He swore he’d die if he couldn’t have her. He built her the house, and a rose garden with a brick wall and gazebo and a path to nowhere. He bought her a black mare with four white stockings and a blaze on her forehead. He gave her the opal pendant that had belonged to his grandmother—blue and turquoise and green, with broad flashes of fire. It was the talk of the county because it was no proper gift from a man to a woman who was not his wife. Felicity Taylor had ignored the whispers and worn it whenever she liked.
Knowing what she knew now about inherited power, Madison wondered if Felicity had been an enchanter.
Word was, the view had finally won Felicity’s heart. You could sit on the second floor porch and look right over the Ropers’ place and see all the way to the river.
The pendant and Booker Mountain had been left to Min, who’d left them to Madison in turn, skipping right over Carlene. Min had left Carlene some money, which was long gone, and trust accounts for Grace and John Robert, to pay for their college.
The house and land would come to Madison later in the year. Ray McCartney had set it up. He might be in love with Carlene, but he was loyal to Min, too.
Madison would be land rich and money poor, once she gained control of Booker Mountain. Unless she sold it off, which everyone seemed to think she should do as soon as possible. If she sold out, she could attend the Art Institute of Chicago and shake the rocky soil of Coalton County right off of her shoes.
She reached under her sweatshirt and touched the opal, reassured by its solid presence. Maybe it was too fancy to be wearing around the house, but Madison wore it anyway. It was a tie to the past and it represented a possible future. It also felt like a link to the stone she’d left behind in Trinity.
The Dragonheart. She’d tried to put it out of her mind, but whenever she tried not to think of something, it seemed like she thought about it more. The only thing that could distract her from Seph McCauley was the Dragonheart. And vice versa. Some days her mind seemed to reverberate from one to the other, making her sick to her stomach. You’d think being far away from both of them would help, but not so much.
Once or twice a week, she went into town. She’d stop in at the library and find a clutch of e-mails from Seph. They were somewhat formal, polite, a little restrained, like old-fashioned love letters in digital text, where you had to read between the lines. It was as though he was afraid he’d scare her off, if he undammed his feelings.
Sometimes, she e-mailed him back, but these days she mostly wrote letters. She knew it was weird and archaic, but she didn’t want to say just anything that came into her head. Instead, she’d sit up in bed and dwell over each word, as if she could infuse them with the power to untie the knots that plagued their relationship.
As for talking on the phone, that was totally out. She couldn’t trust herself not to say something that would bring him flying down the interstate.
Nothing was stirring in the home yard, except Hamlet and Ophelia, the golden retrievers, who dutifully stood and swished their tails at Madison’s appearance.
Lifting her canvas high out of danger, Madison squeezed between the dogs and went into the barn. It was a sturdy stone-and-wood building, once the home of Dredmont Booker’s horses. During some prosperous period in the past, someone had put in water lines and servants’ quarters. Now it was used as a sometime garage for Carlene’s car. Madison had claimed the second floor as a studio and peopled it with dreams.
She should never have come home. Booker Mountain had a way of grabbing onto you, clouding your mind, and making you forget your intentions. Just like it had Felicity Taylor more than a hundred years ago.
Since she’d been away from Seph, her work had lost that lurid, dangerous quality and settled back into what Sara called ethereal exuberance. It could mean the hex magic had dissipated. She’d written to Seph, asking if he was feeling better, but he never responded.
A set of three small canvases glittered from the corner— each a view of the changeable Dragonheart stone against a matte black. The Dragonheart Series.
She cleaned her brushes in the sink and walked back to the house, skirting frozen puddles and patches of mud, followed by the dogs, their tails wagging hopefully.
She paused at the foot of the porch steps to look over the flower beds. New shoots were poking up from the prickly skeletons of the tea roses, and the climber on the trellis by the porch was leafing out bravely.
