Bound

by Kirsten Weiss

  “Nick? What was he doing on a night hike?”

  “He said he’d got a line on that homeless man we found behind Ground the morning Alicia was killed, that he was living by the fairy spring.” I made a face. We hadn’t called it a fairy spring since we were kids, and the name seemed childish.

  Jayce grabbed my wrists. “But that’s fantastic! Did you find him?”

  “We did, but he got away.”

  My sister slumped. “Just my luck.”

  “It gets weirder. When we were walking back, Jayce, there was magic in those woods. The path changed beneath our feet.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “So you got lost.”

  “No, we were on the path, but the path changed. We kept walking and walking but the scenery was different.” My brow furrowed.

  “In other words, you were on the wrong path.”

  “I’m telling you, we weren’t on the wrong path, the path was wrong.”

  “Did you have your flashlight?”

  “Of course.” True, we hadn’t been using it when we’d gotten lost. But the light shouldn’t have mattered. There was only one trail. “And then I laid my hand on the trail, trying to get my bearings, and it… unknotted. We were back where we belonged. Jayce, someone caused the path to change. This wasn’t natural. It was magic.”

  “Magic is natural. Are you sure you didn’t get confused in the dark?”

  My lips pinched. Jayce had been awfully quick to believe in a family curse. Why didn’t she believe me about the odd behavior of the forest? “I’m sure,” I said, my voice clipped. I rummaged in my purse and handed Jayce the pharmacy bag. “Your earplugs.”

  “Thanks.” She looked inside. “Ooh! Candy! Thanks!”

  “That’s…” Aw, forget it. I could stand to lose a pound or two anyway. “You’re welcome.”

  “But even chocolate’s an anticlimax after your story about the homeless guy.”

  “Nick will find him. I’ve got to admit, when I met Nick, I thought he was another too-slick lawyer. But searching the woods for a witness is above and beyond.”

  She unwrapped the candy bar and took a bite. “Told you. My instincts are never wrong.”

  “How’s Ellen doing?”

  Jayce’s face fell, and she swallowed. “She’s only lucid part of the time. The rest, she’s asleep or confused. She carried on a fifteen-minute conversation with someone who wasn’t there tonight.”

  “About what?”

  “The location of the planet Venus at dawn.” She touched my arm. “Hey, are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine. Oh, I ran into Brayden.” Drunk. But if I told Jayce, she’d worry, and there was nothing she could or should do for him. “He said Alicia was working on a story about corruption on the city council, but he didn’t have any names.”

  Jayce cocked a brow. “Corruption in Doyle? Aren’t we too small for that? I can’t imagine anything she found would be worth killing over.”

  “Well, whoever killed Alicia had a reason. And I know you didn’t do it.”

  She sighed. “I need to talk to Brayden.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Your lawyer doesn’t either.”

  Jayce crossed her arms. “Brayden and I are friends. That’s all. And what do you know about what Nick thinks?”

  “He told me. It doesn’t look good for you to be friendly with Alicia’s husband. Not now. Besides,” I said, reluctant, “Brayden wasn’t himself when I saw him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was drunk. Angry.”

  “Of course he’s upset. His wife was murdered.” Jayce stopped beside a rosemary bush and ran her fingers along the branches. Its spicy scent filled the air. “This is ridiculous. The time Brayden needs a friend the most, I can’t go to him.”

  I relaxed. At least she’d acknowledged that seeing Brayden was a bad idea. That would put her off until the next impulse struck. And with Jayce, impulses struck hard and fast.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  In the hospital parking lot, I squinted at the morning sun, dancing across the tops of the redwoods. Jayce would be itching to get out. Even with the earplugs, I doubted she’d gotten much sleep at the hospital last night. I certainly hadn’t, tossing and turning in my own bed and worrying about Jayce and my aunt. How would we go on without Ellen?

  I unlocked the car, stepping from my Fusion and tugging down my short-sleeved, blue linen shirt.

  A woman’s scream, high and terrifying, cracked the dawn air.

  My shoulders jerked. “Shit!”

