Chapter 15 Arden #3
She wasn’t sure if she believed or not. But maybe it was silly to disbelieve the idea of true visions in this world of magic, where fated mates were a real thing, and she had just seen a gorgeous man turn into a bear and back again.
“I saw you both in a field of flowers,” Fern said.
“He’s holding you, and there are dark clouds looming over both of you.
Something is coming that I can’t see clearly.
In some part of me, I knew you were going to be my friend as soon as I saw you.
I knew you.” She swallowed and rubbed her forehead.
“But I made myself forget, long ago. It was just so weird to know all of that about our adult futures when I was nothing but a child. I didn’t remember it until I was back at the well today. ”
Arden shook her head slowly. “I don’t know if I really understand. It’s not that I don’t believe you, exactly, it’s just ...”
“I don’t know if I’d believe me if I were you, either,” Fern said earnestly.
“But it was you that I saw, Arden. It was so vivid. I remember I used to think of you as the girl with two-color hair. I—I had a vision like that about all of us. I saw who we were going to be with ... I think.” She dropped her voice.
“But I don’t understand it. There’s so much.
I saw a man with different colored eyes.
And a woman with silver hair—I think maybe the goat lady?
It all runs together. I had forgotten nearly all of it until today. ”
A man with different colored eyes—Sloan? Arden thought. Her ex-husband’s bodyguard? That didn’t seem good. “Could some of these people actually mean us harm?” she asked. “Maybe they’re not all meant to be friends.”
“Maybe,” Fern said slowly. “I’m still trying to sort it all out. I haven’t decided what to tell the others. But I wanted you to know, because my vision for you was very clear.”
“Baz and me in the wildflowers.”
Fern nodded and screwed her eyes shut. “I can see the town behind you. It’s all very vivid. And the dark clouds ... they’re coming. Something bad is coming. It involves you, and Baz, and all of us.”
Arden shivered. “You should tell this to Baz.”
Fern chewed her lip. “I’m afraid to. I don’t want Declan finding out, not as protective of the clan as he is, and, um—”
“He doesn’t like me,” Arden said.
“It’s not just that. He and Baz are struggling over control of the clan, and I’m afraid if I bring this up with either of them, it could blow up terribly. Baz would never cast you out, I’m confident of that.”
Well, that makes one of us, Arden thought. But Fern was right that, when it came right down to thinking about Baz casting her out, she could hardly imagine it.
“But Declan would,” she said.
“Yes. And it would bring the clan to blows. Maybe split us down the middle.”
It was on the tip of Arden’s tongue to ask why it was so important that the clan stay together.
Maybe Declan should leave; it seemed like he did nothing but argue with the others.
But then she thought about everything she knew about shifters, everything she had seen about them on TV and read once she had decided to start learning about them properly rather than just hearing the rumors and stories.
Clan meant something to them that was went even beyond what family was to a human.
It was deep and instinctive; it was at the core of who they were.
The fact that Baz was willing to go against his clan for her meant more, she suspected, than she could ever really understand.
She didn’t want to force him to risk that for her sake.
“What else do you know about the bad thing that’s coming?” she asked. “Can we stop it?”
“I don’t know,” Fern said. Her voice sounded plaintive. “I thought it was the flood at first ... But it’s not, the rain is almost past now, and that just makes me feel worse. Because the danger is growing, and I have no idea what direction it’s going to come from.”
Arden impulsively clasped both of Fern’s small, cold hands in hers. “We’ll figure it out,” she promised. “Whatever it is, I think your clan is strong enough to deal with it.”
Fern squeezed back. “I think maybe you’re the one who can save us.”
Arden didn’t know whether either of them really believed that, but it was clear that Fern was weakening. Arden patted her hand, tucked the blanket around her, and went to the door to tell Lexie that it was all right to come back in.
The rain had stopped almost completely, but she found Lexie, Declan, and Baz all talking quietly beside the rain barrel.
They seemed to be having a quiet argument.
They all hushed when Arden stepped out, and she stopped.
She was suddenly conscious of being an outsider, the sense of camaraderie she had felt earlier fleeing from her in an instant.
“I—um—I’m done talking to Fern,” she said. “I was just going to head back home.”
Baz stepped over to her quickly, separating himself from Lexie and Declan, and Arden had a sudden, uncomfortably strong sense of us and them. Her and Baz and Fern; Lexie and Declan. Maybe she was the bad thing, she thought miserably. Maybe she was destined to divide the clan.
Or maybe she was supposed to save them, like Fern said. She wished she knew what was true.
“I’ll walk you back,” Baz said. He put his arm around her shoulders, as if in a demonstration of support—or maybe protectiveness. Against his clan? she wondered unhappily.
But if she was in the middle of it already, she had no choice but to go forward.
She went back in to retrieve her rain poncho from where she had draped it by the fire. “Lexie, I’ll bring your things back in the morning,” she called.
“No problem,” Lexie said, coming in after her. She gave Arden a smile; was it only Arden’s imagination that it no longer seemed as friendly? “Keep them as long as you need. I’ve got plenty of things to wear.”
Arden and Baz went outside. It was a pleasant night now that the rain had stopped, sharply cool but not cold.
Arden could hear the rushing of the creek very loudly, but water was no longer flowing down Main Street, and Fern had said that the flood wasn’t the Bad Thing, so she decided not to worry about it.
“What were you guys talking about?” she asked as they walked up the street, keeping to the boardwalk to try to avoid getting too wet and muddy again.
The night was dark as pitch, and Baz used a small flashlight to light their way.
With his other hand, he took hers, and Arden folded her fingers firmly through his.
“Nothing to do with you,” Baz said. “We were trying to figure out what to do about the wild shifter clans.”
Arden looked up at him. In the dimly reflected light from the flashlight, she couldn’t quite make out his expression, but she found that she believed him. She didn’t think he’d lie to her. But that meant— “It is my problem, though,” she said. “At least partly, if they don’t want me here.”
“That’s something we’ll work out,” Baz said. “You don’t need to worry about it.”
But she did worry about it. After he had left, with lingering touches in the dark (but no kiss this time), she stirred up the coals in her stove to reheat the stone-cold water for cocoa, and while waiting, she huddled in her sleeping bag thinking about it.
Fern and the Bad Thing, the wild shifter clans, the animosity from Declan that she still didn’t understand—and the shadow of her not-so-ex-husband Grant Hamilton hanging over it all.
She hated the idea of leaving the first place she had wanted to stay for a long time. Let alone leaving Baz, which already felt like having her heart ripped out. But she might not have a choice, if leaving was the only way to protect everyone.