A Little Magic

by Nora Roberts

  Hadn't the battalion of doctors his parents had taken him to throughout his childhood diagnosed an overdeveloped imagination? And hadn't he finally channeled that into his photography?

  He didn't see things that weren't there anymore.

  Sylvia nodded, told herself to accept that. "Small wonder. You've been working yourself day and night for the last five years. You need some rest, you need some quiet. And some pampering."

  "Montana," John said again. "Couple of weeks of fishing, clean air, and no worries."

  "I'm going to Ireland." It came out of Cal's mouth before he'd realized the idea was in his head.

  "Ireland?" Sylvia pursed her lips. "Not to work, Calin."

  "No, to… to see," he said at length. "Just to see."

  She nodded, satisfied. A vacation, after all, was a vacation. "That'll be nice.

  It's supposed to be a restful country. We always meant to go, didn't we, John?"

  Her husband grunted his assent. "Going to look up your ancestors, Cal?"

  "I might." Since the decision seemed to be made, Cal sipped his coffee again. He was going to look up something, he realized. Or someone.

  It was raining when he landed at Shannon Airport. The chilly late-spring rain seemed to suit his mood. He'd slept nearly all the way across the Atlantic. And the dreams had chased him. He went through customs, arranged to rent a car, changed money. All of this was done with the mechanical efficiency of the seasoned traveler. And as he completed the tasks, he tried not to worry, tried not to dwell on the idea that he was having a breakdown of some kind.

  He climbed into the rented car, then simply sat in the murky light wondering what to do, where to go. He was thirty, a successful photographer who could name his own price, call his own shots. He still considered it a wild twist of fate that he'd been able to make a living doing something he loved. Using what he saw in a landscape, in a face, in light and shadow and texture, and translating that into a photograph.

  It was true that the last few years had been hectic and he'd worked almost nonstop. Even now the trunk of the Volvo he'd rented was loaded with equipment, and his favored Nikon rested in its case on the seat beside him. He couldn't get away from it—didn't want to run away from what he loved.

  Suddenly an odd chill raced through him, and he thought, for just a moment, that he heard a woman weeping.

  Just the rain, he told himself and scrubbed his hands over his handsome face. It was long, narrow, with the high, strong cheekbones of his Celtic forefathers.

  His nose was straight, his mouth firm and well formed. It smiled often—or it had until recently.

  His eyes were gray—a deep, pure gray without a hint of green or blue. The brows over them were strongly arched and tended to draw together in concentration. His hair was black and thick and flowed over his collar. An artistic touch that a number of women had enjoyed.

  Again, until recently.

  He brooded over the fact that it had been months since he'd been with a woman—since he'd wanted to. Overwork again? he wondered. A byproduct of stress?

  Why would he be stressed when his career was advancing by leaps and bounds? He was healthy. He'd had a complete physical only weeks before.

  But you didn't tell the doctor about the dreams, did you? he reminded himself.

  The dreams you can't quite remember when you wake up. The dreams, he admitted, that had pulled him three thousand miles over the ocean.

  No, damn it, he hadn't told the doctor. He wasn't going that route again. There had been enough psychiatrists in his youth, poking and prodding into his mind, making him feel foolish, exposed, helpless. He was a grown man now and could handle his own dreams.

  If he was having a breakdown, it was a perfectly normal one and could be cured by rest, relaxation, and a change of scene.

  That's what he'd come to Ireland for. Only that.

  He started the car and began to drive aimlessly.

  He'd had dreams before, when he was a boy. Very clear, too realistic dreams.

  Castles and witches and a woman with tumbling red hair. She'd spoken to him with that lilt of Ireland in her voice. And sometimes she'd spoken in a language he didn't know—but had understood nonetheless.

  There'd been a young girl—that same waterfall of hair, the same blue eyes.

  They'd laughed together in his dreams. Played together—innocent childhood games.

  He remembered that his parents had been amused when he'd spoken of his friend.

  They had passed it off, he thought, as the natural imagination of a sociable only child.

  But they'd been concerned when he seemed to know things, to see things, to speak of places and people he couldn't have had knowledge of. They'd worried over him when his sleep was disturbed night after night—when he began to walk and talk while glazed in dreams.

  So, after the doctors, the therapists, the endless sessions, and those quick, searching looks that adults thought children couldn't interpret, he'd stopped speaking of them.

  And as he'd grown older, the young girl had grown as well. Tall and slim and lovely—young breasts, narrow waist, long legs. Feelings and needs for her that weren't so innocent had begun to stir.

  It had frightened him, and it had angered him. Until he'd blocked out that soft voice that came in the night. Until he'd turned away from the image that haunted his dreams. Finally, it had stopped. The dreams stopped. The little flickers in his mind that told him where to find lost keys or had him reaching for the phone an instant before it rang ceased.

