“Yeah, so I’ve heard.”
“My mother has made no secret of the fact that she wishes to see our lines joined, and thanks to your attending this week, she believes this to be the perfect opportunity to make that happen. As I have no desire for such a union with you, I decided the best way to avoid the matter was by avoiding you – an effort ruined by your request for a dance. The last thing I needed was you showing an interest in me and adding fuel to an already well-stoked fire, hence my ‘panic.’”
“Please,” I scoffed. “
Interest
in you? Don’t flatter yourself. I wanted information, not a date.” Though I had to admit, I really hated how much sense his story was making.
“Well, I can assure you that was not how the rest of the room saw it. From what I have heard, most expect that our engagement will be announced before the end of your stay here.”
“Over my dead body.”
“Indeed,” he agreed, with a grimace I didn’t appreciate.
Much as I was annoyed at the turn the conversation had taken, I knew I had to circle back to the topic. Marriage plot aside, it didn’t change his face in my memory or what I knew in my gut to be true, which was that he was playing me.
“And how do I know you aren’t just making all this up to throw me off?” I asked, wishing I could have said it with a bit more conviction.
A slimy grin tugged his mouth. “Well, I suppose that could be true. I am a liar, after all, isn’t that right?”
“Not exactly a denial,” I said, ready to go for broke, “but that’s fine. If you don’t want to tell me what you are up to, I’m sure your mother will.”
I held my breath as his eyes narrowed to slits. “Are you
threatening
me?”
“Sounds that way.”
We stood in a frozen standoff as the tension hung over us like icicles in a cave, ready to fall on us at the slightest vibration. Finally, Bastian lifted his head looking much calmer than I would have liked.
“Fine,” he said, relaxing his shoulders. “If that is the way you want to proceed, be my guest. Tell my mother; tell anyone you would like. But just know that I will be there right behind you, and after they are finished hearing what you have to say… they will hear what
I
have to say.” Pausing, he reached out toward the side of my neck and gently took the chain of my Sciath between his fingers, shifting it slightly so that the clasp was once again in the back, hidden under my hair. “And I think we both know that you are a
far
more interesting subject.”
Before I could catch my breath to reply, he turned and walked up the hall, leaving me standing in a stupor.
So much for not knowing anything worth telling…
CHAPTER 13
ASS! Lying, shady, pompous, two-faced, stuck up, self-righteous ass!
With more vehemently evil thoughts than I had ever harbored against a single person, I stormed through the halls of the manor toward Jocelyn’s room. Between spying, talking to Steven, then arguing with Bastian, the last half hour of my life had been the definition of an emotional rollercoaster, but luckily I’d come out of it with information that may actually help us, so I figured the best thing to do was focus my raging energy on sharing what I’d learned.
When I didn’t find Jocelyn in his room, I checked in Cormac’s and Alex’s, but they were both empty as well. I started making my way around the manor, moving from activity to activity, trying to find someone I could unload my information – and pent up frustration – on, but I wasn’t having much luck. They weren’t having drinks in the main receiving room; they weren’t at the lawn bowling tournament; nor were they in the library, the game room, or any of the half a dozen parlors and mingling rooms scattered around the premises. I was about to give up and go back to my room to fume in private, when I passed by the door to an outside patio where there were a few dozen people gathered having drinks and hors d’oeuvres.
I quickly scanned the crowd and found Jocelyn standing with a small group of men not far from the door. Taking a deep breath and collecting myself, I stepped out onto the patio and over to where Jocelyn stood, quietly taking a place just behind his elbow and waiting to be noticed.
“Becca,” he said surprised, turning when he saw the other men in his group look my way. “I didn’t expect to see you here. Gentlemen,” he ushered me forward, “allow me to introduce my daughter, Rebecca. Becca, this is Mr Callaghan, Mr Ryan, and Mr Doyle.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Miss Clavish,” Mr Callaghan said, as I shook their hands one at a time. “I have been hearing quite a bit about you. It is wonderful you could join us this year.”
