A Season of Miracles

by Heather Graham

He had felt shaken. For a moment a chill had settled over him, like something cold and horrible beyond words, and then…

  Then she had started to fall, and the feeling had slipped away, and now he couldn’t even recall exactly what it had been. Maybe he’d imagined it. And yet…

  At the bar, he ordered a beer. They’d dyed the beer with food coloring. Black beer. Interesting.

  As he sipped, he eased back and surveyed the room. Nearly midnight. The band was playing ballads. The bar was still full, but the customers at the tables were beginning to head out. When people moved, he saw the fortune-teller.

  Tarot card reader. Whatever. It was all just fun and bull.

  As he looked at her, she suddenly stared up at him. Her eyes were golden. Amber, glimmering. She was an arresting woman, metallic in color. Even her skin was copper. She was both stunning and disturbing.

  As she looked at him, she suddenly leaned back in her chair, gripping the table. She didn’t seem to be doing anything else, certainly nothing threatening, but the couple who had been having their cards read suddenly pushed their chairs away.

  He wasn’t sure why, but he rose, walking over to her. She straightened, pointing at him.

  But she didn’t see him. He knew that, her eyes had rolled back into her head.

  “Betrayer,” she whispered. She began to croon and moan, weaving in her chair.

  He felt the cold again. Like ice. Fear unlike anything he could remember. Yet he wasn’t afraid for himself. He just knew that…

  His head hurt. Pounded. He leaned forward, putting his hands on the table. “Stop it,” he snapped. “Stop it.”

  She jerked forward; her eyes rolled into place. “You shouldn’t have come,” she told him, visibly shaken.

  “I shouldn’t have come to the bar?” he asked.

  “To Llewellyn,” she answered.

  He eased down into the chair, staring at her. “Who put you up to this?” he demanded. After all, this was Hennessey’s. A favorite hangout of Daniel’s, Theo’s, and probably Griff’s, as well.

  The name Llewellyn was Welsh. But Robert knew from his long conversations with Douglas that the family had been in Ireland for hundreds of years before he had picked up and made his way to the States.

  “Madame Zena,” he said firmly, looking around the pub again for some sight of any one of the Llewellyns, “who put you up to this?”

  “No one,” she told him.

  “Well, then, listen to me,” he said, leaning forward. “I didn’t come to Llewellyn to hurt anyone. As a matter of fact, I intend to protect certain people, even though they may not trust me. Protect them, and their interests. So you can call off the mind games. I—”

  “You know nothing,” she said softly. “You are dangerous. More dangerous than you can ever imagine. You’re so powerful and arrogant.” She leaned toward him, suddenly angry, but very still and quiet as she spoke. “You know nothing. And you do not care to learn.”

  “Excuse me, Madame Zena,” he interrupted, puzzled and angry, and not knowing why he felt he needed to defend himself to a fortune-teller. “Look, I’m a decent human being, responsible, concerned, intelligent—”

  She didn’t seem to hear him. “You may be all that, but it’s not enough. Fear is a good thing, young man. Fear can create a quest for knowledge, because no man is so strong he can defy God, Heaven and Hell, and all the Fates. Get out of here. And don’t come to me again unless your mind is open.”

  She stood and, with a flourish, spun away from him, then rushed from the bar.

  Startled, he sat back in the chair.

  “Wow, that was…scary!”

  He turned around and saw that the girl who had been in his chair just moments earlier had spoken. A pretty young brunette, she was clinging to her lanky escort, eyes wide, cheeks pale.

  “Well,” he said with a shrug, “it’s Halloween, after all.”

  One of the bartenders—a freckled redhead wearing bobbing bug antennae—came walking over, wiping a glass as he looked out the door. “She didn’t even get her money,” he said, then shrugged fatalistically. “Oh well, I imagine she’ll be back.”

  He returned to his position behind the bar.

  “Look at the card that’s turned over now,” the brunette said. She grabbed her boyfriend’s lapel. “That wasn’t my card.” She stared at Robert, scared again, shaking her head. “It’s your card. It has to be your card.”

  “So? I don’t believe in prophecy. Fate is what we make it,” he said firmly.

