"What didn't you tell the others?"
"There's nothing more to tell." Mia sat at her dressing table, brushing her hair. She knew Sam wouldn't go, and there was no point arguing.
Fruitless battles wasted energy. She intended to conserve hers for when it mattered most.
"If you thought a banishing spell would turn the tide, you'd have tried one before."
"You weren't here before."
"I've been here since May. And will there ever come a time when you don't throw that in my face?"
"You're right." She set her brush aside, rose to open the balcony doors to the sound of rain. "It's annoying and repetitive of me. And it was more effective before I forgave you."
"Have you, Mia?"
The rain was warm, wonderfully soft. And still, she longed for the storm.
"I've spent some time looking back, trying to see those two young people objectively. The girl was so wrapped up in the boy, and in her visions of what she wanted their life to be, she couldn't see he wasn't ready. It wasn't that she ignored it, or overlooked it." Mia had searched her heart on that one point. "But that she really couldn't see it. She assumed he loved as she loved, wanted what she wanted, and she never looked beyond that. What happened to them was as much her fault as his."
"No, it wasn't."
"All right. Maybe not quite as much hers, because she was as honest as she knew how to be and he wasn't. But she wasn't blameless. She held too tight. Maybe, maybe because she wasn't any more ready than he was. She just wanted to be. She was so lonely in her house on the cliff, so desperately hungry for love."
"Mia."
"You shouldn't interrupt when I'm forgiving you. I don't intend to make a habit of it. It's so weak, and so typical, to blame one's parents for the flaws and the failures of a life. And a woman of thirty should certainly have come around to making her own flaws and failures - and triumphs."
She had thought about that, too, very long and very hard in her time away. "But for the sake of that young girl, we'll point the finger. She was young enough to deserve to assign the blame somewhere else."
She walked back to the dressing table, absently opened a little cobalt pot, dipped her fingers in and rubbed the cream over her hands. "They never loved me. That's sad and that's painful, but more, they never cared that I loved them. So what was I to do with all that love just burning inside me? There was Lulu, thank the goddess. But I had so much more to give. And there you were. Poor sad-looking Sam. I heaped my love on you until you must have felt buried in it."
"I wanted you to love me. I needed it. And you."
"But not so I had us settled in a little cottage with three children and the faithful family dog." She said it lightly, though it cost her to dismiss that sweet and pretty image. "I can't blame you for that. I can still blame you for the way you ended it - so abrupt, so harsh. But even that . . . You were very young."
"I'll regret for the rest of my life the way I ended it. Regret that the only way I thought I could save myself was to hurt you."
"Youth is often cruel."
"I was. I told you I was done with you and this place. That I wouldn't be trapped anymore. That I wasn't coming back. I wasn't ever coming back. You just looked at me, with tears running down your face. You so rarely cry. It panicked me, so I was only more cruel. I'm sorry for it."
"I believe you are. I'd like to think that eventually we could put that part of our life where it belongs. In the past."
"I need to tell you why I waited so long to come back."
She retreated without moving a step. "That's the past, too."
"No, I want you to know that when I said I wasn't coming back, I meant it. That need to be away, to breathe some other air, pushed me through those first years. Every time I thought of you, waking or sleeping, I slammed the door shut. Then one day I found myself standing in that cave on the west coast of Ireland."
He wandered to her dressing table, picked up her brush. Just turned it over and over in his hand.
"Everything I felt for you, the joy of it, the fear of it, came rushing back into me. But I wasn't a boy anymore, and those feelings weren't a boy's."
He set her brush down, looked at her. "And I knew I was coming back. That was five years ago, Mia."
It left her shaken, caused her to carefully control her thoughts, her voice. "You took your time."
"I wasn't coming back, to you, to this island, the way I'd left. Thaddeus Logan's son. That Logan boy. I'd carried that around like a goddamn chain around my neck, and I was going to break it. I needed to make something of myself. For me. And for you. No, let me finish," he said when she started to speak.
