Thoroughly Kissed (8 page)

The sadness she had displayed a moment ago, the wounded dignity that allowed her to grab her purse, and slosh quietly out of the room, leaving muddy footprints behind her, had changed his mind about that.

He hadn't lied to her. He was inclined to believe her. And that bothered him more than he wanted to say.

The entire morning had bothered him. The loss of the furniture, the way Helen had turned to stone, and then that visit to the medieval village. He hadn't lied to Emma. He could think of no way she—or anyone else—could have faked that.

Which left him with several other theories, each as kooky as his time travel question, and none of them rational.

Except, strangely, her explanation of being a witch.

He slumped in the chair she had placed across her desk for students. He knew he should leave her office, but he wasn't willing to, not yet. He wanted to stay close to her. If he had known her better, he would have taken her home and made sure she was all right. She seemed so lost suddenly.

Then he smiled. So that was what she had meant when she had said
so
well
named
. He had just used her last name. She was feeling lost.

Well, he wasn't feeling found. He was feeling a bit lost himself.

His study of magic, indeed, what he had told his colleagues when he took on the project was the idea that various forms of beliefs in magic had shown up in all primitive cultures. Yet the beliefs also showed up in cultures that considered themselves modern, from the spiritualist craze among the Victorians (leading to odd séances) to the New Age crap that was happening now.

He was going to try to do a comprehensive history of magic in several volumes, and he planned to cover the entire world eventually. He had had to start somewhere, though, and he had decided to start where he was most familiar—in the West. Magic explained everything from the arrival of spring to the ferocity of winter winds. The Celts were the most creative of all, explaining ground fog as banshees—the ghosts of women who had died in childbirth—and carrying on superstitions that still held today.

But what if magic were real? What if all the scholarship was founded on the wrong premise? What if there was more to life than what a man could see or feel?

He shuddered. He had certainly felt his arrival in that medieval village. He had smelled it, too. And heard a language that he had never heard spoken in his life, although he had seen parts of it written. He didn't understand it, although Emma Lost seemed to.

And if she did, then didn't that mean at least some of her scholarship was accurate?

He shook his head. Everything he believed in had been turned upside down today. What would happen if he wrote a book claiming magic was real?

If he wrote it as history, he'd be the one whose work would be dismissed as bunk.

If he wrote it as a New Age tome, he'd probably get rich.

He smiled vaguely. He had no interest in getting rich. He had, as he had told her, an interest in learning the truth. And the truth was that she was one very upset woman—a woman who had fled his office after his furniture disappeared, a woman who left her own office without locking it after taking him to a place that had looked like England in the tenth century.

He glanced at his watch. It was quarter to. He had promised Emma he would take her class. He barely had enough time to look up its location and title. He certainly didn't have enough time to prepare a lecture. He was glad he had been boning up on his medieval history, because he was going to let the students query him about everything.

But he wished he hadn't made her that promise. He wished there was enough time to find someone else to take the class. He wanted to talk with Emma Lost some more.

He told himself that he wanted to find out what she knew about magic. But what had him the most intrigued was the way her skin had felt beneath his palm, the way her luxurious hair caught the light. That fantastic face and those stunning eyes that seemed gray sometimes, green sometimes, and blue at others.

He was attracted to her, and either she was crazy as a loon, or he was. Or he was dreaming, and he would wake up to find himself in his own bed, feeling foolish.

Part of him, though, wanted it to be real. Part of him wanted to believe her.

And that was the part of himself that made him most wary. He wasn't sure whether he was reacting to the events of the morning, or to Emma Lost's beauty.

He had an uncomfortable feeling that if he looked deep enough into his own soul, he wouldn't like the answer.

The drive home was uneventful. Emma took off her shoes and stockings outside, and then tossed them into the nearest garbage can so that Darnell wouldn't have anything to roll in. She hoped he was still house-cat sized. She didn't want to face the lion again, not after the events of the morning.

She still couldn't get the stench of the village out of her nostrils. It had looked like her village, the one she had grown up in, where she had met Aethelstan, and that had saddened her. She had forgotten how poor it was, how ignorant everyone was.

For a brief moment, she had thought she would have to live back there again, and she wasn't sure she could do it. That brief foray into the past made her realize how much she had grown, how much she had changed, and how hard it would be to ever go back.

She took a shower, using a lot of lavender-scented soap. Steam rose around her, and she scrubbed until she felt marginally clean.

Darnell watched, as he always did, from the back of the toilet. He hadn't reverted to lion form, and he was no worse for his experience of the morning. He seemed to have forgotten it, or deemed it unimportant, or perhaps deemed it his due. She could never tell with Darnell. He was quite egotistical, even for a cat.

After she dressed, she went into her study to call Aethelstan. Darnell did not follow her, which relieved her. She wanted privacy right now. Or maybe she was just being protective. Whenever people were close to her, they might feel the effects of her wayward magic.

