Healing Hands (The Queen of the Night series Book 2) (14 page)

Chapter Twenty

Family Tree

The bell rang. The time had come for me to meet Steve for lunch. Evan sat next to me in Psychology. He didn’t get up right away. He grimaced. “I still don’t like that you’re dating him. I have a bad feeling about it.”

“I’ll be fine.”  I didn’t say the first words which came to mind,
I can take care of myself
, because they sounded cliché and Evan wouldn’t believe me anyway, but they were true.

“Tell me what happens tomorrow,” he ordered.

I agreed.

Then he said, “Better yet, come to dinner after chorale tomorrow night. There’s something I want to show you.”

“Okay.”

***

When I got to the cafeteria and scanned the room, I instantly spotted Steve. He sat in the center, at the largest table, surrounded by either friends or acolytes, I wasn’t sure which. I’d been so wrapped up in my own affairs during the first five weeks at this school, I’d never bothered to look around the room identifying the cliques and their pecking order. His stood at the very top of the order; the largest clique, and he reigned. I took a deep breath and headed over apprehensively, noting no empty seats at the table.

“Here she is,” he announced when I’d reached hailing distance.

I walked up next to him shyly, and he gave me one of those huge charismatic smiles engineered to disarm even the most stalwart foe. I held my ground and smiled back. “Hi.”

“Come here,” he held out a hand.

I took it and he effortlessly lifted me onto his lap. I understood. I was the King’s shiny new toy, not requiring a chair of my own. Perhaps he wanted to clearly convey to everyone else in the school how I had been placed under his protection, so I would be welcomed into his inner circle. He might have done it for both those reasons. One thing I knew for sure. If he’d wanted to, he would have saved me a seat. He didn’t because he had specific reasons for having me on his lap, so I gave him the barest of nods and a smile. He gave me the most imperceptible pat on the knee, to acknowledge my understanding of his strategy and to say ‘Good girl’.

After introducing me to everyone, he involved me in every thread of the conversation. Where necessary, he explained backstory, so I always felt included. When possible, he sought my opinion, or asked me to share an anecdote of my own. He was, truly, a gracious and magnanimous king. Finally, he lifted me off his lap and asked if he could walk me to sixth period Pre-Calc. I let him. On the way, he asked if he could start picking me up and taking me home after school. I would have opted for the school bus, just to avoid being helped in and out of his vehicle, if it weren’t for curious stares of onlookers who awaited my response, so I agreed. Pleased with his world, Steve kissed my forehead lightly, and left me outside the door to my next class.

I heaved a deep sigh and entered it.

That evening, when I’d returned from working with Fiona in the store, I decided to get back into practicing my forms. One thing us city girls learn early on is the value of a good self-defense class. Through the Santa Monica Parks and Recreation Department, I’d taken three. I’d also taken Beginning Judo and four years of Tai Chi. At Samohi I’d taken two years of Yoga. I’d stopped working out after Mom got sick in November. It was time to get back into shape.

***

I didn’t share any of these concerns with Evan on the way to chorale, willing to talk about everything except Steve.

“Did he do anything to hurt you?” Evan asked in the car.

“No,” I replied.

“Has he tried to get you to sleep with him?”

“No.”

“Okay,” he let it drop.

***

After practice and another enjoyable meal with Evan’s family, he took me upstairs to his mother’s studio. There, spread out on her easels, were the four poster boards of my family tree. He dragged them over near the sitting area. On the coffee table sat a stack of composition books. A few looked much older and worn than others. I sat down on one of the love seats and glanced through them. They were all labeled in Evan’s hand. I looked up at him.

“What do your dream diaries have to do with my family tree?”

“Apparently, they have a lot to do with your family. Here, let me read one of my dreams to you.” 

I sat back to listen.

He began to read, “Ewan Stewart, age 42, recently widowed, takes his boat out on Cheat Lake for a bit of nighttime fishing in early September nineteen years ago. He used to fish with his wife, but she died unexpectedly of cancer two months earlier, so he’s alone. People joke it’s cheating, and not sporting, to fish in Cheat Lake because with mountains protecting the lake from all sides, there’s no wind and no waves to scare off the fish. It’s literally like shooting fish in a barrel.

That’s not entirely true, because the tourists, with their noise and their motorboats, scare all the fish away, so Ewan likes to fish at night, when it’s silent, and the big fish come to the surface. He rows out to the center and loads bait onto his hook. He’s aware the moon is full. It’s particularly bright and lovely, so he softly whistles an off-key tune and prepares to cast off. Suddenly, something that has never occurred on Cheat Lake happens. A huge, unnatural wave, cresting at eight feet, crashes over him and capsizes his boat. The next morning it is discovered. They send in divers and recover his body later the same day.”  He looked up from the journal.

“Okay,” I said pensively, still not making a connection. Evan pointed to one of the poster boards.

“There,” he said, “is Ewan Stewart, your father’s father. He died under these unusual circumstances four months after your parents eloped.”

I thought back to a conversation we’d had right after mom died. Rose had recounted my mother’s fear that Arianrhod would kill her parents in retaliation for her marriage to my father.

“What else have you got?”

“In a nutshell, here’s what I’ve found. Margaret Running Deer Stewart develops stage 4 cancer suddenly in May of the same year. Two months later she’s dead.”

“She developed inoperable and widespread cancer suddenly without any warning signs. That sounds really familiar, Evan.”  I was more than unnerved, I was scared.

“There’s so much more. Your other grandparents, Kyle McGuire and Kathryn MacDougall are killed in July of the same year after being hit by a tractor trailer on a stormy night. In my dream vision, the trucker claimed his vision was obscured by a magical plant which grew like a vine over his dashboard and covered his front window so he couldn’t see. Afterward, no evidence of a plant was found in the truck.”

