by R. L. King
“We definitely want to,” Miles says. “It will probably take a while to deal with…everything, though.”
I nod soberly, thinking over the events of the previous day. I’d been afraid when Miles called the authorities that I’d have to hide from the police again, but it turned out not to be a problem. When they showed up and got a look at Lydia under the care of EMTs as they prepared to wheel her off on a gurney, I didn’t need aura reading to pick up the palpable sense of relief in the air. It would be a little tacky to call it a “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” situation, but…well, it kind of was.
She wasn’t dead, actually. I found out from Elena later that day that she’d had what amounted to a massive stroke, probably brought on by her rage at me and Sebastian. At least I hope that’s what caused it. No matter how certain I am that I didn’t let any of my magic loose, there’ll always be that tiny shred of doubt in the back of my mind. In any case, the doctors had stabilized her, but the damage was done and her mind was essentially gone. I can live with that, I guess. Not that I have a lot of choice.
“She won’t be terrorizing the town anymore,” Miles had said with no regret. “She’ll just sit in her chair and look out the window for the rest of her life—however long that ends up being.”
“I hate to say she deserves it,” Elena added, “but she deserves it. For all the pain she’s caused people around here, I’d say she finally got what was coming to her. That sounds horrible coming from her daughter, but there you go.”
While the EMTs were working on Lydia and arranging to have Sebastian’s body transported, I took a chance. I walked up to one of the cops—the one who’d disappeared from the police station along with the receptionist when Miles and Elena had staged my breakout, and said, “Uh…are you still looking for me?”
With a glance at Lydia, he shrugged. “No idea who you are, so I don’t think so.” He met my gaze steadily and added, “No record of any arrests yesterday. No prints, no mugshots, so…I think you’re fine.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“No, thank you.” He lowered his voice and leaned in closer. “Can’t say anything officially, but I doubt you’ll find one person in town willing to stand up for that old witch. Shame about Sebastian, though. He was always a good guy.”
Yeah, I guess he was.
To stop myself dwelling on those particular memories, I face Miles and Elena again over my coffee cup. “You think you’re still going to stay here now?” I don’t say, with everyone you care about dead there’s no point, but I’m sure it comes through.
The two of them exchange glances. They do that a lot, and I wonder if they’ll keep doing it now that they can risk depending on someone other than each other. “Who knows?” Elena says, shrugging. “Somebody has to run the winery. Dad already told us he left his half to us. Mother still technically owns her half, so the whole thing will probably be snarled up in probate for ages. She’s probably got lawyers every bit as nasty as she is.”
“You could sell it,” I point out. “Make a fresh start somewhere else.”
“We could,” Miles says. “Maybe we will. But we don’t have to make up our minds anytime soon. We’ve got enough going on, dealing with Dad’s stuff. And…somebody’s got to look after Mother. Even with everything else she was, she’s still family.”
I bow my head, nodding. More than anything, I’m just glad they’re both still alive. I wonder why Lydia didn’t kill them, if she caught them by surprise in the hallway. She could easily have done it if they weren’t expecting it; Elena would have been easy to drain to ashes, and Miles probably not much harder. His power might have given her enough to take me out, but she didn’t do it.
Maybe, deep down, she cared about them more than she was ever willing to admit.
I guess I’ll never know.
“Anyway,” I say, “I should get going. But I’ll come back, I promise. There’s no way I’m staying away from—”
I pause as my phone rings. “Excuse me a second.”
The number on the display startles me, and I smile, holding up a finger and turning away from Miles and Elena. “Hi. Didn’t expect to hear from you this soon.”
“I’m coming back in a couple of days,” Alastair says. “But that was a rather unsettling message you left on my voicemail. I didn’t get it until this morning. Cell coverage is frightful here. Is everything all right?”
I look across the table at my two half-siblings, who are watching me with mild curiosity. “Yeah,” I say. “Everything’s…good. Weird, but good. I’ll tell you all about it when you get back.”
15
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you.”
Alastair settles back on the sofa, a glass of Guinness in one hand and Raider snuggled contentedly in his lap. We’re at his Encantada house, the day after he got back from Romania. He wanted me to come yesterday, but I made him get some sleep. We had a lot to talk about.
“I think maybe it worked out better that you weren’t.”
I’m seated next to him, my legs drawn up under me, my head resting against his shoulder. I’ve already told him most of what happened since he left: the breakup with Kyla and most of the details of my trip to Fairbreeze and Los Robles. He listened with growing astonishment, and when I finished, all he said was, “Oh, Verity…I’m so sorry…”
It was all he needed to say. His soft, gentle voice was like cool water on a hot day.
