Adrift (13 page)

I set to casting stitches on to my needle with a soft slate-blue yarn and a second ball of natural off-white that had seemed to call my name.  “Isn’t today the equinox?” I asked.

Devin nodded and yawned.  “All is well,” he said.  “I spent the night out in the woods, as always.  Nothing out of the ordinary happened this year.”

This year.  I bent my head over my knitting, trying not to think about the year that nothing had been ordinary.

“I wish I could have seen it,” I told him, curiously.  “I’ve never really seen anything that you could call Magic.”

Devin drew his brows together, seriously.  “Magic is limited,” he told me.  “Other than the rituals at every equinox, there’s not really enough power left on this side of the Gateway to do anything at all.  In the old days…” He shrugged and laughed, a little hollowly, I thought.  “I would have been quite the hand with Magic, supposedly.  I have the blood for it,” he nodded towards his mother, “and the ritual has always been quite easy for me, which would suggest that spells of any sort would have come relatively easily to me.”  He shivered suddenly.  “Of course, if the Gateway was open, it would be more than necessary for a Guardian like me to be well-versed in magic.  It would truly fall on me to protect mankind.”

I tried to imagine what it would feel like, to carry all that responsibility on my shoulders.  I didn’t think I would be adequate.  After all, I was the girl that couldn’t even step away from a single Fae, let alone all Faerie.

“I have a question,” I said.  “My dreams… I told you about the… Sidhe that has been appearing in them?”

Devin nodded.  By the shocked expression on Maura’s face, this was new information to her.  Devin frowned deeply.  “Is he still bothering you?”

I felt my face flush at the kind of bothering Omyn had been doing.  “Yes.  Almost every night he is there, in my dreams.  Sometimes… I don’t know… it almost frightens me.”

Devin’s frown deepened.  He struck the arm of his chair with a fist in frustration.  “I should be able to block him out, I’m sorry for that.”

I shook my head.  “I know it’s because of what I am… I don’t think you could keep him away.  He’s very… determined.”

Devin scowled further.  “Meg, you should know, if he ever presses you too much, if he ever frightens you-- the human will is a strong thing.  Being mortal has its own strength, even if it doesn’t seem so compared to the Fae.  If you truly desired for him to leave, you could always make him go.”

I sighed in relief, even as I felt my face flare hotter.  Devin knew, then, that there was at least part of me that wanted Omyn there, that fascinated me, or Omyn wouldn’t be able to haunt me.

“You have free will,” Devin reiterated.  “You can always say no.”

I bent back over my work, to hide my face.  I didn’t want Devin to think I was… what?  Fooling around with Omyn?  I wasn’t, was I?  It wasn’t like I was involved with the Sidhe, was I?

Why couldn’t I send him away?

I thought about Omyn’s beauty.  He was truly the most beautiful creature I had ever seen, his body was perfect, every line of his face designed by a master artist.  It was clear in his very beauty that he wasn’t, and had never been, human.  I glanced across the room at Devin, sitting in his chair with my blanket pulled up to his chin.  He was entirely mortal.  A day’s worth of stubble twinkled red in the firelight.  Exhaustion was clear in the dark circles under his eyes, in his rough hands.  His red hair was thrown back carelessly from his forehead, standing on end in places.

They were nothing alike.

So, why was I drawn to them both?

Perhaps it was because they were so different from each other.  Devin was as mortal as mortal could be.  No one would ever consider him handsome, while no mortal could ever call Omyn anything but beautiful.  Devin’s appeal was in the humor that sparkled in his eyes, in the labor of his hands, in his sharp mind.

Omyn’s attraction was his very otherness.  It was like being courted by an angel, and I knew part of it was the flattery of someone so above me, beyond reality, being interested in me that created some of my fascination with him.

