Thoroughly Kissed

by Kristine Grayson

  The hotel was just off the interstate on rolling acres that had been shorn of trees. If he looked east, he could see the Rushmore Mall, and if he looked northwest, he could see the Black Hills. They disturbed him, just like the Badlands did. Perhaps it was because he knew the area’s history—especially the last hundred years, filled with mindless slaughter of the Native Americans, which seemed to repeat over and over again. Or perhaps it was all the evidence of the strip mining that had polluted the land around Rapid and scarred the earth.

  Or perhaps it was something more.

  The Sioux believed that the Black Hills were the center of the world—that they had a mystical power. He had marked the Black Hills as a place to study when he got to magical beliefs in the Americas—and not just because of the Ghost Dancing and the events surrounding the original Wounded Knee massacre. There was a sense of age here, of things beyond his ken, and it was extremely strong.

  For the first time, as he stood in the parking lot, he wondered if he shouldn’t have taken Emma a different way. Would the power of the land enhance her abilities? Or was he being silly and superstitious?

  He had no idea. But he was learning, with Emma, that it was better to plan for the worst because everything could change in the space of a heartbeat.

  ***

  Darnell hated the hotel room. He paced its entire length, sniffing the floor, then stood by the door—demanding, in his own feline fashion, to be set free.

  Emma pointed to his bed. “We’re staying.”

  Darnell pawed at the door.

  “We’d have to drive too far tonight. This is as good a place as any.”

  But Darnell didn’t agree. He wanted out, and she would have to keep an eye on him to make certain that he didn’t escape.

  She sat on the edge of the queen-sized bed and patted the stiff paisley comforter. “Come here. Tell me what’s bothering you.”

  His eyes narrowed, as if he feared she were going to put a spell on him. But she wasn’t going to put a spell on anyone, not if she could help it.

  “Okay, Darnell,” she said. “You know how to nod and shake your head. I know you’ve learned that much and that you simply chose not to use it. But if you want your way, you have to talk to me.”

  He stared at her, ears flat.

  “I’m not going to spell you, but I want to know what’s bothering you.” She smoothed the comforter. The room smelled slightly damp, as if the ancient air conditioner in the corner had been run too many times.

  Darnell was watching her closely.

  “Would you feel better if we moved to a different room?”

  He shook his head once, then eyed her as if to say he wouldn’t do anything more than that.

  “How about a different hotel?”

  Again, the head shake.

  She sighed. “Is it the town?”

  The cat hesitated for a moment, then shook his head again.

  “The area?”

  Darnell nodded. Once.

  “How far do we have to go to make you feel better?”

  He didn’t move his head at all, but she could have sworn that his shoulders went up and down. Once. A shrug.

  She sighed. “I wish you could tell me what you fear.”

  “Spirits,” Darnell said, and butted his head against the door.

  ***

  “I tell you he spoke to me,” Emma said. She and Michael were sitting in a coffee shop. They had ordered, but none of the food had arrived yet. “He wants to leave. I promised him I’d tell you.”

  “He’s not a lion again, is he?” Michael had his hand wrapped around his coffee mug as if he were holding onto it for security.

  Emma smiled. “No. I didn’t spell him to talk. I think I made a wish spell, and I think it was a simple one-time thing.”

  “A wish spell?”

  “I said, ‘I wish you could tell me what you fear’ and he said, ‘Spirits,’ and try as I might, I couldn’t get him to speak again. He even opened his mouth a few times, but all that came out were some squeaky meows.”

  “Spirits.” Michael gazed out the window, as if he could find answers in the parking lot. “I gotta say this area has me spooked too.”

  “Why?” Emma asked. And why wasn’t she feeling anything different?

  “All the history.” Then Michael’s gaze met hers. “Although to you, it wouldn’t be history at all.”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “That I feel. The land feels very old here, timeless, like it did near some of the Druid ruins when I was a girl.”

  Michael’s gaze met hers in understanding. “Stonehenge.”

  She nodded. “Only here, the land feels damaged. Someone has poisoned the magic, and it’s never going to be the same.”

  Michael sipped from his cup. “Maybe we should listen to Darnell. Maybe we should leave tonight and drive until he feels better.”

  “Oh, good,” Emma said. “I thought part of the reason you were on this trip was so that I wouldn’t have to take a cat’s advice.”

  Michael smiled. “No. It was so that you wouldn’t have to rely on his judgment.”

  “And there’s a difference?”

  Michael shrugged. “He’s worried. I think we have to take that into account.”

  “Are you worried?” She slipped her hand around her mug. Its warmth soothed her.

  “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. I think we should take all warnings into consideration despite the source.”

  “Darnell has good survival instincts.”

  Michael nodded. “I figured.”

  “Would traveling until Darnell says stop make you feel better?” Emma wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “I thought you were worried about me sleeping lightly and dreaming.”

  “I am worried about that,” Michael said. “It feels as if we’re in a damned if we do, damned if we don’t situation.”

