The Line (17 page)

FIFTEEN

I ran for blocks, paying no attention to traffic or crosswalks, and when exhaustion overcame adrenaline, I walked. My subconscious mind was in charge, leading me south, and my conscious mind only clued in to my destination as I drew near Sackville, and the house that Peter had been renting since moving out of his parents’ place a couple of years ago. When I found myself standing before it, I realized that something had changed inside of me. I felt like a different woman. I went up the steps of the small, wooden-frame house and knocked on the door.

Peter opened the door wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. At first he just blinked at me, but then his mouth fell open. “What the hell?” he asked, reaching out to pull me in from the night. “Are you all right?”

I stumbled through the door and into his arms. I understood his surprise when I caught sight of my reflection in a wall mirror. My hair was standing on end, still electrified by Maisie’s power. My skin was as pale as death and giving off a faint blue glow. “Don’t tell Maisie I’m here,” I said, my voice sounding somehow wrong to my own ears. “Don’t tell any of them.”

“I won’t tell anyone anything,” he said. Putting a hand on each of my forearms, he held me back to look at me. His nose flared as if he could smell Maisie’s magic on me.

“Come on,” he said, guiding me gently to the couch. “Tell me what happened. Talk to me.”

“I don’t want to talk,” I said, and then I kissed him. I kissed him again. He pulled me tighter to him, and I breathed in his clean scent. I pressed my face against his chest, and kissed him there too. My tongue darted out and tapped his nipple. “I need you,” I marveled at the sudden urgency of my words. “I love you,” I said, and the words were true. At that moment what I felt for Peter was vivid and intense, and my feelings for Jackson seemed like something left over from a nearly forgotten dream. I wrapped my arms around his neck and went up on my toes. I coaxed his tongue into my mouth, and felt his growing stiffness press into me.

“Whoa, Mercy,” he said, forcing himself to gain control. “I love you too. God knows I do,” he said, his mismatched eyes fixing on mine. “I want this. I want it more than you could know. But something’s wrong. I can tell. If we do this now, you’ll regret it tomorrow.”

Looking into his eyes, I had one of those rare moments of clarity. “You’re right. There is something wrong. There are more things wrong than you can even begin to imagine,” I said. “But this. Us. There will never be anything more right in my life.” I kissed him hard and took him in my hand. He shuddered, and his eyes asked me the question his lips wouldn’t form. I nodded, and he swept me up into his arms, carrying me into his bedroom, to his bed. He laid me down gently and carefully lowered himself on top of me.

He propped his torso up on his arms and looked down at me hungrily. “This means something to me, Mercy. This means we belong to each other. I don’t want to do this if you have even the slightest doubt,” he said.

I looked up into his beautiful face. “No doubts,” I said.

He leaned in and kissed me deeply. “There’s never been anyone but you,” he whispered into my ear. “I’ve never,” he confessed quietly. “I’ve waited…” he said. “I hoped you…” I reached up and pulled his mouth from my ear to my lips.

Later, as Peter slept, I rested next to him, wrapped in his embrace. I closed my eyes and experienced a moment of the purest peace I had ever known. But as I started to drift off, I was pulled back from my dreams by the sound of Jilo’s dark cackle dancing in the air all around me. Then I knew that it was Jilo’s magic that had drawn me here.

Despite Peter’s nearness, I lay there silent and alone as my heart turned into stone and fell into the pit of my stomach.

SIXTEEN

“You gonna be okay?” Peter asked as we pulled up in front of my house. “I can take you back to my place if you aren’t ready to face them. You can hang out, relax. I’ll come back here with you after work.” His face was glowing with happiness in spite of the concern he felt for me.

I considered his proposal. “No. I think it would be better for me to get this over with. No sense in avoiding the inevitable.” I needed to fix whatever was wrong between Maisie and me. Then I needed to consider the ramifications of the spell Jilo had settled on me.

“I love you,” he said, kissing my lips, my forehead, my eyelids. “I don’t want to leave you, but I have to get to work.”

“I love you too,” I said. It was true, even if the passionate side of that love had been magically induced. Perhaps my feelings for Peter ran deeper that I had ever known. Maybe we would have eventually come to this without the spell? He kissed me again, and I felt my body respond. With a supreme effort of will, I reached over for the door handle and hopped out of his truck. “I’ll see you tonight?”

“Ain’t nothing or nobody gonna stop me.” He smiled. I shut the door, and he started to drive off. He stopped again a few feet down the road and put his truck in park. He jumped out of the cab and ran back to me, yanking me into his arms and spinning me in the air as he kissed me long and hard. “I love you, Mercy Taylor. I do,” he said before returning to his truck and driving away. I watched until he was out of sight, and then I braced myself.

The door was locked, but before I could ring the bell, I heard the lock click and the door eased open. No one was visible on the other side. I poked my head in and scanned the hall, but it seemed to be empty too. I figured that the door must have been charmed to open for me. The house was quiet for the first time since Ginny’s death. The cousins had evidently fled to higher ground.

“Maisie’s gone,” Wren said from behind me. I gasped and swung around.

“Wren, you’re going to be the death of me one of these days!” I said.

“She asked me to tell you she’s sorry.”

“Where did she go?” I asked. My exhaustion and a sudden concern for Maisie made my voice project more loudly than I’d intended.

