Page 32 of Captivated
“No, I wasn’t making any of it up. I was born a witch, like my mother, my father, like my mother’s mother, and hers, and back for generations.” She smiled gently. “I don’t ride on a broomstick—except perhaps as a joke. Or cast spells on young princesses or pass out poisoned apples.”
It wasn’t possible, really. Was it? “Do something else.”
A flicker of impatience crossed her face. “Nor am I a trained seal.”
“Do something else,” he insisted, and cast his mind for options. “Can you disappear, or—”
“Oh, really, Nash.”
He was up again. “Look, give me a break. I’m trying to help you out here. Maybe you could—” A book flew off the shelf and bopped him smartly in the head. Wincing, he rubbed the spot. “Okay, okay. Never mind.”
“This isn’t a sideshow,” she said primly. “I only demonstrated so obviously in the first place because you’re so thickheaded. You refused to believe, and since we seem to be developing some sort of relationship, I prefer that you do.” She smoothed out the skirt of her dress. “And now that you do, we can take some time to think it all through before we move on.”
“Move on,” he repeated. “Maybe the next step is to talk about this”
“Not now.” He’d already retreated a step, she thought, and he didn’t even know it.
“Damn it, Morgana, you can’t drop all this on me, then calmly walk out. Good God, you’re a witch.”
“Yes.” She flicked back her hair. “I believe we’ve established that.”
His mind began to spin again. Reality had taken a long, slow curve. “I have a million questions.”
She picked up her bag. “You’ve already asked me several of those million. Play back your tapes. All of the answers I gave you were true ones.”
“I don’t want to listen to tapes, I want to talk to you.”
“For now, it’s what I want that matters.” She opened her bag and took out a small, wand-shaped emerald on a silver chain. She should have known there was a reason she’d felt compelled to put it there that morning. “Here.” Moving forward, she slipped the chain over his head.
“Thanks, but I’m not much on jewelry.”
“Think of it as a charm, then.” She kissed both of his cheeks.
Warily he eyed it. “What kind of a charm?”
“It’s for clearing the mind, promoting creativity, and— See the small purple stone above the emerald?”
“Yeah.”
“Amethyst.” Her lips curved as they brushed his. “For protection against witchcraft.” With the cat already at her heels, Morgana moved to the archway. “Go sleep for an hour, Nash. Your brain is tired. When you wake, you’ll work. And when the time is right, you’ll find me.” She slipped out the door.
Frowning, Nash tilted the slender green stone up to examine it. Clear thinking. Okay, he could use some of that. At the moment, his thoughts were as clear as smoke.
He ran a thumb over the companion stone of amethyst. Protection against witchcraft. He glanced up, through the window, to see Morgana drive away.
He was pretty sure he could use that, as well.
Chapter 6
What he needed to do was think, not sleep. Though he wondered that any man could think after what had happened in the last fifteen minutes. Why, any of the parapsychologists he’d interviewed over the years would have been wild to have a taste of what Morgana had given him.
But wasn’t the first rational step to attempt to disprove what he had seen?
He wandered back into the living room to squint at the ceiling for a while. He couldn’t deny what he had seen, what he had felt. But perhaps, with time, he could come up with some logical alternatives.
Taking the first step, he assumed his favorite thinking position. He lay down on the sofa. Hypnotism. He didn’t care to think that he could be put in a trance or caused to hallucinate, but it was a possibility. An easier one to believe now that he was alone again.
If he didn’t believe that, or some other logical explanation, he would have to accept that Morgana was exactly what she had said she was all along.
