Enchanted Again

by Robin D. Owens

  She glanced up at his equally beautiful face and said, “Thank you—you, too.” She managed a smile. “Sweet dreams.”

  “Thank you. Take care now.” Then he pulled the door shut after her and left her alone.

  The house didn’t smell like home, but it wasn’t bad—clean with a touch of magic, a hint of mango. Amber wobbled three steps to the living room and let her purse fall on the sofa. She wanted to drop there, too, but if she did, she wouldn’t get up again and bed was a better idea.

  Still as she shuffled along toward the bedroom, a gleam in the kitchen caught her eye. Did she have a night-light there? She didn’t know, but it pulled her, the fragrance of magic.

  Step by slow step she made it to the threshold and found that she hadn’t lied, after all.

  Spark shimmered in the glass bowl of a peachy-orange candle, mango.

  “Spark,” Amber said faintly.

  Spark straightened and there was the outline of a humanoid being, slightly triangular, shoulders wider than the rest.

  “I am Ssargass,” he said.

  She crumpled. Again. Then crawled from the kitchen to the bedroom and heaved herself onto the mattress and slept.

  Rafe zoomed through the night, feeling the absolute freedom of a future stretching out years for him. Magic and pure triumph sizzled through him. Oh, yeah! The curse was effing gone. Gone, gone, gone! He sent the bike up and down hills, hit a hundred on a couple of straightaways. After a while the frenetic energy slowed into an easy rhythm and he headed toward Amber and home.

  He took the cul-de-sac at nearly a forty-five-degree angle. Twice. Then he stopped and parked the bike and swaggered through the door with his shield on his arm, the dagger sheathed on his thigh and twirling his little stick in his fingers. He was ready for the rest of his life. With Amber.

  Though the light was on in the living room like it had been when he’d gone out on St. Pat’s, Amber hadn’t waited up for him. That hurt and he rubbed his chest.

  The place was too quiet. A chill sank into him. He strode through the first floor and noted Amber’s laptop was gone and there was no Spark in the kitchen.

  More and more a bad feeling pressed in on him. He left the silent kitchen, noted that Tiro’s door was closed, as usual. Then he realized he was still holding his shield and rod as if to fight the anxiety that was buzzing around him like gnats. He set them on the dining room table and moved back to the entryway.

  “Amber!” he yelled, then, “Baxt! Zor!”

  Loud barking sounded through the house. The dogs were in his room again. He took the stairs fast and opened his door. Here was a small light, too, and the welcoming mass of the dogs pressing against him, licking his hands, giving him rubs as if he was their favorite person—Amber—and not the new and interesting guy who played with them…Rafe.

  “Yeah, yeah.” He petted the dogs briskly, glancing around. Seemed the same as when he’d left. His stuff was still there and that was good. His key to the front door had worked.

  “Amber!” he yelled again.

  “She’s gone,” Tiro said. The brownie stood at the top of the stairs. He didn’t look like he usually did. His expression was off and so was his color.

  “Gone?” Pure shock had Rafe stiffening his suddenly weak knees.

  “You think you broke that curse yourself? Were able to kill such a one as Bilachoe?” Tiro snorted.

  Rafe narrowed his eyes. “What are you saying?”

  “That Amber broke the curse and paid the price.”

  “What?!” Fear crawled in his belly, eating at him. “Is she hurt? She’s not…” His jaw clenched, he struggled to find his link with Amber. It was there! “I would have known if she was dead. How hurt is she?”

  Tiro didn’t meet his eyes. “Not hurt exactly. She’s well and in good health.”

  Rafe got the idea that there was a load of qualifications to that statement. “Tell me.”

  “I am sworn not to,” the brownie said, ears dipping.

  “Why aren’t you with her?” Rafe demanded.

  “I am bound to serve her and she refused to have me. She wanted me to stay here with you.” He stomped around the landing, rumbled his words like pebbles hitting concrete. “Only that stupid young firesprite is with her. Spark.”

