Becoming Crone, page 8
Jeanne crossed her arms. “You’re kidding, right? You do know that half the neighborhood is out looking for you, right?”
“I...” I trailed off, taken aback by the announcement. I honestly hadn’t thought anyone would notice my absence that soon. Did Paul know, too? I groaned inwardly. If he did, then so did Natalie, and—God, I’d be in a long-term care facility by sundown, if she had her way.
The crow in the tree ruffled its feathers. My across-the-street neighbor tapped the fingers of one hand against the tanned skin of her other forearm, waiting for me to continue. Not for the first time, I thought about how she would have been as good a high school principal as Edie, just with a different approach. Where Edie had ruled with iron, Jeanne would have relied—effectively, I might add—on sheer guilt. I pitied the poor nurses who worked under her watchful eye at the hospital.
“Well?” she asked, and I jumped a little.
"I'm fine,” I said. "As you can see. There was nothing to worry about."
Jeanne's sharp gaze flashed fire. "Nothing to..." She reached out, seized my arm, and towed me to the end of the long porch, turning her back to Lucan. "Nothing to worry about?" she hissed. "You never stay out all night. Of course we were worried. Gilbert and I both were. And so were Edie and Paul and Natalie, when I called them to ask if they’d seen you!"
Which answered my earlier question. My groan this time was audible. “You didn’t have to call them, Jeanne. I am a grown woman, you know.”
As for Gilbert, the only thing he would have been worried about was the pendant.
“Claire. You stayed out all night. And then you brought home a man.” The queen of dramatic emphasis dropped her voice to a whisper, but the curve of Lucan’s lips told me he’d still heard her. Awesome. “A strange man.”
Lady, you have no idea.
“He’s a—friend,” I said.
“A friend,” she echoed. “From where?”
“Um...” Dear God, Claire, think! House, trees, woods... “Camping!” I said triumphantly. “I met him while we were camping once. He was in town and looked me up.”
“You haven’t been camping in more than twenty years. What was he, fifteen at the time?”
Ouch. I scowled at her. “Shouldn’t you be calling off the search?”
“What search?”
“Half the neighborhood?”
“Oh. That. I may have exaggerated a little. But we were going to get one going if you hadn’t come back by this afternoon. I told Paul he should file a missing person’s report. You need to call him. Now. And then you need to tell me what the heck is going on." She jerked her head in Lucan's direction. "Where were you?"
"I—" I stopped. It hadn’t occurred to me to come up with some kind of story on the way home, and I was a lousy liar at the best of times—which this was not. I had no idea what to say.
"She was with me," Lucan said, crossing the porch to join us. He smiled down at Jeanne, his manner easy, eyes crinkling at the corners. He held out his hand as he introduced himself. "Lucan."
He didn't give a last name, and a bemused Jeanne didn't ask for one as he lifted the hand she gave him and bent low to kiss it. Jeanne gaped. So did I. This was how he greeted people? I definitely had to keep him out of sight. I wedged myself between them and guided Jeanne toward the stairs.
"I'd better call Paul," I said, by way of excuse. "I'm sorry I worried you, but I really was fine."
My neighbor snorted at me. “There's no way you're getting off that lightly, Claire Emerson. This—that—” She waved a hand in Lucan’s direction and dropped her voice. “A strange man? Out all night? You’re behaving as oddly as Gilbert, I swear.”
The crow cawed again.
“Gilbert?” My voice was sharper than I intended, the kitchen incident from my birthday still fresh in my mind. “What does Gilbert have to do with this?”
She drew back a little in surprise. “Nothing, really. He’s just...antsy, I guess is the word. And he hates cats.”
I liked Jeanne. Or at least, I tried to. Most of the time. But sometimes, trying to follow her line of thought was rather like trying to catch a ping pong ball that had spiked in an unexpected direction. “Cats?” I echoed.
“What?” She was back to eyeing Lucan in semi-bemusement.
