Seduction: A Novel of Suspense (26 page)

As Brice chipped away, Owain was lost in the even, measured beat of the mallet hitting the chisel. Thinking about Roan, he felt a familiar pang of longing mixed with guilt. As much as he missed his brother—and he did—every single day, if the fates hadn’t intervened, and if Roan hadn’t been killed in battle, Owain wouldn’t have inherited Gwenore. And she would not have given him this son.

“These last few months before Brice turns twelve are precious ones,” Owain said to Gwenore. “The last of his innocence.”

“We have to let him grow up no matter how hard it is for us to let him go,” Gwenore reminded him, and not for the first time.

“He’s worked so hard to prepare for his initiation.”

“And he’ll do fine.”

Owain nodded, but he alone knew how hard the initiation rituals
were. Not every boy succeeded, and those who didn’t were demoralized and sometimes even demonized. Nervous for his son, Owain worried the ring on his forefinger. The copper alloy had a deep plum cast to it and its carved design was intricate. When he looked at it he saw only knots, but Gwenore said she saw a strange ghostlike face with hollow gaping eyes staring back at her. This was Owain’s initiation ring. In a few weeks he would be giving his son one just like it upon Brice’s entry into the priesthood.

“I know he will.” But his voice belied his words.

“If your brother had lived and if Brice were his son instead of yours, he’d be training to become a warrior. A far more dangerous way of life,” she reminded him. “You should think of that instead.”

“He’s just grown up so fast.” Owain was still watching Brice, unable to take his eyes off him.

“Roan isn’t in him, Owain.”

Everyone in the tribe believed in life after death and the spirit’s ability to be reborn and live again in a new body. The undying soul was unquestioned. Did not the leaves fall off the tree and become part of the soil that nourished the tree, which spouted new leaves?

Owain had wanted Roan’s soul to be reborn in Brice. He’d prayed for it and watched for it after the baby was born. For years he’d looked for proof, for a sign, for just one glimmer of recognition. And every time Gwenore caught him at it she told him what he was doing was pointless. He was never going to see Roan in their son. Because Roan was in him—in Owain.

As a witch, Gwenore knew things that remained mysteries to others. And she knew Roan had merged with Owain—with his brother—after his death. She had the mark of the witch on her too. That little star birthmark, right over her heart on her left breast. He loved the star and the fact that Brice had one too in almost the same place on his small body.

One dawn, a few months after Brice was born, Gwenore found Owain swinging a piece of metal in the shape of a star that he’d made for his son and the baby was fixated on it. Brice would reach for the star and laugh when Owain would pull it away.

“Did you sleep?” she had asked.

He didn’t answer, he didn’t have to. She knew what was obsessing him and why he sat and stared at their son for hours on end.

“I have something to tell you,” Gwenore said. She spoke hesitantly, as if she was unsure how he was going to accept the news.

“Something happened at your brother’s burial ceremony.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was an overcast day. Do you remember?”

Owain nodded.

“But during that sacred service, the clouds broke. Do you remember that?”

“No.”

“Well, it happened. Suddenly there was brightness where it had been gloom. It was a warm yellow light and it concentrated on you as you conducted the ceremony. I saw it shimmering all around you like a golden robe. So bright at first, I could barely look at you. While I watched, you seemed to absorb it. Soak it in. So that by the time the ceremony was over, it was gone. It was Roan. He was there. I could even smell him in the air. He was there, Owain, in the light, and the light was entering into you.”

Owain had listened. He didn’t believe what she said. If Gwenore had been speaking of someone else, he might have. But Roan—inside of him? He couldn’t help but wonder if she was saying all this because she wanted it to be true. If it was just her way of keeping Roan alive and not accepting that she had really lost him.

They had both been haunted by loss. Intellectually he could accept that if he still mourned his brother, she would too. You don’t stop loving someone because he ceases to take breaths. But no matter how hard Owain fought to understand his wife’s feelings, he was still jealous of what Roan had meant to her and resented it.

 • • • 

“You’ve been watching Brice for a long time,” Gwenore said, as she came back into the room and stood beside him. She handed him a cup of mead. He took it and drank. “He’s going to be working for quite a while more.” She took her husband’s hand.

