Darkmoon (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill Book 3) (27 page)

He inclined his head slightly but remained silent, waiting to hear what I was going to say.

“Did you love Nizhoni?
Do
you love her?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “I did, and I do. It was wrong of me to say nothing, and ever since I lost her, I have berated myself for my silence, but — ”

“That’ll work for now,” I broke in. “And Nizhoni, did you love Jeremiah?”

Silence. The air was so still that I thought I could hear the thudding of the blood in my ears, the faint creak of Jeremiah’s boots as he shifted his weight. What if she wouldn’t admit it? I didn’t have much left in my bag of tricks.

Something in the proud set of her shoulders seemed to slump, and she whispered, “Yes. I did. I was weak. I should not have allowed myself to care for him. I — ”

Her next words were smothered, however, as Jeremiah strode forward, took her in his arms, and kissed her so thoroughly that I found myself staring, embarrassed, at the ground, although I could still catch a glimpse of what they were doing out of the corner of my eye. After a brief, muffled sound, she made no protest, her arms tightening around him, drawing him close.

As they kissed, the stream grew brighter and brighter, looking like a ribbon of molten silver in the dark landscape. At last they broke apart, but I noticed their fingers were still intertwined, as if, after spending so many years apart, they could not bear to be separated again.

“Will you come with me now, beloved?” Jeremiah asked softly.

“Yes, my husband.” She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it softly. Pale metal glinted on his finger as she did so, and I realized he was still wearing a wedding ring. The briefest glance over her shoulder at me, and she said, “Be happy, Angela. For you will be alive to see your children grow to adulthood.”

Then they were moving away from me, somehow stepping onto the gleaming surface of the water, walking along it as if it were simply a pathway, until the light surrounded them. It seemed to flow over their limbs, embracing them, and then they were gone, the stream now looking like just an ordinary stream, all trace of that extraordinary silver light disappearing as if it had never been.

I stood there in the dark starlit night, pulling in one deep, heaving breath after another. Nizhoni was gone, and she had taken her curse with her. The Wilcoxes were free.

I was free.

Stepping out of the little stand of cottonwoods, I expected to see the empty fields and hillsides around me gradually fill in with the shapes of the houses and roads and walls that should be standing here…but they didn’t. Nothing changed, and I felt a stirring of fear inside me.

So Jeremiah and Nizhoni had gotten their happy ending…but did they have to leave me here in the otherworld she’d created with no way out?

Okay, Angela,
I told myself.
Breathe. You just accomplished the impossible, so getting out of here can’t be too hard compared to that.

I thought of where I was. Northwest of downtown, with high hills on either side. That was clear enough in my head from looking at Google maps. Now I just had to visualize how everything had appeared before Nizhoni’s reality took over — the dry creek bed with the bridge over it, the big houses to either side, sitting on their half- and third-acre plots.

So I closed my eyes and brought those pictures up in mind, recalling every last detail I could, right down to the fancy wooden playhouse/slide/swing-set combo I’d spotted in someone’s backyard. There. That should do it.

But when I looked around me, nothing had changed. Same cottonwoods, same stream moving briskly within its banks. Same vast, vast emptiness, with nothing around me except miles and miles of ponderosa pines.

My heart began to hammer in my chest.
Just walk,
I told myself.
It’s better than standing here and doing nothing.

Seeming to move of their own accord, my feet took me away from the little grove where Nizhoni’s bones rested, down the creek, down in the general direction of the town center. What would happen if I made it all the way there, I wasn’t sure. Would I find an older version of Flagstaff, or nothing at all?

No, that wasn’t right. If I had somehow gotten stuck back in 1876, there wouldn’t even be a Flagstaff in the place I was looking.

A little sob caught in the back of my throat, but I kept going. I wouldn’t stop now, no matter what, not even if I walked over this stony ground until my flip-flops broke apart. If I made myself keep on, maybe I could still get back to Connor somehow. I tried to make myself feel the shape of his hand beneath mine, the way it had been resting when I went into the otherworld, but I couldn’t. My fingers were cold in the chilly night breeze, unwarmed by his flesh.

I don’t know how long I walked. The darkness never changed, and neither did the landscape. That is, maybe there were slight variations in the shapes of the hills and the locations of the trees, but I never saw a single sign of life. No buildings, no roads, no people.

Until….

Her back was to me, her long black hair lifting in a faint breeze that seemed to have sprung up out of nowhere. I froze, wondering if this was Nizhoni, returned from wherever she’d gone with Jeremiah. Had she come back to help me?

My pace quickened, gravel crunching under my feet, and the woman turned. No, this was not Nizhoni. Only the silky dark hair was the same, hanging almost to her waist. But this woman was older, her face more oval.