“You said Gilbert hates cats.” This wasn’t news in and of itself; all the neighborhood felines knew to avoid the Archambault yard or risk having unknown projectiles flung at them. “What’s odd about that?”
“He insisted on coming over to feed yours this morning and spent a half hour visiting with it.”
“Inside my house? Alone?”
“Well, he couldn’t very well feed him anywhere else, could he? And I didn’t have time to come with him.” She glanced at the watch on her wrist and tsked under her breath. “Speaking of time, I’m going to be late for my shift. You’re sure you’re all right?” She tipped her head toward Lucan and waggled her eyebrows at me.
My brain was still dancing around the idea of Gilbert coming into my home uninvited. Had he gone through the house, looking for Merlin? Been upstairs? In my room, even? My skin crawled. I was going to need my key back from Jeanne. Soon.
“Claire?” Jeanne prompted. “Are you all right?”
Lucan had come to stand at my shoulder, a solid presence that managed to somehow be both annoying and reassuring at the same time. I nodded, trying not to act as distracted as I felt, lest Jeanne report my behavior to Paul. But it was hard to get past the Gilbert-in-my-house idea because seriously...ick.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Really. This is a whole lot of fuss about nothing. Now, you get off to work, and let me call Paul before there really is a search party out looking for me.”
“If you’re sure...” She trailed off, still not convinced. Then she brightened. “I’ll let Edie know you’re home, and that you have...company. At least then you’ll have someone keeping an eye out for you.” This last part was addressed more as a warning to Lucan than a reassurance to me, and it almost made me smile.
Almost.
But in the same instant, the crow moved in the tree, drawing my attention to it. It watched me, the expression in its beady black eye seeming expectant, as if it waited for something. Waited for me. But to do what? My fingers found the pendant hanging from my neck and closed over it. I couldn’t shake the feeling I was missing something. Something obvious. Something—
I stared at the bird. Then at the living room window overlooking the porch. The one where Merlin sat when I went out, watching for my return—always. But not today. A slither went down my spine. If Merlin wasn’t in the window, he wasn’t in the house. And if he wasn’t in the house, then Gilbert—
The pendant’s edges bit into my fingers as realization dropped. Gilbert hadn’t been here for the cat at all. The snake had been after the pendant because I’d refused to sell it back to him. And here I’d been planning to give it back to him. I’d almost followed through on my plan to drop it in his mailbox, but I’d been too concerned about someone seeing Lucan.
The little creep.
Gilbert, not Lucan. I’d sooner—
“If you don’t say goodbye,” Lucan’s deep, warm voice murmured in my ear, “she’ll never leave.”
I jolted back to the present and found Jeanne staring at me in concern. Her head shook.
“I’m not sure I should leave you like—”
“Jeanne, I’m fine. Seriously. I’m just a little tired. It was—” Don’t say it, Claire. You know she’ll take it the wrong way.
On the other hand, it would ensure her swift departure, too.
“It was a long night,” I said. “You know.”
Poor Jeanne. Her eyes went wide, her jaw went slack, and her mouth formed a perfect ‘o’ that told me I’d offended her every fiber. Our tepid friendship had barely survived my divorce as it was. I wasn’t sure it would withstand my becoming a loose woman.
On the other hand, if she was going to make a habit of allowing her husband to go into my house uninvited, I wasn’t sure I wanted it to.
I wasn’t sure about a lot of things anymore.
“I see.” Jeanne’s tone was clipped. “Well. I’ll get out of your way then, shall I? I’m so sorry to have bothered you.”
I watched her stiff figure descend the stairs and march across the street. I had a momentary urge to run after her and explain that it wasn’t how it sounded—wasn’t what I’d meant. But I didn’t. This new sixties’ lack of giving a darn was growing on me. Edie would be pleased.
With a last harsh caw, the crow left the tree and winged its way down the street.
Inside the house, I untied my shoes and kicked them off, then dropped my keys on the front hall table and went through to the kitchen, leaving Lucan to follow or not, as he pleased. He did, and I ignored him as I let in an indignant and very hungry Merlin through the back door. As suspected, Gilbert had absolutely not fed him.