"You had all the dreams before, all the goals, all the answers. Now I had my own. The hotel isn't just a piece of real estate to me."
"I know that."
"Maybe you do." He nodded. "Maybe you would. It was mine, always, part symbol, part passion. I needed to prove I was coming back here with more than a name and a birthright. I started to come back countless times in the last five years, and every time I did, something stopped me. I don't know if it was my own doing or a shove from fate. But I do know that before this, it wasn't my time."
"You always had more than a name and a birthright. But maybe you could never see it before."
"That brings us to now."
"Now, I need time to consider if the step I take is my own, or a shove from fate. You're welcome to sleep here. I need to check on Lulu. Then I want to spend some time up in the tower before I go to bed."
Frustration pushed through him again, had him balling his fists in his pockets. "I'm asking for a chance to prove to you that you can trust me again, that you can love me again. I want you to live with me, be with me knowing that whatever else I might do or not do, I'll never deliberately hurt you again. You're not giving me a lot of room."
"I can promise you this. After the full moon, after the ritual, that will change. I don't want to be at odds with you. We can't afford to be."
"There's something else." He took her arm as she started past him. "There's more."
"I can't give it to you now." Her fingers itched to push his hand off her arm before he pushed too hard, saw too much. Timing, she thought, would be an essential element. She resisted, and met his gaze levelly.
"You want me to trust and believe in you. Then you have to trust and believe in me."
"I will, if you'll promise me you won't do anything that could put you in jeopardy, without your circle, without me."
"When it comes to the sticking point, I'll need my circle. That includes you."
"All right." If that was all, he would settle for it. For now. "Can I use your library?"
"Help yourself."
When she was sure Lulu was sleeping comfortably, Mia went up to the widow's walk to stand outside in the soft rain. She could see, from that height, everything that was hers. And the dark that pressed against her borders, breathing cold against her warmth so the steam rose up in fitful spurts. Almost absently, she lifted a hand skyward, let the power tremble up her arm. She plucked a lightning bolt out of the night, hurled it like a lance through a puff of steam. Then she spun away and slipped inside, into her tower.
She cast the circle, lighted candles and incense. She would seek a vision, but wanted no whisper of it to leak outside that ring. What was in her heart and mind could be used against her, and against those she loved.
She ate the herbs, drank from the chalice, and kneeling in the circle, at the center of a pentagram, she cleared her mind. She opened her third eye.
The storm that she had sensed burst over the island, and despite the gales of wind, the land was blanketed in a thin gray fog. The sea lashed at the base of her cliffs as she flew over them, through the driving rain, the strikes of lightning, and over the fog that spread and thickened. In the clearing at the heart of the Sisters was her circle. Their hands were linked, and hers with them. The greedy fog licked and lapped at the edges of the ring, but crept no further. Safe, she thought as she knelt in her tower. Safe and strong.
She could feel the rumble of the earth below, the rumble of the sky above. And her own heartbeat where she knelt, and where she saw herself.
They called, in turn. Earth, air, water, fire. Power was rich. Rising up, streaking out. Though it tore at the fog, those mists reknit themselves. Out of them stalked the wolf that bore her mark.
When it leaped, she was alone on her cliffs. She saw the red eyes burning. She heard her own voice cry out - despair and triumph - as she wrapped her arms around it. And took it with her off the cliffs. As she fell she saw the moon, full and white, break through the storm and, with the fire of stars, shine over the island.
In her tower, she knelt on the floor, her eyes blurred with visions, her heart pounding.
"You give me this only to take it away? Is there a price for the gift, after all? You would have let the innocent be harmed, the mother of my heart? Does it all come down to blood?"
She slid to the floor, curled in the circle. For the first and last time in her life, she cursed the gift.
"She's holding something back." Sam paced the kitchen in the house where he'd grown up. "I know it."
"Maybe she is." Mac pushed through the documents spread over the kitchen table. They'd been his breakfast companion until Sam had shown up. "Something started bugging me last night, but I can't put my finger on it. I've been going through everything I have on Three Sisters: the island, the women, the descendants. I've read over my own ancestor's journal. I feel like I'm missing something. Some angle. Some, what was the word Mia used? Interpretation ."
