6. Old Enemies
6
OLD ENEMIES
I knew Jeremiah was only trying to help. And I also knew I needed to accept that help, because I didn’t see how I could possibly blunder my way to a solution to our problem, not when I might fling us farther into the past…or overshoot and send Seth and me into the twenty-third century or a time even more remote than that.
We’d ended our meeting with a promise to return to Jeremiah’s house the next morning after Jacob had gone to school, and Seth and I had walked back to the hotel. The whole way, he’d been silent, brooding, and I guessed it wasn’t just because we were now surrounded by people heading home from work and needed to keep our mouths shut until we were someplace where we could talk in private.
By some unspoken agreement, we headed to his room. I supposed that was probably a good idea, just because I hadn’t had time to tidy up before we headed down to breakfast, and various bits of clothing and unmentionables were still scattered across the space.
But I sat down on the one chair the hotel room offered — Seth insisted, and I didn’t argue, not when my borrowed boots had been pinching my toes all day. My feet were only a half size bigger than my mother’s, but that half size definitely mattered when you were also carting around about ten extra pounds of bustle dress.
He went and looked out the window. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t much to see; the sun had already started to set, and long shadows were beginning to creep over the town.
But that glance seemed to steady him a little, and he reached up to pull the heavy drapes closed before he turned back to me.
“Do you really think we can trust him?”
I tilted my head to one side. “Do you think we have much of a choice?”
Seth’s mouth flattened slightly, and I could tell he wasn’t too thrilled with my response. “Probably not. But….”
While I thought I understood his concerns, I also knew he was being way too cautious here. “You’ve spent your whole life thinking Jeremiah Wilcox was the bad guy,” I said. “So I can see why you might think he doesn’t have our best interests in mind. But my mother talked about him a lot. Said he was totally misunderstood and really a tragic character. What happened to him wasn’t his fault, and while I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes he didn’t color inside the lines when it came to using magic, he also was fiercely protective of his family.” I stopped there and made myself take a breath before adding, “And I’m his family, too, even if we’re generations removed from each other. He’s going to do his best to see if I can get this stupid talent of mine under control.”
Seth didn’t question me about that “coloring inside the lines” remark, so I guessed coloring books had been around in his time.
Good, since I really didn’t have the energy to explain them to him right then. I added, “Without Jeremiah’s help, my father would have died. And that’s why I know we can trust him. Especially….”
I broke off there, not sure whether that part of the story was mine to tell. Nothing had come of it, anyway.
“Especially what?” Seth asked, and I hesitated again.
No secrets, I told myself. You’ve already kept enough from him.
“Especially because when she first showed up in 1884, Jeremiah was interested in my mother,” I replied. Shock registered on Seth’s features, and I hurried to add, “Of course, he didn’t know who she was then. And later on, still before he knew the truth about her identity, she told Jeremiah she was interested in my father and didn’t have any feelings for him that way, and he backed off. If he were really a horrible person, he could have let my father die out of revenge for being rejected. But he didn’t. Instead, he saved his life. If that’s not enough to make me trust Jeremiah Wilcox, what is?”
Seth didn’t answer at first. He stood a few feet away from me, near the bed, as though he’d considered sitting down on it and then had decided that probably wasn’t a good idea, not when the two of us were trying to be on our best behavior.
“I can see your point,” he said after a moment. “And I can’t even know for sure whether my brain is telling me to be cautious purely because of the situation itself, or only because I’m not quite ready to fully trust a Wilcox.”
Well, there it was. I supposed I’d been fooling myself into thinking Seth had at least partially forgiven me for my deceptions. He’d seemed friendly enough today, but as far as I could tell, he’d acted genial because we were stuck here together and he didn’t see the point in fighting all the time…especially if doing so lowered his chances of making it home.
“That’s painting with kind of a broad brush, don’t you think?” I asked, not bothering to keep the acid out of my voice. “It’s not as if Jeremiah or any of the other Wilcoxes here had anything to do with what happened between the two of us.”
