Tangled Echoes (Reconstructionist 2)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  “The house wards extend out that far?” Kett asked.

  Declan set his mouth grimly.

  I glanced at the vampire, ignoring the twist of fear that ran through my belly. “The basement does.”

  “Let’s hope to God that Jasmine isn’t in the basement,” Declan muttered.

  “Even if Jasper is involved,” I said. “There’s no way he’s inept enough to have kept Jasmine here.”

  “That’s debatable,” Declan said. “His megalomania could have easily tipped over the edge of insanity.”

  I glanced at Kett, thinking of the contract Jasper had forged with the Conclave — and what that possibly said about my uncle’s state of mind.

  Kett nodded almost imperceptibly, as if acknowledging my unvoiced concerns.

  I shook off that disturbing thought and began walking up the driveway, focusing on the task at hand. “I’ll take the orchard and gardens,” I said. “Declan, take the front and side yards, including the pool.”

  “I’ll search the remainder of the property,” Kett said. Then he all but disappeared.

  Declan swore.

  “Remember to look for pockets of magic,” I called after the vampire. “We’ll meet up at the house.”

  “I doubt he can hear you,” Declan said, stuffing his hands deeply in the pockets of his leather jacket.

  “He can hear me.”

  Declan snorted, then pressed something into my right hand.

  I glanced down at the small stone he’d tucked into my palm. It was etched with a single rune I didn’t recognize.

  “Put it in your pocket,” he said. “Trigger it if you get into trouble.”

  “My magic doesn’t play well with —”

  “Just put it in your pocket, Wisteria. You can’t occupy the moral high ground all the time.”

  He veered off to the right across the front yard. “Fifteen minutes. Then meet me at the kitchen doors, whether or not you’re done.”

  I tucked the stone into my pocket, more pleased by the gesture than I probably should have been, for the sake of my own emotional welfare.

  Declan needed me to find Jasmine. But he’d made his personal boundaries exceedingly clear.

  Still, I kept glancing back at him as I continued up the drive. He’d immediately begun to swiftly walk a grid across the front yard, working his way back toward the house.

  I focused myself forward, picking up my pace. The manor loomed before me, but I didn’t have to tackle that ten-thousand-square-foot magic-infested monstrosity quite yet. First I would check the orchards and the garden. It seemed highly unlikely that any clues would be found underneath the bare grapevines or apple trees, but we’d learned at a young age to never underestimate our uncle.

  His brand of evil always hid in plain sight.

  Wide stone pathways twined across the property from the back of the manor, crisscrossing through vegetable gardens and stands of Japanese pagoda trees, lilac, and magnolia. They wound through the expansive grape arbors, shooting off toward the apple orchard in one direction, the outdoor pool in the other, and toward the caretaker’s cottage and other outbuildings at the back of the property.

  Back when Jasper was mentoring, his apprentices had often used a golf cart to come and go across the property. But twelve years ago, Declan, Jasmine, and I had just run free whenever we got the chance.

  The gardens were bare now, and not simply because it was winter. They appeared to have been allowed to fall fallow. The grape arbor desperately needed to be hacked back. And as I crossed through into the orchard, I almost turned my ankle on the piles of decomposing fruit littering the ground.

  The day was chilly but nowhere near freezing. Normally, the entire estate would be blanketed by snow this time of year, and it was disconcerting to observe its outward lifelessness while feeling the vibrant magic underlying every step I took, urging me onward.

  The hutch I’d built underneath the apple trees at the southwest edge of the orchard, then had fruitlessly reinforced every spring in the hopes of attracting rabbits, was still standing after more than twelve years. The magic of the estate settled as I neared the site, whispering to me, brushing against my eyes and teasing the palms of my hands.

  I ducked underneath the winter-bare branches that had turned unruly without proper pruning, crossing to hunker down by the empty hutch. From where I crouched, I could see the full extent of the back of the manor through the trees. But when the boughs had exploded with apple blossoms in the spring, then leafed out green and hung heavy with fruit throughout the summer, the orchard had been a perfect sanctuary.

