As she unlocked the door, someone opened it from the inside.

Her mother was standing there, eyes red. “Thank heavens,” she said, rubbing her hands together in a gesture that could only be what some writers called “wringing.” “Where have you been? Why didn’t you call? Emma’s been kidnapped.”

Nora felt cold. She came inside and closed the door. “Kidnapped?”

Jeffrey was standing just behind Amanda. He was shaking his head. “I still contend that she wandered off. She’s a bit confused, you know. I try, but there are just some things that throw her.”

“Where was this?” Nora asked. “Why aren’t you looking for her?”

“We did look for her,” Jeffrey said. “At least I did. I was about to head back out when your mother said you were coming here. I thought you might want a voice of reason.”

“I am being reasonable.” Amanda turned, grabbed Nora by the shoulders, and shook her. “Can’t you tell I’m being reasonable?”

Nora put her hands on her mother’s and took a step back. “Of course you are,” she said as soothingly as she could, mouthing “thank you” over Amanda’s shoulder at Jeffrey. “Now tell me what happened.”

“We were in that park, you know,” Amanda said. “That little dinky one downtown.”

“The one where all the teenagers hang out?” Nora asked.

“And the homeless, and most of Portland’s criminal element,” said Jeffrey with a touch of disapproval. Nora had never heard him be disapproving before. “I told her not to take Emma there. It wasn’t the kind of park we usually took her to.”

“It’s pleasant there in the daytime,” Amanda said. “Besides, there’s a lovely Hunan restaurant nearby where I was planning to get some takeout. Jeffrey and I had discussed it, and we thought we needed to gradually introduce Emma into this century—”

“Mother,” Nora said, “Just tell me what happened.”

“Jeffrey went off to get lunch—”

“I thought you were going to.”

“Well, Emma and I were having a lovely discussion about vendor carts—”

“They were fighting,” Jeffrey said. “Emma wanted to try a hot dog, and Amanda was trying to explain how no one should eat a hot dog and that made Emma want one more and then Amanda started to explain what was in one—”

“
What happened?
” Nora asked again.

“That was when I went to get lunch,” Jeffrey said.

“She went to get one herself,” Amanda said. “We’d been explaining money to her, and she had a twenty dollar bill. I was trying to tell her not to, but she ran, and she got to one of those vendors, and while he was making her one of those horrible things, this woman came up—”

“Woman?” Nora asked, feeling a chill.

“Yes,” Amanda said. “A tall woman wearing the most inappropriate dress. You’d think she was going to the opera. And she had black hair—”

“With a white streak?”

“Yes!” Amanda said.

“Ealhswith,” Nora said. “Shit.”

“You know this woman?” Jeffrey asked.

“Yes,” Nora said. “Then what?”

“Then the vendor started to hand her the hot dog, and—” Amanda’s voice shook. “And—”

“And?”

“She and that awful woman vanished.”

“People don’t vanish, Amanda,” Jeffrey said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“Then what happened to her?”

“I don’t know,” Jeffrey said. “She got distracted. She wandered off. I’ve been telling you to tell Nora that perhaps Emma needs professional help.”

Nora swallowed hard. “What time?” she asked. “What time did this happen?”

“About noon,” Amanda said.

About noon. Not long after Geffon had served her the papers. It had been a bait and switch. Get Nora preoccupied with the legal aspects and steal Emma right from under her nose. And if Nora hadn’t needed her Beautiful-Man Fix, she might have stayed at the office until late, researching the case. Ealhswith had no way of knowing that the people who were with Emma were baby-sitting her and would call Nora.

“This is serious, isn’t it?” Jeffrey asked.

“What did you think?” Amanda said. “The girl is missing. She doesn’t even know how to read.”

He sighed. “I’ll go back out and look for her. Nora, call the police. Let’s file a missing persons—”

“No,” Nora said. “That fits right into her plan.”

“What?” Amanda asked. “Emma has a plan?”

“Ealhswith’s,” Nora said. “If I file a missing persons, and Emma turns back up, we look incompetent. If the police do find her, they’ll think she’s incompetent.”

“What are you talking about?” Jeffrey asked.

Nora shook her head. Of course they didn’t know. She hadn’t told them. She had only told one person.

