Joshua fumbled a little, feeling color come to his face. This all sounded so ridiculous now. “Well, you know how you tell me that I should see what kind of feeling I get from the images, and I got a really bad feeling from this one.” He glanced up at his mom to see if she was skeptical.
But he should have known better. She was watching him thoughtfully, her brow creased in focused attention. “Really?” she asked. “Did you block it?”
Her matter-of-fact tone made it so much easier for Joshua. It was as though they were discussing buying a new car. “Yeah. I mean, I did the white-light-circle thing you told me about. It seemed to work,” he said, though it still felt strange to him that he was actually having this conversation. Then, as his mother’s eyes blinked sleepily again, a thought hit him. “Hey,” he said suspiciously, “how come it’s all right for you to tire yourself out ‘lending energy’ and I’m supposed to block anything negative?”
Greer sighed and sat up a little straighter. “It’s not the same thing,” she explained. “When I make a talisman for someone, I sometimes, though very rarely, put some of my own energy into it. The reason I do it so rarely is because it does cost me. Also, I’m putting positive energy in. That’s not the same as taking on negative energy. The gifts we have are different. Mine is all future, and yours is, well, so far it seems to be all in the present.”
Joshua picked up a sharp knife and started chopping the vegetables. He muttered, “If dead people can be present.”
“They can, and they are, to you,” Greer said firmly. “Now, what they really are—if it’s some energy people have left behind, or just another way that the infinite universe communicates with you—you might never know.”
“I’ll never understand it, that’s for damn sure,” Joshua said in an exasperated voice, and raising the knife in the air, he brought it down with a thwack that split an onion cleanly in half. “And I don’t want it either. All I want is to learn how to control it so I can pick a major and not be a freak at college.”
“But exactly what it is doesn’t matter,” Greer said reassuringly, nudging forward the argument that he’d been given this gift for reason. “What’s important is that you can use it to help people, if—and when—you choose to.”
Joshua continued chopping with slightly more force than necessary. “But that’s the thing, isn’t it? I don’t really seem to have a choice.” The chunks of onion were becoming increasingly smaller and the gases that the action released were rising to sting his eyes, until tears began to blur his vision. Joshua wiped at them furiously and then resumed his attack on the hapless root vegetable.
Greer stood up and moved slowly across the kitchen to Joshua. She took the knife from his hand and scraped the now-minced onions into a frying pan she pulled down from an overhead rack, then set it aside. Then she lit a candle and stood it on the chopping block; the flame quickly burned away the irritating vapors. “I know it seems that way, and I understand you feel compelled to help. But I don’t believe that’s always the reason the images appear. Sometimes, maybe an energy just wants to say hello.”
“Not this one.” Joshua snorted. “I never felt anything like this before. Usually, no, almost always, the human figures that I see are . . . Oh, what’s the word?” Joshua racked his mental dictionary to find the right definition. “Benevolent,” he said, finding it. “They want to help or hang around, or they just sort of stand there beaming at me or the person I see them over. Sometimes they show me something, and I get the feeling that whatever it is has meaning for the person they are with. But this was very different. It was evil.”
Greer was watching her son, concerned. “In what way?” she asked softly.
“Well, he was kind of glaring at this kid, as though he wanted to hurt him, to get at him. I felt like it was a really strong influence.”
His mother was nodding. “There’s another difference between us. I believe that I see an image of the evil intention itself. I see it as a color or a shape, like a jagged piece of glass. But energy can’t come from nowhere. It has to be generated. Maybe you are seeing the source of some kind of evil that is affecting this kid.” She cocked her head to one side and asked, “Does that feel like it could be right?”
Joshua stood in the kitchen and thought about it. “Ye-es, I guess so.”
Greer took her son’s hand and led him to the table, where they sat down next to each other. “Listen to me. You have to be very careful. You are not responsible for the things you see—”
“But that’s why I hate this! I feel like I have to try to help him!” Joshua said, frustrated. “Like I have no choice!”
