Fates 06 - Totally Spellbound Page 16

  The sky was as blue as Kyle’s eyes, and the ocean matched it. But Kyle wasn’t anywhere around, and neither was John Little or Little John or whatever he was called.

  Instead, Robin Hood stood beside her, watching her with a bemused expression on his face.

  He looked out of place here, in that beautiful suit, with his brown hair and his pale, pale skin. His eyes twinkled, though. She’d never seen his eyes twinkle. That made him seem almost human.

  The first time she’d met him, he’d looked like a fantasy man. This afternoon, he’d been a nightmare.

  And now his eyes were twinkling—on this rock-strewn hillside, with an ocean pounding hundreds of feet below.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. She’d been asking that too much in the last few days.

  “Do you like ouzo?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Or don’t you drink?”

  She shook her head.

  He nodded toward a white building she hadn’t seen until now. It was hidden against the upper part of the cliff face. “They serve a mean ouzo. But we can go somewhere else if you like.”

  Somewhere else? Where were they now? She made herself take a deep breath. She’d never breathed air quite like this, filled with the sea and such sunshine and scents she’d never smelled before.

  The sun in Vegas wasn’t this bright, and the sky wasn’t this clear. This looked as unreal as the highway had last night, when she’d seen the rabbit and the falcon and this very strange man dressed like a hunter.

  “Take me back to Kyle,” she said, not sure if she was away from Kyle or just having some sort of bizarre hallucination.

  “Not yet,” Robin said. “You wanted to know what was going on, and you were wedded to your perception of reality, even though it’s not an accurate one.”

  She had spoken those words to patients, over and over again. But her patients hadn’t understood how the real world worked. The world she had grown up in. The world with Mini Coopers and Las Vegas office buildings and little boys who read too many comic books.

  Not a world with psychics and people who talked about the Fates as if they were real.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  He gave her a soft smile. It made his face seem—less harsh? Warmer? And yet somehow even more masculine and mysterious—then he pointed in front of him.

  Her gaze followed his finger. Ahead stood a mountain shrouded in fog. The fog looked fake, especially in this bright, sunlit world with the clear, clear edges.

  “Mount Olympus,” he said. “You’ve probably read about it.”

  She hadn’t just read about it. She’d been there during her junior year in college. She’d managed to travel all over Europe that spring semester, and get college credit for it. At the end, she had gone to Greece all on her own, seen the Parthenon, and looked at Mount Olympus.

  It hadn’t looked like this.

  Which wasn’t exactly true. It had looked like this in a broken down, real world sort of way. The mountain before her looked like the Hollywood version of Mount Olympus. Certainly not the version she had seen on her trip.

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “Where’s the trapdoor? Is this like Disneyland, where we find some sideways exit and return to the world of neon, gamblers, and the Blue Man Group?”

  He studied her for a moment, the soft smile gone. “There’s no trapdoor.”

  “Then how did we get here?”

  “Like this.” He snapped his fingers again.

  And suddenly, she was standing in the living room of her condo. Newspapers were scattered across the floor. The three novels she’d been reading simultaneously were all facedown on her coffee table, along with two open cans of Diet Coke.

  The dirty dishes she had left for later were still sitting in her sink, and the suit she’d worn to the office two days ago littered the hardwood floor of her hallway.

  Her life really was a mess. She never used to be this sloppy.

  “Is this better?”

  She jumped. Robin stood beside her. She hadn’t realized he was still there.

  He studied the portraits on her wall, all photographs of her family taken with her black-and-white camera. She’d been quite the photographer once, but she’d given it up to concentrate on her career.

  “Why would this be better?” she asked.

  “You were obviously having trouble seeing Mount Olympus as the real world. I thought maybe your home would be real to you.”

  She walked to the window and looked out. Condos, strip malls, and freeways. Yes, she was in Los Angeles. The mountains were lost in a polluted haze, and even though the sun was out, the sky looked a vague gray-green.

  “What’s going on?” she asked again. Only this time, she really wasn’t asking him, she was asking herself.

  He took her hand. His fingers were warm and dry and callused, which surprised her. She thought an arrogant businessman like him would have soft fingers. Then she remembered the falcon.

  He led her to her couch, pushed some magazines aside, and sat her down. He sat beside her, not letting her fingers go.

  “There really is magic in the world,” he said gently.

  She looked at him. This man had gone from furious to tender in the space of a few minutes. Of course, if he were to be believed, they both had gone from Vegas to Greece to L.A. in those same few minutes.

  “Why would you put it on yourself to tell me this?” she asked.

  He shrugged. She had a sense that he wasn’t going to tell her the whole truth.

  “Somehow you’ve gotten mixed up with the Fates,” he said. “They’re dangerous women. You have a psychic nephew who knows Zoe Sinclair, who is also magic. You’re surrounded by people who have a power you haven’t been aware of until just recently, and even so, they haven’t helped you see that power. I don’t think that’s fair.”

  “To whom?” she asked.

  “To you.” His voice was still gentle.

