China crashed, splintering across the floor.
Laura flinched. A woman stood in the doorway, her eyes wide with shock, her mouth open—a dark gaping hole in the center of her pale, white face.
“Delilah,” she said, her voice an anguished cry.
“No, Mère, it’s Laura.”
The woman’s gaze moved quickly from Laura’s face to the portrait then back to Laura again.
“Laura’s come home,” he added.
Home. The word echoed through Laura’s mind and mocked her. This wasn’t her home. She didn’t belong here. She looked up at her mother’s portrait—a mirror image of herself.
A lost soul.
Chapter 2
“Oh, Laura, of course,” the woman said and stooped to pick up the broken shards of porcelain.
Laura stared at her. Had the world suddenly gone mad? This woman said her name as if she knew her, as if she had been expected, as if she’d never left.
Drew touched her arm, and a rush of awareness pulsed through her. This was all too much. Her nerves were on overload.
“Laura, do you remember my mother, Martha Michel? She lives here and watches over the place like she did when we were small.” When they were small? Pieces snapped into place. She recalled a boy a couple years older than herself. “Drew,” she whispered. Miss Martha’s son.
She looked at his mother with her deep red lips and dark coiffed hair. Her features had the glamorous look of Hollywood starlets from a bygone era.
“You’re Miss Martha,” she said softly. A memory tickled the corner of her mind. “I remember your banana cookies with maple frosting.”
A small smile softened the harsh lines of Martha’s face. “Yes, I used to bake them for you all the time.”
Another memory came rushing back. Drew twirling her about under the massive trees, spinning her around, until overcome with dizziness, they’d both fallen to the ground.
If she tried hard enough, she could almost remember his laugh. But something got in the way. A shadow in her mind that turned the laugh into something different, something she couldn’t quite recall.
“Well, Laura, you certainly have grown up. You’re the spittin’ image of your mama,” Martha said as she fussed with the broken dishes. “You must stay with us so we can catch up. Your mother’s room—”
“My mother’s room?”
“I’ve kept it just how it was when she left, waiting for her to return.”
“Waiting?” Unbidden hope expanded within Laura. “Have you heard from her, then? Do you know where she is?”
“Isn’t she with you?” Miss Martha’s forehead wrinkled in puzzlement. “We haven’t seen or heard from Delilah in ages.”
Laura’s stomach dropped. “No.”
“No worries. Like you, she’ll be back some day. She has to come back. Paul left her this house.”
Confusion washed over Laura and spun her around as easily as Drew had done when they were children.
Martha’s tone dropped, becoming hushed. “Change is riding on the wind. I can feel it in my bones.”
Laura looked up at Drew. “What is she talking about?”
“Lionsheart belongs to your mother,” Drew explained. “This is why it would be appropriate for you to stay.”
“I’ve been waiting a long time for you and your mother to return,” Martha added, then walked into the foyer and toward the staircase.
“Then why hasn’t anyone contacted me? Why the silence all these years?” Laura called after her, but Martha didn’t turn back or respond.
“Be careful. They won’t want you here. They won’t want you to know.” The hushed words spoken across the phone lines echoed through Laura’s mind.
She cast Drew a questioning look. He stared at her, his expression unreadable. Then he hiked up a brow and gestured for her to follow his mother into the foyer.
But Laura wasn’t sure she wanted to stay. Something about this house, about the two of them, scared her. Drew was incredibly good-looking, yet he had a tightness in his jaw, a turn to his lips that could almost be cruel.
She walked into the foyer, but stopped in front of the grand staircase and rested her hand on the scrollwork of the iron balustrade. She gazed up. Each step loomed before her. She glanced over her shoulder at the front door. Something warned her to walk out that door and never look back.
And never know the truth?
She chewed on her bottom lip.
Miss Martha stood on the landing at the top of the stairs and looked down at her, her gaze cool and dark. Her red lips lifted at the corners forming a small smile that for some reason didn’t look quite right on her face. “Come on, Laura. I’ll show you to your room.”