  “It’s…it’s still your card,” she whispered, then turned, heading out.

  “Women,” the man said. “You know the old saying. Can’t live with ’em, can’t shoot ’em, either.”

  He hurried after the brunette.

  Robert looked at the card on the table. He didn’t know much about tarot cards, and he certainly didn’t believe in their ability to foretell the future.

  But even he recognized the Grim Reaper.

  * * *

  The dream came suddenly.

  She smelled smoke. And then there was the rustling sound of dry kindling as it caught fire. The acrid smell of something burning…

  Flesh.

  Pain, a searing pain…

  She awoke with a violent start and jumped out of bed, screaming, “Fire! Henry, get Grandfather!”

  With her eyes open, she saw that there was no fire. She stood dead still. No smoke, no fire, no scent of burning flesh.

  Her door suddenly burst open.

  There was Henry, Grandfather’s assistant.

  Henry was seventy, a spring chicken compared to Douglas Llewellyn. He stood in her doorway in his proper pajamas and robe, snow-white hair beneath a bed cap, as if he were a character right out of a Dickens novel.

  “Jillian?” he cried, looking frantically around.

  Embarrassment filled her. She’d been dreaming.

  “Oh, Henry, I’m so sorry. I had a nightmare, I…I guess.”

  He exhaled a vastly relieved sigh. “Oh, my dear girl,” he said.

  She walked to the doorway, setting a hand on his shoulder. “Henry, are you all right? My God, I can’t believe I was screaming like that. I wouldn’t have worried you for the world. How ridiculous. I guess it happened because it’s Halloween.”

  He smiled. “Why, Miss Jillian, you’ve never been afraid of Halloween, or the dark, or things that go bump in the night.”

  She lifted a hand. “I’m at a loss myself. But I’m sorry.” She set her palm on his chest. His heart rate was slowing.

  “I’m fine, Miss Jillian. Just fine. The old ticker is pumping just as it should. Shall I fix you a drink? A hot toddy?”

  “No, no more alcohol,” she said.

  He arched a brow.

  “I had a few Guinness Stouts,” she told him.

  “Well, then, what say we share some hot chocolate?”

  She smiled. “Sounds good.”

  As she had since she’d been a little girl, after her mother died, she slipped her hand into his. They walked out to the second floor landing and down to the kitchen together.

  As they chatted, memories of the awful vividness of the nightmare faded.

  She didn’t tell him much about her Halloween evening at Hennessey’s, though. And she didn’t say a word about the tarot card reader, or the arrival of Robert Marston.

  Eventually, warm and relaxed, she yawned, thanked Henry and headed up to bed.

  She tried to sleep, but she couldn’t. Suddenly, after all these years, she hated the dark.

  She rose. The main light would be too bright. Even the reading light by her bed would be too much. She turned on the bathroom light, then left the door open a crack and lay back down in bed.

  Better, but still…

  She’d never been afraid before. Of the darkness, of the night. If there were ghosts in her life, they were good ghosts. People who had loved her. Her mother. Her father.

  Milo.

  Her eyes fell on the snow globe that sat on her nig
htstand between the lamp and the silver-framed picture of Milo and herself. Always smiling. No matter what pain had plagued him. He had loved art and music, dance, theater, the world. An eternal optimist. The pain was okay, because he was living, still with her, still seeing the world. Death would be okay, too, because then the pain would be gone, and there was a better world.

  He had given her the snow globe. It played a beautiful, if somewhat sad, tune, though the title was a mystery. It held a wilderness scene, with horses and riders racing through a winter landscape. She shook it and watched the snow fall.

  “I wish you were with me, old friend,” she said softly.

  A few minutes later, she felt an odd sense of peace settling over her.

  Finally she slept. And the dream didn’t come again.

  * * *

  Connie was the first to enter Jillian’s office in the morning. She stepped in humming, then came to a dead halt. A scream escaped her, and she clamped her hand over her mouth to stop it.

  Someone rushed in behind her, and she spun around. Daniel Llewellyn.

  Like her, he stood dead still. Staring. At the cat.

  “Jeeves is…dead,” she said.