A tense second while Seth stood there in silence, and then he shook his head and shocked me by coming over and taking my hands in his.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t lumping you in with the rest of them.”
It felt so good to have his fingers wrapped around mine, to reassure myself of how warm and strong and present he was, that I also hesitated for a moment before I found my voice.
“But I am a Wilcox,” I reminded him. “At least, on my mother’s side. And since I was raised among them and never knew any of my father’s family, that’s the only clan identity I really have.”
His grip on my hands tightened for a few seconds, and then he let go. However, he didn’t take a step backward and instead remained where he was, gaze fixed on mine.
“I understand,” he said. “Or at least, I’m trying to. And you’re right — I can already tell that the real Jeremiah Wilcox isn’t much like the evil warlock I heard about in all those McAllister stories.”
Stories that probably involved black magic or boiling babies or God knows what else. Inquiring as to the actual content of those stories didn’t seem like a very good idea, however, so I decided to leave it alone.
I had to ask, though. “So…you’re not still mad at me?”
“No,” Seth replied immediately. “I’m not going to lie and say it’s all fine, though. You had your reasons for what you did, but I still feel deep down that you could have confided in me earlier, once you knew you could trust me.” He stopped there, and his mouth twisted into a lopsided grin. “To be honest, it wasn’t until we were talking with Jeremiah that….”
The words trailed off there, and I tilted my head to get a better look at his face. “It wasn’t until what?”
Now it was Seth’s turn to flush. However, he didn’t glance away or try to avoid meeting my eyes. “I thought I saw him looking at you…you know. And it made me kind of jealous.”
I wanted to chuckle, but I knew that was the last thing I should do, not with him standing there only a foot or so away, his expression both earnest and terribly embarrassed at the same time.
“He was definitely not looking at me that way,” I said. “I mean, when my mother came back here, he was attracted to her at first. But he knows he can’t ever be with another woman, not unless he wants her to die a horrible death.”
Seth’s eyes widened. “That’s the curse?”
“You didn’t know about it?”
He reached up to run a hand through his hair, tousling it…and making me wish I’d been the one to touch those heavy, burnished brown waves. “Well, we knew something was wrong with the Wilcoxes, because the primuses only ever had one child, always a son, and the primus’s wife never seemed to live very long. But the exact curse?” His shoulders lifted. “Not really.”
“It’s pretty terrible,” I said. “Jeremiah’s wife Nizhoni became very ill with a fever that even Emma couldn’t cure, and Nizhoni died raving that Jeremiah had abandoned her. She cast a curse on him that the Wilcox primuses would only have sons and would have no happiness from their wives. So for almost a hundred and thirty years, that’s exactly what happened. It wasn’t until my mother’s generation that the curse was finally broken, thanks to the McAllister prima marrying Connor, the Wilcox primus, and the two of them working together to make sure it was ended once and for all.”
Seth blinked. “No wonder the Wilcoxes never seemed too happy with their lot in life, despite their outward prosperity.”
I wasn’t sure how to reply to that comment. True, I’d been born years after the curse was broken, so I’d never known what life was like in the clan before then. However, my grandparents had made stray comments here and there that let me know things had been a whole lot different when Connor Wilcox’s brother Damon was running the show. People generally had been happy in their individual families, but Damon still expected everyone to toe the line…up to and including helping him kidnap Angela McAllister right out of her bedroom on the night of the winter solstice.
In the end, though, that little ploy hadn’t turned out too well for Damon, since his younger brother was the one who was actually Angela’s soul mate.
There probably wasn’t any need to go into all that ancient history with Seth, though. Not for the first time, I wondered uneasily if I’d already told him too much, that the knowledge he now possessed regarding the futures of our two clans was sufficient to throw the timeline entirely out of whack.
Or maybe time wasn’t as malleable as we thought, and in all its interconnectedness and nonlinearity, we were both exactly where we’d always been intended to be.
Not being a theoretical physicist, I couldn’t begin to guess which version of the situation might be correct.
