“Oh, God.” He trembled with fury and dread. “She didn’t waste any time. She slid right back into your life as soon as I was out of her way. And you let her.”
Sam held out her hands, pleading, angry. “Listen to me,” she said in a low voice. “It’ll be months before your case comes to trial. I’m sure I could work out something with Ben about his fees, but I can’t stop bill collectors. I can’t send the government an IOU for taxes on the Cove. I won’t let pride stop me from doing whatever it takes to help you and keep hold of everything that’s important to you.”
“This is how you do it? By running to her when you know it’s the last thing I want?”
“Can’t you understand? I’m doing this for your sake.” She trembled miserably. “You’re here because of me.”
Hurt her. Make her go. Because the farther she is from you, the safer she’ll he. Loving her isn’t enough to make a difference. You know that now.
They had no future until he finished with Alexandra, until she paid for what she’d done. “That’s right,” he said, dying inside. “So, by God, do what I tell you to do. You owe me.”
It took all his willpower to form a lifetime of devotion into a weapon, to ignore the shattered expression dawning in her eyes.
The nightmare was complete. Sam stared at him in despair. He had confirmed her worst fear. Moving as if in a trance, she staggered toward him, reaching for him. He grabbed her by the shoulders and held her away. The hard look in his eyes cut to the quick. “You really do believe in curses,” she said. Sam’s voice was thready with alarm. “And that I’ve brought you bad luck.”
“I’ve hurt everyone—my family, you—by believing what I wanted to believe instead of what I should have known,” he said slowly. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I won’t make any more.”
“Is loving me one of those mistakes?” Her voice was a bare whisper filled with dread.
Say it. Lie. Say it for her sake, because you’ve never loved her more than you do right now. “Yes.”
The small, devastated sound she made ripped into him. He released her and stepped back, fearing his courage would fall apart if he didn’t put some distance between them.
Sam couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. His logic, so warped and incomprehensible, was clear on only one point. He believed that somehow he’d destroyed his family and himself by loving her.
Dimly she heard the lock rattle. The door to this, this cage opening. The deputy’s voice telling them time was up.
Time was up. A whole life of unswerving loyalty had come to an end. No. He might not want to love her, but he did. And she would never, never give up. “What do you want me to do?” she asked Jake, surprised at how calm she sounded.
He did not, would not, turn to face her. The boy, the man who had never turned away from her before. His shoulders were rigid. His head rose. He stood like a condemned man waiting for the gavel to fall. “Take Charlotte,” he said in a voice as falsely calm as her own. “Get as far away as you can. And don’t let Alexandra find you, because she’ll try to take over your life. And I won’t be there to help you.” He paused, then added, “Take care of the ruby. I’ll want it back when I get out.”
“You’re afraid Alexandra still wants it. That’s what you care about. That she’ll get that damned stone away from me.”
“She will. You’ll let her talk you out of it the same way you gave in to her behind my back.”
“That’s not how it was!” Her voice was raw, disbelieving. “Don’t you trust me?”
“I don’t trust anybody anymore.”
“Jake.”
“All I need from you is the promise you’ll keep the ruby. It doesn’t mean anything to you. It’s important to me. That’s all you can do for me now.”
His words slammed into her. Sam took an unsteady breath. “I’m not leaving you. I’m not going to let you give up on us. I’ll make everything up to you somehow.”
He turned violently toward her. “Get this straight. Clara Big Stick was right. We aren’t meant to be together. You’re bad luck. I don’t want you anymore. I don’t want anything to do with you.”
“Time’s up,” the deputy repeated, less patient now.
Sam sank her hands into Jake’s shirt. He had broken her. “Please,” she begged. “Please don’t hate me.”
He wrenched her hands away. “Go on. Get out.”
She staggered back. “I’ll never leave you.”
“You will. Goddammit, I’ll divorce you.”
Those words jerked her to attention. Her stunned expression slowly jelled into an unyielding mask. “No, you won’t,” she hoarsely. “Because I’m the only one who can take care of your precious rock for you.”
