Birthright (Residue Series #2) (28 page)

He gently placed his palm against mine and the contours
nestled
perfectly together
, but
he hesitated.

“Just a second,” he said
,
and
whispered
an incantation under his breath as every candle in the room flickered to life. Noting my amazement, he explained, “I’ve been working on that.”

Despite myself, I laughed quietly, something he clearly appreciated
,
which made him visibly
loosen up
.

I
then
took a deep breath to calm myself, and realized we hadn’t mentioned who would go first. I was so unprepared when Jameson’s memories began whipping through my mind
,
I shook from the intensity of it.
Relaxing
, as Miss Celia instructed,
I
watched as he learned to crawl, play
ed
in the yard with his siblings, and solved a calculus problem perfectly without any extraneous scribbling.
Next,
I encountered the memories that
helped shape
him: The beating of a woman outside a storefront by a man with an
moldavite
cane, which was quickly blocked by Mrs. Caldwell; His first supply trip to the village with canvas bags stacked behind him like a mound of enormous marbles and his father at the helm of the boat; Jameson holding the hand of a woman dying in her bed.

“Jocelyn,” Jameson whispered
,
suddenly
,
and I opened my eyes to find him standing across the room, grinning excitedly.

I drew in a quick breath. “When did you…? How long have you been there…standing there?”

“A few minutes.”

My disbelief waned and exhilaration took its place. “Were you still…? Could you see my memories?”

He nodded with assurance, his handsome face still beaming.
He
rushed across the room and pulled me to a standing position. Acknowledging his error, he immediately stepped back and dropped his hands to his side. It didn’t deter his excitement, though.

“I’ve never heard of anyone doing what we just did. Never.”

We stood,
astonished
in quiet disbelief. Then
,
Jameson said something that made my stomach tighten. “I’m glad it’s with you.”

I knew exactly what he meant
, too,
because I felt the same way. Neither of us could have asked for anyone better to share what we were experiencing. I felt perfectly entwined with him, standing there in the middle of the room, as if everything in the world were right again. Of course, that wasn’t the case.

“I didn’t see anything about your father
;
I think we
need to learn to control the kind of memories we release. One of them you won’t want anyone else to know.”

At that warning
,
I froze
, waiting
for him to tell me he knew my deepest darkest secret, the one that involved taking his life.

“If someone were to stumble on that one…” He allowed his voice to drift away
,
because his intensely cautious expression delivered his message with the same impact.

Noticing my terrified expression, he said, “You aren’t safe with that rope, Jocelyn.”

The rope, I pondered. And then it came to me. The Rope of The Sevens. It was the one possession of mine that could end up killing everyone or saving them
,
depending upon whether I got a chance to use it before The Sevens
found out
I had it. I
breathed a sigh of relief, allowing myself to relax.
At least part of me did.

“If you feel comfortable,” he ventured, “could I see it?”

“Of course…
sure
,” I replied, already moving to the cut out in the wall near my bedroom window. “Why would you think I wouldn’t let you?”

“Jocelyn, it’s not something you should…” He sighed
,
and tenderly
said
, “Just keep it a secret?”

I glanced over my shoulder and found a concerned expression tarnishing his gorgeous
features.
“I am, Jameson.”

“Good.” He sounded relieved
,
so I turned back to
retrieve
the rope.

I found it ironic that the person who should fear me was concerned for my safety.

Focusing on carefully pulling open the piece of wall hiding the rope, I leaned back
, revealing
a compartment and the metal box inside.

Jameson chuckled. “That’s…clever.”

“I know,” I replied
,
casually
,
and he laughed again at my arrogance.

I hadn’t touched the box since I put it there and that’s exactly how it looked, dusted with cobwebs and dirt. After scooping them away, I turned
,
holding it in my hands,
and
made an arch around the window
,
to avoid anyone who might be spying.
It
may have been the actions of a paranoid person
,
but I didn’t care. With this type of object
,
I had every reason to be.

As I settled the box on the floor where we had been sitting before
,
Jameson
leaned over across from me.

“The Rope of The Sevens,” I announced and opened the box.

Then Jameson sank to his knees, dazed by the sight.

Seven pieces of dried skin wrapped around a thick cable of multi-colored hair.

“So this is what The Sevens are so desperate to find…”

I nodded.

“I can see why.”

Perplexed, I glanced up at him
. “What do you mean?”

“In order to cast hexes against another, at least the more potent ones, a piece of the person’s body is needed. Cutting off a limb or pulling out a tooth would be a little too obvious so people typically resort to the body parts that go unnoticed, parts that won’t be missed. Meaning…the parts that fall off or are taken off the body such as hair and fingernails.”