“Oh, they probably did better than you might think,” I said in response to Seth’s comment. “But yeah, it wasn’t all sunshine and roses in the clan, that’s for sure. Anyway, I don’t see any reason to question Jeremiah’s motives in trying to help us out. He’s already experienced what it’s like to have one out-of-time family member wandering around Flagstaff, and that got pretty messy. I’m sure he’d like to send us on our way sooner rather than later.”
My remark earned me an outright grin, as I’d hoped it would. “Yes, I guess I can see how it might be awkward trying to explain us away.” His expression sobered, and he went on, “Do you think his son will mention us to any of the other family members?”
I hadn’t really thought about that angle to the situation. “I’m not sure,” I said slowly. “From what my mother told me, it sounded as if Jacob spends a lot of time with his cousins — which makes sense, since it’s all Wilcoxes next to each other on their side of the street — but I don’t see why he’d have any reason to tell them that his father had some visitors at the house. It’s not the sort of thing that would probably be interesting to a little kid.”
Except even I knew Jacob Wilcox was no ordinary child. Both his parents were extremely powerful witch-folk, and although I’d never heard anything specific about Jacob’s abilities as primus when he took over the clan following his father’s death, I knew my mother had described him as the sort of child who watched everything with careful eyes and pretty much didn’t miss a single detail. It was entirely possible that he might bring up the subject of the unfamiliar couple who’d been visiting his father’s home, if only to see whether word might get back to his aunts and uncles, who then might want to ask Jeremiah a few questions about who he’d been entertaining. After all, it wasn’t as if the Wilcoxes back then had associated with civilians much, unless they were involved in some kind of business deal.
And Jacob wouldn’t have been able to know that Seth and I were witch-folk, since that ability didn’t develop in children until their powers had also begun to appear, and he was way too young for that.
“I’m not sure it really matters,” I added, as much to reassure myself as my companion. “The whole point of pretending to be Eliza’s brother and sister was to explain why a witch and warlock suddenly showed up in Flagstaff, right?”
Seth didn’t appear all that convinced, but at least he didn’t try to argue with me. I could understand why he was feeling unsettled, since I’d experienced that very same reaction several weeks ago when I first landed in 1926. Not that I thought I would ever get used to flitting around in time when I had no idea of where or when I was going, but at least this wasn’t my first rodeo.
My stomach rumbled then, telling me the two tea sandwiches and mini creampuff I’d had at Jeremiah’s house weren’t doing that great a job of keeping it satisfied. Besides, even though my room didn’t have a clock and I hadn’t spied a pocketwatch in any of the belongings my mother had left behind, I could tell by the dusky hues of the day outside the window that it was close enough to dinnertime that we might as well head downstairs.
“Anyway,” I went on. “I’m hungry. Let’s go down to the restaurant and see what’s on the menu, okay?”
Seth looked almost relieved by the suggestion. “That’s a good idea. I could definitely eat as well.”
With the matter settled, we headed to the door and went downstairs. Again, no one seemed to pay us much attention, which was exactly what I’d been hoping for.
With any luck, we’d be able to escape 1884 without anyone realizing we weren’t supposed to be there.
Despite my corset, I decided to go for broke and get the full roast beef dinner, while Seth ordered a steak. And because I’d had enough of Prohibition to last me a lifetime, I went ahead and asked the waiter to bring us a bottle of claret as well. Maybe that was a little bold, since I had a feeling men were supposed to be the ones who ordered the alcohol, but I had a feeling my dinner companion was still too bound by the strictures of the time he’d come from to volunteer to do it himself.
After the man left to get the wine, Seth gave me a curious look from his side of the table. “Are you sure that was such a good idea?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” I returned blithely. “It’s not like I’m driving, and it’s perfectly legal here.”
His mouth tightened a little. “Yes, but aren’t we trying to be careful? Too much wine, and….”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but I understood what he was attempting to tell me. If we got drunk and said the wrong thing, we could cause all sorts of problems for ourselves.
Except I knew half a bottle wasn’t going to do anything except make me the slightest bit tipsy, especially when accompanied by a large meal. And unless Seth was the world’s biggest lightweight — which I supposed he could be, since he’d never had a real chance to drink at all — then I doubted the wine was going to cause much of a problem for him, either.
