Our circle slowed gradually and we came to a gentle stop, settling into our individual places like flower petals resting on water. There were smiles, looks of wonder and even awe as my circle-mates shimmered with the beauty of magick. I felt as if I could float right off the ground, and only the weight of my linen robe was keeping me earthbound.
Magick buzzed and crackled in the air. It was a blissful feeling of well-being, of every single thing in the world being exactly what it should be. I felt that at this moment I could do nothing wrong and that everything would happen the way it was supposed to.
River clasped her hands in front of her, breathed something into them, then flung her hands at the fire. The fire leaped as if in response: River had released what she didn"t need, and the fire had taken it, consumed it.
Asher was on River"s other side and he went through the same motions. I watched in fascination as the fire actually seemed to grab his wish out of the air. Say what you will, magick, schmagick, but that was downright freaky.
And so it went, around the circle: Anne, Lorenz, Brynne, Jess, Rachel... each cast something out, and the fire claimed it for its own.
Then it was my turn. It wasn"t that I didn"t know what to cast off-more like I had way too many things for this one fire to handle. I"d probably make it gag or choke or something. Stupidity, selfishness, sloth, laziness-wait, is laziness covered by sloth or is it redundant? Immaturity, and I said selfishness, right?
Rachel gave me a gentle elbow in the ribs and I looked up to see everyone waiting expectantly. I swallowed, still wrapped in my glorious bubble of light and power. Quickly I clapped my hands together and breathed the first words that popped into my mind. I cast off darkness. I flung my hands open at the fire and it almost exploded, jumping to three times its size, making me step back quickly. But the flames mesmerized me, drew me in. I felt their heat but couldn"t tear my eyes away.
I cast off darkness. That had seemed to cover everything. I had shed my old life like a lizard"s skin; my old friends, my old me. Everything was new. This was a new year, a new start, and I was going to begin by making this conscious decision to release any darkness within me, to open myself to the possibility of good.
A memory came to my mind and floated before me, taking shape in the fire. It was me and Incy, and Boz and Katy were there, too. Then the fire faded away, and I saw the scene clearly.
We were in France, during World War II. We"d tried to cross the border into Switzerland with forged papers, but there had been bureaucratic red tape and we were stuck while we had new papers forged.
The four of us were on our way to a bar run by an immortal who had inexplicably decided to stay in France. We were glad he had, though. His bar was hidden-it was exciting and risky to get to, involving climbing down sewer steps in the dark, practically crawling through bombed-out cellars, and in one short section edging through a narrow, disjointed hallway that ran beneath a boarded-up cathedral.
As we hurried down the street, trying to avoid the annoyance of having a German patrol randomly stop us, we saw a Red Cross truck parked at the curb outside une poste-the post office. We were laughing, dressed up, looking forward to the evening and hoping to get our new papers the next day to escape this ruined, pathetic town.
The driver was inside the shop, the door still open. We heard him ask in appalling, American-accented French where the orphanage was. The shop mistress began explaining rapidly, with gestures, and it was clear that the driver wasn"t getting any of it. He mimed drawing a map, and the woman nodded and bustled off to get a piece of the inadequate, tissuelike paper that was all one could get then.
"Hey!" said Boz, slowing down.
"What?" I asked.
"The Red Cross truck-it"s going to the orphanage." He lowered his voice and pulled us into an alley.
"So?" Incy asked, then his dark eyes lit up. "It"s taking supplies. Maybe food."
When we half carried, half dragged the wooden crates into Felipe"s place, we were greeted like heroes. They held an unbelievable trove: bars of chocolate, soap, real eggs, which made everyone squeal, and actual oranges. None of us had seen any of these in months and months. We were magnanimous, sharing with everyone, handing out bars of chocolate as though we all had chocolate every day, blithely giving the eggs to Felipe"s wife, who bustled them off as if they were solid gold.
I remember the delicious, tangy scent of an orange as I dug my red-painted nails into the peel, pulling it back. A spritz of juice squirted out and hit my cheek. I laughed, and Boz licked it off. I squeezed some of the juice into the awful, watered-down whiskey that was Felipe"s stock in trade, and then I ripped the orange open and bit into the flesh. Nothing ever tasted so good, before or since.
It had been glorious, one of our favorite stories to remember and laugh about. We still congratulated one another on what a fantastic coup that had been.
