Nick leaned back in his chair, looking thoughtful. “I guess I do. I mean, not here, not close by, but there’s a whole network. I think. There’s this woman in Virginia -- Isabel. She might know what to try. You think I should call her?” He clearly wanted reassurance that John was all right with the idea.
“If you want to help those people, I don’t see that you have much choice,” John replied. “And I know you; you’ll try going back, and I don’t think -- Nick, I’m not wanting to interfere, but seeing you like that…” He took a deep breath, trying to push away the images of Nick hurting, lost to him. “If there’s something that can help, I want you to get it, okay? Call her.”
“Okay.” Nick got up and came over, leaning down to kiss John with a mouth that tasted of coffee and melon.
While John finished his breakfast, Nick sat on the edge of the bed and talked on the phone. He made more than one call, his voice soft and tentative in a way John hadn’t heard it for a long time, and by the time John had finished eating, Nick hung up the phone and turned to him. “There’s a place nearby; Isabel thought the woman there could help us, and she’ll be in the shop in about an hour. So if you want to go…”
“I want to go.” John decided that telling Nick he didn’t plan on letting him out of his sight for the rest of the trip might not go down well, but it was how he felt. Back on the island he was fine with them spending hours apart if only for the pleasure of having Nick walk in, hair ruffled by the wind, full of what he’d seen, a smile on his face that he saved for John. Here, in a foreign country, surrounded by so many damn people, John wanted Nick near him.
“Oh, by the way…Last night…did he come up with anything useful? That reporter?” John tried for a casual tone and failed miserably.
Nick gave him a funny look. “He got that woman’s information for me -- her phone number and stuff. Selena. I’ll have to call her later.” He glanced down at his hands. “You were right about him.”
“Which part?” John sat down on the opposite side of the bed, moved until he was kneeling behind Nick, and put his hands on Nick’s shoulders, working the tense muscles slowly. “The part where he had his eye on you? Aye, I was.” He put his mouth on the one place on Nick’s neck that always made the man shiver and bit down. “But he didn’t see you do that, now, did he?”
“No,” Nick said, shuddering in just the way John had known he would. “And he never will. Never.”
John kissed where’d he’d bitten, feeling a sudden pang of arousal, sweet and fierce. Nick always did this to him, always. Under his mouth he felt Nick’s skin give up a taste and smell that was enough to have him hard just from that, but he eased back a little, thinking of how shaky Nick still looked.
“I love you,” he said, speaking the words against Nick’s shoulder as he took one last kiss, his lips brushing over the smooth, warm skin. “And no, he won’t. But if he helped you, I’m glad of that.”
“It doesn’t mean I think I owe him anything.” Nick turned and looked at him. “He didn’t want -- anyway, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I mean, I don’t know if he’ll actually use the interview, or what. I tried to explain why I was doing it, but he’s sort of like Matthew -- not wanting to believe.”
Nick couldn’t have said anything more reassuring. John knew -- now -- why it’d never worked out between Nick and Matthew and that had been the reason right there; Nick couldn’t love anyone wholeheartedly who thought that he was deluded or a liar.
And why the hell should he?
John couldn’t take much credit for his instant, complete belief in Nick; he’d felt the ghost in the room himself, after all. But mostly, it’d just been that looking into Nick’s face he’d seen nothing but sincerity and a deep weariness, and felt an urge to protect Nick that had left him unable to do anything
but
believe, because anything else would have hurt Nick.
Simple as that.
“He is, is he? Oh, well. Do you want to call this Selena? Or maybe leave it until after we’ve been to the shop?”
“I think I’ll leave it for now,” Nick said. “Focus on one thing at a time. I have directions --” he gestured toward the single piece of hotel writing paper on the bedside table “-- and I don’t think the shop will be too hard to find. I hope.”
