The Legacy of Buchanan's Crossing (7 page)

“Please excuse me. I need to powder my nose. If the waiter comes while I’m gone, order me the lobster please, with au gratin potatoes, asparagus tips, and a glass of my favorite Chablis. He’ll know which one.”

He rose automatically with his father as Darcy glided elegantly across the dining room.

His mother cleared her throat. “She’s very pretty.”

“High maintenance,” his father said with his usual bluntness.

“Oh, Lewis, I’m sure she’s only trying to make a good impression.”

“That really the kind of woman you want, son?”

“May I take your order, or would you prefer to wait until the lady returns?”

The waiter should have offered drinks and appetizers first. Clint wasn’t the least bit sorry he hadn’t, or that the man had interrupted his father. Both his parents ordered chicken, the cheapest entree on the menu, no sides, “just water, please.” He ordered scotch and a steak.

He stood to pull out Darcy’s chair when she returned. His father dutifully rose, then sat. Conversation was excruciatingly strained except when Darcy went on about her marketing job. Then it was just excruciatingly boring.

Dinner arrived faster than it should have. Clint’s steak was too rare, his parents’ chicken underdone. Either that or their knives were dull. Obviously, Chez Louis didn’t want them there a minute longer than absolutely necessary. Normally, this kind of insult would set him off. Tonight he was grateful.

No one wanted dessert. The table itself seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when the check arrived. Clint bent down to kiss his mother good night, shook his father’s hand. On their way out of the restaurant, Darcy didn’t hold onto his arm as she usually did. That should have tipped him off.

Clint thumped the steering wheel.
Fucking wonderful
. A fucking wonderful ending to a fucking wonderful day. He’d made the two nicest people in the world uncomfortable with who they were just because he wasn’t comfortable with who he was, spent six hundred bucks he might not have to spend—depending on what happened in that damned meeting with Cumberland tomorrow morning—and gotten dumped by his girlfriend. He’d also once again stood silently by while someone he was with belittled Cayden.

The guilt hurt. The rest pissed him off. Anger was easier to deal with, so he went there.

Darcy hadn’t been very nice to his parents, either. Come to think of it, she’d always been a bitch. A sleek, beautiful, polished bitch. Which was probably why he was more pissed off than bummed out it was over. Too bad he wasn’t the kind of guy who could’ve thrown something cool back at her, instead of standing there like a dumbass when she’d made her little speech. Too bad he wasn’t the kind of guy with the right words and smooth moves who wouldn’t have gotten kicked to the curb in the first place. Oh yeah, and it was too damn bad he wasn’t the kind of guy who could afford to laugh about all of the cash—expensive dinners and presents—that had been flushed down the crapper along with his relationship.

What pissed him off the most was that she’d been right. They did have “cultural differences.” He couldn’t do anything about that, just as he’d probably never be able to do better than imitate cool or smooth. But he could be someone who laughed about money. He wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life being the guy who wanted what he couldn’t have. He was going to be the other guy—the one who had it all.

Chapter Six

“I
can’t do it.” Cayden couldn’t stop the tears. She was thankful she was with Gran so she didn’t need to. “I’m not…enough.”

“Not enough what, darling?”

“Not powerful enough, not focused enough, not controlled enough—” she sobbed “—and not tall enough, pretty enough, or skinny enough.” She blew her nose and tossed the tissue toward the wastebasket, missing it.

Gran’s presence in the chair across from her comforted her, as did the warm light in the cozy kitchen on the stormy morning, the pot of tea, and the big box of Kleenex Gran had brought out after taking one look at Cayden on her doorstep.

“Back to that, are we now? Why is it you feel you must wear that path to dust when it leads nowhere?” Gran poured Cayden a cup from the blue teapot.

