Divided against Yourselves (Spell Weaver) (30 page)

I could go back to Carla if we ever found her and managed to restore her. I could pretend. I would have liked to think that at some point I could learn to love her, but my heart told me that would never happen. I could lie to myself, I could lie to her—hell, we could even get married in a few years. I might even make her happy, though I feared at some point she would realize the truth: to me our love had been a mirage, and I was stuck in a waterless desert, a wasteland, wandering alone even when I was with her, wandering alone forever.

I shouldn’t have taken my agony out on Nurse Florence; after all, she had saved me…again. But I just couldn’t bring myself to admit that she had done what she had to do. I yelled at her a little, and she let me. Then I stormed out of the room without another word. I found the guys in the courtyard…and Eva. I managed to get myself into a long conversation with Gwynn so I wouldn’t run the risk of talking to Eva. I doubted I could trust myself right now.

After a while, Nurse Florence appeared. It looked as if she might have been crying, but otherwise she had her professional facade clamped on very tightly. She thanked Gwynn for his hospitality, a gesture which started another round of thank-yous. While that ritual was going on, I sought out Khalid.

“Hey, buddy, I heard you offer to use your wish to save me at one point. That was a great thing to do.”

“But it didn’t do any good!” protested Khalid.

“You didn’t know that when you offered. My point is that you were willing to take your shot at happiness and give it to me.”

“Tal, I have never been happier than I am right now,” said Khalid, looking up into my eyes. I knew he was lying a little; I could still see the shadow of his father in those eyes. However, he wasn’t completely lying. We had taken him on a pretty amazing adventure, but we had also made him a part of our group. He might not be with his father, but at least he wasn’t alone anymore.

At about that point, I felt Nurse Florence open the portal, and one by one we passed back into the “real” world.

God! What I wouldn’t have given right then to just stay with Gwynn.

At least then I would not have had to look at Eva every day.

CHAPTER 12: SOUL-SEARCHING

Nurse Florence as always handled the logistics flawlessly. We came through the portal from Annwn in Awen, Carrie Winn’s mansion/castle. The downside of that was getting treated to Vanora’s long list of complaints about how the screw-up on our part of the operation was spreading her too thin. The upside was that we could all go home by limo, reinforcing the story about where we had been for the last twenty-four hours.

I would have liked to talk to Stan, but it was getting pretty close to dinner time, and our parents were expecting us home with tales of what we had gotten out of visiting with a Nobel laureate. He could tell I was upset and wanted to talk, and I knew that after two weeks I really needed to make sure the uneasy peace with David was still working out in his head.

“Stan, meet me after dinner!”
I thought to him in the moments before we each got packed into a separate limo. He nodded, so I knew he understood.

Once I got home, my proud parents naturally drilled me about my prestigious meeting with a genius, not to mention how I got selected.

“Not that that’s much of a mystery,” said Dad with an uncharacteristically broad smile. “It’s clear that you have made quite an impression on Carrie Winn.”

If you only knew…

“Yeah, I guess she thinks pretty well of me.”

“Oh, and you’re so modest too,” added Mom, beaming.

The problem with visiting faerie realms was that going back home required a considerable adjustment. Colors always seemed a little flatter, for example, when compared with the dazzling brightness of Annwn. Whatever I thought of the architectural choices in Santa
Brígida—and, let’s face it, I didn’t think much of them—I had to admit that I lived in a pretty nice house. Yet its Navajo white walls seemed dull when compared to the glowing silver of Gwynn’s castle. Even my mom’s pot roast, which I had always liked, was semi-tasteless when measured against the culinary delights of a faerie feast. I knew I would adjust in a few days, but right now I understood why so many mortals who had accidentally stumbled into a faerie realm spent the rest of their lives trying to get back there.

When Dad got a phone call and had to leave the table for a few minutes, Mom’s manner suddenly changed. She leaned over to me and spoke so quietly that she was almost whispering, “Tal, is something wrong?”

You mean besides the gaping hole where my love for Carla used to be? You mean besides the throbbing wound my love for Eva has caused to burst wide open again?

“No, Mom, nothing at all. I’m a little tired, but otherwise, just fine.”

Mom continued to look worried, however, despite my putting on the most reassuring manner I could.

“Tal, this is going to sound crazy, but I have been having the oddest feelings lately.”

I was ashamed to admit it, but I had actually forgotten about my mom’s newfound psychic powers for a few days. Well, out of the frying pan, into the nuclear reactor.

“What kind of feelings? Just tell me, Mom—I promise I won’t think you’re crazy.”

“Well, while you were gone, I had the oddest dream about you—strange women trying to kiss you, dragons, castles. And Carla was in the dream, too, and the school nurse, and lots of other people. I don’t think I have ever had such a complicated dream.”

Mom might not quite be the oracle at Delphi, but she had apparently had a relatively accurate dream out what I was doing in Annwn, and considering Annwn was a different plane of existence, she had to be operating on a fairly high power level.

“It sounds like a very imaginative dream to me, but certainly nothing to worry about. Wasn’t it kind of fun?” I asked her.

“You’d think, but I’m not describing it very clearly. There was a feeling of danger. Many times I was frightened for your life. I woke up in a cold sweat, with my heart pounding. That’s never happened to me before, not even once.”

“Everyone has bad dreams, Mom. I’m still not seeing a problem.” By now it was getting hard for me to be as reassuring as I needed to be. I knew I couldn’t tell her what was really going on, but I couldn’t let her think she was going crazy, either. And in a town with two aware reincarnates (Stan and I), and maybe a third if we could get Carla pulled together (or even find her, for that matter), a half djinn, a lady of the lake, and a shape-shifter disguised as the town’s most prominent citizen, my mom was going to get constantly bombarded with psychic impressions that didn’t match what she knew, or at least thought she knew, about the world. How could anyone not go crazy in that kind of situation?

