Absolutely Captivated (11 page)

That was it. He had heard the alarm,
rolled over, and fallen back to sleep. This entire day had been one
long, crazy dream.

“Get real, Dad,” Kyle said. “If you’d
overslept the alarm, I would’ve woke you up because we had to get
out of town before the traffic got bad.”

The Fates were watching this
interchange as if it were a tennis match, their heads swinging back
and forth in unison from Travers’ face to Kyle. They didn’t even
seem confused that they were only hearing half of the conversation.
In fact, it seemed to amuse them.

“This isn’t possible,” Travers
whispered.

“Of course it is, Dad.” Kyle grimaced
at the Fates, then turned his back on them. He leaned against the
desk, facing Travers. “I tried to tell you about it a number of
times, remember? I told you I could read minds when I was three,
but you laughed and told me I watched too much
television.”

Travers raised his head. He felt
slightly dizzy, probably because he hadn’t been breathing. “You
remember that?”

“Of course I remember it, Dad. I was
so confused. I thought everybody could hear thoughts, and then I
realized only I could. But I figured you’re my dad, so you can too,
and then I told you and you laughed. You laughed, Dad, and I was
really scared.”

Travers frowned. He remembered
laughing, and telling Kyle he watched too much television. Then he
grabbed his small son, pulled him into a hug, and cuddled with him
on the couch, joking that they’d watch even more
television.

But he couldn’t remember Kyle’s
expression, and he wasn’t sure why he remembered the incident. It
was eight years ago, and seemed like nothing out of the
ordinary.

“Perhaps, Travers,” Clotho said, “it
is time you stop questioning what happens around you and start
believing.”

Kyle was still studying him with that
same expression of hope and concern that he had every time this
topic had come up.

And it had come up dozens of times
every year. Kyle tried to convince Travers that psychic powers
existed and Kyle had them, and Travers laughed or dismissed them or
found some other explanation.

But Kyle often knew what people were
going to say or what they were going to do, and a few times, he
even kept Travers away from danger. Twice in the last year, Kyle
had told his father to slow down on the Ventura, and both times a
wreck happened right in front of them not five minutes
later.

If Kyle hadn’t issued the warning in
both cases, their car would have been in the middle of those
wrecks.

But psychic abilities didn’t exist.
Magic didn’t exist. Any more than miracles existed.

Everything of value in this world
could be proven by science or mathematics.

Everything.

“Except your ability to win the
lottery,” Kyle said, his expression grim. “No matter how you run
the statistics, your ability with lottery tickets is mathematically
impossible, and you know it.”

“Kyle—”

“I’m not going to shut up about it,
Dad. How many other people in the history of the world have gotten
rich winning the lottery—not one big lottery, but hundreds of small
ones? Hmmm? I’m going to wager no one. That’s like my ability to
hear thoughts, Dad. You can make numbers work for you.”

Travers swallowed. He
wasn’t sure what unnerved him more; Kyle’s proclaimed ability to
read minds (which Travers was finally starting to believe) or the
fact that Kyle had just revealed that Travers could manipulate
numbers.

He didn’t believe he could manipulate
numbers. He just thought he had an incredible lucky streak going.
One that would end someday.

Even though it had been going on since
he was twenty-one, broke, and alone with a young boy.

“No, it’s not me, Dad,” Kyle said even
as Travers looked at him, just beginning to make that speculation.
“Your ability with numbers is your own. I have to cheat on half my
math quizzes just to get the right answers.”

“Cheat?” Travers asked, more as a
stall. He wasn’t really concentrating on what Kyle was saying. He
was thinking, and worrying, and wondering what happened to the
woman who owned this chair, the woman who had been here not a few
moments before. Was that why he was here? So that he would admit
his ability with numbers? Did this have something to do with the
National Lottery Commission? (Was there a National Lottery
Commission? He didn’t even know.)

Kyle was looking sheepish. “I have to
read other people’s thoughts sometimes. Then I take the answer most
people have. It’s kinda cheating and kinda not. Sometimes I have
the right answer before I double-check.”

Psychic cheating. Travers shook his
head. If this were true, any of it were true, then he would have to
rethink everything, including his parenting.

“It’s all true, Dad,” Kyle
said.

“You can hear thoughts,” Travers
said.

Kyle nodded.

“All thoughts?”
Travers tried not to be afraid of this answer, but there were some
thoughts—many thoughts—most thoughts—that should just remain
private. Jeez, what if his kid overheard what he thought about
Sandra Bullock the other night when they were watching
Speed
?

“Ick, Dad. I don’t want to
know that you can even think like that.” Kyle put up his hands,
palms out, as if he were pushing the information away from him. “I
only hear big, important thoughts. The ones that are filled with
emotion. That you broadcast.”

“But you seem to have heard all of my
thoughts here,” Travers said, willing his voice to remain even. He
was afraid it would shake, afraid that everything he had ever
believed—about privacy, about parenting, about himself and his
son—was about to change.

“That’s because you’re really upset,
Dad,” Kyle said. “It’s like you’re thinking with a megaphone.
Usually you’re just a quiet little hum and not emotional at all.
It’s kinda good you’re like a robot. Aunt Viv can zoom in on you
any time, but I only get you when you broadcast.”

“Vivian
can hear my thoughts?”

Kyle bit his lower lip.
Obviously he wasn’t supposed to say anything about that. “She tries
not to. She doesn’t like to eavesdrop, and besides, she hates
country music.”