Sam pushed the bag he'd brought with him over the table. "You can add these to your research pile, at least until she realizes I pulled them out of her library."
"I've been meaning to get to these anyway." Carefully, reverently, Mac took an old and scarred leather book out of the bag. "Mia gave me the go-ahead to scour her books."
"Then we'll use that when she gets pissy about me hauling them over here. I'm going to talk to Zack."
Sam jingled change in his pockets and paced again. "The Todds have been on the island as long as anyone can remember, and he's had his finger on the pulse of things all along. Maybe if I can think of the right questions, he'll have the right answers."
"We've got just over a week until the full moon."
"Start cramming, Professor." Sam checked his watch. "I've got to get to work. You come up with anything, let me know."
Mac grunted his assent, already absorbed in the first book.
Instead of going to his car, Sam followed the urge and walked down to the beach, heading toward the cave.
There had always been something pulling him there, even before Mia. As a little boy he'd slipped away from his mother or his nanny and wandered there. Even if it had been only to curl up and sleep. He could still remember the time - he had been only three - when the police had been called to search for him. Zack's father had rooted him out, scooping him out of a dream where he'd slept in the arms of a beautiful woman with red hair and gray eyes.
She'd sung to him in Gaelic, a story-song about a handsome silkie who had loved a witch, then had left her for the sea.
He'd understood her words, and the language of her song had become his own. When he was older, he and his friends had played inside the cave, used it as a fort, a submarine, a den of thieves. Still, he'd often gone in alone, sneaking out of the house after bedtime to stretch out on the floor, make a fire with a thought, and watch the flames play on the walls. As he'd grown from child to boy, the woman had come to his dreams less often, and less clearly. But he'd seen her in Mia. The two images had blurred in his mind until there had been only Mia. He stepped into the cave and could smell her. No, he corrected, fascinated. He could smell them both. The soft, herbal scent of the woman who had sung to him, and the deeper, richer scent of the woman he loved.
Mother, Mia had called her the night they'd seen her carry the pelt from this place. With the warmth of affection, the formality of respect, she had addressed the vision as though they had met many times before.
He supposed, though she'd never told him - even when she had seemed to tell him everything - that they had.
He crouched, studying the smooth cave floor where he had seen the man curled in sleep.
"You had my face," he said aloud. "Just as she had Mia's. Once I let myself believe that meant we weren't supposed to be together. It was one of my many excuses. You left. I left. But I came back."
He shifted, reading the words he had carved into the stone so long ago. As he read, he reached under his shirt to pull out the chain he wore. His foot tapped against something and sent it clinking against the stone.
With one hand closed around the ring he wore on the chain, he picked up its mate. The smaller ring was badly tarnished, but he could feel the carving that circled it. The same Celtic knot pattern that circled the one he'd found in the cave on the west coast of Ireland. The same pattern as the design Mia had etched under the promise he'd carved in stone.
Gently, he closed his fingers over the ring and brought out a dimly remembered spell suited to housewives. When he opened his hand again, the little ring gleamed silver. He studied it for a long time, then slid it onto the chain with its mate. In her office, Mia printed out e-mail orders, set them aside to fill, then efficiently began on the paperwork generated during her brief absence. She'd used the backlog as a legitimate excuse to leave the house early. Though, she recalled, Sam hadn't seemed eager to keep her around. By nine, she'd made considerable progress, and stopped to make her first phone call. She needed to
see her lawyer at the first opportunity and make a few adjustments to her will. She told herself she wasn't being fatalistic, just practical.
From her satchel she took some of the personal papers she'd brought from home. Her partnership agreement with Nell in Three Sisters Catering was in order. But she intended to leave Ripley her share, should anything happen.
She thought Nell would appreciate that.
As the will stood now, the bookstore went outright to Lulu, but she'd decided to change that and designate a percentage to Nell. Lulu, she had no doubt, would approve. And she intended to start a small trust fund for her sisters' children, including the deed for the yellow cottage. It was something she would do in any case.
