by Leigh Morgan
“You know we have to meet your crew in Glastonbury, right?” Jesse said.
“We won’t be far from the site of the shoot. Right down from it actually, so I guess that means we’ve come full circle. There’s got to be more than the obvious symmetry in that. I just need to check something before we get there.”
Jesse didn’t question her further. He was beginning to understand that when Taryn started rambling, there was generally a method to that particular madness and it would make more sense if he just ignored it and let her work it out on her own. She’d enlighten him once she was able to effectively translate her thoughts into something coherent. He eyed the map again, before folding it and handing it back to her. He hit some buttons on his watch, and put the too small car in gear.
Taryn eyed him wearily. “You didn’t actually need that GPS to find your way, did you?”
“Nope.” Jesse said, flashing an unapologetic grin, better suited to a seven year old than a grown man. Taryn got that odd confluence of emotions that seemed ever present since she came at him with her shillelagh; she wanted to bash him and jump his bones at the same time. Since they came to Scotland that had gotten worse. Now she wanted to laugh with him too. She supposed there was no point trying to fight the fact that she felt good simply being around him.
Before she let her inner sane self stop her, Taryn reached over, grabbed Jesse’s hand in hers and kissed it. When his fingers tightened briefly around hers, she rubbed her cheek across the back of his hand before setting it in her lap.
Taryn smiled at the sound Jesse made low in his throat. She settled more deeply into her seat, closed her eyes and let the ramifications of what she thought she’d just discovered sink in. Now all she had to decide was what to do with what seemed like more than one lifetime’s worth of work.
They hit Wiltshire in record time and were in Glastonbury shortly after crossing into the shire. Jesse found the fountainhead area Taryn remembered playing in as a child, although now it appeared much smaller and was covered in rust and moss instead of the faerie dust of her childhood.
Her father would take her hiking up the faerie hill telling her stories of Gwyn ap Nudd and other faerie royalty, of how their energy still manifests in the land and in the greenery, and how their progeny live on just out of sight. Then, when they were done, they’d drink from the spring. Taryn would wet her whole body and dance in the small clearing, joyful and giggling.
The property above the spring that supplied the water to her fountainhead had been sold since she was last here. A small, abandoned coffee shop sat upon it, the dilapidated paint peeling to reveal the new age theme of sun, moon, stars and goddess symbols, now cracked and worn. Even so, there was still magic in the land. Taryn could feel it radiating up through the soles of her feet. She’d always felt the pull, the power, the peace and energy of this place. One semi-ruined building didn’t diminish the feeling any more than twenty plus years of absence.
Taryn didn’t try to explain the feeling, it was inexplicable. It was just something she knew and felt and could manifest in her heart without actually being here: it was…magic.
Lost in thought and emotion Taryn followed the magnetic path toward the spigot that now served as the well’s fountainhead. She felt a small ripple of uncertainty but didn’t stop until she reached the gateway to the enchanted water.
…
There was no parking on the narrow road separating the abandoned coffee house from the gated tranquility gardens across the street, so Jesse had to park a few blocks away and they walked in. He was following her now, uncertain where she was going, and unwilling to shatter her trance-like purpose.
“Does it bother you at all that the first symbol you recognized on that map of yours is literally a stone’s throw from where you’ll be filming?” He asked, barely blocking the tree branch she bent back before it slapped him in the face. This was no way to provide security, but then again, no one knew they were here and Taryn’s movements were so random they could hardly be anticipated.
“We start filming at the Abby.”
Jesse glared at her back, not bothering to hide his ire since she couldn’t see it. “And you’ve got what, a day there, before you come right back to the gardens and then that big pile of stones on the hill.”
“That big pile of stones is called the ‘Tor’.” Jesse knew the names of every stop on her schedule. He’d researched them, and if he wanted to could probably give a lecture on each spot.
“What’s bothering you about this? I just want to check this out and see where it leads. I’ve got a feeling this is where my father wanted me to start.”
“Seems a little convenient to me. Who picked this spot, you or MacBain?”
“Lauren is the one who designates the shoot sites.”
They were walking up the street toward a metal grate where water from an old inverted L-shaped pipe was returned to the earth. There were already people filling up jugs from the tap that they believed carried sacred water from a sacred spring. The commingling of ancient and new was so stark, and at the same time so mundane, that it boggled Jesse’s mind. Who would put up a coffee shop right next to a place of such sacred and historic importance?
Hide in plain sight. Give everyone access. Camouflage the sacred in the everyday. Brilliant.
Open secrets that were as much a part of daily life as taking a drink of water were right there for anyone and everyone to see, if they were really looking. Jesse scanned their surroundings. A long fence stopped easy access from the west. A tree covered roadway, only wide enough for one vehicle at a time, wound its way up the relatively steep hillside. Cottages, and the abandoned coffee shop that looked like one of the cottages, just not as well kept, abutted the roadway. Beyond all of that lay grassy fields and the footpath to the Tor. To Jesse this was a bottleneck with nowhere to go, one way in and one way out. There was nothing but field and fence and scattered cottages on either side. No easy way in or out except via the road.
