The Curse of Arkady (38 page)

Gavan Rainwater and Eleanora stood over the girls . . . or rather, Gavan stood and Eleanora floated. Gavan carried his wolfhead cane, the instrument at odds with the soft shirt and jeans he wore, but the crystal gripped in the handle's pewter sculpture was one of his powers and would never be left behind. His dark hair had been bushed back from his face and fell in a wave to his collar, and the night reflected in his intense blue eyes, but he smiled at Jason.

“There you are. Took the long way round?” The wolf's jaws glittered as Gavan swung about to wave at them. His other hand held a goblet, with a deep red liquid in it, and Jason's heart did a funny skip beat thing. The Magicker held a drink that would not only wipe a person's memories clean but Magick along with them. Jennifer was really, truly, leaving them.

“Is Henry coming?” Jason blurted out, his thoughts immediately full of their friend who'd drunk that brew once, and nearly lost everything, but had been able to come back . . . well, nearly so. Magick with Henry was an off and on thing, but it had always been like that.

Eleanora put her hand, framed by soft white lace hanging down from her sleeve, upon Gavan's wrist. “No,” she said softly. “We thought it kinder not to have him here.”

Trent approached Jennifer silently and just stood for a long moment. Then he said, “I know you have to go but do you have to leave . . . everything . . . behind?”

Jennifer looked up at him. She wore a lavender velvet jogging suit, and she had one arm about Ting's waist and one around Bailey's. She had been smiling, but now she stopped. “Eleanora and I talked about this. It seems the best thing to do. I can't hurt anyone this way.” A strand of blonde hair curled about her face, catching the glow of the porch lights which illuminated the backyard. It was still too chilly for mosquitoes, but there was definitely a feeling of spring in the air.

“You couldn't hurt me,” Trent protested, and then stopped at the surly sound of his own voice.

“I know it seems harsh.” Eleanora moved to Trent, in that odd floating way she had when she used some of her power to keep herself elevated three to four inches taller than she really was. Petite and brunette and altogether lovely in an otherworldly sort of way, with her dulcimer and lace and long skirts, and the cameo on a ribbon at her throat. It was no wonder Gavan loved her, for she was beautiful. Trent shrugged as she came near; fending off any kind of hug or comfort she might offer. He didn't want a hug. He wanted to know that Jennifer would stay. If not here, in this house, in this city, at least in the ring of Magickers, so that he would still be friends with her.

Eleanora looked at his face, as though reading his thoughts, and shook her head, sadness crossing her features. “I'm sorry, Trent.”

“I'm sorry, too,” he mumbled, and crossed his arms over his chest and retreated to stay at the edge of the shadows where the porch lights could not touch. He didn't even know why they were all there, if Jennifer wouldn't remember them or their good-byes!

Jason nudged him slightly, but Trent would not look up at him. He had known why they'd come, but he'd hoped it wouldn't happen.

Gavan leaned on his cane. He said, very quietly, “The heart always remembers a little, Trent. And I cannot tell you that there won't be a day, sometime in the future, when Jennifer will remember us, need us, even return to us. So good-byes are always hard but not necessarily the last time we see someone.”

Trent glanced up quickly. He traded a long look with Gavan. Rainwater nodded slowly, Eleanora's body shimmered as she rose even higher on her Magickal tiptoes. She whispered in Trent's ear, “And I wouldn't want you to remember that you made her even sadder than she already is.”

He took a deep breath, then moved to the group on the grass and sat down behind Jennifer, putting his arm about her shoulder. She smiled at him then, and for a moment, he forgot everything but the warmth that twinkled in her eyes.

Ting passed over a charm bracelet she had dangling from her fingers. Each tiny charm held an even smaller piece of crystal. There was a frog, a bear cub, a mouse, a lightning bug, and a heart. “The mouse,” said Bailey, wrinkling her nose, “is really a pack rat.”

Jennifer laughed. “As if I could forget!”

