"And now?"
"Now I just want to carve out my own space, and stick."
"Something else we have in common. This is one of my spaces."
They stepped into a clearing where the mist was white from the quiet light of the rising moon. The full ball of it shimmered between the trees, teased the dark summer leaves, spilled through at the edges of a stand of three stones. From the branches that ringed the clearing hung hanks of herbs. The glitter of strung crystals rang gently together in the light wind.
And the sound of the wind, the stones, the nearby sea, was music.
There was a primitive, essential feel to the place.
"It's beautiful here," Nell began, "and… I want to say eerie, but not in a frightening way. You almost expect to see ghosts, or headless horsemen. And if you did, it would seem absolutely natural, not frightening at all."
She turned, her steps shredding the mist like gray silk, and caught the scents of verbena, rosemary, and sage carried on the breeze from the tree branches.
Caught something else as well—a quiet hum that was almost like music.
"This is where you were the night of the solstice, before you came out to stand on the cliffs."
"This ground is hallowed," Mia told her. "It's said the sisters stood here, three hundred years and more past, and worked their spell to create their haven. Whether they did or not, I've always been drawn here. We'll cast the circle together. It's a basic ritual."
Mia drew her ritual knife from her pocket and began. Fascinated, Nell repeated the words, the gestures, and found herself unsurprised when a thin ring of light glowed through the smoke of the mist.
"We call on Air, on Earth, on Water and Fire to guard our circle and grant our desire. Here protect and witness this rite. Open our minds to the magic of night."
Mia laid down her knife, her wand, nodded to Nell after her chant was repeated. "You can cast your own circle in your own way, with your own words when you're ready. I hope you don't mind, but I prefer working skyclad when weather permits."
With this Mia slipped off her dress and folded it neatly while Nell gaped. "Oh, well, I don't really—"
"It's not required." At ease with her nakedness, Mia picked up her wand again. "I generally prefer it, particularly for this ritual."
There was a tattoo—a birthmark? Nell wondered. A small pentagram shape against the milk-white skin of her thigh.
"What ritual?"
"We'll draw down the moon. Some—most—usually do this when there's serious work to be done, but I sometimes need, or like, the extra burst of energy. To begin, open yourself. Mind, breath, heart, loin. Trust yourself. Every woman is ruled by the moon, just as the sea is. Hold your wand in your right hand."
Mirroring Mia's gestures, Nell lifted her arms, slowly raising them high, then clasping her wand with both hands.
"On this night, in this hour, we call upon Luna's power. Merge with us light into light." Slowly, the wands were turned, aimed at hearts. "Woman and goddess glowing bright. Power and joy pour down from thee. As we will, so mote it be."
She felt it, cool and fluid and strong, a flood of energy and light inside her. Pulsing, as that white ball of moon seemed to pulse as it rose gracefully above the trees. She could all but see it, blue-edged silver spurts of light that spun down and into her.
With the power came a rush of joy. It came out of Nell in a laughing gasp as Mia lowered her wand.
"Sometimes it's just lovely being a girl, isn't it? We'll close the circle now. I believe, little sister, you'll find an appropriate outlet for all that fresh energy."
~•~
When she was alone, Mia put her own energy to use working a protective spell. Nell had a great deal of natural power, largely untapped. She could and would help her explore it, control it, and refine it. But there was something more immediate preying on her mind now.
Within the circle, within the woods, she'd seen something Nell had not. She'd watched the single, dark cloud slide over the heart of the moon.
Chapter Thirteen
The last weeks of summer passed in a blur. Days were filled with work, with plans for the jobs she'd won and proposals for more.
Once the weather turned she would lose the summer-people aspect of her business. So she would be the clever ant, Nell decided, who carefully prepared for winter.
She'd solicit jobs for holiday parties, for Super Bowl Sunday, for cabin fever victims. The islanders were growing so accustomed to calling her for their events, small and large, it would become strange to do otherwise.
Nights were nearly always spent with Zack—taking advantage of the final burst of warmth with candlelight dinners alfresco, evening sails made brisk from the chill rising from the water, long, luxurious lovemaking in the cozy nest of her bed.
Once she lit red candles for passion. They seemed to work exceptionally well.
At least two evenings a week she worked with Mia on what she thought of as her ritual lessons.
And at dawn she was baking in her kitchen.
The life she'd always looked for was all around her, and more. She had a power inside her that ran like silver. And love that glowed warm gold.
There were times she caught him watching her, quietly, patiently. The waiting look. Each time she did, there was a tug of guilt, a ripple of unease. And each time that she took the coward's way and ignored it, she disappointed both of them.
She could rationalize it. She was happy, and entitled to a time of peace and pleasure. Only a year before, she'd risked her life, and would have forfeited it, rather than live trapped and afraid.
For so many months following, she'd been alone, constantly on the move, wary of every sound. She awakened night after night in cold sweats from dreams she couldn't face even in the dark.
If she'd locked that time in a box and buried the key, who had a better right?
It was the now that mattered, and she was giving Zack all she could of the now.
As summer slipped into fall she was convinced of it, and of the solidity of her haven on Three Sisters.
