“I dont peep, I watch. You interest me, Dana. You have intelligence I respect that. Scholars are valued in my world, on any world. And there we have the scholar and the bard.” He gestured toward the bed at her and Jordan. “One would think a fine combination. But we know better.”
It both frightened and fascinated her to see the couple on the bed, wrapped together in a tangle of limbs. “You dont know us. You never will. Thats why well beat you.”
He only smiled. The dark suited him, cloaked him like velvet and silk and left his eyes burning bright. “You search, but you dont find. How can you? Your life is pretense, Dana, a dream as much as this. Look how you cling to him in sleep. You, a strong, intelligent woman, one who considers herself independent, even willful. Yet you throw yourself at a man who tossed you aside once and will do so again. You allow yourself to be ruled by passion, and it makes you weak.”
“What rules you if not passion?” she countered. “Ambition, greed, hate, vanity. Theyre all passions.”
“Ah, this is why I enjoy you. We could have such interesting conversations. No, passions are not owned by the mortal world. But to invite pain merely for love and the pleasures of the flesh.” He shook his head. “You were wiser when you hated him. Now you let him use you again.”
He lies. He lies. She couldnt let herself fall into the trap of that seductive voice and forget how it lied. “Nobody uses me. Not even you.”
“Perhaps you need to remember more clearly.”
It was snowing. She felt the flakes—soft, cold, wet, on her skin, though she couldnt see them fall. They seemed to hang suspended in the air.
She felt the bite of the wind but couldnt hear it, nor did it chill her.
The world was a black-and-white photograph. Black trees, white snow. White mountains rising toward a white sky, and there, far up, the black silhouette of Warriors Peak.
All was still and cold and silent.
There was a man all the way down the block, frozen in the act of shoveling his walk. His shovel was lifted, and the scoop of snow was caught in its flight through the air.
“Do you know this place?” Kane asked her.
“Yes.” Three blocks south of Market, two blocks west of Pine Ridge.
“And this house.”
The tiny two-story box, painted white with black shutters. The two small dormer windows of the second floor, one for each small bedroom. The single dogwood, with snow adorning its thin branches, and the narrow driveway that ran beside it. Two cars in the driveway. The old station wagon and the secondhand Mustang.
“Its Jordans house.” Her mouth was dry. Her tongue felt thick and clumsy. “Its… it was Jordans house.”
“Is,” Kane corrected. “In this frozen moment.”
“Why am I here?”
He stepped around her, but left no mark, no print, in the snow. The hem of his black robe seemed to float just an inch above that white surface.
He wore a ruby, a large round cabochon on a chain that fell nearly to his waist. In the black-andwhite world it shone there like a fat drop of fresh blood.
“I give you the courtesy of allowing you to know this is memory, of letting you stand with me and observe. Do you understand this?”
“I understand this is memory.”
“With the first of you, I showed her what could be. So I showed you. But I realize you are a more… earthbound creation. One who prefers reality. But are you brave enough to see what is real?”
“To see what?” But she already knew.
Color seeped into the world. The deep green of pines beneath the draping snow, the bright blue mailbox on the corner, the blues and greens and reds of the coats the children wore as they built snowmen and forts in the yards.
And with the color came the movement. The snow fell again, and the shovelful from the walk on the corner landed with a thump, even as the man bent to scoop up another. She heard the shouts, high and pure in the air, from the children playing, and the unmistakable thwack of snowballs striking their targets.
She saw herself, bundled in a quilted jacket the color of blueberries. What had she been thinking? She looked like Violet in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
A knit cap was pulled over her head, a knit scarf wrapped around her throat. She moved quickly, but stopped long enough for a brief and energetic snow battle with the little Dobson boys and their friends.
Her own laughter drifted out to her, and she knew what shed been thinking, what shed been feeling.
She was going to see Jordan, to convince him to come out and play. He was spending much too much time closed up in that house since his mother died. He needed to be with someone who loved him.
The past few months had been a nightmare of hospitals and doctors, suffering and grief. He needed comfort, and a gentle, gentle push back into life. He needed her.
She trooped up theunshoveled walk, stomped her feet. She didnt knock. Shed never needed to knock on this door.
“Jordan!” She pulled off her cap, raked her fingers through her hair. Shed worn it shorter then, a chopped-off experiment she hated, and willed, daily, to grow back.
She called him again as she unzipped her coat.
The house still smelled of Mrs. Hawke, she noted. Not of the lemon wax shed always used on the furniture, or the coffee shed habitually had on the stove. But of her sickness. Dana wished she could fling open the windows and whisk the worst of the sorrow and grief away.
He came to the top of the stairs. Her heart did a tumble in her chest, as it always did when she saw him. He was so handsome, so tall and straight, and just a little dangerous around the eyes and mouth.
“I thought youd be at the garage, but when I called Pete said you werent coming in today.”
“No, Im not going in.”
His voice sounded rusty, as if hed just gotten up. But it was already two in the afternoon. There were shadows in his eyes, shadows under them, and they broke her heart.
She came to the foot of the stairs, shot him a quick smile. “Why dont you put on a coat? The Dobson kids tried to ambush me on the way over. We can kick their little asses.”
“Ive got stuff to do, Dana.”
“More important than burying theDobsons in a hail of snowballs?”
“Yeah. I have to finish packing.” “Packing?” She didnt feel alarm, not then, only confusion. “Youre going somewhere?”
“New York.” He turned and walked away. “New York?” Still there was no alarm. Now there was a thrill, and she bounded up the stairs after him with excitement at her heels. “Is it about your book? Did you hear from that agent?”
She rushed into his bedroom, threw herself on his back. “You heard from the agent, and you didnt tell me? We have to celebrate. We have to do something insane. What did he say?”
“Hes interested, thats all.”
“Of course hes interested. Jordan, this is wonderful. Youre going up to have a meeting with him? A meeting with a New York literary agent!” She let out a crow of delight, then noticed the two suitcases, the duffel, the packing crate.
Slowly, with that first trickle of alarm, she slid off his back. “Youre taking an awful lot of stuff for a meeting.”
“Im moving to New York.” He didnt turn to her, but tossed another sweater, a pair of jeans into one of the open suitcases.
“I dont understand.”
“I put the house up for sale yesterday. They probably wont be able to turn it until spring. Guy at the flea markets going to take most of the furniture and whatever else there is.”
“Youre selling the house.” When her legs went weak, she sank onto the side of the bed. “But, Jordan, you live here.”
“Not anymore.”
“But… you cant just pack up and go to New York. I know you talked about moving there eventually, but—”