Always

by Jude Deveraux

  “I’m fine,” Darci said, “but then I didn’t fall. I was—Oh!” she said, sitting up straighter. “Oh. I can feel things. I know things.” She sat up, her eyes wide. “That table over there? A woman used to sit at it and sew and cry for the man she loved. He was killed in a war. See that lamp? It was made by a man who was stealing from the company. See that—”

  “I get the picture,” Jack said, still on the bed. “If you have your powers back, can we talk to each other with our minds?”

  Turning to look at him, Darci sent him thoughts about how heroic she thought he’d been when he’d leaped after Lavender. Jack had made it up to her for all the scoundrel things that John Marshall had done to her.

  “Nothing,” Jack said. “I hear nothing.”

  “Then the angry spirit that was around you is gone.”

  “Both of them are gone,” Jack said and looked as though he might cry again. “Lavender’s gone from my life and Millie’s spirit no longer haunts me. I no longer feel that anger inside of me.”

  Darci moved a pillow behind her head and leaned back. Before what they’d been through she would never have allowed Jack to stretch out on the bed beside her, but now it seemed natural. Now it seemed like he was the older brother she’d always wanted. “I guess Millie so wanted to be the woman that you were marrying that she believed she was Lavender. That’s why her spirit lied to us.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  Darci felt as tired and sad as Jack looked and sounded, but one of them had to be the person who did the cheering up. “Your aura has changed,” she said, and tried to keep the joy she was feeling out of her voice. Once again, there was color surrounding him—and she could see it! When she’d first met Jack, his aura had been mostly red, the color of anger, and the more he was around Darci the redder his aura became. But now the anger was gone. Now, in spite of his depression about Lavender, his aura was a lovely blue.

  “I’ll find Lavey’s spirit for you,” Darci said, putting her hand on his forearm. “I promise that I’ll do whatever I can to find her.”

  “Before or after you find my father and your husband?” he asked nastily.

  “You know, don’t you, that now I can give you a killer of a headache?”

  Jack didn’t smile. Instead, he got off the bed and stood up. “If you make my head hurt, will it take away my thoughts? My memories?” He ran his hand over his eyes. “Love stinks!”

  “You’re not the first person to say that,” Darci said, smiling.

  He glared at her. “You had a chance with Drayton. Why didn’t you take it?”

  “Why did you love Lavender and not any of the many other women in your life?”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said, sitting down on a chair across from the bed. “How long has it been since we had any sleep?”

  “Seems like a month or two,” Darci said, yawning.

  “How about if we sleep now and tomorrow we do what we were sent to this house to do?”

  “Sounds great to me.” He walked to the door, then paused. “Darci?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you think you really could find Lavey? Do you think her spirit has been put into another body?”

  “Probably,” she said, trying to keep her smile intact. She wasn’t going to tell him that it was possible that Lavender’s spirit could have been put into a man’s body or that Lavey was now a cross-dresser, dancing in a gay revue in Vegas. Or maybe she was three years old. Or ninety. “We’ll find her wherever she is.”

  Giving her a smile, Jack left the room.

  When she was alone, Darci lay back against the pillows and thought that she’d make a short trip downstairs to Jack’s father’s bedroom and have another look at those objects hidden in that room. Maybe there was more energy in them than she’d at first thought.

  But the exhaustion of the past two days overwhelmed her and she didn’t wake until Jack drew the curtains back and sunlight hit her face.

  “What time is it?” Darci asked, struggling to sit up, then fell back down when she saw Jack. “I think I need some more sleep, and I know I need some food.”

  “How about this?” Jack asked, holding a large glass of freshly squeezed orange juice under her nose.

  “Mmmm,” she said sitting up, reaching for the glass.

  But Jack held it back from her. “Or would you rather have this?”

  Extending his hand, he held out the iron egg that Simone had given her. The energy Darci felt coming from the egg was like nothing she’d ever felt before. “Gimme,” she said, and Jack had to catch the full glass before her enthusiasm made him drop it on the bed.