  Even after that first spring when I’d built the hutch for an injured rabbit we’d rescued. Even after Jasper had found the three of us secretly caring for the rabbit, and had tried to teach us how to kill with our magic. And even after we’d run away to Rose’s and were immediately turned back over to our uncle, we returned to that spot year after year.

  I brushed my fingers across the piece of wood I’d angled over a short wall of rocks between two exposed tree roots. It disintegrated underneath my touch.

  A wave of shock ran through me. I choked out a sob I hadn’t been aware I was holding back.

  I pressed my hand across my mouth, stopping any further expression of pain from getting loose. I squeezed my eyes closed, struggling against the tears suddenly streaming down my face.

  This wasn’t the time to give in.

  This wasn’t the time to collapse. Wood rotted, returning to the earth. That was just the proper way of things.

  The magic of the estate brushed against me more insistently, almost as if cajoling me to play. As if it had missed me, which was ridiculous. That energy didn’t have feelings or thoughts. It just existed. It was simply an accumulation of centuries of Fairchild magic. I should be immune to it.

  I wrapped my hand over my white-picket-fence bracelet, feeling the tickle of my own magic from the tiny reconstructions nestled among the platinum charms. I touched the tiny cube that held the reconstruction of Declan, then the cube that held the memory I’d collected of Jasmine.

  But I didn’t have to trigger that reconstruction in order to view it. I was standing in the very spot I’d collected it from.

  I opened my eyes.

  Jasmine, age nine, was crouched beside me, overseeing the feeding of our rescued rabbit. She threw her head back, laughing at something Declan or I had said.

  I squeezed my eyes shut.

  I hadn’t set any candles. I shouldn’t be calling forth magic without a proper boundary. And there was no good reason to be reconstructing that moment again anyway.

  I opened my eyes.

  Declan, who had just turned ten, swung down from the tree branch above us, landing barefoot in the grass. Jasmine shrieked playfully as she sprang up to defend the sacred space of the rabbit hutch.

  With no intent of doing so, I had called forth a reconstruction from the magic teeming around me.

  The sequence was already running front to back, as if I’d triggered it simply by walking into the orchard. I knew if I looked down and to the side, I would see myself offering the rabbit a carrot I’d just liberated from the garden.

  I was crouched down within my own reconstruction. I was inside my past. And in this moment, we were whole. Undamaged. Free.

  Declan had joined us three months previously. We’d just celebrated his birthday and were about to celebrate mine.

  But in a few moments, Jasper would find us. With magical power boiling around him, he would cross the orchard grass and teach us the most important lesson of our lives.

  Trust no one but each other.

  Even now, within the reconstruction, I could feel the magic shifting, preparing for his appearance. It was most likely the sheer power of his residual imprint that made the reconstruction possible in the first place.

  Stirring my hands through the magic, I restarted the scene. It swirled around me in a myriad of blues, then Jasmine was crouched beside me, laughing again. She looked so real that
I was almost convinced I could reach over, tug on one of her curls, and watch it spring back.

  I lifted my hand, idiotically allowing myself to believe.

  Declan jumped out of the tree.

  Jasmine sprang away, standing between him and me. Laughter rolled through the fruit-laden boughs around us, echoing back to me with a whisper of magic.

  I watched the scene again and again, restarting it each time just at the moment before Jasper appeared.

  That moment, that day, was the birth of Betty-Sue, Betty-Lou, and Bubba. And no matter how much the bond between us would be manipulated and conditioned by Jasper over the next six years — in that moment, we were pure.

  We loved.

  And we believed that we were loved, and even cherished, in return. Even Declan must have thought that Jasper cared for him, having rescued him.

  And we weren’t wrong.

  Not in that moment, anyway.

  I replayed the scene, feeding the rabbit, laughing with my younger self, and loving without reservation.

  “Wisteria …”

  I brushed the voice away, thinking that I’d let the scene play too long and Jasper was intruding.

