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  Lucien turns.

  “Great,” he mutters. “What have I done to deserve this?”

  Kirk pauses at the doorway. Everyone in the café looks up. Conversations immediately stop, and Shannon realizes that more people in town probably know about the Walker-Fitzpatrick feud than either Lucien or Kirk gave them credit for. Either that, or the presence of two antagonistic and very handsome men in the room gives everyone pause.

  It is very clear that they are antagonistic. Kirk’s shoulders are drawn back and he proudly strides into the room like a gunslinger. Lucien is as still as a statue. The air between them crackles with electricity, and not of a good sort.

  Instead of going up to the pastry display like she expected him to, Kirk walks to their table.

  “Hi, Shannon.” He smiles broadly. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  She doesn’t quite know what to say.

  “Hi, Kirk.” She stands up. After all, he is her boss.

  He holds up a hand. “No, no, please don’t stand on my occasion. I didn’t mean to interrupt your breakfast.”

  Everyone around them, including the waitresses and the cashier, is watching them with undisguised interest.

  Lucien says, “Then don’t.”

  Kirk tenses.

  Uh oh, Shannon thinks. She doesn’t know whether to stand or sit.

  “Don’t what?” Kirk demands.

  “Don’t interrupt our breakfast.”

  “Lucien,” Shannon begins, but he wards her off. He does not get up but glares at Kirk balefully from his seated vantage.

  Shannon doesn’t know what to do but to look from one to the other fretfully.

  “I haven’t forgotten what your family did to my brother, Walker.”

  Now Lucien stands up. “My family didn’t do anything to your brother. I am very sorry for your loss.”

  “Maybe we should take this outside.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Please, don’t!” Shannon cries. She is afraid that if they do take this argument outside, it would escalate into a fight. At least in the café, in the presence of so many people, they are forced to maintain a semblance of civility. Or so she hopes.

  “You may not be personally responsible for his death, Walker,” Kirk continues, his entire stance in fight readiness, “but I won’t rule out the rest of your clan. Everyone in town knows what you people are.”

  “What my ancestors were has nothing to do with who I am or what my family is today. So don’t you go accusing people of witchcraft. I can land you with a lawsuit so fast that you’d be forced to close your clinic down.”

  “You want to sue me? Go ahead. Let’s see what secrets my lawyers will dredge up from you.”

  “I’m not the only one with secrets, Fitzpatrick. Let’s see what this town will think of you when they finally understand what you and your family really are.”

  The two men become suddenly aware of everyone listening in.

  “Please,” Shannon says again. “Don’t do this here. I’ll leave.”

  Kirk looks at her. “No, I’ll leave. Sorry for interrupting your breakfast. But I’ll have to say this, Shannon. If you’re dating this guy, be very careful.”

  “Who are you to tell her who she can and cannot date?” Lucien bridles.

  OK, this is not going anywhere good. Shannon picks her purse up.

  “I’m sorry both of you can’t be civil in a public place, so I’ll just go.”

  “No!” Lucien says.

  “You don’t have to go, Shannon.”

  But she walks out of the café, her heart thudding painfully against her ribcage. Behind her, she hears Lucien say to Kirk, “Now look what you did.”

  She breezes through the door, and Lucien is immediately beside her.

  “Look, Shannon, I’m sorry. Don’t go, just wait for me here. I’ll pay and then we can do whatever you want.”

  “He’s my boss, Lucien.”

  “I know.” He does appear contrite. “I’m sorry.”

  Kirk comes out after them.

  “It’s OK, I’m going,” he says. “I’m sorry, Shannon. I’ll see you at work.”

  A few people who are about to enter the café look curiously at them. Shannon can’t help but be shaken. She hates confrontations.

  “OK,” she says to Kirk.

  They watch Kirk walk towards his Tahoe, get in and rev away.

  “Shannon,” Lucien begins, but she wheels on him.

  “Look, I don’t know what really happened between your families, but you can’t keep going on having this feud. You’re both like tin cans waiting to explode. Someone is going to be hurt real bad if you don’t solve it, especially if you say your family is innocent of the crimes he is accusing you of.”

  “It can’t be solved,” he declares. “His family accused mine of something we didn’t do and they can’t prove we did it either.”

  “What exactly is it then? You want to keep me out of this, but I am already involved. I need to know.”

  She thinks she knows. Kirk has hinted at it, but she wants to hear it from Lucien.

  His face is an unreadable complexity of flitting emotions. Then he says abruptly, “OK, I’ll tell you, but don’t blame me if you don’t believe me. Most people would say it’s a pretty tall tale.”

  “Try me.”

  He pauses. “I’ll go in and settle the bill. Then we’ll go for a long drive.”