In answer to the sudden happy surge in their voices, Bailey's shirt pocket rippled and Lacey stuck her whiskered nose out, sniffing the early evening air. The tiny pet/pest who had stolen whatever she could from their summer camp cottage before being captured and tamed by Bailey peered at all of them curiously. The pack rat's eyes shone with what seemed to be a laugh of her own, before she turned tail and dived back into Bailey's pocket, leaving only her tufted tail hanging out and twitching happily.

Jennifer hugged Ting and Bailey both. “Thank you!” The bracelet chimed and twinkled as she slipped it onto her slender wrist. Jason took her hand and simply said, “Friends wherever,” and she held his hand for a very long moment. The crescent shaped scar on the back of it burned sharply till she let go, and he sat back, a little confused.

“I haven't got anything,” Trent said. “Really.”

“That's all right. I do.” She smiled faintly with the wisdom of an older woman, leaned around and kissed him, very gently and very quickly. Trent's face immediately went fiery red.

Bailey, Ting, and Jason laughed.

Jennifer grinned and murmured, “Sorry . . .”

“Oh, I'm . . . I'm not. Kinda.” Trent sat back a little, his face staying red hot, and his eyes watching her closely.

Eleanora, however, watched Jason. “What is it?” she said quietly.

He moved his hands out of sight casually. “Nothing. Just the Draft of Forgetfulness and all that.”

“Really.”

He stood and moved to the side, Gavan giving him a judging look, and nodding to Eleanora. The lovely Magicker stood in the night shadows with Jason, as Rainwater began to weave a spell over Jennifer, to protect her however he might, although with her Magick gone, even the Dark Hand would no longer have an interest in her.

Jason watched. He rubbed the back of his hand. Eleanora touched it.

He took a deep breath as she repeated, “What is it?”

“My scar,” he answered softly. “It's burning. Either something is very near or . . .”

Eleanora turned her head, in a tumble of brunette curls, and looked toward Jennifer. “Or it's her.”

He swallowed. “Yes.”

“I know. I've been fighting it with her since that awful night last fall. It's one of the reasons she's leaving. She's convinced something terrible may happen if she doesn't.” Eleanora touched him again, and coolness slid over the back of his hand.

Gavan finished weaving his web of Magick, tapped his cane on the ground and said, “Done.” At his word, a spiderweb of incredible lightness seemed to fall like a gentle curtain over Jennifer and then fade away. He held out the goblet, and Ting and Bailey shrank away instinctively as Jennifer reached for it. Lacey gave a tiny squeak, and her tufted tail jerked and disappeared into Bailey's pocket. Jennifer took a deep breath. She said in a faint, breathy voice that did not quite sound like her, “Good-bye all,” before lifting the cup and drinking down the thick, syrupy juice as fast as she could.

The cup fell from her fingers as her face went pale. She swallowed a last time, as if fighting to keep the drink down. Jennifer shuddered, and Jason shivered with her. Ting and Bailey made a sandwich, with Jennifer held close between them, and a tear slid silently down Ting's face.

Trent couldn't bear to watch any longer. He bolted to his feet. He took his crystal out as if to leave, then hesitated, with Bailey and Jason watching him. Only the three of them knew he wasn't going anywhere. Gavan took him aside, saying, “There are harder things to watch, lad, and I hope you never have to.”

Jennifer got to her feet. “I must . . . I must go inside. I have to finish packing, and Mother and Father are waiting and . . . you are all very nice but . . . I don't . . . quite . . . know you. What are you doing here?”

Eleanora tilted her face up, smiling. “We just came by to say farewell, dear, and wish you luck.”

“Oh.” Jennifer pushed her blonde hair from one eye. “That's very . . . nice of you.” She took a step toward her back porch, her charm bracelet jingling. Bailey and Ting let her go, reluctantly.

“One last thing,” Eleanora said.

“Yes?” Jennifer turned to face her, a bewildered look on her face.

