Smoke on the Water (20 page)

“Do you want me to call—?”

“Do you feel a pulse?”

Deux hunkered down and set his fingertips to Willow's neck. “Yeah.”

“Help me get her onto the bed.”

The two of them carried her there. Sebastian pulled a chair to her side then wasn't sure what to do beyond take her hand, which he did.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Like I told you, she was staring outside—for a really long time. I asked what she was doing. She didn't answer. She didn't seem to hear, then down she went. No reason at all.”

Sebastian felt her head. No lumps from a fall. He checked her eyes, pupils not fixed. They responded to light. It was as if she were in a very deep sleep.

The phone began to ring at the desk, and Deux shifted. “Sir?”

“Go ahead,” Sebastian said. “We'll give her a few more minutes.”

If she didn't come to soon, he'd have to transfer her to the nearest hospital for a CT scan.

He squeezed her hand and memory slammed into him. So hard, so dark and painful, he gasped. He'd sat at his sister's side just like this. He'd begged her to come back to him. He'd held her hand, gotten no response. And then she'd died.

“Willow!”

She responded no better than his sister had.

Sebastian broke out in a cold sweat. He couldn't lose her. He wouldn't.

He patted her cheeks. No response. Her skin was as soft as the petals of a rose. She looked like a rose—Briar Rose. Wasn't that the name of Sleeping Beauty?

With her golden hair and her face in repose, Willow resembled that Disney princess more than anyone should. She even wore nearly the same color of blue today that the poor doomed girl had worn when she'd fallen into that deep dark sleep—though the blue in the cartoon was a gown and Willow's was a T-shirt. Nevertheless …

Sebastian had watched enough Disney princess movies with his sister to know these things. As children they'd been so close. He'd thought everything would be all right, but he'd screwed up somehow, and he still didn't know how. Where had he gone wrong with Emma? When had she stopped believing in fairy tales and decided to create an alternate reality of her own? Why hadn't he noticed until it was too late?

His guilt swamped him, and he let his head fall forward. He'd failed his sister. He'd been young, in school, distracted. Then he'd thought he knew so much, that his shiny new degree could save her. After she'd died he'd tried to atone by helping others, but he doubted he'd ever be able to help enough people to make up for the one he had not.

Willow's fingers moved in his. Just a little; he wasn't sure if he'd imagined it, so he held his breath and he went very still.

“Shhh.”

Her eyes remained closed. Had she shushed him, or did he just want a response from her so badly he'd imagined one?

“Hush.”

This time he saw her lips move as her fingers tightened. “Willow?” he asked, but she seemed to have gone back to sleep.

The really strange thing was the odd sense of peace that came over him, dissipating his guilt, removing his anger and fear. He almost felt … healed.

Which made no damn sense at all.

*   *   *

In the darkness lurked many things. Some frightening, some welcoming. Some I understood and some I did not.

There was a pyre—a woman and man tied to a stake. Considering … everything, I figured they were witches, or at least the dark-clad fellows surrounding them thought so. One took a ring and branded them both. His back remained to me; I could not see his face, or hear his voice, or those of the others, three of whom held infants in their arms.

The fire whooshed high; when it fell the man, the woman, and the infants were gone, their cries echoing through the ages.

That laughter I'd heard before now came at me from the dark—here, there, everywhere—before it faded. And while I was glad it was gone, I was also disturbed.
Where
had it gone? Where had
he
gone?

Sadness flowed through me, and it smelled of sun and limes. Dr. Frasier.
Sebastian
. He hurt. He ached. He was in pain. I took that pain into myself and his went away.

A gunshot. Into that darkness came a new soul. Closer and closer. I reached out, my fingers almost touched …

I sat up, my gasp still audible in the darkness of my room. My cheeks were wet with tears. The moon spilled through the window, across the floor. Something moved just past that silvery light.

“Mary?”

“Do you know where she is?” Dr. Frasier took the chair at my side.

“Gone.” I wiped my face.

“You had us all frightened.”

“Why?”

“You've been in and out of consciousness for over twenty-four hours.”

I glanced at the moon. From this angle I couldn't tell if it was full but there was a kind of humming power to the light that I was beginning to recognize.

“I've consulted with several doctors at the Marshfield Clinic. If you weren't coherent by morning, I was going to take you there myself.”

Sebastian didn't seem to realize that he held my hand so I remained very still, afraid he would realize and stop. The facility was quiet—solitary confinement in a mental institution in the middle of the night quiet. I should know.

“Do you know why you passed out?”

I shook my head.

“I examined you and couldn't find anything wrong.”

He'd examined me? My face heated, and I was thankful for the darkness. I wanted him to examine me again.

“Did you have a vision?”

Had I? No. Not before I'd gone wherever it was I'd gone. But while I'd been gone …

I wasn't certain what that had been.

“You need to tell me the truth, Willow.”

I remembered the storm—distant instead of here—and my feeling that I'd sent it somewhere, to someone.

“I brought the storm.”

The sudden silence made me look at him. From his expression, I guess I'd said that out loud.

“
Was
there a storm?”

“Not here. Though the lights flickered. The horizon was green.”

“Tornado.” My heart began to beat faster. Had I brought a tornado? Hurt people?
Killed
people? Why couldn't I remember anything but the swirl of the wind, the women in the clouds, the howl of the wolves, and then darkness?

“No mention of a tornado on the news. No sirens.”

That was good. Except I might have sent the thing far enough away that it wasn't on our news, and the sirens …

“It would have to be very close for the tornado sirens to sound.”

“I'll keep that in mind.” His gaze on my face said he was keeping something else in mind. Like upping my meds.

I wasn't sure if my vision—if that's what it had been—was of the future or the past. It might even be of the present.

