Draw Down the Moon, page 17
‘Were you…’
He raised one eyebrow, waiting for me to finish my question.
I had to say the words, he wasn’t going to make it easy for me. ‘Were you and Agnes lovers?’
A laugh escaped him. I stared at him. Was it such a foolish question? Even for a fantasy it just seemed a little incestuous if he had been with my Great Gran.
But Zara had asked me to get a lock of his hair. And the only way I’d be able to do that was if he was sleeping. And the only way he’d be sleeping in my company was if we…
‘No! Agnes was, oh, I can’t even… but to answer your question, no.’ He busied his hands, taking off his glasses and polishing them on the rough wool blanket, but the lenses hadn’t been dirty. Now it was his deep-set eyes which reflected the light of the fire, the golden embers matching the amber flecks within.
I settled back onto the sofa, and even nestled against him. Just a little. We both watched the fire, more aware than ever now in the other’s close proximity.
In this cozy nest, I pondered Zara’s request of me. She needed his hair, but why? I hadn’t been a witch long enough to understand the ins and outs of spells and what have you. I could only think of DNA.
I liked Zara, yes, perhaps I had a bit of a girl crush on her. She was tall and elegant, and when she looked at me, I felt I was the most important person in her world.
According to Lox, she was Fae, so she could probably toss on the old charm blanket at a flick of her fingers. She was not trustworthy. Or was she? When I was with her, I felt special, but now… I had to look at things objectively.
Lox, on the other hand, he asked nothing of me, nothing except that I attend the coven and spy on Zara. I’d been planning to attend anyway. My discovery of the crystal urn may have been a dangerous move on my part, yet, Zara had welcomed my curiosity. And she promised to help me undo the hex.
What was I doing here? Whatever her plans were for Lox, plans which involved his DNA or the hair of his head, it felt wrong, somehow. An invasion of his privacy at the least. At the most, well, I didn’t know how much power that would give Zara over this man who sat so peacefully beside me. She had pressed the need for urgency, but didn’t give me a reason why.
What was Zara offering me in return, besides Selena? To help me reach my potential, which just yesterday had seemed a burning a need. Now, not so much. Lox could teach me anything I needed to know.
Lox had ties to my family. I couldn’t do this to him. I smiled at the flames, my heart much easier now I had made my decision.
‘They’re holding a vigil for Selena this evening,’ I said. ‘Hoping their prayers will help her through whatever this is.’
‘Do you still believe you caused her collapse?’
‘I don’t know what to think anymore,’ I said, shaking my head. The towel wrapping my hair loosened and slid off. I brushed my damp hair out of my face as I turned to look at him. ‘You said the other day that it was possible I did this. Do you really think I could have? Do you believe I drew Selena collapsing in her living room and caused this to happen?’
He didn’t answer, not right away. Instead, he took a long sip from his own mug and looked contemplatively at the burning logs.
‘I said it was possible,’ he replied. His voice was gentle and relaxed. ‘You have the ability.’
That wasn’t the reassurance I was looking for.
‘You also have the motive,’ he further pointed out.
I started from the sofa’s enveloping cushions, but he merely chuckled at my reaction.
‘Your husband and Selena, they are having an affair, yes? Or at least that what your evidence has shown.’
‘Yes, but,’ I began in my defense. I plopped my back into the cushions again and let out a breath. ‘But I find I don’t really care,’ I admitted, surprised to find a small smile on my face.
‘No,’ he mused. The firelight reflected from the small round lenses of his glasses. ‘Your marriage no longer fits, is this what you’re saying?’
I nodded decisively. That was it exactly. ‘So she can have him,’ I said. ‘I had no need to draw her dead.’
‘Perhaps there were others who are jealous of the woman,’ he remarked lazily, then took another deep draught of his hot toddy.
