As I’d expected, the next morning Connor tried calling Marie again, still with no response. He set his phone down on the counter that separated the kitchen from the dining area and let out a brief gust of breath. “Okay, that’s it,” he announced. “We’re going over there.”
I put down my cup of green tea. Even though I’d been trying to avoid coffee anyway, over the weekend I seemed to have developed a sudden aversion to its smell. Poor Connor had tried to make himself some French roast, and I nearly vomited at the aroma. Strange, because otherwise I really wasn’t experiencing any morning sickness. But now — at least for the time being — if he wanted to get his caffeine fix, he’d have to go to the coffee house down the street and drink his venti before he came home.
“Do you think that’s such a good idea?” I asked in dubious tones. “For all we know, Marie’s not answering the phone because she’s shacked up with the pool boy or something.”
Connor didn’t crack a smile. “She doesn’t have a pool. And I’ve never heard of her being with anyone, let alone a pool boy, so there goes that theory.”
“Oh, now I’ve figured it out,” I said. “Her main problem is that she just needs to get laid. She’d be so much more relaxed.” Then again, probably the real reason she always acts hostile around me is that I’m the child of the man she wanted to marry….
Not bothering to respond to my remark, he went on, “Do you think you can be ready to leave by eleven?”
It was ten-thirty now, and although I’d showered, I was still roaming around in yoga pants and a tank top, with no makeup on. “No problem,” I said blithely. Thank goodness my “beautifying” routine was pretty basic.
And, sure enough, we were out the door at five after eleven. I’d eschewed my jeans, which were starting to feel a little tight, for one of my flowing sequined skirts — thank the Goddess for elastic waistbands — and a camisole. It wasn’t even that hot in Flagstaff, but I thought the outfit was a good kick-off for the start of summer.
As before, we walked the few blocks to Marie’s house, letting the mild breeze be our companion. Connor and I didn’t talk much; I could tell he was still brooding over her silence, and attempting to figure out the reason behind it. Well, we should know in a few minutes, one way or another.
Her house didn’t look much different from the last time we’d seen it, only a few days earlier. The irises still bloomed, although they were starting to look a little dry around the edges, as was the lawn. Well, maybe she was big into water conservation.
Connor went to the front door and rang the bell. We waited, the breeze picking up and pulling at my spangled skirts, causing a brief swirl of reflections around the front stoop, like a drift of falling stars.
Nothing.
“She could be out shopping or something,” I suggested. “I mean, even Marie has to replace the toilet paper sometime.”
A brief twist of his mouth, and Connor shook his head before ringing the doorbell once again. We could hear it echoing in the house, but there were no answering footsteps, no Marie coming to the door and giving us that look of quiet disapproval she’d mastered so well.
“I’m going to open it,” Connor said, after we’d waited another minute.
“I don’t think she’d be too happy about us breaking and entering.”
“I don’t care. I’m the primus of this clan — what’s she going to do about it?”
To that I had no answer, so I merely lifted my shoulders and watched as he laid his hand on the latch. A pale glow seemed to drift from his fingers, surrounding the dark metal piece, and then he pushed down, and the door swung inward.
“Wow,” he said, lifting his hand and staring at it as if he’d never seen it before. “She had it warded, but I just pushed with the power — the primus power — and the wards…disappeared.”
“You haven’t used it very much,” I said. It was not a question.
“No. Except that time in Indio, with you. It sort of…well, it scares me a little. I saw what it did to Damon, and I don’t want to be anything like that.”
Again I couldn’t really find the words to reply, to reassure him that he would never be anything like Damon. Instead, I slipped my fingers in his, pulling him gently into the foyer. After all, if he’d gone to the trouble of using the primus powers to unlock the door, then we might as well go inside and see what’s what.
Everything was neat and clean, everything in its place. Well, almost everything. As we moved from the entryway into the combined living room/dining room space, I noticed a cream-colored envelope, the kind that you might put a birthday card in, leaning up against the Navajo basket filled with dried gourds that sat in the center of the dining table. One word was written on that envelope, in handwriting so elegant that it looked almost like calligraphy.
Connor.
Mystified, the two of us exchanged a glance before he stepped forward and lifted the envelope, turning it over in his hand. Nothing else had been written on it.
Connor stood there for so long, staring down at the envelope, that I felt compelled to ask, “Aren’t you going to open it?”
“I guess so. Yes. It’s just…I don’t know. I can’t imagine she would’ve left a note unless it was bad news.”
A weird prickling sense of unease told me the same thing, but I shook it off, saying, “Even if it’s bad news, we need to know what it is.”
