The Water Witch (17 page)

“You’re hurt,” he said, laying his hands on my ribcage. “Lie back and I’ll work a binding spell to heal your skin.”

“What if she comes back?” I asked as I lay down on the rock, mortified that we were both naked. I hadn’t minded running through the fields with Duncan Laird or nuzzling him
in deer form, but I was now all too aware that we’d met only hours ago.

“She won’t come back,” he said. “She’s hurt, too. I speared her with my antlers.” His lips twitched into a smile at his prowess, but his eyes stayed on the wounds on my ribcage as he moved his hands over them. He was making a motion with his right hand that resembled sewing. Great, I thought. My spine had been knitted and now my ribs were being sewn up with invisible thread. I’d be a Raggedy Ann doll before long. I felt a tug on my skin and looked away, back to his face.

“She was going to kill me,” I said, trying to focus on Duncan’s face instead of what his hands were doing. It was a nice face. Without the distraction of his messy hair—plastered now to his skull—I could admire his high forehead and the angular line of his cheekbones. “Even though I told her that I was trying to keep the door open.”

“You can’t expect rational thinking from an undine, especially one in heat—and believe me, that one
was
. You said you wouldn’t let her come through the door when you met her in Faerie. That was enough for her to decide you’re trying to keep her from breeding. No matter how much you may actually be trying to help the undines, she sees you as an obstacle to her breeding … Hold on, this is going to pinch a little …” Duncan made one last tug that hurt like hell, then he laid both his hands on top of the wounds, closed his eyes, and uttered a few words in a language I didn’t recognize. I felt a warming sensation and my skin went agreeably numb. Opening his eyes, Duncan looked straight into mine. Against the backdrop of gray rain clouds, they were a fiery gold that smoldered with the same warmth I felt in his hands. Which still lay on my bare skin.

“Are you … um … still healing me?” I asked awkwardly.

He shook his head. “I’m trying to feel if your power has been unblocked. It feels different, but still
tangled
. Perhaps another transformation would work better. Another shape might be more liberating. We have to try something else. Now it’s more important than ever that you gain control of your power.”

“Why?” I asked.

“To protect yourself. As long as Lorelei believes that you’re in the way of her breeding cycle, she’ll try to kill you.”

Duncan walked me back to my house, supporting me with his arm around my waist. He’d conjured clothes for both of us, but they were soon so wet they didn’t do much good keeping us warm.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” I said, after we’d been walking through the rain in silence for several minutes.

“Hm … just one thing?” he asked.

I laughed. “No, actually there are
many
things, but one uppermost. Aelvesgold comes from Faerie, right?”

“Yes. Creatures from Faerie bring it with them when they come into this world.”

“Right, and witches use it to make magic …”

“Yes,” he said, holding back a sodden branch for me.

The path was narrow here. I was conscious of my wet clothes brushing against him as I passed and glad it was too dark for him to see clearly how my clothes clung to me. Which was pretty ridiculous considering that he’d seen me naked not half an hour ago. “But Liz said the circle had a limited amount of it, and yet tonight I saw it all around me,” I said, trying to keep my mind on the Aelvesgold.

“Yes, that’s because after you handled the Aelvestone you
were filled with the stuff and drew even more of it to you. Think of the Aelvesgold as having a magnetic charge—the more you have inside you, the more you draw it to you.”

“Huh. Okay, so couldn’t there conceivably be enough Aelvesgold in this world to supply all the witches and fairies even if the door closes?”

Duncan shook his head. “Without replenishment from Faerie, it would run out rather soon. Unless …”

“Unless what?”

“Unless there was a creature who produced its own Aelvesgold even outside Faerie.”

“You mean the way the undines lay an egg of Aelvesgold to protect their young?”

He made a face, either from pain or from squeamishness at talking about female reproductive cycles. “Not exactly. Undines only make enough Aelvesgold to protect their eggs. Once they lay their eggs they’re entirely depleted of Aelvesgold. If they don’t go back to Faerie, they’ll wither and die. No, I’m talking about a creature that makes its own Aelvesgold in this world and never needs to return to Faerie. If there was a race of creatures like that, they would rule the whole world and we wouldn’t have to worry about the door closing. I could do some research into it today and return this evening.”