I thought about that, then shook my head. ‘But who? I mean, everyone loves her…’
And just then I remembered the note I’d taken from her home. ‘Oh! Wait now, I need to show you this. Maybe you can, I don’t know, use your magic to tell me about it, see if it has any bearing on what happened to her.’
I leaned forward to reach down to my purse, struggling to fold my body until I grasped a handle and tugged. It was caught between frame of the sofa and the plank floor, so I gave another pull until it came free. As I hauled it up to my lap the damn thing opened and spilled its contents over the blanket on my legs.
I jumped and grasped at the objects scattering everywhere, but I acted a moment too late. The silver scissors fell loose from the silk fabric and lay against the wool plaid, reflecting the glowing light of the fire.
Chapter 28
I stared at my lap, consternation draining every bit of color from my face. I made to cover the scissors with Zara’s silk handkerchief, but Lox placed his hand over mine to stop me. I slowly dragged my eyes up to meet his.
The fire’s reflection on his glasses obscured his thoughts. A warm flush began in my spine, quickly spreading over my back and through my armpits and up the back of my neck. Embarrassment at getting caught? Perhaps. Or maybe it was just another mistimed hot flash.
‘The note?’
‘The note!’ I wrenched my eyes from his and grabbed the small piece of folded paper. I thrust it at him as I was still half hovered over my lap to cover the contents of my spilled purse,
He took it in both hands. I followed his eyes as he read through the short lines. Then he closed his eyelids and was silent for a further long moment.
When he opened his eyes again, he shook his head. ‘This was written by a human hand,’ he said. ‘Not a Fae. I can’t pick up anything other than that.’
He gave it back to me, and we both continued to stare at the purple ink. ‘Do you think it’s a woman that wrote it?’
‘Hard to say,’ he observed. ‘What do you think?’
I bit my lip as I stared at the note. The letters were staccato, short and sharp and digging into the paper, there was no easy flow of letters into each other. The writer had been in the throes of a strong emotion, and in a hurry too, by the look of the impatiently crossed t’s.
Was it Derek’s penmanship? No. He slanted forward, always, even when he signed for a delivery. Yes, like this note, his letters were printed for he rarely wrote in cursive, but there’s where the resemblance ended. My husband’s letters were inevitably small, so tiny I sometimes had to squint to read them as if he was hording his ink and not wasting it.
But a woman, yes, I looked closer at the note, studying the formation of the i’s. There was the faintest curve, an artistic flourish almost, at the bottom of each letter. Now I saw that, I saw it in all the letters. An artistic woman, a confident one.
That could be any of the women in the Plastic Faculty Wives club.
‘Yes, I think it’s a woman’s hand,’ I said. ‘That narrows it down a bit.’
But what woman would have the power to place a spell or hex on Selena? Zara was the only one in the group with power, surely. Apart from me. Perhaps there was another witch there, a true witch, not just a wannabee?
I lifted the paper to my nose and took three lights sniffs, as I’d done before. There was that familiar perfume again, the faintest of scents. I’d caught a taste of it in Selena’s house. And at both the coven meetings.
Of course. It was Ana’s scent. Anastasia Desplanques had written this note. But why?
I lowered the paper to my lap, thinking hard. Ana was the be-all and end-all of the university society in our small city. She held power beyond belief when it came to our tiny world, power over people’s careers and life works, just because of her proximity to her husband and his inner circle.
Ana was Zara’s right-hand woman in the coven. Was she, like me, a hereditary witch with the power to cast Selena into a coma? But again, why would she do this?
But if she had, if Ana was responsible for Selena’s collapse, that meant I was off the hook. My drawing had been merely a prediction, not a hex. I didn’t do it.
Which meant that I also didn’t need to betray this man beside me, this man who had shown me nothing but warmth and understanding. Yes, Zara had plenty to offer me, but if she only wanted Lox’s hair in order to undo the hex on Selena, I didn’t need to provide it now, because it hadn’t been my fault.
‘Zara said she would help undo the hex on Selena,’ I began.