With her latest kitchen catalogs and her new subscription to Saveur under her arm, Nell walked out of the post office and headed down High Street toward the market. The summer people had been replaced by tourists eager to view New England foliage at its peak.
She couldn't blame them. Wedges of the island were covered with a brilliant patchwork of flaming color. Every morning she studied the changes from her own kitchen window, dreaming into her own woods as the leaves took on fire. There were times she walked the beach in the evening just to see the slow roll of fog tumble in, swallow water, cloak the buoys, and muffle the long, monotonous bongs.
Mornings, a fine, glassy frost might glitter on the ground only to melt under the strengthening sun until it beaded on the grass like tears on lashes.
Rains swept in, pounded the beaches, the cliffs, then swept out again until it seemed to her that the whole of the world sparkled like something under a glass dome.
She was under that dome, Nell thought. Safe and secure and away from the world that raged beyond sea and inlet.
With the brisk wind sneaking up her sweater, she waved at familiar faces, paused briefly at the crosswalk to check traffic, then jogged carelessly into the market for the pork chops she intended to make for dinner.
Pamela Stevens, on an impromptu visit to the island with her husband, Donald, gave a little cry of surprise and rolled down the window of their rented BMW sedan.
"I'm not stopping at any of these shops, Pamela, no matter how quaint they are, until I find the right place to park."
"I've just seen a ghost." Pamela dropped back on the seat, laid a hand over her heart.
"It's witches around here, Pamela, not ghosts."
"No, no, Donald. Helen Remington. Evan Remington's wife. I'd swear I've just seen her ghost."
"Don't know why in God's name she would come all the way out here to haunt anybody. Can't even find a damn parking lot."
"I'm
not joking. The woman could've been her double, except for the hair and the clothes. Helen wouldn't have been caught dead in that frightful sweater." She craned her neck to try to keep the market in sight. "Pull over, Donald. I've just got to go back and get a closer look."
"As soon as I find a parking place."
"It looked just like her," Pamela repeated. "So odd, and it gave me such a jolt. Poor Helen. I was one of the last people who spoke to her before that terrible accident."
"And so you said, a hundred times for six months after she drove off the cliff."
"Something like that stays with you." Bristling, Pamela straightened in her seat, sent her nose in the air. "I was very fond of her. She and Evan were a beautiful couple. She was so young and pretty, with everything to live for. When something tragic like that happens, it reminds you that lives can change with the snap of a finger."
~•~
By the time Pamela managed to drag her husband back to the market, Nell was unpacking her single bag of groceries and trying to decide between couscous and a spicy new sauce she wanted to try out on red potato wedges.
She decided to decide later, and flipping on the portable stereo Zack had left at her cottage, she settled down with Alanis Morissette and her issue of Saveur.
While she crunched on an apple from the basket on her table, she pulled over her notepad and began to scribble ideas sparked from an article on artichokes.
She moved from there to a feature on Australian wines and noted the writer's opinion of the best values.
The sound of footsteps didn't jolt her now, but gave her a warm feeling as she glanced over to watch Zack come in.
"A little early for the upholder of law and order to call it a day, isn't it?"
"I swapped some time with Ripley."
"What's in the box?"
"A present."
"For me?" Shoving her notebook aside, she got up, stepped hurriedly to the counter. Her mouth fell open. Love and lust tangled and burned inside her.
"A food processor. Commercial grade, top of the line." With reverent hands, she stroked the box the way some women might stroke mink. "Oh, my God."
"According to my mother, if a man gives a woman anything that plugs into an electric socket for a gift, he'd better be fully paid up on his life insurance. But I didn't think that rule applied here."
"It's the best on the market. I've wanted it forever."
"I've seen you ogling it in the catalog a few times." He caught her when she launched herself into his arms to cover his face with kisses. "I guess I'm not going to need that life insurance."
"I love it, I love it, I love it." She finished with a hard, smacking kiss, then leaped down to attack the box. "But it's outrageously expensive. I shouldn't let you give me an outrageously expensive present right out of the blue. But I'm going to because I can't stand the idea of not having it."
"It's rude to turn down a gift, and anyway, it's not out of the blue. A day early, but I didn't think that mattered. Happy birthday."
"My birthday's in April, but I'm not arguing because…"
She caught herself. The pulse began to throb in her temples, hot and hard. Helen Remington's birthday was in April. Nell Channing's was listed clearly on all identification as September nineteenth.
"I don't know what I was thinking. Slipped my mind." Because her palms sprang with damp, she wiped them hastily on her jeans. "I've been so busy, I forgot about my birthday."
All of his pleasure of giving her the gift curdled, left a sour ball in his belly. "Don't do that. Keeping things to yourself is one thing. Lying to my face is another."
"I'm sorry." She bit down hard on her lip, tasted shame.
"So am I." Because he wanted her to look at him, he cupped her chin, lifted it.
"I keep waiting for you to take the step, Nell, but you don't. You sleep with me, and you don't hold anything back there. You talk to me about what you hope to do tomorrow, and you listen when I talk to you. But there're no yesterdays."
