The Gossamer Crown: Book One of The Gossamer Sphere

by Conway, Melissa

  She moved closer and felt his hands at her hips. He guided her down onto the mattress and tucked her under the covers. She lay on her side with her back to him and he snuggled close with one arm around her mid-section.

  “I’m just going to sleep,” she said, although she knew he didn’t need the clarification.

  “Well, whatever you’re wearing would make anything else impossible.”

  She giggled a little and relaxed into the warmth of the cocoon they’d created.

  “Goodnight, Lizbee.”

  She didn’t even ask him where he’d come up with Granma’s nickname. “’Night.”

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  The Isle of Wight

  When he woke the next morning, Zach knew right away he’d slept in one position all night. He couldn’t feel his right arm at all, and a slight turn of his head told him he had a crick in his neck. Lizbeth had rolled towards him at some point and was sprawled all over him; her head rested on the numb arm, her hand was on his chest and one leg hooked around his legs. As soon as he realized that in order for her leg to get that way, her nightgown must’ve ridden way, way up, he decided he’d better sever all contact and find a cold shower – fast. She obligingly rolled away when he tried to extricate himself, and he was glad, since he hadn’t known how he was going to get the dead limb out from under her.

  He shook his arm and flexed his fingers as he walked down the hall, soon discovering that Kevin had beaten him to the bathroom. It looked like that cold shower was a reality whether he liked it or not.

  Once he’d finished up and redressed, he headed for the main room, passing Lizbeth in her white nightgown on the way. She gave him a shy smile and he returned it. He hadn’t so much as kissed her, but somehow it felt like so much more had happened between them.

  “Mmm, something smells good,” he said as he entered the kitchen.

  Felicity glanced up. “Eggs and sausages.”

  He sat at the table across from Kevin and studied his face. The whites of his eyes were almost normal. “Dude, you used up all the hot water.”

  “That’s not his fault,” Felicity said. “The water heater is old. We should be grateful the plumbin’ hasn’t burst with all these earthquakes.”

  Zach was grateful Felicity didn’t say anything about Lizbeth sleeping with him. She had to have noticed Lizbeth’s side of the bed hadn’t been slept in. They were lucky Felicity hadn’t panicked upon finding her missing and searched the house for her. Just thinking about it made his face burn. He wanted to tell Felicity that nothing had happened, but there was no way he’d do it in front of Kevin. Not that he wanted Kevin to think that something had happened. He just didn’t want him to know at all.

  Lizbeth came out just as they were digging into the hearty breakfast Felicity laid before them. “Just eggs and sausages” turned out to include potatoes, brown bread, fresh strawberries and a rich coffee with heavy cream.

  Over breakfast, Lizbeth broached the subject of finding Caitlin. To Zach’s surprise, Felicity was all for it.

  “I assume you know where she went?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Zach said. “Simon’s house.”

  “And where exactly might that be?”

  Zach looked at Lizbeth; she shook her head. He looked at Kevin, who shrugged.

  “Ahh, well, we…were there, but none of us knows how to get back or what the address is.”

  “That settles it, then. You’ll be taking Wolfdogge,” she said with a finality that did seem to settle it.

  Once they’d eaten, Zach sat at Felicity’s computer and opened Seamus the Bard’s website. He’d lain awake last night, holding Lizbeth, thinking about how awful it would be if she died and trying to come up with some other way to stop the sphere. What if the crown was lost to them forever? Were all of Caitlin’s abilities—the shapeshifting, the mind-reading, the electrical bursts that came in so handy whenever they needed to steal a car—useless without the crown? Would the whole quest be a waste of time if they couldn’t find it? He thought not. What was the point of them having all these impossible powers if they couldn’t use them to shut the sphere down? He’d formed a nebulous plan after Lizbeth’s breathing became soft and regular in sleep. Caitlin may have spent her long lifetime keeping her secrets, but maybe it was time to abandon that mindset.

  On Seamus’ home page, Zach read the lines below the prominently displayed heading, “Children of the Boar: Cast off your Shrouds and Come Forth.” The message was short and cryptic: “The age of hiding is done; the time for action is nigh; we must come together as one; Sound the battle cry!”