  He sat on the end of the bed and watched her hold the egg, turning it over in her hands, and helped himself to the food on the tray he’d placed on the side of the bed. “Like it?”

  “How? Where?” she asked in awe as she took the juice from him. “Tom was supposed to have hidden this. Did you bring it back with you?”

  At that, she clutched at her neck and instantly felt that the gold necklace with the key on it was gone.

  “Drayton’s chain isn’t there but the key’s in the box.” Jack nodded toward the silver box on the bedside table. The key was sticking out of it.

  Darci set the juice down, grabbed the box, and removed the key so fast that Jack laughed at her. She looked at him suspiciously. He was fresh out of a shower, had on clean, ironed clothing, and shiny shoes. “What’s up with you?” she asked. “Why are you up so early? Where did these things come from and who made breakfast and why do you look happy?”

  “Dear, dear little sister,” Jack said, pushing the tray toward her, and laughing when she held the iron egg in one hand and ate with the other. “First of all, it’s two o’clock in the afternoon, and although we think it’s been centuries since we were last here, we were actually away only one night. The spell you put on my lazy relatives is still holding. Who would have thought they would make such splendid servants? They’ve cleaned every corner of this house and have cooked enough food to feed half the neighborhood. If we had neighbors, that is. Dear ol’ dad couldn’t bear people close to him so he bought everything within a mile of his ugly old mansion.”

  Jack broke off half of one of Darci’s blueberry muffins and ate it. “Homemade,” he said. “Who would have thought? I sent my relatives and the food to a homeless shelter.”

  “Great idea,” Darci said, eating strawberries floating in cream. She still hadn’t let go of the iron egg. “What about this?” she asked, holding up the egg. “Where’d you get it?”

  “Ah. That. Did you forget that under this lady-killer exterior I’m an FBI agent?”

  “The question is whether or not the FBI remembers. What did you do?”

  “An old-fashioned fax.” He paused, smiling. “Funny to think of a facsimile machine as old-fashioned, isn’t it? What did you miss the most?”

  “My daughter and flush toilets,” Darci said quickly.

  “Could you stop with the foreplay and tell me where you got the egg?”

  “I sent a fax to Greg’s home number and told him to send someone out to the church in Camwell and dig up some items.”

  Darci paused with a bite of quiche to her lips.

  “Don’t give me that look. It’s the FBI, remember? They’re used to secrets and the weird and strange.”

  “Not quite as strange as what you and I’ve been through.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said, starting to take another muffin, but Darci aimed her fork at his hand. “Actually, I thought there would be two things hidden away, the egg and that crucifix you and Drayton found. I didn’t know there’d be more.”

  “More?” Darci asked, wide-eyed.

  “No, just eat. It can wait.”

  “What can wait? Your headache? Or should I paralyze you?”

  “Like you did to Greg?” he asked, smiling. “At the time I was pretty angry, but now it seems funny. His legs were…” Jack leaned back on the bed, bent his legs, and drew them up. “Funny, huh?”

/>   “I’ll give you to the count of three,” Darci said, her lips in a tight line.

  “Be my guest,” Jack said, holding out both hands to indicate the big metal box on top of the table on the far side of the room.

  Darci was out of bed in a second. She was wearing her clothes of the day before, having collapsed into bed without bothering to change. There was a mirror over the table and she saw that her hair was sticking up straight, but she smiled when she ran her hand over it. It felt soft and clean, something that she’d dearly missed when she was in 1843.

  She looked down at the box in wonder. It was an old accounting box, the kind you still saw in antique stores. This one wouldn’t have fetched much money because it was rusty and dented, and smelled of damp earth. There wasn’t a lot of energy coming from the box and she wondered why.

  “You opened it without me,” Darci said petulantly.

  “Just once and quickly,” Jack said. “I reached in, grabbed the egg, and closed the lid.” He was standing behind her and looking down over her shoulder. “I turned the key just to make sure that it was safe. I was a little worried that maybe something awful would happen, since turning keys around you is a bit dangerous.”