“I know…you’re right.” A final hesitation, and then he ran his thumb under the flap of the envelope, tearing it open. Inside was a single piece of paper, also cream, thick and heavy. That surprised me; Marie seemed like the last person in the world to care about nice stationery, although I knew I should probably stop trying to understand all the quirks of the individual Wilcoxes.
As Connor unfolded the paper, I saw that it contained only a few words written in that same flowing handwriting. Peering over his shoulder, I could just make out what they said.
I thought I could do this, but I can’t. You’ll need to discover your own path to the solution.
“What the hell?” Connor exclaimed, turning the paper over, almost as if he expected more words to magically appear on the reverse of the note. Well, it had been written by a witch, so I supposed that expectation wasn’t entirely unwarranted, but even so, the paper’s surface remained smooth and blank.
“So…she’s gone?” I asked.
“Sure looks that way.”
And even though the house was clearly empty, he still went from room to room, with me trailing in his wake, as if Marie might be discovered hiding in a broom closet or something. Like the main rooms downstairs, the bedrooms and bathroom on the second story were clean and neat, nothing out of place. One bedroom was clearly a guest room, with a daybed and small dresser and not much else, and the other seemed to be her office, although the desk that must have once held her computer was now empty. There was a table opposite it that she seemed to have used for some kind of mosaic work; the surface was covered with a plastic sheet, and there were still jars of glass tiles sitting there, and a half-finished piece showing a jagged mountain range and a stylized sunburst behind it.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “I didn’t know Marie was an artist, too.”
He gave a shrug, clearly not interested in Marie’s artistic pursuits at the moment. “Yeah, she’s been doing that stuff for as long as I can remember. Sells it to the local shops, has an online business, too, I think.”
My knowledge of Marie had just doubled in the last five minutes. “It looks as if she didn’t care much about taking it with her.”
“Well, it’s not quite as portable as knitting, I guess.”
Moving out of the office, he went down the hall to the master bedroom. The door stood ajar, so it wasn’t as if she’d locked it behind her, but I still felt strange going in there. My aunt’s bedroom, which was about my only frame of reference for an adult woman’s private space, was a cheerful jumble of antiques and knickknacks and decorative frames filled with various photos of family members. This chamber was almost the exact opposite, spare Shaker-style furniture and a queen-size bed with a white-on-white quilt laid across it. No pictures, no decorations at all except a couple of Navajo rugs hanging on the walls, just as in the living room downstairs.
Well, there was one thing out of place.
Lying in the middle of the bed, glaringly obvious against all that white, was a small 4x6 photo. Connor went to it at once and lifted it up, again turning it over to see if anything was written on the back. But the reverse of the photo was blank, except for the faint watermark of the photographic paper.
As he flipped it back over, I saw it was a picture of a young couple, the woman clearly Native American, the man also dark-haired, but his skin was lighter, and his eyes hazel. They were standing in front of what looked like the gate to a corral; in the background I could just make out the dark brown shape of what was probably a horse.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“I think that’s Marie.”
“Marie?” I asked incredulously, reaching for the photo. Connor surrendered it, and I stared down at the picture of the couple, attempting to see the cold and distant Marie I knew in the laughing face of the girl in the image. She was probably barely twenty in the photo, her face not as sharply angled as it was now, the chin rounder. But I recognized the dark, arched brows and the thin nose and the long, long lashes. Somehow, though, this girl was beautiful, whereas I’d never thought of Marie that way. Striking, yes, but sharp and almost hawklike, as if the passage of years had worn away all that youthful prettiness. “Okay,” I allowed at last. Then my heart seemed to drop a beat or two as I focused on the young man more closely. Was that…? “And the guy?” I asked, my voice casual. Too casual, I knew.
Connor’s gaze flickered up at me, and his eyes narrowed as he seemed to take in my expression. Then he said, “I don’t recognize him, but I think that’s your father. He’s around the right age, and Marie’s looking pretty friendly with him.”
That was true — she was leaning into the young man’s shoulder, a flirtatious glint in her eyes. And even though I’d been waiting all my life to know what my father looked like, now that the time had come, it was harder than I had thought it would be to stare down at that photo, make myself really study his face.
He was handsome, with sooty hair almost as dark as Marie’s, and fine high cheekbones and a nice strong chin. I could see why my mother had fallen for him. But that still didn’t explain why he had left Marie and gone to California, apparently intent on seducing the wayward McAllister daughter who had gone there to escape the heavy expectations of her family.