* * * * *
It wasn’t. John half expected a shop dealing, he assumed, in mystical stuff -- his mind conjured up crystals, incense, Tarot cards and maybe the odd skull -- to be tucked away down a small, dark alley, but it was part of a plaza with a courtyard, set between a clothes shop on one side and a video rental store on the other. The place seemed exotic to John’s eyes, with lush palms around a central fountain, splashing into a large pool, and an intricately laid sidewalk of white and blue-gray stone, but he supposed for here, it was normal.
Pretty, though. He glanced into the fountain and saw a flicker of fin as a fish swam by, noting the sign telling people not to throw coins into the water. Aye. Pretty.
“Looks like it’s open,” he said, seeing that the lights were on inside the store. A display in the window echoed the theme of water and vegetation, with fabric in all shades of blue and green hanging down, draped and twisted, forming a background for the crystals John had expected. The display was lit so that some of the crystals radiated rainbows; others were tucked away, drawing the eye subtly.
They went inside; the door bumped a small wind chime as it opened, the tinkling sound of metal against metal no doubt signaling to the shop’s employees that customers had entered. There was a girl behind a counter just giving change to a young man who was holding a bag with the shop’s logo printed on it. “Have a nice day,” she said, her eyes lifting from the man’s to meet John’s. “Hi. Is there something I can help you find?”
Nick stepped forward. “Hi. I called a little while ago; I’m looking for Misty?”
“Melissa.” Another woman’s voice came from a doorway off to the right that John hadn’t noticed; she was leaning against the doorframe. “You’re Isabel’s friend.”
“I know her,” Nick said. “Saying that she’s a friend might be stretching it.”
“If she told you about me, you’re a friend.” Melissa straightened up. She was wearing a long, flowing skirt in darkened hues and a green, gauzy blouse. Her hair was blonde with blonder highlights -- couldn’t be natural, John thought -- but her eyes were dark. “Come on back. We’ll have more privacy.”
More privacy, but precious little space. Melissa sat down in a huge, wide chair, upholstered in dark green velvet, looking like a mermaid floating in the ocean. Which left one wooden chair for Nick after John had taken up a position leaning against the wall and refused to move. Nick still looked tired and he was the one who needed to speak to Melissa after all.
The small room was shelved, and the shelves were packed; John had the edge of one digging into his shoulder and was trying not to breathe too hard, in case he dislodged a neat stack of joss sticks, the slim packages redolent of patchouli, which brought back a few memories. They’d burned them to cover up the fact that they’d been smoking in Michael’s bedroom…which had just convinced his mother that they were doing drugs. She was a chain smoker herself; she probably wouldn’t have even noticed the smell of tobacco, come to think of it…
“You’ve come a long way,” Melissa said, her eyes curious as she studied John’s face. “
“That’s right.” John blinked at her. “And you’ll have family there yourself.”
He wasn’t sure how he knew; she sounded American enough. But there was just something about her that felt familiar.
She grinned. “My grandfather. Born and bred on the banks of the
“I don’t know. Isabel thought there might be something. She mentioned it years ago, but…” Nick seemed unsure how to finish that. “I guess it wasn’t the right time.”
“And now it is, because you’re falling apart,” Melissa said shrewdly. She gave herself a little shake and stood up, slipping past John to stand behind Nick’s chair. “May I?” She rested a hand on Nick’s shoulder.
“What are you going to do?” Nick asked.
“Oh, just a little patching. It won’t hurt, I promise.”
“Okay.”
Melissa’s hands stroked lightly over Nick’s hair as if she were trying to get a feel for him. It was odd, watching someone else touch him like that and seeing Nick relax into it; normally he flinched, kept his distance. “Hm, yes,” Melissa said. “You’ve been in over your head, haven’t you?”
“He’s good,” John said defensively. “Damn good at it. You should see him.” Melissa gave him an amused look and Nick a surprised one. John felt his face flush. “Well, he is…” he mumbled.
“I wasn’t questioning that,” Melissa said, moving her hands over Nick’s shoulders. “We all get in over our heads sometimes. You came because of the plane crash?”
“We think my father was on the plane.” Nick looked uncomfortable. “I mean, he was. We don’t have any reason to think he wasn’t.”
