Illusion Read online

  Why Great-Uncle Thomas would have agreed to this Limitation, much less to living here on this plantation, I have not yet discovered. You can be sure I intend to learn the Truth. Property in this Colony is plentiful. Only today Papa wrote to set me the task of finding two additional plantations farther inland for him to purchase, for the rice here is plagued with disease and uncertain success. I have written back to him asking for a collection of different seeds from the West Indias to plant.

  This Pact of Uncle Thomas’s appears to grant us the ability to retrieve whatever the Spirits here carry off, which I can attest myself happens with some frequency. Only today, I was forced to search for my embroidery hoop, which I found hidden in the Garden beneath a bush! Now if only the Gift extended to allow me to find the answers I need to make this family prosperous and safe, I should indeed be happy.

  This Carolina is a strange land, I assure you. I am amused by it, and should think myself very content here if you were only with us.

  Your most affectionate and most obliged humble Sister,

  Eliza Watson

  Eight dropped back onto the sofa beside Barrie. “I thought the Fire Carrier’s ceremony was meant to keep the yunwi from leaving the island. Not to protect them.”

  “Does that have to be mutually exclusive? I’m more interested in the fact that she confirms that her father was gone, despite the finding gift. What about the binding?”

  “Maybe she talks about that later. Keep reading.”

  Clearing her throat, Barrie nodded and turned her attention back to several chatty letters Eliza had written to her friends and to a former governess. There were notes about seeds that Eliza’s father had sent and about “pitch and Tarr and Lime and other plantation affairs,” about various purchases and changes she was making, and then discussions of several naval battles in which her father had been involved. Eliza began to sound increasingly worried.

  [To Colonel Watson]

  Honored Sir,

  I have not the words to tell you of our concern at the absence of news from you. We hear daily of the dangerous situation in which you find yourself! I have had the Deed for the Wappo plantation recorded, and will attempt to plant the Indigo and Cotton &c soonest.

  A strange circumstance occurred this week. Finding myself unable to sleep, I ventured into the garden and came across a woman I had never seen before. Her features are more Indian than Negro, and on inquiring of the Servants, I found that she is the daughter of the very woman who helped Great-Uncle Thomas engage upon the Pact with the Ghost who haunts our woods. Her courage in entering that dark grove is great, for none of the Servants will venture there, nor even our own mischievous Sprites. I should very much like to speak with her, but it seems she is more afraid of me.

  “Eight?” Seven’s voice from the corridor was loud and unexpected, bringing Barrie’s head up to collide with the bottom of Eight’s chin.

  “Dammit!” Eight jumped up. Barrie slammed the book shut. The door creaked open, and Seven pushed his head inside. Seeing Barrie, his eyes narrowed.

  His voice was arctic. “What are you two up to now?”

  He’d said “two,” but his gaze had locked on Barrie, so he clearly meant only “one.”

  Eight stepped in front of Barrie as Seven crossed over to the sofa. “I asked her to search for information about the bindings and the lodestones.”

  “You think I haven’t already done that? After my father died, I spent the entire summer looking.”

  “You didn’t have the Watson gift working for you—we just found Eliza Watson’s letterbooks.”

  Seven reached for the volume they’d been reading, and although her fingers tightened reflexively, Barrie couldn’t refuse to give it to him. He picked up the crumpled Kleenex that Barrie had discarded and used it to turn the pages.

  “I can’t imagine it will help us. Eliza wasn’t here until years after the first Robert was already dead, but I’ll have a look this afternoon.” He glanced around at the bookshelves. “We probably ought to go through the whole library to catalog and preserve what’s in here. I’ve neglected that for far too long, and books like this could be valuable.” He fixed them both with a knife-sharp look. “Not that either one of you understands the first thing about value. Poor Pru just told me about the open house. How could you commit to that kind of an expense without asking me? Who’s going to pay for all that food—not to mention who will do the work? What exactly are you two up to now, and don’t bother giving me the story about reconciliation. Colesworths have no interest in reconciling anything.”

  “I’m half-Colesworth,” Barrie said. “And no one’s asking you to pay for anything. Pru can approve the expense for me out of my trust fund.”

  “Don’t try to bully Barrie about this,” Eight said, stepping in front of her again. “Or me, either. Pru already said she thinks this is a good idea, and the food’s ordered and most of the arrangements are done already. Kate and I will represent the Beauforts at the party. We don’t need you to approve or disapprove.”

  He and Seven faced each other, the same height, the same hard green eyes, but for once, Eight showed no sign of backing down in the face of his father’s rage. He stood there, silently demanding the respect Seven owed him. Which was good, Barrie thought. Seven was never going to fix the relationship between them until it was pushed past the breaking point.

  Barely daring to breathe, Barrie tried to be inconspicuous while they stared each other down. But instead of answering, Seven moved to the desk, scooped up the other two letterbooks, and walked toward the door with all three volumes.

  “I’m getting tired of playing games with all of you,” he said. “Let me know when you’re ready to tell me the truth.”