“I know,” Greer soothed, “but listen to me. Altering energy by using your own is very dangerous.” She gazed intently into his eyes.
“You do it!” he said accusingly.
“I know, but like I said, not very often, and I’m very aware of the cost, and I’m very careful not to give too much. You don’t know what too much is yet.”
Joshua dropped his eyes and nodded. They sat for a moment in silence and then he spoke: “I met him again today. I picked him up on the road and Sterling gave him a job. I think that was a pretty big coincidence, don’t you?”
Greer leaned forward and kissed her son on the top of his blond head. “No. I don’t believe in coincidences.” She took a deep breath and let it out with an exasperated sound. Joshua looked up at her, surprised. “Okay, maybe you are supposed to help this kid. What’s his name?”
“Simon.”
“Simon. Right. But you have to go slow; you’re just learning. Actually we both are.”
“I know. I’ve got some help anyway.” Joshua grinned at his mom. “There’s a little dog that’s doing its damnedest to keep the bad guy back.”
Greer smiled warmly for a moment, and then her face tightened with worry again. “What do you think the spirit—” Joshua winced at the word spirit, so she added, “If that’s what it is, wants from Simon?”
“I don’t know,” Joshua said, shaking his head thoughtfully. “I’m probably crazy, but I know what I think it is.” He looked up at his mom, and the concern in her eyes gave him the confidence to speak his fear. “I think it wants him dead.”
Chapter 12
Even at dawn the temperature was uncomfortable, but Greer had promised Jenny she’d go riding with her, and this was the only part of the day when that would be possible. Jenny had picked her up in the pitch dark, and they had made the drive up the canyon under a sky of dimming stars. Now Greer brushed down the horse that Mindy had lent her, a sweet-natured mare named Buttermilk, with a fond hand. It had been years since she’d ridden. She and her husband, Geoffrey, had gone often when they’d been married; she had loved the sensation of riding the forested trails near their home, and the warm smell of hay and horses was sending a flood of sweet memories back to her.
She finished brushing out Buttermilk’s mane and then went to lift the heavy western saddle from its rack for Jenny.
“Sorry to have to ask you to do that,” Jenny said, watching Greer heave the saddle onto King’s back jealously. Her normal pride in her self-sufficiency was suffering a major hit.
“No problem, and remember you promised: an easy ride, nothing too strenuous.”
Jenny laughed and massaged her compact, circular tummy. “I know, I know. The doctor said I was only allowed to walk the horse, and I wasn’t allowed to fall off the horse. I told him I could just walk beside the horse, but he told me to ride him. In this heat, he’d rather King do the work than me. People who don’t know King seem to think I’m taking some awful risk, but Dr. Blackwood just pooh-poohs all that. He said, ‘As long as you’re fine, the baby’s fine.’ ”
“I know. Everyone wants to give you advice, like they all know better than you about how to take care of yourself when you’re pregnant. ‘Don’t walk, don’t bike-ride, don’t take a hot bath, don’t eat purple food.’ Most of it is just old wives’ tales. I hiked though Joshua’s whole gestation, including four mile
s the day he was born!”
“It’s only the people who never exercise before they get pregnant who are afraid to, and probably shouldn’t. Dr. Blackwood says I have as much chance hurting the baby tripping up a stair as I do sitting on a walking horse. And when I told him I get anxious and feel terrible when I don’t go, he said, ‘Go! The baby probably enjoys the rocking sensation.’ He did say that I should probably sit it out for the last month. So I’ve got two weeks left.” She smiled down and patted her stomach.
“What if he were to spook and you fell off?” Greer asked, trying to disguise the unease that her premonition had given her.
Jenny walked around behind King. She stood there for a moment and then, without warning, she let out a bloodcurdling scream. Greer jumped six inches in the air and her hair stood on end. King’s ears went back, but nothing else so much as twitched. Then, very slowly, his head swiveled on his powerful neck to see what in hell this crazy human was up to.
“But I guess that’s not likely to happen,” Greer observed.