Rain streaked down the cottage windows, blurring the world outside, like the tears blurring her ability to see her way through her present circumstances. She usually loved thunderstorms; this one felt as though it were drowning her. It had started during the parade yesterday and was still going strong. She’d been forced to change her lace umbrella for her solid one and skate slower on the slick roads, her backpack stuffed with groceries for Gran. The slow going had made her too late for breakfast. Fortunately, she wasn’t remotely hungry. Drop by drop, the leaden rain had managed to soak through her yellow rain slicker right into her soul, leaving a dripping mess where yesterday’s strength and resolve had been. Too bad she couldn’t put them in Gran’s noisy dryer as she had her clothes.

“More like a muddy rut, Gran. One, I failed to complete the Rite of Commitment. Two, I had the Keeper so close to the Crossing that his truck died, and I couldn’t even get him to kiss me. Three, I failed to get a sample of his blood for you. I couldn’t do it. I had a nightmare the night before last. I remember it had something to do with blood being dangerous. That’s about all I remember, other than waking to find one of Nevermore’s feathers on my pillow, so I know it wasn’t just a dream. And when I tried to give Clint the ring on the way here, it hurt him to even look at it. I felt guilty because he was being so nice. I’d actually thought that maybe—” she sniffled “—maybe he liked me. That we had time. But yesterday…” Her hand crushed the Kleenex like the memory crushed her heart. “He has a girlfriend. I saw them together. She was a… Well, I don’t say aloud the only words that would adequately describe her. I can tell you Rob Roy is a snuggle bunny in comparison.”

Lightning flashed across the sky, thunder cracking a moment later. Rob Roy shot her a dark glance before ducking under Gran’s chair.

“Drink yourself some of that tea now. After a bit, you’ll be feeling ready to go on.”

Cayden didn’t think she’d ever be ready to go on since she had no idea where to go from here. But what choice did she have? She blew her nose, tossed another Kleenex, missed again. She began sipping her tea, knowing it was spelled to calm her.

“Meanwhile, you’ll let me have my say. You failed the Rite of Commitment only because you’re not ready, plain and simple. I can guess why you tried it. I’m sorry I was feeling too poorly to celebrate Beltane Eve with you.”

“Don’t make this your fault.”

“Now, as for your Keeper, a girl he may have, but he’s not married, is he now? And these days, it won’t be necessary to marry him.”

Cayden froze mid-sip. “Marry him? What does marriage have to do with anything?”

“Have you never wondered why he’s called the Keeper?” Gran’s intense blue eyes twinkled behind her glasses. “He keeps the power of the line. The Joining performs two roles. Your granddad fulfilled both before he disappeared.”

Uh-oh. This was the first she’d heard of any second purpose to the Joining. Gran didn’t talk about her husband, either. The spelled tea helped her choose curiosity about her granddad over anxiety regarding the ominous hint involving the Joining. She would worry about that later.

She’d heard whispers about her granddad disappearing the day after the wedding. Gran had kept her family name, as had all of the warders before her, and raised Cayden’s mother, Muriel, on her own. It hadn’t been easy on either of them.

Why was Gran giving her new information? The question raised a hot alarm, bringing cold dread with it. The dryer pounded in the background, echoing the thunder outside.

“Scared you, have I now? That won’t do. Your tea’s gone cold. If you fetch us a fresh pot, I’ll tell the tale of the First Keeper. Fair enough, aye?”

Cayden rose to put water in the copper kettle, empty the teapot, add a fresh dose of the blend from the earthen jar to the tea egg, and return it to the pot. Gran thought to calm her with the ritual of the motions and by telling a story Cayden had always loved.

She wished now she hadn’t dumped her disappointment in herself all over Gran. The last thing the poor woman needed was stressing over Cayden’s ability to carry on. The kettle’s unsettling whistle punctuated the thought. Cayden poured the steaming water into the teapot. She gave Gran a bright, if manufactured, smile when she sat down.

“The Crossing’s First Keeper was Alaister Buchanan. Of course, he had no notion of Keeping at the start, busy bein’ a prisoner of war.”

The familiar beginning lulled her. Cayden rested her head on her hand, letting herself get sucked in as she had with every telling since she was a child.

“It was toward the end of the Revolution, and mistaken for a Loyalist he was, because most Scots were. That, and they took the word of a traitor.”

