Chapter Nineteen #3
“But I have something that may perk you up. Dr. Ricci was trying to reach you and he does have something he wants to share. Some kind of progress involving”—she heard papers rattling—“discoveries about what they thought were just hymenopteran—geez, what a word—viruses in non-hymen-whatever arthro—”
“Hymenoptera are mostly bees. Non-hymenopteran arthropods are species like spiders, cockroaches, termites—”
“Yuck. Okay. Anyway, they are finding viruses in places they didn’t expect, and he wants you to get the story.”
“Not just theory? He has evidence?”
“That they are getting ready to put out in preprint, but he wants you to get the story at the same time.” Lance sounded very pleased with himself.
“Sounds like a good story.” She knew that she didn’t sound enthused.
“How would you like to fly to Milan? To really get a story this time?”
Milan. Dr. Ricci. A long plane flight. No.
What she wanted was to stay here. On the mountain. This place that felt like coming home. This family that was beginning to feel like an extension of her own.
And Daniel was out there wandering around because being near her was torture.
“Sure.”
“You okay?” Lance asked. “You sound kinda weird.”
She tried to focus. “I’m… It’s been a busy day. Personal stuff. Kind of intense.”
“Well, Dr. Ricci sounded like he’d had that kind of day himself. He really wants to talk to you,” Lance said.
“I’d like to talk to him too.” About being vague and obtuse and playing spy games and nearly getting her killed.
“It’s more than that. He’s offering you an exclusive. If you don’t do the story, they will just put out the preprint and leave it to us to translate that stuff into English,” Lance said. “He really wants you to have the story. Apparently, he feels like he owes you. When can you fly out?”
Mel rubbed at her temples. He doesn’t owe me anything. We all owe Daniel.
“As soon as you like,” she said. “Do you mind getting me reservations?”
“On our dime this time, short stuff. Already done.”
“Already…?” She sighed. Dammit, Lance. Don’t make it too easy for me. “When?”
“Tomorrow morning, seven o’clock. From Knoxville to Chicago, then London, then Milan. Got you a hotel near the airport tonight, guaranteed late check-in, and in Milan Tuesday night. Interview with Ricci on Wednesday at noon.”
She swallowed hard. “Fine.”
“Great! I’ll email you the details.” Lance sounded ecstatic. “You are the best, babe.”
“Yeah… I’m the best.” She ended the call.
Beyond where she was sitting, in the darkness of the woods, fireflies blinked and danced. With a quick, deep breath, she drained the rest of her coffee and went back to the sunroom. Grace was waiting for her inside.
“I have to leave,” Mel said.
“Not…not right this minute, I hope?” Grace said.
“Actually, yes. They need me in Milan, where all this started, with Ricci.” Mel went to the kitchen, where her backpack sat on a chair at the breakfast bar. She set down her empty mug, grabbed her laptop and the papers around it, and crammed it all in her pack with one stiff motion.
“They?” Nick asked.
“Well, actually, he. He has a scoop for me,” she said. “Is Dr. Ricci safe now?”
“He’s being protected by the local authorities,” Nick said. “You’ll be searched before interviewing him, I expect.”
She nodded. “That’s fine.”
Grace walked up beside her. “You’re welcome to come back here when you’re done.”
Mel looked away. “I… That’s probably not a good idea.”
“Why?”
“I think you know.”
There was a pause before Grace said, “He won’t understand.”
“But I understand,” Mel said. She motioned at the windows. “He’s out there because it hurts him too much to be around me. He’s afraid it will keep on hurting like that forever. All his endings.” The tears were threatening again. “I can’t be responsible for hurting him.”
Grace was clearly struggling with the emotions Mel was projecting. Even Nick coughed uneasily, but Mel didn’t care. At least now they knew how much she loved Daniel—so much that she had to leave him the hell alone.
“But you can’t…” Grace forced the words out past her own tears. “You can’t decide that for him. It’s his decision. He needs time.”
Mel picked up her pack and took an unsteady breath. “This will give him time,” she said. Seeing Nick’s cell lying on the breakfast bar, she pushed it toward him, swiping at the tears on her face. “Call him and tell him to come home.”
Thankfully, her fuchsia suitcase was still at the bottom of the staircase. She grabbed it, opening the door awkwardly with her backpack in one hand and her suitcase in the other, trying not to start crying again when she heard Grace’s anxious voice from the kitchen.
“When are you going to come home, Mel?”
“Didn’t Daniel tell you? My home is the road.”
Once she reached her Mini and threw everything in, she realized that, once again, she hadn’t really unpacked.
Daniel pulled out Mel’s camera and wondered if she left things behind wherever she went: a pair of jeans here, origami bees there, a camera. Despite saying she never really unpacked, she left little bits of herself everywhere, as if to say Mel was here.
He smiled, looking through the photos and videos as he walked. She liked the old home place a lot, judging by all her pictures of it, the garden, and her videos of the house. He wondered if she would still feel the same about it after today.
“Oh, I am in love.”
Mel’s voice. For a moment it made his heart leap, until he realized it came from the camera. This afternoon on their tour of the old home place, when he’d thought she was filming the bridge, the camera had been pointed right at him.
Damn. Why did he go for a walk? He wanted to be with Mel right now. But Grace and Nick were taking care of her. Grace had probably given her something to take the edge off and put her to bed.
She had been an emotional wreck after the incident. When he’d scooped her up in his arms, he hadn’t even thought about having a vision, hadn’t cared. When he had sensed the world dissolving to black begin, he had delivered a sharp, mental Not now.
And the vision didn’t happen. Stopped before it even started.
That had never worked before. He had tried it when Jamie had fallen, but the vision had overridden his command, literally knocked him down.
