"I can't remember the last time you came by without calling," Rhona said.
"I was thinking the same as I drove in," Brenna admitted. "But if it was a bad time, it wouldn't have been a big deal to turn around and go home. It was a nice day for a drive, anyway."
"Nonsense!" said Ada from the kitchen. "It's never a bad time to see you, Brenna."
"But I can't imagine you came all this way for no reason," her mother added.
Brenna couldn't help a grin, though there wasn't much mirth behind it. "It's not that far," she said. "Maybe you should come out and visit me sometime, refresh your memory."
"I remember the old place well enough, I suppose."
"You remember the way it was," Brenna said. "It's been my home for a while now. Things have changed."
"Don't tell me that old hulk of a barn has changed."
"Not so much," Brenna said. "But I don't live in the barn. I live in the house. And you're right, I'm not here for no reason. I'm here because of some things Russell said to me last night."
"Goodness," her mother said. "I stopped interfering in your quarrels a long time ago."
Brenna took a deep breath. A very deep breath. Don't give up. Don't escalate. "I wouldn't call this a quarrel...it's much more significant than that. And it involves you."
"He talked to you about the house," her mother said flatly.
"Yes. He talked to me about the house." She looked at her mother, who sat motionless in the chair, not a gesture or twitch giving away how she might feel about the subject although there was an innate disapproval in her unbending posture. Her cane rested beside her, and her delicate pink sweater and close-weave, off-white linen slacks seemed at odds with the rest of her. The pension from Brenna's father had done well by her, supplemented by Social Security—but mostly by Ada, who picked up all the household expenses. And somehow Rhona had never seemed truly to enjoy it—to allow herself to enjoy it. Nothing except the community restaurant outings; she'd picked up a taste for fine food in the last four or five years. Other than that, it was difficult to get a conversation of substance out of her.
This time, Brenna wasn't leaving until they'd had one. "He talked to me about the house, all right. And he had no right to go behind my back with whatever offer he's been made."
"I wasn't aware there was a firm offer."
"If there isn't, there will be. This is pure Russell, Mom—he came here and made a grand speech about poor little Brenna living all alone out in the country, didn't he? Got you to wondering if you'd made the right decision in not selling when Dad died after I said I'd stay there and take care of it, didn't he? When you said I could stay as long as I wanted to be there?"
Her mother had gone disapproving. "I'm not sure I like your tone."
She kept that tone carefully modulated. "How did you think I'd feel, after all these years of caring for the place on my own, and neither of you showing an interest? I've paid the taxes, I've repaired the fences and the barn and the roof. And I helped Dad hold it together for years before he died—Russell sure never put a hand to it."
"Your brother had a good job, and a career."
"That doesn't change what I did. What I put into the place. That I'm the one who's always loved it, and I'm the only one who's kept it up or even spent time there at all. You don't visit, and Russell doesn't visit. If there's to be any conversation about selling it, then I'm the first one who should have known about it."
"I'm sure Russell did as he thought was right."
Anger crept out. "That doesn't mean it was right. Do you even know who he's talking to? Rob Parker, that's who. The very same jerk who tore up the pasture the month Dad died. He's only been back in town a little while and he's already got a reputation for picking up his dead friend's drug business. Did Russell tell you that?"
Ada brought water and tea on a tray, setting it on the low coffee table that centered the conversation area, and sitting quietly on the other end of the couch, watching her sister thoughtfully. Brenna gratefully took the tall glass of ice water, glad to have something to do with her hands.
"He didn't say anything about that." Her mother smoothed the front of her sweater and leaned to reach her tea, resting the saucer carefully in her lap and leaving unspoken the implication that Brenna was therefore wrong.
"He wouldn't have, would he? And I'll tell you what else—I'll lay odds that Parker's paying him to engineer this sale—something on top of whatever Russell figure's he's got coming to himself from the house."
"Brenna," her mother said sharply. "Russell would do no such thing."
"Russell would." Brenna said it without hesitation, but without any edge, either. Just the certainty, the hard-earned, painfully won certainty of what her brother could justify when he wanted to.
Ada cleared her throat. "Rhona, listen to your girl. She's the one who's there, and I daresay she knows Russell better than you think. Even I know Russell well enough to know he'll do as he sees fit when he thinks he can get away with it. What do you think happened to that lovely silver platter of yours that you thought was lost in the move?"
"Ada," Brenna's mother said, stiffening, "I think this is a private conversation."
"Not as far as I'm concerned," Brenna said. She'd never heard her aunt offer an opinion about Russell one way or the other, and she didn't have any illusions that Ada wouldn't say similarly astute things about Brenna herself during the conversation, if she saw fit. But a third person made things easier—made it more than just Brenna talking and her mother never quite listening.
"I saw Russell looking at that platter while we were packing your things," Ada said, unperturbed by her sister's rejection.
"You never mentioned it." She said it as though Ada had taken the platter herself. Finally real, honest emotion—and it was misdirected.