“I’m sure you’re right, dear, but still…what’s happening with you and Carla?”

“She’s in a coma, Mom. It’s the most stable relationship in town.”

“You don’t need to be sarcastic. Of course, I know she’s in a coma. I’ve visited her in the hospital. But…have your feelings changed? I’d understand if they have. It must be hard wanting to be in a relationship with someone who may never regain consciousness.”

“Mom, nothing has changed. I’ll tell you if it does, OK?”

“Is David coming over later?”

“Who’s David, Mom?”

Mom looked at me in obvious shock, then pulled herself together a little. “Oh, Tal, I meant Stan. I know his name is Stan. I’ve no idea why I just called him David.”

I do.

“It’s OK, Mom. I just think you’re worrying too much.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Tal,” she said, though clearly she was nothing of the kind.

Dad was still stuck on the phone, so I helped Mom clear the table and wash the dishes. Yeah, we had a dishwasher, but Mom actually liked doing the dishes by hand, and tonight I decided it was better to just let her do what she wanted to do. It’d be therapeutic, maybe.

I thought about using a little magic to calm her nerves, but under existing circumstances I was afraid to, so I settled for a hug. Then I took a little walk in the general direction of Stan’s house. Sure enough, he was walking over to see me. Normally, I would have taken him to my house, but with Mom already sensing King David within him, I just couldn’t take the chance. Instead we took a walk a couple of blocks over to the nearest park. Really it was a very small woodsy area with some pretty tall oaks around the perimeter, but it was a nice place to go think at times like this, and unless some guy was taking his girlfriend there, Stan and I would probably be all alone.

As luck would have it, we were alone. We sat down on one of the stone benches near the center. (Yeah, you’d think maybe having big hunks of stone in the middle of an area where kids play might not be the best idea, but hey, they looked classy!)

I was shaken to see how much my efforts to weld Stan and David together had decayed while we were in Annwn, and I set to work to reinforce them again.

“David was pretty well convinced that he might be able to break Alcina’s spell by praying over you. He really wanted out to give his idea a try, but I was kind of afraid to let him.”

“Good instinct,” I muttered as I worked. “Eventually, I think I can get the two of you fully integrated, but in the meantime, it might be dangerous to let him out. Even with his cooperation, it wasn’t easy to get you securely back in control the last time he emerged. He means well but doesn’t really know what he’s doing and can’t seem to be in proper sync with you without help. Besides, any number of things could go wrong while he’s out, especially if he loses connection with you like he did last time.”

Finally I had Stan back together, but the whole process had about the feeling of gluing an amputated limb back on. Well, actually my work
was
better than that, but I still didn’t feel satisfied with it.

Well, let’s see, if I couldn’t get Stan properly back together, when his past self was cooperating, how could I get Carla back together when Alcina would probably never cooperate and had the ability to put up much more of a fight than David could? I decided to leave that question, like so many others, for later.

Once Stan was about as fixed as he was going to get that night, he asked me what was wrong. We had been friends for so long that he did not need to be able to actually read my mind to tell what my general mood was. Since I couldn’t risk sharing the Carla/Eva situation with anyone else, I shared it with him.

He let me spill my guts for quite a while, and when I was finally done, he said, “I know this isn’t much comfort, but you were dealing with the Eva thing before. Maybe once you get used to it again—”

“Yeah, but to be honest, I was miserable then too. I guess I just have to hope…what’s that?” I could hear something like a distant whispering. Maybe now some guy was bringing his girl here.

“I don’t hear anything…oh, yes, I do!” said Stan quietly.

“Whispering?”

“Yes, but I can’t tell whether it is close to us or relatively far away.”

“Taliesin,” whispered the voice. I look at Stan, who nodded. He had heard my name too.

“Taliesin!” The voice still whispered, but it was becoming more insistent and felt louder, even though its actual volume remained the same. Stan and I began to search, and eventually we discovered that it was coming from one of the oaks. Yeah, never a dull moment in my life!

“I’m here,” I announced, feeling pretty silly for talking to a tree.

“Taliesin, you must come to me.”

“Who are you? Where are you?”

“I am Morgan, whom your friends have rudely barred from Santa
Brígida. You have double-crossed me. I have Alcina despite you, but now you owe me a favor—and I intend to collect.”

Odd! I had been sure Morgan needed me only as a way of getting Alcina, but clearly something else was going on. For once, luck was with me, because now perhaps I could find out where Carla was.

“Morgan, you know I’m not just going to do your bidding. What assurance do I have that you won’t kill me, or that your sister won’t try to bewitch me again?”

“I offered you a
tynged
before. I am prepared to do the same again. Meet me at Goleta Beach tonight at midnight.”

“We need to have some
tynged
in place first, just to cover that meeting. We can work out the rest later, during the meeting.”

There was a long pause, but then the oak’s whispering began again. “Propose the oath.”

“Neither of us will harm the other in any way, physical or mental. Neither one of us will cast a spell on the other. Neither one of us will attempt to take the other prisoner. Neither one of us will bring anyone else to the meeting.” Stan started to protest, but I motioned for him to be quiet. “The
tynged
runs until the meeting ends, except that each of us will allow the other to depart after the meeting, making no attempt at harm or hindrance.”

“I swear to it.”

“As do it,” I responded. Weaving a proper
tynged
worked better face to face, but almost instantly I felt the spell snap into place, so I knew our efforts had been successful.

“Until midnight, then,” whispered the tree. After that the whispering ceased, and I could feel the power in the park dwindle to nothing. Morgan’s presence was gone.