Immortal Mine (29 page)

“Are you okay?” she asks again.

I take a breath, twisting my hands together
in my lap.

“I’m fine, Sam and I just—” I feel her tense
at Sam’s name. When I don’t continue, she turns to me.

“I’m sorry,” she says, her tone implying
she’s speaking of her reaction to him.

“Why? What is it with you two? Do you know
each other? From before, I mean.”

She opens her mouth to speak, but says
nothing. Finally, she blows out a breath.

“I know
of
him,” she says. Then, with
urgency, “You need to stay away from him, Niahm. There are
things... you don’t know, can’t imagine.”

I think about what I
do
know, and
what
she
can’t imagine.

“Like what?” I ask, recalling my earlier
thoughts about what it would be like to know you could never die,
what sorts of thing one might... “If there’s something you know,
you
have
to tell me.”

She looks at the walls, the floor,
everywhere but me, and I feel a tightness begin in my belly.
Finally, she glances at me.

“It’s not so much
Sam
,” she says with
a half-smile. “It’s his family.”

So, he
does
have family. “What about
his family?” I ask.

She shrugs. “It’s not my place to tell you,
Niahm. It’s his.”

“But if you think they might be a
danger—”

“No,” she says, “not to you.”

“But they are a danger?”

“Some people think so. But then, those
people don’t really have any idea.”

“This is a very cryptic conversation,” I
say.

“I’m sorry, Niahm,” she says, raising one
hand and resting it on my back. “I don’t mean to be. But, as I
said, it’s—”

“—his story to tell, I know.” She smiles at
my disgruntled tone.

Suddenly, a thought strikes me. Does she
know about Sam? Does she know that he’s immortal? Is that where she
sees the danger? But how could she...

The image of her
dark
roots flashes
into my mind, that she felt she had to leave home all those years
ago. Why? To protect whom? Her husband and daughter... or herself,
because she knows she’ll never age? I’m propelled to my feet. I can
feel the look of horror on my face, and I can see it reflected in
hers. She stands also.

“Niahm? What is it?”

I back away from her, as if seeing her for
the first time. Her unlined skin, not even laugh lines around her
eyes, how she never gets tired or worn out, how she walks as tall
and strong as... no,
more
strong than my own mother.

She raises a hand toward me in alarm.
“Niahm?”

“No!” I say, holding my own hand toward her.
“Don’t.”

She stops, and a wary look comes into her
eyes—the eyes so much like my own.

“What would happen,” I begin slowly, “if you
were shot?”

She blanches at my words. “Why, Niahm,
whatever do you... you know what would happen.”

But I can see it now, in her eyes, her face,
even her body language.

“Would you die?” I demand. “What if you were
stabbed, or hit by a car, or... went off a cliff in a burning
car?”

“Niahm! Why would you ask that?” Her words
are right, but her tone is completely wrong. I can see her
processing, see that she knows I know.

“Or would you live,” I say, my conviction
growing strong. “Would you live to dye your hair gray, to cover the
fact that it’s dark as it was when you were young?”

She’s staring at me now, stunned.

“Answer me,” I say, my voice low, not
letting her break eye contact.

“What did he tell you?” Her voice is a
whisper, barely heard.

“Not about you,” I say.

“I told him not to tell you,” she says, fury
suffusing her voice. Then, as if realizing what she’s admitting,
she turns pleading eyes on me. “Niahm, please, I—”

“Get out,” I say through gritted teeth, rage
and betrayal cutting through me.

“Please let me explain—”

“Get out!” I yell.

She takes a breath, then turns and leaves,
tears shining in her eyes. I resist the urge to throw something at
the door as it closes behind her. With a shuddering sob, I slide
down to the floor. She knew about Sam all along, and he... he knew
about her. He knew, but he didn’t tell me, even after he told me
about himself.

I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and
hit the speed dial.

“Well, look who’s decided to pull herself
away from her boyfriend long enough to remember she has a best
friend.” Stacy’s voice is teasing, but the undercurrent is pure
anger, and guilt cuts through me at how little time I’ve given
her.

“Stacy,” is all I can manage.

“Vee? What’s wrong?” The anger is gone,
replaced by concern. When I don’t answer, she says, “I’m on my
way.”

Shane stares at me, his silence thunderous
in the room. It’s far worse than his yelling, worse than even when
he curses at me in
Gaeilge
. Waves of
disapproval roll off of him.

“
That’s
how you told her?” he finally
says. I’ve just finished telling him everything that happened at
the motel. I nod in answer. “You do realize that this girl just
buried her parents four months ago, right?”

I twitch at his words. Of course I knew
that, but I didn’t really think... I mean, it’s been several
hundred years since I myself have buried anyone who meant as much
to me. I sigh, misery and self-recrimination flowing through me. I
hunch forward, dropping my forehead into my hands. I can’t believe
I didn’t stop to think what it might do to her, how it would make
her feel so close on the heels of her parents deaths.

“I didn’t think about that,” I try to
explain. Then, realizing how lame my words are, I say, “I didn’t
think at all. I could only think of showing her in a way that would
make it clear that I was telling the truth, that she would have to
accept it as truth.”