  Heart speeding, I scanned the lot. I bobbed on my toes, wavering between running for the hospital and running toward that shriek. Except I didn’t know where it had come from.

  Another desperate cry echoed across the lot, and I oriented on a nearby stand of redwoods.

  I was alone. No help. No time to get help. I swore, my leg muscles tight.

  Dammit, dammit, dammit. I jammed the keys between my fingers so they stuck out like spikes, making a weapon, and raced into the woods.

  The ground sloped downhill. Running, I slipped on soft earth and damp leaves.

  Another cry, weaker, straight ahead, and the burble of running water.

  I ran down the hill, crashing through ferns and coffee-berry bushes. Plunging into a clearing, I skidded to a halt beside a small stream.

  An elderly woman lay propped against a stone. Her mercury-colored hair cascaded over the narrow shoulders of a dress gray with age, muddy and torn. The woman’s knees were two bloodied knobs.

  “Are you all right?” My hand rose to touch my face. Dumb question. Of course she wasn’t all right. I knelt beside her. “Where are you hurt?” I amended.

  “Girl,” the woman croaked. “You’re a girl.”

  “Yes.” I was a girl — well, twenty-eight, but who was counting — and she was confused. An Alzheimer’s patient? “Did you fall? Where are you hurt?”

  “Help me.” The woman struggled to her feet.

  I jammed my keys into the pockets of my jeans and grasped the woman’s arm.

  She collapsed against me, and I caught her around the waist. The woman was weightless as a bird. “You need a doctor.” And I’d left both purse and cell phone in my car. Genius.

  “Stay here,” I said. “The hospital’s not far. I’ll get help.”

  “No.” She clutched my arm, and I gasped. Her grip was a metal vise. “I need to get out of the forest, see the sun, the real sun.”

  “The sun will be here all day,” I said, soothing. “Let me—”

  “No, please.” She panted. “Help me up. To the sun. I need to see the sun.”

  Call it a failing or social conditioning, but when an old lady gives me an order, I obey. I nodded.

  Arms linked, we trudged up the hill. The bushes I’d plunged through so easily going down caught at us, whipping me more than once in the face, clawing at my bare skin. We slipped, skidded, and more than once I feared I’d fall and crush the woman beneath me. But somehow, we managed to stay upright. Finally, we stumbled into the parking lot, sweat dotting my forehead.

  “Oh.” The woman stilled. She stared at the mountains. A gold fire lit the seam between earth and clouds, and I stared too. The rising sun against the dark clouds was three kinds of spectacular.

  “It’s still there,” she said, panting. “The sun. Thank…” She cried out, doubling over, clutched her chest.

  Stomach twisting, I lowered her to the pavement and leaned her against the Fusion. “Oh, God. Stay here. I’ll be right back with a doctor.”

  I disentangled myself from her clawlike arms and sprinted for the hospital. What-had-I-done-what-had-I-done? I raced inside and to the help desk.

  A heavy-lidded nurse looked up, smiled. “How—”

  “There’s a woman in the parking lot. It looks like she’s having a heart attack.”

  The nurse shouted into a phone and slammed it down. She grabbed a radio. “Where is she?”

  “This wa
y.” I jogged outside, the nurse on my heels, and led her to the edge of the lot.

  The old woman slumped against my car, her breath a rasp, eyes closed. Her lips moved. No sound emerged.

  The nurse got to work examining her. “What’s her name?”

  “I don’t know. I heard her scream from the woods, and I found her there.”

  The nurse glanced at me. “The woods? That would explain the state of her clothing and the exposure. Possible malnourishment,” she muttered.

  The woman gasped like a fish. She grasped my wrist. “Tell the rose rabbit.”

  Gently, the nurse disengaged her grip. “She’s confused.”

  Not half as confused as I’d been. If I’d remembered my phone, if I’d left her in the woods and gone for help, she might not have collapsed. What had I done?

  Two male nurses hurried from the hospital pushing a gurney. Its wheels rattled on the macadam.

  I gave them room, watching while they lifted the woman onto the gurney.

  “Thanks,” the nurse said. “I didn’t get your name.”

  The men wheeled the woman toward the hospital.

