by Pat Esden
Kate tsked. “I’d say Tibbs was the only one around here with a brain”—she shot a hard look in his direction—“though he should have said something sooner. I’m guessing there’s more to this?”
“Not much. But Selena isn’t to blame.” His gaze returned to her. “There was no way you could have known. Newt’s whole family has been lying—to everyone in town. My friend Bob’s doing some plumbing work for them. He saw some stuff from the TV show in their basement. He geeked out and started snooping.” Tibbs took his cap off and slapped it against his leg. “I should have said something, but I didn’t want you to get mad. I was hoping you’d break up with Newt. Worst case, I thought they were frauds. I didn’t know Annie suspected Myles of... whatever.”
My mouth went dry. “I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.”
“You’re not the only one,” Kate replied.
I rested my hand on Selena’s arm. “You all right?”
“Yeah, I guess. Mostly I feel like an idiot.”
“Join the club. All I wanted was to get Mother back. Now she and Chase—” For a second I felt like I might throw up. I closed my eyes, holding back tears. “He’s in so much danger.”
An old-fashioned-phone ringtone cut through the silence, sounding from the other side of the terrace.
“Hello?” the Professor said. “Yes, we’re exceedingly happy. She’s going to be sore for a few days, but she’s fine. Definitely.” He hurried back and held the phone out to me. “It’s your father.”
My heart soared as I took it. “Hello, Dad? I feel so horrible.”
“Thank God you’re all right. Hang in there. We’re going to be on a plane home tonight.”
“We didn’t get Mom. She’s still there.” I pressed the phone tight against my ear, my voice breaking into a sob. “Chase—he’s there too. He was fighting—” My voice failed.
“I know. We’re not going to leave them there.”
“I—have to go back with you. I can’t not go.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment. Finally, he said, “I know.”
“Dad?” I took a ragged breath. “Why, Dad? Why did Malphic let me go? He kept Chase and he still has Mother. Why let me go? It can’t just be because Mother asked him to.”
Dad’s voice was firm, but there was a hint of sadness in it. “Malphic knows personal freedom at a cost is more painful than being imprisoned—even more painful than death.”
My mind went back to those moments in the bottle. Watching helplessly through the dark glass as Chase fought for his life had been hell.
I let out a long breath. “Malphic’s right,” I said.
CHAPTER 31
There is a border no eye can see, a place beyond my touch. But if I listen to the wind and sea, I hear your voice: A whisper in the sky, a catch in my breath, the ache in my hollow heart.
—From: Beyond Touch
www.NorthTunes.com
An hour later, I was really stiff and sore. But I managed to walk through the cemetery to the sheep barn. I’d told Kate I wanted to help take care of them. It wasn’t fair for Tibbs to shoulder all of Chase’s chores. Besides, I couldn’t sit still and being there made me feel better. I wanted to go see Chase’s mother again too, and fairly soon. Talk with her about the past, or maybe just sit with her. Along with everything else Chase was enduring in the realm, I hoped with all my being that he wouldn’t have his nightmares—that was, if they even allowed him to sleep.
The sheep shoved in around me, nudging my legs as I finished filling the old bathtub with fresh water. I turned off the faucet and, before I realized what I was doing, my legs were carrying me through the shed and down the path to the cottage.
I felt along the edge of the porch roof until I found Chase’s spare key. As if in a trance, I let myself in, wandered upstairs to his bed, and sat down, my arms around my knees, staring out the window at the yard. His laundry still hung on the clothesline, sheets rippling in the breeze, like the curtains in Malphic’s fortress.
Chase. He wasn’t dead. I was certain of that. I wasn’t as certain if the man I loved was still there or if the fighting had caused him to mature, if he’d remained sane or become berserk, a bloodthirsty weapon for Malphic to use as he saw fit.
I looked away from the clothesline, clamping my eyes shut. No. Chase wasn’t a weapon. He was a man. A man who’d risked his life and freedom to save my mother. The man I loved.
And that wouldn’t change—even if we never lay here in this bed again, if we never made love, even if he no longer cared about me. I’d still love him.
And I wouldn’t let him rot in that place, even if he wasn’t sane.
Don’t miss the next book in the Dark Heart series,
Reach for You
Available in July 2017
wherever books and e-books are sold
CHAPTER 1
We journey. Ceaseless and hungry.