“Traitor?” Cayden’s head lifted. “You’ve never mentioned a traitor before.”

“’Tis time, then, I do.”

Why, Gran? Why now?
She wanted to scream the question even though she was afraid to hear the answer. In the calmest voice she could summon, she asked, “Who was it, Gran?”

“I’ll come to that before the tale’s done, if you’ll leave me tell it.” Gran raised her eyebrows in mild reprimand.

“Now Alaister,” she went on, “was a lad with fewer years on him than you have, hurt and scared for his life. The traitor, you see, had told them Alaister was the spy they’d been searchin’ for. Neat trick that, as the spy was none other than the traitor himself.

“The Crossing came to Alaister in a dream the first night he laid his head in a pile of straw on the floor of the prison. He was wearin’ the ring he’d found in a creek. A gleamin’ in the water, it had been, as if it were waiting, just before they’d caught him.

“You can fancy how ’twas, Cayden. The shafts of the former copper mine above the Crossing being well suited to a prison, and copper being well suited to the conduction of magic. Our Crossing may not be as large as others. Yet when it speaks, one of the blood can’t help but hear it. Eh, lass?”

Loud and clear.
She nodded to Gran, not wanting to interrupt the story again.

“In his dream, Alaister saw the lines of power crossing the earth below him, under that hill.” Gran gestured out the back window to the grove behind the cottage. “Saw them, and understood what they were to the world, same as he understood it had to be warded by a witch.

“He might’ve thought it was all rubbish when he woke up the next morning to a bowl of gruel by shackles and torchlight. But the ring had been smooth when he’d lain down in the straw. ’Twas covered in runes plain as the new day when he rose. He held his dream then for the vision it was and promised in his heart to protect the Crossing all his days. It was not as though he had aught else to do just then, and the Crossing gave him hope”—Gran patted her hand—“as it always does.”

Cayden groped for a glimmer of that elusive Light, finding a weak but genuine smile for Gran.

“You’ll be wonderin’ now, about the magic of the Keeper’s ring, and how Alaister used it to serve the Crossing. He was, after all, in no position to protect any arse but his own, and not much help there.”

Drawing out the drama was part of the telling. If Cayden hadn’t already known, she’d be dying to know by now. As it was, she was well aware her inability to get the ring on Clint’s finger was her biggest failure of all.

“To the small-minded, seeing the all of a thing, kenning it in your soul, may not seem the great power it is. But our Alaister, bein’ a Buchanan, therefore a brave and clever lad, reckoned well enough that in wartime, to ken a lie or a truth untold in a prison full of soldiers is to hold a chest full of worthy secrets. At the start, he used them to keep peace among the men. After a bit, the jailer came to trust him, then the officers. At the last, he was able to catch the Loyalist traitor in a bold lie and saw him hanged.”

Gran paused, lifted the dainty tea cup to her lips, and took a long sip.

“Who, Gran? Who was the traitor?”

Gran continued, unperturbed by Cayden’s interruption. “In gratitude for his aid, Alaister Buchanan was deeded the land to the prison when the war was done. He built his home right here.” Gran thumped her cane on the floor. Cayden hadn’t noticed it earlier. Gran hadn’t used one before.

It snapped her back to the present. Gran too, apparently, because the next thing she said was, “The answer to your question is more important now than it was then.”

“What do you mean? How could it be?”

Gran maintained her practice of ignoring Cayden’s questions until she was ready to answer them and stared through the window toward the hill.

“His Christian name is lost. The family name of the traitor was, and is, Cumberland.”

“Cumberland? ‘Is?’”

“Ah, lass, I hadn’t wanted to trouble you before your Joining. Seeing the way of it now, I feel I must. If you’d be so kind, darlin’, go to my desk. Under the roll-top, you’ll find a stack of envelopes on the left. Fetch them here, won’t you, please?”