It was Saturday. Carlene had worked late the night before, and her door was closed. She’d still be in bed. There was breakfast debris on the table, signaling that Grace and John Robert were loose on the mountain. Rounding them up was like herding cats or butterflies. But they’d show up hungry any time now.
She’d take them to town for lunch, she decided. They could wander around Main Street and she’d buy some fertilizer for the garden.
Madison pulled the truck into the angle parking in front of the courthouse. The kids were out of the truck almost before it rolled to a stop.
She shoved two twenty-dollar bills into Grace’s hand, taken from her dwindling supply of waitressing money. “Robertson’s is having a sale,” she said. “Why don’t you look for clothes in there? Then take J.R. to to the five-and-dime. I’ll meet you at the Bluebird in an hour, and we’ll have lunch.”
Grace studied the money as if it might be some kind of trick, then folded the bills and put them into her tiny purse.
“Stay together and don’t wander off Main Street, so I can find you when I’m done.” Madison turned away.
“Where are you going to be?” Grace had a tight hold of John Robert’s hand. He was pulling away like a puppy on a leash.
“Hazelton’s. I’m going to get some fertilizer for the flower beds.”
Madison went into Hazelton’s Implements. Josh Hazelton was behind the counter, as she knew he’d be. He’d been in Madison’s class at school. Once they’d been friends and told each other secrets. He’d even kissed her under the stands at a football game. They’d awkwardly bumped lips like two goldfish meeting.
That was before he’d gotten in with Brice and them. Funny. Ordinarily, Brice wouldn’t give Josh the time of day. So Josh was flattered to be invited into Brice’s crowd.
Madison didn’t have a crowd. Only Josh. And then not even him.
When Josh looked up and saw her, a guilty blush spread from his collar all the way to his ears. “Hey, Maddie!” he said, turning away from three other customers, all of whom Madison knew. “I heard you were back in town.”
“For a while,” Madison said, running her hand over a display of mailboxes painted with flowers in colors unknown to nature. “I need some fertilizer.”
“Here, I’ll show you,” he said, eagerly pushing past the swinging gate at the end of the counter.
She raised her hand to stop him. “You’ve got customers. Just tell me where it is, all right?”
Josh pointed to the back right corner of the store. “Back there. Regular and organic. Five- and ten-pound bags.”
She chose a bag of organic fertilizer and some gardening gloves, and brought them to the counter. By then the other customers had left. Josh rang them up for her.
“So how do you like it up north?” he asked, handing her the receipt.
“I like it.”
“As well as here?”
“Better.” She went to turn away.
“Uh, Maddie?” Josh hesitated, and then the words tumbled out like cats from a bag. “I thought maybe, you know, that you left because . . . because of all that crap last year.” He waited, and when she didn’t say anything, added, “Look, I’m sorry if ... Some of us were just having some fun, you know?”
“I didn’t realize we were having fun.” She looked him in the eyes until he looked away, ears flaming.
“I never believed it. What they said about you,” he mumbled.
“Really? I never heard you speak up.”
“Well. Anyway. I’m glad you’re back.”
“Not for long,” she
said, pretending to look at purple-martin houses.
Josh still hovered. “Have you seen Brice since you’ve been back?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She tried not to make a face. “You still hang around with him?”
He shook his head, coloring again. “Nah. I guess he’s really busy.”
“Right,” she said.
“I hear he has some new friends who don’t go to our school.” He paused, then said, awkwardly, “You never liked him.”
“No. Still don’t.” She didn’t see any point in lying.
“He never could figure that out. Why you wouldn’t go out with him.”
Madison blinked at him. “He told you that?”
Josh shook his head. “Not exactly. But I knew. He thought you’d be . . . he thought you’d say yes.”
Madison snorted. “Come on. I don’t think having me as a . . . as a friend was ever high on his list.”
Josh licked his lips. “You’re wrong. I think it really bugged him. You always want what you can’t have. And people— people listen to him, you know?”
First, she thought, Why are we talking about Brice Roper? And then it came to her, a revelation. “What are you trying to tell me? That he was behind the . . . people calling me a witch?”