It seemed he decided it wasn’t a good idea to argue the issue in such a public place, because he settled against the back of his chair and instead reached for the glass of water in front of him and took a sip.
Good thing, since the waiter appeared a moment later and uncorked the wine before pouring a few inches into each of our glasses. He told us the food should be out soon, then headed over to a neighboring table to check on the couple dining there, both of whom were well-dressed enough that I guessed they were probably stopping in Flagstaff on their way across the country, maybe with San Francisco as their destination.
Smiling a little, I lifted my glass. “To an easy trip home,” I said.
Seth was far too well-mannered to ignore the offer of a toast. Looking resigned, he raised his glass against mine and touched it briefly before allowing himself the smallest of sips.
His expression shifted from resignation to surprise. “That’s good.”
Since I’d just drunk some myself, I knew the wine was excellent, much better than I’d been expecting. The label indicated it was from the Bordeaux region of France, which made sense. The Verde Valley might have become one of the premiere viticultural areas in the U.S., but in 1884, no one was growing wine in northern Arizona.
“Of course it’s good,” I said. “There’s a reason why people have been drinking wine for thousands of years.”
A few amused crinkles around his eyes told me he wasn’t going to argue with that comment. “Fair enough. I have to admit, I like it a lot more than brandy.”
It was my turn to look surprised. “When in the world did you drink brandy?”
“Jeremiah offered me some while we were waiting when Emma was healing you. He said it should steady my nerves.”
Well, that made sense. Luckily, I’d still been completely out of it while all that was going on, but I guessed both men had suffered some anxious moments until the healer came out and let them know I was going to be all right.
“Did it work?” I asked, genuinely curious, and Seth grinned.
“More than I expected it to.”
I chuckled, but before I could reply, the waiter came back with our meals. Since we’d already had breakfast here, I knew the food in the hotel’s restaurant was excellent, and dinner was no different. Both of us were quiet for a few minutes as we ate our first mouthfuls and washed them down with claret — and if the look on Seth’s face as he punctuated bites of steak with sips of wine was any indication, then he was beginning to understand why there was a lot to be said for having the right pairing with your meal.
“I think I could get used to this,” he said as he set down his glass, now more than half empty.
While I understood the sentiment — Prohibition was one of the things that had bothered me the most during the time I’d spent in 1926 — I also wasn’t sure whether getting settled here was a very good idea. No, we needed to be working on figuring out a way to get back to our own time, even if there was a certain allure to realizing you weren’t bound by such a stupid law any longer.
I made a noncommittal sound and reached for my glass of wine…then froze.
Standing on the other side of the room, near the entrance to the lobby, was a man I guessed had to be one of the Wilcoxes. Sure, there might have been other men in Flagstaff with hair as sooty and eyes black as coal, and yet I guessed most of them wouldn’t have that utter air of self-assurance, as though they knew they were the lords and masters here, even if the town was officially governed by the mayor and the sheriff.
And then he began to walk toward us.
Seth must have seen the way I’d gone far too still, because he shifted in his seat so he could see where I was looking. “Is that…?” he said in an undertone, and I nodded.
“I’m not sure who, though,” I replied. “Except, judging by the scowl he’s wearing, I have a feeling it must be Samuel.”
Exactly the last Wilcox I had any desire to meet. Maybe it had been na?ve of me to hope we’d manage to avoid crossing paths with the man, considering the size of the town and the way Jeremiah wanted to work with Seth and me.
But even though it had all been okay in the end…even though my father had survived and gone on to thrive in the modern world…I didn’t think I could ever forgive Samuel Wilcox for shooting him in cold blood.
After all, if it hadn’t been for my mother — and Jeremiah — then Robert Rowe would have died in front of the Wilcox family cabin, and neither I nor my brother or sister would have ever been born.
However, I knew there was no way out of this, not with Samuel Wilcox bearing down on us with the inexorable locomotion of a freight train.
