Always Emily

“Nick!” Laura called toward the kitchen. “Our girl is home!”

Enveloping Emily in a hug, she cloaked her in a cloud of patchouli and incense, the scent so familiar and dear it brought Emily to the edge of control.

She’d been awful to Laura when she’d first met her, a twelve-year-old witch who’d wanted her father all to herself, but Laura had persevered in creating a lasting friendship. Thank God.

Emily didn’t think of Laura as a step-mom. More like a second mom. Emily’s first mom lived outside Paris, and Emily visited when she could. Laura pulled back from Emily, puzzlement wrinkling her brow. “Are you all right? You feel—”

A fine-boned hand touched Emily’s elbow. Pearl. Her baby sister had grown up. Last time Emily had been home—one year, one month and three days ago, but who was counting?—Pearl had been eighteen. Now, at nineteen, adulthood showed on her face in quiet, elegant bones that spoke of blossoming maturity and dainty beauty.

She had her mother’s striking thick chestnut hair rather than Emily’s tawny richness, almost overwhelming her delicate features, and striking blue eyes with the odd ring of hazel that she’d inherited from her Grandpa Mort, as Emily had. Oh, you beauty. The guys at college must be falling like dominoes.

Emily’s features and body were sturdier than Pearl’s. Or usually were. At the moment, Emily was as weak as a kitten.

Her little Pearl had grown up. Hard to believe Emily had ever resented Laura’s pregnancy all those years ago when it had produced such a devoted sister, and a too-perceptive friend. Pearl watched her with a knowing gaze. “What is it, Emily? What’s wrong?”

“What? No greeting?” Emily said, voice brittle and too bright. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

“Emily,” Pearl admonished. She valued honestly.

Emily deflated and said quietly, “Malaria.”

Laura gasped and Emily touched her arm. “It’s okay. It’s uncomplicated.”

“What does that mean?” Laura frowned. “Isn’t malaria bad? We need to get you to the doctor.”

“I stopped at the hospital in Denver when the flight landed.” She dropped her knapsack and violin at the bottom of the stairs. She’d take them upstairs later, when her legs stopped feeling as heavy as stone sarcophagi. “I picked up medication, but it’s just to prevent further attacks in the future.”

“What can we do this evening?” Pearl brushed hair back from Emily’s forehead.

“Nothing. It has to run its course.”

Laura placed a cool hand against her cheek. “What do you need?”

“Water. Lots of cold water.” She’d returned to the land of plenty, where reaching for a glass of water was as natural as breathing. There were no shortages here, no rationing.

Laura took her hand and dragged her to the kitchen, threading their way through the crowd of friends and family saying hello. Her father looked up from slicing something at the counter, saw Emily, grinned and dropped what he was doing.

Scooping her into his arms, he spun her around.

“When did you get here? Why didn’t you call? I would have driven into Denver to get you.”

She held on to her father, breathing in his familiar scent and taking in his strength. Oh, Daddy. She was a girl again, protected and cherished. Nothing bad could happen to her here.

She was safe.

The tug of that mummy wrap tying her to the past, to dusty old digs and dried relics, to pain and betrayal, tugged her to the past, but she resisted. She’d stayed in the land of the dead too long.

These people were vital. Alive.

Laura handed her a glass of cold water and she downed it in two gulps, giving it back for a refill. Only after she drank three glasses could she answer questions.

Yes, this time she was home for good. No, she wasn’t going back. Yes, she was ecstatic to be here. Yes, she had missed everyone. No, she was no longer with...him. Silence fell over the group that surrounded her.

Laura broke it. “You need food.”

Ah, yes, the answer to everything. A plate of food. A bowl of soup. As though any of that were going to fix what was so badly broken in Emily’s life.

“We started early and a lot of the buffet food is eaten, but I’ve got one of your favorites here,” Laura chattered. Nerves. Laura was so seldom affected by them; Emily must look really bad.

Laura handed her a cup of tea and one of her bakery’s cinnamon buns. Emily’s first bite buried her cynicism, and she sighed. Yes, maybe food was the answer.

She ate half the bun, but she’d put so little into her stomach in the past few days it had shrunk. She handed the rest to her little brother, Cody, though little was a misnomer. At eighteen and six feet tall, he might better be described more accurately as simply younger.

Cody finished the bun in two mouthfuls. Where Pearl’s features were delicate, Cody’s were strong, his jaw square, his trademark Jordan dark brown eyes beneath dark eyebrows and hair a replica of their father’s. Cody was well on his way to being a good-looking man, like their dad, and Uncle Gabe, and Uncle Tyler, all of whom converged on Emily for hugs. So did their wives. And their children.

Oh, those Jordan men could hug, could administer love and support and affection like no one else on earth.

It suffocated her, the bosom of her family too accepting of her at a time when she knew she shouldn’t take it.

Perceptive Pearl saw through her shaky smile, took Emily’s hand and led her down the hallway toward the stairs. She picked up Emily’s knapsack from the bottom step.

Emily retrieved her violin case and followed Pearl up two flights of stairs, to her small, private apartment under the eaves on the third floor. Dad had designed it for Emily when he’d built the house nineteen years ago just after Pearl’s birth.

It ran the full length, with the roof’s slanting edges cutting off height on the two long sides, and white wainscoting running under soft mauve walls.

Emily set her violin on a chair and glanced around. In the sitting area overlooking the garden, sketchpads and pencils were strewn over the sofa and coffee table and chintz armchair.

She picked up one of Pearl’s sketchbooks and thumbed through it. Her sister was good—very good—the scenes of small-town life accurate, unsentimental, and yet attractive. Pearl had also sketched life around Accord, the forests, farms and ranches of Colorado.

Emily turned the page...and there it was. The Cathedral. Her name for the Native American Heritage Center, because it seemed beautiful and holy to her. Salem’s Cathedral. Emily had first named it the Cathedral after it was built, and the name had stuck with everyone. Most people in town called it either the Cathedral or the Heritage Center.

Pearl had captured perfectly the lighting of a dying sunset as it glinted from glass walls. Longing expanded Emily’s chest, but Salem had told her to stay away, and so sadness replaced her yearning.

“I’m sorry. I spend too much time up here.” Pearl started to gather up her work, but Emily stopped her.

“This should be your room now. You’re old enough to have your own space.”

“Where would you stay when you come home?” Pearl dropped what she’d gathered onto the table.

Emily shrugged. Her head hurt too much for thinking right now. She took a tissue from a box on the bedside table and wiped sweat from her forehead. “How’s school?”

“Good. You know me. I’m keen. I like school. I like learning. I’m a nerd.”

A pretty nerd who the boys liked, no doubt.

“How’s the art going?”

Pearl’s face lit up. Even as the tiniest child, art had made her happy. “Great. I’ve had interest from a couple of advertising firms.”