Gravelight

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  "No," Sinah protested, answering the thought and not the words. "I just . . . need help."

  The words were dragged from her reluctantly, but Wycherly Musgrave would respond to—would understand—nothing other than self-interest.

  "That's why I came here today."

  Instantly everything changed, though Sinah wasn't entirely sure why.

  Anger and impatience vanished from Wycheriy's mind as thoroughly as if it were a blackboard that had been wiped clean, to be replaced by a sense of isolation so immense that it could never be challenged. She'd said something wrong—her, Sinah Dellon, the woman who always knew the right thing to say.

  "What seems to be the problem?" Wycherly asked easily.

  / don't know. Sinah sat down on the other chair, and found that she was wringing her hands together, gripping them so tightly that they ached. She didn't want to explain—and how could she, without opening the door to an entire farrago of nonsense?

  Haunted? Telepathic? Those things belonged to big-budget summer movies, not to real life.

  "Are you being stalked?" Wycherly asked, something like sympathy in his voice.

  "No!" It was such an unexpected question—though obvious, all things considered—that her response was more vehement than she'd intended.

  "I mean—"

  "Never mind. If you actually want to make a soak you're going to have to heat water, you're going to have to fire up that stove. I can show you how," he said. Any other subject was apparently closed for the moment.

  With Wycherly supervising, Sinah filled the stove from the wood box and lit the kindling. It was already stuffy in the small cabin; the added heat would make the place a sweatbox.

  "I was born here," Sinah found herself saying as she worked, as casually as if she spoke to a wild animal that could not understand. "Somewhere in Morton's Fork. On the certificate it says 'Home Birth, Morton's Fork, Lyonesse County.' So I came back here when I could."

  Faint flicker of interest from the mind of the man behind her.

  She located a pot in the cupboard, set it on the stove, and filled it from one of the buckets of water that sat beside the stove.

  "My mother was dead—she'd died when I was born. I grew up in a foster home. My foster parents weren't particularly fond of me. I don't blame them; they had their reasons. I knew where I'd come from, of course—I found this place on a survey map at the library when I was fourteen. I'd always dreamed of coming back here, finding any relatives I had left, but I wanted to do it in style. Now, well, you said you knew who I am. The whole world knows that things are going pretty well for me."

  "So why the sob story?" Wycherly asked. It was brutal, but she'd ex-

  pected it from him. The rich were wary of sob stories and setups, and Wycheriy Musgrave, no matter how abused, was a child of privilege.

  For a moment her visions and nightmares since she'd come home blazed across her thoughts like summer lightning. She shook her head, denying them. There was no smoke, no fire—no dead witch in her dreams.

  "As I said, I expected to find relatives in Morton's Fork," Sinah said evenly. "You know how these mountain communities are—large families and close-knit. Even if some people move away, all of them don't. And I needed information about my bloodline. But—"

  Abruptly there was a lump in her throat. She'd had several months to get used to this; she didn't expect it still to hurt as much as it did.

  "There's been a problem," Sinah said in a strangled whisper. "No one here will admit my mother ever existed. As soon as they found out I was her daughter, they shut me out. Why? What have I done? What did she do?"

  Witch — devil child — monster —

  Sinah closed her mouth abruptly.

  "Why don't you see if you can find the coffee?" Wycheriy said, just as if she were not coming to pieces before his eyes.

  As Sinah hunted through his cupboards—Wycheriy had no idea where the coffee was or how to make it—he mulled over her story.

  It didn't add up.

  Sinah Dellon was a Broadway gypsy gone Hollywood. She wasn't pretty, with that feral fox-face meant to be seen through a camera lens or over footlights, but she was attractive in the way a clean, healthy, un-painted young woman could be, with an animal, not social, tightness. She looked—he groped for the right word—wholesome.

  But this wasn't Hollywood. This wasn't Broadway. This was Morton's Fork, a location in the geographical center of absolutely nowhere. Successful actress seeks roots? Not bloody likely with only one movie in the can.

