The Walls of Jericho

Worry

After dropping that little mind-bomb, Rebecca gets to her feet and click-clicks back into Tassler house, leaving me alone to deal with the fallout. I don’t even know where to begin.

How am I supposed to connect the actors in this stupid drama if I don’t know who they are? I haven’t identified the dragon, and I didn’t even know I was looking for an oracle. I have no idea where these people might be or what they might look like. Seriously? What the hell kind of job is this mage gig?

It’s a horsecrap job, that’s what it is. It’s impossible.

Frustrated, I start collecting my stuff to go inside because now the sunshine’s completely ruined for me. Glancing at the pool, I see a few leaves and water-logged flower petals floating on the surface near the skimmer and realize I need to clean that out again. Now even the pool pisses me off.

I stuff my feet in the tacky flip-flops I keep specifically because seeing me wear them ticks Rebecca off, which right now, I sincerely want to do. I hope she’s still in the kitchen ungratefully drinking the coffee I fixed this morning, just so I get the chance.

Angrily, I scoop my belongings together into a wad and get to my feet, stomping towards the stairs and the entertainment deck on Tassler house’s level.

All my big dreams for my future—getting a college education and a job and getting out of Crossroads, being some kind of all-powerful mage with abilities that impress and scare smart people like Damien and brave people like Channing—they’re all half-baked ideas that I can’t make reality because I’m a big picture person, not detail-oriented. A completely useless skill in both the modern world and the ancient one.

I’ve already decided I’m not going to my interviews at KDS tomorrow and Friday. What else can I do besides skip them? If I go, I’ll only make a fool of myself because even though I know I can do the job, it never occurred to me I also had to know how to interview for the job and I’m not confident enough in my take-away lessons and coaching from Drake to try it. Now, there’s this mage thing. What good is being able to wield nuclear-level powers if you don’t know where or why to use them?

It’s all stupid. My life is stupid. I’m stupid, I should pack up and go back to Mr. Adriani’s house to wait for the dragon to come kill me again because, as a mage, I’m—

‘As a mage’.

The thought that strikes me just then brings my stomping feet to an abrupt halt on the entertainment deck landing. I stub my toe and curse, but I can't stop my whirling thoughts.

I’m the mage. Nobody doubts that I’m the mage. As the mage, I have the big-picture job of finding two people. I also have the ability to do it.

Well, what do you know? It’s a job that’s in my wheelhouse after all.

Pivoting slowly, I stare at the sunlight dancing on the pool’s water.

‘—the ability to see the past and future by various means—augury, visions in smoke or water, dreams or other means of divination’ is what Rebecca had said. I drop my belongings on the deck and slowly take the stairs down to the pool level, my eyes following individual ripples to the infinity-edge of the water.

At a measured pace, I make my way to the nearest lounger, adjust the back to the most upright position so that I can see the water, then take a seat. Inhaling deeply, I remind myself that even though I have no training in divination, I’ve still managed it many times before.

I can do this now.

My thoughts had been wandering moments ago. Actually, they’d been racing—zipping along fast and far ahead—and thinking about the dragon. I don’t need to find the dragon though—I already did that part of my job and led him here.

The person I need is the oracle.

Inhaling a deep breath, I relax my body and focus on the rippling, light-kissed water, hoping to induce a trance state and bridge the gap between my unconscious knowing and the earthy realm of modern life. I shouldn’t have to go deeply, after all, the image I had moments before this of my reflection as Mia, I achieved while sitting here, conscious of my physical surroundings and still engaged in a conversation with Rebecca. I’d just let my mind follow itself down a rabbit hole.

One sound at a time, I begin tuning out my external environment. The low drone of distant traffic and an airplane overhead dwindles to nothing. The birdsong recedes into oblivion. The rhythmic crash of the ocean swells into the emptied space, then wanes.

The slap-slap sound of Adriani’s feet on the deck yanks me back to the present reality faster than a pet owner wakes in the middle of the night hearing their pet make vomiting sounds. “Stop!” I order, orienting unerringly to where he is and holding up a hand. “What do you need?”

“Hi, Liza. You forgot your stuff,” he answers, taking a few more steps to stand over my abandoned towel and sunglasses.

“That’s okay. I’ll get them in a few minutes,” I reply. “What do you need? Where’s your stuffie, Babo?”

“Babo’s still watching television, but we’re hungry. Can we have kettle corn for breakfast?”

Kettle corn. For breakfast. Gross.

Sighing, I shake my head. “No. I’ll fix you something in a few minutes. I’ll bring it to you and Babo.”

“Okay, Liza.” He gives me a wrinkled old man grin, his milky blue eyes lit happily, then with the slap-slap of his bare feet, he disappears into the house again.

I need to fix breakfast and clean out the skimmer. The chores are piling up fast.

