by Dani Harper
At least the guys had stapled clear plastic over the missing front windows. If that light had been blocked off as well, she would have found it unbearable. A glazier would be here in the next day or so to replace the glass in the antique wooden frames, but as George had put it, her once-beautiful skylight was a whole ’nother story. The cost of rebuilding the huge window in the high ceiling was gasp inducing. G tried to explain how it would be cheaper and faster to just roof the whole thing over, but that idea had been horrifying enough to make moisture spring to her eyes. The tears hadn’t fallen, but Olivia had let loose a torrent of Spanish upon her son that sounded capable of peeling paint from the walls.
If only that had worked. Whatever power had been unleashed in Brooke’s spell circle had not only burned a ring in the floor; it had stained the walls with various shades of bright sulfurous yellow—and that included the two walls made of brick! They certainly didn’t look charmingly rustic and earthy anymore. Worse, the bright color changed shade in strange concentric rings, from hot buttered sunflower near the floor to glowing mustard near the ceiling, and all of it was crackled as if it had been baked. The half wall that partitioned off her apartment had suffered similar damage—but it had effectively shielded all that lay within. And thank goodness for that—Rory would look terrible in canary yellow. The outer walls above her apartment didn’t begin turning yellow until about ten feet up from the floor.
Olivia linked elbows with her. “When the guy has come and gone to fix the front windows, you and I will do something—perhaps a smudging with sage and sweetgrass—to cleanse this room and rid it of any negative energy that might have crept in.”
“Do you know of anything that can get rid of this ghastly color?”
She shook her head slowly, and several tendrils of her long curly hair escaped from the piled tresses on her head. “Only paint, m’ija. Lots and lots and lots of paint.”
Well, that meant it was going to stay the color of fluorescent bananas for a long time. Brooke and George had worked together to paint the entire upstairs right after she’d gutted and renovated it. Not only had it taken forever; she shuddered to think of how many gallons of primer alone they’d used. And now the two brick walls would likely have to be painted as well. Nope, her first priority would be fixing the skylight.
As soon as she finished paying for the front windows.
Brooke sighed—business had better be really, really good over the next few months. She’d better double-check her feng shui books—there was something about attracting wealth by putting citrine crystals and lucky cat figurines in the appropriate corners of the shop. But Olivia was right too. “A cleansing is always a good idea,” she said to her friend. “But you’re not actually feeling any negative energy in here, are you?”
“No.” Olivia looked around as if she could physically see it, as she pinned the stray curls of her hair back in place. “Not at all, but there is much more than your own energy here.”
“Kind of like a disturbance in the force sort of thing, right?” Brooke had been thinking that herself. She’d expected that the positive chi she so carefully nurtured would be restored once the massive mess was cleaned up, but the flow of energy around the room was still off, though not in a bad way. It was different—altered and added to in some way. She couldn’t blame the outrageous coloration left by the blast—yellow was a very positive color, although it was definitely overstimulating. That left only one possible source. “Do you still think it’s coming from Aidan?”
Her friend nodded. “I could feel a powerful energy when I patched him up, as if he had the Gift. It’s probably because he’s still pretty electrified with change. I cannot think of anyone I have ever known who has experienced so much transformation in so short a period of time.”
Giant otherworldly dog to regular everyday human. It was a big change, all right. Immediately she thought of the Death card in her multiple tarot readings—but that reading was meant for her, wasn’t it? “So you think his personal energy is intensified? Because I felt power, a lot of it, when he—well, when I touched him. Before you came.” And please, please, please, don’t say George told you that I kissed the guy…
“It may settle down eventually. But as long as his energy is supercharged, you might consider tapping into it for your spell work.”
“Olivia!”
“I did not mean like that, m’ija—although a little amor caliente might be worth trying too! Were you not complaining that your magic needed a boost?”