  “Why would you care about me?”

  His eyes were a rich brown, the color of mahogany wood, and inside them, she saw layers of emotions, so many she couldn’t identify them all.

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” he asked. “Logically, I should have thrown you all out of my office today and gone on with my life.”

  He didn’t say any more. After a few seconds, she prompted, “But?”

  He shrugged. “I feel responsible for you somehow.”

  She dropped his hand and stood up. No one was responsible for her except herself. She had always been responsible for herself. She didn’t need anyone else’s help.

  “Take me back to Kyle,” she said.

  Robin frowned, looking confused. “What did I say?”

  “You don’t have to take care of me,” she said. “No one takes care of me.”

  “That’s pretty clear.” He was staring at his hands, but he was probably referring to her condo. It was in a state because she had left in a hurry, she wanted to say. But she didn’t. Because it had been like this for months. One of the classic signs of depression—letting herself, her home, her world, fall apart.

  “You brought us here uninvited,” she said, and then stopped.

  How had he done that? This wasn’t a planned set like the fake Olympus. (Had that really been fake?) This was her condo, right down to the slightly vanilla odor that had lingered ever since she knocked over a mostly melted scented candle behind her kitchen counter.

  He looked up at her. “I wasn’t referring to your place. I haven’t been in my home long enough to make it this comfortable. I envy places that are lived in like this.”

  He sounded sincere and a bit baffled at her emotion. She sank back onto the couch. “Then what did you mean?”

  “No one around you has been kind enough to explain the magic that clearly exists in your life.”

  His words made her heart twist. Kyle had always tried. Travers hadn’t known until recently. And then there was that thing Zoe had done with th
e eggs this morning.

  “It’s more complicated than that,” Megan said.

  “It seems pretty straightforward to me,” Robin said. “Sometimes when people learn about magic, they learn about it slowly. It takes a while for their new reality to filter in. But you don’t have time for a slow dawning. You’re driving the Fates around as if you’re their personal chauffeur. You have to know how dangerous that is.”

  “You’ve used the word dangerous twice now about them,” Megan said. “What do you mean?”

  He shook his head and sighed. “Where to begin?”

  She was familiar with this. It almost felt like a therapy session, only she didn’t want to analyze this man. Still, she took those callused fingers in her own.

  “Begin wherever you like,” she said.

  Thirteen

  She wasn’t standing in the reception area of an office building any more. Instead, she wobbled slightly on stone-covered grass. The air smelled of the sea. Before her, cliffs rose, their walls blindingly white in the hot sun.

  The sky was as blue as Kyle’s eyes, and the ocean matched it. But Kyle wasn’t anywhere around, and neither was John Little or Little John or whatever he was called.

  Instead, Robin Hood stood beside her, watching her with a bemused expression on his face.

  He looked out of place here, in that beautiful suit, with his brown hair and his pale, pale skin. His eyes twinkled, though. She’d never seen his eyes twinkle. That made him seem almost human.

  The first time she’d met him, he’d looked like a fantasy man. This afternoon, he’d been a nightmare.

  And now his eyes were twinkling—on this rock-strewn hillside, with an ocean pounding hundreds of feet below.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. She’d been asking that too much in the last few days.

  “Do you like ouzo?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Or don’t you drink?”

  She shook her head.

  He nodded toward a white building she hadn’t seen until now. It was hidden against the upper part of the cliff face. “They serve a mean ouzo. But we can go somewhere else if you like.”

  Somewhere else? Where were they now? She made herself take a deep breath. She’d never breathed air quite like this, filled with the sea and such sunshine and scents she’d never smelled before.

  The sun in Vegas wasn’t this bright, and the sky wasn’t this clear. This looked as unreal as the highway had last night, when she’d seen the rabbit and the falcon and this very strange man dressed like a hunter.

  “Take me back to Kyle,” she said, not sure if she was away from Kyle or just having some sort of bizarre hallucination.

  “Not yet,” Robin said. “You wanted to know what was going on, and you were wedded to your perception of reality, even though it’s not an accurate one.”

  She had spoken those words to patients, over and over again. But her patients hadn’t understood how the real world worked. The world she had grown up in. The world with Mini Coopers and Las Vegas office buildings and little boys who read too many comic books.

  Not a world with psychics and people who talked about the Fates as if they were real.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  He gave her a soft smile. It made his face seem—less harsh? Warmer? And yet somehow even more masculine and mysterious—then he pointed in front of him.

  Her gaze followed his finger. Ahead stood a mountain shrouded in fog. The fog looked fake, especially in this bright, sunlit world with the clear, clear edges.

  “Mount Olympus,” he said. “You’ve probably read about it.”

  She hadn’t just read about it. She’d been there during her junior year in college. She’d managed to travel all over Europe that spring semester, and get college credit for it. At the end, she had gone to Greece all on her own, seen the Parthenon, and looked at Mount Olympus.

  It hadn’t looked like this.