“Thank you,” I smiled, actually caught off guard by his sincerity and overall lack of pride. “I’m happy to be here.”
“Keeping your old man in line, I hope,” Mr Ryan – apparently a kinetic and the only one with an ability I was able to recognize – said to me with a chuckle.
“I do my best,” I smiled, playing along. Why did older people always have to ask things like that?
“I have a daughter, Shannon, who is about your age, Becca,” Mr Callaghan said. “I’ll have to be sure to introduce you while you’re here.”
Shannon’s dad. Immediately my stomach flipped and I fought the sudden urge to shrink back behind Jocelyn. He certainly looked the part – tall, with dark eyes and brown shoulder-length hair that had more body and style than most women I knew, yet somehow he still managed masculine. What had Shannon and her harpy mother told him about me? He had said that he’d been hearing quite a bit about me. Did he mock me behind my back too, like the rest of his obnoxious family? Would he tell them he’d met me? What would they say?
Dear God, when did I become so insecure?
Damn it, I refused to be this person. I was not going to let some chick I’d never even met intimidate me like a dog barking at a squirrel. Enough was enough.
With as friendly a smile as I had, I nodded. “That would be nice, thank you.”
“Weren’t the younger folk headed to the stables for an outing today?” Mr Doyle asked, glancing to Mr Callaghan.
“Yes, they are there now, I believe. You didn’t want to go riding, Becca?”
“I didn’t realize they were going,” I said truthfully, “though it’s probably for the best. I don’t think anyone is in the mood for a trip to the hospital.”
As the men chuckled at my lame joke, Jocelyn turned to face me. “I’m glad you happened by, I was about to come and find you. We need to get going.”
“We do?”
“Gentlemen,” he said looking back to the men, “it’s been wonderful catching up, but we have an appointment to keep. I will see you all on the course tomorrow?”
“Indeed, and prepare to be shamed,” Mr Callaghan laughed, ribbing the man next to him. “It was a pleasure, Miss Clavish,” he added, bowing slightly.
“Miss Clavish,” the other two nodded in turn.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, then followed Jocelyn back into the manor. I waited until we reached a patch of empty hall before leaning in and telling him my news. “I found something.”
He stopped suddenly and looked down at me. “What do you mean?”
“About Ciaran. He kept a book that he wrote all his prophecies and stuff in, like a journal or something. Brassal and Alva were in charge of executing his will, and apparently in it, Ciaran asked that the journal be burned when he died, but no one could ever find it. I bet that’s what Taron wanted.”
I looked up eagerly awaiting his reaction, but if I’d expected his excitement to match my own, I was sorely mistaken.
“How did you come to find out about this?” he demanded, his eyes critical.
What the hell, he was mad at me?
“I… asked a friend.”
“You what? What friend?”
“Steven.”
“You spoke to Steven about this?”
Clearly he wasn’t happy, but what I couldn’t figure out was why. “Yes,” I said, feeling slightly defensive, “what’s the problem? He’s not going to say anything, and I found something out, didn’t I? Isn’t that what we were supposed to do?”
“That is what Cormac was supposed to do. You were to wait until I spoke to Brassal about getting the books from the archives. Didn’t you hear a word I said this morning?”
“No one even talks to the poor kid, who’s he going to tell?”
“That’s not the point!” he scolded. “If you are going to take part in things like this with us, you can’t take matters into your own hands…” He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. “We’ll discuss this later. Right now there is a more pressing mater to be dealt with.”
Yeah, the fact that Bastian knows about me and the Iris?
Though given his reaction to finding out I’d talked to Steven, I figured I should hold off on telling him about that until later.
“Cormac was able to find out where Shea is buried,” he continued, “but, in doing so, he also discovered that someone else has been asking after Shea lately, specifically where he was laid to rest. Any family or friends Shea may have had would not have needed to ask for his location, which leads me to believe–”
“That someone else is going to try to read him?”
