WB (10 page)

I was upset that they might think I was making fun of their beliefs. I didn't want them to think I would do that. I wanted them to like me and insulting someone's religion is a bad way to start out a relationship. But it was clear to me I had already offended them if the expressions on their faces were anything to go by.

“Oh dear,” there was a wealth of emotion in her utterance and I turned to Helene hoping to explain what I meant.

Helene had turned to face me and she gripped both of my hands in hers as she quietly WARLOCK’S BRIDE JENNIFER RINEHART 40

whispered the word 'defloridim' while closing her eyes tightly. I felt embarrassed for her and tried to smile like I was really supportive of what she was doing.

She obviously thought something magical would happen and opened her eyes, smiling at me expectantly. I remembered how carefully I had memorized the magic phrases from Bedknobs and Broomsticks when I was a little girl. I was so disappointed when the words didn't make my shoes dance the way they had in the movie.

I smiled back at her thinking that it didn't matter if she thought pixies lived in her flower box and magic words made her clothes cleaner. She was my mother and she loved me. In time, I would grow to love her too. If I had to pretend she was a witch with magical powers, well, that was a small price to pay for having her in my life.

Something tickled the top of my head and with a slight shake of my curly hair, a large and perfectly formed tiger lily dropped into my lap. I felt more gentle brushes on my head and with a nervous hand I reached up and pulled a violet, two daisies and a sprig of tuberoses from my hair. I lifted the tuberose to my nose and breathed deep of it's heady, sweet fragrance. The white petals of the daisy were delicate and velvety soft and I rubbed the stamen lightly and saw a tiny smudge of goldenrod pollen stain the pad of my thumb.

I turned to look at Gage, he held a small ball of flame in his hands. With a casual gesture he threw the fireball to his other hand and gave me a devilish grin.

With a shocked inhalation of breath I saw my brother floating about four feet off the ground, he smiled at my expression, showing charming dimples in each cheek that matched my own.

I stood up quickly from the couch and felt all the blood rush from my head and my legs slowly crumpled as my body began to fall closer and closer to the floor. A gray tide of unconsciousness swept over me and then I felt nothing.

* * * *

This was the second time I had woken up here with no memory of how I got here.

Frankly, I was sick of it. I sat up with a groan, I felt like I had slept on a bag of rocks and my knee was throbbing with pain.

My clothes were still on, rumpled and sleep sweaty, but at least no one had undressed me.

I had a vision of Gage, carefully removing my clothes, and I felt suddenly hot and excited.

Ridiculous. My growing crush on Gage was not only stupid, but totally inappropriate under the circumstances. He was so far out of my league it wasn't even funny. Besides, I had seen, intimately, the kind of women he preferred; blond and slim, with small breasts and hips and legs that went on forever.

I pulled my left pant leg up to examine my knee. The knee had a big purplish, red lump on it now. I must have hit the coffee table on my way down. I critically examined my leg, it wasn't ready for the catwalk, but with all my jogging it was toned and proportionate.

There wasn't anything I could do about my breasts, they were big and round and a real strain on my neck and shoulders when I tried to do any kind of high impact exercise. My hips were rounded and ended in a small waist that made finding the perfect pair of jeans, impossible.

Sadly, I would never fit into a fashionable size two, I was just happy to get rid of my love handles without giving up cheesecake.

I wondered again about the dreams. Sometimes Gage noticed me in the dreams, like I was having an out of body experience and he could see me. He hadn't mentioned it and I silently WARLOCK’S BRIDE JENNIFER RINEHART 41

prayed he never would.

The thought of discussing my presence, not once, but numerous times when he was

making love to other women was humiliating and vaguely stalker-ish. Now that I thought about it, maybe he didn't know about the dreams, maybe I just thought he could see me. That was such a relieving thought I felt like a weight had been lifted off of me. Maybe I was just a little bit psychic or tele-something, I wasn't sure what it was called when you visited people you didn't know and spied on their lives. A tele-voyeur?

I was delaying getting out of bed and facing my mother, brother and Gage. I thought about the flowers, the floating and the flames. My head began to ache at the feverish thoughts racing through my head. Maybe this was all some highly detailed delusion. I could be in a bed in full, four-point restraints, with a lithium drip and a file a foot thick full of unpronounceable diagnoses. Maybe, every few days, a man in a long white coat would write in my file and shake his head, 'Poor girl, she's completely mad. Thinks she's a witch, ha, ha!'

The staff might check on me periodically to find me muttering crazily about magic spells, long lost family and orange bedrooms. I squeezed my eyes shut and then opened them quickly, nope, still here. I pinched my arm and then, for good measure, pinched it a second time, wincing at the sharp pain. Well, this was preferable to padded rooms and jackets that fastened in the back, but it was more complicated and required more from me than if all I had to do was lie around a hospital all day acting loony.

I was happy about meeting my family, but that happiness was tinged with sadness. I still couldn't understand why Celia had done what she did. I thought she was my savior, keeping me out of foster homes after my parents died.

I’d felt grateful to her for making a place for me in her busy life. What scraps of affection she could spare for me were fervently appreciated and I was always a little guilty that she had to invest so much time taking care of me. I had overheard, more than once, adults who said she obviously had never planned to have children and how kind it was of her to take in her niece.

Celia was an emotionally cold woman. She never got mad, sad or annoyed with me. We didn't have talks over dinner about what we had done for the day and she didn't take an interest in whether or not I kept my grades up or if I made friends with anybody. If I failed a class she would simply say, “well, I am sure you tried your hardest Anna.”

When something needed to be done, she did it. If it was something she wanted me to do, for example, cleaning the bathroom, she would write a note and slide it under my bedroom door.

Her disappointment when I didn't behave or ignored my chores was silent and fraught with simmering annoyance. She didn't have to raise a finger to get me to do my homework or keep my room neat. Just a look from her was enough to make me want to do the right thing.

