Love Potion #9 (28 page)

“Your gift of finding people's true loves?”

“No, no, not that. That came later. My Gift is the ability to see the future.”

Mitch watched Cooley as he scratched the dog's ears, not wanting any hint of his rampant skepticism to throw this discussion off track.

Wherever the hell it was going.

The trick was to just keep asking questions.

“Well, how did it change?” he asked as mildly as he could.

“When I sipped the elixir, that changed my Gift. Maybe it honed it. I don't know, but from then on, it was focused and I could see destined loves right in people's eyes.” Lilith shrugged and smiled. “Maybe it was because I had love in my mind when I drank.”

“Right.” Mitch couldn't hold her trusting gaze. “So, being able to see the future helped you find these sorcerers?”

Lilith's smile flashed unexpectedly. “At the time I thought it did, but maybe it was chance. Or maybe they found me.”

Mitch couldn't help interjecting. “Maybe it was destiny?”

Lilith laughed merrily. “Maybe! I only know that I practically stumbled over them after I'd been alone for a year or so. They took me in, despite what they called the rawness of my skills, and began my apprenticeship.”

She heaved a sigh of satisfaction and frowned slightly as she sobered. Her voice turned thoughtful. “It was the most challenging and rewarding thing I have ever done.”

Mitch refused to think about military enlistment advertising campaigns. “How's that?”

“It was
hard
!” Lilith stared blindly across the yard, a sure sign that she was thinking of something sensitive. Mitch dared to hope he was making progress. “There were times when I didn't think I'd survive,” she admitted quietly.

Mitch's heart tightened. She had been through a lot, that much was for certain. And he was going to put everything to rights, if it was the last damn thing he did.

Lilith lifted her hand to halt Mitch's question before it came. “But don't ask me for details, I was sworn to secrecy and can't tell anything of what I witnessed among them or even of what I did.”

A pledge of confidence was a pretty convenient little trick, Mitch had to admit. No doubt it veiled some pretty painful memories - he'd leave uncovering that to the pros. “But you were there seven years?”

“Graduated with honors,” Lilith confirmed with a small smile.

And she should be proud of herself. Even if she had worked up a complicated story to protect herself, Lilith had survived - and in Mitch's view that
was
worthy of honors.

But it was high time the mood lightened around here. “
Magus cum laude?”
Mitch teased, wanting to see that smile widen.

But Lilith sobered. “Mitch, it was a very solemn event. Many adepts don't even survive the ceremony. The graduation and opening of the seventh seal is the final test. Only those who pass win a chance to sip the elixir of immortality.”

Okay, she had headed to weird again. Mitch frowned and tried to think of a diplomatic way to make his point.

He couldn't, so he just laid it out. He managed to keep his tone thoughtful. “You would think that, over the centuries, there would end up being an awful lot of immortals in the world.”

Lilith glanced up quickly. “And you're saying there aren't?”

“You're the first I've met.”

She smiled. “You obviously travel in the wrong circles.”

“Lilith!” This really wasn't working out as Mitch had intended. Lilith was sticking to her story like contact cement – and he was running out of time. “I'm serious.”

“So am I,” she said easily. “But the fact is that the vast majority of those who win the right to a sip
decline
the opportunity.”

That unexpected comment gave Mitch pause. He eyed Lilith and his curiosity got the better of him. “Why would they do that?”

Lilith's expression turned sad. “Because the wisdom they have already gained has shown them that immortality can be a very lonely business.”

“But you sipped?”

Her glance was bright. “I had no choice. I had only sought them out to win the chance for this sip. I
had
to have immortality – there was no other ay I could have waited for you.”

Mitch frowned in concentration as he tried to find a question that would bring the truth to light, the truth he knew was hiding behind this fable. He not only had to find a hole in Lilith's logic, but show it to her to make her reconsider. “But if I was going to be reincarnating, why couldn't you do the same?'