We’d reached my back door. “What about Lorelei?” I asked. “We have to tell Liz and the others that she’s here in Fairwick.”

“I’ll alert your dean to the situation. You should try to get some rest. Transformations take a lot out of you.”

Before he left, he lowered his head and touched his cheek to mine, less a kiss than a nuzzle, a brief reminder of how we’d touched last night when we were deer. But instead of
leaning into it, as I had when we were deer, I flinched. He stepped back and stared at me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m …”

“Exhausted,” he finished for me. “Get some sleep.” Then he was gone.

I opened the back door, chiding myself for reacting to Duncan’s touch like a … well, like a
startled deer
. Duncan was a nice man. He was trying to help. If I acted like that with every man who touched me, I was going to be alone for a long time in this big silent house.

Silent.

I listened for a moment until I had confirmed my first impression. The rain pounded on the roof, but there was no ping or patter of falling water within the house. Glorious silence. Bill had managed to seal the leaks—at least temporarily—with his tarps. What a prince! I might end up alone in this big old house, but at least I’d found someone to take care of it.

I
slept soundly and dreamlessly. In the morning I awoke to sunshine and the sound of hammering. I dressed, noticing that the wounds on my ribcage were almost entirely healed. Duncan Laird was quite a powerful wizard. I shivered a little recalling his hands on me—on my
naked
body. How would I ever face him again? The transformation I’d undergone last night hadn’t unlocked my power and now we had another problem—a crazed undine on the loose who had the mistaken impression that I was keeping her from breeding.

I wasn’t going to figure out what to do without coffee, though. In fact, I was so foggy that I could swear that I
smelled
coffee. I went downstairs and found Bill, in navy sweatshirt and baseball cap, in the kitchen pouring coffee into my favorite mug.

“I hope you don’t mind that I let myself in,” he said, handing it to me. “I wanted to get an early start so I used the key under your gnome.”

“Oh,” I said, taking the mug, “how did you know the key was under the gnome?”

He grinned. “Everyone in this town keeps their key under their gnome. Anyway, I just wanted to check that the tarps kept the water out last night.”

“Oh yes,” I said taking a sip of the coffee. It was delicious, a perfect combination of the two blends I kept in my freezer. “I didn’t hear any leaks at all. You did a great job.”

He pulled his cap over his eyes and looked embarrassed at the praise. “It’s just a temporary solution,” he mumbled. “I’d better get to work on the roof. I think the rain’s letting up.”

I looked out the window above the sink and saw a line of clearing sky through the woods in back. Lorelei must have gotten tired of making it rain … or her wounds had worn her out.
Ha!
I thought. She probably didn’t have a talented wizard like Duncan to heal her wounds.

“… so if you just okay this estimate …” Bill was holding the clipboard out to me, head ducked, feet shuffling.

“Oh, of course. You’ll need a down payment. How much …?” I looked down at the statement and was pleasantly surprised by the total. “That seems fair,” I said. “Can I write you a check for half now and half when you’re done?”

Bill grunted assent and I went to get my checkbook out of my desk drawer. When I came down he was in the foyer on his hands and knees. At first I thought he’d slipped on the wet floor and I wondered if the house was deliberately sabotaging anyone who tried to fix it, but then he looked up and I saw he was holding an old rag in his hands.

“Just mopping up a little spill,” he said, getting to his feet and tugging his cap over his eyes. “I didn’t want you to slip.”

“Thank you,” I said, handing him the check. “That was very considerate of you.”

He folded the check and stuck it into the pocket of his sweatshirt. Then he stuck the rag—a scrap of plaid flannel—into
his back pocket where it hung out like a flag on the back of an oversized load on a truck. Bill wasn’t a spiffy dresser, but if he fixed my roof the way he’d fixed my hot water heater I was going to nominate him for Man of the Year.

“Should I give you a key?” I asked.

“I can just use the one under the gnome,” he said, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, “if that’s all right?”

I hesitated, wondering how these things were usually done. I’d gotten used to Brock coming and going as he pleased. Was Bill worried I’d accuse him of stealing something later? Or maybe he thought I was naïve for trusting a total stranger with the key to my house. Maybe he was right. But every instinct in my body told me to trust Bill Carey. Then I remembered what Liz and Diana had said, that no one wishing me harm could get to the key under the gnome. If Bill could use it, that proved he was as trustworthy as I thought he was.