  Rafe glared at the brownie, then sat on the floor and let the dogs bump him as he held them. That felt good, at least. “We both know that even magic has loopholes.” When he thought about Amber saving him, he tasted bitter bile. But he couldn’t deny that he’d have been dead if she hadn’t. “Damn squishy,” he muttered, and let Baxt lick his face.

  Tiro stood as still as a garden gnome, not looking at all as cheerful.

  Rafe prompted, “Loopholes? What happened to Amber and where can I find her?”

  Tiro snapped, “You’ve always known the cost to Amber, from the very beginning. Think about it.” The brownie vanished but not until he’d looked significantly at Rafe’s computer tablet on the dining room table.

  Rafe spent the rest of the night in Amber’s bed. He liked the scent of it, being able to think she was with him. Why the hell had she left?

  Maybe she didn’t want to be with him.

  The hell she didn’t. She loved him. Had to. He’d known that and now she’d proven it. She’d saved his life at a cost to herself.

  Dammit.

  Rafe tabbed through every damn thing on his tablet. Every email, every report, every weblink. He scoured the game “Journey to Lightfolk Palaces” for clues, but there was no info. Finally, computer still in hand, sleep swallowed him.

  Amber woke up stiff and sore and in a room that didn’t smell right.

  As she moved, she caught sight of her wrinkled hands and subsided.

  She needed to go check herself out in a mirror, but that seemed too hard. Yet she couldn’t go forward with her life without knowing the bottom line.

  Peeling off her clothes, she noted that her body didn’t look as terrible as she’d imagined, and she reminded herself that she still had her teeth and no osteoporosis. She also figured that if she’d been in better shape, she would have lost less muscle mass. That had her thinking of Rafe and she knew however many years she’d lost, it had been worth it to preserve his life.

  The bathroom was next door and a large mirror ran above the double sink.

  She steeled herself and slowly faced her reflection....

  Chapter 30

  AMBER GASPED AND her veined hand went to her saggy throat. Her hair was white, of course, her face lined but…soft. She’d had plenty of elderly clients and was a pretty good judge of age. She wasn’t in her seventies. Not even in her eighties. She had to be in her nineties. No wonder she was so frail.

  Meantime, her heart rate had picked up and was spurting through her and rushing in her ears. She hung on to the counter and breathed slowly and steadily. If she managed to survive this panic attack it would prove her heart was in pretty good working order, too.

  “Hello, Amber!” Sargas—her namesake—flicked onto a scented candle.

  She blinked until the dark spotting her vision cleared. Still leaning against the counter, she took a tumbler and shakily held it under water for a drink. After she’d slaked the dryness in her throat, she replied, “Hello, Sargas.”

  “The big fire in the ssky hass come!”

  “The sun’s up.”

  “Yess! I would like to go out and ssit in the yellow-white.”

  “You want to sit in the sunshine.”

  “Yess.”

  Amber sent a jaundiced gaze to the bathtub. She wasn’t sure if she got in it whether she’d get out. There were no handles in the enclosure at all. Something she hadn’t thought mattered.

  Her life had changed. Time to get used to it.

  “Let me get dressed and some coffee and we’ll sit in the sun.” She remained cold. She’d bundle up but go out onto the front porch and sit with Sargas. The last friend of her old life.

  Rafe woke up groggy, then grief caved in on him. Am
ber was gone.

  He groaned and doggy breath hit him as Zor leaned down and licked his eyebrows while Baxt pawed Rafe’s feet. Staggering to the shower, he flung off clothes as he went, then heard his watch alarm chime that it was a half hour before his morning training lesson. He hesitated.

  His curse was gone. As he did a full body stretch, he could feel it gone. The fight with Bilachoe was over and won. His muscles moved easily, and he was in great shape.

  Next up was presenting himself at a Lightfolk palace on his thirty-third birthday.

  No, next up was finding Amber.

  He wasn’t going to run, or fence or practice martial arts until that was done. And he still wanted to know how she was.