He'd tried not to dwell on that, tried to tell himself, as he'd told Ripley, that it wasn't important. But now, slapped in the face with it, he couldn't pretend.
"You let me into your life from the day you stepped onto the island."
It was true, perfectly true. What point would there be in denying it? "For me, my life started from there. Nothing before then matters anymore."
"If it didn't, you wouldn't have to lie to me."
Panic wanted to climb into her throat. She countered it with a snap of temper. "What difference does it make if my birthday's tomorrow, or a month from now, or six months ago? Why does it have to matter?"
"What matters is you don't trust me. That's hard on me, Nell, because I'm in love with you."
"Oh, Zack, you can't—"
"I'm in love with you," he repeated, taking her arms to hold her still. "And you know it."
And of course, that was perfectly true as well. "But I don't know what to do about it. I don't know what to do with what I feel for you. Trusting that, trusting you, it's not that simple. Not for me."
"You want me to accept that, but you don't want to tell me why it's not that simple. Play fair, Nell."
"I can't." A tear spilled over, shimmered down her cheek. "I'm sorry."
"If that's the way it is, we're both fooling ourselves."
He let her go and walked away.
~•~
Knocking on Zack's front door was one of the hardest things Nell had ever done. She'd spent so much time stepping back from anger. Now she would have to face it, head on. And with little defense. This was a turmoil she'd caused, and only she could resolve it.
She walked to the front of the house because it seemed more formal than strolling across the beach and up the stairs to the back. Before she knocked, she rubbed her fingers over the turquoise stone she'd slipped into her pocket to aid her verbal communication.
Though she wasn't convinced such things worked, she didn't see how it could make her situation any worse.
She lifted her hand, cursed herself as she lowered it again. There was an old rocker on the front porch, and a pot of geraniums that were frost-burned and pathetic. She wished she'd seen them before the weather had turned so she could have urged Zack to carry them inside.
And she was stalling.
She squared her shoulders, knocked.
Was torn between relief and despair when no one answered.
Just as she'd given up and turned away, the door swung open.
Ripley stood in leggings cropped just below the knee and a T-shirt marked with a vee of sweat between her breasts. She gave Nell one long, cool stare, then leaned on the doorjamb.
"Wasn't sure I heard anyone knock. I was lifting, and had the music up."
"I was hoping to talk to Zack."
"Yeah, I figured. You pissed him off good. It takes work to do that. Me, I've had years of practice, but you must have an innate talent for it."
Nell slipped her hand in her pocket, fingered the stone. She would have to get through the shield to get to the target. "I know he's angry with me, and he has a right to be. Don't I have a right to apologize?"
"Sure, but if you do it with choking little sobs and flutters, you're going to piss me off. I'm a lot meaner than Zack."
"I don't intend to cry and flutter." Nell's own temper bubbled up as she stepped forward. "And I don't think Zack would appreciate you getting in the middle of this. I know I don't."
"Good for you." Satisfied, Ripley shifted to let Nell in. "He's up on the back deck, brooding through his telescope and drinking a beer. But before you go up and say whatever you have to say to him, I'm going to tell you something. He could've looked into your background, picked the pieces apart. I would have. But he's got standards, personal standards, so he didn't."
The guilt that had settled on her since he'd walked out her door took on more weight. "He would've considered that rude."
"Right. I don't mind being rude. So you square this with him, or deal with me."
"Understood."
"I like you, and I respect someone who takes care of business. But when you mess with a Todd, you don't get off free. Fair warning."
Ripley turned toward the stairs leading to the second floor. "Help yourself to a beer on the way through the kitchen. I've got to finish my reps."
Nell skipped the beer, though she'd have relished a tall glass of ice water to ease the burn in her throat. She walked through the comfortably untidy living room, through the equally untidy kitchen, and took the outside steps up to the deck.
He sat in a big chair faded to gray by the weather, a bottle of Sam Adams nestled between his thighs and his scope tilted starward.
He knew she was there but didn't acknowledge her. The scent of her was peaches and nerves.
"You're angry with me, and I deserve it. But you're too fair not to listen."
"I might work my way up to fair by tomorrow. You'd be smarter to wait."
"I'll risk it." She wondered if he knew how much it meant—how much he meant—that she would risk it. "I lied. I've lied often and I've lied well, and I'd do it again. The choice was between honesty and survival. For me, it still is, so I'm not going to tell you everything you need to know. Everything you deserve to know. I'm sorry."
"If two people don't trust each other, they've got no business being together."
"That's easy for you to say, Zack."
When he shifted his gaze from the stars to hers, and the heat of it scorched her, she stepped closer. Her heart throbbed. She didn't fear that he would strike her. But she did fear that he'd never want to touch her again.
"No, damn it, it is easy for you. You've got your place here. You've always had it, and you don't have to question it, or fight for it."
"If I've got a place," he said in careful, measured tones, "I've had to earn it. The same as anyone."
"That's different, because you started on a foundation, a solid one, and built from there. These past few months I've been working to earn a place here. I have earned it. But it's different."
Books by Nora Roberts Page 161