Ada shrugged and took a sip of her tea. The delicate, silver-edged teacups were left over from her days of entertaining her long-deceased husband's business associates; when it came to difficult social situations, Ada could hold her own with aplomb. "What would have been the point? The platter was gone, and it wasn't like Russell was coming here on a weekly basis to plunder things. He saw an opportunity and he took it. He's always done that; he always will. I doubt he would be half so successful in his business if he didn't think on those terms. He just goes a little too far now and then."
Brenna left the moment to her mother and aunt, but her mother didn't seem likely to take it anywhere. Not while she stared at the tea sitting in her lap, a bit of it spilled over into the saucer with her last, nearly vehement words to her sister. But then she pulled herself together and took a breath and, as if Ada hadn't said anything, told Brenna, "I'm sure your brother is thinking of you, Brenna Lynn. He's not the only one who's wondered if it's best for you to stay alone in that big old house, away from town and the social opportunities it offers you."
"Mom, it's Parma Hill! What social—" Brenna shook her head, cutting herself off. "No. That's not the point. The point is, it's up to me where I want to live. If it's a mistake for me to be away from town, then that's a mistake I'll have to live with. My problem, not yours. It's not up to you and Russell to decide what I should or shouldn't do with my life!" Especially not when Russell probably didn't truly have an opinion about it one way or the other, but had chosen the most expedient way to get what he really wanted. "You want to know something? You can take the house away, but it won't get me into town. I'll find another place out in the country. I heard about an apartment over the Sawyers' barn—I can probably even get a reduced rent in exchange for barn chores." But it wouldn't have my spring.
"Brenna Lynn!" her mother said, shocked past her shell of prim-lipped propriety. "You'll do no such thing!"
"I will," Brenna said. "If you take the house away, you'd better believe I will."
"Don't think you can manipulate me into doing what you want."
"Why not?" Brenna said quietly, knowing it would be a blow no matter how she said it. "Russell's done very well
at it."
Her mother's lips pressed tightly together even as Ada's eyebrows rose. Her skin, always fair and now paler than ever with her age, bloomed with her flush—two red, fake-looking spots high on her cheeks. But her eyes were rimmed in instant red, and none of it was artifice or drama. Inside, something of Brenna folded and faltered, never able to hold her own past this point of any rare confrontation with her mother that made it this far. She felt her own cheeks grow hot, and no matter how she tried, her gaze slid away from her mother's face. To her hands, to the inlaid wood of the coffee table, to her aunt's knees; to the glass of water she sipped not because she was thirsty, but because it was an alternative to running away.
She wondered again what happened to the Brenna she could be at work, facing down snarling dogs, shrugging off unreasonably irate customers. Or what about the Brenna who'd ordered Parker off what she'd then considered her property? That Brenna knew what was fair, and what was right, and stood up for herself.
This one didn't seem to know a thing.
Brenna's mother put her tea on the coffee table in jerky motions. When she straightened, she said, "I don't like this conversation. I don't like it at all. But it does seem like the best thing to do is to table the idea of selling the house for now. I need time to think about all of this."
Brenna's mouth said, "I want you to sign the deed over to me."
It was, she thought, a good thing that the saucer and cup were safely aside on the coffee table; they'd have slid right off her mother's lap and onto the floor. Ada gave her an astonished look—not at all disapproving, just as though she'd never thought to hear such a thing come from her niece. Brenna's mother herself seemed speechless. Brenna didn't wait for her to gather any words; she barreled on with her own. "You once told me I could live in the house for as long as I wanted. Now I know you're willing to go back on those words, and if I stay there without the deed, I'll always wonder when it's going to happen—when you'll change your mind. I'm not going to live like that."
"I don't," her mother said faintly, "think that would be fair to Russell. Just giving the house to you."
Ada snorted, a most un-little-old-lady sound. "And I think it would serve Russell exactly right. He's the one who initiated the whole thing."
Brenna smiled, a little tremulous but with true humor. "It would, wouldn't it?"
"I have to think about it." Her mother's voice gained strength. "I really have to think about it."
"Think about it without talking to Russell," Brenna said. "He's already had his say; he's had it plenty. And I'll ask you about it in a week. Because I'm not waiting around forever. I'm not leaving my future in your hands, or his—not even if it means I have to walk away from here to go make my own."
And her mother would have spoken in protest, working to regain her untouched equilibrium, but Ada said firmly, "That's only right, Rhona. You said she could stay in the house—put your actions where your mouth is. You of all people should know how important it is to be able to trust someone on a matter like this." And coming from Ada, it wasn't an insignificant statement. Not in that tone, and not with that eyebrow arched as it was. Not here in Ada's more-than-comfortable apartment, where her sister Rhona had two rooms to call her own. Brenna truly felt sorry for her mother at that moment, had the sudden impulse to go over and hug her.
But wasn't quite brave enough to face the rejection of those stiff shoulders.
So she put her glass on the tray and said, "I hope the next time I stop by, we can talk about something like what was on television the night before or where you two went gallivanting off for dinner over the weekend. But I didn't start this. I'm just doing my best to end it." She stood, awkward for a moment, and then headed for the door, hesitating by her mother's chair to put a hand on her shoulder.
Just as stiff as she'd imagined. But at least she'd done it.