  Wycheriy felt a growing spark of interest, a flicker of sensation in a scarred, affectless, emotional wasteland. There was something she didn't want anyone to know—even the person she was asking for help.

  He'd find out what it was.

  He thought of asking Sinah to get him a beer and decided to wait a while longer. He wanted to think this through.

  She probably wasn't trying to manipulate him with her cock-and-bull story. What would be the point; he didn't have anything anyone could want, and he certainly didn't look like anyone who could be pegged as the anointed heir—or even the unwanted beneficiary—of Musgrave, Ridenow, and Fields Investment Services and the sainted Musgrave dynasty.

  No, she loved him for himself alone, so to speak. Wycherly smiled derisively. She'd get over that soon enough.

  "So you think there's some sort of scandal in your mother's past," Wycherly said. "Was she married?" If there was one thing Wycherly understood, it was the architecture of old family scandals and never-spoken secrets.

  "'Father Unknown,' says the birth certificate, but I don't think that's it. You don't—" She stopped. "You haven't tried talking to them." She shrugged wearily.

  "I could."

  He told himself he was only making the offer because he was bored, or because there might be some later advantage to him in it. He'd known enough actors to know their entire lives revolved around drama and self-obsession—and that projecting what they wanted you to feel was their stock in trade.

  "I don't know any of the quaint native peoples well, but"—he thought of Luned—"they've shown no hesitation so far in talking to me."

  Sinah turned toward him, a small jar of coffee in her hand.

  "I'd be grateful," Sinah said quietly. "For anything you can do. Whether it works or not."

  Her sincerity irritated him. Don't thank me yet. I won't he any good at it. "Don't worry," Wycherly assured her. "It won't."

  Sinah located two thick, white, china mugs, and dumped instant coffee and white sugar into each. She already knew that Wycherly liked his coffee this way, but forced herself to ask anyway.

  By then the water was boiling, and Sinah filled the cups from the pot. The kitchen was ovenlike and her clothes were sticky with sweat and streaked with soot. She'd gotten used to worse, though—some of those backstage dressing rooms were dirtier than this, and hotter.

  She carried the half-empty bucket to the door and emptied out most of the rest of the water before carrying it back to where Wycherly sat. She

  GRAVELIGHT

  mixed Epsom salts and boiling water together in the bucket until the salts had all dissolved, and tested the result with a finger. The water was steaming, but bearable.

  "Here," Sinah said breathlessly. "Why don't you put your foot in this for a while and see how you feel?"

  "You're joking, of course." Wycherly sounded like an affronted cat.

  Without waiting for a more sensible reply, Sinah knelt down in front of him and began rolling up his pant leg.

  "Watch it," Wycherly said sharply. The possibility of pain seemed to be even more disturbing to him than its actuality.

  "Why don't you take a couple more of those pain pills you had yesterday? If you're out, I've got some aspirin," Sinah suggested.

  "They're in my jacket. It's in the bedroom," he added hastily.

  "Okay, I'll get them. Just as soon as you put your foot in that bucket."

  She expected him to lash out—she felt him want to
—but once again reality intruded: He didn't know her as well as she knew him, and more formal manners applied. There was a brief pause.

  "All right." He lowered his foot into the steaming bucket, wincing as he did so. Despite his shameless overacting, Sinah felt the pain in Wycherly's ankle ease.

  "You're going to need sun cream for your face, too. You look pretty horrible," she said.

  "So kind," Wycherly murmured, laughing at her silently.

  Sinah went into the bedroom and, after only a little investigation, found Wycherly's battered leather jacket. She searched it quickly, and found the small brown bottle. It was nearly full, and had his name and address on the label, as well as a doctor's name and the logo of the dispensing pharmacy. ¥or a paranoid, he's awfully trusting. She closed her hand around it without trying to memorize the information.

  "Here you are," Sinah said, coming back out. "What do you want to take them with?"

  "Coffee's okay," Wycherly said shortly. He took the bottle, removed the lid, and shook several pills out onto his palm. He tossed them back and chased them with a swallow of coffee. "Of course, the coffee's actually horrible," Wycherly added, smiling slyly at her.