“I can see it a little,” Connor said, glancing from the photo to me and back again. “Something in the shape of your face. And your hair color is almost exactly the same.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to dwell on those similarities, because I had a feeling I’d start obsessing about which feature I’d gotten from which parent, and we really didn’t have time for that. Turning to the matter at hand, I asked, “But why would she leave it here?”
“I don’t know. Maybe for you to find? Obviously the whole thing is still painful to her, or she wouldn’t have treated you the way she did. Does. Whatever.” He began to shrug and then seemed to stop himself, as if he realized that such an off-hand gesture didn’t really fit the seriousness of the situation.
Even so, I gave him a startled glance. Yes, I’d thought the same thing myself, but I hadn’t really expected Connor to agree with me. He’d always seemed fairly quick to defend Marie’s behavior.
“I saw it,” he said. “I didn’t like it, and it wasn’t really overt enough for me to call Marie on it. And then when we discovered who your father really was, it made total sense.”
I nodded, then stared down at the photo once again. It was so odd — for most of my life my father had been a specter, a shadow, someone with no name, no identity. Now I knew his name was Andre Wilcox, and this was what he’d looked like, once upon a time. Better than nothing, but it still didn’t help us get any closer to discovering why he’d gone to California all those years ago and what had happened to him, never mind whether finding any of those answers would get us any nearer to breaking the Wilcox curse.
“And she left this…why? As a clue?”
“Maybe. Or maybe she wanted to look at it one last time before she left.”
“Left for where? I mean, where would Marie even go?”
“I have no idea,” Connor said grimly. “So I’m going to call the only person who might.”
Sitting in Marie’s living room, Lucas appeared stunned as he glanced from me to Connor, his gaze finally coming to rest on the photo where it sat on the coffee table. Then he reached over and picked up the snapshot, eyes narrowing. “Andre Wilcox. Jesus Christ.”
“So you knew him?” I asked.
“Well, he was my cousin — okay, we’re all cousins, in one way or another — so yes, I knew him. Not well, since that branch of the family was a little standoffish, and he was about seven years older than I was. Enough that we weren’t in the same subgroup of kids who hung out together at family parties, that sort of thing.”
Lucas shifted on the couch, the photo still in his hand. Again I was struck by how he had to be about the least warlock-looking warlock I’d ever met, with his expensive jeans and golf shirt and polished loafers. He’d probably come straight from the country club when we called.
Now he scrubbed his free hand through his dark hair, disarranging the expensive haircut, and shook his head. “And this thing with Marie? I don’t get it.”
“So she never said anything to you?” Connor inquired.
“Well, she’s said lots of things to me over the years, but she certainly never mentioned that she was planning to just up and disappear on us.” His expression clouded as he leaned down to return the snapshot to the coffee table. “She might not be the world’s friendliest person — ”
No, that would be you, I thought with a mental grin.
“ — But she’s always been there when we needed her. We just sort of accepted that it was Marie’s way and rolled with it.”
“Do you have any idea where she might have gone?” I was mentally sifting through the few bits and pieces I did know about Marie Wilcox, trying to figure out the most logical destination for her. “Maybe to the reservation? That’s where her mother is, right?”
“Was,” Lucas corrected me, dark eyes troubled. “I heard she died a few years ago.”
Well, damn. “But maybe Marie still could have gone there for some reason? Can’t we, I don’t know, try poking around to see if someone knows something?”
Both Connor and Lucas had the oddest expressions on their faces, as if they both wanted to call me on my ignorance but at the same time didn’t want to seem rude. After an awkward pause, Connor said gently, “Angela, the Navajo lands are huge — bigger than some states. It would be worse than a needle in a haystack.”
“Well, I refuse to believe that we’ve hit a complete dead end,” I retorted. “What about my father’s family? Are they still alive? Would they know anything?”
Connor looked blank, and I had a feeling he wasn’t sure he could even remember who they were. Well, Lucas had said that part of the family wasn’t exactly sociable.
“Maybe,” Lucas said slowly. “That is, I know Andre’s father — your grandfather — died awhile ago. I can’t remember for sure. Your grandmother was a civilian, actually, and once her husband was gone, she pretty much had nothing to do with any of us. No one pushed it, since it was her choice. Our only concern was that she keep quiet about her husband being a warlock, and as far as we know, she never said anything to anyone, so there was no real reason to disturb her, since she obviously wanted to be left alone.”
That was something, at least. “But do you know where she is? Can you set it up so we can talk to her? She may not even know that she has a grandchild.”
Lucas’ face was a study in mixed emotions: pity, worry…reluctance. “We haven’t kept in touch, for obvious reasons. I hadn’t heard if she even stayed here in Flagstaff after her husband died, but I’ll do what I can. It might take a few days, though.”