Which just means there’s a bigger impetus to get a handle on this divination business and find that damn oracle. Inhaling deeply to start the trance-inducing process again, I hold the breath and let it out in a measured exhale.

Three. Two. One.

The ripples on the water blur as if they’re on the periphery of my vision instead of its focus. I block the sound of the traffic again. From somewhere, I hear a lawnmower start and suppress that too. Then the sound of the birds. It takes me longer to fade out the crash of the ocean this time, but eventually I’m left with only the sound of the pool’s fountains and the slow inhale-exhale of my breath.

I close my eyes and wipe out the last of those sounds. I’ve found the dragon’s mate. I’ve brought the dragon to her. My mind wanders, remembering I fed Adriani the last of the toaster waffles yesterday, so I’ll have to fix him something else—maybe toast and scrambled eggs. I push the thought aside to deal with later, clearing my head again. I need the oracle.

Instead, the face that appears before me is my own again as Mia, but young. A girl still, perhaps ten years old. Her translucent reflection bounces back at me from the glass of a shop window, then wavers with the tears standing in her eyes.

‘Come along, Mia.’

It’s a man’s voice, educated, worldly. In the reflection I catch sight of his fine suit and an open hand extended towards me.

I blink the tears away, sliding my hand into the man’s. There’s a flash of an image as he pulls us along down the street—a tow-headed toddler, perhaps two years old, no more than three, staring back with tear-filled and misty-gray pale blue eyes like Mia’s.

‘You must hurry, Liza, or we’ll be late.’

‘Liza’? But my name in that life was ‘Mia’. Suddenly, I understand. He’d chosen it—that man I was with—because ‘Mia’ meant ‘wished-for child’. I recall now. That’s where we were going—to change my name. I’d been adopted.

A sense of doom settles over me. ‘Mia’ also means ‘mine’.

Could this be him? The oracle? Had he so willingly and callously handed me over to the dragon and abandoned me to a life of servitude? Why?

And he’s so old! He couldn’t possibly still be alive, could he? He’d be a centenarian by now for certain. My consciousness gives voice to my panicked thoughts and the irritating sound of Adriani’s slap-slap on the deck cuts into my awareness again.

No! Focus! I force the sound out of my head frantically before the images slip away. The oracle! I need the oracle. Show me the man.

‘Coming,’ I reply in a little girl’s tentative voice that quivers with emotion. Looking back over my shoulder one last time, I tip my head up towards him.

A muscular arm in an expensively tailored suit. A handsome profile in silhouette against the sun behind him. Clearer! Show me clearer! My blind eyes fly open wide.

“Ah!” I scream, scrambling the opposite direction and falling off the lounger. Panting, I stare at Mr. Adriani who looks back confused and as terrified as I felt. He clutches Babo to his chest with both bony arms.

“You fell asleep again,” he offers, “but we came to find you. We’re still hungry.”

My breath leaves me in a whoosh. In frustration, I hang my head and close my eyes. I should have known better than to try this now. He’d already said he was hungry. If I’d fixed him something then, I could have had until lunch to do this. It’s my own fault I failed.

Using the lounger, I lever myself off the ground. “Okay, Adriani. I’m coming. Let’s go inside.”

“Babo and I will get your stuff!” his feet slap on the decking and up the stairs, then into Tassler house.

Following more slowly, I wonder if I’ll be able to get myself so close to identifying the oracle again. Wonder, and worry.

**

Weather delays Channing’s flight, and so he doesn’t get home until long after I’ve gone to bed. When I wake in the morning, he’s laying beside me on top of the covers, still fully dressed. He’s wearing a heavy sweater I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, and the clean, warm beach sand-salty sea scent I love about him is overlaid with the scents coming off its fibers. It’s sort of metallic-y, grassy and a bit musky and sweet-sour, like a wet sheep—which is essentially what it is. But the wool has also absorbed the smells of the things he’s been around— cigarettes, air pollution and lousy airport food.

I hate that thing already.

His hands rest over his broad chest, almost the way morticians position the hands of the dead, and it makes me cringe. I study his handsome face for a minute, debating waking him, but it only deepens the eerie feeling of looking at a dead man. His body hangs slack, all the hard lines of muscle seem limp, and the circles under his eyes are a deep and frightening shade of purple.

Whatever he, Damien and Ferdi were up to in Dublin, he only had time to call last night, and then he spoke only ten words to me—‘The flight’s delayed. I won’t be home until late’. They're the only words he's spoken to me since he'd left Sunday night. I’d tried to be understanding. There’s a lot of pressure on him and he doesn’t have the mental bandwidth necessary to deal with anything else.

It still hurts my feelings. I miss the light-hearted banter. How the absurd makes us both laugh together. I miss us, and I miss my mate.

