He shrugged. “That’s what I always believed. Apparently, I was wrong.” He looked into those green eyes once more and realized it would take nothing at all for them to fall back into the same condition. He took a step back. Her face fell for a moment, but then a healthy dose of determination took its place and she nodded strongly.
“It’s not a long walk, but we should get moving. The path is pretty tight in some spots. Stay close so we don’t get separated.”
Those weren’t the best words for her to use while his body still wanted completion. His voice deepened slightly as he responded. “I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be right now than
close and tight
.”
He watched her hands clutch into fists as she fought against whatever she wanted to do. Her smile and laughter at the wording was shaky at best. “Okay, then. So, let’s go.”
M
ila trained her flashlight on the rock wall, searching for the tiny spot of red paint that Baba had painted years before. She was breathing hard after the steep climb up the barely visible path near Castle Rock. Tal was right on her heels, and every time he brushed her, she remembered the kiss. Nobody had
ever
kissed her like that before. She’d been able to sense him in her mind, in her veins—like he was surrounding her and inside her all at once. It frankly scared the crap out of her to have such an intimate moment with someone she’d only known for a short time.
Or have I always known him?
That was the part that was most frightening. The moment he’d mentioned the words
Tree spirit,
she’d remembered the voice in her head. Remembered asking questions he didn’t have answers to. She’d been looking at the dream through eyes, touching things with hands, and yet had never asked
whose
hands and eyes. If they were Tal’s, how did they come to be connected that way? She’d had episodes since childhood, but never remembered meeting anyone from the other place, except for Viktor.
Thinking of Viktor reminded her again of little Suzanne. Her mother must be terrified. Even with Tim going along, when Candy explained it, who knows how people were going to react? Part of her was furious with Baba for kidnaping a child, and part of her was very proud for risking her own freedom to save the girl.
And what am I going to do when I find her? Take her back? Turn her in? Or even worse, go against everything about the legal system I believe in to simply ignore it?
But there was no ignoring the footprints that had suddenly appeared in the snow ahead. Baba must have come from a different direction, but there was no mistaking the three pairs of prints—two adults and one child, that disappeared into the seemingly solid rock. “There.” She pointed at what looked like just another boulder in a sea of boulders. The telltale bit of red dye was still vivid under the bright flashlight.
The moment she stepped behind the boulder and entered the darkness of the cave, old memories filled her. The sweet scent of spring blooms that shouldn’t exist here in the bone-chilling winter blended with the faint fragrance that Baba always wore. The shirtsleeve warmth that hit her face was like stepping out into the summer sunshine and she raised her face and closed her eyes to drink it in after the long walk in the cold.
“It smells like a field of wildflowers in here.” Tal’s voice held both confusion and disbelief—which seemed strange from someone who certainly believed in magic. “But considering the location from the nearest plotted gate, this cavern
should
lead to the outskirts of Rohm. But there aren’t any gardens left there. Everybody was evacuated to the second ring years ago. Even if someone managed to bribe an official to remain behind, there’s not enough magic left in this area to maintain a flower garden.”
She shrugged and started to unwrap the muffler from around her neck, shaking loose her hair as she did. “I don’t think you’re talking about Rome, Italy, which is the only one I know—although I’m sure there are plenty of towns in America with that name. And I don’t have any clue what a
ring
is or how you evacuate someone to it, so I’m afraid I’m no help.”
They walked in silence to the archway she remembered so well. Well, it was more that
she
was silent. Tal was muttering under his breath. But the words were too indistinct to understand and she got the impression they weren’t for her ears anyway. She played her light around the cave floor. It was surprisingly tidy after all these years. No small animal bones, creepy-crawlies or cobwebs … just a smooth, uncluttered path, devoid of even stalagmites, even though their counterparts lined the ceiling.
“It’s just through here.” She pointed to the opening to their left which seemed to veer off the main passage, but ended abruptly with a rock wall. She reached back automatically. “Here, take my hand.”
He didn’t seem unwilling, but more curious. “Why?”
It was a logical question, and she didn’t have a good answer. “Um, I don’t know. It’s just the way it works.” Baba had always taken her hand, she’d taken Candy’s, and they’d walked to the garden together, like crossing a busy street when the walk light came on. But she’d been a child then, so maybe it wasn’t necessary. Still, there was magic involved. She knew that now, but in a different way than she’d known it as a child. Then it was just a source of wonder, no different than Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. Now it was a realization of reality that held as much danger as awe. All she could do was shrug and raise her brows. “I guess I’m not really sure how it works. We’d better stick with what I know.”
He held his hand up, palm forward and then shook his head. “I sense nothing ahead. If this were a sanctioned gate, I should. And even if an illicit gate, there should be some magical signature.”
If I shrug one more time, my muscles are going to cramp up.
She wiggled her fingers with a bit of impatience. “It’s there, trust me. At worst, we’ll walk into the wall, and I’ll admit I’m an idiot, okay?”
That brought a small smile and a breath of a laugh. He reached out and wrapped his fingers around hers. Again she was startled by how warm his hand was and couldn’t help asking, “What’s your guys’ normal body temperature, anyway?”
He pursed his lips and tipped his head. “Same as you—ninety-eight-point-six. We’re not another species, Mila. Just an offshoot that can do magic.”
“Maybe it’s me that’s cold then.” Amazingly, the next shrug didn’t cramp her muscles.
Must be building them up—shrugging to the oldies.
She nearly laughed, but waved it off before he asked. “Never mind.”
