He blinked in exhaustion. The life just seemed to drain out of him.
*****
“Going so early?”
Maggie whipped around to see Mrs. Tremaine standing in the shadows of the arch into the main house in a really lovely sea-green peignoir, her hair down around her shoulders, looking like a black-haired Glinda the Good Witch from the Wizard of Oz. Maggie swallowed the bile in her throat and tried to straighten around the cramps in her stomach. She’d been about to scribble a thank-you note on the pad sitting on the table in the foyer under the cone of light from a single table lamp. You didn’t leave a thank-you note when you escaped the haunted house, but these people seemed so... unhaunted. Except for Tris. He was haunted, but that was a different thing.
“Got to get back to Elroy.” She tossed the silver pen back onto the table and clutched her stomach as a particularly bad cramp passed. She’d already vomited everything she had in the toilet upstairs, but the cramps just wouldn’t seem to leave. “My pa,” she amended.
“Oh, of course.” Mrs. Tremaine stepped closer and looked her over carefully. “You seem upset. My son hasn’t done anything stupid, has he?”
Maggie flushed to the roots of her hair. Like make her come half a dozen times? “No,” she lied.
Mrs. Tremaine smiled and took a couple of steps toward her. “You don’t look well. Is there anything I can do?” Her concern seemed so genuine. Was this woman evil? Was this happy, boisterous family she would give anything to have... evil? If they weren’t then why was she feeling like crap? Had they poisoned her last night? She had to go for so many reasons.
“No. No, nothing. I .. I just have to go. Uh, thank you. You’ve been very kind.” Maybe. She turned to go. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I was awake,” Mrs. Tremaine said. “I knew this would be a time of crisis. All I could turn up were the fives of any suit.”
See? This is the problem, right here. She probably could tell the future with her cards. Maggie turned, and her confusion and the stomach cramps and the hot and cold flashes that even now assaulted her made her more than a little angry. “Mother’s intuition, Mrs. Tremaine? Or are we talking something more here?”
“The cards help you channel your powers of perception, and focus on possibilities. That can seem like magic but I don’t think it is.”
What a diversion. Not working. “So. No magic. Because your son wasn’t limping just now and he doesn’t have a bruise on his body, and something happened to me yesterday at the barn, and nothing ever happened to me like that before I met you all. And now I’m sick. And I’m thinking this isn’t a normal, rich-as-God’s-green-earth, happy family, is it?”
The look of concern on the older woman’s face deepened. “I have no right to ask anything of you. But you shouldn’t drive when you’re sick. If you give me a chance, I’ll explain it all.” She took a couple of hesitant steps toward the living room. “Come sit over here by Lanyon’s piano and we’ll talk.”
“No disrespect, but I’ll stay by the door.” That came out like a gasp. She should be out of here at a dead run, but she did want an explanation, God help her. She’d be glad if there was one.
Mrs. Tremaine motioned to a bench that looked like it was medieval, all big carving and dark wood. Maggie lowered herself with difficulty. “This might be a bit of a shock, Maggie. But you’ve guessed much already.”
“If you could make it short, ma’am, I’d appreciate it.” Rude, but if the woman didn’t want to witness another heaving session, she’d better get to it.
“Very well. Let’s start with what you know. I healed Tristram. That is the power I inherited. I’m a Healer.”
Maggie’s eyes widened. “Power?” This was not the explanation she wanted.
“How else would he heal so completely? You know how injured he was. He’s been faking the cast since the first night for your benefit. I healed your bruises yesterday morning along with some aches and pains you were having.”
True. She felt it in her bones. “You’re a witch.”
Mrs. Tremaine gave a rich contralto chuckle. “You could call it that. This family carries the genes, passed down through generations, of a great sorcerer, Merlin.”
“As in Merlin of Camelot.” Right.