Jesse stopped and pulled Taryn toward him. They were only about twenty feet or so from the spigot where a small group of Glastonbury locals were waiting for their turn to fill up their water jugs. Jesse leaned down and drew Taryn into a slow kiss, positioning her so he had a clear line of sight and could observe the length of the road and the immediate area without being noticed. She came to him willingly, winding her arms around his waist. No one paid them any attention.
Satisfied that this little scene was probably just what it looked like, Jesse allowed himself a second to enjoy the splay of Taryn’s strong hands on his back as she rubbed him before ushering her around the greenery and the stone wall abutting the coffee shop. Again, no one seemed to be watching them as they moved away from the water and disappeared in the green.
“Where exactly do you need to go and what are looking for?” Jesse whispered in her ear, all business, as if every time he touched her his insides didn’t turn to whipped cream. Well her insides did. Every damned time. His matter-of-factness in the face of that truth made Taryn want to skewer him and roast him over a slow burning fire. If she were going to burn, it was only fair that he burn too.
“Why are you whispering?”
Jesse stopped and pulled her to him again. “Something’s not right here, but I’ll be damned it I know what it is. Until I figure it out, I need you to listen and-”
He grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him, smiling down at her with such heat in his eyes that Taryn forgot she wanted to skewer him.
“-and try to obey.” He sobered, then continued. “I need you to do what I say when I say it. No questions. Not contradictions. No bullshit.”
She would have hit him, but he kissed her again. She was beginning to like having this kind of free access to his lips, his mouth, his body. Jesse pulled away and dropped his forehead to hers. “I know this is important to you and I want to help. I need to know why we’re here, love, and what you’re looking to find.”
Taryn showed him the charm. “See. This is a w
ell, marked by a stone slab with a moon?”
Jesse looked. He wouldn’t have picked out the circle with squiggles through it as a well, but he trusted Taryn’s interpretation. He nodded, noticing an image that looked like the Tor in the background.
“My dad used to take me here as a kid. That was before most of these cottages were built. It was mostly field back then.” Taryn looked around. “If we go toward the path I think I can find it.”
The path skimmed the back of the coffee shop. It was overgrown and hadn’t been used in a number of years, but Taryn found it. She circled around a particularly large oak tree and Jesse watched her face for evidence of the gears in her head making sense of a now changed landscape. She turned and stared at the boarded up window at the back of the coffee shop that had been overtaken by vines long ago.
“How do you feel about a little breaking and entering?” She asked.
He smiled. “My specialty.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Jesse looked at his watch. He felt just fine about breaking and entering as long as they hurried the hell up. They needed to be on site for filming in less than two hours. Without a word, he unsheathed the Ka-bar he kept at his ankle and cut the vines he couldn’t tear from the boards. “What are we looking for?”
“If I’m reading the charm correctly, we’re looking for the Cauldron of Knowledge.”
Jesse stopped cutting. His heart was suddenly beating too hard in his chest. He hadn’t known anything about any of this stuff before he tracked Taryn down. Since then, he’d made it his business to read everything she published and everything her father published before her. He couldn’t have heard her correctly. They weren’t in Wales, they were in England. They weren’t on the Isle of Avalon on some Arthurian quest, they were looking for evidence of ancient Celtic mysticism in a town now known as a new-age hippie haven.
Magic. Mystery. Myth. That’s what this whole thing was supposed to be about. A good story for those who thought photographs of little winged faeries from the 1920s were real. Hell, he thought they were looking for lost jewelry in a bog, or maybe a sword or some shards of Neolithic pottery.
“You’re kidding, right?”
Taryn smiled at him and was actually pushing up and down on her toes. If she weren’t a grown woman he would have said she was bouncing with excitement.
“Nope. Not kidding. We’re looking for the precursor to the Holy Grail.” She emanated so much tangible energy, he thought she’d burst from it. “The goddess Cerridwen’s Cauldron of Knowledge. The vessel, that if one drinks from it, one learns the universal truths of life: science, magic, and ultimate understanding.” She raised her shoulders, grinning from ear to ear. “Not to mention healing, longevity, strength and sexual prowess.”
Jesse looked at his watch again. Ninety minutes to find the treasure that shaped centuries of spirituality, both Pagan and Christian. The ever elusive vessel that produced a legend so powerful men and women died to protect it and fortune hunters of all codes and creeds would not only kill to possess, but sell their souls to drink from it just once.
“Well, I’ll say this for you Campbells, when you go, you go large.” Jesse said, thinking he was going to need more men to protect to her if she so much as whispered this nonsense to anyone else.
Jesse heard a branch crack behind Taryn. He was more than two strides away from her and before he could open his mouth to tell her to get down she whirled around to confront whoever or whatever made the noise. Taryn was on her knees before Jesse got to her. Knife in hand, he surveyed what he could see of the terrain, knowing whoever attacked Taryn was long gone.
Taryn suddenly felt heavy; like her legs just couldn’t hold her anymore. She needed to lie down, but her head was moving faster than her thoughts and it was going to fall down on its own. “Ought oohh. I’m falling and I can’t get up.”