Tugging on my worn bathrobe, I drop my phone in the pocket and shuffle downstairs in my slippers. The first autumn chill lingers in the air and the sun’s rising noticeably later. When the landscape maintenance guys were here over the weekend, they recommended a guy to come close the pool for the winter. The thought adds to my melancholy, but I remind myself the ocean’s still close. It'll be hungrier, but it's always there.

Which reminds me of Drake and his morning beach tai chi routine. ‘You seemed lonely,’ he’d said that day he’d shown up at the house when I was supposed to meet him down at the beach. ‘So am I. It was just a walk. And to talk to someone who’s nice.’

That ‘nice’ someone he was referring to must have been him because there’s nothing ‘nice’ about me thinking about another man while my exhausted mate—a man who’s vehement about taking care of my every need—is still asleep on our bed upstairs, in our bedroom, in our house, all of which he’s provided without asking for anything else.

As if my thinking about Drake calls to him somehow, the text alert on my phone chirps. What happened between he and I Monday morning when I walked to his house in the rain was a huge wake-up call. One we’re both struggling hard to pretend didn’t change anything between us.

Hey. How’s your morning?

Good. How about you?

Great. Just got back from the beach. Pretty cold this morning, so I’ll have give up my outdoor tai chi soon. Is he home?

Drake never refers to Channing by his first name. He's never even asked what it is. Realizing that gives me pause and I consider before answering, weighing my words carefully. There’s a subtly different tone from the painstakingly controlled, overly-cautious way we’ve talked or chatted since Monday. Gone is the flirting tone I hadn’t even realized we’d been using before then. Now it’s painfully obvious it was there.

Yes. He’s upstairs sleeping. He got home really late.

And you’re there with him?

My heart starts pounding a little faster when he asks. For some reason, I get the distinct hint of envy from those five little words, even though there’s no tone in text messaging. I’m fairly certain Drake’s imagining a different scenario, one where the man in the bed with me is him and not Channing.

Just a little bit, so am I. Doubtless, it would be a different story if he was. We’re skating into familiar and dangerous territory. It’s a place I don’t want to go.

No. I’m downstairs making coffee.

So even though he’s home, you’re still alone. Was I wrong that you’re lonely?

I know I shouldn’t answer that. I shouldn’t encourage him.

Except that he’s right. Right now, I am lonely. I’m hurt. Right this instant, I’m bitter and selfishly want things I can’t have and shouldn’t say aloud or reply in a message.

Not all the time. That much is true.

A lot of the time though?

Yes.

When he’d walked me to the door of his house on Monday, he’d asked me right then if I’d come back. ‘I don't blame you at all if you say ‘no’,’ he’d added.

I knew in that instant I shouldn’t come back. Ever. Even Drake was admitting to me we’d crossed the line from playful flirting to full on acting on it and not in the heat of the moment. He'd wanted to. I’d wanted to. I’d wanted what had happened. A lot. But the walk home had cleared my head, shown me how naïve I am.

I have a mate already. I have a mate whose werewolf blood binds him to me for life. For all his life. No matter how jealous it makes me when I catch other women eyeing him lustfully, he’d never act on it with them. Never.

Yet if Drake hadn’t slipped up—if he hadn’t stopped touching me to try to force me to confess that I wanted him—I know exactly what would have happened.

Now, everything feels different. Between me and Channing. Between me and Drake. There’s so much confusing stuff to think about, and all of it’s overlaid with heavy guilt for what I almost did. For what I really really wanted to do. What I have with Channing feels strange and lonely and stilted, and what I have with Drake feels uncomfortable and fractured.

Drake has more self-control than I do. It’s clear in his answering text. I need to change the topic before I say something I shouldn’t or something you don’t want to know. I’ll pick you up at eleven-thirty for your interview with Bridget at KDS.

It’s okay. I’m not going. Not to either of them.

What? Jericho, you have to go. This was what you wanted. What you planned for yourself. Don’t sacrifice it to someone else’s dreams or desires.

I won’t interview well. They won’t hire me anyway, so what’s the point?

It doesn’t matter if you don’t interview well. It doesn’t matter if you don’t get the job. It does matter if you don’t go. They’ll blacklist you. When you’re ready later, even if you’re the most qualified applicant, they’ll never give you another shot.

Maybe it’s not what’s meant to be.

You can’t know that, and even if it is, we can talk about it, and help you get better for the next one. You have to go. I’m not taking no for an answer. I’ll be in the drive circle at eleven-thirty. Don’t make me break down the door.

I heave a deep sigh, getting a nose full of the bitter, rich smell of coffee. Somehow, it’s restorative.

Okay.

I’ll see you in a bit.

Dropping the phone in my pocket, I get myself a mug and prepare my coffee. Upstairs, there’s a warm, wonderful man—my avowed mate—who has every right to be with me, but he’s forgotten that he wants it. And just down the hillside, there’s a man not entitled at all who would give anything for that chance.

I feel so alone. God, I’m a horrible person.