  "I'll tell the cook when she comes in," Sinah said, sitting down in her chair and sipping at her cup. He was right; it wasn't that good. Probably

  the water, although it had boiled for long enough that at least the water was sterile. She drank it anyway, out of perversity, thinking vaguely about sun cream and enlarging Wycherly's wardrobe.

  "Is it not passing brave to be a king, and ride in triumph through Persepolis." A half-remembered quote from his college days floated through Wycherly's head. He felt an odd, uncomfortable pang of tenderness for Sinah, similar to the feelings Luned aroused but not quite so awkward.

  His foot was still in the bucket, though he could hardly feel the heat of the water now. The two of them sat in companionable silence in the sweltering room, but Sinah did not mention leaving, possibly because Wycherly could not.

  Now that he had the Movie Star soggy with gratitude she'd hardly notice if he asked her to get him a six-pack of beer. He could drink as many as he liked without having to apologize. He had an excuse; he was hurt. He'd do better tomorrow, but now . . .

  Aren't you even a little tired of being an object of pity?

  Wycherly shook his head as if to dislodge an irritating insect, but the voice came from within, not from outside. Tired of being an object of pity? Yes, as a matter of fact, he was. And so he wouldn't have a drink— or if he did, it would be just one can, or, at most, two.

  For now. For today.

  But he didn't think abstinence would change anything. He thought the black beast would still be out there no matter what he did.

  And so would Camilla.

  He wanted to think about something, anything, else.

  "Sinah?"

  With an effort, he dragged his mind back to Sinah's problems. They made an interesting puzzle. What crime could Athanais Dellon have committed that her illegitimate daughter would be ostracized a good two decades later?

  ''Yes?" She looked up from her coffee. Wycherly tried to remember what came next in this odd meaningless social dance. After a moment he remembered.

  "How old are you?"

  She smiled; it gave her dimples. "Really? Or for my biographers?"

  "The truth—I won't tell." The soak had helped, loath though he was to admit it, and now Wycherly felt the drugs begin to blunt the talons of

  pain that were clamped around his foot. They did nothing about the beast, but even so, he could afford to be charitable.

  "I'll be twenty-eight this year," Sinah said. "My birthday's August 14—what's wrong?"

  The mention of the date had made him turn his head, as if someone were offering to strike him. For a moment the roar of the water and the stifling reek of the river were all that was real.

  "It's my birthday, too. Someone died that day," Wycherly answered raggedly.

  Had it been him? It seemed weirdly possible that the last fourteen years had been a peculiar form of Hell.

  "I'm sorry. But . . . you've thought of something, haven't you?" Sinah asked, watching his face.

  "I think I know where you were born," Wycherly said. August 14, 1^6^. The year of the calendar there on the wall.

  Here. In this house. In the bed I've been sleeping in.

  "I don't know how much of this they believe themselves," Wycherly began, "but when I got here, Luned and Evan Starking, the brother and sister down at the general store, sounded as if they were pretty well convinced I was the new warlock on the block, come to take the place of the dead witch-woman."

  At his insistence, Sinah had made him another cup of hideous coffee, and had poured a tall glass of tepid cider for herself.

  "They wouldn't say much about her—but when I wanted to rent a place to stay, they gave me her cabin. Her name was Rahab, not Athanais, but the cabin had been deserted for something like thirty years—you can see the calendar on the wall over there—and whoever'd been there walked out—died, vanished, whatever—leaving everything behind but the bedding on the big brass bed."

  Sinah stared at him uncertainly. She wanted to believe him, he could tell. But it seemed almost too pat, even to him, and it was hard to blame her for being suspicious.

  "That's awfully hard to . . . Why you?" Sinah said, as if on cue.

  "I told you; they figured I was her replacement. It's the hair. Red." He gestured at his shaggy, uncombed mane.

  "And all witches have red hair," Sinah returned, quoting from a half-forgotten store of folklore.

  "Witches, Judas Iscariot ... all the best people. But this particular lavish country retreat is apparently reserved for all the local hoodoos, so here I am."