“It could have been a gnome working for Arianrhod.”

“That’s what I’ve come to believe as well. At the time, everyone, including the judge and jury assumed the trucker was drunk even though his blood test showed no alcohol at all in his system. He was sentenced to life in prison. He died a few years back.”

“You think Arianrhod really did kill my family.”

“I do, but in at least one case, she also had help from her spies. The morning of November the first I woke up from a dream about your father.”

I groaned. “What happened to him?”  The military had never released the details behind his death.

“He was conducting a covert operation behind enemy lines on the night of a new moon, when there was no moonlight at all in the sky. Suddenly, the Queen of the Night reflected light off her own magical face from the heavenly realm and cast the rays on your father’s exact position. To the Taliban, it looked like the moon was shining on him. He was shot by an enemy sniper. He died the same night Logan picked me to be his student. I’m sorry, Mags.”

I sighed. “It was a long time ago. I’ve come to terms with it. His commanding officer told us he successfully completed his mission before he was killed in combat and we should be proud of him. The guy said Dad’s actions were heroic and saved a lot of lives. I’ve had to let it be comfort enough.”  I sat back and processed this new information.

“Okay,” I continued, “So Arianrhod threatened to take out my family as revenge and she did. What now?”

“Well, there’s more to it, I’m afraid.”

“Tell me the rest.”

“Well, they say in the line of succession, the Great Healer’s sister always gives birth to two daughters. One of them will give birth to two daughters and one of those daughters will become the next Great Healer. In the line of succession of the Great Seer, the opposite is true. The brother of the Great Seer fathers two sons. One of the sons will father two sons. One of those will become the next Great Seer.”

“Okay…” I waited for the punch line.

He gave it to me. “In my dream diaries, I have countless records of stillbirths, crib death and miscarriages. I’ve never understood these dreams, which I thought of as recurring nightmares, until now. When I went back through the records, I found out all the subjects of my dreams were either in the line of succession of the Great Seer or of the Great Healer.”

“Why would Arianrhod want to kill a bunch of babies?”

“I think she was pruning the trees, so to speak. She engineered events so Healer women only bore two girls and Seer men only fathered two boys. Everyone else she terminated.”

“You’re saying Arianrhod has been pruning my family tree for as far back as anyone can remember. Why?”

“Who knows?  The problem is she pruned too much.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, look at the tree. She’d been engineering these people’s lives for years. Then she ran into a problem. Your parents broke clan law. Out of revenge, she killed your father. She’d pruned so much of the Stewart line only Uncle Larry remained to become the next Great Seer. The whims of genetics worked against her. Larry had little magic. He was not capable of filling that role. I think it’s why she let your mother live so long. She wanted to make sure you were capable of becoming the next Great Healer. Once she saw that you were, she waited until Samhain, when her powers are strongest, and took her revenge on your mom.” 

I sucked in my breath rapidly. I was so angry and hurt I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“I think there’s a reason I’ve been given these visions, Maggie.”

“You’re assuming someone was in a position to steer certain visions to you. Who could do that?” 

He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I think the Creator sent them to me.”

“Why?”

“So we can stop her. What she’s doing is wrong. It’s evil. She must be stopped.”

“How…” I raised my arms in defeat. “How can we stop a goddess from doing anything?”

“I don’t know,” he said honestly; a determined expression came over his features, “but we’re going to find a way. We’re going to find a way before anyone else in your family gets pruned.”  

***

“Come on, baby, tell me what’s wrong.”  Steve held me on his lap again. He really enjoyed doing that. Even though his behavior irritated me, it didn’t cause my depression at lunch a few days after my family tree talk with Evan. I’d had another lousy training session with Fiona, and she started to lose patience with me. No Cherokee spirits had visited, and I had no idea what else to try. Steve bounced me up and down and gave my arms a squeeze. Boy, I was tired of being treated like a Shi Tzu. An irritated expression crossed my face before I could compose my features. He stopped bouncing. “Okay, I’m serious now.”  He made me look into his face. “Tell me what’s bothering you. I might be able to help.”

“Can I sit in my own chair?”

“This one time, I’ll allow it. Greg, get up…leave…now.”  Greg was not particularly intelligent, but one look from Steve and he was smart enough to hand over the chair and skulk away.

I sat down gratefully in the vacated chair.

“Okay, now spill it.”

“It’s my Healer training. I’m having trouble getting the hang of healing hands and everyone has all these high expectations. I’m afraid I can’t live up to them, so I’m depressed. Can’t I be allowed to be upset?”

“Maybe you can, and maybe not. I know pressure. I know all about high expectations. What has Fiona said?”

“She said it would come to me eventually, but it hasn’t. Jenny had this dream where I meet these three Cherokee ghosts and they tell me what I need to do, but I haven’t seen them, so I’m just stuck.”

“Oh, you have to go on a vision quest. When are you going?”

“What’s a vision quest?”

“It’s when…wait a minute. Do you mean there’s something I know you don’t?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Wow…that feels good. Okay, here’s the deal. I’ll tell you how to get your healing mojo if you’ll do something for me.” 

I was wary of what he might ask me to do. “What do you want?”

“Nothing too painful, just go to the Sweetheart Dance with me next Friday night, and I’ll tell you.”

“Oh, okay. I can do that.”

“And kiss me on the lips…”

“Don’t push your luck.”

“All right, here’s the thing. When Cherokee Warriors want advice from their ancestors, they go on a vision quest. They walk out to a place sacred to their family and they wait for a sign. They pray, fast, and meditate. Eventually, if they are worthy, the ancestors will visit, and give the Warriors advice.”