“It’s perfectly all right,” I said. “I trust you.”

He lifted his head. For the first time I got a good look at his eyes—warm, golden brown eyes the color of good whiskey. They were shining, almost as if filled with tears. “I promise you I won’t give you any reason for ever regretting that,” he said in a rush, then he turned abruptly and fled.

“I’ll see you later, then,” I called as he headed for his pickup truck—a shiny new red Ford. He grunted and waved. What had happened in Bill’s life, I wondered as I closed the door, that made a simple expression of trust so moving?

I was heading upstairs to get dressed when my cell phone rang. I almost didn’t pick it up, but then I thought it might be Duncan Laird. I answered it without checking the number.

“Callie McFay?” a woman with a gravelly Australian accent asked. “It’s Jen Davies. Sorry I took so long getting back to you.”

“Not at all, Jen,” I said sitting down on the bottom step. “I
know you’re busy. I saw the piece you did on Sarah Palin’s wardrobe stylist. Nice one!”

“Yeah, I felt a bit like I’d found Deep Throat.”

We both laughed, but Jen stopped first. “Hey, I appreciate the good review but I don’t think you called about that. Have you heard about the meeting in Fairwick?”

“I heard the Grove is coming to discuss with IMP whether the door to Faerie should be permanently closed.”

Jen snorted. “That’s not the half of what they’ve got planned. I think we’d better talk. I got into town early …”

“You’re in Fairwick?” I asked, surprised that Jen would spend any more time in the country than she’d have to.

“Yeah, the muckety-mucks sent me on first to scout out the lay of the land. I’m staying at a motel out on the highway. No offense to your pal Diana, but if I stayed at her inn one more time I’d never fit into my jeans.”

“I know what you mean,” I said, remembering how Diana had stuffed me full of sweets and baked goods when I stayed at the Hart Brake Inn last year. Jen Davies, as I recalled, looked like she did Jivamukti yoga twelve hours a day and lived on agave protein shakes. She probably hadn’t eaten a carb in the last decade. “Where do you want to meet? You could come to my house.”

“Could we meet at the diner in town?”

“Sure,” I said, glad the meeting would include food. I was suddenly ravenous—probably from running through the woods all night. I hung up, wondering how guilty I’d feel having toast and home fries in front of Jen Davies … and decided I was willing to risk it.

I walked into town, enjoying the sunshine. Now that the rain had passed it was a beautiful morning. The trees glistened as
if polished by the rain and the pavement sparkled. I stopped to inhale the scent of freshly mown wet grass in the Lindisfarnes’ yard and Cherry Lindisfarne came out onto her porch to ask if it was true that Brock Olsen had fallen from my roof. I told her it was and that he was recuperating at his family’s farm. Evangeline Sprague came out when she heard us talking and asked after Brock as well. We all chatted for a few minutes about what a nice family the Olsens were and how their farm always donated food to Meals on Wheels and the homeless shelter in Kingston. “Good neighbors,” Evangeline said. “We need more like them, especially when the town is so full of strangers. Did you hear there was a break-in down at the motor court?”

I left Evangeline and Cherry talking about the break-in and walked into town. Main Street was indeed bustling with tourists and fishermen shopping at Trask’s Outdoor Outfitters and filling the outdoor tables at Fair Grounds and the red vinyl booths at the Village Diner. I might not have gotten a booth if the waitress, Darla, didn’t happen to be the mother of one of my students.

As she seated me at a booth behind one that was full to overflowing with three large men in identical plaid flannel shirts, she whispered, “I always try to make room for a local, even when we’re bursting with out-of-towners. I’ve never seen a more popular fishing season!”

“I’ve never seen the Undine run so full,” one of the men in plaid commented, having overheard Darla’s throaty whisper. “It’s like they’re trying to get out of town!” His comment was greeted by guffaws from the two other men in the booth. I smiled at them, realizing I’d seen them around town before. All three men had the same beestung lips and full round faces. In their identical flannel shirts and Orvis baseball caps, they looked like an illustration of the same man at different stages
of his life: young, middle-aged, and old. Son, father and grandfather, I presumed.