Well, fascination or not, love or not, they were both out of my reach.  My heritage meant I was part of two worlds, and belonged to neither world.  Devin could never be mine, he would never be able to get past his history, his feelings of responsibility towards me.  And Omyn was physically beyond me.  He was on the other side of the Gateway.  I would never truly have the option to be with him.

“Just in my dreams,” I murmured to myself.

Devin glanced up at me.  I couldn’t tell if he had heard me, but my face burned further and I quickly fell into a knit/purl pattern just so I wouldn’t have to think.  I counted stitches under my breath, hiding behind a complicated pattern. 

I didn’t want to think about Omyn when I was in the same room as Devin.  It felt disloyal.  It felt wrong for me to be so attracted to two… males… at the same time.  Could I even call Omyn a man?  He was certainly all male… but in no way ‘man’ as I understood it.  Humans, after all, were mankind, right?

I set to double-knitting a checkerboard pattern, one stitch in one color, one in the other, back and forth, so that there was no off-side to the pattern.  I didn’t know why, but having a ‘wrong-side’ in knitting bothered me.

Maura paused to watch over my shoulder as she went to the kitchen.  “I’ve never seen that technique before,” she admitted.  “You’ll have to teach me.”

I nodded in answer, still counting under my breath.

Maura disappeared into the kitchen and returned with herb tea and cookies on a tray.

“It’s hardly a high tea,” she commented, when I thanked her, looking down at the spread.

I made a face.  “Honestly,” I told her.  “I love herb tea, but I hate black tea.  It has always tasted nasty to me.”

She laughed.  “Me too,” she confessed.  “Why do you think I only have herb tea in the house?”

Devin had fallen asleep under his birthday blanket, I discovered, when I went to hand him a mug of tea.  He looked so young as he slept, his head thrown back and his mouth slightly open.

Maura tucked him further into the blanket and stood for a moment, her hand resting lightly on his head.

I ducked my head at intruding in such a private moment.

Kip thumped his tail sleepily from the floor.  I put my knitting aside to give him the promised scratch.  He rolled over on his back for a belly rub, grinning in doggy pleasure.

My body knew it was time for bed. I was so exhausted that I nearly fell asleep in the shower.  I washed the dried paint from my hands and the straw from my hair, yawning as sore muscles relaxed in the hot spray.

I returned to my room in my pajamas, my hair braided tightly.  It would be wet still in the morning, I knew, but I didn’t really care.

Kip was waiting for me in my bed.  I grinned at him.  It seemed so normal to have Devin’s dog sleeping with me.  I shoved him over to make room for me to climb into bed and he let out a grumbling sound, his eyes still closed.  I smiled to myself.

And then I was asleep.

For once, I slept without dreams.  I awoke in the morning to sunlight streaming through my window, and Kip, upside down with his paws in the air, snoring loudly in my ear.

Devin was in the kitchen, standing in the doorway, looking out over the garden.  He wore a pair of pajama pants, which hung low on his hips, and nothing else.  I felt my face grown hot, but couldn’t bring myself to look away.  The morning light touched his torso, which was wiry and surprisingly muscle-y.  Fair, red hairs glistened in the sunlight, on the backs of his hands and his arms.  He wasn’t a hairy man and I found that I preferred that.

He turned and saw me looking at him.  I blushed further at the look on his face.  I remembered that I had told Maura that he looked like a leprechaun.  I revised it in my mind quickly.  He looked like an Irish warrior, with the freckles across his shoulders and back, and the broken snubbed nose, and those clear eyes of his.

Had I said he wasn’t beautiful? 

He crossed the kitchen and slid into a shirt, arms first, and then over his head.  I shook my head, trying not to stare.  I bit my lip, knowing that I was behaving like a teenager again. Well, I technically was still one for a few months, after all!

I was thankful when Maura came into the kitchen and started breakfast.  I mixed up biscuits, one of the few things I could really cook, while she poached the eggs she had gathered from the coop.

“The yellow hen’s eggs are hatching,” she announced, clearly feeling some kind of tension in the air.  “There are three little chicks under her, so far.”