Ada followed her to the door, and once they were there, Brenna turned to apologize to her. At the least she'd ruined her aunt's afternoon; at the worst Ada would have to deal with the fallout for days. But Ada put up a finger, hushing her before she'd even gotten started. Then she put a hand on either side of Brenna's head to draw her down and kiss her cheek, murmuring an astonishing, "You go, girl."
Brenna left sad and smiling to herself at the same time.
And feeling strangely lighter than she had for a long, long time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CHAPTER 16
TEIWAZ
Protection for the Warrior
Brenna turned her truck up the driveway and stopped at the bottom of it, just out of the insignificant traffic flow. The farmhouse looked down at her from the top of the hill; the barn was set back just far enough so only the roof was visible. Beside her spread the front pasture and the creek, which ran under the road bridge before snaking boldly through the pasture. Though the spring was out of sight, she could envision its presence strongly enough that she could almost feel it—just as she knew the cultivated acres behind the barn, the individual character and idiosyncratic placement of each custom-sized gate in the fence, which boards squeaked and sagged in the loft, and where the drafts always seemed to bring in snow each winter.
The place was hers, had always been hers.
Until now.
Now, as she looked up at the farmhouse, noting for the first time the signs of peeling paint near the eaves and the slight sag along the roof line, it suddenly didn't feel like hers any more. Not in the least. And she didn't know whether she should go up the driveway and inventory her painting supplies or if she should start packing instead.
She heard a faint bark through the open truck window; Druid had heard the familiar engine, and couldn't understand what was taking her so long to get up the driveway. No doubt he had to go out, and he was ever impatient to see her. She eased the clutch up and took the hill, thinking as she did that she heard the faintest indication of muffler distress and deciding that she just didn't care. Not today.
In the house, Druid flung himself upon her with unusual abandon—she'd taken to leaving him out of the crate, and hadn't yet been sorry—patting his broad round paws against her thigh until she crouched to rub her cheek against the white spot at top of his head. He hooked his paws over her arm and groaned happily until she stood and ushered him out the door. His freedoms were growing; she stood at the door with her arms crossed and thought about how only a month ago she'd never have trusted him outside.
Of course, a month ago, she'd been naive enough to believe that there was a dog pack churning through the area leaving mangled animals in its wake, instead of the more sinister truth—the dead and injured animals were the results of fighting dogs in training, and once someone cried dog pack, Parker had no longer bothered to hide the remains in the woods. No threat to her or Druid or even Emily's goats, at least not from any dog pack.
The darkness, now, that was another story. It had been the touch of darkness that had so frightened Druid the night Sunny died, and hungry, angry darkness that had rent her body to the winds—the very day after she'd caught Parker's attention, bracing him at the spring for the first time.
No coincidence, that.
But the darkness didn't usually come in the day, and of late had not landed heavily upon her or Druid at all. Brenna had the sudden sense, intuition blooming to life, that Parker had found a way to sate it with the dog fights, that it was hanging back, snacking on unwitting sacrifices of blood and honor, pleased to spread chaos with its twisted strain of rabies along the way. That before it had been young and hungry and hunting, striking out in snake-like blows; now it had its ready sustenance, and gathered strength for a more profound hunt.
Intuition unbidden and unsettling.
She wished she thought she'd have nothing to do with that more profound hunt, that she could ignore what she knew and go on with her insulated life. But even if the rabies threat didn't loom—if she hadn't seen that possible future—she had a feeling that what she knew was simply too much. And that what the darknes
s really wanted—what drew Parker back to the spring time after time, and inspired him to reach out to Russell about selling the house—was access to her spring. She'd taken it back, unwittingly rededicated it to a godly power; now she'd strengthened her tie to that power, returning to the spring day after day.
The darkness must think of it as home. She'd closed the door and barred the gate, not even truly understanding the significance or ramifications of her actions, and twice Parker had gone for her. Through a rabid cat. Through Russell.
She had the feeling he'd be more direct the next time.
So no packing. No repairing gates or looking for paint brushes. No, there were only two things of importance left to do in this day. One was to visit the spring, to attempt deliberately what she'd unwittingly started—to strengthen her ties to Mars Nodens. The god. The angel. The being of power that existed in her God's universe. Whatever.
The other was to talk to Masera.
The day had turned warm; she watched as Druid settled in on a sunny patch on the lawn and moved inside to pour herself a glass of orange juice, which she left behind on the table after only one gulp as she headed for the bedroom, shedding her jeans on the way. Inside her bedroom—a bright east-facing room that caught the morning light—she hesitated with the jeans in hand, unable to stop herself from running her gaze over the two antique dressers and the wardrobe that held her handful of seldom-used dresses in lieu of the closet the room didn't have. With much relief she realized that the room still felt like hers, no matter what happened with her mother and Russell and the deed. She'd grown up here; she'd stripped the old layers of wallpaper and repainted, she'd bought and refinished the furniture, she'd chosen the watercolors—bold, colorful images of baroque-style horses—and she'd found the nubbly area rug in an estate sale. For however long she was here, this room was fully hers.
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