  Emma sighed. “Now you know how I’ve been feeling since the magic showed up.”

  Michael reached his hand out toward hers. Much as she wanted to take it, she didn’t. She pretended she didn’t even notice.

  He left his hand outstretched, like an invitation.

  “The problem is,” he said slowly, “that if we start driving, we’re committed. The roads start getting bleak from here on in. The only place I’d feel comfortable stopping in the middle of the night between here and Billings is Sheridan, and it’s not the friendliest city I’ve ever been to.”

  “We could sleep in the car if we had to,” Emma said.

  “I don’t want to,” Michael said. “There’s a whole lot of nothing between here and there, and sleeping in a car filled with stuff is an invitation to heaven knows what.”

  Emma sipped her own coffee. It was lukewarm. “If only I had control of my magic.”

  “If you had control of your magic, we wouldn’t be on this trip.”

  She nodded. And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. It was time that she accepted things the way they were.

  “What did Darnell mean by spirits?” Michael asked. “Is there something I’m missing here?”

  Emma frowned. “Spirits could mean several things. It could mean ghosts, memories of things that were—but they’re not supposed to be harmful in any way. They are just images left on the land.”

  “What else?”

  “Some kind of magic that I don’t understand—magic that seems to have its own base. Places have their own magic, you know, and sometimes it seeps out and into the people who live on the land.”

  “If any place has that, the Black Hills do.”

  Emma nodded. She wasn’t going to doubt how he and Darnell felt. “And then there is dark magic. Sometimes it sends its tendrils out like feelers. People often experience that like a cold draft on the back of th
e neck.”

  “Which do you think Darnell was feeling?”

  “I don’t know, and I’m not sure he can tell me. Cats experience the world differently than we do. He might have his own ideas—and I’m not going to spell him so that he can talk.”

  Michael grinned. “Rapid City doesn’t need news of a black lion.”

  “If I do that to Darnell again, I have no idea what fate I’ll suffer.”

  Finally Michael slipped his hand back. “What do you want to do, Emma? I’ll go with your decision.”

  She finished her coffee and leaned back in her chair. Around her, people were shopping—young girls gazing at mall displays, families strolling through the center as if it were a park, an occasional harried businessman with shopping bags over his shoulder. It all looked so normal, so right. Yet she knew they all had cares and worries, things she couldn’t fathom just from watching them.

  Was Michael right? Did they all want magic?

  Probably. But magic that they could control, a way of improving their lives, of having exactly what they wanted. Not something that peeked into their dreams and created fantastical things.

  “What if we keep going tonight,” she said, “and because I’m worried about spirits, I conjure my own? We won’t know if I’ve done it or if they come from somewhere else. And we’ll be on the most desolate stretch of highway, in the roughest part of the country—just the two of us.”

  Michael looked at her. It was clear he hadn’t thought of this. “You could do it just as easily in your sleep.”

  “Maybe,” she said softly, not looking at him, “we should keep the connecting door open tonight.”

  “Unlocked?” he asked.

  She shook her head. The suggestion made her nervous. “Open, just a crack.”

  “So that the spirits that visit you will also visit me?”

  Her gaze met his for a moment. He seemed more abrupt than she expected. She had no idea why that was. “I guess it wasn’t a good idea.”

  His gaze still hadn’t left hers. It looked like he was struggling with something. “The best way to protect you,” he said softly, “is to be in the same room with you.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. She didn’t want to be alone with him, did she?

  Of course she did. And that was the problem.

  “Michael, I can’t.”

  “Why not?” he asked. “Are there some deep, dark secrets I don’t know about you?”

  She got up abruptly and put her coffee cup on the counter. The waitress looked over her shoulder at Emma, who then asked for a glass of water. The waitress gave it to her and Emma walked back to the table.

  “Should I take that to be a yes?” Michael asked.

  “I could hurt you,” she said. “In my dreams.”

  “You could do that from across the country,” he said. “Someone’ll put it right.”

  “You have a lot of faith in us.”

  “No,” he said. “I’m gaining faith in you.”

  She smiled into her water, unable to look at him.

  “Now,” he said, “why don’t you have some faith in me? We’ll transfer to a room with double beds and I’ll sleep in the one nearest the door. I won’t try anything funny.”

  She felt a pang of disappointment then, but kept it from registering on her face.

  “And,” he said, “I’ll guard you as best a mortal man can.”

  It was so tempting. But the problem wasn’t really him. It was her. She wanted to be in his bed, beside him, touching him. And she didn’t want to tell him. She didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.

  “I know you will,” she said.

  “Then what’s the hesitation?”

  She raised her head. He was watching her, his blue eyes so intense that she could barely breathe. “Did I ever tell you how I slipped into that magic coma?”

  Michael frowned. “No.”

  She rested her face between her hands. Her fingers clutched at her hair. “Aethelstan kissed me.”