  “Karin. Karin Bonheim.”

  “Well, Ms. Bonheim, you may have saved a life.” She hurried off after the other nurses.

  Saying a silent prayer the woman would survive, that my mistake wouldn’t cost a life, I walked inside the hospital, took the elevator to my aunt’s floor. Jayce leaned over my aunt’s bed, one side angled upright, and held a plastic cup with a long straw to her mouth.

  Ellen’s lips parted, and she sighed. “Karin. You’re here.”

  “Don’t sound so relieved,” Jayce said.

  Ellen grasped her hand. “Oh, darling. You know I didn’t mean it that way. Thank you for staying last night. You must be ready to drop.”

  In spite of the dark circles beneath my sister’s eyes, she only looked sexy in her dishevelment, bed head and all. Jayce yawned.

  “Go home, Jayce. Take a break,” Ellen said.

  Jayce nodded and gathered her purse. “Anything I can bring back for you?”

  “If all goes well, they’ll kick me loose today,” Ellen said.

  “Fingers crossed,” Jayce said. She eyed me. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine.” Except I’d found an old woman and possibly caused her heart attack. A part of me wanted to tell Jayce. But I knew she and Ellen would end up justifying my actions to ease my conscience. I compressed my lips. I didn’t want absolution.

  Clapping me on the shoulder, my sister ambled from the room.

  “How’d you sleep?” I asked my aunt.

  “Forget the small talk. We don’t have much time before I drift to otherworld.”

  My throat tightened. Otherworld? I wasn’t sure if she meant death or one of the planes Lenore journeyed on. “Time for what?” I sat on the lounge chair beside the bed, dropping my purse onto the window seat beside a pile of rumpled sheets and blankets — Jayce’s I presumed.

  “I didn’t want to say anything in front of your sisters.”

  Alarm spiked my blood pressure. “Ellen, what—”

  “No, let me say this.” Her hands knotted in the hospital blanket. “I didn’t want you growing up, a child, worrying about the curse.”

  “It’s okay, Ellen. In your position, I would have done the same thing.” If I believed in this curse. Did I?

  “You don’t understand. I was afraid, if you saw it, you’d be afraid, tell the others.”

  She’d explained all this the other day, but I nodded. Ellen’s forgetfulness had gotten worse as her illness had progressed.

  She took a deep breath and met my gaze. “And so I bound you.”

  “Bound me,” I said flatly.

  “When you were very small, you told me you could see strings between people, strings of different colors. It made sense. It’s part of your knot magic. You can see the ties, the energies, that bind us to each other.”

  “Ellen, I can’t see anything.”

  “No, because I bound you. That’s why I bound your magic. You could see them, and I knew you’d be able to see what I did — the curse.”

  “You bound my magic,” I repeated stupidly.

  “Only that aspect. I’m sorry. I don’t know if it was the right thing to do. I thought it was at the time. I wanted to protect you all.”

  My mouth opened, closed. Anger flared in my chest, and I fought it down. She’d meant well, and she was dying, and maybe it had been the right thing. I stared at my sandals. A stray leaf was caught in the straps, and my feet were dirty from the run through the woods.

  Bound.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I understand.”

  “I hope you can forgive me.”

  “Of course I do.” I hadn’t forgiven her yet, hadn’t quite processed her admission. But if she needed absolution, I’d give it to her. I owed Ellen that. “You had to suddenly become the mother to three babies. I can’t imagine all the decisions you had to make.”

  “Caring for you was a privilege,” she said in a low voice.

  Emotion surged through me, and I blinked back tears. I no longer cared about being bound or curses, all I wanted was Ellen, healthy and happy.

  “Come here,” she said.

  I sat on the side of the bed, moving closer for a hug. But she placed her hands on my head. At her touch, I stilled.

  “Be free,” she whispered.

  Something snapped, a crack, and I couldn’t tell if the sound came from inside or outside me. I couldn’t breathe. My head whirled, heart pounding. Something had crawled inside, something not me, and I gasped at its release. I grasped the headboard to catch myself from collapsing on top of my aunt. Rearing backward, I fell into the chair.