  He clicked on Seamus’ link labeled “Contact Me,” made note of the email address, and opened his own email provider. Felicity was bustling around preparing for their departure, so he had to hurry, but he’d already mentally composed his message: “Dear Seamus, you probably won’t believe this, but I’m in England right now with the last Noble looking for the crown. It was stolen from her a long time ago, probably by the Guild. It’s the only thing that can stop the gossamer sphere. Can you help us? Do you know of anyone who claims to be the descendant of a real shapeshifter? Please answer ASAP. Zach.” He included a link to his YouTube page and after a brief pause to consider the ramifications of going behind Caitlin’s back, hit send.

  Felicity gave them all the cash she had on her and brought Wolfdogge in from his kennel. The dog looked to Zach to be as tall as a Shetland pony.

  “Here’s his food,” she said, handing Zach a heavy knapsack. “Be sure he has access to plenty of water. There’s a picture of Caitlin in the bag. Show it to him once you get across the Solent, tell him to ‘find,’ and be sure to keep a tight hold on his leash.”

  Wolfdogge sat calmly by his mistress, tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth. Zach said, “I don’t get it. We’re going to have to take a taxi-”

  “He’ll tell you which way to turn,” Felicity said.

  Despite her assurance, he remained skeptical and hoped the dog didn’t turn out to be one big hairy, slobbery obstacle.

  “If he can find Caitlin that easily, why can’t he find the crown?” Lizbeth asked.

  “Even if a picture of the crown existed, he can’t find things, just people.”

  Zach thought about his laptop with the digital image he’d created. It was either at the bottom of the sea, or floating in the burnt-out hulk of The Gossamer.

  “It was silvery, and had,” he said, walking around one of the huge wooden posts in the living room, “one of these in the center of it.” He tapped his knuckles on a triple-spiral symbol carved into the age-darkened wood.

  “The Celtic triskele?” Felicity looked impressed. “It’s one of the oldest symbols there is. Scholars have speculated for centuries, but no one really knows what the symbols represent.”

  Lizbeth came to stand next to Zach. She ran her fingers over the spirals one by one. “I feel like I should know what it means.”

  “Ask Caitlin,” Felicity said. “When you find her.”

  The morning was cold, the sky an unnatural brownish grey. Tiny particles floated in the air; drifting volcanic ash. Lizbeth had borrowed one of Felicity’s jackets, but the old woman had nothing suitable for Zach or Kevin. After hugging them each as if she’d known them all their lives, she put them in Caitlin’s car.

  “Drive carefully,” she said. “Caitlin was afraid to be on the road in this car for good reason. Griffey recognized the plates, so you must assume the police are lookin’ for it.”

  Since Caitlin had the keys, they had to do their car-starting trick. Kevin drove, but only because he’d spent marginally more time in England than the others, which somehow made him more qualified to drive on the wrong side of the road. Zach sat in back next to Wolfdogge, who reeked of that pungent doggy odor, and his breath smelled like the sausage Felicity had snuck him for breakfast. At least he was well behaved. Zach petted him tentatively, and never once did the dog try to lick him on the face, even though they sat eye to eye.

&nb
sp; The ferry ride was uneventful, but getting a taxi driver to agree to take what amounted to a small horse along proved more difficult. The only taker was a friendly Indian man who lavished attention on Wolfdogge as soon as he saw him.

  Zach felt like a complete idiot showing the dog the picture of Caitlin, but he surreptitiously held it up for Wolfdogge to see as soon as the driver asked them where they were going. Nothing seemed to happen.

  “Do you have an address for me?” The driver repeated.

  Lizbeth, sitting in the front seat, suggested Zach roll down the window so the dog could get some air. As soon as Zach complied, Lizbeth said, “Find!” and Wolfdogge thrust his head out and barked. His nose pointed east.

  “We don’t have an exact address, but we can direct you, if you don’t mind,” Zach said.

  “Whatever you say,” the driver said in his heavy accent.