And then I realized who it was.

“Marie?” I said, voice incredulous, cracking a little on the second syllable. “What — what are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to take you home,” she replied calmly, as if running into each other in this place was the most natural thing in the world. “I felt — I could tell you were having some trouble.”

“Were you watching me? How did you know I was here?” My voice sharpened. “Did you see what happened with Nizhoni and Jeremiah?”

“I had a vision of you here, and knew I must come.” Head tilting to one side, she asked, “What is this about Nizhoni and Jeremiah?”

“The curse is broken,” I said simply.

Her eyes shut, and she whispered something under her breath. “So it did come to pass. I wasn’t sure — ”

“Yeah, it might have been good to know you weren’t feeling totally certain, but since you bailed on us and only left a note — ” 

“I am sorry about that. It was just” — she made an impatient gesture with one hand, as if trying to wave away something that had irritated her —“it became too difficult for me, because I knew you would learn about your father, and then all those memories I had tried to push away for so many years would come flooding back. I went back to the reservation, to surround myself with stillness, to keep myself from knowing the truth. It was weak of me, and I apologize, but I did not want to know what had become of him, how he had moved on with his life. ”

“But he hasn’t,” I said, my tone softer than I would have expected it to be. Maybe it was simply that I’d just seen how much damage love thwarted could do. “He’s hidden himself all these years, waiting for tonight to come, but I don’t think there’s ever been anyone else. He never stopped loving you.”

Her eyes widened, and it seemed as if she was struggling within herself, struggling to believe what I had just told her. Then she stood up a little taller, her shoulders straightening, and she said simply, “Then I think it’s time for both of us to go home.”

M
arie took
my hand firmly in hers, and we walked along the creek bed, heading south and east. This time, though, the empty fields and thickly growing pines began to fade away, replaced with the familiar sprawl of suburbia. And as the real world fell in around us, we began to move faster and faster, not flying as I had in some of my meditations, but still doing a credible imitation of The Flash as we covered the miles to downtown in only a few seconds.

At the last minute she let go of my hand, and I felt my consciousness fall into my body with an almost physical thud. My eyes shot open, and I saw Lawrence and my father watching me in concern, even as Connor’s fingers clasped mine and he said,

“Angela? What happened?”

It all seemed to hit me at once — Nizhoni, and Jeremiah, and how they had walked away from me up that shining creek, going into the light. “It’s over,” I whispered. For some reason, my throat felt as dry as if I’d walked a hundred miles of desert road.

“What do you mean, ‘it’s over’?” Connor asked.

“The curse. It’s broken. They made up, and he kissed her, and they went into the light together.”

None of that was probably very coherent, but he seemed to get the gist of it, because his eyes lit up and he pulled me against him, kissing my mouth and my cheeks and my forehead while somehow laughing at the same time. I didn’t mind, even when he missed and kissed my eyelid. After all, it was Connor, and just to feel him and hear him was enough for me.

When he pulled away, though, he frowned, reaching out to touch my cheek. “You’re hurt.”

“Just a scrape,” I said, so giddy with everything that had happened that I’d honestly forgotten about the cut on my face. “I’ll clean it up later.”

He didn’t protest, although he did reach over and pick up a napkin from the coffee table and hand it to me. I pressed it against my skin, finally feeling the sting of the wound, although it didn’t hurt nearly as much as it had when I first got it.

“You have done very well,” Lawrence said, and my father nodded.

“We’ll want to hear the whole story soon, but for now, let me get you a glass of water.”

That sounded like a great idea. I watched him rise from his chair and head to the kitchen, and my gaze strayed to the clock on the wall in the dining room. Ten past ten. So I’d been gone for only a few minutes.

Or an eternity, depending on how you looked at it.

I heard the clink of ice in the glass, and then the soft gush of water from the dispenser in the refrigerator door. As my father was leaving the kitchen, there came a soft knock at the front door. He stopped in the hallway, looking back toward us where we sat in the living room. “Should I get that?”

“I don’t know who it could be, but yeah, might as well,” Connor said. “I doubt they’d be dropping by at this hour if it wasn’t important.”

My father nodded and went over to the door, opening it with his free hand. Since he was blocking the doorway, I couldn’t see who was there — but when the glass of ice water fell from his hand and shattered on the wooden floor, scattering ice cubes everywhere, I thought I had a pretty good idea.

“Hello, Andre,” Marie said.

