that choice had nearly broken them apart. They’d stayed together in the end, but she’d never been happy about what I did. Roland, however, saw it as a duty. Destiny, even. I wasn’t like one of those silly people in the movies who could “see dead people” and go crazy from it. I easily could have ignored my abilities. But as far as Roland was concerned, that was a sin. To neglect one’s calling was a waste, especially when it meant others would suffer. So he tried to treat me as objectively as he would any other apprentice, fighting his personal feelings.
Yet, for some reason now, he wanted to hold me back. Weird. I’d come here for strategy and ended up on the defensive.
I changed the subject abruptly, telling him about how the keres had known my name. He cut me a look, not wanting to drop the Jasmine topic. My mom’s car pulled in just then, giving me a temporary victory. With a sigh and a look of warning, he told me not to worry about the name. It happened sometimes. His had eventually gotten out too, and little had come of it.
My mom came into the kitchen, and shamanic business disappeared. Her face—so like mine, down to the shape and high cheekbones—put on a smile as warm as Roland’s. Only hers was tinged with something a little different. She always carried a perpetual concern for me. Sometimes I thought it simply had to do with what I did for a living. Yet, she’d had that worry ever since I was little, like I might disappear on her at any moment. Maybe it was just a mom thing.
She placed a paper bag on the counter and began putting away groceries. I knew she knew what I was doing there, but she chose to ignore it.
“You going to stay for dinner?” she asked. “I think you’ve lost weight.”
“She has not,” said Roland.
“She’s too skinny,” complained my mom. “Not that I’d mind a little of that.”
I smiled. My mom looked amazing.
“You need to eat more,” she continued.
“I eat, like, three candy bars a day. I’m not depriving myself of calories.” I walked over and poked her in the arm. “Watch it, you’re being all momlike. Smart, professional moms aren’t supposed to be that way.”
She cut me a look. “I’m a therapist. I have to be twice as momlike.”
In the end, I stayed for dinner. Tim was a great cook, but nothing could ever really replace my mom’s food. While we ate, we talked about their vacation in Idaho. Neither Jasmine nor the keres ever came up.
When I finally got back home, I found Tim getting ready to go out with a gaggle of giggling girls. He was in full pseudo-Indian regalia, complete with a beaded head wrap and buckskin vest.
“Greetings, Sister Eugenie,” he said, holding up a palm like he was in some sort of Old West movie. “Join us. We’re going to a concert over in Davidson Park, so that we may commune with the Great Spirit’s gift of springtime whilst letting the sacred beat of the music course through our souls.”
“No thanks,” I said, brushing past him and going straight to my room.
A moment later, he followed sans girls.
“Oh, come on, Eug. It’s gonna be a blast. We’ve got a cooler of beer and everything.”
“Sorry, Tim. I don’t really feel like being a squaw tonight.”
“That’s a derogatory term.”
“I know it is. Very much so. But your bleach-blond posse out there doesn’t deserve much better.” I eyed him askance. “Don’t even think about bringing any of them back here tonight.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know the rules.” He flounced into my wicker chair. “So what are you going to do instead? Shop on the Internet? Work puzzles?”
I’d actually been thinking of doing both those things, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
“Hey, I’ve got stuff to do.”
“Fuck, Eugenie. You’re becoming a hermit. I almost miss Dean. He was an asshole, but at least he got you out of the house.”
I made a face. Dean was my last boyfriend; we’d broken up six months ago. The split had been kind of unexpected for both of us. I hadn’t expected to find him screwing his real estate agent, and he hadn’t expected to get caught. I knew now I was better off without him, but some niggling part always wondered what about me had made him lose interest. Not exciting enough? Pretty enough? Good enough in bed?
“Some things are worse than staying home alone,” I muttered. “Dean is one of them.”
“Timothy?” one of the girls called from the living room. “Are you coming?”
“One moment, gentle flower,” he hollered back. To me he said, “You sure you wanna hole up here all night? It isn’t really healthy to be away from people so much.”
“I’m fine. Go enjoy your flowers.”
He shrugged and left. Once by myself, I fixed a sandwich and shopped on the Internet, exactly as he’d predicted. It was followed by a puzzle depicting an M. C. Escher drawing. A bit harder than the kitten.
Halfway through, I found myself staring at the puzzle pieces without seeing them. Roland’s quiet, fierce words played over in my head. Let Jasmine Delaney go. Everything he’d told me had been true. Dropping this was the smart thing to do. The safe thing to do. I knew I should listen to him…yet some part of me kept thinking of the young, smiling face Wil had shown me. Angrily, I shoved some of the puzzle pieces aside. This job wasn’t supposed to be about gray moral decisions. It was black and white. Find the bad guys. Kill or banish. Go home at the end of the day.
I stood up, suddenly no longer wanting to be alone. I didn’t want to be left with my own thoughts. I wanted to be out with people. Clarification: I didn’t want to talk to people, I just wanted to be around them. Lost in the crowd. I needed to see my own kind—warm, living and breathing humans, not undead spirits or magic-infused gentry. I wanted to remember which side of the fence I was on. More important, I wanted to forget Jasmine Delaney. At least for tonight
I threw on some jeans and the first bra and shirt I could find. My rings and bracelets always stayed on me, but I added a moonstone necklace that hung low in the shirt’s V-neck. I brushed my long hair into a high ponytail, missing a few strands. A dab of lipstick, and I was ready to go. Ready to lose myself. Ready to forget.
Chapter Three
I’d been people-watching for almost an hour, so I saw him as soon as he walked in. It was hard not to. The eyes of a few other women in the bar showed that I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, nicely muscled but not over the top in some crazy Arnold Schwarzenegger way. He wore khakis with a navy blue T-shirt tucked into them. His black hair was not quite to his chin, and he had it tucked behind his ears. His eyes were large and dark, set in a smoothly chiseled face with perfect, golden-tanned skin. There was some mix of ethnicities going on there, I suspected, but none I could discern. Whatever the combo, it worked. Extremely well.
“Hey, is anyone sitting here?” He nodded at the chair beside me. It was the only empty one at the bar.
I
