“Evan came to me first. It was actually before everyone figured out I was a songbird. I had no idea I had any magic, but then during that bank robbery in June I got scared and…”
“Pulsed?” I filled in for her. I would never have guessed it but the proof was right in front of me. How had she ended up with talent when I hadn’t? Life just wasn’t fair.
“Anyway, I’ve been cleaning Evan’s house and he’s been showing me some basics.”
“Since when did sorcerers stop scaring you?” I asked.
“Some still do. Victor Blackwood stopped by earlier this morning.” Madison shuddered. “Demanded to know what I was doing cleaning his son’s house. Like I was here to steal secrets or something.”
“I wish you’d told me,” I said. “Not about Evan, but about the rest.”
“You wouldn’t have minded finding out I have some magic talent?”
She had me there. I opened and closed my mouth a few times, but I had no idea what else to say.
“Let’s go,” Wesley said.
This time, I didn’t argue with him. I followed, and was almost to the front door when Madison shouted my name. As I turned to face her, she thrust a velvet box into my hands – the one that had been on the table she’d knocked over.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Open it.”
Carefully, I did. Inside, resting on a bed of velvet, sat a spectacular diamond and sapphire engagement ring. My breath caught in my throat as my fingers traced the pattern of stones. I wanted to try it on, but was almost afraid to.
“He still loves you,” Madison said.
I shook my head.
“Cassie–” Wesley warned.
“Yeah, I’m coming.” I handed the ring back to Madison and fled to the car before I said or did anything else I would end up regretting.
15
WESLEY LAID INTO ME WHEN WE got back to the car, instantly going from being so much background noise to being a forceful presence in my conscience. “I can’t believe you did that. What were you thinking going in there like that? Hell, you walk around talking up these practitioners like you’re afraid of them but you didn’t seem to have any qualms about just waltzing into his house.”
My face was already red, so I stared resolutely out the window, refusing to engage him in conversation. It had been a moment of pure insanity, brought on by curiosity, opportunity, and the unnerving conversation I’d had with Evan earlier in the week. But it had been stupid. Madison wouldn’t have the authority to invite me into his house, which meant anything could have happened by forcing my way in there. Somehow, though, I’d known that Evan wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me. It was an instinctive thought that I couldn’t have explained to Wesley if I’d wanted to.
“What’s the next name on the list?” The abrupt change of subject momentarily took me by surprise.
“Um, another Blackwood – Victor. Evan’s father.”
“You got a history with this guy, too?” Wesley asked.
I shook my head. I’d never had much contact with Victor at all, except for a couple of notably odd moments in my past. “My father does, though.”
We managed to finish the drive in silence, but when we reached Victor Blackwood’s modest two-story dwelling, he wasn’t home. His wife, Laura Blackwood, answered the door. The elegantly dressed woman had never liked me, apparently because I looked like my mother and she hated my mother.
“Cassie,” Laura said, coolly. “What are you doing here?” Only then did she seem to notice my uniform. “Is something wrong?”
“I’m here to ask your husband a few questions as part of an official investigation.”
“I see.” Laura shot a look at Wesley before turning back to me. “He’s not home. He’s been out of town for a few days. He’s trying to track down a rare book for Evan, so maybe he’ll start speaking to him again.”
“Evan and his father had a fight?” That was news to me. “When did that happen?”
Laura looked at me significantly. “About thirty minutes after you broke up.”
The information startled me, but the look in Laura’s eyes startled me more. She knew something she thought I should know, but for some reason couldn’t come right out and tell me.
“So, he’s still out of town?” I asked. No wait, that wasn’t right. Madison had said he’d stopped by Evan’s house earlier today.
Laura shook her head. “He’s out looking for Evan. Can’t say when he’ll be back.”
Wesley took a card out of his pocket and handed it to Laura. “Have your husband give us a call when you see him.”
She took the card, absently. “Your father and my husband have done some pretty hateful things to one another.”
“Yeah.” I didn’t know what that had to do with anything, but I sensed it would be a mistake to interrupt.
“They used to be best friends growing up. Did you know?”
I shook my head, although somehow the revelation didn’t surprise me. “All I know is that they started fighting over Belinda Hewitt and never stopped.”
She shook her head and laughed, softly. “Over that old witch?”
I glanced at Wesley, who kept looking pointedly at the car. “Um, okay, if they didn’t start fighting over her, then who?”
“Over the drained woman Belinda bought for Victor to try to keep him from seeking vengeance.”
My head whipped around so fast I thought I might get whiplash. I knew instantly who she meant, and even felt a little foolish for not having seen it before. My mother had been drained and sold. My father had rescued her.
Then a terrible thought struck, one so horrible I didn’t want to give it voice, but which would definitely explain why Evan had turned his back on me that night. He might even have been too embarrassed to admit the truth. And it wasn’t as if I looked anything at all like my father – I looked like a perfectly preserved younger version of my mother.
“I–” I swallowed and started over. “You’re talking about my mother?”
Laura nodded.
“Is there any chance–” I couldn’t quite bring myself to ask the question, but I forced the words out. I had to know. “Is there a chance my father is actually-?”
