The Enchantment (39 page)

He grabbed her by the shoulders. "Don't you see, Em? Don't you understand? There won't be a museum for Cibola. This place is special . . . magical. It's to be seen, recorded, written about, shared. But it's not to be ... robbed."

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He shook her until she looked at him. The pain in his eyes hit her like a blow. Her righteous anger dissipated. Without it she felt hollow and frighteningly alone. "Oh, Larence." His name slipped from her lips in a sigh of defeat. They saw the world so differently. Not even their concept of right and wrong matched. Oh, deep down, Emma knew that technically, Larence was "right." It was wrong to take the golden bricks from the city. A nice person wouldn't do it.

But she wasn't nice. Nice didn't get one very far in life. Once, long ago, she'd been as nice as nice could be. Until the day she'd had to sidle up to the fat, greasy apple merchant and beg for a few half-eaten cores.

The memory charged through her, made her feel dirty and alone all over again. Trembling, she closed her eyes. The moment she did, she saw her mum's blanket-wrapped body slipping off the wagon and hitting the pile of other dead bodies with a muffled thump. Heard the driver's practical condolences: Too had you dint have more money, kid. These paupers' graves ain 't a pretty sight.

Then came the image of her father, slumped over the kitchen table. Dead. His blood dripping down the—

She shook her head to clear it and wrenched her eyes open. Larence's eyes stared into hers. In their unblinking green depths she saw so very much. Love, laughter, joy, hope. So much. And so little.

Pain closed around her heart and throat, made breathing difficult. Maybe someday she could have done as he asked. Maybe, after years of living in the safe, happy glow of his love, she'd have begun to believe in princes on white horses and happy endings. But a few days wasn't enough time; it was too early. She had a lifetime worth of fear and pain as experience—and less than a THE ENCHANTMENT

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weeks' worth of love. She couldn't turn her back on her whole life, on everything she'd ever wanted or worked for. She couldn't make herself really, truly believe that love alone was enough, that it kept you warm or fed you.

Not yet. Maybe never. He'd asked the one thing of her she couldn't—wouldn't—give. God help her, she couldn't go back to being poor.

"Y-You said you loved me," she whispered. Each word twisted her heart and broke off a piece of her soul.

Pain blazed in his eyes, turned them glassy and over-bright. "I do love you, Em. So help me God, it'll be my curse. When you tear the last gold brick out of this magical city, I'll love you still. But it won't be enough— not if you destroy this city. I'd never respect you."

There it was. Finished.

Emma's breath expelled in a sharp gust of pain. She felt small and cornered and afraid, as if a great, heaving beast were tracking her. Closing in for the kill.

Silence stretched around them, cocooned them. The world shrunk to just the two of them, standing face-to-face in the center of a magical city. Together, less than a breath apart, and yet each frighteningly alone.

He gave her a look so sad, it sliced right through her. "I love you."

The words filled Emma with an ache so big, a need so mammoth, she had to clamp her lips together to keep from crying out. At her sides, her hands curled into tight, white fists. He was right; this feeling, this need, would be their curse.

She reached up, laid a hand to his cheek. He stiffened, as if jolted by the contact.

"I love you, too," she said in a voice like the rustling of long-dead leaves. Her hand dropped to her side, and

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immediately her palm went cold. She fisted her hand, as if in doing so, she could maintain at least the memory of his warmth. His touch.

Shaking, she gathered her clothes and dressed in aching silence. Then she grabbed the torch and walked away.

Not looking back was the hardest thing she ever did.

Larence stood rooted to the golden bricks. His whole body was shaking, his hands were curled into tight fists. The muffled patter of her bare feet striking the street hit him like a rapid-fire series of rabbit punches to the gut.

She was leaving him. She'd chosen the gold.

At the thought, his face crumpled. His legs buckled, started to give way. Only sheer determination kept him from collapsing in a useless heap on the floor.

No, he thought grimly, it wasn't determination that kept him upright. It was practice. Years and years of practice. He'd been fighting pain for as long as he could remember, and he fought it now.

