The sky was cloudy with the approaching storm, and the wind was growing stronger as she made her way up the cliffs outside of town.
She saw the huge oak first with nothing beneath it – no wet wizards lying in wait for her – and then she went into the stone circle, slightly out of breath, and started to climb up onto the great lump of boulder affectionately known as the Great Big Rock. Some ancient glacier had dragged it down, but now it was smooth and rounded by thousands of years of weather, and she reached the top of it easily enough, hunkering down, trying to catch her breath.
Something was definitely wrong, and Dee must have been right to call for the vote this morning. She’d been a fool to abstain.
She shoved her tangled hair out of her face, lifting her head to look down at the peaceful little town beneath her. No sign of any mysteriously colorful wizard searching for her -maybe his powers were like electricity and he’d shorted out. Maybe he’d given up…
‘I’m sorry.’
She almost fell off the boulder, but he reached out his hand to catch her. Touching him was even worse, but she managed to regain her balance on the rock without it, turning to look at him, fighting the impulse to run once more.
‘You’re not wet,’ she said.
He shook his head. He didn’t look the least bit ruffled -however he’d managed to follow her, it clearly hadn’t been at the same dead run. ‘I could see what you were going to do. It was easy enough to put up a barrier. I’m afraid your floor’s a mess.’
She sighed. ‘My fault,’ she said. ‘It needed washing anyway. Why did you follow me?’
‘We haven’t finished. I’m sorry I insulted your choice of life partners. Clearly there’s no accounting for tastes.’
‘Clearly,’ she said. She’d underestimated him. Her parents could never have appeared as he had, crossing time and space with seemingly no effort. They’d been better at flashy tricks to delight their television audience, not real power. She was dealing with something more complicated than she’d even known existed, and she had to be careful not to lose her temper again. Which shouldn’t be hard – she never lost her temper. Except for today. With this man.
‘I really don’t want you here,’ she said in what she hoped was a reasonable voice. ‘How can I make you just go away and leave us alone? Go back to where you came from, wherever that is.’
‘Toledo.’
‘Toledo?’ she echoed. ‘As in Ohio?’ Somehow he didn’t strike her as the Midwestern type.
‘As in Spain.’
She digested the information, ignoring the little pang of envy. She’d always wanted to go to Spain. ‘Listen, we have a comfortable life here, and we’re not bothering anyone. Can’t you just forget you ever found us?’
He looked at her for a long moment. She would have thought being outside would have muted him, made him less formidable when she wasn’t trapped in a room with him. She was wrong. Even at the top of a mountain he was a disturbingly powerful presence. One she needed to get rid of, fast.
He didn’t look like he was going to be easily swayed. ‘You want me to disappear from your life, forget you ever existed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Fine. Then you do what I tell you and we’ll have a bargain.’
She didn’t like making bargains with the devil, and Elric whoever-he-was was downright satanic. But she wasn’t sure she had much choice. And what are you going to tell me to do?’ she asked, wary.
‘Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to show you how to turn straw into gold.’
She stared at him. ‘I thought we weren’t supposed to cross elemental boundaries. I thought you were going to stop me.’
Elric shrugged, a sight beautiful to behold. ‘I have a feeling you’re going to anyway, so I might as well accept the fact and make certain you’re prepared for the ramifications.’
And what might those be?’
‘It won’t stay gold. But if you’re lucky it’ll stay that way long enough for you to cash it in and get out of here. Assuming that’s what you want to do. Somehow I can’t see the children of Phil and Fiona Fortune living in suburbia. They were a little more upscale.’
‘I’m not my parents,’ she said stiffly. ‘I have no intention of ripping people off, and I’m not interested in fame. I need to make money fairly’
‘And you think using magic spells is a fair way to make money? That’s one thing that never tends to work – if it did, the twenty richest people in the world would be ones with our kind of gifts. Personal gain is frowned upon, and it never works out well. Look what happened to your parents.’
In fact, she didn’t know what happened to her parents, only that they’d died. Dee didn’t like her asking questions, and something had kept her from looking into it. She barely remembered those years in the limelight – she’d hated the attention from the media, the indifference of her parents. Their quest for fame and fortune had killed them – she knew that much. And she had no interest in following in their footsteps.
Her motives, however, were pure. She needed the money for her sisters, but she wasn’t about to waste time with explanations. She wasn’t about to tell him anything more than he needed to know. He knew too much already. ‘Is there anything I can use to turn into gold that will stay that way?’
‘Some base metals. If you go about it the right way, and your intentions are pure. I’m just not sure I can teach you that much in the next three days.’
‘Three days?’ she said faintly. ‘You’re planning to stay in the area that long?’ She was horrified, though she wasn’t sure if it was because he was staying too long or leaving too soon.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m planning to stay in your house that long.’
‘Not if my sisters have anything to say about it. Dee doesn’t allow sleepovers.’
‘If Charles is any example, I can see why not. However, she isn’t going to know. I have no intention of letting her see me.’
‘Dee sees far too much,’ Lizzie said, glum.
‘This isn’t a case of a teenage girl trying to break curfew,’ Elric said. ‘Trust me.’
That’s not going to happen anytime soon, she thought. ‘There isn’t an extra bedroom. There’s no place for you to sleep.’
‘Your bedroom will do.’
‘I only have one bed.’
‘We’ll take turns.’
She stared at him, frustration bubbling up. She would have told him what he could take turns doing, but it wouldn’t have any effect and would only upset her stomach.
‘I don’t like you,’ she said in a sulky voice.
Again that demoralizing smile. ‘Of course you do. That’s part of the problem.’ Before she could open her mouth to protest he went on, ‘Why don’t we go back to the house and you can show me what you’ve been working on, show me what you’ve learned so far? We can take it from there.’
Back to the house that suddenly seemed way too small with him in it? She didn’t really have any choice. ‘Give me a minute,’ she said. ‘I’m not quite ready to hike back.’
‘No need,’ he said, and took her right hand in his before she could stop him.
Colors everywhere, with the wind streaming through her hair, pulling it free of the pins she’d stuck into it to hold it in place. The smell of lilacs, a sea of pinkywhite dogwoods like a carpet beneath her, and she was back in their kitchen, ready to throw up.
He was no longer holding her hand, a small mercy, and she couldn’t read anything in his dark, mesmerizing eyes. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ he said. ‘If you keep having problems, a little Dramamine will do wonders.’
‘What…’ Her voice came out in a choked gasp. ‘What did you just do?’
‘I didn’t think we had time for a leisurely stroll through
Salem’s Fork, and your fiancé might start asking questions if you were seen with me. I just got us here a little quicker.’
‘Don’t do that again,’ she said. ‘Or at least give me a little warning.’