Mrs. Tremaine didn’t laugh at what must be her own joke. She just nodded. “We each got only a piece of his power, though. He had hoped his progeny would have powers greater than his, that they could change the world for the better. But instead the magic scattered over the centuries. Maybe it became recessive because the world wasn’t ready for it. I don’t know. But it’s reappeared. I’m a Healer. Brian is an Adapter. He can do pretty much anything if he sees it done once. ” She smiled ruefully. “A little hard on his sons. Our powers emerged when we fell in love. We believe Merlin’s DNA creates an attraction between those who have it, so the powers that were once dispersed can be aggregated. I guess you could say it’s a genetic version of true love. It’s hard to resist, and the consequences are... pretty dire if you do.”
This woman actually believed this hoo-ha. Maggie frowned. “So you believe your sons and daughters will be Healers and Adapters too?” She realized that she felt Tris out on the patio.
“Maybe not. Each one will have his own brand of power. And who knows what my grandchildren will be able to do?” She looked excited about that.
Maggie would be willing to bet money Tris didn’t believe this crap. “So, Kemble is magic? Your other kids?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. They haven’t found their one true love.” She looked like she was gathering herself. “But you’ve found your magic, haven’t you?”
It was as though she’d slapped Maggie. “What?” Honey, I’m a dirt-scrabble rancher and rodeo rider who can barely pay her mortgage and definitely can’t heal her dying-of-cirrhosis, piece-of-shit pa.
“That’s what happened to you at the barn yesterday,” Mrs. Tremaine continued. “You have a power. I’m not sure what it is exactly, but you know in your bones what I’m saying is true.”
“I, I just have ... an affinity with animals. I’m not magic for God’s sake.”
“Drew said you not only soothed the injured horse, but you essentially washed the entire audience with a sense of calm and well-being.”
“It wasn’t me.” But it was.
“Anything like that ever happen before? Maybe after you met Tristram?”
God, the time when I calmed him on the way to the ER!
“I thought so. You two are meant for each other. You have Merlin’s genes too.”
“I’m Irish,” Maggie protested, feeling like an idiot for even getting drawn into this conversation. But part of her was saying, There’s got to be some explanation for what happened yesterday. Psychic abilities, radiation poisoning, spider bite?
“Ireland is riddled with Celtic clans. You’ve got Merlin’s blood. Your power is proof.”
This can so not be happening. I don’t want to be magic. I just want to be wanted, permanently. Not someone you can just toss off and discard. Like Tris does his women.
But if we’re destined, maybe he can’t cast me off.
Dangerous thought. Wishful thinking was always dangerous. Tris wasn’t coming in from the patio. Did he know she was here? Something tickled her brain, quenching the hope rising there. “So, uh, Tris get his, uh, power yet?”
She knew right away she’d hit home. Mrs. Tremaine frowned. That said it all. He might be her one true love, but she wasn’t his.
Mrs. Tremaine tried to recover. “We’ve all seen how he’s been looking at you....”
“Well, I hate to break it to you, Mrs. Tremaine, but he’s probably looked at hundreds of women that way, and he’ll look at hundreds more. I’m outta here.”
The cramp that struck her made it almost impossible to push herself up from the bench.
Mrs. Tremaine reached out a hand. “You can’t go, my dear,” she pleaded. “Refusing the call of your DNA will kill your soul.”
> Maggie shrugged it off. “Look, being tossed aside is one rodeo I’m not up for anymore. As long as I avoid that, I’ll be just fine.” Tris wasn’t coming in from the patio for a reason. Maggie hauled open the door and then pulled it shut behind her as she staggered out.
*****
“Tristram, are you going to just let her go like that?”
Tris didn’t want his mother to see him heave into the azaleas in the predawn light. He felt Maggie gunning her truck up the driveway. It was like she was tearing his guts out, they hurt so bad. He pushed himself up and wiped his mouth. “Yeah. That’s about it.”
His mother heaved an exasperated sigh. “You know she loves you, don’t you?”
Maggie love him? A guy who couldn’t give her what she wanted most? If there was even a hint of her growing to love him, it would just make it worse for her. She’d be in for a double scoop of unhappiness with a cherry on top when he disappointed her. Because Tris was bound to disappoint her.
“She’ll get over it,” was what he said.