Instead, I sat there with what I hoped was a pleasant expression on my face, and reached for a roll to butter it with an air of utter unconcern. Seth did the same — or at least, he continued to cut a piece of his steak as if he had no idea that the one Wilcox who really did live up to the clan’s bad reputation was approaching our table.
Once Samuel was close enough, however, I knew it would be impossible to ignore him. “Can I help you?” I asked politely as he paused by the empty chair to my left.
“You’re new in town,” he said, and his mouth formed the word “witch,” even though he knew better than to say such a thing aloud in a room full of civilians.
“We are,” I replied calmly, even though my heart rate had begun to speed up and the wonderful roast beef I’d been eating seemed to flip-flop in my stomach. This whole time, I hadn’t worried about hiding my witch nature, mostly because Jeremiah obviously knew who I was, and I assumed he would give his relatives whatever story he deemed appropriate.
Besides, what would be the point in making everyone believe I was a civilian when I couldn’t do the same for Seth?
“I’m Louis Prewitt, and this is my sister Deborah,” he added. He, too, looked outwardly relaxed, but a certain tension to his grip on his knife and fork told a different story.
I just had to hope Samuel Wilcox wasn’t perceptive enough to notice such things.
“And you are…?” I prompted, and he scowled.
“Samuel Wilcox,” he said in grudging tones.
“Well, then,” I said, somehow managing to smile. “Did your brother tell you we had come to town to learn something of what happened to our sister Eliza?”
Something in Samuel’s angry expression shifted then. I wouldn’t call it exactly guilt, not when he clearly had no compunction about shooting an innocent man at point-blank range, but still, he knew he was mostly responsible for Eliza’s disappearance.
What had Jeremiah told his brother about all that, anyway? It seemed clear that the townspeople believed Robert Rowe and Eliza Prewitt had run off together, but according to my mother’s account of the incident, Samuel had used his teleportation power to flee the scene, leaving her and Jeremiah to deal with the mortally wounded man, so he wouldn’t have been around to see my parents vanish from the spot.
Something I’d have to ask Jeremiah about the next time I saw him.
But of course, the people whom Seth and I were pretending to be wouldn’t have known any of that. All they would know was that their sister had fled to the Arizona territories and never been heard from again.
“He didn’t mention it,” Samuel said, and something in the way he drawled those words told me he wasn’t too happy with his older brother right then. “No, it was his boy. He said a couple of strangers had come to visit his pa, and that they weren’t the type you’d expect to encounter here in Flagstaff.”
Meaning anyone of witch-kind who wasn’t a Wilcox, I guessed. So much for my assumption that a child that young wouldn’t be able to detect our witch natures.
Which meant he must have also known my mother was a witch. Had Jeremiah given his son just enough information to see why she had come to Flagstaff, and also to understand that he must never say a word about it?
Not too hard an ask, probably. Jacob Wilcox wasn’t the kind of kid to go around blabbing secrets indiscriminately, even though he seemed to make a habit of collecting them.
“Well, I’m sure your brother would have told you soon enough,” I said, still doing my best to sound unconcerned about the situation. “He’s been quite helpful — let us know who we should speak with, gave us some information about the town.”
“Oh, he’s the soul of courtesy,” Samuel responded, irony thick in his tone. “I suppose I’ll just be another member of the family to welcome you to Flagstaff. I hope you find what you’re looking for…quickly.”
A tip of the broad-brimmed black felt hat he wore, and then he turned and walked away from us, heading to the lobby. The people at the table sitting nearby sent Seth and me a curious look, but I only lifted my shoulders and reached for my wine.
I had to hope there hadn’t been enough meat in that exchange to make them ask too many questions…and to hope like hell that the well-dressed couple would be on the next train out of town in the morning. Maybe on the surface, nothing we’d discussed had seemed too remarkable, but I knew if anyone started looking too close, they’d turn up a bunch of contradictions that would be hard to explain.
Seth also sent me a significant glance, but I only answered with the barest shake of my head.
“After dinner,” I murmured.