All his life he'd been alone, an outsider. A crippled little boy with his nose pressed to the glass, watching the other kids play. Too shy to make friends easily, he'd waited for the other boys to approach him, and, of course, they never had.

He'd long ago stopped waiting, long ago given up hope. And then, when he'd least expected it, God had answered his prayers.

Emmaline. Her name washed through his mind like a relaxant, bringing a bright, shining moment of peace and then plunging him back into the darkness of de-361

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spair. She'd come into his life like a ray of the purest sunlight, warming and lighting the cold, dark, lonely parts of his soul—the parts he'd buried and tried to forget. With little more than a smile, she'd swept him off his clumsy feet and made him fall in love. Irrevocably. Completely.

He took a deep, shuddering breath and stared blindly at the pale green pool. The glistening surface of the rock caught his eye. Her laughter rang out in his mind. Memories from last night slammed through him, bringing knife-hot stabs of pain. He jerked his gaze away from the cool, inviting water.

He'd always thought love would solve it all, that in love he'd finally find the invitation he'd never had. That someone—finally—would ask the crippled, friendless boy behind the pane to play.

And it had happened. Just as he'd always prayed and hoped it would. Love was everything he'd always imagined it to be, and more. So much, much more.

He tightened his fists so hard the nails dug into his palms. He tried to think of something else, tried desperately not to let himself wallow in despair, but this time he wasn't strong enough to dredge up a smile, or a snippet of hope.

He felt weaker, more defeated and alone and abandoned, than ever before. When he'd dreamt about love, it had always been a forever love. Never, in all the long, lonely nights when he'd lie alone in his bed, dreaming about his someday wife, had it occurred to him that love could end. That once invited, he'd be left standing alone.

He squeezed his eyes shut, battling the tide of self-pity and pain. Sweet Jesus above, it hurt. . . .

Go after her.

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The thought brought no more than a split second of hope. He knew he couldn't be a party to the destruction of this city. Dreams of this place had always healed him, kept him going, held the darkness of the night at bay. It was here that he'd always run when the realities of life became too harsh. For years the city had given him hope and kept him alive. Now it was his turn to return the favor.

His lips twisted into a grim, self-deprecatory smile as the irony of the situation struck him. He'd asked Emma to choose between love and money, and been devastated when she'd chosen the money.

But what about him? How was he any better? He hadn't chosen love either. He'd chosen his dream over love, and even now, knowing how it felt to be alone, he'd choose history again.

He couldn't rape history and plunder this ancient treasure. Not even to hold on to the only love he'd ever known. If he did, if he threw away everything he believed in for the sake of her love, he'd lose himself in the process.

The tiny, not-yet-beaten voice of his heart piped up again. Maybe she 'II come back to you.

He latched on to the hope, fraying and ragged as it was, and clung to it.

Maybe . . .

It wasn't much, he knew, but it was all he had, and he refused to give it up.

Emma clenched her fists and pumped her arms, striding purposefully away from the campsite. The gold-bricked road angled across the plain and rose. She moved faster, boot heals thumping on the metal.

Her

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breath came in quick, painful gasps, and a stitch pinched her side. Still she refused to slow down.

With every step she wanted to turn around and run back to him, to fling herself in his loving arms. But years of self-discipline held her in good stead. She kept her lips clamped grimly together and her eyes pinned on the passageway's darkened mouth.

There was no point in turning around, no point in going back. Staying with Larence meant poverty.

Gut-wrenching, soul-stealing poverty, and that was too terrifying to even contemplate.

She knew she was exaggerating, knew deep inside she was being irrational, but she couldn't stop herself.

Couldn't eradicate a lifetime's worth of fear in a heartbeat of hope. He had a job, nothing more. Her father had had a dozen jobs. Employment wasn't security. Scientific glory wasn't security. Money—cold, hard cash— was security. And God help her, Emma couldn't live without it. Not again.

She loved him, yes. And she'd do anything—anything— he asked of her except that. She couldn't be poor for him. She'd lived in that hollow, icy-dark place before, and she couldn't go back. God help her, she couldn't march back into Hell. Not even for Larence.