Taryn giggled at the thought of herself as that old woman alone slipping out of her chair in the T.V. commercial, even though the thought wasn’t particularly funny. She didn’t want to be alone. She looked at Jesse’s face, his blurred features swimming in and out of focus and said, “Save me. I don’t want to be alone.”
Jesse caught her before her head hit the ground as she slid down his body. She couldn’t help it. She suddenly weighed a thousand pounds. Taryn laughed again, a hollow sound, “A thousand pound Amazon who needs saving.”
“Shh. Don’t try to talk. We need to get out of here, love. Focus on your feet. On moving your feet.”
Taryn looked at her feet. “I have pretty feet. They’re my best feature.”
Jesse made a rude sound and pushed a button on the side of his watch. He scooped her up. “Put those pretty feet under you. We need to walk, Taryn. Come on. Concentrate.”
Jesse positioned her so she had her right arm across his left shoulder, leaving his right arm free. He was half pulling half pushing her away from the coffee shop. Taryn started to laugh at the absurdity of the last few weeks, but why it was absurd drifted away as she noticed all the pretty colors and sounds of the forest.
Jesse’s voice came to her from far away saying something about putting one foot in front of the other. Taryn tried to waive her hand at him dismissing his grumpy command. Why hurry when they were surrounded by so much beauty.
She was seeing the scent of the trees. “Green smells so pretty. Don’t you think so, Jesse?”
The sight of flower scent was even better, Taryn thought dreamily. “Yellow is nice too, kinda like lemony melon or dragonfly wings dancing in the dew.” She turned her nose up, it was beginning to itch. “I don’t like the way pink smells though. No-”
Her voice sounded funny and her tongue was getting thick.
“-no I don’t like the way pink smells at all.” She giggled. “Pink stinks.”
“Of course it does.”
“Jesse?”
“Yes, love?”
“I think something bit me. My blood’s humming and I feel fuzzy inside.”
“A few more steps, Taryn. We’re almost there.”
She tripped once, twice and then she was tripping into the side of their mini-car. Taryn tried to lift her hand to the side of her neck, but it was too heavy. “My bite hurts.” Her eyelids were getting heavy.
“You’ve been drugged by a dart, love. Not bitten.”
Even in her drug laced state, or maybe especially in it, Taryn not only heard the fear and the love in Jesse’s voice, she could taste it like honey and lemon and copper pennies; she could smell it, rain-washed freshly cut grass, earth and ammonia. It was scary and wonderful and so real she could wrap herself in it, if she could get rid of the fear, the ammonia and the pennies.
She didn’t want Jesse to worry. “I love you, Jesse. With my whole heart. No pretend. I don’t want you to smell like pennies or glass cleaner. I want you to smell like sunshine and honeybees...and…” That was her last thought as her world bled from a kaleidoscope of color to endless gray.
…
The voices were mumbled and indistinct at first. Taryn heard them but she didn’t understand anything. Her limbs weren’t as heavy now and the colors were beginning to lose their scent, although she could still taste everything around her. Since she was in a hospital, that sense wasn’t a good thing. Taryn decided to focus on the conversation while she kept her eyes closed. Something was definitely wrong because even as she wanted to pretend to be asleep she didn’t seem capable of deceit. She had to settle for silence and stillness instead, neither of which were inherent in her nature.
“I’ll fly my disease expert in. She recently retired from the CDC. There’s no one better.” Taryn recognized her boss’s voice and wondered why he was there. He had a museum to run.
“The hell you will, MacBain. Until I know exactly what happened here, no one whom I don’t know personally is going to touch my wife. Why are you here?” Jesse demanded harshly.
“I couldn’t reach Taryn by phone…and I received a disturbing e-mail.”
Jesse made a ru
de sound, but otherwise said nothing, his earlier tone still smoking her ears. Taryn hadn’t heard that particular tone in Jesse’s voice before and she’d heard plenty of them from him: uncompromisingly cold, hot, and deadly. She almost smiled at his possessiveness, something she should have chastised him for, but couldn’t since she was being forcefully honest with herself. The truth was she liked being possessed by Jesse. In fact, she found she wanted to do a little possessing of her own. Starting with straddling him on a chair where he was at her mercy and she could tease and taunt and please to her heart’s content. Maybe she could get him to take her back to Rhia’s castle and try out the dungeon’s swinging chair.
“Taryn will be fine. She’s stronger than you think.” This from Merlin, her champion.
Taryn opened her eyes. “She is strong enough to get out of here. Thank you, Merlin.” Taryn smiled at him and he smiled back, a wealth of knowledge and understanding in his age old eyes. “This place tastes like death. I want to leave.”
Jesse’s concerned gaze flew to hers. “Are you still smelling colors?”
Taryn thought about that. Again she wanted to lie. “Yes. But not as powerfully now.”
A man she’d never seen before dressed in a white medical coat came up and slapped a cold stethoscope on her chest. He smiled at her with warm brown eyes, seeming to tune out the other men in the room who, with the exception of Merlin, were fighting an invisible testosterone war.