“Why do you think you’re sick?” his mother asked, her voice hard.
“Too much drink and sex?” he sneered. Maggie was a raw wound and he wasn’t going to let his mother poke around in it, not right now.
She threw up her hands. “No, idiot offspring. Because you’re letting your one true love leave you, and denying your nature.”
Tris pushed himself by sliding up the four-by-four post of the pergola and leaned against it for support. “My nature. You must mean the long line of Tremaine mechanics that seems to run in my veins? Mrs. Tremaine, I’m not sure who my parents really are, but I doubt they’re either you or your husband.” When he saw her face crumple, he knew he’d gone too far. But that’s what you got from a disappointment. She should expect him to be an ungrateful bastard.
She gathered herself and set her lips. “She got her power. Yesterday at the barn.”
That hit Tris between the eyes. The calming thing. Was that a power? Could it be that Maggie did love him? Nah. How pathetic that he could get his hopes up so quickly. “She had that before we....” He trailed off. Didn’t exactly want to tell his mother they’d screwed. “She calmed me down when she dragged me into the ER after the accident.”
“But she’d met you, right? You knew her before the accident....”
“I’d met her twice. It wasn’t like it was true love or anything. I just thought she was... interesting.” He saw his mother getting excited. “But even before I met her,” he continued, like taking a knife to his heart, “she could calm wild horses.” Maggie must have had a “one true love” who awakened her power. It just wasn’t him. That made Tris feel sick again, but in a new way. Sick with anger and jealousy.
His mother blinked, thoughtful. “She got it before she met you ... at least in part.”
“Yeah. So it’s not me.”
Shit. I know exactly who it is. He set his expression in stone. “It’s a guy named Phil, most likely, who dumped her after high school.” He almost choked on the words. “So don’t go all matchmaker on me, Mother. I’m not a good candidate. And neither is she.” He pushed himself toward the steps down to the garage. “I’m borrowing a car.”
“You can have mine.... I’ll get the keys.”
“No need.” He turned around. “I’ve hot-wired more cars than you know. Or maybe you know what I am. Just start accepting it, will you?” He dove for the steps. “Be better for all of us to stop pretending.”
“Tristram? Can I have a word?” His father pushed out from the kitchen onto the deck, already dressed for the day. Oh, no. Tris couldn’t face a confrontation right now.
“No,” he barked and headed around the house to the garages.
*****
Kemble hurried down the stairs. He could hear his parents and his brother on the terrace. He’d seen Maggie heading out from his bedroom window. She’d left? And Tris let her go. By the time he got to the terrace Tris was nowhere in sight. The sound of a motor revving up the drive was receding.
“There’s something wrong about Tristram’s accident,” his father was saying. “The way Devin described it....”
“What do you mean?” his mother asked, staring down toward the garages.
“He hit a semi head-on. I just assumed he was drunk.” He looked a wry apology at his wife. “But assumptions have gotten me in trouble before.” She patted his hand. “However, if he wasn’t drunk, then he didn’t see it....” his father mused. “That ... that isn’t normal.” They stared at each other for a moment. “You know why I’m worried.”
“She’s dead. She must be,” his mother whispered.
“But maybe before she died she succeeded in gathering others. And with what happened to Victor....”
“Who’s dead?” Kemble asked. “I mean besides Victor.” That was bad enough.
They both turned to stare at him. His mother was frightened. His father’s brows were creased in worry. “No one,” his father snapped.
Kemble stepped back. “Okay. No one’s dead,” he said, raising his brows.
“Brian, you’d better go,” his mother said. “He loves her. He was sick as a dog trying to let her go. He may not have his power yet, but he will if he’ll just let himself. And she was just as sick trying to leave.”
“Stubborn fools. They’re in danger, both of them.” His father nodded briskly and took off for the garage. Kemble turned to his mother.
“Don’t ask, Kemble. I need to make arrangements for the children.” She pushed past him into the house, calling, “Mr. Nakamura?”
