Give Me (9 page)

Poor Lourdes.

“King Jowan never asked where you came from. No one did. It was too awkward to suggest I’d had a secret lover, I suppose, and easier to say nothing. But I had you, my little fairy princess. Proof that I succumbed to desire, yes. But I swear to you I loved your father. Love him still.”

“But how can this be, Mother? I have no power, fae or wyrding.”

“I was afraid for you. I held your power back, hid it from you as well as the rest of the world. No one can know what you are, Elyse. If the fae king found out about you, I don’t know what he’d do. And you know what our people think of fairies.”

Wyrders didn’t think kindly of them. That much was sure.

“I wanted you to have time. Time to be a girl before you had to take on the burden that will be your womanhood.”

It was too much to take in all at once. Fairy princess. What did that even mean? She would be the next oracle. Lourdes would not take that well. When Elyse looked up, Mother had almost worked the ring off her finger.

“Stop. You’ll die.”

“I
am
dying, Elyse.” In a weak whisper, she began to chant.

“Silver and gold find you.

Silver and gold bind you.”

She held the ring between her thumb and finger. “Give me your hand.”

This wasn’t happening.

“Give me your hand!”

She placed the band on Elyse’s right ring finger and finished the chant.

“Serve not desire, but enhance delight.

All will be well, all will be right.”

She slumped in the chaise.

“Mother!”

Her eyes fluttered open, but there was little light in them. “Awake to your power, Elyse. Only you can help Lourdes now.”

Power? Elyse felt a slight shift in the universe. No fireworks. Colors were brighter, smells more intense—the jasmine was intoxicating. She inhaled deeply. It was as if she’d never taken a full breath in her life.

But Mother! To remove the oracle’s ring meant death to the oracle. Not that she’d drop dead that instant—though she might. Legend was that some oracles died within the hour of the ring’s removal, and some had lasted months. None had lived half a year. Mother was fading, her breath coming in shallow pants. They should have had years and years more together. It wasn’t fair!

“I have to find your medicine.” Lourdes had wyrded the botanicals out of the kitchen, but they had to be somewhere. With the ring on her hand, Elyse felt a surge of confidence. “Hold on, Mother. I can find the hawthorn.” At the door she looked back. “Please hold on.”

“Be kind to your sister!”

As Elyse crossed under the archway to the kitchen, a blast of energy knocked her to the floor. Her mother’s power. Or her own, perhaps, the power Mother had talked about keeping from her. Or the full power of the ring. If any of those were true, it only meant one thing.

Her mother was gone.

Elyse had to get her back. Lourdes would know what to do. She’d know of a restoration spell. Elyse struggled to her feet and ran out into the courtyard. Andromache waited near the cottage door, as if in response to Elyse’s unspoken will.

Was this how it worked? She remembered Lourdes calling for Hector’s rig.

“Harness!” Who, what was she calling to?

The bit and bridle appeared in her hand, and she fitted it over the filly’s head. She had to bring the horse to the fence and step up on the rail to mount her bareback. Elyse hated to ride away from the cottage and leave Mother alone on the roof, but Lourdes was her only hope. She dug her heels into Andromache’s sides.

It hadn’t been all that long since the glimmer glass went dark. As Elyse approached Igdrasil, Galen was on the ground with Lourdes on top of him, grinding her hips.

“Lourdes!” Disgusting. For this, Lourdes had hidden Mother’s herbs.

“Get away!” Lourdes set another boundary, not very strong. Maybe she thought Elyse wasn’t much to worry about. Maybe she needed to conserve her power to keep Galen in thrall.

Elyse flicked her wrist as Mother might. The boundary dissolved in a pastel shimmer of light.

“We’ll have a child.” Lourdes whispered in Galen’s ear, but Elyse heard it all. “Our son will be the most powerful king in the world. Sarumos will be nothing before Dumnos.”

No!