Jake cursed weakly. He hadn’t thought of that. Yet he felt an undeniable sense of relief which he despised as cowardice. He would have divorced her to cut the man-made evidence of a sacred bond that could never really be broken. Another way to let her go, to make it easier for her to survive in a world where Alexandra would never stop hounding her.
“You couldn’t divorce me anyway,” Sam said in a low, toneless voice. She had retreated behind a wall of shock. Grim determination had taken over. “I don’t need a piece of paper to tell me we’ll always be married.”
“That’s all, let’s go,” the guard said. He took Samantha by one arm. “Come on, ma’am. You know the rules.”
“I’ll be back to visit you tomorrow,” she told Jake. “And every day after that. Every time they’ll let me.”
Jake stared past her. He felt empty. “I won’t accept visits from my wife after today,” he told the guard.
“Fine,” the guard grunted, dragging gently at Samantha’s arm. “It’ll save me from wrestling with her.”
Sam broke away from him and lurched toward Jake. She put her arms around him, shivering, tearing him apart with the violent, silent sobs racking her body. He pushed her into the guard’s grip. “Good-bye,” he said. His voice failed, and he turned away, struggling to keep his head up and shoulders squared.
She moaned. “Jake, I love you.”
He heard her scuffling footsteps as the guard pulled her out of the room. He relaxed when the door clattered shut.
He had reached the end of the chain.
Clara waited. She sat at her loom on the cool back porch, a heavy sweater drawn around her hunched shoulders, brown hands lying still on the warp threads, an old print skirt tucked warmly around her arthritic knees. She listened. The car door slammed. She heard footsteps on her front porch, and the creak of the screen door pulling back. She left the doors and windows of her house open except in the nastiest weather; she liked the air, and had no fear of unwelcome visitors.
She had expected Sammie to come sooner or later.
Clara studied her solemnly when she stepped onto the back porch. The girl’s blue eyes had always been old. Now they were ancient, worn with care and loneliness. Her coat hung on her slim shoulders like a mantel of mountain bedrock; the lace on one of her tennis shoes was untied, and her golden hair was carelessly tied back with a faded bandanna, probably one of Jake’s. This was not the orderly, eager-faced young woman Clara had come to cherish during the past months. This was a lost soul.
Sammie dropped to her knees and laid her head on Clara’s large lap, sitting very still and tired. “He told me to leave,” Sammie said slowly, her voice hollow. “He wants me to take Charlotte and go. Anywhere. He said it was a mistake for him to love me.”
Clara patted her cheek. “He’s right about one thing. You and Charlotte got to get away from here. Get away from Alexandra. I heard she’s telling people how bad she feels for you, how she’s goin’ to help you and Jake. Don’t you believe it. She’s smackin’ her lips over you. Thinks you’re hers now.”
“I am. Because I’ll do anything to get the money I need for Jake’s defense, and to pay bills at the Cove.”
“It’s not about money. You wallow with pigs, you’ll get dirty.”
“I’m alrea
dy dirty.” Sammie shivered. “When I came to the Cove I was convinced my aunt would take revenge on Jake if I kept loving him, if I stayed with him. I thought she was the only person we had to worry about. I was wrong. She didn’t do a thing. I’m the one who hurt him. I didn’t mean to, but I did.”
“No,” Clara answered grimly. “You’re not evil, child.”
“I let him down the night of the fire. He went off to help a stranger, and I should have taken care of everything while he was gone. He would have gotten the family out in time if he’d been there.”
“You did the best you could that night. Jake knows that.”
“He changed after the fire. He shut me out.” She paused, her shoulders slumping even more. “And then, out of the blue, he went after Malcolm Drury. It makes no sense, except to Jake.”
Clara sighed. “I was a fool. I read the signs wrong. I should have known the ravenmocker wasn’t done with Jake.”
Sammie shivered. “It’s me. I’m the ravenmocker.”
“Nonsense. Girl, witches change shape to look like anybody they pick. You can’t figure ’em out. I couldn’t, and I’m good at it.”
Sammie raised her head and looked at Clara miserably. “He doesn’t want me anymore,” she repeated.