“She’s gone to apprentice with another anchor,” Iris responded, appearing from the shadows behind Wren. “A very strong one who can teach her to control her emotions, so that we will never face another episode like last night’s.” Although she tolerated Wren, Iris had no sense of attachment to him. She dismissed him with a tap on the shoulder, causing him to dissipate like fog.

Iris pulled her robe tightly around herself and motioned me into the library. She sat on the edge of the love seat and patted the space next to her. I took the hint and sat. “I’m so relieved to see you. When you ran out…” She paused. “Maisie short-circuited us completely. Connor had to recover before he could find you, and when we tracked you down at Peter’s, I figured we should leave you there. It seemed like the safest place for you. If anything had happened to you…”

A tear formed in the corner of her eye, and she visibly shuddered. After a long moment, she took my hand in hers. “She is sorry, you know. And it’s only her true contrition that saved her from a binding.”

“A binding? I didn’t think that was still done,” I said. A binding would block a witch from using her powers and from affecting the line.

“Just because it hasn’t been done in a long time doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t be done,” Iris said.

“But if she’s the anchor and a binding were done on her?” The morning sun pierced the room, and Iris rose to shut the curtains against its rays before returning to sit next to me.

“The energy would take her over. It would use her as a receptacle, but it would wipe away the part of her that we all recognize as your sister. In effect, she’d be lobotomized.”

“You couldn’t do that!”

“No, my dear, we couldn’t, but that isn’t to say some of the other witch families wouldn’t,” Iris said, toying nervously with her wedding ring. “The tremor Maisie set off last night was felt around the world. We call it a line, but it’s more of a web. You pluck it here, and witches all around will feel the vibrations.” She looked me in the eye. “Maisie is very young, but very powerful. She must learn how to manage herself, so it was decided to send her off for training.”

“I didn’t think she wanted to be the anchor. I don’t understand why she got so angry last night. Especially over such an obvious mistake.”

Iris sighed. “Well, it wasn’t such an obvious mistake to everyone. There were those who questioned whether the power was telling us that the arrangement we have had for so long needs some changing. By making such a completely…unexpected choice, perhaps it was telling us that it’s time for an alteration.”

“What do you think?”

Iris took a few moments to consider. “Honey, after last night, I don’t know what to think. For now, though, I say we count ourselves lucky. You’re safe and home. And although she’s far away for now, we’ll have Maisie back safe and sound in a couple of weeks. She’s going to need you when she comes home.”

“I’m not sure she even wants me around. I think it would be best for me to go away for a while,” I said, wondering if I could convince Peter to leave with me. Just the two of us, traveling as far from Savannah as we could. He’d always dreamed of seeing Alaska.

“And how long is a while?”

“I don’t know. Just a while.”

“No,” Iris said, her voice firm. “Your sister needs you here. We all need you here.”

“But the way she looked at me last night,” I said. “Aunt Iris, last night she hated me.”

“Last night was last night. When she left, you were the only person on her mind. She didn’t even say a word about that young man of hers.”

Guilt overwhelmed me again. I had to confess to someone. “Aunt Iris, it’s partly because of Jackson that I should leave. I’ve been confused about my feelings for him, and I think he might be a little confused as well.”

The disappointment in Iris’s eyes was piercing. “Oh, I see,” she said. “I had hoped that whatever was going on with Jackson was one sided, but you have…taken up with him?”

“No. Nothing like that. It’s only that…”

“It’s only that there is a possibility. And you need to follow your conscience and make the best possible decision for everyone involved. Now you have a better understanding of what it’s like to anchor the line. You have to close some doors, honey, no matter how nice a yard they open out onto.”

“I’m trying to close the door. I have closed that door. That’s why I want to leave,” I protested.

“No, honey. That’s not deciding, that’s running. Just like you did last night when you got scared. Choosing and then living with the consequences, that’s what deciding really is.” She reached up and ran her fingers through my hair. “You’re the one who looks likes more like your mama, you know.” Of course I knew that from the photos of my mother, but it always felt good to hear it. “And I’m afraid you may have more of Emily in you than I thought.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked, suddenly defensive.

“My sister had a taste for other women’s men too. She made the wrong decision more than once, and her choices never brought anyone happiness. Especially her. I’m sorry, my dear. I never wanted to speak poorly of your mama to you, but I don’t want to see you make the same mistakes she did.” My arms drew involuntarily around me, forming a shield between my heart and her words. I hated hearing this about my mama. It fit in too well with what Tucker Perry had told me about her participation in Tillandsia.

“Listen, girl,” she continued. “If you follow your true heart and the good sense you were born with, you’ll see that Jackson isn’t the right man for you. Maybe young Peter is, and maybe he isn’t. But I know you. You would never find happiness if you broke Maisie’s heart in the process. She means too much to you.”

She was right. Despite the craziness of last night, I loved Maisie too much to take anything from her. And now I was committed to Peter. Even if Jilo’s magic was at the root of my actions, I was the one who had gone seeking it. I couldn’t hurt Peter. I considered telling Iris about what had happened with him, at least in broad strokes, but I wasn’t ready to confess my connection with Jilo.

“I loved my little sister dearly,” Iris said. “She sure wasn’t perfect, but I loved her. And she gave me you and your sister. I’ve never asked you for anything like this before, and I hope I never have to again, but I am asking you now. You stay with us, Mercy. Stay until we can get things settled here. You may not have power like the rest of us, but you do have the power to help hold us together.”