Lilith shook her head. “In retrospect, its' clear that I could have. At the time, I thought we were just slightly out of synchronization. I didn't imagine it would take so very long. And by the time I realized the truth, I had already taken that sip. It was too late.”

Mitch tried not to sound skeptical, he really did. “And you've been immortal ever since that sip?”

Lilith met his gaze with easy assurance. “Yes. The elixir takes the one who imbibes it out of the stream of time. I stand still – like a rock in a river – while everything swirls around and past me.”

She shrugged as though this made perfect sense – which Mitch might have found difficult to argue if Lilith hadn't glanced back to Cooley's hole.

Because when she did, a single hair nearly buried in the dark tangle of her hair winked in the sunlight.

A single silver hair.

Mitch's heart leapt, but he tried to sound casual while he confirmed his suspicion. “So, I guess you don't age, then?”

“Not since that moment. I'm eternally thirty-three years old.”

Mitch leaned on the shovel, trying to look nonchalant even when he sensed victory was nearly within his grasp. “Sounds like a vain woman's dream. No wrinkles, no face-lifts.” He paused significantly. “No grey hairs.”

Lilith smiled sunnily. “No, never a one in over five hundred years.”

“Then what's that?” Mitch pointed to what he had just spotted.

Lilith raised on hand to her hair and frowned. “What?”

“You can't see it because of the angle, but you do have a grey hair.”

Her eyes flashed. “Impossible! I can't!”

“You certainly do,” Mitch argued.

“I don't believe it.”

“Then hold your breath and I'll show it to you.” Mitch gently worked the offending hair free of the others around it, an easy task since it was of coarser texture than Lilith's silky tresses, and gave it a tiny yank.

She yelped, then her eyes widened when he presented it to her. The hair shone in the sunlight, unmistakably white, even as her fingertips massaged its source.

Lilith didn't seem to have anything to say; she just accepted the hair as though she couldn't believe it was real.

There was a glimmer in her eyes that made Mitch think that she was reconsidering everything she had told him, that maybe a few dots were teaming up to make a line.

This had to be a revelation of a kind. He could almost sense a door opening in her mind. Lilith was one smart lady, after all. Maybe all she needed was a moment to herself.

“It's not the end of the world,” Mitch teased gently. “Let's hope three don't grow in its place.

Lilith looked up at him silently. She turned the hair in her fingers and stared at it again. “I don't understand,” she said softly. “It's impossible.”

“Clearly, it's not.” Mitch touched her cheek with a gentle fingertip. “We're all getting older, Lilith,” he said. “I've pulled a few of those out myself.”

“No! I'm not supposed to age,” she insisted, her gaze fixed on the hair.

“Well, maybe something has changed,” Mitch whispered. She looked up in alarm at this sentiment and he smiled encouragingly. “It's not so bad. You'll see.”

Lilith opened her mouth and closed it again. She frowned at the hair, then shook her head. She seemed so lost that Mitch wanted to gather her up and make everything better, but this was a hurdle she had to jump herself. Clearly, Lilith had some things to work through – and if her trauma had been as bad as Mitch feared, he had probably already pushed far enough.

He bent, unable to stop the tenderness flooding through him, and kissed her brow. “It's okay, Lilith. I'll help you. You can come and talk about it any time, whenever you're ready.” She met his gaze, her own expression so vulnerable that Mitch's heart clenched. “Just say the word and I'll brew up some sangria,” he promised, and was glad to see her fleeting smile.

“I just need to think,” she said quietly.

“I know. Just remember that I'm here.”

And then she really smiled, her eyes so warm that Mitch didn't want to leave her side at all. “I know,” she said, stretching suddenly to press a quick kiss to his cheek. “And that's the best news of all.”

She turned, hefted her spade, and strode back to her gate, that hair held before her like a trophy.

Admiration flooded through Mitch as he watched her go, admiration along with a certainty that Lilith would see her way through this. It wasn't easy to open doors that had been securely locked for a long time, but Mitch knew that Lilith would manage it.