Before she dialed, she checked the time. A little after ten a.m. on the West Coast. Aethelstan would be in his restaurant, getting ready for the lunch crowd. So far as most people were concerned, Aethelstan was the famous chef Alex Blackstone—so popular that he always got hired to cater Hollywood parties. Famous people flew to Portland just to dine in his restaurant. He had been approached to open others, but he didn't want a franchise.

Only Emma, Nora, and a few other people knew that Aethelstan didn't need the money. Everyone else seemed to think he was a crazy artist who wanted to protect his creation. Actually, Aethelstan wanted to enjoy his marriage. Building an empire—even a food empire—was not his style.

The phone rang for a long time. As it did, Emma carried the receiver to her favorite overstuffed chair. She had placed it near the window, which had a spectacular view of the backyard. Spring became the garden. The greenery and the budding trees made this place seem like home.

The thought made her blink hard. She would have to leave here. Studying in Portland would take years. She wasn't even sure she would be able to come back here to visit.

Thanks to her writing income, she could afford to keep the house, but she wouldn't be able to enjoy it for ten, maybe twenty years. And right now, that felt waaaay too long.

Finally someone picked up the phone. She could hear dishes clanging in the background and the sound of water running in a sink. “Quixotic.”

“I need to speak to Mr. Blackstone,” she said.

“I'm sorry. He's in a meeting—”

“Tell him it's Emma.”

“Ma'am—”

“It's miss,” she snapped. “I'm an old friend and it's an emergency.”

“Yes, ma'am—miss—yes. I'll get him.”

The anonymous voice put her on hold. The piped-in music was soft jazz, sophisticated and quiet. No obnoxious recording telling her the week's specials or the restaurant's hours. Just pretty music, already setting an atmosphere.

Aethelstan was good at things like that.

Then there was a clunk and the music was gone.

“Emma.” Aethelstan's deep warm voice filled the phone. He had managed to keep just a bit of his British accent, even though he had lived in the States for more than a century. “Are you all right? Pedro said there was an emergency.”

“I came into my powers, Aethelstan,” she said.

She heard him exhale. Then he said, “Hang on while I transfer phones. Better yet, let me call you.”

“All right.” She listened as he hung up. Then she carefully hung up as well.

The early afternoon light was filling the room. She had decorated it in white and gold. The furniture was all upholstered in the same material, a light floral pattern that didn't overwhelm. The carpet was gold, the walls white, and the pictures she had hung on the walls were all flowers. Thanks to the modified Wright design, the study looked like it was part of the garden. This had always been one of her favorite rooms in the house.

Today, though, it failed to comfort her.

When the phone rang, she started even though she had been expecting it. She was more tense than she had realized.

“I thought you weren't going to come into your powers for another twenty years,” Aethelstan said without preamble.

“Me, too,” she said. “But the Fates said it all makes sense.”

“You already spoke to the Fates?”

“I asked them to reverse it, but they wouldn't.”

“No,” he said, “they wouldn't. They say that—”

“They don't interfere. They govern.”

Aethelstan chuckled. “They used that one on you too, huh?”

“Yes,” she said, feeling more discouraged than she had a moment before.

“I think it's their way of staying aloof from our affairs.” His voice had become gentle now. She could almost see him in the room, his tall form leaning against the doorjamb, his dark hair combed back from his hawkish face. He had aged in the thousand years—only the equivalent of fifteen human years, but that made him seem impossibly old to her, even now.

Certainly not the young man she had thought the most handsome in their little village.

“I'm in a terrible bind, Aethelstan,” she said. “I turned Darnell into a lion this morning—”

“Did you use the reverse spell?”

“Yes. And it worked, just like the one you gave me to go to the Fates.” She paused. “You knew this was going to happen, didn't you?”

“Let's just say I plan for all contingencies,” he said. “I certainly didn't know, but I was afraid it might.”

He was silent for a moment. She sighed, knowing what he was thinking. “I meant to get training,” she said.

“It was overwhelming, being awakened a thousand years into the future. It's my fault, really. I should have insisted—”

“Someday,” she said, “you'll have to stop blaming yourself for those lost years of mine. I have.”

“No, Emma,” he said softly. “You haven't. Not entirely. And you shouldn't. It was unconscionable.”

“Well, you owe me, then,” she said. “I need someone to train me.”

It was his turn to sigh. He knew how difficult teaching her would be. The person who sparked her terrible temper the most was Aethelstan. Probably because she was still angry at him on some level, although she would never admit it to him.

“I will train you,” he said. “I promised to do that a long time ago. But you're going to have to take some sort of leave from your job. I can't come to you.”

“I know,” she said. “The Fates reminded me. But you could pick me up, couldn't you? Or maybe just zap me to Oregon? Me and Darnell?”

“You know I can't,” he said.

“You've broken rules in the past.”

“Always to bad result.”

The door to her study pushed open. Darnell sauntered in as if she were in his work space.

“This rule makes no sense,” she said.

“Oh, it probably does to the Fates,” Aethelstan said. “They usually institute things like this because someone did it, and caused harm to others.”

“I might cause harm to others,” she said. “My magic is really out of control. I almost dropped a roomful of furniture on a secretary, and I sent the uptight new department head back to our little village.”