“So to recap,” he says, “you took an
emotionally fragile, seventeen year old girl to a motel, locked her
in and, to her way of thinking, killed yourself, without any kind
of warning or explanation that you wouldn’t really be dead. Then
you let her sit there with your corpse for over an hour. And
then
, like a zombie, came alive again.”

I don’t have to try to imagine what it felt
like to her sitting trapped in that room with what she thought to
be my lifeless body, I’d
seen
it.

“Could you just beat the crap out of me,
please?” I beg, deadly serious as I glance up at him.

“Not that I wouldn’t love to for your
complete and utter idiocy, and for causing the girl unnecessary
psychological harm, but no. I don’t think so. It wouldn’t really
help in the long run, would it?”

“It would help me now,” I groan, wretchedly
miserable in a way that I didn’t think I was capable of
anymore.

“Then you definitely don’t deserve it.” He
stands and walks past me, squeezing my shoulder sympathetically as
he passes, which only makes me feel worse. “You’ll be lucky if she
ever forgives you,” he says.

And I didn’t think I could possibly feel
worse.

When I walk into the barn early the next
morning, planning to do Niahm’s chores to hopefully soften her
attitude toward me a little, I find her already there, saddling
Sheila.

“Niahm.” Her name escapes me in surprise.
She jerks at the sound and turns my way. At the sight of her face,
I take an instinctive step forward, but halt as she visibly tenses.
Her eyes are red and puffy, her cheeks pale and drawn, her mouth
pulled tight.

“I’m going for a ride,” she informs me, as
if I couldn’t divine that myself by her actions.

“Should I?” I lift a hand toward Hercules,
who has retained the name despite Niahm’s protests and disgust.
He’s an amazing stallion to ride, mostly broken though he still has
his moments of wanting to return to his wild nature.

“No, I want to go alone.”

“Okay,” I say, though it’s anything but.
“Are you alright?”

“I don’t want to talk about it now,” she
says listlessly. “I just want to ride.”

“Okay,” I say again. “Is there anything I
can do for you while you’re gone?”

She looks as if she’ll refuse, but instead
says, “Yeah, I haven’t milked Bessie or fed the chickens.”

The flatness of her tone worries me as much
as how she looks. Her words worry me even more. Niahm never does
anything until all of her animals are taken care of. The thought
reminds me that I haven’t seen Bob. As if sensing my wondering, he
gives a little whine from where he crouches in the corner.
Apparently his mood is a reflection of his mistresses.

Niahm leads Sheila from the barn, her body
language reflecting none of the joy that it usually does when she’s
about to ride. Bob lifts his head in her direction, giving another
whine before settling back down. She swings up into the saddle
outside the barn, and they take off at a run. Now I
know
how
upset she is; she would never start Sheila at a run without walking
her first.

I crouch down, holding my hand toward the
dog, still watching where she was just moments before. Bob
belly-crawls over to me. I scrub him behind the ears.

“That bad, huh?” I ask, and he whines again,
confirming my question. “Wanna help me feed the chickens?” He perks
up, his tail thumping the ground twice. He turns his head toward
the opening where Niahm led Sheila out, and gives a small bark.

“She’ll be gone for a while. You’ll be okay.
You can chase all the chickens you want.”

He stares at me, as if processing my words,
then stands up and wags his tail with enthusiasm.

“That’s more like it,” I say with a grin.
Bob leads the way to the chicken coop, ready to play.



Two hours later, chickens fed, cow milked,
horses fed, and still no sign of Niahm. It’s been thirty minutes
since Bob took up his position at the edge of the barn, staring in
the direction that she went. My own gaze hasn’t wandered far from
the same.

With a sigh, I give up. There’s a lot of
run-off, and the creek is running high and fast. Add to that the
slick muddy ground that can take a horse down without warning, and
I can’t just keep waiting, no matter how furious she’ll be.

I quickly saddle Hercules, and lead him from
the barn. Bob is standing, wagging his tail expectantly at me.

“Don’t worry, I’ll bring her back,” I say,
lifting myself into the saddle.

I find her near the creek in the same spot
she and I had sat so long ago, when I first tried to convince her
to like me instead of hate me. Feels like déjà vu. She’s curled up
on the damp ground, knees pulled up to her chest, while Sheila
wanders nearby. I slide off Hercules and approach her.

“Niahm?”

She doesn’t move, and as I walk around to
where I can see her face, I see she’s fallen asleep, hiccupping
lightly, her face still damp. It’s clear she’s been crying and my
heart contracts. I’ve been beating myself up since dropping her off
last night. I didn’t really think through how she’d feel, watching
me die without any warning, so close on the heels of her parents’
death. Niahm shivers violently, and I pull my jacket off, wrapping
it around her as I pull her upper body off the ground and into my
arms, pulling her onto my lap.

“Sam?” she asks, stiffens momentarily as she
realizes it is me, then relaxes against me as her tears begin
again. Her capitulation doesn’t feel like acceptance or
forgiveness, though. More like she just doesn’t have the energy to
pull away.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, pulling her cold
hands into my warm ones. I’m assaulted immediately by her feelings
of deep, cutting betrayal. I see her conversation with Jean, her
realization that Jean is like me, and her anger at being lied
to—particularly by me. I mutter a curse under my breath. I should
have known she’d figure it out. Niahm is nothing if not
intelligent.