She would leave her library to Mac, as he would make the best use of it. For Zack there was her star collection, and her great-grandfather's watch.
It was the sort of thing one left to a brother.
She would leave the house to Sam. She could trust him to preserve it, to see that her garden was tended. And to guard the heart of the island.
She put the papers in her bottom drawer, locked it. She didn't intend for any of these arrangements to be necessary anytime soon. But she strongly believed in being prepared. She gathered up the printouts, took them downstairs to fill the orders. And she got on with the day, and her life.
"Something is just not right."
"Yeah," Ripley agreed. "There are too many people on the beach, and half of them are idiots."
"Seriously, Ripley. I'm really worried about Mia. We only have a couple of days before the full moon."
"I know what day of the month it is. Look at that guy there, on the Mickey Mouse towel. Frying like a fish in a pan. Bet he's from Indiana or someplace and hasn't seen a beach before. Give me a minute here."
She marched across the sand, nudged the brilliantly pink man with her toe. Nell waited, shifting from foot to foot while Ripley launched into her lecture, pointed skyward, leaned down and poked a finger in the man's shoulder, as if testing doneness.
As she marched back, the man dug out sunscreen and began slathering it on.
"My public service for the week. Now, about Mia - "
"She's too calm. She's breezing along like it's business as usual. She came to the book club meeting last night. She's in there right now checking inventory. We're doing the biggest spell I've ever done in a matter of days, and she just pats me on the head and tells me it'll be fine."
"She's always had ice water for blood. What's new?"
"Ripley."
"All right, all right." With a huff of breath, Ripley marched along the seawall to finish her beach patrol.
"I'm worried, too. Satisfied? And if I wasn't, Mac's twitchy enough for both of us. He's buried himself in research, spends hours making notes. He thinks Mia has something going on that she's not telling us."
"So do I."
"That makes three of us. I don't know what the hell we're supposed to do about it."
"Zack and I have talked about it. We could confront her. All of us, at one time."
"What, like an intervention? Come on. You couldn't crack that woman with a sledgehammer. I wish I didn't like that about her."
"I had another idea. I thought that between the two of us, we could . . . well, if we were linked, we could get through this shield she's thrown up and see what she's thinking."
"You're talking about prying into her private thoughts, against her express wishes?"
"Yes. Forget I said it. It's rude and intrusive and sneaky."
"Yeah, that's why I like it. Great idea. I can take an hour . . ." She checked her watch. "Right now. Your place is closer."
Twenty minutes later, Ripley lay back on the floor of Nell's living room, panting and sweating. "God!
She is such a bitch. You've got to admire that."
"It's like trying to cut through concrete with a toothpick." Nell swiped her forearm over her brow. "It shouldn't be this hard."
"She figured we might try it. She was ready for us. Man, she is good. And she's got something to hide."
Ripley wiped her damp palms on her slacks. "Now I'm seriously worried. Let's tap Sam."
"We can't. Whatever she's protecting probably has to do with him. It wouldn't be right. Ripley, she loves him."
Staring at the ceiling, Ripley tapped her fingers over her stomach. "If that's her choice - "
"She hasn't made her choice. At least that she's letting on. She loves him, but as far as I can tell, it isn't making her happy."
"She never could be simple. You know what I think? I think she's going to go for it during the banishment spell. A double whammy. She's already made her decision, Nell. She doesn't do anything spur of the moment."
"Ripley, she said our babies would be safe."
"That's right."
"She never said she would be."
Sam loosened his tie as he watched Mac circle the outside of the cottage with one of his handheld gadgets. Every so often, Mac would detour, crouch, mutter.
"He puts on a real show, doesn't he?" At Sam's side, Ripley rocked back on her heels. "Since Mac's big production, he's been doing this check at our place, and at Lulu's, twice a day."
"What's all this about, Rip?" Sam had come straight from one meeting into what appeared to be another. Zack and Nell were due any minute. "Why are we doing whatever it is we're going to be doing without Mia?"