Laura hesitated as an odd sense of dread rooted her to the floor. She was afraid to go up the stairs, afraid of what she’d find at the top.
Drew stepped next to her at the foot of the staircase. “Mère, perhaps Laura would be more comfortable staying at the Inn in town.”
At once thankful and yet unexpectedly suspicious, Laura studied his face. Was there a reason he didn’t want her to stay here? Something he didn’t want her to see?
“Don’t be ridiculous, Drew. We have plenty of room here.” Miss Martha’s tone was sharp and left no room for debate.
Drew sighed and gestured for Laura to precede him.
She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or not, but if she was going to find out what happened to her mother, she’d have a much better chance if she stayed right here, where she and her mother had once lived, rather than in town.
One by one, she forced herself to climb the stairs, her stomach fluttering with each creaking step. She could do this. It was just an old house, nothing more and certainly nothing to be afraid of.
So why the butterflies?
She stepped onto the landing and took a deep breath to settle her nerves. She’d almost succeeded until she saw her mother’s photos lining the red-carpeted hallway. In a cool rush, chills tumbled down her spine.
She remembered this hall, remembered those pictures! There was so much she couldn’t recall from her childhood days here. Selective amnesia caused by a terrible trauma, the doctor had told her. But she remembered these photos, remembered her mother taking them—a large spider spinning an intricate web, two eyes and a reptilian snout peaking above the shimmering surface of dark water, the deep incandescent pink of a blossom. There was even one of Laura as a child, black hair glistening, her gaze in an intent examination of a ladybug perched on her fingertip.
Soft, tinkling laughter echoed through her mind.
She examined closely the photo of herself. The way her hair shone in the sunlight, the small golden unicorn necklace that had been her favorite. It was working! Being in the house seemed to be pushing at the walls in her mind, opening cracks to her elusive past.
She continued down the hall, studying each photo. She stopped in front of one of her and Drew dancing beneath the spray of a sprinkler on a hot summer day. He’d been at that awkward adolescent stage, but she could easily see the man he would become in his features as a boy. How could she not have recognized him the moment she’d laid eyes on him?
She turned to him as he stood slightly behind her. “I’ve forgotten so much.”
“Now that you’re back, you’ll probably remember a lot more. The sights, sounds, all of this,” he said, gesturing with opened arms, “will stimulate your memories.”
“I hope so. In San Francisco no one knew anything about my past. There was no one to help me keep what few memories I had alive. After a while, I was no longer sure what was real or what I’d imagined.”
His green eyes softened. “That must have been tough.”
“The worst part was forgetting so much about my mother. And not knowing what happened to her.”
Not for the first time since she received that phone call, sadness seeped through her. She would reconnect with her past; she would remember what happened to her mother. Even if that meant she had to stay here
in this house.
“Come, your mother’s room is at the end of the hall,” Miss Martha said, and continued forward.
Her mother’s room.
Laura followed, curiosity growing within her. But as the door loomed in front of her, a tight band of anxiety squeezed her chest, smothering the lingering excitement she’d felt from viewing her mother’s photos.
Slowing, she looked back at Drew. He was still standing by the pictures, although he no longer looked at them. Instead, he looked past her toward his mother, his expression pinched with dread.
What was wrong?
Laura followed his eyes to her mother’s door. Miss Martha’s sharp gaze pinned Laura in place. An image flickered through her mind just out of reach, something dark, something bad. Laura’s heartbeat thumped. Her palms dampened. She stopped.
A wave of dizziness surged through her. Pain pierced her temples. She reached up and pressed her fingertips against her skin. White blotches blurred the edge of her vision. Through squinted eyes, the hallway lengthened. Her mother’s door stretched farther away from her.
What was happening?
