Darkmoon

1. Exile-3

I can’t say things went back to normal after that — after all, I’d barely been the prima for two months before Damon Wilcox kidn*pped me — but it did feel as if everyone had been holding their collective breaths, waiting to see what I would do. After I realized there wasn’t much I could do except try to settle back in Jerome and put Connor Wilcox from my mind, I didn’t exactly stop hurting. However, I did find enough to occupy my time that those occasions when the pain welled up and threatened to overcome me gradually grew farther and farther apart.

After the first week, people stopped tiptoeing around me. I couldn’t stop Adam from giving me hopeful glances, as if he was thinking that now the Connor episode was safely behind me, he might have a chance again. I knew that would never happen, that I couldn’t even conceive of being with anyone except Connor, but I couldn’t think of a polite way to tell Adam that. Mostly I tried to be friendly and casual, and maybe he got the hint and maybe he didn’t. All I cared about was whether he’d attempt to force the issue, but he knew better than to try that. One thing about Adam; he was patient. I just didn’t know how to tell him that he could wait a hundred years, and it still wouldn’t change the way I felt about Connor.

It would’ve been easier if I could have hated him.

I distracted myself with planning the remodel of the kitchen, and consulted with Terri, the decorator who’d done the rest of the house, as well as an architect she recommended. It was going to be a massive project, since we’d decided to expand the kitchen another five feet into the side yard. I had to assure Margot and the other two elders that the exterior of the house would be restored so you’d never know the difference, and they still didn’t look thrilled by the prospect. All right, Ruby had barely touched the place all the years she’d lived there, according to them, and I suppose they wanted me to follow in her footsteps. Still, it was my house, and my remodel. I’d do it the way I wanted…and hope it would be enough to distract me.

Because of ordering tile and appliances, and having to wait for the architect’s preferred work crew to be available, construction wouldn’t actually get started until almost the end of May. That was good, because when I roused myself from my catalogues and blueprints and paint samples, I realized more than a month had passed since I’d left Flagstaff.

See? I told myself. You can do this.

What Sydney thought of my latest distraction, I didn’t know for sure. That is, I could tell she guessed I was over-compensating, making massive plans because that way I wouldn’t have to think about Connor. Fine. I didn’t have a problem with distracting myself by whatever means necessary. It wasn’t as if he’d been calling or sending me pleading texts or anything like that. Not one word since that horrible night when I walked out of his apartment. Not a single word.

In fact, I’d let everything pass by in such a blur that it wasn’t until I was looking at the calendar I had hanging in the library and putting a big star on May 27th — the day the contractors were going to start work — that I realized it had been more than six weeks since I’d come back to Jerome. Good, that had to mean I was healing, right? That so much time had gone by without my hardly noticing?

So much time….

And then a stray thought passed through my mind, followed by, Oh, s**t. Oh, s**t.

Six weeks, and no period. I should’ve gotten one at the beginning of April, and then again a week ago. I wasn’t like Sydney, who was so regular you could practically set a clock by her. Sometimes I was late by a week or two, or even three, and then things would reset. But not like this. Not two months in a row, and nothing.

My hands started to shake so badly that I dropped the pen I was holding.

Get it together, I told myself. It could just be stress. You were almost three weeks late when you were studying for your AP exams. And you’ve been under way worse stress than that.

That sounded sensible enough. I didn’t really believe it, though.

Only one way to find out. Drive down to Cottonwood, go to the closest drugstore — Walgreens — and get a pregnancy test. I could do that. In fact, it would be easier than ever, since a few weeks earlier I’d decided I needed to have my own transportation, and went with Syd to the local Jeep dealership, where I made the salesman go bug-eyed when I calmly wrote a check for the entire cost of a brand-new Cherokee. Actually, Syd went kind of bug-eyed, too. Yes, I’d told her that I’d come into a good sum of money when Aunt Ruby passed away, but I don’t think she really got it until I paid cash for a thirty-thousand-dollar SUV.

Anyway, I’d been coming and going on my own for several weeks now, so no one would think anything of me going down the mountain for a shopping trip. And I knew I had to do it now, before I lost my nerve.

After gathering up my keys, I went out to the garage and opened the door, then got in the Cherokee and pulled out. I didn’t bother to close the garage door, as I was going straight to the drugstore and then back home.

I’d been shopping at that store for years, but luck was with me, and the woman working the checkout counter was new and didn’t recognize me. After I’d thrown the pregnancy test in my basket, I’d contemplated getting a few more odds and ends, just to camouflage that one portentous box, but decided against it. What was the point? Even if I’d shoved it in a plain brown paper bag, the clerk would still have had to pull it out to scan the barcode.

So I put it down on the counter as casually as possible, and she rang me up without blinking. I wondered how many women she saw buying those tests every day. A lot, I hoped. Then she wouldn’t have any reason to remember the girl with the dark hair and the scared green eyes.

Once I was back home, I went upstairs to my bathroom and locked the door. Silly, because of course I was alone in the house. No one would walk in on me. Still, somehow I felt a little better after I’d made sure I wouldn’t be disturbed.

I scanned the directions, but come on — peeing on a stick isn’t rocket science. For the longest moment I hesitated, staring at the piece of white plastic in my hand, my heart pounding away. Then I bit my lip, went over to the toilet, and did what I had to do.

Afterward, the seconds seemed to tick by in slow motion. Was I breathing? I couldn’t even say for sure.

Finally I looked down at the stick where I’d set it down on the sink, on top of a square of toilet paper. Two little pink lines.

Two.

No. Oh, no.

Blessed Brigid’s charm to prevent this from happening had failed me, but in my despair, it was still Her I called on then.

Goddess, what do I do now?

What do I do?