When I broke into the air, I coughed once, spitting water, and then drew air—sweet, regular air—into my lungs. The water clung to my clothing and the ropes binding my feet made kicking and swimming almost impossible. I reached down and managed to slip my feet out of my hiking boots and the ropes. I let them sink to the bottom.
My teeth were chattering from the cold and my legs were growing weaker by the second. I knew I couldn’t swim much longer, and I felt the first stabbings of genuine panic that I might not be able to get out of the water.
The irony of being able to breathe underwater yet still die in the river wasn’t lost on my half-frozen mind. In the failing light of the evening, I saw a wooden dock jutting out over the water, and thrashed my way toward it.
That must have been what I’d fallen off of when Burke dropped me.
I splashed toward the dock, shivers racing through my aching legs and my teeth chattering away like a child’s windup toy. As I got closer and managed to snag a piling, I saw a man sitting on the top of the dock, calmly watching me struggle in the water.
“Help!” I tried to shout, but my voice came out as a quiet croak. I tried again. “Help!” That was better.
The man didn’t appear to be in any hurry and the fact that he was obviously warm and dry made me even madder. For a moment, I wondered if it was Burke, returning to finish me off. He calmly lowered himself to the dock and stretched out flat, offering me his hand. In the shadows, I couldn’t make out his features, but I didn’t care. Help, even slow help, was better than nothing at all.
Exasperated and wrung out, I did my best to get my arms up high enough for him to grab on to. Several times, my wet hands slipped out of his grasp, and once, I nearly pulled him into the river with me. I heard a muffled curse, and then he got a solid, desperate grip on my arms, and pulled me out of the water. I landed on the dock like a dying fish, my breath rasping in my lungs.
I watched as Simon Monk stood up and brushed off his hands. He frowned down at me, then reached out and lifted me to my unsteady feet.
I couldn’t believe it, but it was even colder out of the water. I shivered uncontrollably as I stared at Simon, trying to find words and discarding them just as quickly.
Finally, I managed to spit out, “What took you so long?” The words were awkward and choppy between my chattering teeth, but they were clear enough.
He looked at me thoughtfully, and then he said, “I knew the Keeper couldn’t drown.”
“No? But I could sure freeze to death! Did you think of that?”
Simon slipped off his coat and wrapped it around my shoulders. “I did,” he admitted. “But I figured if you were half-frozen it might slow you down enough that you would at least listen to me for once.”
I knew I must have looked like a drowned, red-haired rat.
“Well,” I said, trying unsuccessfully to control my shivering, “if you have a car with a heater, I’ll sit in it long enough to get warm and listen to you at the same time.”
“That’s good enough for me,” Simon said. “Wait here and I’ll bring the car up to the dock.”
He turned and walked away into the darkness and that’s when I remembered the dream I’d had of drowning … the way the water outside the castle had felt when I had plunged in and hadn’t died.
I felt my eyes roll back in my head, my knees wobbled and unlocked, and then I fell into the familiar darkness of unconsciousness.
“Wake up, Keeper …”
“No … I don’t want to. It’s warm here.”
“Wake up, Keeper, You need to move around or you’ll freeze to death. I cannot move your blood, but only the winds.”
“I’m sleeping … leave me be.”
“KEEPER! WAKE UP!”
“why?”
“We have winds to call. The world turns and yet you sleep. My power will strengthen you, but only if you wake up.”
“Winds to call?”
“Yes … with me, you can ride them like a Queen of the Air.”
“Ride the winds?”
“Yes, Keeper. With me, you will rise above the houses and into the heavens themselves if you wish.”
“I’m tired. I want to sleep more. I don’t want to think anymore.”
“I will give your thoughts wings. My power will be yours, but you must wake up.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You must.”
“I am afraid.”
“I will protect you.”
“You will?”
“Always. You can trust me.”
“Then yes.”
9
“My Lord … Burke and his man claim the girl escaped.”
“And?”
“Unfortunately, I believe him. He does, however, have the Board.”
“That is fortunate—for his sake. Your one task—your only task now—is to find the girl. Use whatever means are necessary, but I want her almost as much as I want the Board.”
“Jenna, wake up!”
I tried to peel open my eyelids, but I was so tired and sleep was so warm.
“Jenna, wake up. Wake up right now!”
I felt someone slapping lightly at my face. “No,” I grumbled. “Don’t want to.”
“I know you don’t want to, but you have to,” the voice said. “Come on now.”
The voice was nice. Deep, masculine and commanding, yet compassionate, too. Not like the sibilant voice in my dream that wanted me to wake up and made promises of winds and power. More light slaps tingled on my face, and I finally managed to open my eyes.
Simon was bent over me, his handsome features furrowed with concern. Everything came back to me in a rush—I was lying on a dock that stretched out over the half-frozen river. Where I had discovered that I could breathe underwater, but that freezing to death was still possible. Where I’d lost the Board.
The Board!
The thought snapped me into full wakefulness.
“Oh, God,” I said, groaning as thousands of pins and needles of cold stabbed my body. “The Board—it’s gone.”
