Love lines (23 page)

“Eileen, I forgot, I need to talk to Evan,” said Darcy,
looking at me with a hidden meaning that said to keep my guesses to myself.
Amanda’s facial expression said that she had guessed everything as well.

“What's wrong?” Anna asked puzzled.

“Nothing. Ah, I just remembered that I recently hurt my
hand
burning
it a little,” I said. “That is probably the reason of
tingling on my palm.”

“Then it explains everything. I'll help you,” Anna
assured me, and the three of us went on into one of the Embry’s gardens. This
one was full of multicolored lilies. White, yellow, orange, tiger and even
bright red that I’d never seen before. Those flowers were everywhere, as if we
were swimming is the ocean of beautiful delicate petals.

But even their beauty wouldn’t make me forget about
Nora. I didn’t abandon the idea that she might have tried to hurt me
intentionally. But why? It was the first time in her life she'd seen us. She
knew nothing about my bond with Christian, or about the old curse. Or did she
know something?..

“Here,” Anna said, stopping, “just exactly what we
need.” She bent down and picked a few bizarre green leaves. “It's arnica. It
will help to get rid of the effects of the burn. Put it on your palm once a day
today and tomorrow, and everything will go away.”

“Thank you,” I said, putting the leaves into my pocket.

“You will need also this,” she added, handing me some
balm flowers. “It will help to get rid of bad dreams, and this - to help soften
the worries, your soul is full of with at this moment.”

“I hope it really helps,” I said, smiling.

“And this is for you, Amanda. This is not a cure for
love, but it helps to overcome some painful emotions.”

“How did you manage to figure out what bothers me?”
Amanda asked in surprise.

Anna laughed in response.

“Sorry, bad habit of scanning all the people I get
acquainted with. It’s my nature, I can’t run away from this - always want to
help those who suffer,” she said.

“Why, on Earth, were we born to be so unique?.. Why
couldn’t we be just normal people, without all the supernatural abilities and
have the same normal friends?!”

Anna smiled again.

“Consider this as a compliment. Do you really want to be
normal,
Amanda?”

“I won’t deny that some of the abilities, I still would
have left,” she said cheerfully.

We spent several hours walking around the beautiful
gardens of Embry. Anna told us how while she was a child she tried to treat all
her pets. She never used pills and she spent her adult life studying books
about herbs and flowers.

“It’s not a surprise that now she’s one of the best
Embry,” I thought.

Late in the afternoon, when we were alone, Amanda and I
decided to visit Evan. Anna went on about her own business, Christian hadn’t
yet returned from a meeting with parents, which seemed rather strange, so Evan
remained our only source of information.

“Always feel great being surrounded by ladies,” he said,
opening the door to his room. Darcy was already there and that didn’t make
Amanda very happy. Of course, we were on the same team, but when it concerned
Evan, she preferred to be the only object of his attention. Although, the
relationship with Evan was vague, she still felt some jealousy towards Darcy.

“We're glad to see you too,” I said.

“Speak for yourself,” Amanda hissed.

“Who are
we
?” asked Evan quietly. Now I
understood what Christian meant, saying how hard it would be between these two
fires.

“Eileen, I wanted to ask you something,” Darcy started.
“Evan and I have spent all day trying to figure out whether or not Nora could
really do something to your palm.”

Mentioning
the whole day
enraged Amanda even
more. I saw that she could barely restrain her anger. Evan noticed that too,
but only smiled slightly, pretending that nothing had happened at all.

“We contacted some of the Keepers in Norfield, when we
couldn’t figure out who Nora was. They had never heard of her before. They said
that there hadn’t been anyone else for years possessing supernatural powers,
apart from the Fairey family, of course.”

“How did you hear about her?” Evan asked.

“Rebecca gave me her address,” Amanda said. “She was our
guest once and said she knew a woman who was a master in all such matters.”

“Who is Rebecca?” I asked.

“Are you talking about Frederic’s wife?” clarified Evan.

Amanda nodded.

“As I recall, Christian said that you and Frederic were
not in touch,” I said.

“Yes, but my mom and Rebecca have always been friends.
She often came to our house.”

Evan frowned. He exchanged a strange glance with Amanda
and Darcy.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” he said, going out into the
hall.

“So Frederic again,” I said. “He appears everywhere! Who
is he really?” Once again, I thought Amanda and Darcy exchanged glances.
Amanda’s phone rang and she looked puzzled at the screen.

“I believe that Nora is not a real Feta,” Darcy said
distracting me from my friend’s call. “I tried today to find out whether our
spells could change the lines of fate, but it turned out that nobody, not even
teachers can do this. This was magic, Eileen, a very strong magic.”

I looked at her with wide eyes, not believing her words.

“So Rebecca sent us to Nora on purpose. But why?”

Darcy shrugged. I had a feeling as if I was missing a
very important part of the whole thing. I just couldn’t figure out
which
one. And what did Frederic’s wife have to do with the whole story?.. Amanda
finished her conversation, that Darcy and I successfully missed, lost in our
own thoughts.

“It was Christian, he returned from town and is now with
our parents in father’s apartment. He wants Eileen and me to come over there
too. My Mom and Dad want to see you,” she said, turning to me.

“Of course. I haven’t seen them for a long time,” I replied
eager to see some familiar faces from my past life.

Evan entered the room.

“Already leaving?” he asked.