Laura opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. She swayed, reaching. She heard Drew call her name, but his voice sounded faint as if coming from far away. Shadows flickered. The air thinned. She gasped, but couldn’t draw a breath.
The floor tilted, walls shifted.
Blackness swallowed light.
She was falling, a silent scream trapped inside her throat. “Hush, baby,” her mother’s voice urged. “Don’t make a sound. We have to get you out of this house.”
“Laura?” Drew’s tone was insistent, demanding. “Laura!”
Laura’s eyes fluttered open. Everything rushed back into focus. Drew’s brilliant green eyes gazed into hers. His strong arms held her and, for a moment, she felt safe. For a whisper of a second, she remembered how it felt to have her small hands clutched in his. As she looked at him, she heard the distant sound of his laughter echoing in her mind.
But for some reason it made her want to cry.
Son of a bitch! Drew pulled Laura closer as the dead circled them, hovering, gesturing wildly, their mouths opening and closing in soundless shouts. Some were grotesque while others appeared benign, looking as they must have in life. How they chose to appear to him made no difference to Drew. He hated them all, hated that he had the curse that allowed him to see them.
Long ago he’d learned to tune them out, to make them disappear. In fact, they were the reason he’d left this mausoleum that had been his childhood home. He’d begged his mother and Uncle Randal to send him to boarding school, to send him anywhere, as long as it was away from there. Once he’d left, he hadn’t wanted to return and had only done so once before. Until now.
Drew hadn’t seen a single shadowy specter since arriving earlier that day. He’d thought that he’d succeeded in blocking them out and that this house wouldn’t have the same power over him as it had had when he’d been young. Obviously, he’d been wrong. The spirits were back with a vengeance, surrounding Laura and doing everything they could to stop her from continuing down the hall.
And they’d succeeded.
What do they want? Why Laura?
And what had they done to her?
Fear knotted within him. He’d never seen such a swarm of ghosts before. Worse, he’d never seen them have an affect on the living. Laura went down like a ton of bricks. Was she sensitive to them? Did she feel them?
Did she see them, too?
Laura’s eyes fluttered open again. Drew sucked in a relieved breath as her eyes met his. Immediately, her face filled with fear. He tightened his arms, pulling her close, hoping she wasn’t cursed as he was. Hoping she couldn’t see them.
His mother hurried toward them.
“What happened?” Laura tried to sit up, but wobbled then fell back against him.
He held her and brushed the hair off her face, concerned by her gray pallor and the cold clammy feel of her skin. “You fainted. Are you all right?”
“Fainted?” Her brows drew together in confusion. “I’ve never fainted before.” Her laugh was strained. “I guess I should have eaten more today. I was too nervous to stop for lunch after I landed, and they hadn’t served anything on the plane.”
He stood and helped her to her feet, but she seemed too shaky to stand on her own. “You should rest.” And then you should get the hell out of Dodge, he thought as the spirits surrounded them.
He turned to his mother who stood next to them. “Mère, can you get Laura some tea and something to eat?”
“Of course. Right away,” she answered, and rushed past them down the hall.
He lifted Laura. She was much lighter than he expected and smelled baby soft, like sweetness and innocence.
“This really isn’t necessary,” she protested, but tightened her grip around his neck.
At first he tried to ignore how nice she felt pressed up against him, but then realized he would rather focus on her than the throng of spirits protesting their progression down the hall.
“I can’t have women collapsing in front of me. It wreaks havoc with my self-image.” He struggled to keep his tone light and his eyes locked on hers, otherwise he’d start shouting at the specters to get the hell out of here, to leave this woman alone.
He’d worked hard to keep his life free of the dead. His youth in this house had been a waking nightmare. After he’d left, he’d spent years perfecting his skills at blocking the spirits. He no longer heard their voices or saw their grisly forms materializing out of nowhere. But now, after just a couple of hours back in this wretched house, he was battling them all over again.
As if he’d never been gone.