I chafed at any delay, but with Marie gone, we didn’t have many alternatives. Maybe this would turn out to be nothing more than another wild-goose chase. Then again, even if Andre’s mother could offer no insights, I felt as if I should at least get to meet her. She was the only living grandparent I had left.
“That’s okay,” I said, sounding heartier than I felt. “We have to go back to Jerome anyway, since the remodel on my house is starting tomorrow.”
Lucas lifted an eyebrow; clearly he thought working on the house in Jerome was a wasted effort. “But you’re still going to look at the property here on Thursday, right?”
“Yes, we already said we would,” Connor replied. “We’ll drive up Thursday morning and meet you there. In the meantime, I guess ask around and see if Marie talked to anyone, mentioned anything about going out of town.”
Being Lucas, he was too polite to point out that Marie really didn’t take anyone into her confidence. Maybe she had, just a little, with Damon, but as he’d moved on to a higher plane of existence, that wasn’t of much use to us.
“I’ll do what I can,” he said, in a tired-sounding voice that didn’t sound much like the Lucas I knew. Then he got to his feet. “You two have a safe drive down to Jerome. Watch out for all those holiday drivers.”
We both nodded and said we’d see him in a few days, and he let himself out. A minute later, we did the same, Connor making sure the door was securely locked and warded behind us. After all, even though we’d technically broken into her house, we didn’t want anyone else to do the same.
Who knows…maybe one day she would return.
The contractors showed up at seven on the dot the next morning. I greeted them with as much enthusiasm as I could muster at that hour, although I knew seven was starting late for them. In Arizona it was common practice to start work as soon as the sun was up, noise pollution be damned. However, since I felt as if I were already on shaky ground with my neighbors, considering I was shacked up with a Wilcox, I’d told the contractors they couldn’t begin to work until after seven, and to hold off on the power tools whenever possible until eight.
I supposed I’d see how long that lasted.
They were a professional crew, though, all recommended by the architect. Civilians, just because although the McAllister clan did have some talented carpenters and painters and such among its ranks, I thought it was safer to have a nonmagical group working on the house. Besides, my cousin Adam had been doing a lot of construction and contractor work around town and down in Cottonwood, and the very last thing I needed was him underfoot, shooting daggers with his eyes at Connor while attempting to braze a pipe or something. He’d made himself scarce the past few weeks, probably wanting to avoid seeing me with Connor. Although I still felt a twinge of guilt over the way things had shaken out between us, I couldn’t help but be relieved that he apparently wasn’t going to force a confrontation this time. Things were already complicated enough when it came to interactions with my family members.
Thank the Goddess that Connor had insisted on coming down with me to Jerome, even though I’d protested feebly that it would be fine and he didn’t really need to subject himself to the noise. He’d only lifted his eyebrow at me — oh, I did love it when he did that — and said, “Of course I’m coming with you. Did you really think I’d let you suffer through all that on your own?”
And when he said “suffer,” he wasn’t kidding. The first hour or so was quiet enough; it looked like the workmen were taking final measurements, clearing out any last-minute stuff that I’d forgotten about. I’d already packed most of the kitchen, but there were always a few odds and ends that escaped capture. But after that?
Wham! Wham!
Connor and I had been sitting in the library upstairs, trying to keep out of the way, when the whole house shook. I would’ve said it was an earthquake, but we didn’t get many of those in northern Arizona. No, it was just the capable wrecking crew from Yavapai Construction Associates.
After wincing and sharing a look of mutual commiseration, we tried to go back to our respective books…which lasted for a whole ten seconds.
“You want to get out of here?” Connor said, laying aside the paperback he was holding.
“Thought you’d never ask,” I replied, and blanked the screen on my iPad before laying it aside. Okay, true, I’d come back to Jerome to be here in case the crew needed me, but after that last bit of clean-up and a final consult with the architect, it seemed I wasn’t much needed.
So we fled to Sedona, where we caught an early movie, went out to lunch, wandered around a few galleries, saw another movie, and then finally ate dinner, coming home at dusk when we deemed it would be safe.
And it was, more or less; the crew was packing up as we pulled into the garage. Connor and I headed into the house, where there was a gaping hole in the side of the kitchen, now carefully covered with plastic sheeting. Good thing monsoon season wasn’t due to start for another month and a half.
“Good first day,” Brad, the foreman, told me. “We’ll see you tomorrow morning at seven.”