“Yes, have a nice time!” I said, thinking too late about
how Amanda could interpret my words.

“Sure thing, we'll find something to do,” Evan said
winking, that added even more oil to the fire.

“You bugger!” Amanda hissed when we went out.

“Come on, don’t you see that he is doing it on purpose,
just to tease you?”

“I can see that perfectly well, Eileen! But someday I
will stop and kick his smart ass just to let him know how fierce I can be when
someone gets on my nerves!”

“I think I should warn him about the coming attack,”
holding back a laugh I said.

“Don’t even think about it! I want to rub it a bit in
his perfect face. At least for some fun,” Amanda added with a devilish smile on
her face.

“You
do
like him,” I pointed.

“Eileen! Stop saying that, I feel like a jealous
girlfriend!” she flared blushing.

“Sorry, Amanda, but that's exactly how you're behaving.
And if you really want to make Evan pay some attention to you, it’s better to
pretend that you don’t care about him. While I personally believe that both of
you should stop fooling around and make peace at last. Especially about
Patrick. He was right, but now you just cannot step over your pride and admit
it.”

“Well, today, you are going to lecture me!”

“Yesterday was your turn, so today is mine.”

“Tace is Latin for a candle! Otherwise I won’t talk to
you too,” she said warning.

”Then you won’t have anyone else to talk to, sweetie.
Maybe you should make friends with Darcy after all?”

“Eileen, one more word and be sure you and I will no
longer be best friends,” she hissed.

“Okay, okay, I promise to keep quiet,” raising my hands
soothingly, I said.

Amelia opened the door when we came to Patrick’s apartment.

“Amanda! Eileen! I missed you so much! It seems that you
have left ages ago, not just a week!” She hugged us one by one, and shut the
door behind us. “Come on in, let’s have some tea.” We went into the living
room, where to my surprise, there was only Patrick.

“Christian's not here?” Amanda asked, reading my mind.

“He had to go somewhere, because we’ve taken his whole
day,” said Amelia apologizing.

“Great!” I thought. Now, instead of learning what
Christian was talking to his parents about, I have to smile and drink tea. Of
course, I couldn’t ask Patrick about anything myself.

Chapter 21. What do
eyes speak about?.. (
Christian)

“It was a good idea to preoccupy Eileen for a while,”
Evan said, as soon as I entered his room. “Have Patrick and Amelia agreed to
play this game?”

“They didn’t have another choice,” I said. “As well as
all of us they don’t want Eileen to know anything about Frederic. By the way,
our trip took so long because we had a meeting with him.”

“What?!” asked Darcy and Evan.

“My father called Frederic immediately after our morning
conversation. They agreed to meet, so I had to attend it too.”

“So what does he think about the whole story?” Evan
asked.

“A lot of things, actually. For example, that becoming
eighteen Eileen will start to feel magical power. He had been suspecting that
already, so when I told him about your assumption, he agreed. He also tries to
protect Eileen, piercing into her dreams and sending false dreams and good
vision, instead of those nightmares, which she has so often.”

“You said he is able to pierce into her dreams?” Evan
wondered.

“He has been doing it for all her life. There is a
strong bond between them. And the fact that Frederic intentionally didn’t give
Eileen his name, only had strengthened it. He said that he didn’t understand
why this was happening. But as it turned out, the parental bond could be broken
only by death. But just
broken
because no one is able to overcome what
has been given by nature. And Frederic is very strong. He really deserved to be
Wizardy. That's why he didn’t give his last name Eileen. He thought that by
abandoning her, he would save her, so she could live a normal life, never go to
Dever, and never become the heir of all his powers. He has to be on guard all
the time because there are many people willing to do anything to get these
powers. And they will stop at nothing to take them away from Eileen too.”

The fact that these people would be willing to kill her,
I didn’t mention. That was quite clear by itself.

“That's why I became her Keeper. And while I'm there, no
one can do any harm to her.”

“So that’s why Medellin is trying to get rid of you in
those dreams,” Evan guessed.

“What Frederic said shocked me the most. He said that
Medellin Wizardy was never able to forgive Gabriel for the death of her
daughter. Even though he wasn’t guilty, she still felt he was responsible. For
this reason, imposing her spell on the Fairey family, she said that only a
woman would be able to take the curse off, but not
a couple
in love, as
we all thought before. That is why the burden has passed from Frederic to
Eileen. He's older than my father, which explains why the burden hasn’t touched
Amanda. Despite the fact that she was older than Eileen, our father wasn’t the
one destined to take the curse off.”

“I see that the meeting with Frederic cleared up a lot,”
pointed Evan. “However, some more questions still remain. Does he know anything
about Alexis?”

“No. He only suggests that she may be associated with
those who want to take Eileen’s power. There’s nothing to worry about before
her birthday, but the powers will grow stronger after that. According to
Frederic’s words, his opponents will wait for the moment when the forces reach
their maximum value in order to steal them all.”

“What do you mean by
stealing
?” asked Darcy.

“
To kill
,” replied for me Evan. “They will try to
kill her. It means that until they try to rid of Christian, we know Eileen is
safe.”

I nodded in agreement.

“Oh, God!” Darcy whispered. “So we need to figure out
how to protect both of you.”

“I think it’s better to figure out who is behind all
this and come up with something to bring them out into the open,” said Evan,
passing the room.