  “Wisteria …”

  Someone was trying to call me away … a deep, angry voice. I didn’t want to listen. I pressed my hands over my ears.

  “Wisteria!”

  Rough hands closed around me, pinning my arms to my sides. Then those hands attempted to lift me, trying to pull me away from the magic of the reconstruction.

  I shrieked, twisting and kicking out at my captor.

  But he was stronger than me.

  It didn’t matter, though. I had the magic. I was the most skilled reconstructionist in the northern hemisphere. No one could take the magic from me.

  I reached for the residual, gathering it toward me. Hoarding it over my heart.

  The arms around me tightened, dragging my physical body away. But my captor couldn’t have my mind.

  At the edge of the reconstruction, Jasper appeared.

  I’d lost my focus. I had let him into the scene. He was barefoot, his blond hair long and wild. He boiled with magic, streaking all around him in dark shades of blue.

  And we three turned to him, smiling and innocent.

  “No!” I screamed. I was sobbing. “No! You can’t have them! I won’t let you have them!”

  My captor gripped my arms even tighter, shaking me.

  Then he kissed me, harshly.

  My hold on the residual magic slipped.

  “Please … please …”

  He was pleading. His magic danced against my lips.

  “Please, please, Betty-Sue. Come back to me. Please, God, don’t leave me again.”

  “Betty-Sue …” I whispered.

  “Oh, yes. God, yes.”

  Tiny pinpoints of pain rained across my face and neck. Just like the sparks I’d seen cascading from his hand. Just like the fireworks he wielded in the other reconstruction I cherished.

  Declan.

  Declan’s lips. Declan’s magic. Declan’s touch.

  And I was Betty-Sue.

  I allowed myself to see beyond the magic I’d collected, meeting Declan’s terrified gaze. We were still surrounded by the reconstruction, but all I could see was his golden-hazel eyes. Reaching up, I brushed my fingers across the stubble that covered his jaw.

  “I’m here,” I said.

  He kissed me again, softer this time. Then he swept me up in his arms, lifting me off the ground and somehow buffering me from the magic that seethed across the estate.

  I completely lost my hold on the reconstruction. As it collapsed, the blue sky of the late morning came into focus.

  Magic didn’t have feelings, didn’t have moods. But in that brief moment of hazy lucidity, I thought that the estate’s magic might have just made a failed attempt to keep me. Trying to collect me, as I had collected the tiny reconstructions on my bracelet.

  “I tried,” I whispered. “I tried to stay.”

  “I know,” Declan said. “I know.”

  Darkness closed over me, and I fell into a deep slumber.

  Chapter 9

  Cool fingers brushed across my eyelids, pressing lightly at my temples, then releasing. I was lying down with my head and shoulders propped up on something. My legs and torso were tightly wrapped, as if someone had swaddled me.

  “Welcome back, reconstructionist.” Kett’s normally cool voice was edged with frustration.

  “I apologize,” I whispered without opening my eyes. “I got drawn into the magic.” I lifted my arm, palm up, still feeling the power of the estate dancing in and around my hand. “I’m … having an odd reaction to being here.”

  “You’re letting your emotions lead you,” Kett said.

  I laughed quietly. “I thought you liked it when I did that.”

  Declan cleared his throat from somewhere by my head. Blinking, I opened my eyes. I was staring up at the gilded ceiling of the parlor in Fairchild Manor.

  Kett was sitting next to me on a green brocade chaise. Declan was standing beside me. He turned away, but I grabbed his hand.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’m not sure I could have gotten free on my own.”

  “Not without wanting to let go,” he said.

  I nodded, dropping his hand. But not before I noticed the three thick nested rings he wore. Each copper ring held a raw gemstone — a topaz, a sapphire, and a fire opal.

  Our three birthstones, imbued with magic.

  My magical senses were wide open, which was presumably why I could suddenly see the rings. I assumed Declan must have worn them all the time but kept them magically concealed. It was also why I could feel the magic of the house wards so intensely. I began envisioning layers and layers of my magic building up and around me, calling forth my usually tightly held shields.

