was it, wasn’t it? He had not roused her from her waking sleep. It had been Aaron’s death that had done the trick, bringing her back to all of them.
If he didn’t think of something else quick, he was going to lose his temper again, the hurt was so intense, it was so out of his control.
“Michael, I love you,” she said. “I love you very much. And I know what you’ve suffered. Don’t think I don’t know, Michael.”
He nodded. He’d give her that much, but maybe he was lying to both of them.
“But don’t think you know what it’s like to be the person I am. I was there at the birth, I was the mother. I was the cause, you might say, I was the crucial instrument. And I paid for that. I paid and I paid and I paid. And I’m not the same now. I love you as I always did, my love for you was never in question. But I’m not the same and I can’t be the same, and I knew it when I was sitting out there in the garden, unable to answer your questions or look at you or put my arms around you. I knew it. And yet I loved you, and I love you now. Can you follow what I’m saying?” Again he nodded.
“You want to hurt me, and I know you do,” she said.
“No, not hurt you. Not that. Not hurt you, just … just … rip your little silk skirt off, perhaps, and tear off that blazer that’s been so skillfully painted on and make you know I’m here, I’m Michael! That’s shameful, isn’t it? It’s disgusting, isn’t it? That I want to have you the only way I can, because you shut me out, you left me, you …”
He stopped. This had sometimes happened to him before, that in the midst of cresting anger, he had seen the futility of what he was doing and saying. He had seen the emptiness of anger itself, and realized in a moment of utter practicality that he could not continue like this, that if he did, nothing would be accomplished except his own misery.
He sat still and he felt the anger leave him. He felt his body grow relaxed and almost tired. He sat back against the back of the seat. And then he looked at her again.
She’d never turned away. She looked neither frightened nor sad. He wondered if, in her secret heart, she was bored and wishing him safe at home as she plotted the next steps she would take.
Clear away these thoughts, man, because if you don’t, you can’t love her again, ever.
And he did love her. There wasn’t any doubt suddenly. He loved her strength, he loved her coldness. That’s how it had been in her house on Tiburon, when they’d made it beneath the bare beam roof, when they had talked and talked, with no possible inkling of how they had, all their lives, been moving towards one another.
He reached out and touched her cheek, very aware that her expression hadn’t changed, that she seemed as totally in control as she ever had.
“I do love you!” he whispered.
“I know,” she said.
He laughed under his breath.
“You do?” he asked. He felt himself smile, and it felt good. He laughed silently and shook his head. “You know it!” he said.
“Yes,” she said with a little nod. “I’m afraid for you, always have been. It’s not because you aren’t strong, aren’t capable, aren’t everything you ought to be. I’m afraid because there’s a power in me that you don’t have, and there’s a power in these others—these enemies of ours who killed Aaron—a power that comes from a total lack of scruples.” She flicked a bit of dust off the tight little skirt. When she sighed, the soft sound of it seemed to fill up the car, rather like her perfume.
She lowered her head, a small gesture that made her hair go very soft and longish around her face. And as she looked up, her brows seemed especially long and her eyes both pretty and mysterious.
“Call it witch power, if you will. Maybe it’s as simple as that. Maybe it’s in the genes. Maybe it’s a physical capability to do things that normal people can’t do.”
“Then I have it,” he said.
“No. Coincidentally, perhaps, you have the long helix,” she said.
“Coincidentally, like hell,” he said. “He chose me for you, Rowan. Lasher did that. Years ago when I was