The orange cat sashayed into the kitchen, wrapped once around my ankles, and then noticed Lucan. With an unearthly yowl, he made a beeline for the top of the refrigerator. A copper bowl of fruit went flying in his wake, and an overripe banana plopped onto the counter while apples, oranges, and bowl rolled across the floor in all directions.
“Seriously, dude?” I picked up the dented bowl and collected the scattered fruit, scowling up at the animal. Twice his usual size, Merlin growled in reply, then spat at the stranger in his house for good measure.
Lucan looked equally unimpressed. He handed me an apple. “Is he always like this?”
“Actually, no. I’m not sure—” The phrase “fight like cats and dogs” popped into my head, and I stopped. My scowl deepened. Still not going there, I reminded myself. I picked up the banana, now mushy within its skin, and dropped it into the compost bin. “He’s probably just mad at me for not being here to feed him.”
“Your neighbor said—”
“I know what she said,” I snapped. Then I sighed. I put the bowl of fruit on the counter, out of the path of Merlin when he decided to descend from his perch. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bite your head off. It’s just—Jeanne’s husband and I...”
“You don’t like him.”
“Not even a little. But it’s more than that. I don’t think he was here to feed Merlin. I think he was looking for this.” I withdrew the pendant from beneath my shirt and held it up. It twirled gently from the chain still looped around my neck. Lucan’s gaze locked on it, then lifted to meet mine.
“How does he know about it?”
“He has an antique shop of sorts. Mostly junk. He buys estate lots from all over. This was in one of the lots, and Braden—my grandson—bought it from him as a birthday gift for me. Gilbert wants to buy it back from me. He says the estate heir didn’t mean to sell it.”
“But you don’t believe him.”
“Not that story, no. I think someone offered him a lot more money for it than what he got from Braden, but I don’t think it has anything to do with an estate heir. Gilbert is...”
“Opportunistic?”
“Slimy.” I crossed my arms over myself and leaned back against the counter, debating the wisdom of telling him more.
“Out with it,” he said.
I traced a ceramic floor tile with the toe of one foot. “A man was here yesterday afternoon, before I went—before I found—well. Not here, exactly, but at Gilbert’s. They were arguing. Gilbert slammed the door on him, and when he was leaving—the man, I mean—he stopped at the end of the driveway and stared across at my house. It was...unsettling.”
Lucan seized my elbow and started out of the kitchen. “We need to leave.”
“What? But we just got here!” I wrapped my fingers around the door frame and planted my feet against the floor.
Lucan glared over his shoulder at me, continuing to pull. “That was no ordinary man, milady. It was a Mage. Which means they know you have the pendant, and they know where you live. They followed you to the woods. That’s how the shades found you there, and they’ll find you here, too.”
I put my full weight into resisting his tug on my arm. I was under no illusion that I could stop him from hauling me out of my house, but if he insisted on trying, I could at least make it hard enough that someone would notice. And, with luck, call for help.
“Stop,” I said. “You can’t possibly know who he was. Gilbert is less than popular in town—it could have been anyone with a bone to pick. Besides, if it were a Mage, why wouldn’t he have just come over and demanded the pendant for himself?”
“A Mage on his own is no match for a Crone, milady. He would need ten times his number to even consider going up against one of you.”
“But I can’t—”
“They don’t know that. You should—you were supposed to—” Lucan broke off and frowned, obviously looking for a gentle way to state the obvious.
“I’m a mistake,” I said.
“An anomaly,” he hedged.
I wasn’t sure that was much better. I tugged my arm free. “Well, regardless, if they can find me in either place, I choose here. Go if you want, but I’m staying in my own home. I’m going to call my son, and then I’m taking a shower and getting changed, and then I’m going to have breakfast and go work in my garden.”
He towered over me, glaring down. “You don’t understand. I cannot protect you here. Not without your magick.”