We wrapped things up quickly, and soon enough, we were mounting the stairs to our rooms. He unlocked his door first, and we went inside, with him quickly shutting it behind us.
“What do you think all that was about?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, even as I realized my hands were shaking a little. The encounter with Samuel Wilcox must have rattled me more than I thought. “That is, my mother said Samuel had a bad temper and often clashed with his brother, so it might have only been him being annoyed that Jeremiah hadn’t told him right away that a couple of witches from the Landon clan had just arrived in town.”
“It looked like he was doing his best to intimidate us without resorting to outright threats,” Seth replied.
“Yes, pretty much,” I said. “That’s just Samuel’s style. Now that he knows Jeremiah is working with us, though, I doubt he’ll do much to interfere with what we’re doing. Or at least, that’s my hope. When we see Jeremiah tomorrow, we’ll have to ask how much Samuel knows about Eliza’s disappearance.”
Surprise flickered in Seth’s blue eyes, dimmer in the illumination from the gas fixtures, but no less clear and beautiful for all that. “Jeremiah wouldn’t have told him the truth?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “My mother obviously had no way of knowing what happened here in 1884 after she went back to her own time. But I get the feeling that Jeremiah probably wouldn’t have told Samuel the whole story. It’s pretty obvious that they don’t get along.”
“True,” Seth said. He paused there, and his mouth lifted in a lopsided smile. “Well, before he appeared, I was having a nice time.”
“No regrets about the wine?” I teased, and his smile broadened.
“None at all. It was good to have with our meal.” Another hesitation, and he took a step toward me so he could reach out and take my hand. “It seems you’re correct about a lot of things, Devynn Rowe.”
While I was nowhere close to being drunk…barely even tipsy…I still couldn’t ignore the sudden flare of heat in me at his touch. The whole time during dinner, I’d kept watching him in that black frock coat and blue brocade vest, thinking how handsome he looked.
And he was even handsomer up close, like he was now.
“Some of the time,” I allowed, and his fingers tightened on mine.
“I can’t tell you how much I want to kiss you right now,” he said, voice dropping to a husky murmur.
A warm shiver went through me. “Then why don’t you?”
Those sky-colored eyes met mine. “Because I’m worried about what will happen.”
I knew he wasn’t talking about further intimacies. No, he was worried — and probably had every right to be — that the second our lips touched, we might be sent somewhere, some when , else, with no control over where we were going.
Even though I also didn’t know what might happen, I still tried to reassure him.
“Nothing like that happened the first time we kissed,” I pointed out, and his eyes narrowed for a second.
“I found out you were a witch.”
True enough. “I still don’t think that’s the same thing,” I said. “Yes, you sensed my witch nature, but it wasn’t as though we were both sent into the future or anything. I honestly believe that what happened after I was shot was simply because of the pain I was in, the way all my control was slipping away from me. That’s what caused us to be sent here. But I’m fully healed, and I’m not in any pain. I don’t think we need to worry about the same thing happening.”
He didn’t reply right away, but he also didn’t let go of my hand. Everything in me wanted to lean toward him, to go on my toes so I could press my lips against his, but I somehow knew that would be the wrong thing to do.
Difficult as it might be, I needed to let him decide whether he was comfortable with this, or whether he thought it far too big a risk.
But apparently he decided that risk was worth it, because he lowered his head a moment later and touched his mouth to mine.
Nothing happened. Or rather, while the delicious, tingly heat I’d experienced at the pressure of his fingers only intensified, we weren’t blinked away into an impossible future or an unimaginable past.
No, we only stood there in his hotel room, as his arms wrapped around me and pulled me tighter, and I wished with all my might that I wasn’t so encased in all those layers of fabric and boning so I might feel more of his body against mine.
And when he shifted a little, ending the kiss, I could see the wonder in his eyes.
“We didn’t travel,” he said.
“No,” I replied. “I think the next time is going to require more effort.”
Now it was my turn to reach down and wrap my fingers around his.
“We’ll just have to hope that Jeremiah can help us find the way back.”