‘Did she now? And you believe that?’ There was an uncharacteristic scoff in his voice. ‘She won’t want your husband’s friend coming out of her coma. It suits her very well. Unfortunately, perhaps it was a failed attempt.’
‘A failed…’ My eyes widened as the meaning of his words dawned on me. ‘A failed attempt on her life? You mean, Ana tried to kill her?’
‘No. Causing her death would be merely an unfortunate by-product of stealing the woman’s life force. They did not manage to take it all. This Selena, she must be very full of life, eh?’
Horror washed over me, along with a creeping dread. If Lox was right, this was not a simple hex placed on Selena but an attack on her very life. This was a new world for me, one in which lives were unimportant in the desire for what – power? I had to stretch my mind to comprehend this new reality.
But before I could continue that thought, Lox spoke out again.
‘Should we now speak about the elephant in the room?’
‘What… ’ I began, then remembered halfway through my question. ‘Elephant.’ I looked back down to my lap, and without even thinking moved my hand to an unnatural angle to cover up the glittering silver scissors.
Then I blushed again with embarrassment at this action, horrified at myself. I hadn’t fooled him, I’d merely made myself appear to be devious and deceitful.
He knew my treacherous plans. Or at least, what my plans had been when I called him that afternoon. They had changed, for somewhere along the line I’d decided I wasn’t going to use Zara’s scissors for their intended purpose. I couldn’t do it. But how to tell him that?
‘You can’t hide them,’ he told me gently. ‘They’re made of Fae silver.’
‘It’s not what you think,’ I began, but I couldn’t continue, couldn’t stand to hear the feebleness in my own voice. I bit my lip. The only sound was the wind in the eaves of the house. It had slowed to a steady gale. The rain had lifted.
We both looked back down at my lap. I swallowed, preparing to meet his anger. Christ. He was a Fae, or something like that, whatever it meant. God alone knew what he would do to me.
I didn’t need to look up to know that his eyes were boring into my skull. But I had to. I had to face the music and try to explain. I swallowed and lifted my eyes.
His face held none of the rage I expected, the terrible, deserved anger that should be there. Instead, his eyes were soft and understanding, with only a small question hovering at the edges.
My heart caught in my throat and I found the courage to speak.
‘I’m sorry. I’d decided against using them. Especially now…’
He nodded, then he picked the scissors up, using the silk kerchief to hold them as if he didn’t want to leave his fingerprints on the metal.
‘But I think you must.’
I gaped at him. ‘No! I mean, I have no idea why she wants your hair, but I don’t think it will have a good outcome. There’s no way I’m going to help her with this.’
‘I think you must,’ he said again, his voice holding no trace of tension. ‘Zara will not think much of you if you fail in this job. You will lose status in her eyes, she will dismiss you and cast you out of her inner circle.’
‘I don’t care about that.’ I couldn’t believe what he was saying. I struggled to sit straight, to get out of the hole my body had made in the downy cushions. ‘Do you really think her opinion means that much to me? Come off it, Lox, I’m not going to do that to you!’
He smiled unexpectedly. ‘Eve, you are pure of heart and deed,’ he said. ‘And Zara is well aware of your absolute innocence in all matters of the Fae.’
‘Don’t patronize me, Lox,’ I began, but he held up his hand to pause my words, still with that gentle smile on his face.
‘On the contrary, Eve,’ he said. ‘I’m enlisting your support in a very dangerous venture, one that could spell disaster for us both. But I have faith in your strength. I believe in you, and I will put my very life in your hands.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I have to ask you, and I want you to search inside yourself carefully before you answer. Do you think you could pull it off? Do you have it within you to deceive Zara?’
He waited, then added in the kindest voice, ‘I will not think less of you if you decline.’
Those words tempted me to burst out and brag that of course I could lie to Zara. I could do anything I put my mind to. But I hesitated and gave it a good churning around in my mind.