She was really something special.

 

* * *

 

Lilith couldn't believe her own eyes. The silver hair waved in her grip as though it deliberately taunted her, as if its presence wasn't bad enough.

How could it be here?

Lilith didn't remember anything about the elixir wearing off over the years or any maintenance technicalities that she could have forgotten over the centuries. She put the hair down on her kitchen counter and stared at it.

This just wasn't right.

But the hair was here. And it was grey. And her scalp still hurt from where Mitch had evicted it. No doubt about it, it was her own.

What was it doing here?

Lilith frowned, then went into the living room and looked at the cards. The Wheel of Fortune was face up now, right beside The Hermit. The first circle was complete, the first phase of Mitch's journey finished.

The challenge of the physical world had been met, but the confrontation with the spiritual world had only just begun. The seeker on the card descended into the underworld, seeking wisdom and abandoning the illusion of controlling his fate. Great forces were in the wind when The Wheel of Fortune appeared, powerful changes over which one had no direct influence.

Lilith sat down and looked at the card. The Wheel of Fortune whispered of taking changes, of throwing the dice, of betting it all, win or lose, of dancing a jig with the capricious partner named Dame Fortune.

A chance had been taken, or was in the act of being taken, a chance that could have long-reaching repercussions. Lilith thought about her grey hair, she thought about Mitch, she thought about him coming back to her.

He was right. Something
had
changed.

In fact, everything that mattered had changed. Mitch had returned to her – her one true love was right by her side.

Lilith's hand rose to her lips in delighted realization. She didn't need to wait anymore. She didn't need to be immortal anymore. In fact, life would be a whole lot easier is she and Mitch aged together, now that they had found each other again.

It looked as though her immortality was a thing of the past. And Lilith didn't have too many complaints about that. If anything, the grey hair was just as sign that they were solidly on the road to Happily Ever After.

But why the grey hair now? Had it been merrily growing, unbeknownst to Lilith, since Mitch's arrival?

Or was it new?

Lilith didn't know. When she looked down at the cards again, the next one had flipped over. Lilith had been sitting right there, and she hadn't seen it more.

Yet all the same, Fortitude, number eleven, was turned up.

The Ferris Wheel of Fortune had completed its turn.

 

* * *

 

11

Fortitude

 

Fortitude was called Strength in one of Lilith's other decks, but the image upon it was essentially the same. Pictured on the card was a young woman in the act of prying open the jaws of a ferocious lion.

The card tells of conquering one's own shadow, of coming to terms with the conflict within one's own soul, of meeting a challenge with gentleness instead of brute force.

And reigning victorious, when the alternative might have been expected. The card indicates the power of inner strength, of conviction, of a fortitude born of belief in doing the right thing.

Mitch had an ample measure of that kind of fortitude, Lilith knew, and the realization made her smile.

She suddenly heard the children in the backyard and glanced up to find the shadows drawing long in the unlit house. Lilith didn't know how long she had sat there, meditating on the card, but it didn't matter.

Mitch would be where his children were, watching over them like a gruff guardian angel.

And Lilith knew exactly where she wanted to be.

 

* * *

 

Mitch sat on his back porch as the kids ran around the yard after dinner. He was perfectly content to let them burn off some steam before bed and was hoping that Lilith might make an appearance.

To his delight, she stepped out on her porch almost immediately. Mitch wondered whether Lilith could have been waiting for him and felt himself smile in welcome.

He liked how she smiled in response. The hinges creaked as Lilith let herself into the yard, Cooley trotted over to give her a sniff and collect a pat. The change in the dog's manner was amazing, but there had to be a reasonable explanation.

There had to be.

“Lillit!” The kids immediately ran for Lilith, their eyes shining as they told her all the stories they'd saved up since the weekend. She squatted down and listened to every word, asking perfect questions, sharing her attention between the two.