—Carved into stone tablet. Tenerife, Spain
Silent. The campsite was ominously silent. Then a breeze lifted and my ear caught the faint clank and rattle of the bones and knives hanging in the pine trees behind us.
“You don’t think they’re both dead, do you?” Selena whispered.
I scanned the dilapidated camper ahead of us, a do-it-yourself RV created out of an old bread truck. Despite the mid-afternoon warmth, the doors were shut tight. The tent behind it, barely visible from our angle, bowed under the weight of rain that had pooled in its canopy. There was no campfire smoke. No trampled grass. In comparison to when we’d come here last week, the place looked deserted.
Goose bumps pebbled my skin. I gave the camper another once-over. “Zea is really old. He could have gotten sick—or if the kidnappers came here first looking for Lotli, they could have found him. They might have—”
Selena cut me off with a glower. “You mean, supposed kidnappers.”
My jaw clenched. Yeah, that was exactly what I meant. I understood why she didn’t like that everything pointed to her boyfriend, Newt, being involved in Lotli’s disappearance and perhaps whatever had happened to Zea. But I thought we’d gotten past that, like a bunch of times already.
I swiveled toward where the Professor stood rooted next to the Land Rover. From his scholarly glasses and sandy brown hair all the way down to polished brown loafers, he looked ready for an afternoon of research at Oxford University, not for a reconnaissance trip on a back road in Maine. “You want to check inside the tent while we look in the camper?”
His gaze flicked to the soggy tarps. He cleared his throat, then—as posh as ever—said, “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not totally against the idea. But the thought of discovering a rotting corpse is a teensy bit abhorrent.”
“Would you rather discover one in a closed-up camper?” I snapped. It was lucky we’d driven into the campsite from the main road instead of walking like we’d done the last time. I’d assumed the Professor had an adventuresome spirit to go with his young Indiana Jones good looks. Especially since he was an archeologist, though this summer he was tutoring Selena’s eleven-year-old brother as a favor. Still, and despite how eager he’d seemed to come with us, the Professor had freaked the second we started past the creepy stuff Zea and Lotli hung in the trees to scare people off: the knives and bones, pieces of copper pipe, broken mirrors, and doll parts. Frankly, I was surprised he’d even gotten out of the Land Rover at all.
I pasted on a smile. “Sorry. I don’t much care for the idea myself. Let’s just hope he’s napping or something.”
The Professor wiped his hands down the sides of his chinos. “I truly hope you’re right.”
As he headed for the tent, I tramped toward the camper, with Selena close behind. If only Chase were here now. The creepy stuff hadn’t bothered him at all and the fear of Zea being dead would have only driven him forward faster.
My chest tightened, my longing for Chase aching inside me, raw and unrelenting. If it weren’t for me, he would be here now instead of trapped in the djinn realm
with my mother. If it weren’t for me, Lotli wouldn’t be missing either.
“Well?” Selena jerked her head at the camper door. “Are you going to just stand there?”
I raised my hand and knocked. One second passed. Two seconds. I rapped harder. Nothing. I tried the doorknob. It turned beneath my grip. I opened the door a crack, but hesitated and took a deep breath before pushing it open all the way.
A wave of hot, musty air rushed past me as if the camper had been closed up for days.
“Hello?” I said, sticking my head inside. I gave the air a hesitant sniff. No dangerous odors, like a leaky gas stove. No rotting-trash smell—or decomp.
Selena nudged my shoulder. “What are you waiting for?”
I swallowed hard and stepped forward.
The place was cramped, a gypsy wagon on steroids. Tassels and prisms curtained the windows, letting only faint streaks of light inside. Miles of fuchsia and turquoise fabric draped the ceiling and walls. Animal skulls, feathers, and nubby candles clustered inside miniature altars. The fridge, table, and chairs, every surface that wasn’t fabric-covered was painted purple or black. Stars decorated the ceiling. An antique bed piled with crimson quilts and an avalanche of pillows took up the camper’s entire backend.
“Zea, are you here?” I called out. “We need to talk to you about Lotli.”
I minced my way deeper into the cramped space, working my way toward the back of the camper. Cold sweat carved a trail down my spine. I crept past the tiny kitchen and dining nook, then the bathroom, one toothbrush in the holder, a washcloth draped over the edge of a yellowed sink.
I walked back to the front again and pulled aside a curtain that divided the living area from the bread truck’s cab. Seats for the driver and a passenger, seashells glued to the dash, insulated coffee cups in the holders—
Something brushed the back of my neck. What the hell!
