Water, Circle, Moon

by Sally McBride

  “Is it?”

  She felt her cheeks burn red. “Really, Arren? Are you trying to tell me now that you don’t believe? You’re the one who told me how dangerous they are!”

  With a huff of exasperation she turned away, but he reached out an arm and caught her by the elbow.

  “Laine, the police can’t see. Literally cannot. Only a few humans can.” His voice growled in her ear like the engine of a very expensive truck.

  Her hand in his was throbbing. There was that electric hum again, running up her arm and addling her brain. She felt as if she were melting. “What on earth do you mean?” But she knew: she knew exactly what he meant. That crazy thing with the moon—the Induction, Jaird called it. The laughing horses. She’d seen and heard what others could not.

  “Laine, promise me you won’t try to hunt for the cabyll.” His grip tightened. “You don’t know what they’re like.”

  “But I do! You told me, Jaird told me. They’re not all savage. Innis isn’t. He showed me what he could do.” Instantly she regretted her words.

  He leaned back and observed her. “What do you mean, Innis showed you? What did you see?”

  Damn. She’d given her brother’s secret away. Idiot! She closed her eyes and tried to think of a way out. If she confirmed his suspicions, Arren was sure to suspect Innis of the killing. “I didn’t actually see anything. At least, any change in him.” And she hadn’t. Her eyes had been squeezed shut. She had only heard the thunder of hooves . . . She looked up at Arren and saw his face. Thunderclouds. Might as well go for it. “I witnessed him . . . Inducing the moon to move, to change.”

  He nodded and took a deep breath, almost a sigh. “I knew it already, Laine. I can’t tell you how, but I sensed he was . . . different, as soon as I met him.”

  She gave a sad smile. “Oh, he’s different all right. But he’s my brother.”

  “And you love him. I sensed that too.” He pulled her close. She could feel his cheek against her hair. He groaned slightly, the way a hungry man might at the scent of a fresh-baked apple pie. It made her knees weak.

  This man was making her crazy. How was she to keep her wits and protect Innis? Arren was out for blood, and she had to convince him Innis was not a killer. Pushing him away, she said, “Jaird Fallon told me the cabyll are gentle, fearful of discovery.”

  “Sorry, Laine. You can’t have it both ways any more than I can. It’s true that most cabyll are harmless, but it’s also true that some turn savage. If your brother is a shapeshifter, he must be suspected of violence just as Jaird and some others are.” He spotted the mutinous look in her eye. “I said suspected, not accused.”

  “I will not let you round up my brother on a vague suspicion.”

  His eyes went hard. “Believe me, I will round up—and hand to the police—whoever is doing this, no matter who it is. But I don’t think it’s Innis.”

  Thank God. “Who do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know, not for certain. Not yet.”

  “Are you working with the police? Or on your own?”

  He blew out his cheeks, looking somewhat abashed, but she could tell he was still serious. “Let’s just say I’m personally interested in justice.” He paused and regarded her. The sun beat down, turning what was left of the morning into another sultry summer day. “Come with me. I think we could both use something cold to drink.” He looked for a moment as if he was going to take her hand, but didn’t. “You know Mrs. Griffin, correct?”

  She nodded. “Yes, of course. I like her a lot. She’s sweet.”

  “Hmm. Maybe you should get to know her better.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just come along.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Arabella Griffin sipped her iced tea cautiously, put the glass down and then picked it up again. “This is good,” she admitted at last. “Refreshing.”

  Laine smiled, waved her hand in a think-nothing-of-it gesture and took a sip from her own glass, which was sweating condensation. It had been a struggle to convince the woman to pour perfectly good steeped tea over ice cubes; even harder to get her to add sugar and lemon. But the result was proving a success.

  Arren had stuck to his guns and was drinking coffee. Black. His exhibition of restraint was offset by the fact that he’d bolted down three sugary, cream-filled pastries and a large glass of orange juice. Mrs. Griffin had taken one look at him, asked him to kindly bend down, plucked a leaf from his hair and gone to fetch food. Now Arren was starting to look less like a wolf who had been prowling the forest all night and more like a human. Mrs. Griffin was having a wonderful time encouraging him to have just one more homemade cheese-and-apricot Danish.