Now, in the fire, I saw what I hadn"t seen then, hadn"t ever thought about: how the orphans would have heard the truck coming, would have peered through the windows, some broken and boarded up. How the nuns would have bustled about, giving them permission to run out and see le militaire. These were kids whose parents had probably died in one of the hundreds of air raids that German Messerschmitts had rained down on France. They"d probably run out to the truck, jumping on the driver, cheering when they saw the big red cross painted on the truck"s side. The driver would have strode to the back, feeling like Santa Claus. He would have seen their torn sweaters, the thin legs showing beneath too-short pants. Then he would have thrown back the olive green canvas and seen... nothing. An empty truck. The orphans would have been dumbfounded. Crushed. It would have been far better if the truck had never come-they hadn"t hoped for anything. But the truck had arrived, their hopes had flared up like the fire before me, and then their hopes had been utterly destroyed.
By us. By me. By my darkness.
Darkness, leave me, I pleaded silently. Darkness, leave me.
I heard someone cough, and I blinked, coming back to myself, to the here and now.
"What on earth did you cast out?" Rachel murmured, but River said, "Charles?" and the circle continued as if nothing had happened. I stepped back, trembling, and wrapped my arms around myself. Had I been standing there only an instant or for minutes? And how many memories did I have like that one? Things that had seemed wonderful, brilliant, amusing at the time-but that I would now look on with dismay, even revulsion? Many. So many.
Something sharp and bitter rose in the back of my throat and I put my hand to my mouth and swallowed hard.
Next to me Charles blew on his hands, and the fire gave a barely perceptible rise, as though it was a piece of cake after what it"d had to take from me.
My face was hot and I started to sweat; I felt curious looks. I focused on a spot near the fire"s base and didn"t raise my eyes. After Charles was Solis, and the fire mustered some energy to consume what he cast out. Solis, then Daisuke, then Reyn. I peeped at the fire for his; it gave a medium-size jump. What had he cast out? The longing to conquer people? The need to sack villages? His desire for me?
Then we were back to River, who looked alert and clear-eyed. "Well done, everyone. What a lovely circle. Let"s disband it together."
We took one another"s hands again. I was embarra.s.sed because my palms were clammy and Rachel and Charles could feel it. The twelve of us simply raised our arms to the sky and said farewell.
I felt the magick fading, paling, felt it start to unwind and slip off into the trees and the sky and the ground. That indescribable sensation of power and strength ebbed also, and I grew panicky, afraid at how diminished I would be without it, how normal.
A gentle arm slipped around my shoulder. River said, "Are you okay?"
I quickly did a self-check for signs of imminent hurling, then nodded. "Don"t think I"ll barf."
"No, I meant emotionally," she said. "That was an important circle; you raised a great deal of very strong magick. Could you feel it?" She inclined her head to mine as people started to find their shoes and head back to the house, chatting and laughing.
"I felt everyone"s magick, all twisted together," I told her, and she looked thoughtful.
"Yours was particularly strong," she said. "How do you feel about what you released?"
"Um, fine." I found my shoes and shoved my sockless feet into them. I was starting to shiver again with the night"s chill.
River hesitated as if she wanted to say something else. I hoped she wouldn"t ask any more questions about what I had cast off-I wasn"t sure that I had done the right thing, said the right thing. Could one cast off darkness itself? Should I have just stuck with selfishness?
Finally she said, "Okay. We can talk more about it later. Come back to the house-we have all sorts of special treats waiting."
"Okay." I made a big show of slowly tying my laces, and she went on ahead. I didn"t want to talk about it, any of it. Not what I had released, not what I had seen, not the horrible, curled-up memory of false happiness.
I got to my feet and realized that everyone had gone on ahead, and I was alone. Outstanding. The fact that it was below freezing was just sprinkles on the doughnut.
I gritted my teeth.
An owl hooted, of course, sending a chill down my already chilled spine. I heard twigs, winter-dry, snapping from feet not my own. Was that-had someone laughed? Oh G.o.ddess. I swear, if a clown jumped out at me, I would flay- Reyn stepped out from behind a tree, and I almost screamed.
"Dammit! You big... lurker! Is this how you get your kicks? This isn"t funny!"
"I wasn"t lurking," he said, looking irritated. "I was waiting for you. I know you hate being alone outside at night. I thought you could hear me, knew I was here."
My mouth opened in surprise.
"It looked like you and River were having a private talk, so I waited here."
Now I felt terrible, accusing him when he"d been being thoughtful. Even kind. His eyes looked brown in this dim light, and his cheekbones cast shadows along his jaw. Then his face cleared and he looked at me with an expression I didn"t recognize.