And he had no right to ask it of her.

The moment she turned in to the passageway, her strength left her. Dank, smelly darkness closed in on her. She thought about lighting her torch, then remembered she had no matches, and flung the stick away.

It thwacked against the wall and clattered to the floor.

At the sudden quiet, every bone in her body seemed to dissolve. She leaned tiredly against the cold stone wall and closed her eyes.

It took her a moment to realize she was waiting for

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him. Her senses focused with pinpoint precision on the golden world around the corner. She heard the blood-pumping thud of her heart in her ears and the ragged spasms of her breath, and the deadened roar of the waterfall, and . . . and . . .

Nothing else. It hit her like a well-placed fist to the heart. He wasn't coming after her. Larence couldn't give up the city any more than she could give up the gold.

It was really and truly over.

Tears blurred her vision, turned into a thick, twisted lump in her throat. She buried her face in her hands and sank to her knees. Her forehead hit the cold, dark floor with a silent thud.

Memories and images and thoughts spiraled through her mind, merging with hopes and dreams until they became a tangled, useless coil of burning pain. With each thought, each remembrance, her body shuddered harder, tears fell faster, hotter. Her breath came in strangled, watery sobs, and the acrid, fecund scent of old dirt curled around her like a bank of fog.

She cried until she had no tears left to cry; until her soul was parched and dry, and her eyes were puffy and red. And still she lay there, broken and defeated and afraid, her forehead pressed to the cold stone.

Gradually the tears dwindled, leaving in their wake a bone-dry, raw ache. Tiredly she sat back on her heels and wiped the wetness from her cheeks. A headache pounded behind her eyes.

How could he have asked her to give up the gold? He'd said he loved her.

It wasn't love to make someone give up something she'd worked for. Almost died for. Was it?

Goddamn him, he'd made her actually believe. He'd

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taught her love and given her hope, and made her think that happiness was actually possible. After all the years of darkness and despair and loneliness, he'd held his hand out like a beacon of light, and fool that she was, she'd reached for the warmth with a schoolgirl's eagerness.

Now the light was gone; if, in fact, it had ever been. She was back where she'd always been. Alone.

Alone. Her head seemed to swell to twice its size. Her neck bowed under its weight. The headache became a series of mallet-hard strikes behind her eyes.

Enough. With a ruthlessness born of practice, she set her chin and gritted her teeth. She'd cried enough.

Now it was time to go on. She'd made her decision, just as he'd made his, and there was no going back.

That was one lesson she'd learned well in her life.

They loved each other, yes. But it was just as she'd always known. Love wasn't enough.

She reached deep in her soul for the inner strength she'd always known. The familiar core of ice was there, buried deep beneath a layer of newly blossomed love and trust and shattered hope. Small, perhaps, and melting, but still intact.

She had known she'd find it: it was what had given her the strength to walk away from him. It was what would keep her from going back.

Curling an arm protectively across her abdomen, she pressed her other hand to the wall and took a step.

Then another, and another. Her feet felt like twin bricks, and her head was a pounding mass of pain, but somehow she plodded onward.

One step at a time she felt her way through the blackness. The crashing sound of the waterfall gradually dis-THE ENCHANTMENT

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appeared. The passageway became cold and dark and deathly quiet. And still she stumbled on.

Finally she came to where the passageway narrowed. Cautiously feeling her way through the slit in the stone, she moved forward.

Her toe hit something. Bones clinked.

The guard! She plastered her body against the wall and froze. Her heart thudded against her ribs. Ragged bursts of breath thundered in the quiet. Images of gaped, fanged mouths and rattling tails turned her knees weak.

Calm down. Sliding her sweat-dampened palms down the gritty wall, she unclasped her petticoat and let it fall to a pile at her feet.

Still there was no sound, no rattling. With a silent prayer, she scuttled sideways, yanked up the petticoat, and flung it over the skeleton. Dropping to her knees amid the snapping crunch of old bones, she shoved the cotton beneath the rib cage.