The only person who could help her.

She walked to the telephone, picked up the business card, and dialed Blackstone’s cell phone number. He picked it up on the first ring.

“What?”

“It’s Nora.” Her voice was calm, even though her hands were shaking. “I need your help.”

“What’s happened?”

“Ealhswith’s taken Emma.”

“Where are you?”

“At home.”

“I’ll be right there.” He hung up before she could say anything else. She clung to the receiver as if it were a lifeline to him. She turned to Jeffrey and her mother, about to explain who Blackstone was when he appeared in front of the door.

There was no smoke, no loud bang, nothing like in the movies. One moment the space was empty. The next moment, he was there.

Amanda screamed. Jeffrey took a step backward and nearly tumbled down the stairs.

Blackstone looked half wild. He glanced around until he saw Nora. “When did this happen?”

Nora hung up as she spoke. “As I came to see you, I guess.”

“As?” he snapped. “
As?
”

“I just found out.”

He turned toward Amanda, who backed into Jeffrey. Jeffrey put his arms around her as if to steady her. “And who are these people?”

“My mother, and Jeffrey Chawsir. They—”

“You are not Geoffrey Chaucer,” Blackstone said. “I know him. He was self-righteous, arrogant, and one hell of a writer. Besides, he was much shorter than you.”

Jeffrey, who obviously had never encountered anything like this, said with complete dignity, “I am Jeffrey Chawsir.”

“A man suffering from delusions is not what we need right now,” Blackstone said. “Get them to leave. We have important things to do.”

“And they’ll help us,” Nora said. “Jeffrey Chawsir is his real name. It’s just spelled different. He’s the professor I hired to teach Emma history and to bring her up to speed. My mother has been taking care of her during the days. They were with her when Ealhswith took her.”

“Ealhswith came here?”

“No,” Nora said. “They have been taking her to various parks.”

“Which one?” Blackstone asked Amanda. His silver eyes were flashing, and if Nora didn’t know better, she would have said he was furious.

“I don’t know the name of it,” Amanda said. “It’s the small one downtown with the street vendors and the homeless guys and the fountain and the steps that the kids—”

Blackstone raised an arm, swept it over them, and brought it down. Suddenly, they were in the very park Amanda was describing.

“—skateboard in,” she said, finishing her sentence. She looked around, wide-eyed. “My heavens, Jeffrey. I guess people really do vanish. I think we just did.”

“No,” he said, his voice a bit wobbly. “I think we just appeared.”

One of the kids going by, skateboard under his arm, glared at them. A vendor behind them slammed the door closed on his little stall and inside it, Nora heard him shout, “That’s enough! I’m going home, going back to bed, and starting this day all over again!”

The sun was high, and the heat of the day had found its way into the park. Nora was standing downwind of the fountain, and a little spray of cool mist kept hitting her in the face.

Blackstone didn’t seem at all disoriented by his change of surroundings. “Okay, writer boy,” he said, taking Jeffrey by the arm. “Where did you last see her?”

“I didn’t,” Jeffrey said. “I was getting Chinese takeout. Amanda—”

“Where?” Blackstone said to Amanda.

“Right there,” she said, pointing at the now closed vendor’s stall. “I sent her off to get herself a hot dog. It was to be her first experiment with money. I was watching from over there.” She pointed at a green bench that a bearded man wearing dirty Army fatigues was spread out on. “And then that woman showed up, grabbed Emma, and vanished.”

Blackstone stalked up to the stall, waved a hand again, and the air rippled as if it were touched by a blast of heat. For a moment, a vague form of Emma appeared, and then Ealhswith appeared beside her, took her arm, and they both disappeared.

“If you didn’t believe me,” Amanda said in an aggrieved tone, “you could have just said so.”

Blackstone hurried down the stone steps and stopped beside Nora. “It was a perfect abduction,” he said. “Not a trace. Not even a residue, and there should have been one, with that kind of magic. Ealhswith has gotten very good over the years. Better than I thought.”

“Magic?” Jeffrey stammered.

“What did you think this was?” Blackstone snapped. “Special effects?”

“It would certainly be easier to accept,” Amanda mumbled.

“Do you know how to find Emma?” Nora asked.