“Oh no!” Laura stopped me before I had to finish forming the question. “You weren’t born for a year after your parents got married. Victor fell in love with me by that time or I wouldn’t have married him. Evan’s only a day older than you, after all.”
“Right.” I breathed out a startled sigh of relief, though I didn’t feel any better. Something still didn’t add up here.
“Come on,” I said to Wesley. “Let’s see who’s next.”
* * *
We finished the B’s with no problems, but when we set out to visit Clark, Ben, we pulled into the long circular driveway behind another visitor, one whose charismatic pull I could feel even when I could only see the back of his head.
Alexander DuPris stood on the porch, talking through a storm door to a woman I didn’t recognize on sight. Actually, I wasn’t sure if I would recognize Ben Clark on sight either, since my family didn’t deal with theirs. The Clarks had drifted toward the Blackwoods in the great divide twenty some odd years ago.
Alexander turned to face us as we walked up the front steps, a frown marring his normally charming face. “Hello, Cassie. Nice to see you again.”
I nodded in reply before turning to the homely woman standing just inside the house. She had the look of a woman who had lost all joy in life, one whose internal sparkle had gone. Her eyes were dull, her clothing unkempt, and even her obvious pregnancy couldn’t put a glow on her skin.
“Mrs. Clark?” I asked. “Is your husband home?”
She shook her head, furiously. “He doesn’t like me to have visitors. I was just telling Mr. DuPris to please leave.”
“Ma’am, I really am sorry to have to inconvenience you, but my partner and I have official business with your husband. When are you expecting him?”
“Perhaps we should wait, then,” I said.
“Oh no!” Her eyes widened. “Go away. I wasn’t supposed to answer the door, but Mr. DuPris found me weeding the garden and chased me inside.”
“What’s going on?” I directed this question to Alexander, who continued to frown, deeply.
“I’m guessing she’s been drained. Recently.”
I had to look away to hide my shock from Mrs. Clark. My eyes flew to Wesley, who had an oddly haunted look on his face, though he couldn’t have fully understood. Maybe he suspected that Mrs. Clark was being abused. That was evident enough, even without visible bruises.
“Can’t you get her away from him?” I asked Alexander.
“Not if she doesn’t want to go.”
“Mrs. Clark,” I said.
She cut me off. “No. Look at me.” She gestured to her rounded abdomen. “I’m not leaving.”
“Does your husband let you leave the house?” I could feel my face burning in anger, but I didn’t care. “Or have any friends?”
Alexander put a staying hand on my shoulder, and I turned to look into his sorrowful eyes. “Come on. There’s nothing we can do here right now.”
“But–”
This time, Wesley took me by the arm and led me away. A second later, the front door slammed shut. Numbly, I followed Wesley to the squad car, but when he climbed in the driver’s side, I asked him to give me a minute. Then I ran to catch up with Alexander before he could get into his own car.
“We have to help her,” I said.
“I’m not done yet,” Alexander replied. “But it’s not easy if they won’t leave. And for her, the hurt is so raw.” He heaved a sigh. “Did you see how she looked? Like some light from within had dimmed?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “Magical talent may reside in the blood, but ripping it away can break a person’s soul. It takes a while to recover from that.”
He didn’t notice the expression on my face as he slid into his car. I’m not sure what he would have seen if he had. Shock, perhaps. But I felt as if I had gone beyond shock and straight to horror. Also denial, because even as pieces began click-click-clicking into place, I tried to shut down my brain before I learned a truth that would turn my world upside down.
“Are you okay?” Wesley asked when I climbed into the car.
“Take me home,” I said.
“We still have some time this afternoon–”
“Take me home. Now.”
He didn’t question me a second time; he just put the car into gear and drove.
16
WHEN I WAS SIX YEARS OLD, my parents let me decorate my own bedroom. Mom took me to the store to look at paint samples and to thumb through catalogs of idealistic fairy tale bedrooms. It’s not that I don’t like pink and purple, but seeing so much concentrated in one room was enough to make me feel nauseated.
“This is an important decision,” Mom told me. “So pick carefully. You’re going to have to live with your choice for a long time.”
I did pick carefully. After agonizing over the decision for days, I spotted my muse – a set of midnight black silk sheets. As soon as my eyes alighted upon them, I knew what I wanted. But for some reason, my mother wasn’t pleased.
“Black walls? Cassandra, you’re going to have to sleep and play in this room.”
“Not just black walls,” I explained in my enthusiastic six-year-old voice. “Black carpet, black furniture, black sheets, black pillows. I want it all black.”
“But you like so many colors! You’ll suffocate in black.”
I wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that, but I did know I wanted black, so I shook my head in defiance. “You said I could pick.”
“I did, didn’t I?”
She let my other siblings help decorate their rooms, too, but she always gave them a choice of three pre-approved colors. Meanwhile, my bedroom remained black for the next fifteen years.