“No,” Jenny said. “This horse has come face-to-hoof with a six-foot rattlesnake stretched out in the sun and stepped politely over it. I didn’t even see it until it was behind us. He was a working roper. He’s stood still while bulls—big ones with horns—stampeded toward him. The guy who owned him before me did six-gun shooting events from his back. It would take a bomb to spook this guy. I think we’re good.” She looked seriously at Greer. “You know that if I thought there was any chance I would hurt this baby, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be home in bed with the door locked.”
“Can’t live like that,” Greer said. She tried to keep the shadow she felt in her heart from crossing her face. Instead, she felt in her pocket for the charm she had made and pulled it out. “Speaking of which,” she said, holding up the small silk sack, “I made you and the baby something.”
Once before Greer had made a talisman for Jenny. That one had been to ease the strain between her and her husband. Because of the strong, existing love between the two, it had not required any of Greer’s personal strength, only a reawakening of the bonds between the couple. This was different.
But Jenny didn’t know that, only that her relationship with Lewis had flourished after she received the charm. When she saw the tiny pouch suspended from Greer’s hand, she looked absolutely delighted. “Oh, thank you. What’s it for?”
“Protection, mostly,” Greer said, trying to sound light. “Happiness, harmony, the usual.”
As she took it and cradled it like a pearl in her hands, Jenny asked, “What’s in it?” in a whisper, as though the contents were a secret.
“A few different things,” Greer said evasively. “You can either wear it around your neck, or keep it in your pocket. But it will work best if you have it near you, for now anyway. Later you can throw it in a drawer and the energy will still stay with you.”
Jenny had raised it to her face. “It smells good,” she complimented, and then pulled the cord over her head and let the pouch fall down under her T-shirt. “If it works as well as the last one you gave me, I’m not ever taking it off. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Greer told her sincerely as she said a silent prayer that her small act of sheltering would be enough, would hold against whatever force she had detected over her friend.
“Okay, let’s get going before it’s too damn toasty to go at all!” Jenny said, and turned to put the bridle on King, her huge black gelding. The horse stood almost seventeen hands high, and, gentle though he was, a sense of sheer power radiated from his powerful flanks and alert black eyes.
Soon, both horses were saddled and ready to go. Greer unhooked the docile Buttermilk from the cross ties and led her out of the barn. The first rays of the sun fell into the canyon where Mindy and Reading’s ranch sat nestled in a prime area of softer rolling land between rugged hills.
“Oh,” Greer said, “I left my helmet. Here, hold Buttermilk.” She handed the reins to Jenny and hurried back into the barn. She strode down the long corridor, open at both ends, to where she’d left the riding helmet Mindy had lent her on a hook near the tack room. Even as she walked, the slanting morning sun entered the far end and illuminated the wood of the first stall. It glowed with a red-orange haze. Something about it made Greer pause in her step. As she reached for the helmet, she caught the toe of her boot on the slanted concrete of the floor and lost her balance. She stumbled forward, put up her hands to brace herself against the wood walls, and gasped.
The wood against her palms was so hot that she pulled them away in alarm. “What the . . . ?” In confusion, she reached out gingerly again and touched a finger to the wood. It felt normal, only as warm as the sultry air around it. Yet she had felt a searing heat, she was sure; her palms were still stinging from it. Greer stood for a moment, looking up and down the barn, wondering what had just happened.
Before she had time to think about it, Jenny called out from outside, “Are you coming? It’s getting hot already!”
“I’m coming,” Greer called back. She gave the corridor one more appraising look. Everything seemed fine, normal, still. Once more, Greer laid a tentative hand on the wall next to the helmet. Tepid. With a shake of her head, she removed the helmet from its hook and buckled it on as she went to rejoin Jenny, who mounted with care from a step.
“You look good on that horse. When did you start riding?” Greer asked her.