  “And then you fell asleep?” Michael’s frown deepened. “Isn’t it supposed to be the opposite? Aren’t kisses supposed to break someone out of a magic spell?”

  “Some spells.”

  “But not that one?”

  “No,” she said. “Not that one. At least, not so far as I know. And if a kiss was supposed to get me out of it, Aethelstan was the wrong man to try it.”

  “So,” Michael said slowly, “you haven’t kissed anyone for a thousand years?”

  “Aethelstan, once,” she said. “When he captured Ealhswith, my evil stepmother. I wanted to prove to myself that she was gone.”

  “And nothing happened?”

  “I didn’t slip into a magical coma, not then.” Emma took a shaky breath. “But it wasn’t a real kiss.”

  Michael hadn’t moved. “What do you mean?”

  “There was no passion,” she whispered. “No real caring. It was a thank-you.”

  “On both your parts?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Aethelstan was in love with Nora by then. I don’t think he felt anything for me at all, except maybe friendship. And at that point, I’m not even sure he felt that.”

  Michael glanced around the mall as if he too were trying to find sanity in its normalcy. “What kind of spell did she put on you?”

  “We think it was a kiss-and-tell spell, which is really potent and long-lasting, but we’re not sure. She never did confess. And she stirred up the waters more than once. She told Aethelstan that it hadn’t worn off, but he’d kissed a number of women in the meantime—”

  “While you, his so-called beloved, were under a magic spell?”

  Emma nodded. She had tried not to think about that. “It was a thousand years.”

  “My God, Emma, if it were my beloved, I don’t care if it were a million years. I’d be doing everything I could to get her out of it, awake, and at my side.”

  “I think it was pretty clear to Aethelstan from the start that I wasn’t his beloved.” Her heart twisted. She hadn’t spoken of this to anyone.

  “Was it clear to you?”

  She shook her head. That kiss—that first kiss—had been the center of her world. And then the end of it.

  But when she had seen him after she had awakened, she had thought that he had been there for her in just the way Michael described. Then he had looked over her shoulder at Nora and Emma had known, right then, that he had never cared for her the way he cared for his future wife.

  “It’s all right,” Emma said. “It worked out for the best.”

  “For him, maybe,” Michael said. “But it sounds like you got nothing. Less than nothing. He stole a thousand years of your life and didn’t even have the integrity to stand by you.”

  “It wasn’t his fault.”

  “It sounds like some of it was.”

  “Michael, you don’t understand—”

  “I understand enough to know that this man treated you terribly. How can you defend him?”

  Emma shrugged. “He’s my friend.”

  “Some friend,” Michael muttered.

  She didn’t know how to explain this to him. “Michael, I need him right now.”

  “Isn’t there someone else you can train with? What about that list he gave you? Surely someone on there can train you.”

  “Not someone I trust.”

  “You trust him? After all that?”

  She slid her hands out of her hair and folded them in front of her. Her heart was pounding hard. She hadn’t expected Michael’s strong reaction.

  “Aethelstan stood by me. He didn’t have to. He could have let Ealhswith have me. But he didn’t, even though after a hundred years, he barely remembered me.”

  “He should have remembe
red you.”

  “No.” Emma grabbed a napkin and tore a corner off it. “He remembered what had happened, but he couldn’t remember what I looked like, or sounded like. You know how that is, how memories fade.”

  Michael put a hand over hers. Beneath them, the napkin was in shreds. “You wouldn’t have faded in my mind.”

  She slipped her hand away from his. “You don’t know me.”

  “I know you better than anyone else has,” he said. “I’ll wager you haven’t told Aethelstan how much he hurt you.”

  She smiled. “I yelled at him a lot.”

  “It’s not the same thing.”

  Michael was right. It wasn’t.

  “I don’t blame him,” she said. “I can’t. He and Nora did all they could to make it up to me.”

  “But she married him.”

  Emma raised her head. “Because I didn’t want him.”

  “What?” Michael leaned back as if she had surprised him.

  “Aethelstan misinterpreted a prophecy. He thought we were soul mates. He was willing to be with me no matter what, no matter how wrong we were for each other.” Emma smiled sadly. “I wasn’t that strong.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I threw plates at him.”

  “Plates?”

  “In Quixotic. He wanted me to learn a trade. I still had a medieval perspective. I wasn’t going to work. I was a lady.”

  Michael’s lips twitched. “I see.”

  “And that was the end of it. We couldn’t agree on anything. So I told Aethelstan I wanted nothing to do with him. And then he married Nora.”

  “Didn’t that hurt you?”

  Emma shook her head. “I was relieved. I was afraid I’d have to spend the rest of my life with him.”

  “Afraid?”

  “Yeah,” she said softly. “It would have been awful.”

  “Even though you loved him.”

  “I don’t think I ever loved him,” she said. She had thought about that for years. “I think we were caught up in all that excitement of attraction and first kisses. I don’t think it was love, even back then.”