The Splendour Falls (49 page)

Now I went to the garden. But it was different today. As Gigi and I stepped into the circle, the unfinished pattern around the rock called to me, not with a promise of mental peace, but with an urgent demand. With the same visceral certainty I'd had about not leaving the house, I knew I needed to finish this. The work was too close to being done.

I had no clue what that meant in terms of the things I'd learned last night, about the garden and about myself. But the garden was one place where I'd never had trouble listening to my instincts.

The work went quickly, and soon, tired but satisfied, I sat back on my heels, gazing at the results of my labour. The corner beds were still an overgrown mess, but I'd cleared the central planting area of choking weeds, revealed its original shape and uncovered the full beauty of the bluestone centrepiece.

It stayed damp today, looking truly blue. When the sun would occasionally peek through the clouds, the flecks of quartz caught the light, looking like scattered stars on an indigo sky.

Uncluttered by rampant weeds, not to mention the insidious kudzu, the bare hint of the labyrinth motif that wound into the four-foot-tall stone in the centre was now visible. The herbs and foliage, skimpy when I'd first cleared them, had become thick and lush, some of them already flowering.

My effect on the garden was obvious and tangible. But what about its effect on me? Had I really instinctively tapped into the energy here and made myself healthier, like one of these plants? There seemed to be a difference between what I felt here and what I sensed from the circle in the summerhouse. This was reciprocal somehow, and my progress was like the plants' – natural but accelerated.

But what would happen if I actually tried to connect with the energy here? What could I do then?

Gigi, lying under the stone bench, jerked her head up with a growl. Automatically, I looked towards the house, but couldn't see anything other than the corner of the balcony and the top of the spiral staircase. The Colonel didn't have the dog upset. It must be something else.

‘You've made a lot of progress.'

With a start, I turned towards Shawn's voice. He stood in the opening of the hedge, his hands shoved in the pockets of his cargo pants. When my eyes narrowed in suspicion, he pulled them out, as if to show me they were empty. ‘Truce. I came for a report on Clara.'

Since I couldn't figure out how he'd be served by her injury, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. ‘She's going to be all right.' But I couldn't let
him off the hook entirely, so I added, with an edge of accusation: ‘Eventually.'

He nodded, looking so contrite that I frowned, wondering suddenly if I'd been mistaken about him. ‘I know. That's all I could think about while I was trying to sleep last night. What if our spell had somehow accidentally hurt Clara. It just kills me to think that, Sylvie. It kills me that
you
think that.'

Turning my back on him, I shook the dirt from one last weed and threw it into the basket I would take out back for compost. Maintaining, for him at least, a facade of normalcy. ‘I don't see what I have to do with anything.'

‘Don't be coy,' he chided with his usual easy humour. ‘You know you have everything to do with it. Hasn't Rhys explained that to you?'

Unease tightened my stomach, and I forced myself to relax my shoulders, despite the weight of his gaze on me. Why mention Rhys? Was he trying to raise my suspicions? ‘He may have mentioned,' I said with understatement, ‘that my connection to the magic here was important to you.'

Sitting on the bench, Shawn leaned forward, elbows on his knees so he was level with me as I knelt in the greenery. ‘We're supposed to meet again tonight. Addie won't be able to be there, so you can take her spot.'

Outraged, I twisted to look at him, fists propped on my thighs. ‘Is that what breaking Clara's hip was supposed to accomplish? Get Addie out of the way?'

He met my eye, and grimaced with uncharacteristic
candour. ‘The stuff the circle does is imprecise. That's why I need you. It will work better with a Davis. I thought Addie'd get a modelling job or something. Everyone wins.'

That honesty was disarming, but I forced my guard up. ‘Does your circle know you're just using them? That you'd blow them off like you're blowing off Addie, as soon as they're no more use to you?'

‘The council knows we're doing what's right for the town. If Maddox Point goes through and brings growth to the area, it won't be a thirty-minute wait for an ambulance. It will be ten.'

Gigi grumbled from under the bench; I didn't need her prompt to call bullshit on that. ‘Aren't you just Humanitarian of the Year.'

He ignored my sarcasm, pressing his own argument. ‘The council has been going on for a long time, Sylvie. Since our families first came here. But every now and then, there's someone like you, and someone like me, who can connect with the elements. Just look at this place.' He gestured to my work. The overcast skies kept the dew from burning off, and the smell of the herbs was thick and vibrant. He knelt beside me and picked off a grey-green leaf of sage. ‘These plants? They're for healing. See how well they've worked, and you didn't even know what you were doing. Just think what you can do if you learn more about your instincts.'

This was a different Shawn, as if the gilt of his surface charm had been rubbed off to reveal the compelling power beneath it. It pulled at something inside
me, and when he took my dirty hands in his, I let him, just to see where this offer was going.

‘I'll teach you how to use your connection,' he said. ‘Do you think Rhys will do that? He's been trying to keep you in the dark, right?'

That was overplaying his hand. I tugged my fingers free – or tried to. ‘Not any more.'

‘Yes, but he doesn't belong here.' Shawn gestured to the standing stone. ‘That rock was brought here by
our
ancestors and put there to mark this spot, where earth energy is strong. This whole area, where the two rivers converge.'

‘That's very poetic, Shawn.' I made my voice wry, despite the spell he wove, the tugging I could feel on the part of me that wanted to be this special, magical person he described. Like the special, magical person I'd been when I danced.

‘Come on, Sylvie.' He rubbed the dirt on my fingers. ‘I know you can feel it. It's in your blood. That's why I need you.'