Now, though, he seems troubled. I shake my head, taking his hand. “Don’t be sorry. I’ll deal with it.”
“You shouldn’t have had to deal with it alone, though.”
I haven’t told Jason yet. He and Amber are still away, and I’ll admit I’m dreading what I’ll have to say to him. I doubt he’ll take it as well, or as comfortingly, as Alastair did. I can’t keep it from him forever, though. Miles and Elena are his half-siblings too, so he has a right to know about them.
Kyla hasn’t contacted me yet, either. That doesn’t surprise me. I thought I spotted her leaving Hezzie’s place last night when I went out to drop some trash in the dumpster, but I didn’t check. I did wonder, though, if it was her, what she was doing here. She and Hezzie aren’t as close as some of the other Harpies, so she doesn’t visit often.
Except when we were together, of course.
Maybe she was checking on me. I don’t know.
I’d say I don’t care, but that’s a lie. I care too much. I hope we can stay friends, like Sharra and I are. But Kyla isn’t Sharra, and life is messy.
Right now, though, life isn’t messy. I’m right where I want to be, feeling Alastair’s warmth against me, the familiar scents of Guinness, his aftershave, and the faint traces of the takeout Indian dinner we’d shared earlier making this place seem like home in a way my apartment in San Francisco no longer does.
Home, I decide, has very little to do with physical location, and a lot more to do with the people and memories you share it with.
That’s pretty profound for me. I chuckle.
“Something funny?” Alastair gives up on stroking an indignant Raider and slips his arm around me, pulling me closer.
I shake my head. “Long story. It’s good to be back, though. I missed you.”
“I missed you too. Oh—that reminds me. I did bring something back for you. It’s not an ancient cursed artifact, though.”
“Oh, darn.”
“I knew you’d be terribly disappointed, but you’ll have to settle for a necklace I found in a bazaar. It’s quite lovely, and a good candidate for enchanting if you’ve a mind to. I can get it now if you like. It’s upstairs in the bag I still haven’t got ’round to unpacking.”
“No…don’t go. I like this. Can you give it to me later?”
“Of course. Unless Raider makes off with it and hides it under the bed or something.”
I chuckle again. “I’ll take the chance.” My amusement fades, though, as memories of the past few days flood in again. They’ve been doing that a lot lately; let’s just say my s
leep hasn’t been too restful since I got back.
Alastair, of course, senses it immediately. I’m not sure if he’s checking out my aura or if he’s just that attuned to my moods, but he tilts his head in concern. “Are you all right?”
I almost say, Yeah, of course I am, but that’s not fair to him or me. “I don’t know.”
“Do you want to talk about it? I’m told I’m a good listener.”
“Yeah, it’s me who told you that.”
“I knew I heard it somewhere,” he murmurs. He gives my shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Come on, better out than in. What’s on your mind?”
I look down at Raider. He’s gazing up at me like he understands what I’m saying. Sometimes, I’d swear he does. Maybe Dr. Benchley is still hanging around the place after all. “I…feel ashamed for even thinking it.”
“Thinking what?”
I can’t look at him. That’s one of the nicest things about cats: their big, bright eyes aren’t judgmental. Not like I expect Alastair to be judgmental either, but it’s still harder with people than with cats. “It’s…my mom,” I say at last.
“What about her?”
It’s hard to say it. I feel it bubbling up inside me, swelling like a balloon too big to fit out through my mouth. I take a couple of deep breaths. “All my life, I had this…I don’t know…idealized vision of her. Even though she died when I was too young to remember her, I’ve always held her up as this…perfect figure. I believed she and Dad has this idyllic marriage, this storybook love that nothing could ever have interfered with. And now…I feel terrible, because I keep catching myself resenting her for what she did. How awful is that, right?”
He pulls me into a hug, rubbing my back as Raider hops down and stalks off. “It’s not awful at all.”
I look up at him, feeling my cheeks grow hot. “How can it not be? It’s not fair for me to blame her for it, but…I do.”
“Of course you do. You’re her daughter. She was your heroine. Your role model.”
“But I didn’t even know her. I knew Dad. He loved me and Jason, sacrificed for us, took care of us, put up with all the shit when I was messed up.” My voice shakes, and I’m afraid the tears might come any time now. “And Mom wouldn’t be dead now if she hadn’t…done what she did with Sebastian. If she hadn’t…betrayed Dad’s trust.”
