‘You know those witches who danced on the mountain?’ she asked, her voice gentle, her hand holding him still.

‘Of course.’

‘This is where they were burned.’

Danny gaped like a landed fish. He threw off her hand as if it scalded him and stalked over to his bike. ‘That’s ridiculous.’

Dee didn’t move. ‘There is power out there, Danny. My mother had a great amount of it. My father didn’t have so much, but Xan made him believe he did. Xan can make you believe anything. She impressed you so much with her whispers you named your damn bike after her without ever even meeting her. She whispers, and what she whispers is believed. My sisters and I have power, and I think she wants it.’

‘Don’t be-’

‘Ridiculous? Xan wasn’t there this morning, Danny. Not in the room. But she made you see her. And believe her.’ Dee smiled, shaking her head. Although it seems she couldn’t do a complete job of it. She’ll use you to get to us. And then she’ll try and sap our power to strengthen hers. She’s a predator. A carnivore. A psychic vampire.’

‘There are no-’

‘Psychics? Yes there are. And you’d better start believing it, because you are one.’

For the first time she saw Danny James truly angry. ‘Oh, yeah, that’s what they told my mother. Every goddamn one of them. “Just believe. There is great power, and I have it. I’m a psychic. I can tell you… I can-”‘

Dee thought her heart would break. ‘“Communicate with your husband.” It was your mother who fell prey to the con artists.’

‘And they took every dime she had. It’s bullshit, Dee, and the sooner you get that through your head the sooner you might join the real world again and stop jumping at phantasms. That woman you’re so afraid of is nothing more than a standard-issue drama queen.’

She kept her voice so gentle. ‘And the voices you just heard in your head?’

‘My imagination! I told you. It’s very good.’

‘Danny, if you’d just listen…’

And then Danny James did the first rude thing Dee had seen. He simply turned away from her and climbed on his bike. ‘No,’ he said, kicking it into gear. ‘I won’t.’

And then, as she stood alone in a bare field that rustled with an incoming storm, he left.


‘Are you just going to let him go?’ Dee heard from behind her.

She didn’t even bother to turn. She knew that voice. It had haunted her nightmares for years.

‘Hello, Xan,’ she said, hoping her voice didn’t betray her. She suddenly felt like she was twelve again. ‘I was wondering when you’d show up.’

Right there in the middle of the Burning Field. How appropriate.

‘Darling, aren’t you even going to look at me?’

Dee couldn’t see Danny anymore. The sound of his bike had faded into traffic noise. All that was left was Xan. ‘I don’t look at snakes.’

For a moment there was silence, then a sigh. ‘Oh, Dee.’

Dee had to turn around. She had to face her worst nightmare, or she was never going to get past it: She just hoped Xan couldn’t see how shaken she was.

Ready or not…

Xan didn’t look a day different. Elegant and sleek, her thick raven hair caught in an effortless chignon, her maroon suit a Chanel, her ears hung with chunky gold earrings that gleamed in the sullen light. She looked as if she’d just stepped out of a salon on Madison Avenue – or from backstage at the Fortune Hour of Psychic Power. Dee wanted to run. She wanted to fight. She wanted, God help her, for her aunt to approve of her.

‘A little overdressed for the occasion, aren’t you?’ she said instead.

Xan held out her perfectly manicured hands with their bloodred nails, and all Dee could think of was talons. ‘Style is never out of place.’ She smiled. ‘You look lovely as ever. Always appropriate.’

Tilting her head, Dee motioned to the severe lines of her aunt’s attire. ‘Is that how you think I see myself? Appropriate? Like you?’ She shook her head. ‘I need to toss out some gray suits.’

Oddly enough, Xan looked as if she were amused. ‘I should have looked harder for you. I’m going to enjoy getting to know you again.’

‘Don’t put yourself out,’ Dee said. ‘And now, if you don’t mind, I have things to do.’ People to warn, pitch-forks and torches to collect…

Pretending she felt nothing but disinterest no matter how hard her heart was beating, Dee turned and walked away.

‘You’re not going to make this easy, are you?’ Xan asked.

‘Any reason I should?’ Xan didn’t need to know that her palms were sweating.

‘You really have nothing to say to me, Deirdre?’

Dee stopped, her focus firmly on the steeple of the Third Baptist Church that thrust through the trees down the block. ‘Besides “you two-faced, venomous murdering bitch,” no. I really don’t.’

‘You don’t want to know why I’m here?’

‘Nope.’

God, she could hear Xan smiling behind her. ‘Believe it or not, I’ve come to tell you that you won.’

Okay, that got Dee to turn around, if only to gauge the look on Xan’s face. ‘It wasn’t a game,’ she said.

Xan took a step toward her. The grass didn’t even seem to bend beneath her. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t. It was a sincere difference of opinion. You never understood that I would never have hurt you, and I couldn’t believe you would shatter your family the way you did. But I can’t discount the fact that you did keep your sisters safe all these years. You did a good job, Dee. They’re exceptional women.’

Dee couldn’t even find the breath to answer. How did she do it? How, after all these years, did she know just where Dee’s weakness was? She was saying everything Dee had yearned to hear all these years, in those moments when she felt small and selfish and put-upon. Just to have one person appreciate what she’d done.

And it had to be Xan. Damn, damn, damn.

‘They are,’ Dee said. And without you.’

‘And whether you believe it or not, I want to say thank you. I love them, too.’ Xan considered her a minute, obviously gauging back. I’m not going to insult your intelligence by trying to convince you there was never any animosity between the two of us, Dee. You do have a legitimate case against my behavior all those years ago.’

Dee couldn’t move, mesmerized. ‘You mean the part about your murdering my parents?’

