Thoroughly Kissed (28 page)

The first time she had crossed the country, she hadn't really looked at it. She was looking at the century instead, at the changes that happened in the world since she had been born. But those changes were becoming part of the background now, and that allowed her to see other things.

She didn't believe that the sky was this blue, this broad, this beautiful in Wisconsin. It certainly wasn't in Oregon. Something about the emptiness of this land accented the sky.

Michael came up beside her.

“I can't believe they fought over this place and then did nothing with it,” she said.

He smiled. “Spoken like a true European.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that you believe land should be conquered. That's how you were raised. And strangely, a thousand years later, so was I.”

She looked at him sideways. “You find it odd too?”

He shook his head. “Ultimately, the fight wasn't about land. It was about the way people should live. Rather like your fight now, Emma.”

She sighed. “I have no choice about how I will live. My destiny has been chosen for me.”

“That can't be true,” Michael said.

“It is true.” She folded her hands behind her back. The sun was getting lower. The sky had more red in it now than gold, and shadows were covering the hill around her.

“You're on a journey,” Michael said. “If I understand my fairy tales, people with magic take journeys to discover their destinies, not because they already have them.”

Emma felt her shoulders tense. “Your reading was probably wrong.”

“Probably.” Michael seemed unconcerned by her correction. Then he frowned. “How can there be tree shadows when there are no trees?”

Emma looked at the ground. He was right; the shadows looked like long trees. But there seemed to be no source for the shadows.

“Oh, no,” she said. “We have to get out of here.”

She ran down the path toward the car, Michael right behind her. The shadows rose off the grass, no longer trying to masquerade themselves. They formed human-like shapes, so dark that she couldn't see through them, and they headed straight for her.

One of the things reached out its hand and touched her face. The fingers were cold and hard as rubber. She jerked herself away from it, and kept running.

She had nothing to hold them off. She had no idea how their magic worked, what it could do to her. What it could do to Michael, to Darnell? She felt like the Indians must have felt when they first saw guns. They had no idea how to defend themselves against something they didn't understand.

And yet somehow, they'd found a way to survive.

The shadows blocked the path. They formed a solid black line in front of her. She stopped, and Michael slammed into her, putting his arms around her as if he could protect her.

She turned, but the shadows were all around, fencing her and Michael in.

“Now what?” he asked.

“I wish I knew,” she said.

The shadows moved closer. They looked like walls, closing in. Emma glanced up and saw that they were forming a roof that would soon hide the sky.

They would box in Emma and Michael. And after that, she had no idea what would happen.

Then she heard a faint howl. Darnell? Had they gotten to him?

“What's that?” Michael whispered.

“Darnell,” she said.

“I don't think so,” Michael said. “Listen.”

She did. She heard a whoop and then another howl. Only it really wasn't a howl. It was a yelp, a human voice raised in a battle cry. It sent a shiver down her back.

The ground rumbled beneath her feet. “Earthquake?” Emma asked.

Michael's grasp on her waist tightened. The whoops and yelps grew louder—and there were more of them. Hundreds of voices, shouting with purpose.

“It's not an earthquake,” Michael said. “That's horses. Hundreds of horses.”

The shadows were shaking, unable to keep their cohesive wall. The roof they were building fell apart, revealing a dark blue sky. The yelps grew louder and louder, and so did the sound of hooves. It really did sound like thunder, but it felt as if the earth would never stop shaking.

Emma put her hands over Michael's and leaned on him. She was so glad he was here. He was keeping her calm. Being in the circle of his arms gave her the illusion of safety, in the middle of all this chaos.

Through the shadows, she could see ghostly figures—horses and warriors carrying feathered lances. But not warriors that she had grown up with. Native Americans, men, their long hair flying, their weapons in their hands.

“Sioux,” Michael said faintly. So he could see it too. “Hunkpapa, Oglala. God. I think that's Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull. Emma, do you see that?”

“Yes.” Her fingers tightened on his. The Sioux began firing arrows into the shadows. Others rode past, using their lances like spears, shouting and yipping and crying with the fierceness of the fight.

They rode on and on, coming closer and closer, and each time a tip—whether it was from a lance or an arrow—hit a shadow, the shadow popped and vanished. The entire front wall of shadows was gone in an instant, and still the warriors kept coming.

The earth was shaking so hard that Emma could hardly keep her balance. In addition to the war whoops were the whinnies of horses and the continual pops of the shadows.

Arrows flew past her. A few came so close that she could have reached out and grabbed them—if she had been fast enough. But she could also see through them, just like she could see through the horses and their riders.

The popping continued all around. Michael whirled them both in time to see the wall to the east come down, then the wall to the west. He was pulling her so close that she couldn't have moved on her own if she had wanted to.