She stepped forward, trying to appear confident that she knew what she was doing. “It’s magic. Why are you confused?” She remembered Baba’s words when she’d asked how the door to Viktor’s garden worked. It was after her eighth birthday, and Baba had told her Viktor had a gift for her. But she had become a
big girl
, and it seemed important to understand such things. Daddy had showed her the secret of pulling a coin from behind her ear, and she knew Santa was really just her parents. In some small part of her brain, she understood the garden shouldn’t exist. But Baba was so stern, so matter-of-fact about the reality of magic, that she’d soon forgotten to question it, and then had forgotten it even happened at all.
Oh! That was the day I got the stone.
Her last visit to the garden was when she’d been presented with the fire opal. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. She spent the entire visit just looking at it, catching the colors in the sunlight, watching the flames burn without any heat, except from the warmth of her hand. Even Candy’s shouts to come join her chasing butterflies hadn’t budged her.
She stopped, mere inches from the wall and looked back at Tal. “Could I hold the opal for a minute?” It was just an experiment, and it really didn’t make much sense.
Without releasing her hand, he reached into his pocket and extracted it, holding it out to her other hand. She took it and stared at the stone. It was lovely and still bore the colors she remembered, but not the internal flames that licked and chased each other. But she kept staring at it as she walked forward, leading Tal toward the bower on the other side of the stone. A delightful shimmery sensation overtook her, followed by a rush of energy that was like the high of a double mocha espresso. The stone in her hand came alive as sunlight struck the face of it. “That’s the way I remember you.” She smiled and squeezed Tal’s hand, not even noticing he’d been talking until then.
“This place shouldn’t exist,” he said. She looked up then and the garden was exactly as she remembered it. The sky was the rich azure-blue of midsummer, and fluffy clouds floated by as the warm breeze hit her face. The riot of colors was more intense than a painting by Van Gogh. Every flower imaginable filled the landscape as far as she could see. Most didn’t belong in the same soil, but she hadn’t known that as a child. And some weren’t even possible … like the glittering purple one that resembled an iris. But it spun and scattered stardust in a never-ending circle that would cover her clothing with multicolored glitter. Candy had been right. She’d loved that flower and had tried for years to find it at a garden center.
And I never believed Mom that it didn’t exist. How could I have seen it if it wasn’t real?
Was that why her mother took away her memories, because of her dogged insistence that magic was real?
“That gate shouldn’t even exist.” Tal was touching things, feeling the texture of flowers and leaves as though he’d never seen magical flowers. He noticed the spinning stardust flower and reached out to it, catching a bit of iridescent glitter on his fingers. He got an odd look on his face that was part smile and part … awe. “My mother had purple allurias in her garden, years ago. They were her favorites.”
She held out the opal with a smile. “It’s alive again. This is how I remember the stone.” She tipped it so he could see. It took a moment for him to turn his attention to it, but when he did, the awe turned to something deeper, closer to respect.
He watched the flames dance under the thin layer of filmy blue that covered the stone and picked it from her hand to turn into the sunlight. “It responds to this magic, whatever form it is. Bloody hell, but I wish Alexy was here. Identifying the type of magic isn’t one of my skills.”
She shook her head and let out an exasperated breath. “It’s just magic. The type doesn’t matter.”
“Oh no,” he said while examining the wooden bower, trellises completely covered with rich dark vines and massive white flowers that smelled heavenly. In fact, she noticed that the garden never overpowered, nor had conflicting scents. It was as though the blooms were selected especially for their complementary scents, rather than the color scheme. “No, it does matter. In fact, it’s
very
important. For something like this place to exist, outside of your reality
and
mine, speaks of a power that’s extremely dangerous.”
That made no sense to her. “It’s a
garden
. Flowers, vines, grass. How can it be dangerous?”
He sighed and seemed to be trying to think of an analogy. “Think of it like energy in your world. If nobody had ever heard of … had never
conceived
of nuclear energy, but the world suddenly discovered that an unknown island country had devised a reactor, what would happen? If it was reported to be powerful enough to run everything on that island—no oil, no wind—wouldn’t everyone want it? Good countries, bad countries, wild extremist groups?”
The thought was sobering. “So, you’re saying that the mere
existence
of the garden makes it dangerous because the wrong people could try to steal the magic that makes it, for their own purposes?”
He nodded. “And the worst possible, but most capable person of stealing magic was in your house this morning.”
She looked around again, tried to imagine someone sucking the very life from this place … seeing it wilted and dead and dark. “Oh God. We need to find Viktor and tell him about Vegre.”
She didn’t wait for Tal. She rushed through the garden, sprinted along nearly forgotten paths, under massive branches that held fruit for the picking at any time of year … across bridges over sparkling streams that she knew fat orange koi lived in.
Viktor’s house was built into the remnants of a massive old tree, lovingly carved among the branches and gnarled roots and decorated with more flowering vines that always stayed well clear of the window openings and doorway, none of which contained actual windows or doors. “Viktor! Are you home?”
But no smiling man with tidy white beard and ring of hair came to her call. Of course, he wasn’t always home when she came to visit with Baba, either. He was always off, this place and that. But he always—“Left a message. We need to see if there’s a message for us from him or Baba.” She grabbed Tal’s hand again and pulled him along, before he could protest or ask questions. They raced along again, through the formal English rose garden, past the wildflower meadow … finally ending up in the Japanese bonsai garden. After the tangle of conflicting colors and heights in the meadow, the precise order and careful lines of the rock garden and trained plants was a little startling.