“I don’t think it needs that kind of a boost. And please don’t put that picture in my head again, okay?” As if the idea hadn’t been there all along…
Her mentor laughed. “I’m just saying his energy might balance yours, that’s all. And then your magic will be balanced too.”
Desperate for distraction, Brooke hefted the big orange Shop-Vac and carried it downstairs, through the center aisle of the Handcastings shop, and out the door into the street. The sidewalk was clean and tidy, and she made a mental note to thank George for his hard work on that—as soon as she found him. His black-on-black pickup truck—Carmelita—was nowhere to be seen.
Olivia came up behind her and set the mop and bucket down beside the vacuum. She checked the texts on her cell phone. “George is just taking the last load to the dump. He says he’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“I can’t believe he’s been using own truck for this. I know how he feels about that vehicle. He wouldn’t take her within ten miles of a place like that, in case the garbage was contagious or something, never mind drive on a dusty gravel road.” Brooke teared up suddenly. “You’ve both done so much for me today, and I’m so darn lucky to have you. What on earth would I have done with that giant mess by myself?”
“You’d have managed.” Olivia patted her on the back. “You’re a determined girl and you would have managed. It would just have taken a year or two, that’s all.”
Brooke laughed and hugged her friend tightly. She had always felt much closer to Olivia than to her own mother, though it used to give her a twinge of guilt every time she thought of it. The guilt had faded over the years as she grew up and realized that she and her folks simply had a difference of personalities. You couldn’t pick your relatives, and they couldn’t choose you either. Although she often wondered if she’d been left on their doorstep as an infant, Mom and Dad loved her in their own way, and she loved them.
She loved Olivia too. The woman had understood and accepted her son’s best friend ever since she first came home with him and Lissy after school in second grade. After that, Brooke had spent every spare moment at the Santiago-Callahan house. Later, she and Olivia grew even closer. Her stand-in mom became her friend and mentor, patiently instructing her in the use of the Gift. But if the Gift had never come to her, Olivia would have loved her just as much. Of that Brooke was certain.
She was certain that her parents still loved her too, even though they weren’t currently speaking to her. A couple years after she finished college, she had officially come out of the broom closet. She knew her parents wouldn’t like it, and she wasn’t surprised when they reacted with bewilderment and anger. She was a little surprised when they sued the school for allegedly influencing her to adopt unholy practices. And she was downright shocked when they cut off all contact with her. Except for sending religious brochures (and occasionally preachers or missionaries) to her door, she heard nothing from them.
To hold the Gift is to give without condition, and to receive with gratitude. That went for love too. She would continue to give it. Although to date, all of her letters to her parents were either returned or went unanswered, she wrote to them every couple of months just the same.
“I’m so thankful for you,” she said, as she gave Olivia another quick squeeze. “And I can’t complain too much about what happened. Nobody got hurt, not even the cats. My apartment is untouched, so I still have a nice place to live, and my shop is okay, so I can carry on with my business without any interrupti
on. Hey, it’s only one room that looks like a nuclear testing zone.”
“Now there’s a positive perspective, m’ija. And even if it is yellow, the spell room will look much better once the skylight is back in.”
Yes it will, thought Brooke. Except I don’t know when that’ll be. The insurance company had been no help at all. The agent needed to know a cause for all this damage, a valid explanation for how this room came to be in this condition, before it could be determined whether she had appropriate coverage in her policy. What on earth could she say? Burglars? Vandals? A science experiment gone awry? A meteor? Or there was always the truth—a death dog from the faery realm had accidentally been drawn into her building by a spell. Nope, she was definitely on her own when it came to paying for this mess. And she really didn’t want to see her banker again so soon.
As if she’d read Brooke’s mind, Olivia gave her one last hug. “Something good will come from all this. You’ll see, I promise. Now I am going to wait for my son, drag my old bones home, toss them into my La-Z-Boy, and watch TV until I fall asleep. Maybe I will have George make my dinner tonight, eh?”
“You know he’ll just dial takeout,” giggled Brooke.