‘How likely is it she’ll see through me?’ I asked him, pensively. I asked this not for my own benefit, but because I didn’t want to endanger him. ‘Can she, I don’t know, read auras or something?’
He chuckled as he sat back and gazed into the fire again. He shook his head. ‘I’m afraid you know little of my kind,’ he said. ‘We are an avaricious, capricious people, you may have heard.’
I nodded. ‘Yes, the early fairytales say that, but more recent stories…’
‘Those are all fiction, created by authors who have never in their life met one of us,’ he said, brushing away the idea. ‘The ancient folk, they lived alongside the Fae. They knew us intimately. And rightly feared us.
‘We are also a vain and shallow nation, the Fae,’ he continued. He sat back against the sofa cushions. ‘So, will Zara realize you are deceiving her? Possibly. But she also believes in your innocence and lack of guile, and that will prevent her from suspecting you.’
There was a hard lump in my throat. I nodded. ‘Yes,’ I said slowly.
‘But?’
‘But. I need to know why. What is going on here? And why has she singled me out? What are the dangers?’ The questions tumbled out of me fast and furiously. ‘And what really happened to Selena?’
‘All these are legitimate questions,’ he agreed. ‘And some I can’t answer. Some I won’t answer, for the less you know, the less you will fear.’
‘That’s not really good enough.’
‘And you are right. Suffice it to say, the answers will come, I promise. I only want you to know that if you agree to do this, to go along with me, you will put yourself in danger. But if we succeed, then…’
I waited.
‘Then we can avert a great war in the land of Fae,’ he said. ‘And in doing so, we’ll avert a catastrophic event here in your world.’
‘As above, so below,’ I murmured. ‘What does that even mean?’
‘All worlds are connected, and the link between our lands is stronger than most. Think of a Venn diagram.’
My face must have shown a blank, for he gave an impatient huff. ‘You know, the ones with the overlapping circles to show relationships.’ He held his right hand splayed, palm up.
‘Ah, right,’ I said, nodding quickly.
‘But picture it in three dimensions.’ He then took his left hand and fitted it over the right so that the two were almost, but not quite touching. He moved both hands to the right, then to the left, then looked enquiringly at me.
I shook my head. ‘Sorry, lack of comprehension here.’
‘Ah, no matter,’’ he said, a smile now on his face. ‘It’s on a fifth dimensional level anyway. Suffice it to say, you must take my word that our lands are irretrievably linked.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
He said nothing, but his fingers toyed with the scissors, still wrapped in the silk. Then he handed them to me.
‘No.’ I held my hands back, refusing to accept the small package.
Lox nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. Like I said, this is a dangerous game we play, but Zara must believe.’
‘If I do this,’ I said heavily. ‘If I do, what does it mean? How does it affect you?’
‘She can use my hair to hurt me,’ he said slowly. ‘To bind me. To prevent me from acting against her.’
‘Then why would we give her a lock?’ I asked. ‘That’s nuts.’
‘Because only this way will she trust you and draw you in deeper into her circle. And from there, we may act.’
I shook my head. Not to say no, at this point I felt I would follow him through the end of the world and back, but because I just didn’t understand. I took the bundle in my hand and unwrapped the instrument,
‘If she finds out I’m working with you, she’ll be very upset.’
‘She will be furious,’ he agreed calmly. ‘Her anger will be like none you’ve ever experienced, not in this century. Hurricanes will blast, earthquakes will shake the world, civil wars will cause anguish within humanity.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ he reminded me.
‘I think I do.’
He bent his head forward. I picked up a strand and positioned the scissors.
Still I hesitated and I asked again. ‘Will she know? Will she be able to, I don’t know, read my mind or something?’
‘Only if you allow her to.’
‘I’m scared. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to do this.’
‘Being afraid, yet still doing the thing that is right, that’s the very definition of courage,’ he said.
I wasn’t a hero. I had no right to be mixed up with all this. Yet still, I plucked up the courage that he spoke about.
