Nora Roberts - The Hollow

Gage swiped at it, grinned. “Not for long.”

Cal strode to the house, threw open the door to let the dogs out. Then simply sat on the floor of the back porch with his arms full of Lump.

“It’s not supposed to come here.” Fox walked forward, too, set a hand on the porch rail he’d helped build. “It’s never been able to come here. Not to our families.”

“Things are different now.” Cybil crouched down and rubbed the other two dogs as they wagged tails. “These dogs aren’t scared. It didn’t happen for them. Just us.”

“And if my parents had been in there?”

“It wouldn’t have happened for them either.” Quinn dropped down beside Cal. “How many times have the three of you seen things no one else has?”

“Sometimes they’re real,” Fox pointed out.

“This wasn’t. It just wanted to shake us up, scare us. It-Oh God, the journals.”

“I have them.”

Fox turned, saw Layla standing in the rain, clutching the wrapped package against her breasts. “It wanted to hurt you. Couldn’t you feel it? Because you found them. Couldn’t you feel the hate?”

He’d felt nothing, Fox realized, but panic-and that was a mistake. “So he scored one, too.” He crossed to Layla, drew up the hood that had fallen away. “But we’re still ahead.”

THERE WAS COFFEE FOR THOSE WHO WANTED IT, and a fire burning bright in Cal’s living room to warm chilled bones. There were enough dry clothes to go around, though Layla wasn’t sure what sort of a fashion statement she made in a pair of Cal’s jogging shorts bagging well past her knees and a shirt several sizes too big. But Cybil had snagged the spare jeans Quinn had left at Cal’s, and beggars couldn’t be choosers.

While the washer and dryer churned away, she topped off her coffee. Her feet swished over the kitchen floor in enormous wool socks.

“Nice outfit,” Fox said from the doorway.

“Could start a trend.” She turned to face him. Cal’s clothes fit him a great deal better than they did her. “Are you all right now?”

“Yeah.” He got a Coke out of the fridge. “I’m going to ask you to put whatever mad you’ve still got on aside for a while. We’ll deal with them later, if we have to.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it? Personal feelings, reactions, relationships. They get in the way, knot things up.”

“Maybe. Can’t do much about it as person ’s the root of personal. We can’t stop being people, or it wins.”

“What would have happened if Gage hadn’t stopped you, if you’d gotten inside the house?”

“I don’t know.”

“You do, or you can speculate. Here’s what I speculate. At that moment, the fire was real to you, you believed it, so it was real. You felt the heat, the smoke. And if you’d gotten in, despite how quickly you heal, you could’ve died because you believed.”

“I let the son of a bitch scam me. My mistake.”

“Not the point. It could kill you. I never really considered that before. It could use your mind to end your life.”

“So we have to be smarter.” He shrugged, but the gesture was an irritable jerk that told her temper was still lurking inside him. “It got one over on me today because nothing’s ever happened at the farm, or at Cal’s parents’ house. They’ve always been out-of-bounds. Safe zones. So I didn’t think, I just reacted. That’s never smart.”

“If it had been real, you’d have gone in. You’d have risked your life to save three dogs. I don’t know what to think of you,” she said after a moment. “I don’t know what to feel. So I guess, like my mad, I need to put that aside and deal with it later.”

“Sorry.” Quinn stood in the doorway of the adjoining dining room. “We’re ready in here.”

“Just coming.” Layla walked out. A few seconds later, Fox followed.

“I guess we should just dive in.” Quinn took a seat beside Cal at the table. She glanced over to where Cybil sat with a notepad, ready to write down thoughts, impressions. “So, who wants to do the honors?”

Six people studied the wrapped package on the table. Six people said nothing.

“Oh, hell, this is silly.” Quinn picked up the books, carefully unwrapped them. “Even considering they were protected, they’re awfully well preserved.”

“We can assume, under the circumstances, she had some power, some knowledge of magicks,” Cybil pointed out. “Pick one, read an entry aloud.”

“Okay, here goes.” There were three, so she took the top one, opened it to the first entry. The ink was faded, but legible, the handwriting-familiar now-careful and clear.

“ ‘There must be a record, I think, of what was, what is, what will be. I am Ann. My father, Jonathan Hawkins, brought my mother, my sister, brother, and me to this place we call the Hollow. It is a new world where he believes we will be happy. So we have been. It is a green place, a rough place, a quiet place. He and my uncle cleared land for shelter, for crops. The water is cold and clear in the spring. More came, and the Hollow became Hawkins Hollow. My father has built a small and pretty stone house, and we have been comfortable there.

“ ‘There is work, as there should be work, to keep the mind and hands busy, to provide and to build. Those who settle here have built a stone chapel for worship. I have attended the services, as is expected. But I do not find God there. I have found him in the wood. It is there I feel at peace. It is there I first met Giles.

“ ‘Perhaps love does not come in an instant, but takes lifetimes. Is this how I knew, in that instant, such love? Is this how I felt, even saw in my mind’s eye lifetime by lifetime with this man who lived alone in a stone cabin in the green shadowed wood that held the altar stone?

“ ‘He waited for me. This I knew as well. He waited for me to come to him, to see him, to know him. When we met we spoke of simple things, as is proper. We spoke of the sun and the wild berries I picked, of my father, of the hide Giles tanned.

“ ‘We did not speak of gods and demons, of magic and destiny, not then. That would come.

“ ‘I walked the wood, wandered my way to the stone cabin and the altar at every opportunity. He was always waiting for me. So the love of lifetimes bloomed again, in the green wood, in secret. I was his again, as I ever was, as I ever will be.’ ”

Quinn paused, sighed. “That’s the first entry. It’s lovely.”

“Pretty words don’t make much of a weapon,” Gage commented. “They don’t provide answers.”

“I disagree with that,” Cybil said. “And I think she deserves to have those words read as she wrote them. Lifetimes,” she continued, tapping her notes. “That indicates her understanding that she and Dent were reincarnations of the guardian and his mate. Time and again. And he waited for her to accept it. He didn’t launch right into, ‘Hey, guess what, you and I are going to get cozy. You’ll get knocked up with triplets, we’ll hassle with some Big Evil Bastard, and a few hundred years from now our ancestors are going to fight the fight.’ ”

“Boy, a guy hits me with a line like that, I’m naked in a heartbeat.” Quinn traced a finger down the page. “I’m with Cyb on this. There’s value in every word because she wrote it. It’s hard not to be impatient, just skim over looking for some magic formula for destroying demons.”

Layla shook her head. “It won’t be like that anyway.”

“No, I don’t think so either. Should I read on, in order?”

“I think we should see how it evolved, from her eyes.” Fox glanced at Gage, at Cal. “Keep going, Quinn.”

She read of love, of changes of seasons, of chores and quiet moments. Ann wrote of death, of life, of new faces. She wrote of the people who came to the stone cabin for healing. She wrote of her first kiss beside a stream where the water sparkled in the sun. She wrote of sitting with Giles in the stone cabin, in front of a fire that flamed red and gold as he told her of what had come before.