“And you were estranged.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah. Pretty much since I was born.” Nick closed his eyes as if to concentrate. “I’d been dreaming about it. The crash.”
“Ah…” Melissa’s breath hissed out. “That can’t have been easy, but the reality…so much worse.”
“It is,” Nick agreed. “I’ve had this problem before -- too many of them wanting to talk to me at the same time, and I just…can’t handle it. I can’t hear one over the other, and it feels like…well, like my head’s going to explode, pretty much. Isabel thought you might be able to help.”
“You’ve been doing this how long?” Melissa asked.?
“Oh…” Nick thought for a few seconds. “Twenty years, give or take.”
“And you’ve waited this long to look into something that will help?”
John held back a sour comment about people who didn’t want to kill gold egg- laying geese. “He’s asking now,” he pointed out. “Can you help him? Because without something, if he goes back there -- and I know he bloody well will -- they’ll tear him apart.”
“No, they won’t.” Melissa sounded confident. “We won’t let them. I’m still not sure why you didn’t do something about this sooner…” She patted Nick’s shoulders, then stepped back, shaking her hands as if she were flicking water from them. “I take it you’re the one who picks up the pieces?” she asked John.
John rubbed at the back of his neck, feeling awkward. “Well, I don’t know about that --” he began.
Nick turned and smiled at him. “Yes, he does.”
“Thought so,” Melissa murmured. “The rock and the sea…one shifting, curious, deep, the other solid, an anchor point.”
God, he was more like a rotten stick of wood in a patch of quicksand than an anchor. John shook his head, feeling guilt rise up and choke him. He’d never be able to undo his betrayal of Nick, no matter how much he regretted it. His condemnation of Matthew seemed the height of hypocrisy now. Matthew, for all his faults, had never been unfaithful as far as John knew.
He forced the words out of his tight throat. “What is it that he needs?”
“First, he needs you to stop blaming yourself and focus on the present,” Melissa said, so frankly that it was difficult to be irritated with her. “Whatever it is…it’s not worth it. Believe me. I might not be able to see it that clearly, but I know that much. As for you…”
She looked at Nick and moved to the other side of the room, passing by John again. Picking up a paper sack, she began to open a variety of little drawers in a large cupboard, scooping up what looked like dried herbs and dropping them into the bag. “Tea. Smells pretty bad and tastes worse, but it does the trick, at least temporarily.”
“How does it work?” Nick asked.
“Not as easy as drinking it.” Melissa peered into another drawer, then added what looked like a twisted stick to the sack. “You need a circle, with sea salt, and four candles at the quarters, and the still-warm body of a baby goat. What do they call those? Kids?” John blinked, and she grinned. “I’m kidding about the goat.”
John wrinkled his nose up at the pun, which got him another grin. “Candles? Lit candles? Because last night the heavens opened when the ghosts came close.”
“That wasn’t the ghosts; that’s just
“The line has to get broken eventually,” Nick objected.
Melissa nodded. “Sure. But
he
can do it, not you. They can’t hurt John, and if you’re far enough away, you’ll be safe. They usually can’t move far from where they died.”
“Or where they’re buried,” Nick said, then shrugged when Melissa looked at him and smiled. “I’m not completely clueless, you know.”
“Oh, I know.” Melissa looked into the paper sack, wrinkled her brow, and added one last ingredient. “This should be enough to keep you going for a while -- you only need a pinch, and I’ll write it all down so you’ll be able to make more later.” She thrust the sack into John’s hands and sat down again, reaching for a pad of paper. “I should probably type this out and make photocopies.”
“There’s that many folk in need of it?” John asked in surprise.
“Probably not.” Melissa glanced up from her scribbling. “It’s hard to know. I think it’s safe to assume there are a lot of people who deny what they are, or who don’t even recognize it. I think a lot of people have the ability as kids and then lose it because they can’t deal. But yeah, I’ve run into a few who could use this stuff, and it seems a little archaic to be handwriting notes from memory. I may be a witch, but this is the twenty-first century.”