“You made someone time travel? I didn't think that was possible.”

“Maybe it's not for people whose magic is under control,” she said.

“Were you able to get him back?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “He's back. I'll probably have to deal with him tomorrow. If you don't come get me.”

“We've been through that, Emma,” Aethelstan said with a thread of irritation in his voice. And she hadn't even meant to be irritating. Training with him would be very difficult.

“I was just testing,” she said. “You never know until you ask.”

“You've asked two times too many, Em.”

She leaned her head back. Shadows from the birch trees played across her white ceiling. No one was going to rescue her. No one was going to help her.

She shook her head slightly. She'd read the fairy tales that had been based on her past. Most fairy tales were based on the mages in one way or another. Some were based on life in the Kingdoms, which she had never visited. Some were based on old legends from various historical time periods. Sleeping Beauty was the story closest to hers. At the end of that story, a handsome prince had kissed her and brought her out of her sleep. Then they had ridden off into the sunset.

Rescued. Taken care of. It sounded so easy and nice.

Instead of Prince Charming, she had gotten a female lawyer reciting an incantation in the back of a VW microbus. Instead of being rescued with a kiss, she had been put to sleep with one. And instead of living happily ever after, she had had to learn new skills and develop a life of her own.

“Emma?” Aethelstan asked.

“I'll fly out tomorrow,” she said wearily. “I'll call the airline when I hang up.”

“Um, Emma?” He was using that tone again, the one he always used when he was afraid she would yell at him.

She raised her head. It felt very heavy. Her whole body felt heavy, tired, and ill used. She wondered if that was because of her mood or if the magic use had taken something out of her. “What now, Aethelstan?”

“You probably shouldn't use public transportation.” He spoke the words quickly, as if he were afraid she would interrupt. “No planes, buses, or trains.”

He had a point. What if she sent the plane's crew back to her village? Just the crew, and not the passengers. Her magic wouldn't be able to save any of them, and the crash would be horrible. And how would the poor FAA explain the absence of a crew in the cockpit?

“Emma?” Aethelstan asked warily.

“I guess you're right,” she said. “I'll drive then. I can do that, can't I? I don't relish the idea of walking from Wisconsin to Oregon.”

“I think it would be best for all concerned if you got here as quickly as you could,” Aethelstan said. “I think driving is the least hazardous way you could travel.”

“Thanks for that vote of no-confidence.”

“Emma, out-of-control magic is very dangerous.”

“I know that,” she said. “I was trying to convince the Fates of the very same thing.”

“They know. They just can't act before something happens. Only after.”

She frowned. “You mean if I accidentally commit a crime because of my magic, they can punish me?”

“I'm sure they'll be lenient.” He was trying to sound reassuring. “And it would have to be a magical crime.”

“Well, that makes me feel so much better.” She put a hand to her forehead. A headache was threatening. “I'm all on my own with this, aren't I, Aethelstan?”

“Only with getting here, my friend. Once you're here, we'll get you up to speed as fast as possible.”

“Great. And if I turn my car into a pumpkin in the Rockies, and I'm trapped inside without a phone, I get to die inside a giant piece of rotting fruit?”

“I'm sure it won't come to that,” Aethelstan said, not sounding sure at all. “Tell you what. I'll give you a list of mages who live along the way. If things get truly out of hand, they'll be able to help you.”

“How many are there?”

“I don't know. We don't have a census. But I haven't heard of any deaths for a long time, and very few are imprisoned, and we get more and more with each passing century, so—I don't know. A million or so worldwide.”

“No,” she said, trying to sound calm. “Between here and there.”

“Oh, about twenty I think. And ten are friendly enough to be of some use to a newly hatched witch.”

“I like that phrase about as much as I like hot pins poked under my fingernails,” she said.

He grunted. She recognized that sound. He was getting really impatient now. “This isn't going to work if you criticize everything I say.”

“I promise I'll be good, Aethelstan.” She crossed her fingers. When she got there, he'd have to take her as she was. Temper and all.

“I'd suggest you bring someone with you on the drive. Someone with common sense enough to poke his fist through that imaginary pumpkin of yours if need be.”

“I would have thought of that,” she said.

“Before or after the fruit rotted around you?” Aethelstan asked.

She sat up even straighter. “I have lived on my own for more than six years now—in a brand new culture in a brand new millennium. If anyone can survive on her own, Aethelstan, it's me. I'm the ultimate survivor.”

Her words seemed to echo down the phone lines. After a moment, Aethelstan said, “I know you are. I'm only suggesting you have a companion in case the magic goes really haywire.”

That was where their problem was. Their communication was terrible, even though both of them meant well. “The Fates have already ordered me to bring a traveling companion,” she said. “They claim Darnell isn't enough, even if I do give him the power of speech.”

“I think mortals would be rather startled if a cat tried to play Lassie,” Aethelstan said.

“What?” Emma asked.

“
Lassie
. The TV show?” He sighed. “It's not repeated much, except on Animal Planet. I guess you can't catch up with all the cultural references in ten years.”

“I've done pretty good.”