I jumped away from it and wheeled around, smacking my elbow against the wall. Pain zinged up my arm—and I glared at Selena standing barely an inch behind me.
“Shit,” I said, rubbing the sting from my arm. “You scared the hell out of me.”
She gave me a sheepish pout. “Sorry. I thought you knew I was there.”
“I didn’t think you were that close.” It wouldn’t have hurt half as bad, except I was already sore and bruised from being thrown out of the djinn realm this morning.
Her pout transformed into a smug smile and she flipped her blond hair over one shoulder. “Looks to me like Zea and Lotli might have pulled a vanishing act after all. Huh?”
I stopped rubbing. “Or the Professor’s about to find something disgusting in the tent.”
“Want to bet?”
I closed my eyes, struggling to regain my calm. We couldn’t afford to waste time discussing the same thing over and over again any more than I could have afforded the luxury of staying home to nurse my aches and pains. Chase and Mother were in danger. And I couldn’t go back to the realm and rescue them until we found Lotli. Without her and her flute-magic, it would be too risky, perhaps even impossible.
I shoved past Selena and strode to the bathroom. “While we’re here, we should find something personal of Lotli’s that you can use to scry and see where they’re holding her.”
Glancing around, I spotted a scruffy hairbrush. You couldn’t get much more personal than that. I turned back toward Selena.
She stood just inside the bathroom doorway, hands on her hips, eyes narrowed. “Cut it out, Annie, I’ve had enough of you talking like Newt kidnapped Lotli, the innuendos and little jabs. Maybe his family’s hiding something, but Newt doesn’t have anything to do with it. So quit acting like he’s evil, okay?
I mirrored her stance. “He told you his dad was a stockbroker, that they owned their summer home. Those were lies. His brother is a registered creep. No matter what you want to think: Newt’s not innocent.”
She turned her back on me, her voice bordering on hysteria. “I don’t know why I bothered coming. You’re so, so . . . You always have to be right—” Her voice died and she slowly faced me. Angry red blotches mottled her face. But tears rimmed her eyes.
My anger drained. She didn’t look pissed. She was trembling like she was about to fall apart. Earlier today, when we’d first heard about the lies Newt and his family had been telling, I’d seen something in Selena’s eyes, something beneath her disbelief.
“What is it? Tell me,” I asked gently.
She raked her hands over her face. “Nothing. You just need to trust me. I know Newt couldn’t be involved. And he wouldn’t have let his brother do it either.”
I leveled my gaze with hers and toughened my voice. “What makes you so certain? Tell me the truth, Selena.”
Her chin quivered. “I just know, that’s it.”
Tucking the hairbrush handle first into my hip pocket, I stepped closer. I pushed her hair back from her face. “You’re my cousin. Please. Tell me.”
“Nothing. He just wouldn’t do it. He loves me.”
“I get that. But—”
She shoved my hand away. “No. You don’t get it. I know he loves me. Like forever.” Her eyes pleaded for me to understand what she couldn’t bring herself to say.
A possibility seeped into my head. My hands went to my mouth, covering a horrified gasp. She couldn’t mean. She couldn’t have. “What did you do?”
“I kind of—I put a . . .” Her voice faded and she looked down at the floor.
“A spell?” A month ago, the idea of witchcraft being involved would never have occurred to me. Now it seemed more than likely.
“You can’t tell anyone. Mom, Dad, Grandfather—they’d kill me.” She curled her arms over her head, her shoulders shaking as she crumpled down onto the bathroom floor.
I crouched and put my arms around her. “Whatever it is, it’ll be fine. It can’t be that bad.”
“It is,” she sobbed.
Jeff Weeks Photography
PAT ESDEN would love to say she spent her childhood in intellectual pursuits. The truth is she was fonder of exploring abandoned houses and old cemeteries. When not out on her own adventures, she can be found in her northern Vermont home writing stories about brave, smart women and the men who capture their hearts. An antique-dealing florist by trade, she’s also a member of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, Romance Writers of America, and the League of Vermont Writers. Her short stories have appeared in a number of publications, including Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, the Mythopoeic Society’s Mythic Circle literary magazine, and George H. Scithers’s anthology Cat Tales.
You can find Pat online at:
PatEsden.com
Facebook.com/PatEsdenAuthor
Twitter @PatEsden
PatEsden.blogspot.com.