The truth was obvious to Clara. She took Sammie’s face between her gnarled hands. “Hear me now. Trust what I’m saying. It’s not easy to hear, but you’ve got a long, hard road ahead of you, so I’m telling you how to walk it. Jake don’t blame you for what’s become of him and his family. He blames himself.”
“Why?”
“Because he let his guard down. He let the ravenmocker slip right past him.”
“My aunt?” Sammie frowned and shook her head. It was clear that the subject was beyond her limited understanding of witches. “She had nothing to do with—”
“Them witches, they’re sly. Who’s to know what part she played?” Sammie was silent, a polite, strained silence. Clara knew what she was up against. Sammie thought this was foolish, superstitious talking. Deep down, Sammie didn’t want to so much as even wonder if her own aunt could have stolen the life from Jake’s family and lured Jake into terrible trouble.
Good. That was good. Sammie couldn’t fight the ravenmocker alone. Neither could Jake. They needed each other. “There’s only one thing you got to believe right now,” Clara continued patiently. “You can wish it weren’t so, and you can call it wrong and superstitious and feebleminded—anything you want to call it—but you can’t ever forget it’s how Jake feels.”
Sammie’s expression became urgent. “Tell me.”
“A ravenmocker is after him. And after everybody he loves. It’s got the rest—he’s afraid it’ll get you too. He can’t stop loving you, but he can keep his distance so the ravenmocker won’t hurt you.”
Sammie got to her feet. Her shoulders stiffened, and her head came up. “Then it’s up to me to prove to him that no such thing exists.”
Clara considered that vow in troubled silence, then nodded. Sammie would be with him, fighting beside him, until finally he would realize he couldn’t fight a ravenmocker without her. That was all that really mattered, all that would save them.
Sitting at a kitchen chair with her head on the table, Charlotte drowsed. She didn’t like being left alone in the Cove. Sammie had promised to hurry back from seeing Clara Big Stick. Charlotte had wanted to stay in Durham, but Sammie insisted she go back to school. Christmas break was only ten days away. They’d return to Durham then.
Christmas in a motel room. Christmas spent trying to get Sammie to eat and sleep enough. Keeping Sammie company in the lobby of the jail, where people whispered to Charlotte that it was no use, that the poor little thing’s husband didn’t want to see her. How could Jake stand himself, telling her to go away, blaming her for what he’d done?
And Ben Dreyfus, the elegant, charming jerk. He would meander into the lobby every day, pretending to be worried about Sammie, when all he cared about was money and publicity. He was always offering Charlotte sticks of gum as if she were a kid. He commented on her earrings, said she could transmit radio signals with that much metal. He had a way of teasing Charlotte that reduced her to sputtering.
Charlotte shifted in the chair, half-awake, pushing Ben Dreyfus out of her thoughts. She wasn’t going to end up like Sammie, loving one man, getting hurt.
Murky, painful dreams crept through her mind; she walked through the woods and saw the Raincrow house standing, good as new, as old. Nothing happened, she thought, and ran inside. I’ll say hello to everyone, and then I’ll go tell Jake and Sam. Jake will be home now. Sammie’ll be so happy. But her shoes mired in wet soot, and the house became a dark cavern of blackened walls. Cold wind whistled around her. Horror clawed at her throat; the charred doorway to the living room pivoted of its own accord, and Charlotte’s fledgling scream faded into amazement.
Ellie stood in the rubble, looking at her like a sad, beautiful statue, long black hair floating in the air. Wake up, Ellie told her. Tim’s in the house.
The strange dream evaporated as Charlotte jerked her head up. Every nerve vibrated. She looked wildly around Jake and Sammie’s big, sunny kitchen. The house was eerily quiet. Oh, jeez, Sammie, hurry and come home. I’m cracking up. Oh, Ellie, I wish you really could talk to me again.
She heard a footstep in the front hall.
Sam drove down into the Cove, through the deep, familiar forest. All the leaves had dropped; fall was slipping into winter. A new season.
Ellie and Sarah and Hugh are dead. If you go past your own driveway, you’ll turn off into the muddy, ruined yard of the old house.