“This,” said Eleanora firmly. She reached up, spreading her hand, putting her fingers to Jennifer's forehead.

They all felt it. Later, Jason would wonder how Trent did, although it was like a lightning strike. You didn't have to be at ground zero to feel the zap, the power, the snap, and the smell the ozone. It was almost exactly like that. Something dark and powerful surged at Eleanora, knocking her to her knees and crackling through the air with force and Magick that reeked and promised nothing but evil. She took it from Jennifer. It snaked through the air in smoky dark lines, fleeing the girl and shooting toward Eleanora, the lines sinking into her before disappearing, one by one. Eleanora put a hand to her chest as if she'd been shot as Gavan cried out in alarm.

She put her other hand up, trembling. “Get her into the house, quickly, now!”

Trent took Jennifer by the hand, and found it cold as ice, and he led her across the grassy lawn, up on the porch, and into the house. Packed boxes lay everywhere, and furniture had been piled neatly as well. She sat down on a box, as someone called from another room, “Jennifer, is that you? Are your friends gone yet?”

“We're leaving now,” Trent called back.

She looked up at him. “All of you are so very . . . nice.” And she smiled.

He smiled in return, though it took all of his strength to do so. He backed toward the screen door, and out it, and pelted down the porch steps before he stopped breathing.

Eleanora lay on her side on the ground, Gavan knelt beside her. He held both of her hands tightly.

She panted. “It will go,” she said. “It will.”

The Magickers ringed her, crystals in every hand. By their jeweled light, Trent could see . . . see . . . gray sparkling in Eleanora's hair, lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. It was as if she had aged ten years in just the few moments he'd been gone.

Trent and Jason looked at each other. “Fizziwig,” Jason mouthed.

Gavan heard them. “No! No, she's not going to . . .” His voice strangled in his throat. He held his cane up, and the moonlight caught the crystal, gleaming. “No!”

The beam of light that shot out from the wolfhead cane spilled across the yard, and in the shadows, things fled, scattered, as if they had been gathered watching. Jason felt something prickle up the back of his neck as two great glowing green eyes winked and disappeared.

And someone stepped out.

Khalil gathered his desert shroud around him, looking at all of them down his hawk bridged nose, dark eyes narrowed. “Hello again, this eve, it seems,” he said, in his deep, purring voice.

“Have you been there all the time?” Gavan gritted his teeth as if he wanted to say more, and forced himself not to.

“More or less. I wanted to see how you were handling the situation.” He came to the curled up Eleanora and gently put his hand on her head. “Very well, until this.”

“Help her.”

Khalil stared at Gavan. “Only one thing I can do.”

Eleanora protested softly, weakly, as Khalil joined Gavan beside her and cupped her head gently against his knee. “I will accept this,” she said.

“No, you won't!” cried Gavan. “No.”

Khalil murmured a sentence neither Jason nor any of the others could catch, but Gavan heard the words, for he seemed to flinch with each one. When the tall Magicker stopped, Eleanora lay asleep on the ground, the blush gone from her cheeks, and the breath in her body barely moving through her chest.

“How long?” Gavan asked, looking at her.

“Till you find the cure or awaken her to let her die.” Khalil lifted her body in his arms as he stood, Eleanora limp in sleep.

“Like Sleeping Beauty.” Ting touched her fingers to the lace drifting over one still hand.

“And the curse is our very own Magick,” Gavan said bitterly.

“Perhaps not. Perhaps the curse is our not understanding. Take us away from here before we are seen, and so that we may find a place for our sleeping Eleanora to rest safely.”

But Rainwater wasn't done, his face tight with emotion. “Was that all you could do?” Gavan demanded to Khalil.

The two Magickers stared at each other in the darkness of the night.

“Yes,” answered Khalil. “For now.” He shifted, and handed her body to Gavan. “She is lucky. The rest of us may not have a chance to sleep rather than face our deaths.” He turned on his heel and disappeared in a crystal flash.