Chapter 13 #2
“What?”
“I know.” Shanna’s voice shook. “I don’t understand.”
“Let’s look at the envelope, then. Unless you’d like to do it alone?”
“No, I …” A light blush spread across her cheeks. “I’d like you to be there.”
They went back to her room, where Shanna unwrapped the package.
Inside the envelope was a single sheet of paper.
Simon only saw the handwritten words “Behind the waterfall” before Shanna turned the paper around, showing him the image on the other side: a photo of a long, thin waterfall, flowing into teal-colored waters from a steep, vividly green mountainside.
“I think that’s Milford Sound again,” Shanna said. “Which would fit with her itinerary.”
“And mean that might be the last stop, or at least a significant stop,” Simon said. “If she’s telling you to go there.”
“But how did she know I’d come? And did she know why I’d come?”
“I don’t know.”
“I have to call Gran. Maybe she has something written down from Mom that would explain this.”
She pulled out her phone, dialed the number, and put it on speaker. After the required small talk about food, the weather, and a greeting from Jinx, Shanna got to the point. Simon stayed silent, not wanting to interrupt the consultation of the witches, but grateful he was kept in the loop.
“No, nothing I have written down explains it,” Dolores said. “And you’re certain this was your mom?”
“Nelly said so. And the coincidence is too big.” Shanna ran a hand through her hair, leaving it gloriously ruffled, as if it’s been hit with a good dose of static electricity. “We’ll go on to Milford Sound, then. Mom’s postcard and her message coincide.”
“While on the topic of the ritual,” Dolores said, “I suppose I should tell you about the other condition.”
“There’s another?” Shanna glanced at Simon; he shrugged.
“I did say there were a couple. Just didn’t want to lay them onto you all at once.”
“Oh, no.” Shanna huffed. “Who do I have to date now?”
“Well,” Dolores drawled.
“Gran!”
“It’s not exactly a date. You know how, in some spells and rituals, you have to do what feels like the opposite of what you should be doing?”
“Like the spell for cleanliness, where you have to blow dust from a jar?”
“Yes. For Hel’s bond to break, before the ritual with the Mercurial Crystal, the pair wishing to break the bond must first unite by giving in to their basic instinct.”
“Their what?” Shanna spit out.
“Oh, dear. One would think you’re eight, not twenty-eight,” Dolores said. “The hanky-panky!”
“Please never say that word out loud again,” Shanna murmured, coloring to the tips of her ears.
“You and Simon have to—”
“Gran.” Shanna picked up the phone. “He’s here. He can hear everything.”
“Oh, hi, dear!” Dolores said. “Take good care of my granddaughter, if you know what I mean.”
Simon wasn’t sure if he was blushing as much as Shanna, but he definitely wanted to be a few feet underground right now.
Or maybe a ghost again.
“Y-yes, Dolores,” he stammered. “I will.”
Shanna canceled the call. “This is ridiculous! We’re not going to …” She got up and paced the room. “I’m so sorry for Gran.”
He stared at the rumpled sheet left behind in Shanna’s wake, half lost in thought. “Choice of words aside, she says it must be done for the ritual to succeed.”
“Maybe there’s a loophole. Or maybe basic instinct means something else in our case.”
“Do you think it means something else?”
She stopped, slumping her shoulders. “No.”
If the situation were different, Simon would laugh. He rarely had women trying their best to get out of sleeping with him. Unless Shanna was so against it because—
“In Vegas …” He gulped, trying to get the words out. “That night, did we …?”
She vigorously shook her head. “No. The only thing we did was kiss, and even that only as a part of the wedding vows.” Her previously subsiding blush returned, and she lowered her eyes.
So he’d kissed her before … and had forgotten it. He couldn’t ask her how the kiss had been. Had she liked it, or had they both been so drunk it was one of those slobbery abominations?
Was that why Shanna was so resistant to the notion of them sleeping together?
And why was he …
Why was he not resistant at all?
On one hand, it felt demeaning, both to him and Shanna, to have to do something like this.
On the other hand, it was just sex. How many one-night stands did he have in his semi-wild college years?
How many relationships that proved pointless once his partners got over the thrill of dating Simon Montague?
Sex, in its base form, didn’t have to mean much. It was simple.
But Shanna wasn’t. And Simon was beginning to think that this relationship, as much as it shouldn’t even exist, wasn’t, either.
“Let’s not think about it.” Shanna’s faux-dismissive tone indicated how desperately she wanted to steer the conversation back into normalcy.
“We’re not in a hurry. Milford Sound is still a few days away.
And even then, who knows if we’ll find the Mercurial Crystal there, or we’ll have to continue on and figure out where Mom died and where she left it … ”
“Okay.” He stood and gave her a comforting smile. Regardless of his uncontrolled desires, he’d be damned if he’d force anything onto her.
“Shall we go check on Chris?”
“Sure. I hope she hasn’t emptied the bar by now.”
They found Chris at one of the tables in the outside eating area, munching on nachos and reading a thick book. She lifted her eyes to them. “So, we going gold-panning, or what?”
Shanna and Simon looked at each other. Washing out river sand in hopes of catching a sliver of gold sounded mindless and most likely fruitless. But at the moment, he could go for mindless. “If you’re up for it, let’s do it.”
The repeated process of sinking the rented, plastic gold pan in the milky-blue waters, then shaking it to find the non-existing gold, should have been boring to no end, but somehow, Simon found himself relaxing more and more over the three hours they spent at the river bank.
It was not the same as tampering with the electric components of a device to arrive at something new or making predictions on a computer, but it came to the same conclusion.
It was satisfying, in that calm sense he also got when he sat down to design something without pressure, without having a specific purpose in mind.
And a few times, when the fine river sand glittered just so, he also got the same kind of thrill.
The glittering was not uncommon. All three of them had seen it, but collecting those little specks of gold would be a fool’s errand.
Then, as they were all shaking their pans in the same rhythm, Chris suddenly stood up, jumping on the spot.
“I got it. I got it!” She picked a tiny golden nugget out of her pan; so small that, if the sun hadn’t hit it just right and made it glint, Simon wouldn’t have even noticed it.
“I got gold! Ha, suckers!”
He’d never seen Chris so excited and animated as now, when she ran down the rocky river bank, continuing to jump and yell.
Shanna sat next to him, an amused smile on her face. “How little it takes to make someone happy, huh?”
“Little? We spent three hours on this,” he said, matching the amusement with his tone.
Shanna laughed and hugged her knees. “It was three hours well spent. In the company of friends.”
It really was.
“Listen,” he said after a moment of silence.
“We’ll have to fulfill that condition at some point.
” Even if she had nowhere urgent to be, surely, she didn’t want to be bonded forever.
It worked, for the most part, while they were traveling together, but for regular life, a hundred-foot limit was too inconvenient.
“I know.”
“Let me suggest something.” He tilted his head, glancing at her from the side.
“I don’t want it to be awkward. Between us.
So let’s imagine it as that night in Vegas.
Let’s be strangers. Meet today, gone tomorrow.
Whatever happens in between, it wasn’t us.
It was Jason and Anneliese, or whoever else you want to be. ”
Shanna slowly nodded. “I think I get it.”
“And still, I’m not forcing you into anything.
” Even if his relationships sucked, being intimate without consequences was usually easier for men than for women.
“If you’re ready tonight, give me a tug.
We’ll meet at the bar. Talk. See what happens.
If it doesn’t, we’ll think of something else. Yes?”
She stared over the river, her eyes the palest, softest blue in the mild afternoon light. “All right,” she said. “Let’s try.”