  Eight hurried after him. “We’re in the middle of reading those.”

  Only the flare of Seven’s nostrils and the slight flush across his cheekbones gave away how spectacularly furious he was, until he spoke and his voice shook. “You and Kate—all three of you—think you can do whatever you please, but this is still my house. I may not have the gift anymore, but everything else, including these books, is legally mine. I’ll let you know if I find something in them worth sharing. Meanwhile, Barrie, you go home, and Eight . . . I don’t know. Go somewhere and consider the fact that information is a two-way street. You accused me of not giving you a say in your own life. What exactly do you think is happening to me right now?”

  He strode away, leaving Barrie and Eight in silence. Eight sagged back against the doorjamb, closed his eyes, and thumped his head three times against the wood. “How does he make me feel like a jerk, when he’s the one being a jackass? That’s a very special kind of skill.” He held up his hand up before Barrie could answer. “I know. I know. He isn’t totally wrong. It’s the same thing you were trying to tell me. But that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.”

  “Maybe you should go ahead and tell him about Obadiah and the open house. I don’t like the idea of making Pru keep it from him.”

  “We never asked her to do that, and after that speech he just gave me, you don’t think there’s a chance he would do something reckless to keep Kate from having the binding? There are still the lodestones to worry about.”

  Barrie considered that, and the library around her seemed suddenly smaller, as if all the books in it and the cumulative weight of all the things she didn’t know might crush her. “Let’s just hope the open house works and nothing goes wrong afterward. It would sure help if we could have found something in those letterbooks, though.”

  Eight studied his empty hands and sighed. “Let me see what I can do.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Still fuming over the books, about the last thing Barrie wanted to take time out for was another riding lesson, but Pru was adamant that they had other responsibilities that didn’t involve the bindings, the curse, or either of the other families. She showed Barrie how to saddle Miranda and then tightened the girth while Barrie held the lead rope.

 
“Seven will come around in his own time, and for now, all we can do is let him brood,” she said. “And as for you? The horses need exercise, and there’s nothing better to wrap your mind around a problem than thinking about something else entirely. All this has waited three hundred years to come to a boil. It can wait a few more hours.” Placing two fingers inside the mare’s mouth, she slipped the bit between Miranda’s teeth and eased the crown past her black, twitching ears.

  Barrie smoothed Miranda’s forelock over the supple brow-band. “Do you think we should tell Seven about Obadiah?”

  “Seven is, in general, a kind, responsible, and intelligent man,” Pru said cautiously. “He’s struggling right now.”

  “That doesn’t answer the question.”

  Pru dug a lump of sugar from her pocket and let Miranda lip it from her palm, then pulled the reins back over Miranda’s head and hung the halter on the hook beside her stall. “It may take Seven a little while longer to figure things out. He’s spent his life trying to protect people—feeling like he’s failed at protecting people. I can’t see him embracing anything that might put his children in danger—” She put up her hand as Barrie opened her mouth to protest. “No, hold on. I understand that Kate and Eight want to be involved, but Seven and I are different people.”

  “That’s a good thing.” Barrie followed as Pru led the mare outside. “Seven’s not so good at two-way conversations.”

  Pru handed the reins to Barrie in the paddock, and her eyes were clouded and far away. She went around and checked to make sure the girth was tight before cupping her hands to help Barrie mount. “I’m not saying that Seven is perfect, sugar. I know what he is, and I’m not sure he’s ever going to be different. But then, you shouldn’t ever love someone because you hope they’ll change. You have to love them for who they already are.”

  “Seven would be an idiot not to love you, Aunt Pru. I hope he figures things out soon. I want to be able to root for the two of you.”

  Taking the reins back from Barrie again, Pru gave a vague and unconvincing smile. Then she tied the reins out of reach, clipped the lunge line to Miranda’s bridle, and started Miranda moving at a lumbering walk.

  The sway of Miranda’s gait jarred through Barrie’s legs and hips and waist. “Relax,” Pru said. “Let your back absorb the motion. And put your hands out. You don’t need to grip the saddle.”

  No hands again. And no control.

  Not that that was anything new. None of them had control anymore. The Watsons, the Beauforts, the Colesworths, Obadiah and his family . . . they were all caught in webs that seemed to wrap them tighter the more they struggled.

  “You have to find your own balance,” Pru said. “Try closing your eyes; that makes it both harder and easier.”

  Barrie tried. Unable to see where she was going, she felt sheer panic at first, the kind that knotted her lungs and made her dizzy. But then suddenly, her senses adjusted, opening and widening, sharpening, as if sight had held her back. Or as if she had been so busy relying on what she knew that she hadn’t taken the time to see what was possible.

  With her eyes closed, she was both as high as the sky and grounded to the earth, connected by energy that trickled into her along the arch of Miranda’s neck and through the reins into her hands, down through her legs and heels to spill back into the grass and soil. She felt like a living channel of energy. On a smaller level, it reminded her of the way the fountain spirit’s limbs were made of water. Of the vortex that felt like a whirlpool. As if there was energy everywhere, and she simply hadn’t known how to find it.