  Just before every turn, Wolfdogge let out one bark and stiffened his body like a hunting dog giving away the location of its quarry. Several times he threw himself across Zach and Kevin to get to the opposite window. Zach kept intercepting amused looks in the rearview mirror from the driver, who said, “That’s one smart dog. He knows the way home, doesn’t he?”

  It was a long drive, but the landscape finally began to look familiar to Zach. When they pulled up in front of Simon’s house, he looked at the scruffy dog sitting next to him and shook his head in amazement. They paid the driver and got out. As the taxi drove off, Wolfdogge began to pull on his leash and whine.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t have come right up to the door,” Lizbeth said, sounding nervous.

  The house was silent; the only sound the cawing of a nearby raven.

  It sounded to Zach like the bird was saying, “Cú faoil, Cú faoil!”

  At the end of the leash, Wolfdogge became more insistent. Zach was strong, but the dog began pulling him toward the house. Then the front door flew open and Caitlin appeared on the step. Zach was so startled to see her looking pleasantly inquisitive that he relaxed his grip enough to allow Wolfdogge to pull free. The dog bolted away, but instead of throwing himself at Caitlin, who stood twenty yards away, he disappeared around the side of the house.

  “Zach,” Lizbeth said quietly, with warning in her voice.

  “I know,” he replied. “But we need to find out where she is, so let’s smile and pretend we’re happy to see her.”

  Chapter Forty

  East of England

  Kevin tried to produce a sincere smile. If he believed in the dog – and after the taxi ride he was certainly convinced of Wolfdogge’s abilities – they weren’t walking toward the real Caitlin. She wasn’t wearing the same outfit she’d had on when she left Felicity’s house; the jeans were so long she’d had to roll them up at the cuff, and although she was her normal height, it looked as if she’d put on about fifty pounds overnight.

  Kevin paused on the stone walkway and said loudly enough for the fake Caitlin to hear, “I better go get that dumb dog.”

  Zach shot him a quick look. “Yeah, good idea.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Caitlin said. “Come inside, I’ve got something important to show you.”

  “I’ll bet,” Kevin said under his breath, thinking, the business end of a gun, probably.

  Griffey, assuming that’s who it was, went back into the house, but Kevin, instead of following behind Zach and Lizbeth, made a split-second decision to go after Wolfdogge. Zach could handle whatever Griffey wanted to “show” them, and if he couldn’t, then they’d need Caitlin that much more.

  He ran around the side of the house, leapt over a low rock wall, and sprinted across the grassy field. The growth was heavy with morning dew and his shoes and the bottom of his jeans were soon soaked through. He looked over his shoulder as he ran. No one pursued him; the house looked abandoned and lonely against the grey sky. The only sound was the staccato cawing of a raven.

  He slowed, panting, and began to walk. His illness had taken more out of him than he’d known if he couldn’t even run a couple hundred yards.

  Wolfdogge was nowhere in sight. Kevin whistled, made kissing noises, clapped his hands and called, “Here doggy!” with no response. A glance down at a patch of muddy ground showed recent footprints, small ones a petite woman like Caitlin might make, and big ones, so big they had to belong to Simon. On top of one of the big prints was a paw print, smeared as Wolfdogge ran, his claws digging deep. Simon and Caitlin’s prints pointed to the west, at a right angle to the house and in a different direction from the oak grove and the old church foundation. However, Wolfdogge seemed to have been headed directly for the trees.

  Puzzled, Kevin went in the direction of Caitlin’s prints. A little further on, he spotted more evidence that they’d come this way, although this time the prints could have been made by his own rather average size eleven shoe. The grass got thicker and bushes obstructed his progress. He pushed his way through the shrubs, worried now that he was taking too long. A prickly branch scratched him, but he bent it out of the way with little regard for the pain. Passing between two thick bushes, he stopped cold at what he saw.

  His first reaction was to recoil in horror at the sight of two bodies lying prone in the grass, but before he’d even formed a thought, a whistling wind brushed the side of his face. Startled, he ducked a little as Caw landed on his shoulder. The bird cocked its head and regarded Kevin with its odd blue eyes. It made a sad kind of rattling chirp in his ear.