Cayden riffled through them on the way back to the kitchen. The vast majority were from J. Milton Developments, whoever that was. The postmarks dated from just after Muriel’s birthday to the present day. More recent and most foreboding was an official-looking letter from the planning commission of East Granby. Making the connection between the two wasn’t difficult. Neither was deducing the nature of danger the Crossing was in. Instant sweat made the papers stick to her fingers.

“Best to begin with the one on the bottom.”

Cayden scooped the yellowed paper out of its envelope. On faded company letterhead, handwritten in bold, forceful strokes, it began
Dear Aileen
. Hmm, personal. She scanned the contents, which sounded like a generous offer to a single mother in difficult financial straits. An unmistakable force tugged at her between the lines. Only the richness of her heritage allowed her to resist its call. The man had a rare, most certainly magical, power of persuasion. If it was this strong on decaying paper, what must it be like to experience in person? There was something in the tone, something chillingly familiar, as if echoed from a dream. The letter was signed simply,
Milton
.

Cayden laid her hand on her grandmother’s thin shoulder. “He knows, knows what Buchanan’s Crossing is, doesn’t he? That’s why he wants it.”

“Aye,” was all Gran said. Both her hands were wrapped around the empty little teacup, shaking.

Something in her eyes made Cayden ask, “Gran, what was he to you?”

Her voice was a low hissing new to Cayden’s ears, “He was a viper in the garden of a naive young girl.”

Cayden whispered the question, afraid of the answer. “He, he wasn’t the Keeper, was he? He wasn’t Grandad?”

The teacup shattered. “The Keeper!” Gran’s voice rose, shrill as Cayden had never heard it. “Great Mother, no. The Crossing is not so daft as a stupid young girl. It wouldn’t pick the likes of Milton Cumberland for the Keeper.”

Cumberland, the name of the Loyalist traitor. Oh no.

“He told me the babe was stillborn. For a long stretch, I was too ill to know whether I’d passed on myself. I went home after that sorry time and didn’t return to Buchanan’s Crossing till I’d graduated the university at Edinburgh.”

“Oh, Gran.” Cayden was sorry she’d asked, sorry to have brought such sadness to Gran’s face, sorry she didn’t have the words to comfort the woman who had always comforted her.

“You should know ’tis Milton’s son, Dean, sendin’ the letters of late.” She nodded to the pile of envelopes on the kitchen table. “As you ken from the one you read, Milton’s of the blood, and more powerful than he ought to be. If it follows true, the son will not be so strong as his father.”

“What do you mean, ‘if it follows true?’”

“Pity about not comin’ by the Keeper’s blood for my spell, not that I blame you. How was it, exactly, when you tried to give him the ring?”

As with her other questions, Gran was going to answer this one in her own time.

“It was weird. He got this look on his face as though he were in some awful pain before he even touched it. He’s had a lot of headaches lately.”

“Unchancy, that. I’d like to see the ring, if I may.”

Cayden pulled the newly rune-covered ring from her backpack. It gleamed warmly in the light.

Gran leaned toward it, her focus softening. Then she pulled back and nodded. “Aye, ’tis as I feared. His blood’d be no help. The Dark’s too strong now, and holdin’ too tight to divine its nature. It cannot abide the ring which would reveal it.” Her gaze returned to Cayden. “Your Keeper’s deep in it, and there’s naught we can do against it.”

Some of Cayden’s despair must have shown, because Gran took her hand. “Choices he still has. And whatever that old devil Milton might try, he’s no stronger than I.”

One glance at Gran using her cane to push herself up from her chair sucked the reassurance out of those words. The wolves were at the door of Buchanan’s Crossing. The best chance to save it was to somehow get the Keeper—who not only had taste in women the exact opposite of Cayden, but was also in some terrible trouble—to hook up with her. Oh, and the hook-up needed to result in pregnancy.

Cayden had thought she was out of tears, but the new flood surpassed the earlier one.

Gran handed her another box of Kleenex from the cupboard. “You can’t give up, Cayden. This precious world cannot stand to lose a Crossing. It’s teeterin’ on the abyss as ’tis.”