Owain turned to Gwenore, trying not to think about how she’d loved Roan first. Trying not to wonder if she still wanted his brother. She had been Owain’s for fourteen years now. And she was here beside him offering him an escape from his worries.

Cupping her breasts through the fabric of her robe, her soft flesh through the rough material, he breathed her in. Her skin was scented with the oils she used to keep it supple. This was her secret scent. The smell no one but he could get drunk on. The unique combination of fertile woods, of blooming flowers and of ripe earth aroused him.

Owain pulled her robe open and caressed her thighs. Felt her shudder at his touch. A priest’s fingers weren’t coarse and calloused like other men’s. As his brother’s would have been. Roan’s fingertips would have rubbed her raw. He hoped at least she appreciated that about him.

Sometimes he did feel as if Roan was alive in him. In these moments, Owain felt as if he was having sex for both of them. That when he came into Gwenore like this, stiff with want, with need, with the desire to take her and have her shiver and moan beneath him, he was fulfilling more than one man’s lust.

Was it she who had put that thought into his mind? Or was it true?

Priests were taught and then taught others that intercourse was holy, procreation part of the ritual of life and death. And yet in his secret heart, Owain didn’t experience the act as holy. It was craven. Overwhelming. A drug stronger than the herbs he drank or the smoke he inhaled when it was time to speak to the gods.

Whom are you thinking of?
he wanted to shout out to Gwenore as he plunged into her and felt her accept him, felt her welcome him into the slick crevice between her legs. It was like the opening to the sacred cave down on the beach. The entrance was so slight you barely noticed it, but inside. Ah, inside, it was deep and its darkness enveloped him.

Who am I to you now? Myself? My brother? Which one of us are you so eager to have inside you?

These questions were his personal torture, the mantra that echoed in his mind whenever he made love to Gwenore. These words repeated over and over in a rhythm that was in sync with his hips, with her hips, with his fingers stroking her hair, with her fingers stroking
his back, with her lips moving on his, with her breath hot on his neck and his breath lost her hair, with the pattern of her heart beating in tandem with the pattern of his heart beating.

Who am I to you now? Who am I to you now? The living brother? The dead one?

Owain’s hand gripped Gwenore’s buttocks and pulled her even closer to him. Impossibly closer. As she gave herself up to him, as she yielded, she began to pant. Make small moaning sounds. Her fingers dug into his flesh. Waves of sensation surged in him. His blood burned in his veins. He breathed what felt like fire.

“Gwenore . . .” he whispered. “I want you.”

“You have me.”

“More. So there is no space between us. No distance. No air. Just us.”

The smell of a thousand flowers scented her hair, and her mouth tasted of honey from the bees. He inhaled. Tasted. Drank.

“You bewitch me,” he whispered hoarsely.

“Yes.” She laughed low in her throat.

And yes, yes, she had. She had bewitched him. His witch.

They had traveled to this place together, and now their blood rushed and blessings of warmth enfolded them. He thrust up. She bit the skin on his neck. Between her legs was a whole night sky. Stars burst around him.

“Owain, Owain . . .” She was chanting.

He was chasing his own explosion, not waiting for hers. She was gone from him now. Always in these last moments she was gone from him.

And then came his release. And then hers. And then the first moment of stillness.

They lay quiet. Immobile. Cooling. Now the scent of Gwenore’s skin was infused with the scent of their sex. Outside, the steady thumping of Brice’s tools continued as he carved the wood, as chips flew.

“Now I have to go to the caves,” Owain said.

“For how long this time?”

“You know better than to ask. For as long as it takes for me to learn what it is that I need to do.”

“It’s dangerous to go there tonight. The tides are rising,” she warned.

“I know.” He smoothed her hair off her forehead. Her skin was damp. How long until he could lie with her again?

“I’ve been going to the caves since before we were together. Why are you anxious?” he asked.

She shrugged.

“Why?”

“The herbs were bitter today.”

He knew how she interpreted the signs: when certain herbs were brewed and turned bitter, she foresaw doom.

Gwenore started to shiver. Strong breezes were coming off the sea.

“Winds of change,” she muttered.