"Do you really think," he said softly, "that with the history we have between us, I would think it was funny to jump out at you?" He crossed his arms over his chest.
I took a controlled breath and put a hand over my pounding heart. "I wasn"t thinking," I said stiffly. "I was startled. How do you know I don"t like being outside at night?"
"Every time I"ve seen you outside at night, you"re tenser than a bowstring," he said, speaking so quietly that I unconsciously leaned forward to hear. "You hate it. You hate it enough to stand really close to me when we walk." His voice was warm and velvety, as though to keep the cold night away.
"You waited for me?" It was just sinking in.
"Yes. Should we go?" He gestured in the general direction of the house.
I nodded, bemused by how grateful I felt, and by how he looked, standing in these woods with soft bits of snow falling soundlessly around us.
He tilted his head to one side. "Your hair... looks like it was spun from moonlight." He looked away and gave a fake laugh, as if he hadn"t meant to say that.
I blinked, thinking, Warrior Poet, and then he turned back, his face solemn, and slowly leaned down to me as my breath suddenly left my chest. No more thoughts cluttered my head as our arms went around each other at the same time, my hands sliding up the soft cloth of his sleeves that couldn"t disguise the hard muscle underneath.
"Reyn," I whispered. Then his mouth was gently pressing against mine, his eyes open as he waited to see if I would push him away. Instead my eyes closed and I leaned against his chest, as solid as an oak. This was Reyn, kissing me, and everything felt new and unique, despite my four and a half centuries of kissing. He held me more tightly to him, his hands on my back, and I became thrillingly aware that there was nothing between us except our stupid freaking witch robes, which I had totally known was a bad idea.
With winter raider focus, he deepened our kiss, making my head spin. He smelled like smoke and laundry soap and some sort of unusual, almost Oriental spice that I a.s.sociated with him alone. I hadn"t been aware that he was edging me backward, but now I felt the cold immovability of a big rock sticking up out of the ground, hitting the backs of my knees. So I was officially literally between a rock and a hard place.
It was just... so good. It felt so good, amazingly good, better than anything I could ever remember, though I was freezing and unsure of what had happened at the circle. When I was with him like this, connected to him, I felt safe. Nothing could get to me. Nothing could hurt me now. Except him. And by the time that thought had struggled through the Jell-O of my mind, I had the dim awareness that my arms were around his shoulders, one of my hands was buried in his hair, and I"d curled one leg around his.
I gave in, letting the riptide of Reynness sweep me under, pull me in over my head.
I pressed myself against him as hard as I could, as if I could meld us together. One of my hands pushed beneath the neckline of his robe to feel hot, smooth skin, the straight strength of his collarbone, the sleek muscles of his shoulder. He was big and strong and solid and perfect. I felt him breathing hard and was pleased-I had done that to him. I just wanted to have time stop, right now. I wanted to give up, give in, let go of everything except Reyn.
Of course I was tempted to do just that. I"d love to give up this stupid, difficult, effing struggle toward being Thti. It would be so much easier to just...coast from now on. To overwhelm my senses with Reyn, letting him fill my mind, my heart, my body.
But-wouldn"t that leave me just as much of a loser sh.e.l.l as I"d been when I got here? It completely p.i.s.sed me off, but the truth was that I had a goal here. Losing myself in all of these lovely, fierce, tantalizing emotions would just be making another placeholder inside where Lilja-the name I was born under-ought to be.
Reyn lifted his head, looking at me. We were both panting, making puffs of smoke in the frigid air. My arms felt cold and stiff.
"Where are you?" His voice was almost a whisper. I thought I could detect the very faintest hint of his original language-some Mongol/Scandinavian b.a.s.t.a.r.d hybrid. He stepped back but kept his arms around me.
"I can"t do this," I said, knowing I had just done it, hating how breathless I sounded.
His eyes narrowed a fraction.
With a sense of loss similar to feeling magick ebb from me after a circle, I made myself say, "I don"t know why we"re doing this." I tried unsuccessfully to step away from his hands. "I don"t know why-" I shook my head, feeling bone-tired and confused and sad and yet somehow triumphant for some reason.
"We"re drawn together," he said, his words falling almost silently in the night air. "We have a past together."
"A horrible, disastrous past." Well, someone had to say it.
"Maybe this is the only way to heal it." His chest was rising and falling, but with longtime warrior instincts he was making no sound.