“Or try to tamper with what memories are left,” Jocelyn nodded. “I’d hoped to avoid a reading, but if someone else is interested in Shea, we need to get to him before they do. Cormac, Alex, and I are going to the cemetery now. If we are lucky, the other person would not have had the chance to visit the site yet.”
“But if they have how will we know?”
“I will be able to tell. We should be leaving within the hour,” he said stopping at the hallway leading to his room. “You go back to your room and stay there until we return. If anyone asks, we went for a tour of the countryside, but you were not feeling up to joining us.”
“Wait, what?”
“We’ll come for you when we get back and–”
“No, I want to come.” No way was I getting left out. “Please? I won’t get in the way or anything…”
“You should stay here, Becca.”
“But why? Cormac and Alex will be there, won’t they?”
“Cormac knows where to go, and we may need Alex to cover us.”
Was he really going to shut me out after one little mistake? “Is it because I told Steven stuff I shouldn’t have? Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean–”
He cut me off, his expression slightly uneasy. “It’s not that, Becca, it’s… This isn’t something…” He paused, glancing away, then finally said, “You don’t need to see this.”
I saw a shadow in his features as he looked out the window across the hall and suddenly I felt guilty. Here I was, getting offended and angry for being left out when he was only trying to keep me from a potentially disturbing situation. I wasn’t sure what specifically he was worried about, but whatever it was, he needed to know that I could handle it. Yeah it was weird, and yeah, I was more than a little creeped out by the idea, but if I wanted to be a part of the Order, then I needed to show him I could handle whatever situations arose, and didn’t need to be sheltered or protected when things got difficult.
I waited quietly for him to turn back to me before asking one last time. “Please,” I said again, gently this time and meeting his eyes. “I want to go. I’ll be fine, I promise.”
He took a long breath before finally nodding. “All right,” he said, though he still didn’t sound thrilled with the idea. “Go and get your coat and meet us in the lobby in twenty minutes. The car will be waiting.”
“How long will it take to get there?” I asked as we pulled out of the manor drive and onto the road.
“Shouldn’t be more than a half hour or so, I’d guess,” Cormac said. “I just hope we will have the place to ourselves, and not run into any other visitors.”
“That’s why we brought Alex,” Jocelyn said.
“Yes, but it would be easier to not have to worry about hiding. Though I’m actually quite looking forward to seeing the place,” he mused aloud as he skimmed over the list of directions in his hand. “I hear it’s quite lovely.”
“Lovely?” I echoed.
“Well, you know…” he glanced back at me from the passenger seat, “as cemeteries go. It was established by the Bhunaidh more than four centuries ago, and I’m told they have always made sure it was well cared for.”
“So only Bhunaidhs are buried there?” Alex asked from next to me in the back seat.
“Oh yes,” Cormac nodded.
Well sure, if they can’t bear to intermingle with regular people when they are alive, why would they want to in death…?
Keeping my more bitter thoughts to myself, I sat quietly trying to enjoy the drive, when I suddenly realized just how quiet it really was. Maybe it was the gentle hum of the car, or the wide open spaces rushing past us outside the window, but suddenly I felt an overwhelming sense of calm that seemed to grow by the minute. It was almost like my insides were taking a deep breath.
Then it hit me. It wasn’t the car that was quiet – it was my mind. For the first time since arriving at the manor, I wasn’t surrounded by hordes of Holders, each one with an ability fighting for recognition in my mind. I’d grown used to it after the first few hours, but I’d also forgotten what it felt like to be alone – or relatively alone, anyway.
Relishing in my newfound peace, I sighed almost involuntarily as I rested my head back on the seat of the car and gazed lazily up at the roof.
“You OK over there?” Alex asked, eyeing me with a grin.
“It’s so quiet,” I told him with a drowsy smile.
His eyebrows pulled together slightly, but eased into a smile as he realized what I meant. “Nice to be away from the masses?” he said, sliding his hand underneath mine and lacing our fingers together.
“Mmmhmm,” I hummed, giving his palm a squeeze.