  “You caused the trouble with the key, not me. I would have waited before opening that box. Anything bad that happened, was your fault.”

  “We can discuss that later. Open the damned thing!”

  “There’s no need for cursing,” she said, her hand on the lid. “And you know, don’t you, that I can tell whether you’ve lied or not?”

  “So help me—” he began, then cut off when Darci opened the lid of the old box.

  “Oh!” she said. “Look at that!”

  “What?” Jack asked, looking inside the box.

  “The light,” Darci said in awe. “The light. See it? It’s blue. No, it’s more than blue. It’s…it’s the exact shade of Henry’s aura.” There was suspicion in her voice as she said the last. “Devlin! Is that you?”

  “Home sweet home,” Jack muttered, reaching into the box. “Dead people everywhere. Tell him not to slime around on the antiques. They’re valuable.”

  Darci was watching the light float around the room. “You blocked the energy, didn’t you? So help me, Devlin, show yourself so I can kill you! Why wouldn’t you help me when I was back in time? Was it Henry who took away my power? Stop it, I say!” The light was going ’round and ’round in a spiral, then started bouncing on the bed like a giddy three-year-old.

  “Look at this,” Jack said, removing a leather pouch from the box and dumping garnets into his palm. In the next moment he had to sit down, for they were the garnets that had been given to him when Lavender had danced on top of the buckboard. “Will I ever see her again?” he whispered.

  Darci didn’t tell him, but behind him Devlin had formed himself into Lavender. She was smiling and reaching out to touch Jack’s hair. “That’s not funny,” Darci hissed at the Shape Changer. “Get out of here! Leave us alone!”

  The ghostly vision of Lavender looked over Jack’s bent head at Darci, the eyes defiant. They weren’t Lavender’s beautiful, kind eyes, but the eyes of a mischievous spirit.

  Darci still had the egg in her hand. She held it tighter, feeling the energy from it flow up her arm, then gradually into the rest of her body. “Go!” she said to Devlin.

  Lavender’s face looked smug, then it changed to confusion, and in the next second the vision was gone.

  For a moment Darci stared at the blank wall.

  “What’s wrong?” Jack asked.

  “I’m not sure.” She looked at the egg. “I think maybe I just made Devlin leave the room.”

  “So?”

  “He once told me that when I could keep him from leaving the room I’d be ready. I wonder if the opposite holds true?”

  “Ready for what?”

  “I don’t know what. It’s another one of those great mysteries that’s been dumped on me. My guess is that it’s some kind of test. What else is in that box and who put all this together? Is the crucifix in there?”

  Jack dug around in the box and withdrew a little pouch. “Is this it?”

  Taking the pouch from him, Darci dropped the crucifix into her right hand. “Oh my,” she said. “Oh my goodness. My, oh, my.”

  Jack watched her standing in the middle of the room, an old iron egg in one hand and the little crucifix in the other. She closed her eyes, bent her head back, then seemed to go into such ecstasy that he was envious. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, as her face took on a look of such sublime pleasure that he feared for her life.

  He couldn’t take it. He grabbed both objects from her hands and put them on the table. “I don’t think that’s what those things are to be used for,” he said primly.

  Darci looked like she might cry, but she recovered herself and straightened her shoulders. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not right. They hum and when I put one in one hand and the other in the other hand—”

  “Yeah, you start humming, too.” He removed the breakfast tray off the bed and started to put the box on the bedspread, but Darci ran to the bathroom and got a towel to set the dirty box on.

  “Now,” Jack said sternly, “I want you to stop playing around and doin’ the dirty with a bunch of magic things and tell me what you feel about this box.”

  Darci gave a longing look at the egg and crucifix on the table and thought about putting Jack to sleep so she could take some time to figure out what the things did. What power did they have? How did they work with the other objects she had? Or did they? Had Devlin been trying to steal them or protect them?

