Mostly Magic

Chapter Two-2

She frowned in the rearview mirror. That was a bit of an overreaction. This was Italy, after all. Pedestrians were used to that sort of thing.

“Is that an example of your driving?” Daniel asked, holding on to the console.

Mel turned to him. “Have you changed your mind about the train?”

His face darkened. “No.”

“Then it doesn’t really matter, does it? Lie back, relax and enjoy the ride.”

He made some dissenting noise but leaned the seat back so far he seemed to stare up at the sky. It was a beautiful, clear spring day, but she doubted that he could see it yet. He appeared to be exhausted, on top of everything else. Whatever the “everything else” really was.

“Nothing like some wind in your hair to clear out the cobwebs. Feeling better?” She patted his arm, sharing some of her own calmness and serenity.

“A bit.”

In her peripheral vision, Mel saw him struggle for a few moments with sudden lethargy, then give up and slip into sleep, his hand sliding off the console. It was what her mom had always called her Reverse Sleeping Beauty.

She felt a tad guilty using it on him, but he desperately needed some relief from the emotional barrage, and so did she.

In spite of Lance’s insistence to the contrary, it seemed that Dr. Woodruff was her second paranoid scientist of the day. Coincidence?

Just her luck to be driving through Italy on a splendid spring day in a convertible with a good-looking single guy—if Lance could be trusted to have that little factoid right—and she had to send him off to sleep. She shook her head.

*****

Daniel struggled to awaken from a really deep sleep. He became aware of alternating periods of sunlight and shadow on his face, then of his posture, or his lack of posture—he was slumped in the seat of a car. He vaguely remembered getting into the tiny car with the short, curvaceous journalist with the bright smile. Then everything went hazy. He had fallen asleep in her car. Awkward.

But no dream. That was a relief. And he felt rested.

The last thing he remembered was the blindness. It had been more protracted this time, perhaps because he’d had two visions in such rapid succession. After holding on to Francesca’s wrist as long as he could, trying to endure enough of the vision to see where and when it would happen, he had been left in the dark with the overwhelming terror that she would experience on that train.

But not if he could help it.

In the midst of the screams and the chaos, before everything went black, he had caught sight of an Italian newspaper. But no matter how he replayed the scene, he couldn’t see anyone’s watch or any indication of the time of day, although when the lights went out, there was illumination of some kind from outside. The train felt as if it were bounding forward on a track that was no longer flat and straight, but moving up and down like waves in water.

“Earthquake,” he thought, then realized he had said it out loud.

“So you are awake behind those sunglasses,” Mel responded.

“Scusi, er… Sorry, I dozed off, I think.” He opened his eyes, blinking at the scenery flowing past. Mountains. Thickly forested mountains. “How long have I been out?”

“About forty-five minutes. So did you dream about an earthquake?”

Daniel kept himself from reacting to the word “dream”. He turned his head to get a better look at the reporter. Her short blonde hair was dancing in the wind. He suspected those sun-bleached streaks were all natural. “I bet you have a convertible at home, don’t you?”

Her smile really was amazing. “Of course! What else? Actually, it’s also a Mini and that’s my wind deflector back there. Can’t trust rentals to offer them.”

“You came prepared. Where are you from?” He was sure she was giving him a skeptical look behind those huge sunglasses. It was difficult to distract a journalist from a line of questioning.

“I travel. A lot,” she responded. “For my job.” Mel changed lanes to zip around a truck, then accelerated into a long curve. Daniel put a hand on the console to keep his balance, glancing at the Mini’s large speedometer. He had to admire her skill behind the wheel. She clearly loved to drive fast.

“You live on the road?” he asked.

“Actually, yes. I live a wonderful vagabond life in an RV.” The comment sounded a tad sarcastic. “I tow the Mini behind it, when necessary,” she added. “You know, I agreed to drive you to Florence if you would give me an interview, not the other way around.”

“I don’t remember this agreement of which you speak,” he said, closing his eyes and sinking into the seat. “I do remember something about a hangover remedy.”

“I doubt that you remember much of what went on at the hotel entrance. But here I am, driving down the backbone of the Apennines in a futile race with a technological marvel of a train that my passenger thinks is going to wreck—” there it was, that confirming flare of panic, “—because the bees told him so. He suddenly wakes up and says, ‘Earthquake’. My journalistic integrity insists that I ask—earthquake?”

But he remembered clearly now. He hadn’t been left standing on the portico in the dark, trying to deal with the terror of that train wreck. The nosy little journalist had rescued him. Pulled him away from Francesca. Kept him from getting carted off by the city police. Offered him a ride. Nearly carried him to her car. Oh, certainly she had an ulterior motive, but… He remembered that unexpected surge of s****l desire he’d felt as she had shepherded him along. That had come at a really odd time and place—not that she didn’t have plenty of enticing attributes.

A noise from the driver’s seat reminded him that Mel still waited for an answer.

“No. I mean… Yes, I had a bad dream.”

“So, your concerns about the train have nothing to do with an earth—”

“Not at all. This whole thing was simply something I ate for breakfast.” Remembering something she had said at the hotel, he added, “Or drank for breakfast.”

There was such a long pause that he almost looked over to see the expression on her face.

“Right. Then we don’t need to rush off to Florence?” she asked. “Because I can turn around right up here at the next area di servizio.”