He strokes my hair. “You don’t mean that. Not really.” There’s no judgment in his tone.
I realize he’s right. “I don’t…but…”
“But you can’t help how you feel.”
I shake my head, rolling it back and forth with my face buried in his shoulder.
“Then don’t,” he says gently. “I don’t know if you’re looking for advice or just commiseration, but…”
“I don’t know what I’m looking for. I’ll take anything at this point.” My voice comes out muffled.
He continues rubbing my back. “You’ve got this perfect view of your mother. I understand that. She was an amazing woman, and I promise you, she loved you and your brother with all her heart. Nothing she did will ever change that. Do you believe me?”
I nod. That much, I do know.
He sighs. “But unfortunately, your mother suffered from a very common affliction.”
I tilt my head back and look at him in question.
“She was human. And humans are chaotic creatures. You know that as well as I do. They resist any attempt to tie them up in neat little bows. They fail. They do things they regret later—maybe for the rest of their lives. And unfortunately for our lot, magical power doesn’t do a damned thing to change that. In fact, it often makes it worse.” He squeezes me again. “I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, am I?’
“No.” Of course he’s right. “Doesn’t make it any easier, though.”
“No, it doesn’t. But you’ll get through this, Verity. I’m certain of it. You don’t need to deny your feelings. If you’re angry with her, be angry. But if you do want my advice: don’t let that anger define your whole view of her going forward. Because believe me, there was a lot more to her than that one mistake.”
I think about Sebastian, lying on his deathbed, risking everything so he could see me one time before he died. I thought I would hate him, but I didn’t. Not every story has to have a villain.
Well, okay, maybe this one did, but not the one I expected. Even if I end up forgiving Mom and Sebastian for what they did—and I think I will, in time—I don’t think I can ever forgive Lydia. I like to think of myself as a good person, but I’m not a saint.
I pull him closer. “Thanks. How do you always know the right thing to say?”
“Correspondence course. Best twenty quid I ever spent.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. “I love you, you goof.”
“And I love you.”
I look into his eyes. “Alastair…”
“Yes?”
I almost say more, but I don’t. Sitting there next to him, his warm arms around me and Raider perched on the back of the sofa, I wonder if I might be ready to make the commitment I’ve been avoiding ever since I realized my feelings for him. He’s never pushed, never asked for more than I was willing to give.
I kiss him. “Nothing. I’m just happy to be here with you.”
But as I drift off to a contented sleep on his shoulder, serenaded by Raider’s loud purrs and the slow, steady beating of his heart, for the first time ever I think it might be a possibility.
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Books by R. L. King
ALASTAIR STONE CHRONICLES SERIES
Stone and a Hard Place (Book 1)
The Forgotten (Book 2)
The Threshold (Book 3)
The Source (Book 4)
Alastair Stone Chronicles Box Set (includes books 1-4)
Core of Stone (Book 5)
Blood and Stone (Book 6)
Heart of Stone (Book 7)
Alastair Stone Chronicles Box Set 2 (includes book 5-7)
Flesh and Stone (Book 8)
The Infernal Heart (Book 9)
The Other Side (Book 10)
Path of Stone (Book 11)
Necessary Sacrifices (Book 12)
Game of Stone (Book 13)
Steel and Stone (Book 14)
Stone and Claw (Book 15)
The Seventh Stone (Book 16)
Gathering Storm (Book 17)
House of Stone (Book 18)
Circle of Stone (Book 19)
The Madness Below (Book 20)
Boys’ Night (Way) Out (Novella)
ALASTAIR STONE CHRONICLES STANDALONE WORKS
Shadows and Stone
Turn to Stone
Stone for the Holidays
Devil’s Bargain
SHADOWRUN (Published by Catalyst Game Labs)
Borrowed Time
Wolf and Buffalo
Big Dreams
Veiled Extraction (coming soon)
About the Author
R. L. King lives the kind of exotic, jet-set life most authors only dream of. Splitting her time between rescuing orphaned ocelots, tracking down the world's most baffling cheese-related paranormal mysteries, and playing high-stakes pinochle with albino squirrels, it'
s a wonder she finds any time to write at all.
Or, you know, she lives in San Jose with her inordinately patient spouse, four demanding cats, and a crested gecko. Which, as far as she's concerned, is way better.
Except for the ocelots. That part would have been cool.
www.rlkingwriting.com
[email protected]