I sat for a while letting my brain enjoy the solace, however the less cluttered my mind became, the more it was able to focus on the question I’d been wondering about ever since Jocelyn had told me what we were on our way to do.
“So…” I said hesitantly, hoping I wasn’t about to make things awkward. “Mind if I ask how this works, exactly?”
“How what works, dear?” Cormac asked
“The whole reading Ciaran thing. Doesn’t seem like it would even be possible given his… you know… condition.”
“It’s not exactly a reading,” Jocelyn answered. “A true reading is scanning thoughts and memories. When a person dies, obviously they are no longer able to think, so thoughts would be out of the question. However, just because a person’s mind ceases to function doesn’t mean their memories are lost.”
“It doesn’t? Kind of seems like it should,” I said.
“The mind and saol of a person are very closely knit,” Cormac explained. “Experiences become memories, memories can alter feelings, emotions grow from those feelings, which inspire new experiences, on and on throughout the span of our lives. All of those feelings, thoughts, emotions, and memories are each a different facet of your essential being – your saol. They coexist together within you, playing and building on one another and making you who you are. Now your saol is also, of course, your life energy, which is extinguished upon your death, but even when gone, its shadow remains on and in your body like a fingerprint, marking you. That fingerprint is made of everything your saol contained: your memories, your ability, your personality… all of it. The downfall is that this fingerprint is literally on the body itself, so over time when that begins to disappear, any information it may have stored is lost.”
This had to be the most interestingly macabre thing I’d ever heard. “So then, if I am understanding this, you could read a dead person too, right? Read him and see what his ability was?”
“In theory, yes,” Cormac said, “though I am nowhere near powerful enough to do it myself, few are. In fact other than Jocelyn, I’ve never heard of anyone able to successfully read people who have passed.”
“Yes,” Jocelyn sighed, “but I have never attempted it on anyone who was more than a few months gone, and even then there was precious little to work with. After three years I don’t hold out much hope.”
“Well, the most recent memories should be the strongest,” Cormac said, patting his arm supportively. “Let’s just hope that whatever we wish to learn happened within the final few months of his life.”
After that, no one said anymore, which was fine by me as I’d hit my freaky limit for one afternoon. We rode quietly for a while until Cormac’s light snoring broke the silence, and I decided to follow his lead. I laid down against Alex’s chest – who also looked as though he was about to nod off – and felt his arm come up around me before sliding off into a peaceful sleep.
Sadly the peace didn’t last long, as a short time later I woke up to the subtle but undeniable feel of abilities gently nudging at my own. As I felt the car turn into a parking spot and shut off, I realized that we’d arrived, while the nearby abilities told me that Cormac had been right: we were going to have company.
Alex stretched underneath me and sat up taking me with him, giving the top of my head a kiss as he went. “Looks like we’re here,” he said, turning to face forward as he stretched out his back again.
I popped the door open and climbed out, taking my first look at the towering wrought iron entry way of the cemetery and being immediately impressed. And OK… a little scared. I mean, the thing was straight out of a gothic novel, and cool as it was, I also wasn’t ashamed to admit that I was happy we’d come during the day.
I gazed out over the rows of intricately carved headstones, and while I didn’t see anyone else in the cemetery itself – which I’d expected as the abilities I sensed were too muted to be coming from so close – I also didn’t see anything or anyone even remotely nearby.
“Is there anything else around here?” I asked Cormac as he stepped out of the car.
“No dear, not for miles.”
“That’s weird,” I mumbled to myself, looking out over the open fields, doing my own perimeter check. I could feel abilities other than Jocelyn, Cormac, and Alex, but if the only other Holders were miles away, I shouldn’t have been able to feel them at all, at least not without the Iris. The abilities I was sensing were muted to be sure, but they were still strong enough for me to feel, so where were they coming from? There was no one else around as far as the eye could see. At least no one… alive…
Oh God…
My head snapped back toward the headstones as my mind replayed our conversation from the car.
Saols left fingerprints on the dead.
Prints that faded over time.
Prints made of memories… and personalities…
…and abilities.
Oh God…