Apparently, if the vision was urgent enough, it would demand his attention. That was good to know.
Mel had been in a state, and his own guilt and remorse only made things worse.
She had kept muttering and crying, apologizing that she couldn’t shield over and over.
When he had reached the car with her, he had fished out her moonstone pendant and put it in her fingers, then tucked her head under his chin and told her to breathe.
Even swamped by her stress and pain, he had been overwhelmed by the knowledge that he loved her more than life itself. He could deal with anything as long as she was safe and alive. He loved her.
Sitting there with her in his arms, he allowed the visions to come when she had quieted, to make sure she really was safe. But it had been the same vision he had seen on the plane—Mel leaving the mountain and Grace asking her when she was going to come home.
Even if he couldn’t change that future, even if she ran away from him, she would be alive and safe somewhere, and that was enough. It had to be.
So he sat there with his chin on her head, breathing with her until Grace showed up and took over. Then he had headed up with Nick to get Jamie and Pooka, and see how bad things were.
If he hadn’t been trying so hard to avoid touching Mel, he might have seen it all happen before Nino even arrived on the mountain.
He could have confronted him alone and spared the others the trauma.
Of course, that might not have worked out either.
There was no way to know for sure, as quickly as things seemed to diverge and shift.
But he could control the visions now. No more gloves. No more zoning out in the middle of a conversation. And he could force them to replay if needed. No way to know what would happen with his dreams, but that was a problem for another day.
And he learned he wasn’t alone with his gift.
There was at least one other out there like him, but Nino used his gift in the most mercenary ways possible.
When he had touched the man at the Sheriff’s office, he was left feeling as if he had looked in a dark mirror, reflecting yet another dark mirror, reflecting yet another, with figures and faces that he couldn’t see clearly and voices that he couldn’t hear.
A ghastly funhouse that told him nothing.
He thought back to the tarot reading—the Two of Swords.
A stalemate between equally matched opponents.
And without Mel’s gift, it would have been.
Nino had thought Mel was the seer. He probably suspected that was how she had escaped him at every turn.
They had all been doing a deadly dance with all their possible futures since Italy. It was dizzying and unsettling.
That was why he’d decided to take a walk. He’d asked Nick to drop him at the old home place so he could find Mel’s camera, which she had lost in the clearing, and check the new hives. The swarms had already settled into their new homes.
Then he’d hurried over the ridge, the shortest way home. If Mel was asleep, he could look in on her. He could even spend the night in the chair in her room again. When she felt better, he could touch her and maybe kiss her, really kiss her, with no fear of a vision.
He crested the ridge and looked down at the farm in the moonlight. First, he needed to tell her how he felt. He needed her to understand why he had been dragging his feet.
He remembered her standing in the piazza in her tourist guide pose, pointing to the duke’s statue. Don’t put off until tomorrow, the love you desire today.
He saw lights dancing in and out of the trees next to the house. Fireflies.
Then he saw a tiny convertible with racing stripes pull out of the parking area and head for the gate.
What the…?
“Mel!” he shouted, but it was too late. She was gone. Why was she leaving? How could they let her drive off in the condition she was in?
As he raced down the ridge, his phone rang, nearly making him lose his footing. Nick.
“Where’s she going?” he huffed.
“Milan. Tonight,” Nick replied. “I take it you’re close by?”
“What do you think?”
“Good.” Nick ended the call.
Daniel barreled into the house. Grace was hunched over on the couch in the warming room, and Nick had his arm around her. For the first time in a while, there were tears on Grace’s cheeks.
“What happened? What’s wrong?” Daniel asked.
“It’s not me. It’s Mel,” Grace said, her voice shaking a bit.
Nick rubbed her arm. “Mel was projecting like crazy. I think Grace got a double dose of it because of Lily.”
Grace sniffed and waved her hand around. “Not to mention the hormones and everything.”
“What—?”
Nick held up a hand. “Sit down and take a breather. I have no idea what airport she’s going to, so it will have to wait until I can track her down. And I am not going to do that until everyone calms down. Including you.”
Daniel sat on one of the chairs. “I’m calm.”
“Sure you are.”
“Dammit, I thought she’d be asleep by now. That I’d have time,” he said. “Is she all right to drive?”
“She drank a mug of my strongest coffee,” Nick said. “She could drive to Europe.”
Grace sniffed. “She was broadcasting so strongly I imagine a few folks in the cabins nearby are crying too.”
Mel was crying and miserable, and it was because of him.
“She’s in love with you,” Grace said.
Daniel blinked. “She told you that?”
“Didn’t need to,” Nick said. “We felt it.”
Grace sniffed, looking up at Nick. “It was the way I felt when you left here last year.”
“It’s the way I felt too, driving off.” Nick pulled her into his arms and rubbed her back. “Damn, that gift of Mel’s is powerful.” Nick looked back at Daniel. “Took you long enough to come back.”
“I needed time to clear my head. I didn’t think it’d be good for her if I was around,” Daniel said. “She was so raw.”
“She said she’s never been drained like that before. Chalk it up to experience,” Nick said. “But I bet she’ll have a hangover, or something like it.”
Grace lifted her head. “You need to go after her. Right now. And I don’t want to hear any more about worrying about how long things will last or seeing endings. Things end. What matters is everything before that.”
Daniel nodded. “A day with Mel will be enough, if that’s all we have,” he said, almost to himself. “I’ll take what comes.”
Grace’s face contorted and she started crying again. “Oh, that’s so beautiful.”
Nick’s mouth quirked. “Finally figured it out, huh?” he said as he pulled Grace into his arms again.
“What can I say? I’m a slow learner,” Daniel said, and finally smiled. “But I get there in the end.”