  Sighing, Darci put her hand on the metal box. “Simone,” she said. “And Adam. But, no, not Adam. Not much, anyway. Mostly Simone. But Tom did the actual digging. And Tula. Yes, Tula took over after Simone died. Oh!”

  “What now?”

  “I just felt Simone’s spirit. I think she’s trying to contact me.” Darci looked at Jack in wonder. “I’ve never dealt with other psychics before. Except for Linc’s son. And a few people without bodies. And Henry, of course.”

  Shaking his head at her, Jack turned his attention to the box. On top was a small leather portfolio tied with silk. As Jack opened it, Darci said, “It’s from Adam. He wants me to try to go back to him.”

  Inside was a small portrait of Adam’s wife, Diana, and a lock of her hair.

  “She could be you,” Jack said, looking at the picture. “She’s a dead ringer for you.”

  Darci took the two items and held them. She knew that Adam hadn’t written her a note because he was trusting her to remember and—if possible—bring his wife back to him.

  Darci set the items on the bedspread and looked at the big package that Jack was removing. It was a large piece of embroidered cloth, folded around what looked to be newspaper clippings. The cuttings were old and fragile, yellowed, dried-out, and damp at the same time. Jack touched them gingerly, knowing they could fall apart at any moment.

  He held up a finger to mean, Wait a minute, then left the room. “And don’t touch those things on the table,” he called from down the hall.

  Darci picked up the little portrait of Diana and held it. The woman had been very ill when the picture was painted. She’d known it but she’d told no one. Her love for her family came through the picture, and Darci could almost feel Diana’s spirit close by. I can find her, she thought, and put the picture down.

  Lying back on the pillows, she stared at the items on the table across the room. The egg especially intrigued her. She glanced at the doorway. Maybe if she was quick, she could…

  When she looked back at the egg, it seemed to be moving. Just a bit, but it seemed to be rocking. “Come to me,” she whispered, concentrating on the egg, and holding out her hands. When the egg began rolling slowly toward her, Darci smiled, even though she didn’t know what would happen when the egg reached the edge of the table. Would it fall or could she make it sail through the air?

  She didn’t find
out because Jack appeared in the doorway with a pile of photocopies in his hands. “Now we can read them without worrying about the old paper flaking.”

  He glanced at Darci, saw that she was looking guilty, then turned and saw the egg balanced on the edge of the table. “I don’t even want to know what you were doing,” he said as he pushed the egg farther back.

  “Here, let’s read these,” he said, moving the chair next to the bed and sitting down. “We’ll start with the letter from Simone.”

  Simone had written that she was going to entrust her son and daughter to put anything pertinent into the box, and she hoped Jack and Darci would someday find it. She went on to say that she couldn’t guarantee that anyone past Tula would put items into the box, but at least there would be a few years’ worth of information.

  The first clippings were about the deaths of Lavender Shay and John Marshall. The town had mourned the loss of the young people for many months.

  “Look at this!” Darci said, sitting up straighter. “It says that Mr. and Mrs. Ulysses Shay, in memory of their only child, adopted Miss Millicent Brown, who would now be known at Millicent Shay.” Darci looked at Jack in wonder.

  “Here’s another one!” he said. “It’s dated 1848. ‘Miss Millicent Shay has been…’ ” He looked at Darci. “ ‘…accepted as one of only twelve women students in the Boston Female Medical School. Miss Shay has been quoted as saying that she’s entering medical school in memory of her dear friend and adopted sister, the late Miss Lavender Shay.’ ”

  Jack looked away for a moment. “Lavey wanted to study medicine, but her father said no. He said ladies didn’t touch sick people. I guess he learned what was important in life.”

  “Here’s another one,” Darci said. “It says that Dr. Millicent Shay opened a free medical clinic for women and children in the Appalachian Mountains in 1854.” Darci put down the paper and looked at Jack.

  “I wonder what happened to her brother?” he asked.

  “He stayed with Millie through everything. He only trusted her. He drove an ambulance wagon during the Civil War.”