  "And everything was still here?" Sinah asked uncertainly.

  "Clothes, canned goods—everything. Most of it's still here now, or did you think I'd brought everything in that cabin with me when I came to stay?"

  Wycherly stopped himself before he said anything further. There was no way this woman could know the circumstances of his arrival in Morton's Fork—or, in fact, anything about his past. And he liked it that way.

  Sinah shook her head, not really listening. "All here? Nobody took anything?"

  "Just like the Marie Celeste. And I think they were afraid to—just as they're afraid to talk to you now."

  "And you haven't even met them." Sinah managed a wan ghost of a smile. "May I look around?"

  "Sure. You won't find much. The clothes got cleaned out—and I think I gave one of your family heirlooms to the daily help," Wycherly added, thinking of the ornate silver box he'd given to Luned.

  "I don't care. I just want to know," Sinah said. / want to know the truth about myself-— and what my family is.

  "Maybe you don't." Wycherly reached out and put his hand over hers, surprising both of them. "Families only make you miserable—you're lucky not to have one. And secrets are buried for a reason."

  It would be too easy to be fond of Wycherly Musgrave, Sinah thought to herself. Facile charm was supposed to be her stock in trade, but Wycherly had it—when he chose to exercise it. So this is where I was born, she thought, looking around the kitchen with new curiosity. In the cabin of the local witch-woman.

  Black magic or not, she couldn't believe that her mother's witchcraft— real or imagined—was what had turned the villagers against her. From his own words, the Starkings thought that Wycherly had occult powers, and all they'd done was rent him the nearest haunted house and pester him for spells.

  So if they didn't object to witches, what could Athanais Dellon have done twenty-eight years ago to unilaterally terrify every single inhabitant of Morton's Fork? Why did they refuse to admit she'd ever existed?

  Why? Why? whyl

  "As I said, feel free to look around," Wycherly said.

  The inside of the tin-roofed cabin was bakingly hot, but Wycherly didn't seem to notice. Instead, he pulled his shirt tighter around him as
if he were cold.

  Glancing back toward him as if to confirm his permission, Sinah walked toward the bedroom and pushed open the door.

  In the small bedroom, the dresser, armoire, washstand, and bedside table all vied for floor space with the ornate brass bed. There was a hand-hooked rag rug on the floor, soft and faded with time.

  "Go ahead," Wycherly called encouragingly from the other room. "Nothing belongs to me except the shoulder bag and the shaving kit."

  Sinah nodded, as if he were confirming her suspicions. A minute later she called back, "You didn't bring any more luggage than that?"

  "This was an unexpected stop," Wycherly said. She heard water slosh as he lifted his foot out of the now-cool soak. Almost reluctantly, Sinah began opening drawers.

  A bottle of patent medicine, its contents long evaporated. A sewing kit. Meaningless scraps of paper faded to blankness. A stub of pencil. The greatest find was a postcard of Wild wood Sanatorium, the hand-colored photo showing the building in all its glory, rising like Shangri-La out of the Appalachian woodland. Beyond those few scraps there was nothing—no mementos, no photos, no personal papers.

  "No Bible." Sinah stood at the foot of the bed and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. Her sleeveless linen shirt had been softened with heat and moisture until it was molded to the slender curves of her body.

  "Bible?" Wycherly asked.

  As she'd searched, he'd pulled his chair into the doorway to get a better view of her activities.

  "Every household around here has a Bible. I was raised in Gaithers-burg, and we had one. This is the homeland of Billy Sunday—they still have revivals here. Are you telling me whoever lived here—witch-woman or not—wouldn't have a family Bible?"

  "Maybe it burned," Wycherly said. "Maybe Luned took it." From the sound of his voice he wasn't really interested.

  "I don't think she would," Sinah said stubbornly. "But it isn't here."

  "You're perfectly welcome to keep looking. Move the furniture around. Check for trapdoors and secret panels if you like," Wycherly drawled.

  He was humoring her—well, she'd rather be humored than hated, if those were her choices.

  "Root cellar!" Sinah exclaimed.