I
t was
, as they say, an evening of surprises. Once my father got over his shock, he brought Marie into the living room, then apologized about the mess and fetched me another glass of water. Then it was time to tell the story as they all listened intently, exclaiming at certain points — how Jeremiah had never kidnapped his bride, how he and Nizhoni had reconciled at the end — until at last we all sat there quietly, exhausted and overwhelmed. So much had changed, and yet —

Connor was sitting close enough that we were thigh to thigh, his warmth as always reassuring, solid, real. And so some things, the important things, were still the same. We had each other.

And now…now we had a future.

He did try teasing Marie about her disappearing act, but she’d only said, “There are some times when a person needs to be alone. This was one of those times.” Her expression had been calm enough, but there was a certain sharpness to her dark eyes that told me she wasn’t going to tolerate any more questions on the subject.

Luckily, he backed off. I got the feeling that he didn’t want to push her, not when my father was sitting there and watching her with an expression of pure wonder on his face. It was clear that he didn’t care that she wasn’t the laughing, pretty young woman she’d once been. She was his Marie, and that was all that mattered.

They left together, taking Lawrence with them. It was a long drive back to Cameron, but I had a feeling they wouldn’t mind too much. After all, they had a lot of catching up to do.

Connor shut the door after they were gone and raked a hand through his shaggy hair. “I don’t — ” He broke off, shaking his head. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

“I do,” I said, going to him and putting his hand on the slight curve of my belly. “We can begin right here.”

He let his fingers rest there for a minute, then smiled, as if it had finally hit him that there wouldn’t be any more doubt or worry, no fears that I wouldn’t be around to be a mother to these children. I would see them take their first steps…say their first words. And, since witch blood almost always bred true, cast their first spells.

Connor and I would be there for all of it. Together.

“
O
kay
,” I told Sydney, since she hadn’t said one word, only stood there staring at me. “You can be honest. Do I look like a complete heifer?”

She blinked, then shook her head vigorously. “No. Oh, God, Angela, you’re
perfect
. Look.”

Then she turned me around so I could take a look at myself in the full-length mirror. She’d spent all day doing my hair and my makeup and my nails, helping me get dressed, but she hadn’t let me see what she was doing, saying she wanted me to see it all when she was done so I could get the full effect.

Well, I was definitely getting the full effect now.

The gown had a high A-line waist to accommodate my baby bump, but even though I was almost six months pregnant, the crisp raw silk seemed to fall away from my stomach rather than accentuate it. The wide straps and the bodice were sewn with tiny crystals, the only ornamentation on the dress, and they sparkled as I turned to look at myself from different angles. Sydney had also curled my hair and put it up, a simple veil falling partway down my back. The antique diamond earrings Aunt Rachel had loaned me glittered as well. And the makeup was perfect, my eyes looking enormous, my mouth touched with color but not so much that it competed with the way Syd had done up my eyes. Eleanor, the Wilcox healer, had made sure that the cut on my cheek healed without a scar, so there was nothing to mar the perfection Sydney had just created.

“Wow,” I said at last.

“I know, right?” She stepped away, surveying me with a critical eye in case she’d missed anything. Apparently she hadn’t, because she gave a nod and pronounced, “It really is perfect. And you’re looking perfectly boobalicious in that dress. Connor’s going to pass out.”

“Sydney!”

“Well, it’s true. Pregnancy’s done great things for your chesticular region. Makes me want to get knocked up myself.”

“I’m pretty sure there are easier ways to make your boobs look bigger,” I told her, then turned away from the mirror so I could step into my shoes. The heels were pretty high, so I had been putting off wearing them until the last minute. “Anyway, you know how big a pain it was to find a dress that worked for me, so I doubt you’d really want to go through that when your own wedding is only six months off.”

Syd and Anthony had gotten engaged over Labor Day weekend. She was already plotting her nuptials with a vengeance, probably making Anthony very glad that he was currently embroiled in negotiations for purchasing a vineyard down in Page Springs…with a little funding assistance from Connor.

“You’re right, of course.” She went over to the mirror and cast a critical eye over her own makeup, which of course was flawless, as was the fit of the sky blue gown she wore, the beading on the bodice echoing that of my own.

I could hear laughter just outside the room, and Mason and Carla came in, also wearing long bridesmaids’ gowns that coordinated with Sydney’s, only in a soft coral-pink shade. “You’ve definitely got a packed house, Angela. Or I guess I should say ‘packed garden,’” Carla added with a grin.

Well, when you combined the Wilcox and McAllister clans, you ended up with a pretty big gathering. To maintain the fragile peace between the two families, Connor and I had decided to have the wedding in Sedona. It would have been easier in a lot of ways to use the country club near our house, but asking all the McAllisters to go blithely trooping into what a good number of them still considered to be enemy territory felt like a bit much. So we compromised.