  So he canceled his sessions. After the shower and while he ate breakfast, he continued to scan his computer for the information Tiro had said was there. The brownie wasn’t talking and only sent him significant looks. His eyes stung with the strain, like they’d been rolled in dirt. His butt hurt from sitting too long.

  Eventually the sunshine and the dogs lured him outside and around the circle a couple of times. Then it was back into the house until he had exhausted every last scrap of a document on his tablet.

  Hands stacked behind his head, Rafe lay on Amber’s bed, hurting and feeling empty. The pups had joined him, sniffing around the room as if the scents were new, then lying down beside him. Treating him as if he was their most important person, not Amber. That slipped nasty cold down his spine.

  He went over everything he knew about Amber from the first words Conrad had said about her to the report, to the look in her eyes and the way her body felt soft against his when she kissed him goodbye.

  The Ds were hitting him. Dread and desperation and doom. Now and again they’d snuck up on him in nightmares and he’d close them out. That was about how short his life might be. Now they were all about Amber.

  After listening to the dogs snore, he shook his head. He still didn’t get it. He grabbed his cell from the bedside table and phoned Ace Investigations and left a message for them to trace Amber as soon as possible, no expense spared.

  The first couple of days, as she painfully learned her limitations, were the worst.

  She ordered in groceries, and more—two walkers, one with a seat and a bag, and two canes, a regular one and one of those with four little feet, a quad cane. She’d always been sure of her balance, but thought she had an inner ear problem. Her hearing wasn’t what she thought it should be.

  Eventually she’d have to go to a doctor and get an exam. That would be interesting and fun. Somehow she’d have to make a new identity. Hmm. She had contacts in the genealogical community that might put her in touch with someone.

  A lot of people had disappeared and reappeared with new names over the centuries.

  She took several photos of herself until she was satisfied with the best of a bad lot, and emailed a friend of a friend of an acquaintance with the request for new documentation for her grandmother. It went surprisingly easily, with many of the papers emailed to her and the rest to be couriered. It hadn’t been inexpensive, but not as tough as she thought—not as difficult as it would have been for a younger person. She wouldn’t be getting a driver’s license but an identity card.

  And looking at her bank accounts, she realized she had plenty of money to live even a wealthy lifestyle for the rest of her life…and she finally realized what her mother and aunt had done.

  They’d been pulled by some sort of dreadful curse, but they had also ensured that whatever family survived—themselves and Amber or just Amber—would have enough wealth to live well for generations.

  As much as she hated it, she was learning to adapt to her new life.

  Her new identity papers, for Opal Sarga, came the third day…followed shortly by Rafe.

  Ace Investigations took longer to find information about Amber than Rafe wanted, but when he returned from running the next morning he got an email that his purchase of number two Mystic Circle had been approved. They could close on the deal in a month if he was still of a mind to buy the house. He wanted the house, any property he could get here in Mystic Circle. And he thought it was best to keep the places out of Eight Corp’s hands. Though he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to move into number two or not. He sat and stared at the email screen. A month.

  A month ago he was still in denial of his curse and magic. He was the old Rafe, involved in sports competitions and living each moment of his short life to the limit.

  Now he was a new man, ready to claim his magic and the rest of his life. All because of Amber. He loved her, couldn’t imagine life without her. Next month? No, he wasn’t ready to contemplate next month, not even next week, not even tomorrow, without Amber.

  He was going to her.

  Though it was only six blocks to Amber’s new place—or the place she’d rented for Opal Sarga—Rafe drove. He had a huge bouquet of mixed flowers, a bottle of champagne and a box of two dozen of her favorite cookies.

  Tucking the champagne and flowers under his arm, he knocked on the door. No one came. There wasn’t even the sound of steps inside.

  He wouldn’t give up. They had all of their lives in front of them. “Amber, come out. I know you’re in there!”

  This time he pounded…then he sensed movement behind the door.

  It opened slowly, revealing a very old woman, leaning on a cane. She didn’t open the screen door. “There is no Amber here.”