“A man has to do what a man has to do. As long as I’m not cooking, I don’t care. And you need a break too, m’ija. But I think somebody already has that covered for you.”
“What’s covered?”
“Why, the hole in the roof of course,” said Olivia quickly. “The boys put that tarp over the hole where the skylight was. But I don’t think you’ve been up there yet—you really should check out their work, you know, make sure it’s waterproof before night falls. Besides, do you even know if your greenhouse or your garden survived the disaster?”
“Oh, crap, I haven’t checked a thing up there. I hope my plants are okay.” What if they’d been damaged when the giant dog came through the skylight? What if they’d been sprayed with glass? Many of the herbs she utilized in her spells and sold in her Handcastings shop were cultivated in her rooftop gardens and greenhouse.
“You will feel much better if you look everything over. Maybe even talk to your plants a little. It’s always a very calming thing to do.” Olivia sat upon the orange vacuum, playing sudoku on her phone screen. “And I will have George return this monster machine in the morning, so you will not have to worry about it. Now off you go, m’ija. Water your plants, and spend some time with your cats, and just relax. I will come by to check on you tomorrow.”
As advice went, it was pretty appealing. As good-byes went, it was almost a dismissal, albeit a very nice one. Brooke chalked it up to exhaustion—her friend was likely much more tired than she was. Olivia had insisted on helping despite Brooke’s protests, so except for a small break hours ago, they’d worked side by side all day. Small wonder her favorite chair was calling her.
Brooke’s own body was definitely sending signals that it had had enough and wouldn’t mind dropping into a comfy chair for the evening as well. But the plants…She really did want to make sure they were all right. The cats would enjoy playing on the roof too. The weather was nice and they’d been locked in the apartment all day during the big cleanup.
Brooke entered her shop and surveyed the steep staircase. Right on cue, her feet started to hurt. Too bad there isn’t an elevator to the roof.
THIRTEEN
There were footsteps on the stairs. Aidan could hear them echoing inside the metal hut that stood in one corner of the rooftop. He stepped back, just past the corner of what Olivia had explained was a greenhouse, and watched as the heavy door opened and Brooke and her three cats emerged. She didn’t look in his direction at all but headed straight for the tall wooden garden boxes that bordered the waist-high perimeter of the roof on that end of the building. Aidan was accustomed to gardening in the ground, but these clever wooden boxes were deep enough to hold a foot of soil and designed to be easy to reach without bending over. Plus, they had wheels like carts so they could be moved around. He liked the whole idea quite a bit, he decided.
The way to the ill-fated skylight and the rest of the roof was visually blocked by the large greenhouse. Aidan hadn’t been able to resist looking inside the glass building earlier. Trellises of every kind lined the walls, overgrown with vines that were heavy laden with all manner of strange fruits. He’d seen them before of course, was well aware that new foods had arrived in Wales from other lands and had been cultivated there over the centuries until they were now as common as clay—but he had never tasted a single one of them. Many were even eaten raw now, something that would never have been done in his time.
He had expected more of the wooden carts or some other containers to fill the center of the greenhouse, but the floor space had been left open to accommodate an immense wooden chair, more than long enough to lie down upon. Framed in wood, it was heaped with pillows as if it were a sofa. It seemed an odd thing to find in the middle of a greenhouse—but then, surely no stranger than finding a boxed garden on a rooftop.
More of the garden carts lined up end to end as a fence between the greenhouse and the rest of the roof. These ones had lattice backs that supported all kinds of lush vines and creeping plants. The wall of greenery neatly sectioned off Brooke’s charming garden area. And in the very center of it all stood a cluster of big metal drums, painted in bright colors—orange, yellow, pink and purple. They were for gardening as well, holding a soil and straw mix for bigger plants like potatoes that needed more root space than the boxes could provide. The three cats played hide and seek around them and chased insects and one another under the boxes.
