Never Look Back

“Just dancing shadows.” She indicated a backless stool that would accommodate him and his wings. “Do you want to sit?” They’d been standing all this time.

He shook his head. “No, thank you. But you can.”

She perched on the edge of a chair, where she could keep an eye on the mural. Just in case, she thought.

Finally, she shifted her gaze to her companion. Raven looked big and strong, powerfully tattered, with his rough-hewn trousers and fraying shirt. But he looked lost, too.

“In some ways, our lives have been similar,” she said.

He clutched the cup, his callused fingers wrapped around the handle. “How so?”

“My father committed suicide, too.”

“You understand this pain?”

“Yes. Our mother abandoned us. She disappeared for many years. During the time she was gone, my father shot himself.”

“When my father did it, I had nightmares about him,” he said. “About the rifle he used. About the bullet shattering his skull. I was twelve years old, living in that boarding school, afraid they would punish me if I mourned him openly, if I grieved the Indian way.”

Suddenly she pictured him as a child, alone in his dormitory bed, trying to conceal his emotions, the ache that was still hidden in his eyes. “My dad didn’t use a rifle. He put a handgun in his mouth.”

Raven angled his head, making his hair fall in a razor-sharp line. “He did this because your mother hurt him?”

Allie placed her tea on a wrought-iron table. “She left him for another man.”

“But your father was not Apache?”

“No. He was Lakota.”

“An Apache man can punish his wife for being unfaithful. He can whip her, cut her nose or kill her.”

“They can’t do that anymore. There are laws.”

He frowned a little. “There were moral laws then. The leaders would try to discourage a wronged husband from committing violence. But sometimes a man would kill himself after he killed his adulterous wife.”

Allie didn’t know what to say, and within a heartbeat, the absence of speech dangled between them, swaying like a paper moon. Thin and silvery. Strangely tangible.

She glanced at the mural where shadows still stirred. She knew Raven was thinking about his wife. “What do you think happened to Vanessa after you disappeared? Would she have assumed you were dead?”

“Not without a body. She would have suspected witchcraft.”

“Even so, would the tribe have treated her like a widow? She was without a husband.”

“She wouldn’t have allowed them to treat her so. Nor would she remarry. She would have waited for me, hoping I found a way to return to her.”

“But you couldn’t.”

And now his wife was dead. A hundred bewitched years had passed, leaving a gothic gap between them. To Allie, it seemed tragically romantic. But it made her envious, too. She’d always wanted someone to love her in the way Raven loved Vanessa.

“How did you meet her?” she asked.

“We attended the same boarding school, and we had feelings for each other then. But I didn’t ask her to marry me until we were older. Until I danced with her at Fort Sill.”

She tried to picture a social event on the military reservation, but her mind drew a blank. “Will you tell me about it sometime?”

“Sometime,” he repeated, as though speaking of it now would make him sad.

“I should alter the painting.” She stood up, thinking about the night Vanessa had waited for him, the same night Sorrel had crushed the colors of his soul. He wasn’t an angel. He was a warrior, fighting to survive, to bear the loneliness he’d endured.

The destruction of his life.

His life. Suddenly those two words hit her like a fist. A jolt of danger. A warning.

She looked at Raven and the lights went out. Nothing glowed but the vanilla-scented candle she’d lit earlier.

Then that went out, too. But not from the storm.

Allie sensed a witch.

“Raven?” She said his name. She couldn’t see him, not even the slightest outline of his body, of his wings. The room was pitch-black.

He didn’t answer.

She heard the whoosh of air, and when the lights returned, he was gone.

Samantha wouldn’t quit hissing.

“I know,” Allie said. She was scared, too. Her pulse was pounding harder than the rain.

Was Zinna’s magic returning? Or was there another dead sorceress at work? For all she knew, Grandma Sorrel had popped in from the grave.

She had to search the loft. If Raven was still here, she had to find him. And if he wasn’t…

Cautious, Allie walked from room to room. Samantha followed, eager to fight off evil forces. Of course at any given moment she could turn tail and run. Or hide under the nearest chair. Lately that seemed to be her strong suit.

When Allie came to Olivia’s room, she stalled, apprehensive to enter. The door was ajar. But that was how Olivia had left it.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Here goes.” With a deep breath, she went inside and turned on the light.

The bed was draped with a satin quilt, reminding her of the lining of a coffin. The sheers on the windows were Victorian lace, but they could have been ghouls in bridal gowns.

She looked at the closet-door mirror. The only reflection was hers. And Sam’s. They just stood there, staring at themselves.

Then the cat spun around and growled.

Raven was perched on top of Olivia’s armoire. Yes, perched. He was a bird once again.

Allie’s pulse quit pounding.