“Is the moon full?” I asked.

“How'd you know that?”

I decided not to mention the way that it hummed. “I can count.”

“Do you really think that you brought a storm?”

“No.” I didn't think it; I knew it.

“When you lie, you bite your lip.”

I stopped biting my lip. His fingers tightened around mine. I made the mistake of tightening mine back and he looked down, then yanked his away so fast you'd think I had Ebola.

He stood, cleared his throat and moved away. “I'd hoped you were improving, but I'm starting to wonder if you're getting worse.”

I
was
improving, because I was embracing what I was, who I was, rather than fighting against it. People had been telling me I was crazy all my life, and I'd believed them. But if the visions were real, if I
did
bring the storm, if I
was
a witch, then I wasn't crazy at all. Never had been. But how did I convince a psychiatrist of that?

Telling wasn't going to do me any good. I'd have to show him.

“I'm not crazy,” I said.

“All right.”

My eyes narrowed. He was placating me, which only made my burgeoning annoyance burgeon. In the distance, thunder rumbled.

“I'll prove it to you.” I stood, swayed a bit. I should probably eat something, but I had bigger fish to fry.

“Ha,” I said.

“I feel compelled to mention that talking to yourself isn't helping.”

“I know why the Gilletts were killed.”

Dr. Frasier glanced at the window as the thunder grumbled both louder and closer. “Why?”

“Sadie was a witch. Malcolm was caught in the cross fire.”

“I don't—”

“Peggy was killed for the same reason. I bet she was branded like Sadie, with the snarling-wolf icon.”

His attention, which had been on the clouds billowing on the horizon, suddenly came back to me. “How do you know that?”

“The
Venatores Mali
are witch hunters,” I began.

“From the seventeenth century!”

“You looked them up.”

He shrugged.

“Their leader is Roland McHugh.”

“Was,” Dr. Frasier corrected. “They're all dead, Willow. Have been for a long time.”

“They're back. Roland might be back too.”

“When were you going to start convincing me you aren't crazy?”

“I'm in here because I stabbed a man who was going to kill me and brand me.”

“So you said, but he didn't.”

“Don't you find it odd that I knew about the snarling-wolf brand years before it became popular?”

“Just because you read about the
Venatores Mali
at some point and internalized the information into your delusion, doesn't mean your delusion is true.”

Lightning sizzled and snapped as my temper simmered higher.

“The voice that speaks to Mary is named Roland,” I said. “Not a common name.”

“Doesn't mean
the
Roland is talking to her.”

“What if it does?”

Dr. Frasier blinked. “Huh?”

“If he's talking to her, if the voice is real, then is she still crazy?”

“Tree in the woods, Willow.”

The wind began to whistle, and tree branches rattled together like bones.

“Mary thinks she's a witch,” he continued. “Why would the leader of a witch-
hunting
society talk to her from beyond?”

“I think he's been talking to a lot of people.”

“Are you trying to tell me that every schizophrenic who hears voices is hearing his?”

“No. But the ones who've listened, then killed, branded, and burned witches probably are. Mary caught a clue before she went that far, which oddly makes her more sane than a lot of others.”

“She didn't seem more sane to me,” he muttered.

“Nevertheless…”

“You know how crazy this sounds, right?”

“Truth is stranger than fiction.”

“I should probably get a nurse to bring you some food and your meds.”

“You haven't noticed that while we've been talking, a storm's come up?”

“Lately, that happens a lot.”

“The more annoyed I've gotten the closer and stronger the storm.”

“Just because you think you're affecting the weather, doesn't make it so.”

He was maddening.

“I transported Mary out of the facility.”

“Why would you take her out and then come back in?”

“I didn't take her anywhere. I sent her. I didn't mean to the first time. Actually, nearly every time I didn't mean to. First it was the moon, and then it was blood. The transportation spell was supposed to be for joy, but—”

“You think you transported her through magic?”

“I did.”

“Willow, please.”

His frustration was evident, but what really got me agitated was the tinge of fear in his voice. He thought I'd gone over the edge, and I had. I was so done with being looked on as crazy when I wasn't. I had to make him see.

I crossed the distance between us and took his hands. “Sebastian.” I tightened my fingers. “Please.”

Our eyes met, and the entire world stilled. The storm hovered, still there but swirling, getting no worse, no better, just waiting. I held my breath; he held his.

The clouds parted, the moon flowed in and over us and I remembered this night, this moment, this kiss.

Our first.

Had he drawn me close, or had I stepped in? Had I gone on tiptoe, or had he lowered his head, even as I stretched upward like a flower toward the sun?

Our lips met, and the lightning flared as bright as the moon. The earth shook; the whole world changed. This was destined.
We
were destined. My entire life had been leading to this, to him.

I wrapped my arms around his neck; he wrapped his around my hips. Our mouths opened, our tongues touched, stroked. I couldn't help it, I sucked, and then he groaned, the sound reverberating against my chest, my breasts.

I rubbed them against him and he gasped. Except his mouth was still on mine; perhaps the gasp had been in my head. We probably shouldn't be here, doing this. But I didn't want it to stop; I didn't want him to stop. So I held on to him as the rain began to tumble down.

How did I know about the rain? It took me a few seconds to understand that the rain was falling on us.

We opened our eyes at the same time, our mouths still fused, our tongues tangled. His lashes were wet. When he blinked, the droplets flicked into my face. Together we drew back and lifted our eyes as the sky spilled more rain.

The sky. Spilled rain. Onto us. We were no longer inside but outside.

We stumbled away from each other, stood a few feet apart, peering from the sky, to the trees, to the sky again. We were in a clearing, in the forest, in the night.

“Wh-wha—what happened?” Sebastian asked.

“Wait.” I turned in a circle. “I know this place.”