Celia didn't have friends and she never dated anyone either. In my childish selfishness I had never seen anything wrong in the way she cut herself off from the rest of the world. I was glad she didn't have friends, that would have meant even less attention for me. Her self imposed loneliness was just so Celia. She lived a self contained life, just her and me against the world.

That's the way it was and that's the way it had always been. Her reasons for moving us so often had been less clear, but I had accepted her decisions and found ways to survive the near constant changes.

Now that I knew I had family who missed me and worried about me, I couldn't decide what was worse, that she kidnapped me and then didn't seem that interested in me or that her WARLOCK’S BRIDE JENNIFER RINEHART 42

only goal seemed to be to keep me away from them and hurt them in the bargain.

Enough of that, I could drive myself batty thinking about her. Besides, I could feel a storm on the horizon. My family's expectations seemed minimal right now. Helene and Laurent just seemed happy to see me again. But when the excitement faded away, what might they want of me?

I couldn't even begin to think about the magic. The only experience I had of magic was the hat and card trick variety. What I had seen yesterday was amazing and defied reality as I knew it. The best I could do in this situation was to go along with it. I was sure I didn't have any magical abilities (I hoped my family wouldn't be too disappointed) and I wasn't sure that I wanted them either.

A soft knock on the door interrupted my musings and I called out, “Who is it?”

“It's me, your mother,” Helene said in her musical French accent. I smiled at her obvious pleasure in saying the words. I liked to hear them too. It would be a long time before I got over the excitement of meeting her. Having a mother and a brother was a rare joy.

I got up quickly, tucked my shirt in and walked to the door to open it. Helene beamed at me when I opened the door and her look expression was concerned as she scanned me from head to toe.

“May I?” She asked with a nod to the room behind me and I moved aside so that she could come in. She sat on the edge of the bed and smiled at me. I quickly pulled the covers up a bit, trying to clean up. I didn't want her to think I was a slob as well as the hysterical, fainting type.

“Are you okay?” She said.

Her eyes roamed my face, stopping on my hair, my eyes, my nose. I knew what she was doing, because I found myself doing the same thing when I was around her. Trying to find something familiar in a face I was seeing for the second time in twenty years. Whatever she saw in me made her sigh with contentment and a mellow smile curved her lips. Her shoulders relaxed and she slumped back a little so that her shoulders leaned against the headboard for support.

“I'm good, how about you?”

“Well, I'm trying to get used to thinking of you as Anna. I hope you don't mind if I slip up occasionally and call you Amelie?”

“No, of course, that's fine.”

We were both quiet for a moment and then we started talking at the same time and laughed.

“You go first.” I offered.

“Your brother and I want so much to spend some time with you, but there is a situation that needs his help and I have a pediatric AIDS fund raiser that I have been organizing for the last year that I can't possibly reschedule …. ” her voice trailed away. She had a worried expression on her face as she looked to me with regret.

“Well, I was thinking, I have about two weeks of vacation saved up. When I get back to Portland, and if I still have a job, I could arrange to come to Paris to visit you. Let's say, three months from now? Or, you could visit me. I have just the one bedroom, it would be tight, but if you don't mind-”

Helene was shaking her head emphatically, “No, no, you can't go back to Portland by WARLOCK’S BRIDE JENNIFER RINEHART 43

yourself, it is too dangerous now.”

I was confused now, “Dangerous for me?”

She had a worried expression on her face now, “Gage wants us all to meet downstairs for dinner, I think I will let him explain.”

* * * *

Both men stood up as we entered and I smothered a smile thinking how impressed Patty and Leah would be by their manners.

I watched Harrison direct servants in the placement of several covered dishes and I leaned forward in anticipation of more culinary delights. I wasn't disappointed as we supped on osso buco and all the trimmings.

With a contented sigh I leaned back in my chair and carefully folded my napkin alongside my empty plate.

The conversation had wound down after we exhausted the subjects of the weather, the war in Iraq and the latest movies. Gage and Laurent loved karate action films and predictably, mother and I didn't.

We were all skirting around the big issues; Celeste and my kidnapping. I didn't think it was because no one wanted to talk about it, just that no one wanted to be the first to bring it up.

For the most part, today had been good. The mood was mellow and happy. We ate a nice dinner and I had the singular experience of seeing my mother and brother, laugh and crack jokes about people they knew and the magical community in general. This was one of the best days in my life, I didn't want anything to ruin it.

I cleared my throat and prepared to start, when Gage cut me off, “Anna can't go back to Portland alone.”

Helene and Laurent nodded their heads in agreement. I stared at them in amazement, surprised that I was the only one willing to question Gage's pronouncement.

Gage continued, “Three bodyguards and I will travel with her to Portland to make sure she is safe. I will arrange a safe house and guarded transport for her when she travels to and from her place of employment until a more permanent arrangement can be made.”

I held up a hand and gave it a little wave to get everyone's attention, feeling ridiculous, like I was in third grade again.

“I appreciate the gesture Gage, but I don't need a bodyguard to go with me to work or home or to the grocery store, alright? I realize you have all been a little traumatized by what Celia did, but I’m not a little girl anymore and I can take care of myself. In fact, I’ve lived alone for several years and I survived just fine.”

Helene looked worried for a moment and gave Laurent and Gage a pleading look.

Laurent turned to me with a serious expression and said, “There are some things you don't know about our world. Dangers you could never have imagined. Your life, the human life you lived, is over now. Accept that. Everyone knows who you are and, more importantly, what you are and you can't go back to what you had before. I'm sorry Anna. If only we found you fifteen or even ten years ago ...,” his voice trailed off and he raised his shoulders in a shrug that seemed to say it was a hopeless situation.