Damn, she was persistent. He looked up as they came out of a tunnel. A sign for the upcoming exit flashed by—Roncobilaccio.

“All right. Look, I still want to go to Florence. To the train station,” he said. “I’ll give you an interview, but not about what happened this morning. Not about the train.”

“Hmmm.” She drummed her fingers on the wheel. “Okay, nothing about the train. But off the record?”

What was it about her? “Your middle name is ‘Tenacious’, isn’t it?”

“My middle name is… Well, let’s just say I learned long ago to keep it to myself.” She fished something out of an inside jacket pocket—a digital voice recorder.

Damn. He hated those things. “You do realize you should actually interview the bees, not me.”

“Actually, that might be an interesting point of view for the story, but this whole train business has driven all my carefully constructed questions right out of my head.”

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. Just a little neurosis I have. Strange obsessions and all.” Daniel lifted his hands in the air. “I promise I’m not dangerous, only a tad compulsive. Think of this as indulging a slightly dotty old uncle.”

That brought a reluctant snort of laughter. “Right.” She peered over her sunglasses at him and smiled. “Interview, then?”

Mel reached to put the recorder on the console and her fingers brushed his.

The Mini and Mel and the landscape rushing by behind her flickered—

“No!” He yanked his hand away before the vision could even start. Damn.

“Whoa.” Mel held up her hand. “Okay. I know you’re uncomfortable with interviews, but—”

“No.” He blew out a breath. “No, it’s not that.” He grappled to find an explanation that wouldn’t make him look like even more of a nutcase, but it was probably too late. “I have this…condition that flares up now and again. The skin on my hands…” He shook his hands. “It’s some neural thing. Seems to happen at the same time I get the migraines. I, uh…I usually wear gloves, unless I’m in a situation where it would look odd.”

She c****d her head at him, her expression unreadable. “Well, feel free to wear them around me. I won’t think it’s odd.”

“They’re in my hotel room.”

“Oh.” She paused. “Well, look in the glove box. Someone might have left a pair in there. If not, you can buy some in Florence.”

Daniel opened the glove box and dug around in the manuals and brochures.

“I want you to know how much I appreciate the chance to interview you. I think you’ll be surprised at the impact it could have,” she said.

“In my experience, the media makes the story about what they want to say, not what was actually said.”

“Point taken,” she conceded.

Daniel closed the glove box. “No luck.”

“Florence then.”

He shook his hands. “It’s easing up some.”

“Good.” She was holding the unusual pendant that hung around her neck.

His phone rang. This time it was Nick. “Sorry, I have to take this.”

Mel pointed. “Make it quick. More tunnels ahead.”

He nodded as he answered. “Hey, everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” Nick said.

“Good. Sorry if I upset Grace yesterday. I need to put my phone somewhere out of reach until I can wake up completely.”

“Apology accepted. She’s fine, but she’s worried about you. That’s why I called.”

“All right,” Daniel said. Nick loved Grace beyond reason, which was enough for Daniel to embrace him as his brother-in-law. But when it came to Grace, the two of them vied for the title of most overprotective, especially in her current state.

“Actually, she’ll have my hide if she finds out I called you about this. But she’s having dreams again.”

Daniel had always been the one who dreamed. But last year, after Pops died, Grace had started having intense dreams about Granny Lily, their great-great-great-grandmother, and the mountain—dreams that ultimately saved Nick’s life and exposed Pops’s murderer. The dreams ended after that—after, as Grace had put it, the darkness was gone and the mountain healed.

“Granny Lily? The mountain?”

“And you,” Nick responded.

“Me?”

“Granny Lily seems to be getting insistent about you and the cave.”

“Dammit. She won’t come to me? She has to torment Grace about it?” Daniel burst out, then lowered his voice, hoping Mel couldn’t hear him over the wind. “I’m the one who dreams, and she visits Grace?” He noticed the noise of the wind had died down a bit. Mel had slowed down to the speed minimum. The better to hear his conversation?

“Her connection to Grace is kind of unique. Or maybe she’s having trouble getting through to you,” Nick said. “Look—”

“So I really don’t have a choice. I can’t say ‘no thanks’.”

There was a long pause. “I don’t know what to tell you. I’m worried about Grace and the baby. It’s every night now.”

“This is blackmail,” Daniel growled.

“Sure feels like it,” Nick agreed. “But I can’t exactly have an apparition arrested.”

“Sorry, Nick. This isn’t your fault. I understand how you feel.” Daniel sighed. “Grace should’ve told me.”

“She doesn’t want to pressure you. But it’s escalating. I can’t watch Grace go through this much more. She won’t take anything to help her sleep. The baby—”

“I hear you,” Daniel said. “I’ll deal with it when I get home.”

“Sorry, Daniel.”

“No. I’m glad you were honest with me. I’ll tell her when she calls about the Rock House hives. Maybe just knowing I plan to go into the cave when I get home will help.”

“Yeah. I wish there were some other option.”

“Thanks, brother.” Daniel meant it.

“Ditto,” Nick replied.

Daniel slid the phone into his pocket. “Damn.”

The car sped up once more. “I was worried that you might not finish before this next tunnel,” Mel said. “Expecting any more calls? It’s going to get iffy as we go through the mountains.”

“Nothing that can’t wait.”

“So...‘blackmail’?”