The universe shifted again. The air was sharp and cool and exhilarating, and Elyse tingled liked she used to close to Mother during a big wyrd. She didn’t know how, but she’d stopped Lourdes from having Galen’s child—or anyone’s—now and forever.

7
Strawberry Jam

21st Century Dumnos

I
t was colder today. The mist had burned off, and the top was down in Bausiney’s carriage. The French girls were in their glory, seated like bookends on either side of the tour guide.

Cammy handed Lilith her cell phone. “Take a picky of us with his lordship, will you?”

“I thought these didn’t work in Dumnos.” Lilith turned the thing over, looking for the camera button. She had to admit she was disappointed. When Bausiney said he’d be at the Tragic Fall at ten o’clock this morning, she’d thought he meant for her alone. Bella and Cammy had had different thoughts.

“The mobile won’t, but the camera should,” Marion said. She wasn’t joining them on the tour, but Bausiney had offered to take her up into the hills to Bausiney’s End to make sure Lord Dumnos had his breakfast.

“How’s this, then?” Bausiney put his arms around the sisters. They were dressed in bad imitations of Stevie Nicks with fringed shawls and floppy velvet hats and rings on every finger. Their necklaces and earrings boasted moons and stars and spiders on silver cobwebs. Bausiney winked at Lilith as she clicked a few shots. Her heartbeat quickened, and she avoided looking at him as she returned the phone to Cammy.

The carriage rolled to a dead stop at the village square. The square was like the hub of a wheel with seven oddly spaced narrow lanes as the spokes. Tourists streamed in via those spokes and clogged the entire works.

Bella leaned over the side and looked ahead. “There seems to be some general confusion about right of way.”

“One moment, ladies.” Bausiney bounded out into the square, gesturing at the few vehicles to stay put—two first-generation beetle bugs, as Lilith’s mother used to call Volkswagens, an old Ford van, and several bicycles. Like a professional traffic cop, he soon had a nice flow going.

“Make way!” He pointed a warning finger at a beetle bug that inched forward. “Make way for these lovely ladies, one quite possibly the next wyrding woman of Glimmer Cottage!” He bowed and smiled. “We can say we knew her when!”

The tourists were mostly women in their thirties and forties. They giggled like girls at Bausiney’s jokes and moved on to the next antique shop, the next tea shop, or the next purveyor of fine wool sweaters.

Handover Schmandover.
Tintagos Village was on the receiving end of a tourist binge, lapping up the benefits of Bausiney’s brilliant marketing scheme. He glanced up through his scruffy hair. Lord Tintagos. The tourists squealed as if he were a rock star.

“I think his lordship is wonderful,” Cammy said.

“So does he,” Bella said.

“Well, he is,” Marion said. “I’ll say it, even if he is my nephew.”

When he saw that Lilith was watching, the corners of his mouth twitched and he wiggled his eyebrows up and down.
His lordship
was no Prince Charming. Certainly nothing like blond and brown-eyed, perfect-skinned Galen on the stairs of Tintagos Castle. But then, that was just a dream. A dream far less real now that she’d had a night of uninterrupted, blissful, restful, glorious sleep thanks to Marion’s tea.

Also unlike Galen, Bausiney was real. And unlike Greg, he was good. Greg’s intellect and ambition had been so dazzling that Lilith had never thought about his self-absorption and unkindness. Bausiney was a future earl, a guy with every advantage. He could be anywhere. Having fun. He was here, doing what he could to make life better for the people of a little village in an obscure corner of the world.

On second thought, he looked like he
was
having fun.

“It’s a pity Lord Dumnos won’t leave the End,” Marion said. “He’d be proud of Cade today.” She was dressed in full Handover splendor in a calf-length wool skirt and way-too-large sweatshirt with a picture of the castle ruins on the front with
Tintagos Castle
written above it in glitter. She wore a huge pink plastic pin that said:
You may be the one!
In her lap she held a vacuum jar she was taking to Bausiney’s End.

“Lord Dumnos’s morning gruel.” She said. “He’ll eat nothing else when he’s in a mood.”