Jenny sighed and a bittersweet look came to her face. “When I was about eleven, things at home weren’t so good. I read all the time, as an escape, and I fell in love with horse stories. So, anyway, I started going to the stables at Griffith Park—it was only two bus rides away—and hanging out, asking people if I could help with their horses, that kind of thing. There was this one nice lady—her name was Maudine. She told me that if I shoveled out her horse’s stall every day, she’d give me a lesson for a half hour once a week.” Jenny paused and smiled. “His name was Texas.” She twisted up her face thoughtfully and said, “You know, it’s funny: I never thought of it this way before, but maybe that’s why I was able to fight someone bigger and stronger than me, because I had learned how to handle an unruly horse.” Greer remained silent. Jenny had never told her about her abusive past, and she would wait until she was ready to share it. Jenny went on. “That barn was my escape from hell. I spent all my time there. Even tried sleeping there once, but they caught me. Anyway, things changed. I grew up and got interested in boys and got married, but I always promised myself that one day I’d have a horse of my own, just like Texas. And it still amazes me that I remembered and that I can.” She patted King’s muscular neck and turned away from Greer, who thoughtfully said nothing about her friend’s tears.
“Well, you’re a natural-born cowgirl,” Greer offered softly.
They were headed down toward the now-dry riverbed when they passed a large storage shed. Along the back of it, mounted on the wall facing the increasingly brutal morning sun, were dozens of sets of antlers, some of larger game, possibly elk, but most were the smaller, more graceful remains of deer. There were also several hides nailed to the wooden exterior. Greer felt a shiver go through her.
“I call it the wall of death,” Jenny said grimly. “Just don’t look at it.” They rode on past all that now remained of the once magnificent, peaceful creatures, sobered by the sight.
“Can’t say I understand that,” Greer said, though she tried to. “I mean, I think it’s a good thing in some ways. I’m assuming that Reading and Mindy actually eat what they kill?”
“I think so,” Jenny told her with a sour face. “I shouldn’t be critical. I eat venison, and if I’m willing to eat it, I suppose I should realize that somebody’s got to kill it.”
“True enough,” Greer agreed. “With today’s buying everything sanitized and cellophane wrapped at the grocery store, we’ve lost touch with where our food comes from, and there’s something to be said for doing it consciously.” She glanced back at the large number of racks jut
ting like dead branches from the side of the building. “But it seems like you’d have to enjoy the killing to have that many.”
“I suppose it’s the primitive hunter part of them. The joy of stalking and the thrill of the kill. Some people like it,” Jenny offered.
Yes, thought Greer soberly, some people do.
Chapter 13
Leah Falconer looked across her desk at Susan Hughs. The woman’s style was expensive without any apparent ostentation.
“So the loan will be received in two installments,” Susan was saying, “the first fourteen million on execution of the agreement, the second on the first day of construction.” Susan Hughs always spoke, Leah noticed, as though it was a done deal.
Leah leaned back in her chair and pretended to review the papers in the file on her lap. The small office that she had taken over since her promotion to branch manager seven months ago suited her, and she liked being able to shut the door. She had taken some time to review the paperwork before Susan came in, and she was very familiar with the terms of the existing loan, having written it herself, and she knew that the Hughses’ company, Golden Door, had made all its payments on a timely basis and the deal had been a profitable one for the bank. “You’ll be using the project and the land itself as collateral?”
“Of course,” Susan said with a smooth smile.
“How’s the first phase selling?” Leah asked, unable to keep a twinge from twisting her chest. Though she had structured the loan deal, and been proud of it, the irony had not been lost on her that from her own home, far above Foothill Boulevard, she had been forced to oversee the harsh reality of its manifestation from attractive deal on paper to actual physical effect. The green, undulating hillsides across the valley from her, once so beautiful in their natural state, had been scraped of vegetation and flattened by land movers until they resembled nothing so much as a postapocalyptic wasteland. Each day she had felt the further scarring of the earth like a wound that wouldn’t heal. She had watched, unable to avoid the view from her living room window, as week by week her once-beautiful view had been leveled, paved, and covered with the frames of over two hundred homes, while next to them phase two had begun, with the inevitable evisceration of the landscape. It had been like watching a bunch of thugs work over a victim, leaving her for dead.
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