Part 7 (2/2)
”Give me some examples,” he said.
”I knew my aunt was gone.”
Ah, yes, but there could be other reasons for that knowledge. He didn't want to think about that, though. ”Something else.”
Maris bowed her head, looking at the ground in front of her feet as she moved along. ”Sometimes they're little things, relatively unimportant things. Like I'll wake up with a newspaper headline in my head, and when I retrieve the paper from the front steps, it's there.”
”But couldn't that be some trick your mind plays on you? Where you think you thought of it before, but you really hadn't?”
Her lips compressed. She shook her head.
”I want to believe you, Maris. I really think I do want to.”
”You didn't before. What's changed?”
He released a breath through his nostrils. ”I don't know.”
Maris lifted her head and looked across the long parking lot they'd reached. ”I had a breast cancer scare a few years back. I hadn't even gone to my yearly appointment yet, didn't know the doctor would send me for an ultrasound because she felt something in her exam. I had a vision of the entire visit as I was waking up, though. I knew the doctor's exact words. I told my mother about it in advance, and she came with me to the appointment, stood by as the doctor told me her concerns. My mother knows what I can do, and she doesn't like it. She asked me to never tell her anything like that again.”
The catch in Maris's voice, the evident pain, twisted Dan's guts into a knot. But it could all be an act. It could. ”Everything turned out all right?”
”Oh yeah, I was fine.” She smiled, the turn of her lips visible through her blowing hair, the white feather in her right ear entwined in the black strands.
He reached out and stroked the tiny plume, pulling the hair away. ”Peace, Maris.”
Her hand shot up and grasped the feather between thumb and forefinger, pus.h.i.+ng his hand away in the process.
”I'm sorry,” he said. ”I didn't mean-”
”Don't apologize. You didn't do anything wrong. I was surprised, that's all.”
She picked up her pace, scurrying toward the sign of the park's layout several dozen feet away. Dan joined her a moment later, observing her finger pressed to a point on the map.
”I didn't think I remembered this place. According to that over there”-she nodded at the park's history charted out on the sign-”this park was created a while after I left with my family. I want to go see this.”
Dan leaned forward for a better look. He hadn't needed to. Of course Maris would gravitate toward that particular landmark. He straightened. ”The sun's nearly down. I don't think we should be hiking in the dark.”
”Why? You think somebody's going to arrest us? You're a cop. You should have some leverage.”
”No, it's the dark that worries me. The terrain isn't all that level.” And he had no desire to test the validity of the tales that had been circulating for years regarding the stone circle-the Circle of Alcina, from which the town had gotten its name. Buried for a century or more beneath the encroaching forest, some of the stones tumbled flat long ago, the whole monument had been unearthed and resurrected as a project of some professor who had finally located it after years of searching. The preserve was created around the circle with the monolithic stones as the focal point.
Maris fumbled through her purse and pulled out a flashlight a few seconds later. She flicked it on. ”Not dark. We're good.”
”Great.”
”I'll lead the way. It says the path is marked.”
”Even better.”
Dan followed close behind, looking from side to side beyond the light's beam into the deep shadows beneath the trees. The park was a perfect place for an attack, if someone was so inclined. Dark, secluded, and a good five hundred feet away was the nearest neighbor liable to hear a cry for help . The naturalist, Felicia Woodward, lived in that house all by herself. She never gave an impression she had any fear of this place. She was a lot like Maris in her beliefs and her att.i.tude. Maybe he should introduce the two of them. Maybe Maris wouldn't feel so alone.
As that final sentiment circled through his brain, he had a strong urge to take the woman marching in front of him into his arms. That would be a mistake, one he couldn't come back from.
Maris stopped abruptly and spun to face him.
”s.h.i.+t,” he said. ”Are you going to tell me you know what I'm thinking?”
She c.o.c.ked her head to the side, flipping the flashlight up to his face and back down toward the ground again. ”Why? Is it bad? I was just going to say we're here.” Turning around, she raised the beam. Twenty feet away the stones rose out of the earth like the silvered bones of giants. A chill danced down his spine. He'd been here once or twice in recent years to roust out unruly teenagers drinking inside the circle. In the atmosphere of a silent night without commotion, he could understand why people made up stories about the stones.
”Come on, Detective. I'll race you.”
”I'm not-” But she was gone, and the light with her.
Maris stood in the center of the circle with the dark flashlight held against her thigh. Enough ambient light existed from above for Dan to pick his way in after her. She'd sensed his hesitation when she insisted they come to the stones and had wondered why he faltered. She had no regrets. It was amazing and beautiful. Tonight, she would describe this in her diary. She'd been writing down her thoughts since she was a teenager, most of them intimate and not the type of thing she'd share. But the act of writing helped her to cope. Her therapist had suggested the exercise to help with healing, but she had chosen to keep it going.
Raising her arms toward the sky, head tipped back, she turned in a slow circle. Energy reflected off the stones' surfaces like radiant heat on a sunny day. Even through her sweater, the hairs on her arms lifted with the fizzing of power. She felt welcomed here, as if encircled by old friends. She understood the force encased in a configuration of stones such as this, had learned of it in her lessons with Aunt Alva long ago. A strength existed within the circles, often called upon by many to enhance their gifts.
Maris stopped turning, lowering her arms to her sides. She'd been told her family had lived for generations in this area, nearly four hundred years of connection. Had the females of her bloodline met here, communing beneath the stars, before the stones had fallen?
And I am the last.
A sound welled up in her throat like a howl. She clamped her teeth together to keep the noise contained, refusing to let it loose into the night. All around her whispers began to flutter like leaves in the wind. Or was it the wind? Confused and unsteady, she began to turn again, arms outstretched for balance.
”Maris!”
”Dan, I'm he-” Holy Mother of G.o.d, what the h.e.l.l was that?
Tall and thin and nearly in the shape of a man, a shadow flitted from stone to stone with no source of illumination strong enough to create it. Maris sucked in a breath, lifting the flashlight, thumb fumbling for the switch.
”Who are you?” she hissed through her teeth.
You know who I am.
”No. I don't.” Maris depressed the round b.u.t.ton on the flashlight's plastic casing. The bulb remained dark.
Yes. You do.
”Maris!”
”I don't. I swear I don't.”
Think. Think hard...
<script>