  THE DRIVE

  The route Lucien decides to take in his Mustang is a scenic one, but then, most routes in Dolphin’s Bay and its surrounding towns are scenic. The air is crisp today, and the sun is actually out, although scudding clouds on the horizon indicate there may be rain later. The mountains, blanketed with forest, are on one side, and Shannon finds herself wondering what Jared is doing on a bright day like this.

  “I didn’t want to involve you in all this,” Lucien says.

  “I think I am already involved.”

  He glances at her. “Not even a surface scratch. There’s a lot of iceberg under the water you can’t even imagine.”

  “No metaphors, please, Lucien. I am not a child.”

  “No, you’re not.” He sighs. “I’m torn between telling you everything and wondering what to leave out.”

  She wants to say, “So don’t leave anything out”, but it wouldn’t be fair because she doesn’t tell him everything about herself and Jared either.

  Lucien says, “It was two years back. My father and I were at a meeting with a client in the Chatterly when Alison Fitzpatrick, the eldest of the Fitzpatrick siblings, burst in with two of her sisters. I don’t know how much you know about the Fitzpatricks, but they are like the Irish, except they are not Irish. They are a family of seven children, and they have cousins and more extended relatives than you can count on a dozen hands.”

  Five girls, two boys. Shannon remembers the photo in Kirk’s room.

  “Alison pointed at my father with an accusing finger and said, ‘You killed him, didn’t you?’

  “Naturally, we were all concerned. My father and I excused ourselves from our client and went outside with Alison.

  “‘We didn’t kill anyone,’ my father declared. ‘Who do you mean?’

  “Alison Fitzpatrick was incensed. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know,’ she accused my father. ‘It had your mark all over it.’

  “I was rather concerned myself at this point.

  “‘We don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,’ I said. I felt like throttling her at that point. ‘Who died?’

  “She rounded up on me. ‘My brother, who else?’ she said.

  “She has only one brother that I know of who lived here then. He was Kyle Fitzpatrick. Younger than she was by five years, but clearly the leader of their clan since their father died.

  “‘I haven’t seen Kyle in months,’ I said truthfully.

  “My father said pretty much the same. We live in a small town, and sometimes you bump into some people, and other times not. The Fitzpatricks and t
he Walkers do not cohabitate in the same social circles. I don’t mean that in any sort of derogatory way. It’s just that my father is more used to country clubs than kiddie care.

  “Alison glares at me as if she would like to murder me on the spot. Then she tells us what happened. They had found their brother, Kyle, in the woods. He was naked and very dead. But there were no marks on him. No stabs or puncture or bullet wounds.”

  Lucien pauses. He is deliberating how much to tell her again, Shannon knows.

  He clears his throat and continues:

  “The only thing they found was a circle around him scattered in chalk dust. The circle had symbols in it. It was a witch’s circle, something my ancestors would have used to contain a dangerous being.”

  “Is Kyle a dangerous being?” Shannon says carefully.

  She knows she is onto something here and she has mostly put everything together, but she also knows Lucien will never reveal all his secrets.

  “Is any human being dangerous?” Lucien smiles. “We are living in the Pacific Northwest which is known for its vast number of serial killers. So yes, every person is potentially dangerous. You, me, anyone.”

  She nods at his deflective answer.

  Lucien says, “My family history is in the annals for anyone who wants to read them. We have never covered up the fact that we had ancestors who were accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake back in New England. But it doesn’t mean we are the only witch family in Dolphin’s Bay, and it doesn’t mean we are practicing witchcraft. We should not be held culpable for the deeds of our ancestors.”

  She agrees. Except that she doesn’t quite believe that the Walkers have stopped practicing witchcraft. She remembers the change that had come over Lucien when he was arm-wrestling her brother. Was that witchcraft, or does Lucien have innate powers he will not speak of?

  She says hesitantly, “Lucien, I remember the day we met.”

  He nods.

  “I saw you watching me. I kept my eyes mostly on you, if you remember. You were the most beautiful thing I’d seen in a long time.”

  She flushes. No matter how many times she has received a compliment from him, she will never get used to it.

  He continues, “Your brother is very strong. The strongest man I’ve met so far since – ”

  He trails off. Shannon supposes he is going to say Kirk Fitzpatrick.

  “Are you a witch, Lucien?” she asks.

  He doesn’t reply for a long while. They have come to the ocean on one side of the drive, and the sun dapples the wave caps with dazzling highlights.

  He says, “I have inherited certain powers that I have some control of, and others I have none.”

  She licks her lips. She has known this all along. “What powers?”