  “You felt something in the orchard?” Kett asked. “Something that drained your magic? Declan wasn’t forthcoming.”

  So that was the root of the vampire’s frustration. He’d found me collapsed on the couch, and Declan had refused to tell him what happened.

  “Nothing relevant.” I toyed with the tiny reconstruction cubes on my bracelet, feeling utterly stupid.

  “But you called it forth nonetheless.” Kett’s gaze was on my hands. “Without your candles or your circle.”

  I stopped fiddling with the bracelet. “Yes. Like I said, the magic here is … intense. Familiar …” I hesitated, not sure how to rationally explain that the magic of the estate felt as though it was playing with me somehow. “It won’t happen again.”

  I shifted in the chaise so that I was sitting more upright. I had been wrapped up tightly in a patchwork crochet blanket I’d never seen before.

  I glanced over at Declan, who was slowly pacing the length of the parlor. The room looked exactly the same as it had the day I left Fairchild Manor, never to return. Until now. The limestone fireplace was stacked with split wood, ready to be lit. Muted green-printed wallpaper filled the space above chestnut paneling running throughout the main rooms on the first floor. Matching hand-carved double doors led to the marble-floored grand entranceway, while sliding doors led back through the massive dining room to the even larger kitchen at the back of the house.

  Kett passed me a glass of water, which I took eagerly, then sipped carefully. I desperately needed to do something with my hands, but was still feeling too depleted to get up and move.

  “You didn’t have any trouble with the house wards?” I asked.

  Declan shook his head. “Kitchen door opened when I was a few feet away. And I was able to invite the vamp … Kett in when he arrived.”

  “Does the house usually react to you in that manner?” Kett asked.

  Declan glanced my way. “Not me.”

  Kett pinned me with his silvered gaze, and for a brief moment, I felt the brush of his magic.

  I eyed him over the edge of the water glass. “Just ask your questions,” I said.

  �
��My apologies,” he murmured. “It’s a struggle to stay out of your head.”

  Declan muttered sarcastically. “I wonder why.”

  “Jasmine has told me the story of the rabbit you rescued,” Kett continued, ignoring Declan. “Of the origins of your nicknames.”

  I took another sip of water, not at all surprised that Jasmine had shared the story of that day.

  Declan stilled behind Kett. “And why would she have done that?”

  “I asked,” the vampire said offishly, his gaze still resting on me. “Though that wasn’t the story I requested originally. Was that event the reconstruction you were caught in?” He hovered his fingers over my bracelet. “Is it the one you hold here?”

  I laughed sadly, looking up at Declan. “Yes.”

  “How is that relevant?” Declan asked.

  “It is relevant to Wisteria’s future,” Kett said, keeping his gaze on me.

  “It’s her past,” Declan spat. “The first of many tests we endured.”

  “Which you failed.”

  “Until we passed. Until Wisteria passed. It’s done. And not remotely relevant to finding Jasmine.”

  “Do you think we’re here because of Jasper?” I asked Kett, untucking my legs from the blanket and swinging them off the chaise so I could sit upright. “Because of the contract?”

  Kett shrugged. “I know what you know. Jasmine was drawn home, tracking Nigel’s maker. The vampire who calls himself Yale, along with his brood, then kidnapped her. It could have nothing to do with Jasper or the schism within the Fairchild coven. In fact, a connection between Yale and your uncle would be coincidental enough to stretch incredulity.”

  “What contract?” Declan asked.

  “Unless … what if Yale figured out who Jasmine was?” I said, ignoring Declan’s question. “He might have approached Jasper for an explanation of her investigation. Only to discover that the Conclave was involved, not the coven.”

  “Goddamn you both,” Declan snarled. “If there’s something else going on here —”

  “Nothing that has to do with Jasmine’s kidnapping,” I said, though I wasn’t completely certain that was the truth. But I wasn’t lying. Not yet. Not unless we discovered there was more to the plot.