  Ever since Laine had learned Mrs. Griffin was a Gypsy, she’d been dying to ask questions. Now was as good a time as any. “Um, Mrs. Griffin—”

  “Oh, call me Arabella, for goodness’ sake. Everyone does. And push the sugar bowl closer if you would, dearie.”

  She was surrounded by sugar fiends. It made Laine feel virtuous. “Okay—Arabella, you told me earlier that you’re a Gypsy. Romnichal, you called it. I’d love to know more about the Romany people.”

  Arabella Griffin leaned in closer. “You know, it’s not something I want chatted about on the village street. Traveler folk are mistrusted, even these days with all the political correctness going on.”

  “I’m not the chatty type,” Laine said. “But anything I think I know is, no doubt, wrong. Based on books or movies, you know. For instance, did you live in a trailer?”

  “Caravan. Yes.” The woman nodded briskly. “I was born in a caravan, camped in a farmer’s field in the Lake Country. It was 1947, or so my mother assured me. Nothing was written down—my mam couldn’t write—and there were no government records for the likes of us.”

  Arren, who sat licking his fingers, was watching Arabella’s expressive face. Her ginger hair was in her eyes, and she shoved it back with the unselfconscious grace of a child.

  “It was very hard to find a place to stop. It was always move on, move on, from the police when the farmers complained. There were some who tolerated us, but the laws changed and we had to keep on the move.” She sighed, a faraway look clouding her eyes. “From a child’s point of view, it was a wonderful life, I suppose. We ran around barefoot, we tended the animals, snared coneys for dinner, stole chickens now and then. And no school, of course.”

  “No school at all? How was that allowed?”

  “Allowed? It was enforced. It was against the law to let a Rom child into a school.”

  Laine shook her head. “Did you ever get any formal schooling?”

  She waggled her fingers. “I learned to read when I was, oh, fifteen or so. There were always good-hearted folk who would visit us, tend our health, try and teach us reading and sums, nutrition, modern childbirth techniques and all that.” The fingers waved dismissively. “They wanted us to settle down.” Her chin rose, and her blue eyes flashed. “It isn’t in our nature to settle. We are Roma: we roam.” She took a sip of her iced tea.

  “But you gave up the life. You settled here, at the Blackhorse Inn.”

  For a moment Laine thought she heard Arabella grind her teeth. Her face had gone hard, for just an instant. But then she softened and shrugged.

  “I suppose I saw the writing on the wall. I’ve been here over ten years now. My, time flies, doesn’t it? It was difficult for me to live the Traveler life.” She indicated her short, chubby body. “To keep up, you know.”

  “Keep up?”

  Arabella Griffin smiled. “You don’t imagine life as a Gypsy is easy, do you? Life as a . . . vertically challenged Gypsy?” Laine could almost see quotation marks around the politically correct term. “I had to earn my keep.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Well, I was quite the performer,” she said smugly. “My specialty was folding myself up inside a piece of luggage. My da would carry it out by the handle, open it, and out I would pop. Always got a
laugh and a few pence.”

  Laine heard Arren chuckle at this.

  Arabella leaned forward conspiratorially. “My size was useful in other ways too, of course.” She winked. “I’ll say no more.”

  Arren couldn’t hold back a chuckle.

  Laine solemnly pantomimed zipping her lips. She could picture the tiny, barefoot Gypsy child slipping into all sorts of places where a normal-sized person couldn’t go, stealing for her family. Would she peep on tiptoe at herself in gilded mirrors? Open perfume bottles and take a sniff of the scent of wealth denied her kind? The jewels and silverware hadn’t a chance.

  “Anyway,” continued Arabella, “when my Einar died, life changed for me, in . . . in many ways.” Again that soft grinding sound.

  Laine rested her hand on Arabella’s in sympathy, but snatched it back at an unexpected sting. Like a stabbing static charge, one that went to her heart and wounded it somehow. She thought for a moment she might faint, but her vision cleared. Under the table, she rubbed her hand until the shock faded. Arabella chatted on, her voice soft and light. “I loved Einar with all my heart, and he loved me, but the Traveler life was no more.”