Hopefully by gruel she meant oatmeal.

“The Handover has made him more hateful than usual.” Bausiney opened the door. He kissed Marion on the cheek before settling in again between the French girls. “You’re very good to him, Moo.”

“Turnabout is fair play.” Marion’s bubbly personality went flat. “He was very good to me once. Gave me the Tragic Fall, you know.” She and Bausiney shared a sentimental smile. Lilith and the sisters waited for details, but none were forthcoming.

They were going in the wrong direction, away from the castle ruins, but halfway up one hill Lilith saw that the road made a circle, an outer ring around the village. If they continued this way, they’d curve around and end up at the castle, and beyond the castle was Igdrasil. Farther along, the drive passed a lone cottage on the border of a small forest.

It was colder out on the open road, but the hat and gloves Marion had given Lilith yesterday made her feel cozy. In her sweater, khakis, and good walking boots, she was perfectly comfortable, but she wouldn’t mind if Bausiney was inclined to wrap his scarf around her again.

Drat! It was a mistake to think like that. Yesterday’s strange attraction took hold before she could stop it and heat pulsed through her. She longed to touch him. How would he feel inside? Her breaths shortened to short gulps of cold mist. Fergawdsake, she was panting. It didn’t help when she noticed him looking at her mouth.

“Oh, this is me.” Marion perked up.

Bausiney’s lips twitched as if he was fully aware of Lilith’s torment. “Can we stop?” he called up to the driver. The carriage turned onto the end of a drive that disappeared into thick trees. “Let us take you on to the house, Moo.”

“No, no. We’ll have none of that.” Marion handed the jar to Lilith while she got out of the carriage. “Ian usually brings me up the hill in the morning, but he’s gone for supplies. Tonight we’ll have a nice Wellington.”

“That sounds lovely.” Lilith handed her the jar of gruel.

“And tomorrow, Ian’s specialty—liver and onions!”

The dismay on the French girls’ faces was priceless. Lilith hoped she had better control.

“You young people should get to your fun. See the sights.”

Cammy said, “Are you sure we can’t give you a lift?”

Bausiney gave Cammy a brilliant smile for her thoughtfulness. Of course that was exactly what the little vixen had intended. The sting of jealousy Lilith felt was surprising—so was her triumph when Bausiney shifted over to take Marion’s place beside her.

But then wanting to touch him only got worse.

“That’s sweet, but no, dear.” Marion backed away. “The mist has lifted, and the walk will do me good.” Leaving them, she wiggling her fingers over her shoulder. Lilith thought of someone tossing salt.

She was struck by a feeling of overwhelming sorrow and of deja vu. Where had she seen that gesture before? She twisted the ring under her glove for comfort.
I must be developing obsessive-compulsive disorder.

At the castle another twenty or so tourists waited to join the tour. Bausiney gave them all a cheerful welcome. He was hatless today, and with the breeze his hair flew all over the place. Cammy’s face fell when Bausiney told the crowd to be ready to go in five minutes.

“Oh, Cammy,” Bella said. “Were you thinking to get him alone today?”

Cammy actually stuck her tongue out. “At least I haven’t given up on finding a man.”

Tintagos Castle was in ruins—not that Lilith expected tapestries and ceilings or finished walls. But she had expected to recognize the layout. Instead, the great piles of rocks were like a maze. Many walls still stood. There were a few stone stairways the tour was allowed to take and several modern wood stairs and causeways. Window-like holes in the walls provided the same prospects seen by others in ages long past.

One such window perfectly framed the oak tree—and the woman in the cloak. She was standing beside Igdrasil, watching the castle. Watching Lilith.

When are you coming?
Elyse’s voice.
There isn’t much time.

“Do you see your ghost then?” Bausiney stopped behind her. With his words, Elyse disappeared.

“Is that what she is?” Lilith shuddered. What would he say if she told him the ghost had spoken to her? “At first I thought she might be your wyrding woman, but that can’t be. The woman I saw, my ghost, was young.”