Jake was in jail for an accident provoked by his obsession with her past, her family. He didn’t want to see her again. He blamed her, he blamed himself for loving her. Because he believed they’d brought a curse on his family, and him.
Those thoughts tugged at the veil of shock around her. She pushed them down, covered them, guided the station wagon up the close, woodsy lane to her and Jake’s house.
She drove well. Jake had taught her well. They had taught each other about marriage, about friendship, about the sweet, hot intimacy of sex.
And now he wanted her to forget about him. To leave.
Sam glimpsed the sleek black sports car in the yard. She squinted, not recognizing it at first. Her breath caught as she realized it was Tim’s car.
Charlotte’s alone with him. Sam stomped the accelerator. The bulky station wagon careened into the yard. Sam slid it to a stop near the porch steps. The front door was shut, but a window to the front room had been pried up. One length of her smooth blue drapes had been pulled backward through the opening.
Sam bolted from the car, holding the ignition key in front of her like a tiny knife.
Before Sam could reach the door, it burst open. Tim glared at her, big and deceptively debonair-looking in a white sweater, leather jacket, and creased trousers. His face flushed darkly beneath his close-cropped red hair. “Where is it?” he demanded, apparently unconcerned at being caught.
Sam wanted to strangle him. “Where’s Charlotte?”
“Hell if I know.” He dismissed her with a contemptuous stare, then turned and walked to a small table inside the doorway. He jerked its shallow drawer out of the frame. Roadmaps, batteries, and other small items scattered on the floor. Sam bolted inside. He slung the drawer against a wall. “My mother doesn’t give a damn about you,” he told her. “She wants the ruby back. I’m not going to put up with you and your lying bitch of a sister. You can’t crawl back under my mother’s wing and alienate her from me again. I came here to find that stone.”
Sam clenched her fists. “Get out of my house or I’ll kill you.”
“You’ve been taking murder lessons from Jake?”
Sam lurched at him, swinging the hand that held the key. She caught him along the jaw, plowing a jagged furrow as he whipped his head back. He yelled in pain and pinned her against the wall, digging his hands into her arms, li
fting her to her toes. “Jake’s not coming back,” Tim said, his spit flecking her face. He shook her. “Who are you going to run to now? Hmmm? Who’ll come after me this time? My mother owns you, and Charlotte too. I can do whatever I want. Now, where’s that stone?”
Sam’s long wool skirt was wrapped between her legs. She squirmed. He slammed her against the wall. Her teeth clicked on her tongue, and she tasted blood. She got one leg free and jerked it up, catching him between the thighs. He gagged, staggered back, and dropped her. His face contorted. He drew back one fist.
Sam ducked as his fist grazed the top of her head. He grabbed the front of her coat and wrenched her into place, pulling back his hand again.
Charlotte’s warlike scream filled the hallway. She appeared with the full force of a small tornado, launching herself at him. Sam glimpsed the silver flash of a long kitchen knife next to Tim’s head.
He fell back against the facing wall, groaning. Blood poured down his neck. He clutched the side of his head and stared at Charlotte, who raised the carving knife to stab him. “I’ll make sure you never touch me or Sammie again,” she shrieked.
Visions of Charlotte killing him propelled Sam forward. She pushed between them and grabbed Charlotte’s wrist. Charlotte wrestled blindly with her, but Sam pried the knife out of her clenched hand and faced Tim. He leaned against the wall, dripping blood, his face chalky. Sam jabbed the knife toward his throat. “Move,” she yelled.
He backed out, Sam advancing to match every step he took. Blood spurted between his fingers. When he reached the porch steps he turned and stumbled down them. Sam followed him to his car, Charlotte beside her. Sam clutched Charlotte’s jacket sleeve with one hand and kept the knife posed in front of them.
Tim staggered to his car, crimson streaks staining the collar of his white sweater, blood speckling the car door as he jerked it open. “She’s crazy,” he yelled, flinging his free hand toward Charlotte. “This time we will get her locked up. You can visit Jake in prison and her in a mental ward!”
“You’re not going to tell anybody the truth about this,” Sam answered smoothly. “Because you’d have to admit you were here. And you don’t want your mother to know that.”
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