“I know,” Simon said. He hauled me to my feet. “Let’s get you into the car and warmed up.”
Without a word or sound of complaint, he picked me up and carried me to his rented sedan. I buried my face on his shoulder, feeling his strength and smelling his clean scent … and wishing I hadn’t. This was not a man I wanted to be attracted to.
Simon opened the passenger door and helped me climb in. The heater was already running at full blast and the hot currents of air washing over me felt wonderful. I leaned back into the seat gratefully as Simon climbed in the driver’s side.
“Better?” he asked.
I nodded. “Much. Thank you.”
“Good,” he said. “Now, maybe you’ll do me the kindness of at least listening to what I have to say?”
“Yes,” I said, already thinking back to my amazing experience on the river bottom and knowing that whatever had allowed me to survive drowning had to be connected to the Board and Simon.
Simon nodded. “Very well. The first thing you must understand, Jenna, is that the Board is not, as I’ve tried to tell you, a child’s toy. It is an ancient artifact, dating back to at least before the time of Christ and maybe much longer than that.”
“From before the time of Christ,” I said, thinking of the Tower and the red plains beyond it.
“Yes,” he said. “But there is much more. The Board is, beyond a doubt, a magical item of true power. Based on the research I’ve done, the Solitaire line of women have been the Keepers of the Board for many hundreds of years—perhaps since it was first created.” Simon turned and stared directly at me. “And as you’ve already learned, there are people who will stop at nothing to possess it. Its value is incalculable.”
When I didn’t say anything, Simon added, “Jenna, I’ll tell you again, these people will gladly kill for it. Do you understand that?”
Trying to keep a rein on my temper, I said, “I think my kidnapping and sw
im in the river makes that pretty obvious, don’t you?”
“Sarcasm isn’t going to help us much at this point.”
“Us?” I said. “There is no ‘us.’ There’s me. Alone. Hence the name Solitaire.”
“Jenna—” he began.
“No,” I said. “I can’t take another minute of this … this … whatever it is. I don’t want to be the Keeper, I didn’t ask to be the Keeper. And I don’t believe in magic! There has to be some other explanation.” I realized that my voice had risen to almost a shout, and I tried to control it.
“I just want my life back the way it was before all this craziness.”
“I’m sorry, Jenna,” Simon said. “But that isn’t an option based on my research of the Boards. Being the Keeper is your destiny and you must accept it now, before more things spin out of control.”
“Would you stop telling me about your research?” I yelled. “The Board’s gone now anyway. If you want it, go track down Burke yourself and take the thing.”
Even as I said this, a part of me still felt the Board’s loss, and my longing for it, almost a physical need. What was happening to me?
“It doesn’t work that way,” he said. “Besides, only a fool who wasn’t the Keeper would even touch the thing, let alone use it. The repercussions would be …” He didn’t finish his sentence as his gaze went out the window. During our conversation, the winds had risen again, and the trees along the riverbank were bent over, their branches popping and cracking.
Simon turned back to me. “Jenna … tell me you didn’t attempt to use the Board”
I could hear the fear in his voice, and didn’t respond right away, but stared out the window instead. The sun had disappeared and the moon was hidden behind heavy clouds, enveloping us in thick darkness. The interior of the car was illuminated only by the dashboard lights, lending an eerie green glow to Simon’s face, and mine too, no doubt. Suddenly, I was afraid to answer Simon’s question. I didn’t know what it would mean.
“Jenna?” he prompted. “Did you try to use the Board?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “The day I found it. I … I wanted to talk to my mom.”
“Oh, God,” Simon said. “That explains the weather.”
I looked outside. “What about it?”
“You’ve awakened the Board, Jenna!” Simon said. “That’s … why would …” His voice trailed off as he looked for and failed to find any words.
“Big deal,” I said. “So I played with it for a minute. Now you want me to believe I’m responsible for the weather?”
“Look around you,” he said. “This Board is the Board of the Winds, and guarding it is your sacred trust. It has been for generations. But I’m not aware of anyone actually using the Board in … a very, very long time. That’s why the weather has gone crazy. You’ve awakened it.”
I scoffed. “You make it sound like it’s alive or something.”
Simon’s voice turned deadly serious. “In many ways, Jenna, if what I’ve learned is true, the Board is alive.”
I felt something snap inside me at that statement. “Are you listening to yourself right now?” I yelled. “Do you hear how crazy you sound? I can’t take another second of this … this … madness! I don’t believe in magic, and I don’t want to be the Keeper and I don’t want the Board!” Something in me twisted again, and I kept a grimace off my face with an effort, turning it into a frown instead.
“Jenna, you’re acting like a child,” Simon said. “You have responsibilities now that you cannot ignore.”
“Fine! I’m acting like a child. I can do that if I want.”
Simon took my hand, trying to calm me, and I snatched it away.
“And another thing,” I shouted. “Stop touching me! I don’t like how you make me feel … like I’m … like I’ve stuck my finger in an electrical socket.” I gasped for air, realizing what I’d just said, and knowing that I couldn’t take the words back now.
The car was silent for a long minute, the only sounds were the winds in the trees, the river, the heater fans, and my panicked breathing.