  Which wasn’t exactly true. It had looked like this in a broken down, real world sort of way. The mountain before her looked like the Hollywood version of Mount Olympus. Certainly not the version she had seen on her trip.

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “Where’s the trapdoor? Is this like Disneyland, where we find some sideways exit and return to the world of neon, gamblers, and the Blue Man Group?”

  He studied her for a moment, the soft smile gone. “There’s no trapdoor.”

  “Then how did we get here?”

  “Like this.” He snapped his fingers again.

  And suddenly, she was standing in the living room of her condo. Newspapers were scattered across the floor. The three novels she’d been reading simultaneously were all facedown on her coffee table, along with two open cans of Diet Coke.

  The dirty dishes she had left for later were still sitting in her sink, and the suit she’d worn to the office two days ago littered the hardwood floor of her hallway.

  Her life really was a mess. She never used to be this sloppy.

  “Is this better?”

  She jumped. Robin stood beside her. She hadn’t realized he was still there.

  He studied the portraits on her wall, all photographs of her family taken with her black-and-white camera. She’d been quite the photographer once, but she’d given it up to concentrate on her career.

  “Why would this be better?” she asked.

  “You were obviously having trouble seeing Mount Olympus as the real world. I thought maybe your home would be real to you.”

  She walked to the window and looked out. Condos, strip malls, and freeways. Yes, she was in Los Angeles. The mountains were lost in a polluted haze, and even though the sun was out, the sky looked a vague gray-green.

  “What’s going on?” she asked again. Only this time, she really wasn’t asking him, she was asking herself.

  He took her hand. His fingers were warm and dry and callused, which surprised her. She thought an arrogant businessman like him would have soft fingers. Then she remembered the falcon.

  He led her to her couch, pushed some magazines aside, and sat her down. He sat beside her, not letting her fingers go.

  “There really is magic in the world,” he said gently.

  She looked at him. This man had gone from furious to tender in the space of a few minutes. Of course, if he were to be believed, they both had gone from Vegas to Greece to L.A. in those same few minutes.

  “Why would you put it on yourself to tell me this?” she asked.

  He shrugged. She had a sense that he wasn’t going to tell her the whole truth.

  “Somehow you’ve gotten mixed up with the Fates,” he said. “They’re dangerous women. You have a psychic nephew who knows Zoe Sinclair, who is also magic. You’re surrounded by people who have a power you haven’t been aware of until just recently, and even so, they haven’t helped you see that power. I don’t think that’s fair.”

  “To whom?” she asked.

  “To you.” His voice was still gentle.

  “Why would you care about me?”

  His eyes were a rich brown, the color of mahogany wood, and inside them, she saw layers of emotions, so many she couldn’t identify them all.

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” he asked. “Logically, I should have thrown you all out of my office today and gone on with my life.”

  He didn’t say any more. After a few seconds, she prompted, “But?”

  He shrugged. “I feel responsible for you somehow.”

  She dropped his hand and stood up. No one was responsible for her except herself. She had always been responsible for herself. She didn’t need anyone else’s help.

  “Take me back to Kyle,” she said.

  Robin frowned, looking confused. “What did I say?”

  “You don’t have to take care of me,” she said. “No one takes care of me.”

  “That’s pretty clear.” He was staring at his hands, but he was probably referring to her condo. It was in a state because she had left
in a hurry, she wanted to say. But she didn’t. Because it had been like this for months. One of the classic signs of depression—letting herself, her home, her world, fall apart.

  “You brought us here uninvited,” she said, and then stopped.

  How had he done that? This wasn’t a planned set like the fake Olympus. (Had that really been fake?) This was her condo, right down to the slightly vanilla odor that had lingered ever since she knocked over a mostly melted scented candle behind her kitchen counter.

  He looked up at her. “I wasn’t referring to your place. I haven’t been in my home long enough to make it this comfortable. I envy places that are lived in like this.”

  He sounded sincere and a bit baffled at her emotion. She sank back onto the couch. “Then what did you mean?”

  “No one around you has been kind enough to explain the magic that clearly exists in your life.”

  His words made her heart twist. Kyle had always tried. Travers hadn’t known until recently. And then there was that thing Zoe had done with the eggs this morning.

  “It’s more complicated than that,” Megan said.

  “It seems pretty straightforward to me,” Robin said. “Sometimes when people learn about magic, they learn about it slowly. It takes a while for their new reality to filter in. But you don’t have time for a slow dawning. You’re driving the Fates around as if you’re their personal chauffeur. You have to know how dangerous that is.”

  “You’ve used the word dangerous twice now about them,” Megan said. “What do you mean?”

  He shook his head and sighed. “Where to begin?”

  She was familiar with this. It almost felt like a therapy session, only she didn’t want to analyze this man. Still, she took those callused fingers in her own.

  “Begin wherever you like,” she said.

  Fourteen

  Suddenly he was back there, the place he never really wanted to be ever again.

  The day that Marian died.

  Only he wasn’t really there. He was standing outside it, like an observer of his own life, and this other woman was beside him, holding his hand.