Cate Tiernan - Seeker

As I unlocked the door, I told Mary K. I thought Paula was going to be all right. She had stopped crying but still looked very upset. She got into the passenger seat without saying anything; and I looked over at her before I started the engine.

Mary K.’s large brown eyes met mine and she asked me what I had done.

I looked out the windshield into the salt-strained street—winter was ending, and it seemed like I was seeing the bare ground, bare trees, bare sidewalks for the first time. I thought of Alisa and her brief illness, how Mary K. still seemed to think I healed her.

I didn’t know what to say.

“Nothing,” I whispered.

— Morgan

On Saturday morning I finished writing my Justine Courceau report for the council. I’d spent quite a bit of time with her, discussed all the different facets of true names, had further interviews with the people in Foxton, and gone through her library. The summary of my report was that she needed reeducation but wasn’t dangerous and that no serious action need be taken, once I witnessed her destroying her written list of true names.

I signed it, addressed an envelope, put the report inside, and sealed it. Da was sitting in the room’s one chair. I told him what the report said, and to my surprise, he looked like he was actually listening. He rubbed his hand across his chin, and I recognized the gesture as one I make myself when I’m thinking.

“Reeducation, eh?” he said. “You think so? I mean, you think that will be enough?”

“That and destroying her list,” I said. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

He shrugged. “I think there’s more to Justine than meets the eye.”

I gave him my full attention. “Please explain.”

He shrugged again. “You don’t really know her. You might not want to accept her at face value.”

“Do you have anything concrete or specific that should change what I said in my report?”

“No,” he admitted. “Nothing more than I feel suspicious. I feel she’s hiding something.”

“Hmmm,” I said. On the one hand, the report was written, and I didn’t want to redo it, though of course I would if I turned up new information. On the other hand, Da, despite his many enormous faults, was still nobody’s fool, and it would be stupid of me not to pay attention to what he said. On the third hand, Da had just spent eleven years on the run and was probably pretty likely to be suspicious of everyone.

“Right, well, thanks for telling me that,” I said. “I’ll keep that in mind this afternoon.”

“Yup,” Da said. “Anyway, she’s got a nice library.”

“Hunter! Welcome back. Come in,” Justine said.

“Hello. I’ve wrapped up my report, and I wanted to give you the gist of it before my father and I take off.” I got out of my coat and draped it over the back of the sofa, then sat down across from her.

“Oh, great. Where is your father?”

“Back at the B and B. He gets tired very easily, though he definitely seems better since you did the healing rite.”

“I’m glad. Okay, now tell me about your frightening report on the evil and dangerous Justine Courceau.”

She was openly laughing at me, and I grinned back. Not many people feel safe teasing me—Morgan and Sky are the only ones who came to mind. And now Justine.

Briefly I filled her in on what I had reported to Kennet, expecting her to be relieved and pleased. But to my surprise, her face began to look more and more concerned, then upset, then angry.

“Reeducated!” she finally burst out, her eyes glittering. “Haven’t you heard a thing I’ve said? Have our talks meant nothing?”

“Of course I’ve heard what you said,” I responded. “Haven’t you heard what I’ve said? I thought you’d come to agree with the council’s position on true names of living beings.”

“I said I understood it,” Justine cried, getting to her feet. “Not that I agree with it! I thought I’d made that perfectly clear.”

I stood up also. “How can you not agree? How can you possibly defend keeping a written list of the true names of living beings? Don’t you remember that story I told you, about the boy in my village and the fox?”

She threw her arms out to the sides. “What has that got to do with anything? That’s like saying don’t go to Africa because I knew someone who tripped and broke their leg there. I’m not an uneducated child!”

Before I realized it, we were shouting our views and shooting the other’s down. It turned out that all week we had been dancing around each other, skirting the issues, avoiding openly confronting each other and, in so doing, had made incorrect assumptions about what we agreed on, how we felt, what we were willing to do. I had thought I was being a subtle but influential Seeker, but Justine had chosen not to be influenced.

Ten minutes into it, our faces were flushed with heat and anger, and Justine actually put out her hands and shoved against my chest, saying, "You are being so pigheaded!”

I grabbed her arms below her shoulders and resisted the temptation to shake her. “Me pigheaded? You have pigheaded written all over you! Not to mention self-centeredness!”

At that very instant, as Justine was drawing in a breath to let me have it again, I became aware that someone was watching me, scrying for me. I blinked and concentrated and knew that Justine had just picked up on it, too. It was Morgan, trying to find me. She must not have cast concealing spells. As soon as I made that connection, she winked out, as if she were only trying to locate me to see where I was. I looked down at Justine, saw what we looked like, with her hands pressed against my stomach and me holding her arms, both of us arguing passionately, and realized what it might have looked like to Morgan. “Oh, bloody hell,” I muttered, dropping my hands.

“Who was that?” Justine asked, her anger, like mine, deflated.

“Bloody hell,” I repeated, and without warning, my whole life came crashing down on me. I loved Morgan, but she’d been spying on me! I was a Seeker but growing increasingly uncomfortable with the council’s secrecy and some of its methods. And my da! I didn’t even want to go there. My father who wasn’t a father; my mother who was dead. It was all too much, and I wanted to disappear up a mountain-side, never to be seen again. I rubbed my hand against my face, across my jaw, feeling about forty years old and very, very tired.

“Hunter, what is it?” Justine asked in a normal voice.

I raised my head to look at her, her concerned eyes the color of oak leaves in fall, and the next thing I knew, she had pressed herself against me and was pulling my head down to kiss me. I was startled but could have pulled back. But didn’t. Instead my head dipped, my arms went around her, and our mouths met with an urgency as hot as our argument had been. Details registered in my mind: that Justine was shorter and curvier than Morgan, that she was strong but less aggressive than Morgan, that she tasted like oranges and cinnamon. I drew her closer, wanting her to turn into Morgan, then realized what I was doing and pulled back.

Breathing hard, I looked down at Justine, horrified by what I had just done, even as I acknowledged that I had liked it, that it had felt good. She smiled up at me, her lips full, her eyes shining.

“I’ve been wanting to do that since the first moment I saw you,” she said, her voice soft. “I haven’t been this attracted to anyone in I don’t know how long.” She reached for me again and spread her hands across my chest, splaying her fingers and pressing against the muscle there. Gently I covered her hands with mine and pulled them away from me.