I think I managed a watery thanks, looking at the destruction around me. On paper, a remodel sounds great. Take an outdated, inconvenient space and turn it into something worthy of a magazine spread. The problem is, no one bothers to tell you how much of a godawful mess it’s going to be during that all-important time between the “before” picture and the “after.”
Wisely, Connor held his tongue, and only went with me into the family room, where we watched a little TV before going to bed. And as much as I enjoyed making love in the big king-size bed in my bedroom, I wasn’t feeling it that night. Maybe it was hormones, maybe it was frustration over trying to figure out where Marie had gone, maybe it was worry about how the days were slowly ticking away, and eventually these babies — plural — would show up, and then my own clock would start winding down. It might not happen right away, or even within a few months, but eventually, something would happen to take me out of the picture. I definitely would not be around to fret over them getting into a good college.
Or maybe it was none of those things, and I was only worrying about what sort of mayhem the contracting crew would wreak the next day.
It also didn’t help that the room felt horrendously warm to me. True, it had been warm verging on hot that day, but the house should have started to cool down by now. We always got a pleasant night breeze in Jerome.
After I adjusted my position for what felt like the tenth time, I heard Connor’s voice in the darkness.
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m hot,” I said irritably.
“It is a little warm. I’m surprised you don’t have air conditioning.”
“It’s on the list,” I snapped. “I just thought the kitchen was more important. Anyway, the heat’s never bothered me before.”
“You’ve never been pregnant before.”
Well, that was true. “I’m barely three months pregnant,” I said. “I thought the heat issues didn’t kick in until you were actually, you know, showing.”
A soft little sound that might have been a chuckle, quickly repressed. “Okay, maybe, but different things affect people differently.” I felt the bed rock slightly as he adjusted his position. Now, as my eyes were adjusting to the darkness, I could see he had turned on his side so he could face me. “Are you sure that’s all it is?”
“Of course that’s not all it is. It’s just the most recent thing.” I took a breath. “I think I may have taken on more than I can handle with this remodel.” And Marie’s disappeared…and it turns out I’m half Wilcox…and every day I have a little less time to unravel this curse thing so I don’t die before I’m twenty-five.
I didn’t say any of that, though. I had a feeling Connor already knew what I was thinking.
“Well, I doubt even your relatives will give you too much crap for not staying here while half the house is getting ripped apart. That’s asking a bit much, don’t you think?”
Under normal circumstances, maybe. But since I was prima, different rules applied to me. Even the short jaunts I’d been making to Flagstaff with Connor had upset them, I could tell. It just drove home that my consort was the last person they’d ever wanted or expected for me. Well, okay, second to last. I had a feeling that, if pressed, they would admit Connor was the lesser evil when compared to his brother.
“So you think we should go back to Flagstaff?”
“Well, considering no one’s tearing up my apartment and it tends to be about ten degrees cooler there most of the time, I’d say yeah, that might be a better place to spend the summer.” He grinned then, his teeth flashing in the near-darkness of the bedroom. “Of course, I’ll admit that I might be a bit biased.”
Maybe he was biased, but he was also making a lot of sense. Sure, there were places here in Jerome I could’ve crashed for the summer, such as my old bedroom back at Rachel’s apartment. However, Connor would be excluded from such an arrangement, and I refused to be separated from him again. We’d already lost almost two months. I wouldn’t give up any more.
“No, you’re right,” I said. “At least, I think you’re right. It all makes so much sense when I’m alone with you, and then I get the elders giving me the hairy eyeball whenever I so much as mention your name, or Flagstaff, and I have to remind myself to stand my ground.”
He didn’t reply at first, only reached out and pulled me against him, held me close so I could hear the reassuring rhythm of his heartbeat. “Well, maybe you don’t need to make any huge decisions right now. Just say the noise and the heat were getting to you, and that you needed to get away for a couple of days. Besides,” he added, “we’re looking at that house on Thursday. Maybe it’ll be perfect, and that’ll be the sign you need to tell you it’s okay to spend part of your time in Flagstaff. I have a feeling they might not protest so much if their prima is shacked up in a million-dollar house rather than a walk-up over an art gallery.”
“You might be surprised,” I said. “The McAllisters aren’t all that into external signs of wealth.”
“That much is obvious. I’ve seen the cars most of you drive.”
That remark left me no alternative but to give him a mock punch in the arm, to which he gave an equally false wince before pulling me even closer to him, his mouth hot on my neck, tracing a line of kisses down to my breast. In short order my tank top had been flung away to land somewhere on the floor in the darkness, and my fingers were pulling at the waistband of his boxer briefs, and soon after that we had joined once again in an embrace that erased all doubt and worry and clan politics.
…if only for a little while.