“Well. It didn’t take much to convince people. I mean, you’re kind of different. You dress like a gypsy and always walk around with a frown on your face like you’re mad at the world.” He held up his hand. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. And you were always painting all those pictures, and you lived up on the mountain in that spooky old house.”
“It’s not spooky,” she retorted, then shut her mouth. Who cared what everybody thought?
Josh shrugged. “Your grandmother read the cards and hexed people, and your mom is . . . kind of wild.”
“Shut up, Josh,” Madison said, feeling the blood rush into her face. She turned away, staring out through the window at a boarded-up storefront across the street.
But Josh would not be silenced. “So one night a bunch of us guys were talking, and some of us had asked you out and been turned down. So Brice just started saying, what if, you know? And we were cracking up, we couldn’t help it, he just has a way of putting things. So. I guess we . . . I guess we all kind of got it started. We put out notes and started texting people and then it sort of took on a life of its own, you know?”
Madison swung around and took a step forward and Josh flinched, like he thought she might hit him or spell him or something. “Why do you think I turned them down when they asked me out? Because some guys like to brag about things that never happened. All except you. I knew . . . you would never . . . I thought you . . .” She stopped, unwilling to trust herself to go on. It was really ironic that Brice Roper with his Persuasive hands and sleazy layer of wizardly charm would be accusing her of being a witch, when she didn’t have a stitch of magic in her.
No magic of her own, anyway.
Josh cleared his throat, looking like somebody with his hand in a vise who can’t wait to be released. “Anyway. I’m really sorry. I never believed you burnt anything down. I’ve been wanting to tell you.”
She cleared her throat. “Well. Thanks. I guess.”
“Want me to carry that out for you?” he asked, handing her the receipt for the fertilizer.
“I can manage.” She rested the bag of fertilizer on her hip and turned toward the door.
“Um. Maddie? You know, prom’s coming up.”
She stiffened. “Josh, I ...”
He rushed on. “Since I heard you were back, I’ve been meaning to call you, but . . . well, you don’t have a phone. I wondered if you might want to go with me. As friends, I mean. You could see everyone.”
He thought he was offering her a gift, a chance to hold her head up and show everybody they didn’t drive her off. But she realized she didn’t care what they thought. Not anymore.
Madison shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
She left him standing behind the counter, hands hanging at his sides.
Grace and John Robert were ten minutes late for their rendezvous at the Bluebird. And when they showed up, Brice Roper was with them.
“Hello, Madison,” he said, sliding right into a seat at her table. He was wearing jeans and a cotton sweater and a fleece-lined leather jacket that definitely didn’t come from Robertson’s. “I ran into Grace and John Robert at the five-and-dime.”
Madison gripped the arms of her chair, her heart thumping. Josh Hazelton’s revelations were fresh in her mind. But then, Josh hadn’t told her anything about Brice that she didn’t already know.
“I’m surprised you didn’t hustle them off to Child Welfare,” she said. “Being as I left them on their own in town and all.”
Brice signaled the server. “Look, I said I was sorry.”
“Actually, I don’t think you did.”
He shrugged. “Well, I meant to, anyway. So, to make up for it, I invited Grace and John Robert to come over next week and go riding.”
“Let us go, Maddie, please?” John Robert was practically bouncing in place, gripping her hand. The boy didn’t know how to hold a proper grudge.
Grace was different. She wouldn’t have forgiven Brice Roper for putting them in foster care. But she loved horses with the passion only a ten-year-old girl could muster. She’d mucked out stalls the summer before in trade for riding lessons. And the Ropers had the prettiest horses in the county. If there was a way to win Gracie over, this was it. She reverberated with indecision, vibrating like a plucked string.
Madison didn’t want to be beholden in any way to the Ropers. And she didn’t want Grace spending time with the wizard Brice Roper for reasons of her own.