Xan waved an elegant hand, as if discounting bad grammar. ‘No, dear. I didn’t murder anyone. They simply didn’t have the stamina for what they asked. They wanted their powers gone. They had misused them and thought it would be an appropriate penance. I… obliged them.’

And they died.’

‘Well…’ Xan sighed, actually frowning. ‘Yes. I’m afraid I wasn’t as proficient then. I couldn’t pull away in time. They surprised me. I learned a terrible lesson that day.’

‘Yes. How to cover up a crime.’

‘The verdict was death by accident, Deirdre.’ Her voice was so gentle, so understanding. Dee wanted to break something. And it was just that. I’m sorry. And I hope you’ll be able to accept my gift in the spirit it was intended, as a gesture of reconciliation.’

‘Gift?’ Dee demanded. ‘Like a fruit basket?’

She got Xan to smile again. ‘If you’re getting fruit baskets that are nearly as delicious as Danny James, I need to stop in for the holidays more often.’ She looked down the street in the direction Danny James had just disappeared. ‘I looked all over the world for him. I wanted to find someone who would help you free yourself from all your responsibilities, and every search led to Danny James. He’s your true love, Dee.’

Again, a thrust straight through the heart. ‘He can’t be. He doesn’t even believe in what we are.’

Xan actually looked a bit regretful. ‘I know. I didn’t realize that until I saw him here with you. I talked to him this morning, but I just don’t think that’s going to change. He’s been too hurt.’

‘Then how can he be…?’

‘Your true love?’ Xan shrugged, looking disconcerted. ‘Truly? I don’t know. I just know that this chance comes along once in a lifetime, and that you can’t throw him away.’

Dee wanted to close her eyes, to stick her fingers in her ears. God, Xan was good. Satan in Chanel.

She shoved her hands in her pockets. ‘Why should I listen to a word you say?’

‘Because you know I’m telling the truth.’

‘A lovely thought. But what if I feel I can’t accept such a generous gift?’

Xan walked right up to her. ‘Do you really want to find yourself my age and all alone?’

‘Like you?’

Xan’s eyes sparked red, betraying her frustration. She looked away a second, and then faced Dee head-on. ‘Yes. Like me. I chose power, Dee. It’s too late for me to change that. It’s not too late for you.’ Dee could smell the cinnamon and sulfur that was Xan’s power signature. It made Dee want to sneeze. Even so, she couldn’t look away from those mesmerizing black eyes.

‘Why am I seeing a Trojan horse in my head?’ she asked.

Xan laughed and shook her head. ‘You don’t have to trust me. Go to him and you’ll know. I’m just hoping you don’t throw away the best thing that ever happened to you because I brought him to you. I hope you know just what he’s worth.’

‘Because he’s my true love.’

‘Yes.’ Xan took Dee’s hand before she could stop her, twining their fingers together until Dee could feel the warmth of Xan’s skin. ‘Get out of this town, Dee. Go travel the world and find out who Danny James is. Love him. Have babies with him. And if you have to compromise to get him, you should. I promise you, there isn’t anything too great to sacrifice for this chance.’

Dee was shaken to her toes. Shed never heard Xan sound so sincere. So passionate about anything. She’d never seen ghosts of any kind in her aunt’s eyes. She saw them now. She felt such warmth spread through her, as if Xan had poured it from her fingers.

Xan straightened, retrieved her hand. Dee stumbled, suddenly off balance and shivery.

‘It would be nice to reestablish a relationship with my nieces,’ Xan said. ‘After you think about this, after you decide what you want to do about Danny, let me know. I’ll help any way I can. I’ve spent the last long years making sure I learned how. Correctly, so I can’t hurt anyone else.’

And just like that, Dee was alone once again with nothing but a sense of sudden cold and the growing suspicion that for once in her life, Xan had told the truth.


Elric really was gone. Lizzie couldn’t believe it – when she went through her deserted bedroom back into the workshop, there was no sign of him. She’d assumed he’d just been masking his presence, and she closed her eyes and tried to sense him, tried to conjure up the flowing colors he seemed to emanate, but the air was flat and still. She looked down, and she was barefoot. How odd – even when she didn’t deliberately put shoes on, she always ended up with something interesting on her feet. But ever since she took her shoes off last night, she’d stayed barefoot.

Never in her life had she gone against her sisters’ will -she was the peacemaker, the problem solver, the one to figure out something that would make everyone happy, or at least marginally satisfied. She’d automatically stepped into the middle of the array he’d drawn on the floor the night before, and she could practically feel him around her, hear his voice in her ear. The rat bastard. He’d told Xan where they were. For all his ‘oh, I’ll help you,’ he’d turned around and given them up. He’d lied and betrayed them. Not only that, but he’d sent her fiance off to the ends of the earth, and probably given him amnesia, as well, at least as far as she was concerned.

Bastard. All that shimmering charm was nothing but a charade, just like her father’s facile charisma, and beneath it-

‘Stop thinking so hard.’

She whirled around. He was standing in the entrance to her workshop, as if he thought he’d be welcome. He’d changed his clothes – whether he’d literally changed what he’d been wearing into something new or had somehow found a new set of clothes, she didn’t know and she didn’t care.

‘You son of a bitch,’ she said.

He seemed undisturbed by her greeting. ‘Don’t overreact. I’m not the only one who’s arrived in this godforsaken little town. If I hadn’t told her, somebody else would have.’

‘Who else has she sent?’

‘Didn’t you listen to your sisters? Xantippe understands people far too well – she sent exactly the sort of men who’d most distract your sisters. Their soul mates.’

‘Is that what you’re supposed to be? My soul mate?’