  “Karin? Are you all right?” My aunt’s voice seemed far away. Her breath came quick and shallow.

  I tried to lurch to my feet, but my legs wouldn’t respond. I rubbed my head. Something inside. “Ellen, what did you do?”

  She closed her eyes. “And now you will see. I’m so sorry.”

  But whether she was sorry I could see now or couldn’t see in the past, she didn’t say. Ellen was asleep.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The hospital didn’t release my aunt that day, and though I spent it with her, she drifted in and out, unable to explain what had happened. The doctors promised to let her go tomorrow, if her temperature stabilized. Since she had so little time left, I silently vowed to bring her home the next day regardless. She wouldn’t die in this hospital.

  Shoulders bowed, I took the elevator to the first floor. I felt unreal, upended. What had Ellen done to me? I needed to stop thinking about the binding. I was only freaking myself out. My aunt would never hurt me.

  She bound you.

  The nurse who’d helped me with the woman in the woods was still at the help desk. She looked wearier than I felt, frown lines carved into her jaw.

  Lenore, expression dreamy, walked through the automatic front doors. Lost in fairyland, she looked right through me.

  Quickly, I turned to the nurse. “Hi,” I said in a low voice, so Lenore wouldn’t notice. “I wanted to ask how the woman I brought in was doing.”

  Lenore’s sandals slap-slapped across the tile floor.

  “I’m sorry,” the nurse said, her tone sympathetic. “She didn’t make it.”

  “Oh.” I took an involuntary step back, guilt twisting my insides. I’d failed. “Thanks.”

  “Didn’t make it?” Lenore grabbed my arm. “Not Ellen!”

  My nails dug into my palms. “No, no, not Ellen. This morning I found a woman near the hospital parking lot. She wasn’t well.” I turned to the nurse. “Who was she? Did you ever get her name?”

  “She had a wonderful name — Dante Cunningham. We’re trying to find her family now.”

  “Not Sam Cunningham’s mother?” Lenore asked.

  “No.” The nurse shook her head. “Not those Cunninghams. We’ve checked.”

  “Well, thanks.” This was my fault. If
I’d left the woman and gone for help, played it safe, she might still be alive. But Dante had wanted to leave the forest so badly, and I hadn’t had the heart to deny her. And I knew better than to let my heart rule my head.

  “You did everything you could.” The nurse turned to Lenore. “Your sister’s a hero. You two are sisters, aren’t you?”

  Lenore nodded.

  “Not everyone would get involved.” The nurse explained about the woman in the woods.

  I stopped listening, my thoughts hamster-wheeling all the reasons I was to blame. Not a hero. Heroes saved the day. I hadn’t. “Thanks,” I murmured and wandered to the doors.

  “You were lucky.” Lenore said, following me. “It could have been a very different situation you stumbled across.”

  I paused beside a potted ficus tree. “I was stupid, you mean. If I’d left her where I’d found her and gone for help, she wouldn’t have had the heart attack.”

  “You can’t be certain of that,” she said, voice tight. “The nurse said she had a heart condition and was really old. You could have returned to find her dead, and then you’d be wondering why you hadn’t brought her from the trees.” She pressed her thumb against the elevator button, leaning into it.

  “Right.” Wrong. I’d screwed up, and a woman had died. How could I have been so reckless?

  “It’s not your fault,” Lenore said.

  I forced a smile. “Back off. I’m brooding.” I didn’t want to talk about it anymore, didn’t want to be soothed.

  “Wow. Brooding. Now there’s a change of pace.”

  “Please. It’s been ages since I’ve had a good brood.” And it was my fault Dante was dead.

  *****

  The next morning, the sun battered my shoulders as I unlocked my aunt’s shingle and stone house. I opened the black-painted door. It whispered across the rag rug.

  I stopped, head bowed, inhaling the smell of home. As much as I loved my cottage, this was my true home, the place where I’d grown up, and its scent was embedded in my soul. And this would be the last day my aunt would return here.

  Tears sprang to my eyes. Alone, I let them flow, hurrying to the white-tiled bathroom for a tissue to blow my nose.