Not that having the wedding in a garden overlooking West Sedona with red rock views on every side could really be called a “compromise.”

“Everything’s ready,” Mason added. “Your aunt sent us in here to see how you’re doing.”

“Just fine,” I told her. “I was just climbing into these torture devices that Sydney insisted I had to have.”

“Hey, they’re totally hot,” she protested. “It’s okay to suffer a little for fashion.”

“I’ll remember to tell you that when you’re six months pregnant and your feet are starting to swell up.” Since I’d been practicing walking in the strappy sandals, at least I didn’t wobble as I took a few experimental steps, then turned. “Everything looking okay?”

“You’re beautiful,” Mason said sincerely. “Connor’s eyes are going to pop out of his head.”

“Well, I hope they stay where they are, but thanks.”

She grinned, and Carla added, “So can I tell them we’re go for launch?”

“Yes,” I told her. “I’m ready.”

At least, I thought I was. Oh, I wanted to be married to Connor, no question about that. But part of me had thought it might have been easier for us to simply go to the courthouse and make things official in a much more subdued way. He wouldn’t hear of that, though, saying that weddings were a big deal in his family and that people would feel cheated if they couldn’t see us get married. Whatever lingering suspicions some of the Wilcoxes might have harbored concerning Connor’s and my connection pretty much evaporated once word got out that I had broken the curse. And the discovery that my father was the long-lost Andre Wilcox probably didn’t hurt, either.

It was a little tougher on the McAllister side, but people were gradually accepting the situation. That was all I could really ask for; the prejudices of generations couldn’t be put aside in a day. I had, however, informed Margot Emory of the truth of the situation, and, true to form, she hadn’t really apologized for the misinformation she’d given me, but only tilted her head to one side, gave me a tight-lipped smile, and said, “Oh, so that’s what really happened? How…
romantic
.” And the way she said “romantic” made it sound just the opposite.

Well, she hadn’t been there, and I wasn’t going to bother trying to change how she viewed the matter. The important thing was that she’d spoken with the other elders, and they’d agreed — if somewhat grudgingly — that they would take down the wards that had been protecting Jerome from any Wilcox incursions. A small step, but one I appreciated. The last thing I’d wanted was Mason and Carla to get zapped when they were coming over to look at bridesmaids’ dresses.

Now Syd went over to the door of the suite I was using for a dressing room and cracked it an inch. “Looks like everyone’s seated, pretty much. I’ll go give Rachel the signal.” She slipped out and disappeared around a corner, while Mason went over to the suite’s mini-fridge and extracted a bottle of water. “Do you want one, Angela?”

“Better not. Sydney will kill me if I mess up this lipstick.”

She smiled and cracked the lid on the bottle, sipping at the water before sealing it again. I could understand her wanting to stay hydrated; now that it was mid-September, temperatures were starting to drop somewhat, but it was still fairly warm outside.

The door opened, and Sydney stuck her head inside. “Okay, we’re really ready. So everyone get their game face on!”

They didn’t exactly plaster on beauty-queen smiles, but both Carla and Mason perked up a bit, then went to retrieve their bouquets from where they’d been sitting on top of the dresser. Sydney came into the room and got hers, then handed me mine.

I grasped the bundle of snow white and pale pink peonies, fingers tightening around the tightly bound stems. This was really it.

“You’re going to be fine,” she murmured. “You look amazing, and you couldn’t have ordered a more perfect day. Or did Adam have something to do with that?”

As a matter of fact, he had, but I thought it better to let that go for now. I just gave her what I hoped was an enigmatic smile and said, “No comment.”

“That’s what I thought. Okay, Cinderella, time to go.”

I had to laugh at that, and followed her and the other two girls out of the room. They all went on ahead of me, but I paused at the tall hedge that separated the garden area where the ceremony was being held from the rooms at the hilltop hotel.

“Angela.”

I turned at my father’s voice, and had to pull in a deep breath at the sight of him standing there in a gray suit, his hair pulled back into a neat ponytail. He looked so handsome…and happy. Then again, he had every reason to be. He’d been reunited with Marie, and had moved in with her. They hadn’t talked much about marriage, maybe not wanting to overshadow Connor’s and my nuptials. Or maybe they knew that, after their long separation, they didn’t need a piece of paper to tell them that they’d never leave one another’s side again. And I won’t say that Connor didn’t tease me from time to time about having Marie as the equivalent of a stepmother, but I found I didn’t mind so much. Like a lot of other people, she’d mellowed a good deal over the past few months.

“I’m so proud of you,” my father said, and I felt tears prick at my eyes.