“Or hair and skin,” I mused. “Like what The Rope of The Sevens is made of…”

“Exactly.
However,
they created their rope for a different reason-”

“To keep the other Sevens in line.”

“That’s right. For the rest of us, when we are using hair or nails in a cast, it’s the best way to ensure that cast isn’t traced back to us. If the person you are casting on doesn’t know their hair or nails are gone
, they
won’t think to look for who took them, keeping the caster anonymous. It’s the reason why people burn hair from their combs and bury their fingernails at night.”

My eyebrows
rose with
that disclosure. “They do?”

He laughed at my innocence
, a deep, seductive, hearty chuckle
. “Sure.” Seeing the look of abhorrence on my face, he clarified, “Not me. Anything that comes off my body is immediately washed down the drain.”

That was consoling,
until
he made his next statement.

“Dillon has everyone’s hair in this house
, in fact
.”

“This house?” I asked, motioning to the floor of Aunt Lizzy’s guest bedroom and the rooms on both sides.

“Yes,” he said
,
matter-of-factly.

“Mine, too?”

“Everyone’s. You’re Weatherfords, Jocelyn. My family has had defensive measures in place for a long time - in case we ever needed to use them.”

“Have you used them?” I blurted, astounded they had that ability.

“No, we have never used your hair or anyone else’s in this house.”

“Because all serious casts were done by the Vires,” I concluded.

“That’s right.”

Realizing we were at his mercy
then, I asked,
“Will you burn our hair and bury our fingernails?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Sure, yes, I can do that. Dillon won’t like it
,
but I’ll get it done.”

“He won’t like it?” I asked, bemused.

“Dillon likes peculiar tools in his collection
.
Hair and nails, body parts in general, from the notorious Weatherfords definitely fall in that category.”

My eyebrows rose
again,
at that admission.

“I know…I know.” Apparently, he agreed that his brother’s hobby was a little strange.

“Thank you for getting rid of them,” I said
,
sincerely
,
and he nodded
as
silence
curiously
stifled
the room.

When my head dipped
,
I
came to stare
at the rope
,
and it triggered a
revelation.

“Mrs. Gaul must have our hair…” I speculated.

“Would make sense. She’d need it to do what she did.”

I sighed
, looking up at him,
stricken momentarily by the
mesmerizing
color of his eyes. They seemed particularly translucent in the light of my lamp. Unfortunately, the disturbing
acknowledgement
of my birthright edged its way in
to my consciousness,
again,
and I dropped my gaze. “To steal something from someone else, something off their own body, and use it against them. It’s just…malicious…”

“An intrusion,” he agreed.

“Yes, it is.”

My next thought didn’t
set
well in my stomach
, either
. “If they – the Vires – have our hair
,
they can cast against us again.”

“They could but they won’t,” assured Jameson.

“Why not?”

“They’ve already tried it. Now they’ll want us
as a whole
,
so they can eliminate us as a threat.”

Reflecting further, deep
down, I already knew
this
was the case.

Jameson closed the metal box and replaced it in the wall,
wedging
the cut out door back in place to conceal it. Then
,
he
was standing
in the center of my room.

“I guess…I guess I’ll see you at school,” he
said under his breath,
and
collected
his leather jacket from where it was draped over my chair.

With every step toward the door
,
it felt like another weight landed on my chest
,
and
there was
another
tug on
my heart.

“Don’t-” I said
, but
stopped myself from finishing
,
because I knew the next word would be “go.”

He paused to look back at me
,
waiting for me to finish.

Stay, I thought, stay with me. But these words wouldn’t formulate when
my
logical side remembered the repercussions they would
deliver.

My mouth was still
agape,
and he was waiting
,
so I
swiftly
filled in the rest of my sentence. “Don’t let the Vires see you leaving the house.”

If he knew what I had first meant to say, he didn’t show it. Instead, he reassured me. “I won’t.”

He
opened my door
then and checked
the hallway
, making
sure it was empty, before slipping
into the darkness.

My feet craved to move in his direction,
but they
remained planted in place by sheer will. Only when I was certain he was gone
,
did I allow myself to
voice
what I’d really wanted
to say
as he slipped from my room.

“Good night, Jameson…
I love you
…
”

The next morning
,
I woke up thinking of Jameson, impatient to see him again.
Acknowledging
the jeopardy of
allowing
my emotions
to drift
in that direction, I silently chastised myself
, trying
my best to keep images of Jameson from
invading
my thoughts
, which
was extremely challenging.