  He didn’t have much experience with the elderly, but he summoned up his best smile and offered the box of cookies. He could get more from Tamara. “I know Amber Sarga rented this place for you. Where can I find her?”

  “Amber isn’t here. She’s gone, beyond where you can find her.”

  His body knew before his mind, the way she smelled, held herself, phrased her words. His insides seized in anger and pain and denial. A cry ripped from him, reverberating inside and out. He dropped everything and the champagne shattered on the concrete porch with an explosion that rattled his brain. He reeled back until he hit a square brick pillar.

  “No!”

  Her head tilted in a way he’d loved, but the face was not that of the woman he loved.

  The heart was. The spirit was. Being in her company would be the same, if nothing else. “Amber?” His throat was dry. He coughed and it scraped through him. “Amber, honey?”

  She just stared at him with dark and melancholy eyes.

  “This was— You changed because—” He couldn’t put it into words. Doing that would make it real.

  “Breaking curses ages me,” she said in a too calm tone. She should be raging. “It always has.”

  No, he didn’t want to think of that. But he just stared at her thin body, her white hair, the way she leaned heavily on the cane in her hand.

  “No.”

  “Yes.” Her voice quavered, then her spine straightened and her eyes turned fierce. “I paid the price and I was glad to do that. But I don’t want you in my life, Rafe. I’d like you to remember me as I was then rather than as I am now. Please go. Fast.”

  “I love you.” It was true. The heart and spirit and soul of her still called to him.

  Her smile was wobbly. “Don’t be absurd.”

  “Don’t tell me what I feel. I love you. I still want to be with you.” He ground the true words out.

  “You have an active life,” she said. “A quest to go on, and great evil to defeat.” She kept her voice steady. “I can’t join you on that. Please leave me in peace, Rafe. Don’t come back.” She closed the door in his face.

  His guts had twisted and were frozen and bathed in acid inside him. His eyes went blind. He moved, hit a step and lost his balance, and fell and hit the ground and rolled and came up to his feet and began walking away, hunched over.

  He couldn’t think, could only move through the haze of loss and grief. Finally came to himself as he realized some animal was whimpering with pain and he should find it, tend to it. Then he understood it was himself
and stopped. Instead of the moans, there was roaring in his ears.

  Hands braced on knees, he panted until the cold sweat that covered him began to dry and itch. Slowly he straightened, belly still tight and pitching acid. His vision cleared from dull white. If he moved, he’d lose his breakfast.

  As he’d already lost his lover.

  No! Loopholes. There had to be loopholes. But frantic anxiety at the back of his brain mocked him. Sure, there had been loopholes in his curse. Kill Bilachoe. Which he couldn’t have done.

  Jaw tightening, he shoved the thought aside, looked around him. He was lost.

  No. He just didn’t know where he was. The area still looked generally familiar. He knew the alphabetical grid in this part of town.

  As he breathed heavily, Rafe knew that any Dark monster could have taken him down a hundred times by now.

  And he also knew he wouldn’t have cared. He felt shattered inside, all of the jagged pieces of himself, his love for Amber, slicing at him. He didn’t know how he functioned.

  A burning line of heat came over his heart—the dowsing stick. He pulled it from his inner jacket pocket.

  It felt good in his fingers. As if somehow he could fix everything.

  He had to act as if he could. Vertebra by vertebra he stood tall. His hand holding the stick fell to his side. “Home,” he said. It was Mystic Circle and Amber’s house, and the tiny rod pressed him westward and south. Fine. He’d explore every loophole to help Amber until he was dead.

  Rafe hadn’t driven away, but he was gone. Amber had folded onto the couch until she sensed he was out of the neighborhood. The smell of champagne seeped to her. So she levered herself up and opened the door and looked at the shattered bits of bottle and battered, beautiful blossoms, and a box of Tamara’s baked goods on its side. Where were brownies when you needed them?

  She’d sent Tiro away. Maybe she could reconsider.