“Absolutely not,” Madison said, glaring at Brice. “I can’t believe you’d even suggest that. Your horses are for experienced riders. They’re not used to kids.”
“But you know I can ride, Maddie,” Grace protested. Like usual, if Maddie said no, Grace said yes. “I took lessons all last summer with Mr. Ragland. He said I was a natural born horsewoman.”
“There’s no better teacher around than George Ragland,” Brice said. “And J.R.’ll be fine. We always have kids’ horses around for the cousins.”
“Pleeeeese,” John Robert begged, hanging on Madison’s arm.
“I said no, and I mean it,” Madison said, dislodging John Robert. She looked up at Brice. “You turn the kids over to the county because Mama couldn’t find a babysitter, and then you want me to let them risk life and limb . . .”
“No problem,” Brice cut in, just as she was winding up. “I’ll just ask Carlene.”
And that shut Madison up, like he knew it would.
Carlene wouldn’t hold grudges about court dates and child welfare. Carlene hadn’t had to drop out of school and come back home to bail out the kids. If Brice asked Carlene, she’d let them go in a New York minute. She liked cozying up to the Ropers’ money.
Madison sat frozen, cheeks flaming. Even Grace and J.R. knew she’d been outmaneuvered. Grace looked from Brice to Madison, her brow furrowed. “Don’t worry, Maddie,” she said softly. “We’ll be real careful.”
“I know you will, honey,” Madison said through stiff lips.
“Great,” Brice said. The server was hovering and he scanned the menu. “We’ll start with a platter of wings and onion rings,” he said. “Root beer for everyone. And then whatever else they want.” He looked over at Madison as she opened her mouth to object. “My treat.”
No, she thought. This was supposed to be my treat.
The server hurried off.
“We’ve got horses that you could ride, Maddie,” Brice said, putting his hot hand over hers on the table. “Why don’t you come?”
She ripped her hand free. “I’m busy all week.”
“How about next week?”
“I’m busy every week.” She stood. “Matter of fact, I forgot something at the hardware store.” She nodded to the kids. “Go ahead and have lunch,
if you want. I’ll meet you over there.”
But Brice just grinned at Grace and John Robert like they were co-conspirators. “We’ll win your big sister over yet.”
To Brice it was a game he was destined to win. But he had no idea the danger he was in. If Maddie’d had a gun, she would have shot him.
Chapter Fourteen
Gone South
“Alicia! Your young man—what’s his name again?” Aunt Millisandra pointed her bejeweled hand at Jason, who tried hard not to duck.
“Jason,” Leesha said, perched on the edge of her chair as if she were ready to spring. “His name’s Jason, Aunt Milli.”
They were sitting in a stuffy parlor decorated with highly flammable pine roping and a dried-out Christmas tree. The only light came from stubs of candles nestled dangerously in the greens.
“You’re sure it’s not Jasper? I used to know a Jasper. Jasper DeVilliers. He was French, a bit underpowered, if you know what I mean, but quite the ladies’ man.” Aunt Millisandra fixed Jason with her purple-shadowed eyes, as if expecting to extract a confession.
Jason shook his head. “Jason,” he said.
“A peculiar name, Jason. Would you like another cookie, young man?” Millisandra extended a tray of charred and soggy shortbread. They’d started out okay, but then she’d set fire to them while trying to heat up the tea and had to extinguish them with lemonade.
“Um. That’s okay. I’ve eaten lots already.”
Leesha’s Aunt Millisandra reminded Jason of one of those dried-up insect carcasses you sometimes found—fragile, like she might crack open if you touched her. She was about a million years old, the richest woman in town—and a wizard who’d lost some key cards from her mental deck. Spending time with her was about as chancy as sitting in the middle of a bonfire with a crate of cherry bombs on your lap.
“More tea, then?”
“No, thanks.” He looked at his watch. Nine p.m. “Whoa, look at the time. I had no idea.” He stood.‘Thanks for the tea and all.”