  A look passed between Arren and Arabella. Laine frowned and cocked her head, wondering what had just happened. Her brain had done that gauzy, expanding thing again. Arabella was talking over her head somehow, she knew it. Meaning more than she said. Something about her Einar. Her husband who had died.

  Laine’s phone buzzed softly in her pocket. She looked at it. Mother. The cell phone took on the aspect of a snake, the kind that might or might not be poisonous. Why did she have to call now, when things were so interesting? And when Arren was sitting right beside her?

  “Sorry, I’ve got to take this.” She left the table and went to a window.

  “Mom, hi!” Before she could say more, Bethea Summerhill burst into talk. She sounded strange. Was she drunk? At this time, early morning in Toronto, she should still be fairly sober. Yet she sounded on the verge of collapse, her voice husky and so slurred it was almost unrecognizable. “Mom, slow down. What is it?”

  “Laine! Are you all right? Tell me you’re all right!” A gusty half-sob accompanied this, and Laine ground her teeth.

  “Of course I’m all right. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “I had that dream, you know, that dream I have . . . you’ve never understood how I feel, how it tears me apart.” A moaning sigh, and the sound of glass breaking in the background.

  Oh Lord, not The Dream. Always different yet always the same, Bethea’s recurring nightmare varied in content—Laine in a pool, in the ocean, in a bathtub—but always had the same climax: Laine drowning.

  “Mother, I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

  “How can I not worry? You’re my baby! You’re across the Atlantic, I can’t believe I let you go, do you know how dangerous it is? Do you?”

  Laine considered her words. She couldn’t lie to Bethea. Her whole relationship with her mother, such as it was, was based on the insistence upon truth. Bethea could rarely come up with truth, but if Laine fell into the pattern of lying too, her wily, self-centered mother would instantly know and start to use it against her. Plus, there was no denying it was dangerous here.

  Laine closed her eyes and summoned patience. She didn’t have to blurt out everything, after all.

  “I’m absolutely fine. I’m having fun. And guess what? Innis and I had a picnic by a river.” She groaned silently. Why the hell had she mentioned the river?

  “You what? A river? Innis? Darling, I can hardly hear you.” Bethea was compensating by shouting into her phone. Laine crammed it against her ear to keep her mother’s voice from carrying.

  “Look, why don’t I call you back later? Okay? Mom? Can you hear me?”

  “Oh no, oh God . . . stay away from rivers, promise me. Promise me!” Bethea’s voice rose to a shriek.

  Had Mother somehow divined that she’d been in the river that very morning? Laine had a cold, superstitious vision of herself washed up on the shore, dead and torn as the corpse had been.

  “Mother, everything’s fine! Look, I have to go. Try to get some rest, okay?” Try to leave the vodka alone. “Innis and I are having a great time.”

  “No, no, oh my babies . . . ”

  Laine unclenched her teeth long enough to mutter goodbye and disconnect. Fighting back annoyance and humiliation, she looked out the window at the lawn, the flower borders glowing in the sun, the ancient trees nodding gently. So peaceful and serene.

  Trees that danced in the moonlight, flowers that attacked, a lawn that knew how to bite.

  Mother had no idea. She wiped her eyes, wondering if she should try to reach Martin, get him to call Bethea’s therapist for some patch-up work. Laine felt a stab of guilt at the cynical thought. She can’t help it. Then: Yes, she can. She could quit drinking and act like an adult for once.

  She put a smile on her face and returned to the table. Arren was watching her. “Everything all right?”

  Laine sat and took a long gulp of her tea. “Everything’s fine. My mom’s the worrying kind.”

  Arabella said, “Is there any other sort?” She slid off her chair. “I’d best get back at it. I enjoyed chatting with you both.” She beamed fondly at Laine and Arren, and Laine had the impression that she was going to tell them what a lovely couple they were. Wave her hand over them in blessing.

  But she didn’t. She said, “Come in tomorrow and I’ll make you Romany tea. Traditional, you know.”