* * *
My fortress of solitude no longer existed. I hadn’t been in my old room since the day I’d flown from the house in tears, forcibly removed so that my parents could disown me and live their little fantasy that everything would be all right. According to Juliana, however; they had given Elena my old tower room, put Christina in Elena’s old room, and prepared the nursery for the new babies. Elena had redecorated, choosing bright, blinding white for the walls and bedding. Destroying my fortress of solitude.
I needed my fortress back, and there was only one way to get it. After Wesley dropped me off at home, I headed for the hardware store, purchased two gallons of black paint, along with the painting supplies I thought I’d need. Back at the house, I began dragging the furniture from my bedroom and laid drop cloths to protect the beige carpeting, though if I had a choice I’d replace it with black as well.
The landlord wouldn’t be happy about the paint color, but I didn’t care. As the paint transformed the walls, the room became my true home at last – my refuge. My quiet space. A place where I could think and just be.
Two hours later the room smelled strongly of paint fumes, but it was finished. The walls, the door frame, the baseboards, and even the ceiling had a coat of midnight colored paint on them. When it dried, I’d need to apply a second coat. But for the moment, I opened the window, turned on the ceiling fan, and sat on the floor in the middle of it all.
Only then did I let the facts begin to sink in.
Magical talent may reside in the blood, but ripping it away can break a person’s soul…
Anyone without the right genes can’t get in… door won’t open…
Beware your heart and soul, for before he is done, Evan will have broken them both…
The men in this town… a lot of them think you’re burned out or repressed…
I shook my head, still not ready to accept the truth I had begun to suspect. I mean, yes, he had broken my heart, but he couldn’t break my soul in the way Alexander meant. I didn’t have any magic for him to steal, unless I was repressed.
Maybe that was it. I felt like the hopeful child. And once again, as I had done so many times before, I found my quiet place and reached for the magic.
It wasn’t there. It never had been. I wasn’t repressed. I knew it, and in the next instant, I knew why I knew it.
…before he is done, Evan will have broken them both…
…will have broken…
Not will break, will have broken.
In other words, he had already done it.
When? How? The part of my brain in denial demanded to know.
Does it matter? Do you doubt it happened?
No.
I felt a hot tear on my cheek, and wondered how it had gotten there, though I didn’t brush it away. It felt oddly soothing. As did the others that soon joined it.
How could my parents have allowed such a thing to happen? They were just as powerful as the Blackwoods, after all.
Yet somehow I’d gotten the impression that Evan outshone his father and indeed, every other practitioner in the area. By quite a bit.
I closed my eyes and shook my head. Impossible. Not possible. Not…
Victor had wanted my mother. He and my father had fought over her, doing any number of terrible things to one another in the process.
But this?
Distantly, as if from another world, I heard my cell phone ring.
There are things about him you don’t know…
The phone rang again.
Evan hadn’t said my father had paid him off, only that they had settled the debt.
Ring.
Isn’t there any way to repay it? I’d once asked my brother.
You could give him all your magic.
This time, when the phone rang, I scrambled for it, catching it just before it went to voice mail.
“Cassandra,” Mom said, “I just wanted to know if you’re coming over for dinner
tomorrow night.”
The words almost didn’t make sense to me, coming as they did through a fog of confusion and denial. When? How? Surely… surely my parents hadn’t sold my magic to settle some kind of debt? Not when they’d acted my entire life as if it had somehow been my fault. As if I’d been the disappointing one.
“Cassandra?” Mom said, sounding concerned. “Are you okay?”
“It’s impossible,” I whispered. But it wasn’t the right word. It wasn’t impossible, however improbable it might have been. Yes, my parents should have been able to protect me. But they hadn’t.
“What?” Mom said.
I licked my tear-moistened lips, tasting the salt. “I don’t have any magic because Evan has it all.”
Her startled gasp became the last piece in the puzzle. There was no backing away from the truth this time. My world and everything in it had just changed for good.
I wasn’t aware of the passage of time. Distantly, as if from another lifetime, I heard my cell phone ringing, but I felt too numb to care. I only returned to reality when I heard the house’s front door open, followed by the roar of two angry voices.
“I can’t move back in with you, even if I wanted to.” Madison was saying. “I’ve got responsibilities here. Cassie and Kaitlin count on me for a third of the costs.”
“Don’t worry about that,” said a vaguely familiar masculine voice. Her father? “I can cover it. I told you I’ve come into a sort of inheritance. A big one.”
“Good for you, but what does it have to do with me? You said I wasn’t your daughter.”
“I’ve raised you since you were a baby. Of course you’re my daughter.”
“Then why-?” Madison stopped short. She spotted me outside my bedroom door, leaning against the wall, and frowned. That’s when she took in the displaced furniture and sniffed the paint fumes in the air. “Cassie, are you okay?”
I laughed. I don’t know why, since nothing was funny. But since I didn’t think I could be less okay, the question struck me as positively hilarious. Or maybe it was the paint fumes.
I had to get out. I had to think. Without answering her questions, I dashed back into the heart of the fumes to throw on a pair of jogging shoes. Then, darting around Madison and Mr. Carter, I burst through the front door and set out to run in a random direction with the shadow of tormented anguish hot on my heels.
Mind Games Page 15