  Her eyes flew open. The sensation vanished.

  “Don’t stiffen up now,” Pru said, and Barrie made herself relax again, let her eyes flutter closed. After a while, the sensation of connection was possible with her eyes either open or closed, and she felt like she was sitting deep in the saddle, her hips fused and moving easily forward and back as Miranda walked.

  “You ready to try a little trot?” Pru asked. She urged Miranda into the faster gait.

  Barrie clutched the pommel, and despite Pru’s patient instructions on how to rise out of the saddle along with Miranda’s movements, it was long minutes before she felt comfortable enough to let go again. Longer still before the mechanics had sunk in. The connection she had felt with Miranda and the energy in her surroundings melted away each time she left the saddle, and she couldn’t let go with her eyes closed the way that she had before. And she missed the feeling of being connected.

  After twenty more minutes, Pru pulled Miranda to a stop. “That’s about enough. Why don’t you take her a couple of times around the pasture by yourself to cool her off? I’ll wash up and start working on the pastries for the open house before Mary and the Beauforts get here to help.”

  The yunwi ran alongside as Barrie walked the mare along the perimeter of the fence. Miranda stretched her neck down to blow at them and sent them scampering away, only to have them return with their hands raised to pat her. Barrie sank back into the calm that was a natural part of Miranda and Watson’s Landing. Maybe that was part of the reason her gift had told her the mare belonged with her, the way the gift sometimes gave her answers.

  She sighed at the thought, because answers were only useful when you knew the questions that went with them. What was it that Eliza Watson had written in the letter to her brother? That she wished the gift would help her keep the family prosperous and safe. Each in their own way, that was what all the four families were still fighting for.

  • • •

  Barrie was in Miranda’s stall, brushing the saddle marks out of the mare’s coat, when Eight phoned her a short while later.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Is everything okay? I thought you were coming over in a little bit.”

  “I told Kate about the letterbooks, and she helped me steal them back out of Dad’s room. He’ll probably kill us both when he finds out, but he’s going to have to accept that we have just as much a stake in what happens to the family as he does. Maybe he knows that, too, and he’s just holding on tighter before he lets go.”

  “It sounds like you’re getting closer to forgiving him.” Barrie dropped the brush back into the grooming tote, gave Miranda a pat, and walked out into the aisle.

  “I don’t know about that.” Eight sighed, and then the tone of his voice changed. “But that’s not what I called about. Kate and I found something else in Eliza’s letterbook.”

  There was a scuffle for the phone, during which Barrie heard Eight and his sister arguing, first one voice louder and then the other, and while she waited for them to sort it out, she dropped the grooming tote in the tack room and wandered out toward the cemetery.

  She had just reached the fence when Kate’s voice came on the line. “Tell my idiot brother that I’m not going to give up the binding. He doesn’t need to save me.”

  “We don’t even know that it’s possible to transfer the binding, do we?” Barrie asked, but her skin was already starting to itch with panic.

  “I think it might be. That’s what the letterbook says.” Kate’s voice held an unmistakable note of triumph.

  Barrie clambered over the low surrounding fence into the cemetery and looked around as Eight struggled to take the phone again. The midafternoon sun left short, deep shadows in front of the tombstones and grave markers, and she headed toward what looked like the section of oldest graves.

  “Why don’t you two put me on the speaker instead of arguing, and then you can both talk? I’d like to hear what you found,” she said.

  Kate switched to speaker. “Here, Eight. Hold the phone.”

  Barrie walked along the row of gravestones, looking for names and dates, waiting for something to pull at her. Most of the markers were worn and nearly illegible. Only one gave a dull tug on her finding sense, and that belonged to Thomas Watson, who was buried beneath a headstone engraved with the relief of a ship at full sail.

  “So listen to this,” Kate said, and she began to read:
/>   [To Colonel Watson]

  Honored Sir,

  We rejoice to have news from you at last and to hear of your recovery. We have lost nearly all the Cotton and Ginger planted, due to frost, and frost likewise took most of the Crop of Indigo, but I remain confident that Indigo will be valuable if you can send more seed in time for us to plant in March.

  As for the other matter in your letter, I beg your continued Indulgence and assure you that your peace and happiness is my greatest wish. As you asked my opinion, however, I must beg you to assure Sir Nicholas that all the riches of the Spanish empire could not entice me to become his wife.

  “I’m beginning to like Eliza,” Kate said, interrupting herself. “I hope Robert was nicer than Sir Nicholas.”

  “Me too,” Barrie said. “Where’s the part about the binding?”

  “I’m getting to that.”

  Similarly, the other gentleman, Mr. Cleland, does not merit favorable sentiment. Until James is ready to settle here, I cannot envision leaving Watson’s Landing, and single life is therefore my dearest wish. You must make James listen to Reason, Papa. What does he need with the military life? He isn’t suited for it. He would find circumstances here vastly more pleasing. We dined again last night at Beaufort Hall, and I find Mr. Robert Edward Beaufort most agreeable. But enough of that.