Finally, Simon said, “What do you mean by that?”
Ashamed by my outburst, I was glad that it was so dark in the car. “I don’t know.”
“Jenna, I …”
I cut him off. “Look, Simon, you show up here out of the blue and expect me to just believe in things that I’ve spent my whole life believing weren’t real. I’ve never been threatened before, and in the last few days, my house has been broken into, I’ve been spied on, harassed over the phone, accosted at a church, mugged, kidnapped, and dumped in a river to drown. This is not the kind of life I want.”
Simon nodded. “I understand,” he said. “I really do. All of this must be very difficult for you to believe. I expected you to know more.
“That’s not the half of it,” I said. “I just want my old life back.”
I heard myself saying it again, and wished there were a better way to express it. Maybe it wasn’t that I wanted my old life back—bringing back the dead wasn’t really an option—but that I wanted the sudden strangeness in my life to stop.
“Not everyone gets to pick their ideal life,” Simon said. “Some people have a destiny, a fate, and that can be both a blessing and a curse.”
“Well then, mine’s a curse,” I said. “I want to go home now.”
“I think we should talk about this some more,” he said. “If we’re going to retrieve the Board, we have much to discuss.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” I snapped. “We aren’t going to retrieve the Board. I do not, repeat do not, want it.”
Simon pointed outside to the wind-tossed trees. “The Board is yours, Jenna, whether you want it or not.”
I crossed my arms. “No, it’s not. I don’t have to take it, do I?”
A part of me, though, wanted the Board and what it might represent—power and freedom.
“It’s a part of you now,” he said. “That’s why you didn’t drown. The Board protects the Keeper … just as it endangers the Keeper. I don’t know what it means that you’ve used it, but we have to get it back before the weather gets really out of hand. It could destroy the whole town.”
“Don’t exaggerate,” I said. “That’s not a very charming trait.”
“What makes you think I’m exaggerating?” he asked. “The Board is dangerous, Jenna, if it’s not kept under very tight control. That’s why it has a Keeper.”
“Are you going to take me home or not?”
“Not until you face up to your responsibilities, no,” Simon said.
“Fine, then,” I said, opening the door. “I’ll walk!”
“You’ll freeze to death in those wet clothes,” he warned.
I ignored him.
“You can’t run away from your responsibilities forever!”
“No?” I asked. “Watch me!” I turned my back on him and walked into the darkness.
My grandfather used to tell me that I’d always hated being wrong. Even as a young child. Walking down the road, I realized something else I hated being: wrong and soaking wet. My cell phone was in my backpack along with the Board and I had no real sense of how far I was from town. I stomped along, wondering if Simon was actually going to let me walk.
When I heard the car approaching slowly behind me, I sighed in relief. Like almost every man on the planet, Simon had a hero complex: he had to save the maiden in distress.
I slowed and turned around, but the relief I felt faded almost as quickly as it had surfaced. The vehicle wasn’t the sedan Simon had been driving, but a little two-door gas saver that looked familiar.
Could it be the men who’d been chasing me? Or even the one who’d broken into my house?
The driver pulled up next to me, stopped, and rolled the window down.
“Jenna? What on earth are you doing out here?”
I peered inside to see Kristen sitting behind the wheel.
“Kristen!” I said, opening the passenger door.
“Thank goodness.” I glanced down the road to see if Simon might be pulling up behind us, and while there was a car in the distance, I couldn’t be sure it was him, and I couldn’t miss out on the ride. I climbed into the warm car. “I was out walking along the river, collecting my thoughts.”
“I was hoping to do a little star-gazing, myself,” she said, pointing into the backseat where a large telescope rested. “But the clouds never really broke, and this wind is enough to drive anyone indoors.” She looked at me critically. “You know, I’ll admit that my sense of fashion is a little warped, but what happened to you?”
Thinking fast, I muttered, “Fell in the river.”
“You’re kidding!” she said. “That happened to me just last year. Oh, goddess, was that water cold! You’re lucky you didn’t drown or something.” She put the car in gear and started down the road.
“How’d you fall in?” she asked. Thankfully, before I had to come up with a creative lie, she added, “I was out here walking along the river—it was about this time of year, too—and thinking about this and that and some of the old stories and myths about water sprites and elementals. Anyway, I wasn’t looking where I was going and tripped on a rock, slid down the bank and fell right into the river.”
I nodded sympathetically, not having any trouble at all imagining this happening to Kristen. “How’d you get out?” I asked.
She smiled shyly, then whispered. “Tom. Tom saved me.”
“You’re joking,” I said. “He never mentioned that to me—and Tom tells me everything.”
“Well, he probably tells you almost everything,” Kristen said. “He doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“Why?” I asked, remembering my thoughts about men wanting to be heroes.
She giggled. “He saw me go in—the water was really deep and running pretty fast—and he ran down to the water to get me. For some reason, he about tore off all his clothes before jumping in.” She paused, laughing harder. “So, ummm … well, he forgot something.”
Infected by her laugh, I chuckled, too. “What?” I asked.
“He was going commando that day,” she said, bursting into hysterics.
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