  “Sure looks like it,” Daniel said.

  “Hey, what’s all the commotion?” Griff demanded, walking in behind them.

  They both looked at Griff with almost as much surprise as they had stared at the cat.

  “You’re early,” Connie said.

  “Keeping on my toes,” Griff said lightly, then saw the cat. “Whoa, what happened to him?”

  “Connie?” Joe rushed in, looking anxiously at his wife. “I heard you screaming. What—”

  “It’s the cat,” she explained.

  “The cat?” Joe queried, puzzled.

  “Jeeves apparently climbed up on Jillian’s desk to die last night,” Daniel explained. “We shouldn’t have kept a cat in the office in the first place,” he muttered.

  “I looked after him,” Griff said, walking over to the dead cat, picking it up. “He’s cold. Dead a long time. What could have happened to him? There are no dogs in here, no cars to run him over—”

  “Maybe he was just old,” Joe suggested tactfully. “I mean, no one knew much about him.”

  “Should we have…an autopsy?” Connie asked. “An investigation?”

  “Cut him up?” Griff demanded indignantly. He stroked the dead cat, looking hurt and troubled.

  “I don’t think we can call the police in over a dead cat,” Daniel said dryly.

  “But…” Connie began, and shivered suddenly. “A black cat…just dead. On Halloween.”

  “In Jillian’s office,” Joe said.

  “And after last night,” Connie moaned.

  “Last night?” Daniel queried.

  “She passed out at the bar,” Joe explained.

  “The golden girl got drunk and passed out?” Griff said skeptically.

  Connie offered him a withering glare. “Of course not, she just—”

  “It was the fortune-teller,” Joe said.

  “Tarot card reader,” Connie corrected.

  “What?” Daniel demanded, incredulously.

  “She started screaming that Jillian was a witch.”

  “Well, I’m sure we’ve all called her a name or two along the way,” Griff drawled.

  “It was spooky,” Connie informed them firmly.

  “Yeah, it was kind of uncanny,” Joe agreed, setting his hands on his wife’s shoulders. “Then Marston appeared—”

  “Robert Marston showed up at the bar?” Daniel asked sharply.

  “And Jillian passed out?” Griff said, brow furrowed as he tried to understand the chronology of events. “Because of Marston?”

  “No…no…” Connie murmured uncertainly.

  “It was the bar, I guess,” Joe said.

  “The bar or the beer?” Daniel asked.

  “She wasn’t drunk,” Connie told him.

  “The fortune-teller made her think she was a witch?” Griff asked, as confused as his brother.

  “No…but I…” Connie began.

  “I don’t think we should let her find Jeeves like this,” Joe said flatly. “She loved that cat.”

  “She loves anything with fur,” Daniel commented.

  “Is that true of her men, too?” Griff asked Connie, teasing.

  “Griff…” Daniel began warningly.

  “Hey, she’s coming!” Joe alerted them, stepping in and closing the door. “She’s on her way down the hall.”

  Griff quickly slid the dead cat behind his back. Connie rushed over to him, standing behind him so the dead cat was fully hidden.

  “The tray of cookies is still there,” Daniel muttered.

  “I’ll just grab it,” Joe volunteered.

  When Jillian stepped into her office, it was more than weird. Connie and Griff were standing to one side, were very close to one another, looking like Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. A very guilty Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.

  Daniel was standing by her desk, Joe beside him, looking like a butler, last night’s tray of cookies and tea in his hands.

  “Good morning, Jillian,” Joe said brightly.

  She frowned. “Good morning, Joe.” She looked around her office again. “Daniel, Connie, Griff,” she said, greeting each of them in turn.

  “Morning,” Connie said.

  “Good morning, Jill,” Daniel murmured.

  “Ditto,” Griff told her.

  They were all staring at her.

  “Okay,” she said. “What are you all doing in my office?”

  “Meeting,” Daniel said.

  “I stubbed my toe,” Connie said.

  “She stubbed her toe,” Joe repeated. “And screamed.”

  “Yeah. She screamed. We all came running,” Griff told her.

  They were still staring at her.

  “Are you all right now?” she asked Connie.