  “Romany tea?”

  “Strong, hot tea in a glass that has mashed fruit on the bottom. Peaches, strawberries, what have you. You hold a cube of sugar in your teeth and sip the tea through it.”

  “Sounds delicious. I’ll be back for sure.”

  Arren said, “Count me in.”

  They sat finishing their drinks, Arren observing her blandly over his glass. Finally Laine gave up and said, “Okay, I guess I know her better . . . but I need to ask you something.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Have you ever touched her? Like, held her hand?”

  He reared back. “What? Jealous, are you?”

  She cocked her head and smirked. “Dream on. No, what I mean is . . . well . . . ”

  “What is it?”

  “When I touched her hand, I felt a spark.”

  “Oh-ho!”

  “Not that kind, you idiot. It was like electricity—a physical sensation.”

  His expression sobered. “I thought I noticed something when you laid your hand on hers.”

  “It had something to do with her husband, I’m sure of it.”

  “Hm. Perhaps. Or more likely, just some kind of static.”

  She sighed. She couldn’t explain it. Best to let it go for now.

  Change the subject. “So the Gypsy runs a bed-and-breakfast. What do you do for a living, Mr. Tyrell?”

  “When I’m not on a quest for justice, Miss Summerhill?” He shot a blue glance at her. She could almost feel it rolling along her skin and leaving a streak of fire.

  She sipped her tea and blinked innocently at him.

  “I’m a forester. University of Aberdeen for my undergrad work, now toiling away on a doctorate at Oxford. It’s taking forever.” He scrubbed his face with one hand. She could hear the exhaustion in his tone. “Right now I’m in a group focused on forest responses to unnatural and human-inflicted disturbance. Among other things.”

  Laine raised her eyebrows. An Oxford doctoral candidate. Very nice. “Unnatural disturbance . . . I’ve had a glimpse of that, if you call floating corpses unnatural.”

  His eyes turned blank. “You could say they were, yes.”

  She cursed herself inwardly. How could she spill out such a callous remark, considering his sister’s death? She wasn’t in some kind of pastel Hallmark drama here: this was real, and Arren was hurting.

  “Sorry,” she murmured, making herself look up at his face. “I guess I sounded flippant. I didn’t mean it—all this has me pretty f
reaked out.”

  “Entirely understandable. Has me . . . freaked out too.” He gave her a smile at that, and her heart leapt for it like a fish for a shiny bug. Pathetic, she thought.

  “Tell me more about what you do.”

  “Unfortunately, a lot of it is political. I rarely get into the field these days. Our group is trying to promote general forest management. Our aim is to coordinate among all the districts, counties, parishes, and so on throughout the British Isles to develop a protected network of forests, meadows, and streams for wildlife to use. Animals need corridors of wild land in order to connect populations, enable breeding and foraging for food. When there isn’t enough land to roam and provide sustenance, populations can become stressed and invade one another’s territories.”

  Laine wondered if this included populations of the cabyll ushtey. “Sounds like a big job. I’ll bet you spend a lot of time in meetings.”

  “And in front of my computer. I’ve managed to publish a few papers here and there, in land-management journals and so on, but I spend more time than I like in committee meetings, negotiating with district and county councilors.”

  “Oh, those rowdy, fun-loving scamps.”

  He laughed, his whole face relaxing as if the sun shone on it. She wanted very badly to reach out and stroke his cheek, run her hand into his hair and pull him across the table for a kiss. The shiny bug had a hook inside. It set itself firmly in her throat, making it impossible to talk for a minute.

  “The party never ends,” he said. “But lately progress on my dissertation has got pushed aside.”

  “My master’s thesis too,” she said. “Listen to this: ‘Legal and Administrative Aspects of Water Management as Applied to the Black Ash Creek Watershed from 1800 – 1920.’ How much more boring can a thesis get?”

  “Ouch. Did you hope to find something relevant here?”

  “I did. My plan, and I did have one, was to follow up settlers’ family histories to bolster my data. I’d been putting the trip off, until my brother made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.” She grinned ironically. “Now I’m in over my head in crazy stuff.”