*****
Maggie wiped her mouth as though that could erase the taste of bile. Blinking back tears, she gunned the truck up Pacific Coast Highway. She would not cry because she’d never be part of a family like that, or because it seemed nobody had ever loved her enough to care whether she was around or not and probably never would.
And she wasn’t sick because she was leaving Tris. She’d just had too much to drink last night. Yeah. That was why she threw herself on Tris in the first place. And he obviously hadn’t had any sex in a while, so that was why he let her. And now she was one giant-sized morning-after mess of vomit and regret. The feeling of connection that told her he’d been out on the terrace was just her imagination, all wound up with a splitting headache. And whatever had happened at the barn, well, she’d just cope with it. Maybe it would go away if she wasn’t in proximity to a family where the mother could heal people, and the father was Mr. Know-it-all or something. Maybe having a “power” couldn’t coexist with a ramshackle, mortgaged spread in Nevada and an alcoholic father whom she couldn’t quite bring herself to leave.
And if whatever was wrong with her was still there when she got back to Austin, she’d learn how to suppress it. Simple as that. She knew how to suppress things, all right.
Her stomach didn’t calm at all until she reached the freeway. It was Barstow before her head stopped aching. That feeling of connection to Tris faded. All that remained was a nothingness that seemed to dampen her senses.
She was going back to Elroy, who didn’t give a shit about her, to her parade of horses passing through her life and the spread the bank now owned, to get ready for the Denver rodeo in two weeks. As if she cared about that anymore. Her future had never seemed more unforgiving.
She felt like she was drifting away.
Tris pulled into the shop downtown in his mother’s Prius about five in the afternoon. Nothingness lapped at his ankles and splashed up to his knees like the ocean at night on a shallow beach. It had taken him that long to make a plan. Some plan. Ride around the country until there was nothing left of him, or end it quick off one of the piers. Hermosa Pier maybe. Long and straight. Tie his hands to the handlebars so there was no turning back.
Several of the guys were just breaking off for the day. Their greetings died in their throats as they saw his expression. Some hurried salutes and they vanished. José was in the back office. He picked up the phone as he raised a hand in sal
ute to Tris.
Tris scanned the bays. They were busy. An aqua Chevy—a ’60 by the looks of its eyebrow rear end—was almost done. A little red T-bird was getting new chrome. Three cycles in various states of reconstruction. A Ducati was propped in the corner. Somebody paid about $75K for a Desmosedici racing cycle and still wanted it customized. Their kind of client. José did better with the business then he did.
“Hey, boss. Glad to see you back. Girls, they been asking for your ‘personal’ supervision of their projects.” José laughed, though his eyes were watchful. He was graying at the temples, his pockmarked skin testifying to the bad water in his Mexican village when he was a kid.
“I’m not back for long, friend. I just need a bike.”
“I heard you crashed yours.”
“Yeah. It’s gonna be delivered here next week. Take care of it, will you?” Where had José heard about the accident? “What’ve you got that doesn’t belong to anybody?”
“Got a classic ’54 Harley I found in a scrapyard in Bakersfield. We’re restoring it on spec. We got it in working condition. Barely.”
“That’ll do.” What did it matter anyway?
“Back here.” José led the way into the yard at the back of the bays. Surrounded by barbed wire, the bare asphalt was covered in engines, fenders, doors—all the trappings of the business. The old Harley was standing under an awning next to a couple of shinier bikes. Tris looked the cycle over and kicked up its stand.
“Can you get the Prius back down to my mother?”
“Sure, boss. Got a couple of beauties over there you oughta see.” He pointed.
“Not now.” Tris saw José’s face fall. God, he was an asshole. He took a breath. “You’ve done a great job with the shop, José. It’s more yours than mine. I’ll write a note to Kemble. He’ll see that it comes to you.”
“Why would it come to me, amigo? Let’s work it together.” José glanced to the front.
“I’m done here, buddy. Get me a piece of paper.”
“Don’t leave....” José warned. As he trotted to the door into the shop itself, a Lexus pulled up to the front bays. His father got out of the car. So that’s who José had been calling.
01 Do You Believe in Magic - The Children of Merlin Page 25