Then the final wall vanished. The riders came toward Emma and Michael, their fierce painted faces filled with the joy of a victory she wasn't sure she understood. The ground shook even more, and dust rose around them, ghostly dust that she could see but which didn't catch in her lungs. There was also the ghost of smells—horseflesh, sweat, maybe even blood—but so faint that she wasn't sure if she were imagining them or if they were real.

The riders stopped before her, and placed the tips of their lances down. Emma eased herself out of Michael's grasp. It was full dark now, and the ghosts seemed to glow against the black sky.

“Thank you,” she said.

They nodded their heads in acknowledgment, then they rode around her and Michael the way that a stream flowed around a rock. They rode down the hill toward the river and vanished into the trees.

“Good Lord, Emma,” Michael said, “I can't believe you did that.”

“I didn't do it.” Her voice was shaking. She was shaking, even though the earth was no longer.

“Who else could have?”

She shook her head. “No, Michael. It wasn't me. I thought those shadows had us.”

“It was you,” he said. “You have a lot more control than you think you do.”

She looked at him. His face was closer to hers than she expected, his blue eyes sincere. He didn't look frightened—she doubted he ever was.

“If I had control, Darnell wouldn't have become a lion.”

“He changed back.”

“There wouldn't have been a restaurant.”

“It changed back.”

“Wishes wouldn't be horses.”

Michael smiled. “You won't change that one.”

“You know what I mean.” She ran a hand through her hair. There was dirt in it. Maybe that dust hadn't been so ghostly after all. “This had to have been someone else.”

“Who?” Michael asked. “Your friends are forbidden to help you. Would your Fates have done something like this?”

“No,” Emma said softly.

“Then I submit that you saved us.”

“I have to check on Darnell.” She shoved her hands in her pockets, and walked down the path. There weren't even hoofprints in the grass. It looked as it had before—only without the shadows.

“Emma.” Michael was keeping up with her. “Just humor me for a moment. Were you thinking about the battle?”

“Of course,” she said. “I was trying to figure out a way to escape those shadows.”

“No,” he said. “Little Bighorn. Did it ever cross your mind while we were being attacked.”

“Of course not.” She slipped, then caught herself. The path was hard to walk in the dark.

She
felt
like
the
Indians
must
have
felt
when
they
first
saw
guns. They had no idea how to defend themselves against something they didn't understand.

And
yet
somehow, they'd found a way to survive.

“No way,” she said.

“What?” Michael was still beside her. The man's least endearing trait was that he was hard to shake. “You remembered something.”

“It was nothing.”

“Emma, I'm on your side, remember?”

She stopped and looked at him. He seemed almost excited by this, like a historian who had discovered a handwritten history of England signed by King Arthur.

“I thought,” she said, “that we didn't know how to defend ourselves, and neither did the Indians when they first saw guns.”

Michael grinned. “The corollary being, of course, that they defended themselves pretty well here. Emma, you're brilliant.”

“No,” she said. “I'm inept. If I had control, I would have just banished those shadows.”

“You did banish them,” Michael said softly. “You just did it in a metaphorical way, which is how the subconscious works.”

“So now you're a psychiatrist?”

“No,” he said, “I was thinking of dreams. Dreams work in images and metaphors.”

“Like restaurants with fifty chefs.”

“And a special space for cats.” He put his arm around her waist and headed down the path with her. She tried very hard not to lean on him.

As they got closer to the car, she could hear Darnell. It wasn't his panicked yowl. It was his Where-Is-Everyone?-I-Need-Dinner yowl.

“I'm sorry, Michael,” she said as they reached the parking lot. “You signed on for adventure, but not this much. My whole life has been one bad situation after another.”

“But you've survived all of them,” Michael said, “and come out stronger.”

“I guess that's one way to look at it.”

He grinned at her. “It's the only way, Emma. You're a bona fide heroine of a fairy tale. Of course things are going to happen to you. But I'm not worried about them.”

“You should be,” she said.

He smoothed a strand of hair out of her face. His touch was gentle. “I believe in happily ever after, Emma, and since you're the heroine, you'll get out of this just fine.”

“What about you?” she said.

“I'm betting I'm the hero.”

She let out a small laugh. “And we ride off into the sunset? Isn't that how Westerns end?”

“No.” He cupped her cheeks with his hands. “They usually end with a kiss.”

She ducked back as if he had slapped her. “Michael, you promised.”

He sighed. “I'm lousy at delayed gratification.”

“It's a good thing you weren't around before the invention of birth control.”

He laughed. It was a reluctant sound. “I was talking about a kiss, Emma, nothing else.”

“And I was referring to your past.”