“What does country
music—?” Travers started to ask the question, then stopped himself.
Country music had something to do with it because he listened all
the time. Either the radio was on or he was playing his 100-disk
changer or he was listening to one of the XM broadcasts on his
computer.

His privacy saved by his love of
music.

Then he shook his head. “Okay,” he
said, trying to get this straight. “You and Vivian got me here so
this illusionist could get my attention long enough to have me talk
to you about psychic powers—”

“Dad!” Kyle put his hands over his
face. Dramatic, but effective. He should have starred in silent
movies.

“Zoe Sinclair is not an illusionist,”
Lachesis said quietly.

Still, Travers jumped. He had
forgotten the Wyrd Sisters were in the room.

“Fates, Dad,” Kyle whispered. “They
hate being called the Wyrd Sisters. They think it’s an
insult.”

“Have you ever read those Norse
Myths?” Atropos asked, crossing her arms.

Travers shook his head, but Kyle
nodded. Then Travers bit back irritation. “This is a discussion
between me and my son. You don’t belong in it.”

“Don’t belong.” Clotho pursed her
lips. “Of course we belong. If we had known that your mentor was
screwing up, we would have interfered long ago. It’s our job to
deal with the magical.”

“Or it used to be,” Lachesis
said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Atropos said.
“What matters is that you must believe in yourself, Travers. Your
magic will become dangerous if you don’t.”

“My
magic?” Travers laughed. “I have as much magic
as—.”

He had been about to
say
Kyle
, but he
was beginning to realize that Kyle had some kind of
magic.

“Well, as you do,” Travers
finished lamely. He had heard the women confess (confess? lie?)
that their magical powers were gone. That would help—a
little.

All three women looked sad.

“Actually,” Clotho said, “at the
moment, you have more.”

“Considerably more,” Lachesis
said.

“And you have no idea what to do with
it,” Atropos said.

“So?” Travers asked.

“So?” Clotho rose out of her seat. She
was clearly shocked.

Lachesis put a hand on her arm and
eased her back down. “So,” Lachesis said. “In our world, that’s a
crisis.”

“Well, we’re not in your world,”
Travers said. “We’re in mine.”

“Yes.” Atropos stepped around the
chairs, moving in front of the other two Fates. “We’re in yours and
you have just met your—well, you have just met your match, so to
speak.”

“What?” Travers asked.

Clotho made a face and shook her head.
Lachesis rolled her eyes. Atropos shrugged.

“You have a slight magic,
fortunately,” Clotho said. “If it were larger, your problems would
have shown up earlier.”

“I don’t have magical problems,”
Travers said.

“Besides me,” Kyle said.

Travers ruffled Kyle’s hair. “You’re
not a problem, kiddo. You never have been.”

And Kyle smiled. Maybe there was
something good about broadcasting thoughts after all. At least,
Kyle knew that Travers wasn’t lying.

“Your magical problems are about to be
compounded,” Lachesis said.

“And unfortunately,” Atropos added,
“there’s nothing we can do to stop it.”

Zoe materialized in a library that
smelled ever so faintly of pee. She had been here before, a long
time ago. She recognized the bookshelves that rose as far as the
eye could see. The tomes beside her were thick and dust-covered,
which she did not remember. The library she had been to in the past
had beautifully bound, well-cared-for volumes in a multitude of
languages.

The multitude of languages
remained, but the volumes were no longer well cared for. Many of
them had fallen onto the floor, and were open to various pages.
Others were stacked on tables, the books open and the spines
bent.

In addition to the pee odor, the air
smelled musty and like something else, something sweet and
childlike. The scent was what Zoe always thought of when she had to
imagine what pink smelled like.

It was the smell of—

Bubblegum.

Zoe blinked, and tilted her head,
wondering if she hadn’t spoken correctly when she completed her
transport spell. Maybe that delicious man in her office had
distracted her enough…

But that was ludicrous. She had
recited the spell, and she had been irritated at the time, not
drowning in lust. (Well, she’d actually still felt the lust—it
hadn’t gone away—but the irritation simply overrode it.)

She had done the spell correctly. She
just wasn’t where she expected to be.

Zoe stepped over a pile of books,
putting one hand on a shelf to brace herself. The lighting was dim
and flickery, as if she were in candlelight. Far away, from a
direction she couldn’t quite locate, she heard voices.

In the past, whenever she
had done a “To-the-Fates” spell, she had ended up right in front of
all three women. The first time, she had appeared in what looked
like a Greek Temple, complete with columns and fountains and that
wonderful Greek sunshine.

The Fates themselves had looked like
something out of a Greek myth (which, she knew, they were—only, of
course, they were the basis for the myth, rather than the other way
around). They were wearing long white gowns that fastened on one
shoulder, and they had their hair swept up, a single curl falling
on their bare skin. They wore sandals and gold jewelry and looked
beautiful.

That was the other thing.
Even though the women in her office had been lovely, they weren’t
astonishingly beautiful—not breathtakingly, amazingly, astoundingly
gorgeous, the kind that took the breath away, no matter what your
gender. If those women had been the Fates, then even the
outstanding Travers Kinneally would have faded in
comparison.

But he most certainly dominated that
room.

Zoe stepped over another pile of
books, and then another. Finally she had no choice but to walk on
several, wincing as she took each step. Dust motes rose in the
weird light, and she sneezed several times.

Then she heard a bark. It was more of
a yip. More, actually, a sound of irritation.

And she recognized it.

The dachshund had made that sound
after he had found out who was at the end of the trail of
sausages.

To the
Fates
, she had said, pointing at the
dachshund and waving her arm.
And his
master too.