  Kevin didn’t want to look, but he forced himself to examine the bodies. Neither was wearing a coat and each had a streaked spot of reddish-brown discoloration on the shirt. It looked as if they’d been shot and then left out in the rain. Simon’s corpse lay face down in the grass, and Len – thank goodness the mud-prints hadn’t been Caitlin’s after all – lay on his back, eyes open and unseeing. Caw launched himself from Kevin’s shoulder and landed on Len’s chest.

  Tears sprang to Kevin’s eyes as the bird began pecking at a button on Len’s shirt. He backed away, allowing the bushes to once more conceal the crime from casual view. He looked back at the house, a slow fury building within. Griffey would have access to a gun – he was a police officer, after all. At this very moment he could be holding Zach and Lizbeth at bay with it.

  Kevin fought his way out of the bushes, oblivious now to the thorns, and broke into a run again, straight for the oak grove. He prayed as he ran that he wouldn’t find Wolfdogge holding vigil over another body.

  Under the canopy of leaves, the ground was not as wet, but when he began to navigate the treacherous root system, he lost his footing on more than one occasion. He clambered around tree after tree, calling just loudly enough not to be heard at the house, “Wolfdogge! Caitlin!”

  He heard something, was it a response? The sound was high-pitched, like a dog’s whine, only it echoed strangely. Even listening carefully, he couldn’t discern its location. It was as if Wolfdogge were trapped at the bottom of a canyon.

  He looked down at the deep black shadows between the roots under his feet. Had Wolfdogge fallen into one of the clefts under the oak trees? And if so, how was he supposed to find him without a flashlight?

  Caw flew into the grove and alighted on one of the twisted limbs branching from the tree that towered over Kevin. The raven gave voice to a raucous cry, “Cú faoil, Cú faoil!”

  “Yeah, I’m looking for him, thanks,” Kevin said, knowing he’d just imagined that the bird had spoken the Irish name for wolfhound. Caw glided down and perched on Kevin’s shoulder again, so close that Kevin had to bend his head back to focus on the bird. He wasn’t worried that Caw would peck him in the eye or anything, in fact, he had the strongest feeling that the bird wanted to help. He stared into Caw’s blue eye. “You wouldn’t happen to know where the Cú faoil is, would you?”

  Caw cocked his head, and then flew to another tree. Instead of landing in a branch this time, he landed on a thick root. Kevin scrambled over. At the base of the enormous tree was a gaping chasm. He heard i
t clearly now, Wolfdogge’s distressed whining.

  Without thinking, he braced his hands across the divide and lowered his legs into it. They swung unimpeded. He didn’t speculate on the depth of the hole – just dropped down into it. The fall was considerable; comparable perhaps to jumping from the roof of Simon’s Victorian house. He landed on a thick mat of old leaves and rolled, striking his head sharply on a root.

  “Ow,” he said, looking around. He might have expected his eyes to take some time to adjust to the near pitch-blackness, but there appeared to be sufficient light from the holes at the base of the trees. He blinked in wonder at the vast network of roots, serving as roof to the place as well as structural support. The underneath of the entire grove was hollow.

  Inhaling the pungent scent of fertile earth and rotting leaves, he thought how wonderful it smelled here, like and yet very unlike home. Another deep breath almost made him giddy with pleasure.

  An emphatic bark got his attention. Wolfdogge sat not far away, wagging his tail. Then Kevin saw her.

  She was sprawled in the mulch next to a free-standing root with her pale, thin arms wrapped around it. He rushed to her side and saw that her hair was matted with blood. He reached out, but didn’t touch her.

  “Caitlin?”

  She lifted her head and waved her arm through the air. “Is that you, Kevin?”

  Couldn’t she see him? Her eyes were open, but they appeared unfocused.

  “Did Griffey do this?” he asked, clenching his jaw.

  She nodded, but the movement must have pained her because she laid her cheek wearily against the root. “The trees will heal me.”

  “What?” Her head wound must have muddled her mind.

  “This place,” she said, and her words came out as barely a whisper, “is an ancient place of healing.”

  “How long have you been here?” He thought that the healing couldn’t have begun yet if she looked this bad. The ugly wound on her head had soaked the top of her shirt in blood.