“As a way of avoiding being kissed.”

“Michael, please.” She put the car between herself and him. Darnell launched himself at the window. He was mewing piteously—his If-I-Don't-Eat-Right-Now-I'll-Die mew.

“You know, I should really be offended,” Michael said. “I have never had so much trouble kissing a woman in my life.”

“It's not about you.”

“I'm beginning to wonder.”

“You know it's not about you. You've seen the magic.”

“And what I've seen so far has been reversible.”

“Michael, you have to believe me.”

“I do, and I also know we're only a day or so from Oregon. What if I call your buddy Aethelstan, tell him that you've been kissed into a coma, and ask him to come here and help?”

“I don't think the Fates will like it,” she said, leaning on the door.

“Oh, come on,” Michael said. “You'd think they would expect it.”

“I don't know what they think,” Emma said.

“Take a risk, Emma,” he said softly.

She stared at him across the car. He was hard to see in the dim light from the visitor center. “Would you?”

“I think so, yes. Since we have backup.”

“Backup,” she said sarcastically. “It sounds like you're trying to lead an assault on a building.”

“Well,” he said, “if the shoe fits—”

“Wrong fairy tale,” she snapped.

At that moment, Darnell uttered his Feed-Me-Now-Or-Die-Horribly screech. Emma pulled the car door open, happy for the distraction. Darnell nearly tumbled onto the pavement. She caught him with one hand.

“You'd think a cat as smart as you would learn how to operate a ring-top.” She reached into the food bag and removed Darnell's Fancy Feast. White Fish and Salmon—a touch of the Northwest. He returned to mewling piteously and paced the backseat of the car as if it were the kitchen floor.

“Great,” Michael said, sounding more annoyed than he should have. “That stuff reeks. Couldn't you have waited until we got to Billings?”

“Did you want to listen to Darnell the whole way?”

“I don't know. It might have been better than smelling that stuff on an empty stomach.”

Darnell shoved his face into the bowl. He looked nothing like the pretty white cat on the commercials. There was nothing dainty about him.

“He'll be done in a minute.” Emma took the empty can to a nearby trash bin, and stared at the battlefield. She saw no more ghosts, no more shadows. Safe. For the moment, at least.

Then she came back to the car. Michael was in the driver's seat. She was about to tell him to move over, when she changed her mind.

Let him drive. It would give him something to concentrate on besides her. She let herself into the passenger's side, and slumped in the seat, crossing her arms over her chest and closing her eyes. She wasn't tired, but Michael didn't need to know that.

And he didn't need to know that the smell of Fancy Feast was making her empty stomach churn.

***

It was nearly midnight when they reached Billings. They found a roadside motel with an all-night restaurant. They argued in the car for a few minutes about whether or not to get adjoining rooms, but the argument was half-hearted. They got a room with two doubles, and hoped that they were far apart.

Of course they weren't. The beds—the largest doubles Emma had ever seen (an entire baseball team could sleep on one)—were so close together that she could barely see the space between them. The room wasn't billed as a suite, but it had a living room separated from the bed area by a tasteless, see-through wooden screen.

“They don't do anything small in Montana, do they?” Michael said as he brought in the suitcases. Emma waited until he closed the door before she set Darnell down. Darnell immediately ran for the beds and jumped on the one nearest the TV.

The cat developed a routine even on the road.

Emma used the remote to turn on the television and grabbed the room service menu. Michael stood in front of the TV and shut it off.

“No infomercial dreams tonight,” he said.

“Okay,” she said. “I'll read.”

“Nope. We're sticking together until we get to Oregon.” He didn't sound as pleased by that as he had a few hours earlier. She wasn't quite sure why he was so upset. “Dinner in the restaurant.”

“What about Darnell?”

“Darnell's Fancy Feast is sticking with me. I'm sure he remembers it as well.”

Darnell snuffled and managed to look forlorn.

Michael held out his hand. “Come on, before that cat makes you change your mind.”

She got off the bed, but she didn't take his hand. She grabbed her key and followed him out the door. Darnell watched from the bed, his eyes accusing.

She closed the door, and her stomach rumbled. Dinner was a good idea.

Even after midnight, the restaurant was full—a good sign. Most of the patrons looked like truckers, and most of them seemed like regulars, another good sign. So Emma ordered chicken-fried steak with lots of gravy, real mashed potatoes, and fresh corn. She wondered if Aethelstan knew of her gastronomic sins, and if he would make her pay for them later.

She and Michael didn't talk much. She wasn't sure what they had to say to each other. It almost felt as if they were fighting—but for the first time, she wasn't the one who initiated it. He was. And he didn't seem to use the shout-and-recover method. He seemed to like the sulk-and-stew method.