He took a deep breath and tried to clear his mind. He focused on the sweet smell of Laura, on the weight of her in his arms, on the tickle of her hair against his skin.
She squirmed. “Wait, please! Set me down.”
Stunned by the sharp tone of her voice, Drew stopped just outside her mother, Delilah’s, bedroom door. “What is it?”
“I can’t go in there,” she insisted, her voice small and tight. “Not yet.”
He looked at the spirits who’d suddenly stopped their useless attempts to block his path. “Why not?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure. I just…can’t.”
What was it about this room that seemed to have such a powerful effect on her? He set her down, then took a step back. Whatever was going on here, it had to do with this house and the spirits that lived here. And he wanted no part of it.
“I’m sorry—” he started, then stopped. Over Laura’s shoulder, Paul’s ghost stood smiling at him, throwing Drew’s old baseball up in the air and catching it. Up and down. Up and down. He looked just as he had twenty years ago when he’d been married to Laura’s mother, when he and Drew used to play ball back when life was good, before the accident, before the ghosts, before Delilah disappeared and Laura almost died.
Was that why he was here now? Because of Laura?
The night of Paul’s accident, Drew had awakened to find his cousin standing at the foot of his bed looking lost and confused, trying to say something but instead emitting an awful gurgling noise.
Blood seeped from a deep gash in his head and ran down his face and neck to saturate the stiff white collar of his business shirt. Rheumy blue eyes set deep in concaved eye sockets stared out of bluish-white-tinged skin. Thin lips stretched back over yellowed teeth. The putrid stench rolling off him had filled Drew’s nose, and he’d felt powerless with nowhere to run.
Paul had come back to him again and again, but he’d never looked as awful as he had that first night. Yet still he came, always trying to say something Drew couldn’t understand.
Over the years, other spirits had come and gone, but none had bothered him as much as Paul.
Drew turned back to Laura. Her eyes were closed and she was inhaling deep, slow breaths. It was almost as if she could sense the spirits around her, t
rying to stop her. She shouldn’t stay here. The spirits were drawn to her. He was afraid of what they might try to do.
At last she looked up at him.
“Better?” he asked.
She nodded and gave him an apologetic smile that tempted him to pull her back into his arms. She was an enigma that he couldn’t wrap his mind around. One minute he wanted to get as far away from her as possible and in the next, that hint of sadness and vulnerability made him want to reach out and hold her.
To protect her.
Which was totally ridiculous.
He didn’t protect people. He didn’t get involved. He stayed on the sidelines, isolated in his house outside Atlanta. He didn’t form attachments or relationships. He put all his energy into his work and was more successful because of it. With a curse like his, life was a whole lot easier that way.
He led Laura toward the room next to his instead, his hand lingering on her waist as he gestured for her to precede him. He hesitated in the doorway, staring at her. She’d grown into such a beautiful woman with her long, silky black hair and pale blue eyes.
“How’s this room?” he asked.
She nodded, lush lips curving into a tentative smile. He couldn’t help wondering if they were as soft as they looked, and if they tasted as sweet.
Merde, what was he thinking?
Without saying a word, he crossed the room to the French doors and opened them. He stepped out onto the bedroom’s small balcony that overlooked the swamp and closed his eyes as a slight breeze washed over him.
When they were small, it had been his job to look after her. That must be why he couldn’t make himself turn around and walk out the door now. Why he was so drawn to her. He gazed out at the bayou, at the sunlight glistening on the water. So beautiful. So deadly.
They’d both almost died that night in the swamp. That was the last time he’d seen her, but not the last time she’d been in his thoughts.
A soft footfall revealed her presence behind him.
Out of nowhere, pain arced across his eyebrows. He dipped his head as the metallic smell of blood filled his nose. He knew what was coming, although it had been a long time since the last one had hit him, the preludes to his visions were always the same. He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, imagining himself bathed in an intense bright light. Hoping the light would keep the dark at bay.
Black Magic Lover Page 2