“If I knew how to find her, I wouldn’t have had all the problems I’ve had for the last millennium. I thought you had her in good hands.”

“I did.”

“You didn’t tell them about Ealhswith.”

“You said she’d be gone when I uninvited her.”

“Nora,” Amanda said. “I don’t think bickering will get us anywhere.”

“Right.” Nora shook away the retort she had been priming herself for, took a deep breath, and asked, “What are we going to do?”

Blackstone glanced at the vendor’s cart, then the park itself, and then the street. He frowned, bit his lower lip, and said, “We have no choice. We have to throw ourselves on the mercy of the court.”

“The court?” Jeffrey asked. But he was too late. Blackstone had already brought his arm up, swung it over them, and brought it down again.

Nora could hardly catch her breath. The air had gone from hot and dry to hot and humid, so moist that it felt as if she were breathing underwater. Her blouse immediately stuck to her back.

She was standing in a grotto, with trees that had branches which hung down around her. Amanda was standing near Blackstone and so was Jeffrey. A waterfall cascaded down the side of a cliff into a pool that was directly in front of her. Three women lay on rocks in that pool. They were naked, with bronzed skin and perfectly formed breasts, long legs and narrow waists. One had tattoos everywhere. Another had a chain hanging between her pierced nipples. The third wore diamond studs in her belly button. The first had green hair, the second a Mohawk, and the third was bald.

The nearest woman sat up. “Aethelstan!” she gasped. “You brought mortals!”

“They’re not supposed to see us in our natural state!” one of the other women said.

“This is not exactly natural,” the third said. “It is—as you said, Clotho—an experiment in modern teenage thinking. It is—”

“Remember the mortals,” the first woman said.

“Ah, yes,” the second and third said in unison, and as they did, the scene changed from the lovely pool to steps outside a stone building. It looked Greek to Nora. White columns rose from the portico, and the women stood on the marble surface. They wore long white robes and sandals. Their hair fell to the middle of their backs: one woman a brunette, one a redhead, and the other a blonde.

The blonde rested her hand on a spinner’s wheel. The redhead peered at all of them. The brunette held a pair of shears.

Nora’s mouth went dry. These were the Fates, then, of Greek myth. The blonde was Clotho, the Spinner, who spun the thread of life; the brunette was Atropos, who carried the “abhorréd shears” and cut the thread at death; and that meant the redhead was Lachesis, the Disposer of Lots, who assigned each person a destiny.

Who’d have thought that all of Mrs. Ramsey’s assignments in high school on mythologies of the world would actually have a practical use? And to think that Nora once believed Mrs. Ramsey’s class was time wasted.

“Oh for God’s sake,” Blackstone said to the Fates. “It’s been nearly two thousand years since the Greeks had any importance.”

“The last time you brought us a mortal,” Clotho said, “it put us in that dreadful play.”

“Crones, I believe it called us,” said Lachesis.

“Standing over a cauldron, as if we have nothing better to do,” Atropos said.

“‘Boil, boil, toil and trouble,’ or whatever the quote was,” Clotho said. “The man really couldn’t write, could he?”

“He’s considered the best writer ever in the English language,” Blackstone said.

Lachesis sniffed. “Obviously English literature leaves a lot to be desired.”

“You didn’t come here to discuss great books, did you, Aethelstan?” Atropos said.

They were all beautiful, which hadn’t been apparent before. Their features were classic, their bearing proud. If Nora hadn’t seen them change, she wouldn’t have thought they were the same women.

Atropos was slapping the shears against the palm of her left hand.

Jeffrey was clinging to Amanda. Amanda was watching the three women as if they were misbehaving children about to get into trouble.

“No,” Blackstone said. “I came here to discuss Ealhswith.”

“Oh, that’s a surprise,” Clotho said in a tired voice. “We’ve already ruled on the Ealhswith matter.”

“Things have changed,” Blackstone said.

“Oh?” Lachesis asked. “Did that poor child finally come out of her coma?”

Jeffrey coughed.

“Tell the mortal to speak up or shut up,” Atropos said.

“Writers don’t fare well here, scribe,” Blackstone said over his shoulder.

“That’s becoming obvious,” Jeffrey said.

“Thank heavens you’re not a writer,” Amanda said.