The cats were amusing, but it was much more interesting to watch Brooke. She hovered over each of her plants like they were children, watering, untangling leaves, and even talking to them a little—encouraging some, chiding others. Aidan smiled in spite of himself. How many times had he heard his mam do the very same in her own garden? It was good to reminisce, he decided, even if it was also bitter to know that he was alone in his recollections. Because of the cold-hearted Celynnen, his mam and tad didn’t even know they had ever had a son. He had finally regained the memories that were rightfully his—but his family and friends had died centuries ago without ever recalling anyone named Aidan ap Llanfor. Maybe that made it even more important that he remember them.
And what of Annwyl? He’d grieved when Celynnen had callously ended her life, grieved and blamed himself, until the enchantment of the faery realm had pulled a curtain over his ability to remember. The curtain was gone now—and so was the buffer between him and his pain. It was a like a live thing, an imp that clung to his clothing, ready to stick an emotional knife between his ribs at any moment. His fingers tightened on the edge of a garden cart, as he struggled to beat back the sudden waves of anger and loss that threatened to swamp his heart. He closed his eyes. He would make good on his oath to kill Celynnen, but what then?
“Are you okay?”
His eyes flew open at the sound of Brooke’s voice. “Yes, of course. I am well.” Lies should not be so easy. He forced his fingers to unclench, wondering if it was possible to leave fingerprints in the wood.
“I’m not buying it.”
“Buy what?”
“It’s an expression. I mean I don’t believe you’re completely fine. How could it be anything but a helluva shock to suddenly wake up in a strange place as a man after being a dog for ten centuries?”
“As surprising as it must have been to have a giant dog burst through your ceiling and turn into a man.”
She nodded but didn’t laugh. “You know what’s really surprising, Aidan? Finding you here. You tell me you haven’t been spying on me, but now I find you watching me while I’m working. That’s kind of creepy. In fact, what are you doing up here at all?” she asked bluntly. “I thought you were with George.”
Damn. He should have spoken up and revealed his presence the minute she came up on the roof. “I can see that I am too accustomed to observing as a grim, to being invisible,” he sai
d sincerely. “Forgive me for surprising you. I’ve worked with your friend this day and accompanied him on all of his travels but this last one. There were a few more things to be done up here before nightfall.” He nodded over his shoulder at the area behind him, where the skylight had once been.
Brooke eyed him like his mother used to, as if his head was totally transparent, but she must have seen what she needed to because she nodded. “Okay, you’re forgiven, but this time only. Got it? Because I’m this close to reporting you as some kind of stalker.” She pinched her thumb and forefinger together.
“I think I understand.” Anxious to change the subject, he waved a hand at her surroundings. “My mam would have loved your garden. I recognize many of the plants that she used to grow—the yarrow and buckbean would be for healing, wouldn’t they? There are some that are new to me, though.” He looked at her hopefully and wasn’t disappointed.
“I take it you want the tour, then.” She shrugged, picked up her water pitcher, and began to show him the tidy little plant beds, and it wasn’t long before she appeared to enjoy herself. Brooke identified each row in turn for him and explained what each herb could be used for. Sage, rue, horehound…Aidan was able to recall what ailments they had been used for in his village, which appeared to fascinate her. She hesitated, however, when they came to things like wolfsbane and mugwort, plants that would be grown only for magical purposes. He’d seen them before, many times, but she would have no way of knowing how he would react to them—with acceptance or with condemnation?
In his time, it had been hard to be a gwddon, never knowing whether today’s healed patient would deliver you up to the priest tomorrow. The village wise woman was alternately hailed and condemned, according to the whim of the populace or the church (and usually the latter). He’d watched the pattern repeat itself over the centuries. Where such things stood in this time and place, he didn’t know, but he didn’t like the idea that this woman might be uneasy with him. “As I said before, you have naught to fear from me because you’re a witch, Brooke Halloran. In fact, you and I may have some things in common because of it.”