  He was comfortable with reality, Cal told himself. Had chosen it. And would choose it again. He was here only to prove to himself that he was an ordinary man suffering from overwork. He would soak up the atmosphere of Ireland, take the pictures that pleased him. And, if necessary, take the pills his doctor had prescribed to help him sleep undisturbed.

  He drove along the storm-battered coast, where wind roared in over the sea and held encroaching summer at bay with chilly breath.

  Rain pattered the windshield, and fog slithered over the ground. It was hardly a warm welcome, yet he felt at home. As if something, or someone, was waiting to take him in from the storm. He made himself laugh at that. It was just the pleasure of being in a new place, he decided. It was the anticipation of finding new images to capture on film.

  He felt a low-grade urge for coffee, for food, but easily blocked it as he absorbed the scenery. Later, he told himself. He would stop later at some pub or inn, but just now he had to see more of this haunting landscape. So savagely beautiful, so timeless.

  And if it was somehow familiar, he could put that down to place memory. After all, his ancestors had roamed these spearing cliffs, these rolling green hills.

  They had been warriors, he thought. Had once painted themselves blue and screamed out of the forests to terrorize the enemy. Had strapped on armor and hefted sword and pike to defend their land and protect their freedom.

  The scene that burst into his mind was viciously clear. The flash of sword crashing, the screams of battle in full power. Wheeling horses, wild-eyed, spurting blood from a severed arm and the agonizing cry of pain as a man crumpled. The burn as steel pierced flesh.

  Looking down as the pain bloomed, he saw blood welling on his thigh.

  Carrion crows circling in silent patience. The stench of roasting flesh as bodies burned on a pyre, and the hideous and thin cries of dying men waiting for release.

  Cal found himself stopped on the side of the road, out of the car, dragging air into his lungs as the rain battered him. Had he blacked out? Was he losing his mind? Trembling he reached down and ran his hand over his jeans. There was no wound, and yet he felt the echoing ache of an old scar he knew wasn't there.

  It was happening again. The river of fear that flowed through him froze over and turned his blood to ice. He forced himself to calm down, to think rationally.

  Jet lag, he decided. Jet lag and stress, that was all. How long since he'd driven out of Shannon? Two hours? Three? He ne
eded to find a place to stay. He needed to eat. He would find some quiet, out-of-the-way bed-and-breakfast, he thought. Somewhere he could rest and ease his mind. And when the storm had passed, he would get his camera and go for a long walk. He could stay for weeks or leave in the morning. He was free, he reminded himself. And that was sane, that was normal.

  He climbed back into the car, steadied himself, and drove along the winding coast road.

  The ruined castle came into view as he rounded the curve. The keep, he supposed it was, was nearly intact, but walls had been sheared off, making him think of an ancient warrior with scars from many battles. Perched on a stony crag, it shouted with power and defiance despite its tumbled rocks.

  Out of the boiling sky, one lance of lightning speared, exploded with light, and stung the air with the smell of ozone.

  His blood beat thick, and an ache, purely sexual, began to spread through his belly. On the steering wheel his fingers tightened. He swung onto the narrow, rutted dirt road that led up. He needed a picture of the castle, he told himself. Several studies from different angles. A quick detour—fifteen or twenty minutes—then he would be on his way to that B and B.

  It didn't matter that Ireland was dotted with ruins and old castles—he needed this one.

  Mists spread at its base like a river. So intent was he on the light and shadows that played on stone, on the texture of the weeds and wildflowers that forced their way through crevices, that he didn't see the cottage until he was nearly upon it.

  It made him smile, though he didn't realize it. It was so charming, so unexpected there beside the ancient stones. Inviting, welcoming, it seemed to bloom like the flowers that surrounded it, out of the cliffside as if planted by a loving hand.

  It was painted white with bright blue shutters. Smoke trailed up out of the stone chimney, and a sleek black cat napped beside a wooden rocker on the little covered porch.

  Someone made a home here, he thought, and tended it.

  The light was wrong, he told himself. But he knew he needed to capture this place, this feeling. He would ask whoever lived here if he could come back, do his work.

  As he stood in the rain, the cat uncurled lazily, then sat. It watched him out of startlingly blue eyes.

  Then she was there—standing in the lashing rain, the mists swirling around her.

  Though he'd hadn't heard her approach, she was halfway between the tidy cottage and the tumbling stones of the old castle. One hand was lifted to her heart, and her breath was coming fast as if she'd been running.

  Her hair was wet, hanging in deep-red ropes over her shoulders, framing a face that might have been carved out of ivory by a master. Her mouth was soft and full and seemed to tremble as it curved into a smile of welcome. Her eyes were star blue and swimming with emotions as powerful as the storm.

  "I knew you would come." The cloak she wore flew back as she raced to him. "I waited for you," she said with the musical lilt of Ireland before her mouth crushed his.

  Chapter 2

  There was a moment of blinding, searing joy. Another of dark,