  “Of course I’m all right. Why wouldn’t I be all right?” Connie said.

  “Your toe,” Jillian reminded her.

  “Oh…I…yes. It’s fine now.”

  “So what about this meeting?” Jillian said.

  “What?” Connie said, frowning.

  “Meeting. Didn’t you say you were here for a meeting, Daniel?” Jillian asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “About what?”

  “A quick meeting. Just to say that, uh, we’re definitely going with the Celtic cross.”

  “You told me that yesterday.”

  “Yeah, but…there’s also an ad campaign we need to discuss.” He looked at his watch. “Can’t now. Have to be in a marketing meeting in two minutes.”

  “But—” Jillian began.

  “Marketing. That’s me,” Griff said.

  “Since when have you actually bothered to attend a meeting?” Jillian asked.

  “Today. It’s an important one.” He was walking toward her door.

  Backward.

  And Connie was going with him.

  “I’ll get some coffee,” she said, smiling in response to Jillian’s confused frown.

  “And I’ll get rid of the tea,” Joe said cheerfully, rushing out, the tea service rattling.

  “Marketing,” Daniel said, sounding ridiculously awkward, not at all like his usual assertive self. He followed Joe, passing by Connie and Griff—old Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum—who nearly crashed into one another in their haste to exit her office.

  She watched them go, then walked around to her desk and sat, still staring at the door. She groaned aloud and dropped her head into her hands.

  The tarot card reader.

  The nightmare. The feeling of burning…

  And now her family and friends being entirely bizarre.

  Like Alice, she might as well have fallen down a hole.

  Her world was going mad.

  CHAPTER 4

  There was a meeting that morning. At eleven a.m., Jillian found herself in the conference room with her grandfather and
all her cousins.

  It was a family affair, except that Robert Marston and the artist who’d created the sketch Eileen and Theo had discussed, Brad Casey, had also been invited.

  Jillian had heard—via Connie, who had heard it from Daniel’s secretary, Gracie Janner—that Douglas, Theo and Daniel had already met earlier. Now the whole family had been brought together.

  She didn’t think her grandfather had been planning on this meeting earlier. She’d seen him briefly at the breakfast table that morning, since he’d been finishing up when she’d come down. He looked good—even at his age, he was tall and straight as an arrow—but there had been concern on his features when he’d poured milk over his cornflakes and said, “I heard you had a bad dream last night.”

  “Halloween. I guess I’m still impressionable,” she had tossed back lightly.

  He hadn’t pressed the point, which had worried her a bit.

  Now, he was staring at her down the length of the beautiful hardwood conference table. “I guess everyone knows what’s going on here,” he said, watching her. “Except for you. And Robert.”

  She looked around uneasily, feeling a strange sense that maybe everyone really had gone mad and she had been brought here to be told she was to marry Marston or else be thrown to the wolves—whatever form of wolves still lurked in Manhattan, that is.

  She didn’t doubt that there were many.

  “Douglas, I—”

  “It’s about our next ad campaign.”

  “What?” she breathed, feeling instantly at sea. Whatever he was getting at, it was nothing she’d been expecting.

  “I have to hand it to Eileen and Theo. They saw the possibilities first.”

  “I’m sorry. I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Neither do I, Douglas. What’s up?” Marston asked.

  He was seated to her left. Cool, smooth, impeccable. A powerful, neatly manicured hand wrapped around his coffee cup.

  “Brad, show the sketches, please.”

  Brad Casey was a nice guy. Tall, slim, with thinning, long blond hair, he had a gift for taking a spoken concept and translating it onto paper. He flushed uncomfortably as he rose from his position at the far end of the table and lifted the cover from an easel. Jillian gasped.

  He had drawn her. In an incredibly flattering way. She was sure she was far more electric in his sketch than she had ever been in life. She was looking at a man, her eyes alive, conveying a warmth that seemed to come from the soul, as he fastened a locket around her throat. The entire image was stunning. It captured something more than the giving of a special gift to a special person. It seemed to evoke the very essence of two people together, living for one another, understanding the gift not so much of a locket, but of love. The very best, and most tender, of human emotions.