‘So you can get what you want,' I said, to remind myself more than to accuse him.

‘And so can you.'

Would that be so bad? Temptation hissed in my ear, made my heart race with anticipation of the mere possibility.

‘What's the trade-off?' I asked, thinking about what Rhys had said about consequences. ‘Do you even care?'

‘The trade-off is, the town improves, things go well for me, you get to dance again. It's a win-win situation.'

I desperately wanted to ignore my instincts. But I'd worked so hard for my success as a dancer – of course, genetics had given me long legs and natural ability, but I'd sweated and bled and ached to achieve what I'd had. Hell, I hadn't eaten a dessert in six years until I came here. Even without Rhys's warnings, even without my gut feeling at the summerhouse, I knew in my heart that you just didn't get things for free.

The thought snapped Shawn's hold on me, and I pulled my hand loose before my resolve weakened. ‘You'd better go,' I said, rising to my feet.

He stood as well. ‘Will you at least think about it?'

His reasonable tone irritated me, as if I were being irrational. ‘Just get out of here, Shawn.'

Gigi, picking up on my mood, started to growl again. Shawn laughed, raising his hands in surrender. ‘Fine, fine.' He seemed so normal, it was hard to believe he'd just been trying to seduce me into using magic for his – and
my
– selfish ends. ‘I'll see you around.'

I scooped Gigi up so she didn't run after him. ‘Not if I see you first,' I murmured, to no one but the dog. Shawn hadn't bothered to wait for my reply.

No way had he given up that easily. Though I guess he figured he had time to bring me around. And he must have seen that I was temptable. Not by him, but by what I might reclaim.

I walked to the bluestone monolith, Gigi still tucked in the crook of my arm. I stared for a moment, then pressed my palm to the stone's surface. Time had dulled the texture, but not smoothed it. And it did feel
warm, or at least warmer than I could account for on the grey day.

When my dad took me to the Metropolitan Museum when I was a kid, he would talk about balance in art. I understood it on a more practical, physical level. Staying balanced while dancing was about equal and opposite movements. If I extended my leg in a
développé devant
– to the front – then I had to tighten my centre of balance and lean backwards slightly to stay upright.

If I took what Rhys had said, and applied what I knew from art and ballet to magical, mystical energy, didn't that mean that for everything that happened, something opposite had to happen too? Maybe not one for one, but something to balance the equation.

Dr Young had said that ecology was fragile, and if things got off kilter, the effects could be big. The Maddox and Davis families had apparently been messing around with the natural balance throughout our history here. When that happened to a dancer, she fell on her face. What happened when the energy of a geographical area was out of whack? Something had to correct for it.

Was this what Rhys had meant when he said bad things happen when you mess with the balance? Yellow fever? Floods? Horrible prisons? Mine collapses?

What about ghosts? Shawn had said this whole region was powerful, up to the junction of the rivers, which included Old Cahawba. Was Shawn's messing around with the natural order of things skewing the energy here, making the echoes of the past resonate more loudly, making the intangible more real?

As I went inside, I noticed the Colonel's chill wafting down the stairs, and wondered what had him stirred up in the middle of the day. Maybe Shawn unsettled him as much as he did me.

Despite my weak joke, I climbed the stairs warily, but the cold seemed to be fleeting. A thought stuck with me, though, about Shawn's effect on people: If I had this elemental affinity for the garden, what was Shawn's superpower? Charm was obviously part of it. That was blindingly obvious in retrospect. It worried me what he might be capable of. My scruples were susceptible to temptation, but at least I had some.

S
till unsettled by my conversation with Shawn, I distanced myself from the garden a bit, and brought both Hannah's diary and the reverend's journal downstairs and into the den. With the big-screen TV and the modern furniture, I felt grounded in this century and less likely to lose myself. I brought a glass of iced tea for myself and a chew for Gigi, which she promptly took to the love seat and started gnawing.

As soon as I sat down, the lights went off. My heart stopped for a painful, panicked second. Then reason
kicked back in – along with my pulse – and I registered that the light on the satellite receiver box was black, the LED on the answering machine was dark and I couldn't hear the hum of the refrigerator down the hall.

The power had gone out. Paula had warned me that might happen if there were storms in the area, and had pointed out where the flashlights and candles were. I found a flashlight and nervously put it beside me on the couch. Expected or not, it was unnerving.

To distract myself, I picked up the Reverend Holzphaffel's journal. Gigi left her chew and pranced down the length of the cushions, then climbed into my lap, licked my chin and went to sleep. I petted her silky fur and tried to relax. One or both Griffiths would be back soon.

The dates on Hannah's headstone had been December 21, 1852, and June 20, 1870. I realized, with a start, that it was almost midsummer, the anniversary of her death. Opening the Reverend Holzphaffel's journal to 1869, about nine months before Hannah's end, I read to see if he mentioned young Miss Davis's suitors.

The facsimile of the handwritten pages wasn't any easier to read than Hannah's scrawled entries, but at least they were more detailed. Reverend Holzphaffel didn't hold much with Thou Shalt Not Gossip About Your Neighbour. There was the reference to Mr Ethan Maddox I'd read the other day, which I scanned again with new understanding. It didn't take me long to find the answer that Hannah hadn't bothered writing
for herself. Ethan's brother, the scalawag, was named Jacob.

He
was
trying to bring investors to the area – even ones from the North – but he didn't seem like a profiteer. Just the opposite, in fact. He was an outspoken young man who pointed out some hard truths about his own family, like how Davis Ironworks and Maddox Shipping were leaving their neighbours in the dirt as far as recovery from the war was concerned.