"This is Mac's deal. I've only got pieces of it." She cocked her head as Mac started back toward them.
"Okay, Dr. Booke, what's the story?"
"You keep this place tight," he said to Sam. "Good job."
"Thanks, Doc. Now what the hell is this about?"
"Let's wait for the others. I've got to get some stuff out of the car. Is Mia expecting you anytime soon?"
"I don't punch a time clock." Noting the easy humor that passed between his friends at the statement, Sam set his teeth. "Look, she'll be on her way home shortly. Lulu, who must've passed stubbornness on to Mia through osmosis, has moved back to her own place. I don't like Mia being alone for long."
"We'll get you off to play house," Ripley began, then saw the icy temper on Sam's face. "Hey, hey. Easy, Sam. We're on the same team, remember?"
"It's hot out here." With that, Sam turned and strode into the house.
"Edgy," Ripley said as he passed.
"Who isn't? Here come Nell and Zack. Let's get started."
Within ten minutes, Sam found his little cottage taken over. Nell, obviously anticipating the state of his supplies, had brought cookies and a cooler of iced tea. She managed to set it all up like a party even as Mac spread his notes and books over the table.
"Nell, would you sit down?" Zack tugged her toward a chair. "Get the kid off his feet for five minutes."
"Hey, I've got double." Ripley boosted herself onto the kitchen counter, snagged a cookie. "So, I'll start. Nell and I decided to do a little spying yesterday - "
"It wasn't spying."
"It would've been," Ripley said, "if we'd pulled it off. But we couldn't. Mia's totally blocked. She's got herself locked up like a vault."
"And you think this is news?" Sam asked.
"She's got something going on in that prissy brain of hers that she doesn't want anyone to know," Ripley continued. "It's irritating, but more, it's got us worried."
"She's worked out what she's going to do."
"I think you're right about that," Mac said to Sam. "The other night when we were together, she said something about knowing all the aspects, the interpretations. It got me thinking. On the surface, it's pretty cut and dried. Her task, let's call it, deals with love. Love without boundaries. We can take that to mean she's meant to love that way, or to let go, freely, of an attachment that restricted her. Sorry," he added.
"We've been through this before."
"Yeah, but what seems cut and dried rarely is. The first sister, her counterpart, trapped the man she loved. You take a silkie's pelt, you bind him to the land and to you. They had a life together, a family. But his feelings for her were a result of magic, not free will. When he found his pelt, he reverted, left her."
"He couldn't stay," Sam put in.
"No argument. Now, a possible interpretation is that Mia is required to find a love without boundaries. One that comes to her without qualification or magic. That just is what it is."
"I'm in love with her. I've told her."
"She has to believe you." Zack laid a hand on Sam's shoulder. "And either accept or let you go."
"But that's not the only interpretation. You need to follow along here." Mac picked up one of the old books, opened it to a section he had marked.
"This is a history of the island, written in the early seventeen hundreds, that used documents I've never seen. If Mia has those documents, you didn't get them from the library."
"She wouldn't keep them there." Worry clouded Sam's gaze. "She'd probably have them in her tower."
"I'd like to see them, but for our purposes, this is enough. It goes into the legend in some detail," Mac continued. "I'm going to hit the highlights."
He adjusted his glasses, skimmed down the yellowed page. " 'By magic it was formed, by magic it will thrive or perish. So the choices of the circle deem life or death, one times three. Blood of their blood, hand of their hand. The three who live must face the dark, each to her own.
" 'And Air must find her courage. To turn from what would destroy her or to stand against it.' You did both," Mac said to Nell. " 'When she will see herself, give herself for what she loves, the circle is unbroken. So Earth will seek her justice, without blade or lance. To shed no blood but her own in defense of what she is, and all she loves.' "
Ripley turned her hand palm up and studied the thin scar that slashed across it. "I guess we pulled that
one off."