“No, you don’t understand. I’m staying in my own house, Lucan.” His name felt foreign as it rolled off my tongue, and I realized it was the first time I’d used it. I stepped away from the distraction, back to my argument. “A lot has happened in the last couple of days, and I need time to think. To process. And you just said that they won’t attack me directly.”
“I said one wouldn’t attack you on his own,” he corrected. “Who knows how many reinforcements he’s gathered since yesterday?”
I considered the possibility, then shook my head. “Even if there are others, I’ve never even heard of Mages or magick before yesterday, so I’m guessing they like to stay under the radar. And if that’s the case, do you really think they’ll attack me in broad daylight in my little suburban neighborhood?”
Lucan scowled at me in a way that made me think he didn’t much like losing arguments. I scowled back because I’d recently discovered that I didn’t like losing, either. And I really didn’t like being ordered around in my own home.
“What about tonight?” he demanded. “When it’s dark?”
“Suburban neighborhood,” I repeated, crossing the fingers of my free hand behind my back. “And I’ll stay inside with the windows and doors locked.”
“And you won’t change your mind.” A statement rather than a question. He was finally getting it.
“No.”
“Fine,” he growled. “We stay one night. But you go nowhere without me.”
“Except the shower.”
“I’ll wait outside the door.”
With our parameters drawn, I followed through on my plan. First, a call to Paul to assure him I was fine, had spent the night at a friend's, and didn't need Natalie to come check on me. Then, upstairs to wash away the prior twenty-four hours. At least from my body.
True to his word, Lucan followed me and paced outside my bedroom door while I showered in the attached bathroom, dressed, and brushed my teeth. When I emerged in fresh linen slacks and a sleeveless navy blouse, he followed me back down to the kitchen to watch while I made coffee and tried—very hard—to go about my daily routine.
He didn’t make it easy.
When I went to take out the blueberry jam for my toast, he opened the fridge door wider and leaned around me to peer at the contents and wrinkle his nose.
"That’s a lot of vegetables.”
I ducked under his arm, away from his too-closeness and a warmth that had no business fluttering in my sixty-year-old chest. "They're good for you."
Lucan grunted. "For you, maybe. What am I supposed to eat? If we were at Morrigan's Way, there would be meat."
"Feel free to leave anytime," I retorted, "given that I didn't invite you here in the first place." I didn't tell him about the freezer full of beef in the garage because yes, I was that petty right now.
"I told you, I go where you go." Lucan closed the fridge door and leaned against it to watch me, arms folded over his chest. "It's not a choice, it's a binding."
"A—" I clamped my lips shut against the question that almost escaped and turned my attention instead to the toast. In the shower, I’d re-re-thought my decision not to give Gilbert the pendant. If he wanted it badly enough to break into my house, and the Mages were willing to kill me for it, and I didn’t want it, it was time to let go of my affronted senses and hand the darned thing over.
I didn’t even want anything in return. I just wanted it out of my life. Gilbert would be happy; I could get my key back; Braden would recover; the Mages would go away; Lucan and Keven would have no choice but to find a new Crone; and I...I could return to my tidy and blessedly uneventful life, purpose be darned.
Boring life, my Edie-voice corrected.
Better bored than dead, my own voice retorted, scooping a glob of jam from the jar and plopping it onto my toast. Lucan leaned past my shoulder, picked up the toast and sniffed it, then took a large bite and chewed.
"It's not bacon," he said around the mouthful, "but it's not bad."
I compressed my lips and put two more slices of bread into the toaster. I’d have salad for lunch. Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and no dressing. Heck, I’d even skip the cream in my coffee and go vegan, if I had to.
But I wouldn’t have to, because somehow, some way, I would rid myself of—
"You can't escape it, you know." Lucan took another bite of toast and turned to rest against the counter, uncomfortably close both in physical proximity and in terms of gleaning my train of thought.
I refused to give way. I stared out the window over the sink at the vegetable garden in the back yard. More tomatoes had ripened on their vines. I’d pick them after breakfast.