I smiled at her.  “I will have to go out and see them later,” I told her.

Maura nodded.  “I have some veggie scraps you can give her to congratulate her on her successful brooding.”

Devin’s eyes seemed to follow me wherever I went and I found myself stumbling and blushing under his gaze.  I nearly burned the biscuits, but Maura managed to save them in time.  Devin slathered his with homemade jam and ate an astonishing amount of ham, his eyes on me all the time.

Maura went out the door to tend to her flowers, leaving me alone with Devin to clean the dishes.  The hair on the back of my neck rose at the intensity of his gaze.  I nearly shrieked when he lay a hand on my arm.  Bubbles and all, he turned me around to face him.

“I dreamed of you all night,” he murmured, brushing his hand through my hair and tucking it behind my ear.  “You know, I can’t stand the thought of sharing you with a Sidhe.”

I gaped at him, but he gave me no opportunity for speech.  Placing a hand on the counter on either side of me, he pressed me back and brushed his lips against mine. 

Blood roared in my ears as he deepened the kiss.  I put my hands against his chest, to push him away, but found myself clinging to him instead, my hands sliding up his chest and around his neck.  I stood on tiptoes and his arms came around my waist to pull me even closer.  

He plundered my mouth as though it were his right.  His fingers dug into my waist, even as I wound my fingers through his hair.

“Stop,” he gasped, stepping back from me, his chest heaving.  “We have to stop.”

I hated to stop, hated even more that he was right.

He looked down at me with a mixture of remorse, tenderness, and raw lust in his eyes.  It made me tingle all over.  I wanted to leap into his arms and wrap myself around him.

But he was right.  This wasn’t the right time.  We had so much to figure out without indulging ourselves with such behavior.

“Devin--” I started.

He hushed me, gently, pressing his hand against his chest for a moment.

“Don’t forget me,” he murmured  “when the Sidhe tempts you.  I cannot offer you what he does, but don’t forget me.”  His fingers tightened to the verge of pain.  “Promise.”

“I promise,” I whispered.

He kissed me once, just a gentle sweep of his lips across mine.

I watched him step into the sunshine outside, whistling cheerfully to himself.

I was a bit agog.  I busied myself with the dishes and cleaning up.  Perhaps scrubbing the kitchen would help me master my thoughts.

Chapter Eleven

 
The cavern dripped with slimy water.  The light was dim.  I could hear the sea roaring nearby, crashing against the rocks.

“I want you to speak to me,” I told the young girl, as she sat at her loom, weaving the fiber she had so meticulously spun on her spindle.  “Talk to me, look at me.  If you really are my mother, then I need you to be my mother.  Tell me what to do.  Please, look at me!  Talk to me!”

She did not even look up.

“Please, look at me,” I pled.  “I know you can do that much.”

I crossed the cave, dripping with icy salt water.  I sat down next to her little-girl form and watched her perfect, nimble fingers fly with the shuttle.

“Show me?” I asked.

She looked up at me with a radiant flash of a smile.  Her hands paused with the shuttle, then, oh ever so slowly, she placed her cool little hand over mine and guided it to the loom.

“There is a story,” Maura said in her rich voice.  As always, her hands were busy.  Today she was weaving on her large floor loom, using the fibers I had watched her spin with her own hands.  She threw the shuttle through the warp and flipped the heddles.  I loved watching her.  It was mesmerizing.

“There was a maiden, whose family came afoul of a witch—a woman who sought to set her own offspring on the throne, instead of the maiden’s eldest brother.  There were seven brothers in all, and the witch enchanted them to become swans.”

“The stories differ, but one thing they hold in common is that the maiden had to spin and weave stinging nettles into shirts for her brothers to transform back. While she wove she could not speak a word, or the magic would be broken.”

My eyes widened in understanding.  Was this why my mother never spoke to me?  Why she never set aside her spindle or loom?