"I don"t know." I hated being so indecisive. I prefer to be snappy, even abrasive. I almost always know where I stand on things, am happy to give my opinion about anything. But tonight I couldn"t muster a coherent thought.
"You-have feelings for me." He was quiet but insistent.
Oh yes, indeed. l.u.s.t, longing. "Dread? Pain?"
I felt his muscles tighten though I wasn"t touching him anymore.
"Being at River"s is about... being who you are," he said, each word sounding as if it was coming out against his will. "Who you really are. And making that-okay, somehow."
My body, which just moments ago had been singing his praises and urging me to get to know him ever so much better, started to spiral downward. I was coming off my Reyn high just as I had come off my magick high not ten minutes ago. Adrenaline and excitement leached from my veins and I was suddenly shivering with cold again. I crossed my arms over my chest.
"Okay, Dr. Laura," I said, but without real snark.
"It"s pointless to lie to yourself." His words landed flatly between us.
I worked up a pretty sincere frown. "Oh yeah? Good tip."
But this was a man who had probably held out for weeks, even months, during icy sieges, waiting for barricaded villagers to starve and break, so my brittle walls didn"t pose much challenge for him.
"If you can"t face your feelings, all of them, then you"re never going to be strong enough to break free of the past."
I was caught off guard by his words as much as by the way he looked against the black trees of the woods, the snow white under our feet, moonlight striping his face and hair and making him look like some kind of exotic tiger-person.
"Oh, like you know." I now felt stupid and vulnerable and not like myself.
Feeling like I had to get away from all this emotion, I pushed past him, and he let me. I headed home by myself, walking fast on the snow where other feet had made a path. I didn"t know if he was following me, but a minute or two later I was almost running up the kitchen steps, desperate for the light and the laughter within.
CHAPTER 7.
Most of the January firsts in recent memory have involved splitting headaches and roiling stomachs and often being surprised about where I was waking up. ("No, Officer, I have no idea why I"m wearing this possum costume. I called you what? Oh. My bad.") Plus a sort of heavy dread about still being here, still being me, still doing whatever. Then one of my friends would call, or roll out from beneath the couch, or offer me a b.l.o.o.d.y Mary, and it would start all over again.
This year felt different. I woke up not hungover, not with strangers, but with a wary sense of excitement about a whole new year of possibility. In Iceland we"d always had huge bonfires on New Year"s Eve and had made wishes and toasts to the new year. I had done that last night.
I felt... excited. Even hopeful, though I didn"t want to jinx anything by admitting that. Lying in the tub in the women"s bathroom on my hall, I cataloged my progress. I watched my toes turning pink in the hot water and silently listed ways where I felt I was doing better.
I wasn"t fine. I wasn"t altogether okay and together and trustworthy and positive. I still had a long, rocky uphill road ahead of me to get there. But I was doing better. And this new year would hold even more progress. Really. Truly. I ducked myself underwater and rinsed off, imagining that I was washing away my past.
Polishing stable tack is high on my list of dislikes, right after pia coladas and walks in the rain. Faced with several harnesses, two saddles, and a couple of girth belts, I could only give thanks that some of the tack was nylon webbing and needed no upkeep.
"Hallo, cara," Lorenz murmured as I went past him to the tack room. He and Charles were sweeping the middle aisle of the barn, and the air was thick with kicked-up hay and dust. "Have you seen the lovely puppies?"
"Yep." Everyone was all about the puppies here.
Charles sneezed and drew a clean white handkerchief from his barn coat pocket. Even sweeping the floor, he looked tidy and kempt. And Lorenz could have been modeling for Horse Ill.u.s.trated: The Winter Collection. He even had a silk scarf knotted around his neck. I myself was dressed to thrill in flannel-lined jeans, muck boots, a sweatshirt, my puffy coat, and a thick wool scarf. Lorenz, his fashion sensibilities offended, tried not to wince but simply couldn"t bear it.
"No, not the scarf wrapped many times," he said, propping up his broom and coming toward me. He was only about a hundred or so and still had a p.r.o.nounced Italian accent.
I put my hands up to stop him, but he firmly pressed them down and undid my scarf, while I stood frozen. My hair had grown out a bit and now covered the back of my neck, but just barely. I felt stuck to the floor and tried to get a grip on the raging panic his action had set off.
"Look. This is the way." With deft hands, he folded my scarf, then looped it quickly around my neck while I tried not to leap away. He tucked the loose ends of the scarf through the loop and tightened it up around me. I controlled my breathing while he futzed with it, draping it and fluffing it up. He stepped back to regard me critically.