"You had a choice." Mac turned to her. "More of a choice than we'd realized. 'And when her justice is meted with compassion, the circle is unbroken. Thus Fire must look into her heart, open it and leave it bare. To see love with no boundaries and offer for what she holds dear, life. When her heart is free, the circle is unbroken. The power of the Three will join, will hold. Four elements rise and end the Dark.' "
"Sacrifice? Her life ?" Sam surged forward. "She can sacrifice her life?"
"Hang on." Zack clamped his hands on Sam's shoulders. "Is that how you're reading this, Mac?"
"You could interpret this that any one of them could have given her life, for the others. For us. For courage, for justice, for love. This book came out of Mia's library, so it's an option she's aware of. The question is, is it one she would consider?"
"Yes." Pale now, Nell looked at Ripley. "We all would have."
Ripley nodded. "If she thinks it's the only way. But she wouldn't." Uneasy, she pushed herself off the counter. "She would pit her power against anyone or anything."
"It's not enough." Sam fisted his hands as if he could clamp the fury and fear inside them. "Not close to enough. I'm not standing back while she considers dying to save a few square miles of dirt. We're going to put a stop to this."
"You know better." As her nerves built, Ripley yanked off her cap. "You can't stop what's been in motion for centuries. I tried, and it ran right over me."
"Your life's not on the line, is it?"
If she'd seen only anger, she might have snapped back at him. But she saw fear as well. "What do you say we both take it out on Mia after this is done?"
"Deal." He gave her shoulders a squeeze, then dropped his hands. "There's no point in confronting her about this: We won't budge her. Dragging her bodily off the island won't change anything. The last step has to be taken, and it's best that it be taken here. It's meant to be taken here. With all of us."
"Center of power," Mac agreed. "Her center, her circle. Her power's the most refined, and it's the strongest. But that leads me to conclude that what's going to come against her will build its power to match."
"There are more of us now," Nell pointed out. She reached out a hand for her husband's, laid the other on her belly. "Linked, our energy is formidable."
"There are other sources of power." Sam nodded as the idea formed. "We use them. All of them."
His mind was clear, his thoughts controlled when he walked into the house on the cliff. Mia wasn't the only one who could block.
He found her in the garden, calmly sipping a glass of wine while a butterfly fluttered in the palm of her
outstretched hand.
"Now that's a picture," he said as he kissed the top of her head, then sat across from her. "How was your day?"
She said nothing for a moment, studied his face, sipped her wine. What was inside her yearned under the steel of her will. "Busy, productive. Yours?"
"The same. Some kid stuck his head through the iron pickets on one of the balconies. He took it pretty well, but his mother screamed the roof off and wanted us to cut through. As there was no way I was damaging a centuries-old rail, I was about to flick him free with a quick spell. The housekeeper beat me to it. Slathered his head with baby oil and popped him out like a cork."
She smiled, and was obliging enough to hand him her wine for a sip. But her eyes were watchful, wary.
"I imagine he enjoyed the entire thing. Sam, I noticed some of my books are missing from the library."
"Mmm?" He held out a finger so the butterfly on her palm flew gracefully to him, perched. "You said I could use the library."
"Where are the books?"
He passed the wine and the butterfly back to her. "I spent some time looking through some of them, thinking I might find some fresh angle on this whole business."
"Oh." A chill shivered around her heart. "And?"
"Never claimed to be a scholar," he said with a shrug. "I mentioned it to Mac in passing, and he asked if he could borrow them. I didn't think you'd mind."
"I'd prefer that the books stay in the house."
"Oh. Well, I'll get them back. You know, sitting out here with you like this feels . . . perfect. And every time I look at you, my heart rolls over in my chest. That feels perfect, too. I love you, Mia."
Her lashes lowered. "I should do something about dinner."
When she rose, he took her hand. "I'll help you." He kept his fingers linked with hers as he got to his feet. "There's no need for you to do all the work."
Don't touch me, she thought. Not yet. Not now. "I'm better . . . in the kitchen, by myself."
"Make room," he suggested. "I'm not going anywhere."