It had been fifteen years since their tribe had faced a threat this bad. Fifteen years since the battle in which his brother died.

“At least Brice won’t have to fight,” he said to his wife. “At least you don’t have to fear that.”

As he listened to the sounds of Brice carving his totem, bringing his magic to life, Owain leaned down and kissed Gwenore on her damp forehead. “It’s time for me to go, to pray, to chant and receive the visions so we can prepare for the future. Will you walk down to the sea with me?”

Jac didn’t tell Theo about the scene that had just played out in her mind. First, she needed to understand it herself.

In Paris this past summer, she’d had several hallucinations over a week’s period, all triggered by a certain scent. Had she just stumbled on another scent that would induce visions?

The Paris reveries had progressively told a story that seemed so plausible. There were so many details that fit in perfectly. But the mind could do that. It did it in dreams, didn’t it? In the fantasy that had just played out, her mind had inserted the Celtic ring she’d seen in the Metropolitan Museum.

But over the summer, she’d always felt as if she were the person she was watching. That the images and the feelings were part of her. Not this time. Jac had been seeing the scene through a strange man’s eyes. Been inside his mind, but she wasn’t him. Wasn’t any part of him.

“Jac? Are you all right?” Theo asked.

“Yes. Why?”

“You were just staring off into space. I said your name twice.”

“Sorry, just lost in thought. I was trying to remember what I’d read about amber. I think that’s what the bits of stone you just burnt are.
It has some curious properties. Farmers actually burn it to make fruit grow faster. But I’m not sure what else it can do.” She looked closely at the pyre. Rooted around in it with a stick. Pushing aside burnt twigs, lumps of coal and charred pine cones, she found more of the bits of brownish stones.

“This looks like a ritual fire. But it can’t be from Celtic times. It can’t be that old.”

“No, Wiccans still use these sites.”

“Reenacting Celtic ceremonies?”

“So my aunt Eva says. She learned to weave from one woman who practiced Wicca. She’s got endless stories if you’re interested.”

“I’d love to hear them.”

“Why don’t you come back to the house with me? You can stay for dinner. She asked me to invite you when I left this morning and I forgot.”

 • • • 

Minerva was sitting on the couch in the great room reading a book, taking occasional sips of something tawny from a glass. Eva was at her loom, weaving the marvelous blue-green cloth.

They both looked up when Jac and Theo came in.

The two sisters were alike in many ways: both had fine skin with a minimum of wrinkles and cornflower-blue eyes. But Eva was more like a delicate bouquet of lily of the valley in a antique porcelain pitcher, while Minerva was a dozen long-stem bold, black-red roses in a rock crystal vase.

“Help yourself to drinks,” Minerva said.

“A martini?” Theo asked Jac.

“Vodka and tonic if you have it, please.”

Theo walked over to the bar.

“Did you two have any luck today?” Minerva asked.

Theo filled his aunts in on the afternoon as he made drinks.

“This is a doomed exercise. Didn’t you learn anything from your grandfather?” Eva said. “There are too many caves. Too many ruins. Too much time has passed. You need to—”

“Eva, all those things are true, but nothing is impossible,” Minerva interrupted.

“You and all your possibilities.”

Jac had sat down on the couch opposite Minerva and was rifling though a book she’d found on the coffee table.
The Red Book
was a facsimile of Carl Jung’s famous journal containing his mandala drawings from 1914 to 1930. He’d undertaken the project to explore his own unconscious. She was studying the intricately detailed illuminations when she thought of something. If there had been one clue about the hidden journal in the library, perhaps there was another.

“Are the books in the library catalogued?” Jac asked.

“Yes.” Minerva answered first. “And the catalogue goes back to the mid-nineteenth century. The bulk of the titles were amassed by our great-grandfather. He bought up everything he could on the occult, magic, witches and mythology.”

“He was the one involved with the Phoenix Society?” Jac asked.

Minerva nodded. “He wrote a few monographs about the most important spiritualists of the time.” She rattled off a few names, several of which were vaguely familiar to Jac. “He infused our grandfather Henri with the same interests. When Henri was a boy, he attended his father’s séances, here in the house, he used to tell us how people sometimes came from as far away as London to attend. When we were children he experimented with—”