  He gazes at her out of his brilliant blue eyes. “I can enhance my strength, speed, agility, memory when I choose to. It’s like taking a booster. An immense booster. But it doesn’t last, depending on how taxing the circumstances are.”

  “Do you know witchcraft?”

  “I won’t deny that when I was a child, I was very curious about it. There are books and tomes in the library back in my father’s home with spells in them. Some of them require a coven to perform the incantations.”

  She has her answer. So he knows witchcraft. A sliver of anxiety trails down her backbone.

  “But I don’t practice witchcraft, Shannon,” he says gently. “I don’t live in my father’s house anymore. We have no need for witchcraft. We have money. It’s ‘fuck you’ money, the kind which can buy off islands and small banana republics. We have the world at our feet. We have no need for witchcraft.”

  “But your father and sister use it from time to time.”

  He doesn’t reply to this for a while.

  Then: “They have never used it to harm someone. And they certainly didn’t kill Kyle Fitzpatrick.”

  “Then who did?”

  “I don’t know. The police investigated it for a long time, found no evidence to link this to any of us and anyone else in town, and left it as an unsolved crime. So the Fitzpatricks have no grouse with us. I won’t deny some sort of witchcraft has been involved in killing Kyle Fitzpatrick, but we are not the only witches in the vicinity.”

  “Who else is a witch?”

  “Those are not my secrets to reveal.”

  They have come to a scenic outlook which is placed on the promontory of a cliff overlooking the ocean. Lucien parks the Mustang and they both get out. Part of her wonders, irrationally, if he would push her off the cliff now that he has told her his secrets.

  She shivers in the wind.

  This is Lucien! her brain tells her. Lucien who held you and made sweet love to you only this morning, and gazed into your eyes with such ardor and passion and love, even though he has never uttered the words.

  He says, looking out into the ocean, “Your brother, Jared, has powers too, doesn’t he?”

  It’s no use denying it.

  “Yes.”

  “Witch?”

  “Shapeshifter.”

  Lucien holds his breath, and then releases it. “Then he would not be alone here.”

  “You’re telling me the Fitzpatricks are shapeshifters as well.”

  He holds her eyes.

  “Not all of them. Mainly the males. Brothers, cousins. They are not the only ones here. There are other families who prowl the dark forest and in all kinds of guises.”

  He is right. The Pacific Northwest is full of killers.

  “I think the Fitzpatricks know about Jared and me.”

  He nods. “It would eventually come to that, yes. Shapeshifters like to map their territory and mark it out. They are not as territorial as true beasts, and they understand the need to co-exist to avoid investigations by the rangers. Still, accidents occur now and again – especially if a strange shapeshifter comes to town – and someone is killed.”

  “Like old man Pullnam.”

  “Like old man Pullnam,” he agrees. “What about you? Are you a shapeshifter as well?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. Any powers then?”

  She decides to tell him about the healing and Conchita Ruiz.

  He comes closer to her and takes her hands. “So you’re a witch as well.”

  “No. A healer.”

  “Some would call you a green witch.” He moves his lips to hers and gently kisses her.

  She responds, needing the assurance of his touch that everything still is as it was between them. Their kisses grow more fervent, and pretty soon, they are frantically feeling each other’s bodies all over.

  A car whizzing by brings them down to ground. They part for air and laugh.

  “Public sex can be enervating,” he teases.

  “That’s one thing that will bring the police down on us quicker than your coven of witches.”

  “I don’t belong to any coven.” He holds her fiercely. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you, Shannon.”

  Her heart beats faster with a surge of love for him.

  “I know.”

  They embrace each other for a long time before returning to the car and driving back to Dolphin’s Bay.

  THE WITCH

  Back at work, Shannon and Kirk do not speak of the incident. It is as if nothing had happened. Kirk is as busy and cordial as ever, and so is Shannon.

  Jared has managed to land himself a job as a supervisor in a logging company, and so he is near the forest during the day and kept happy. She hopes he doesn’t get the urge to shapeshift at work, or it would be most uncomfortable if he were found out.

  Weeks pass. Everything seems to have settled into an equilibrium, where people are content to be in the exact same place as they are. Shannon and Lucien are still a couple without the ‘C’ word, and they are happy. Deliriously so.

  Then of course everything has to go to shit.

  * * * *

  Shannon is at a Laundromat with a pile of dirty laundry when a woman walks in to
confront her.

  “Shannon Bellamy?” the woman says.

  The woman is dressed simply in a green shirt and blue jeans. Her hair is strawberry blonde and she has the sharpest blue eyes Shannon has ever seen. She is extremely tall, and she would have been pretty if her features weren’t so hard-looking.

  “Yes?” Something about this woman looks terribly familiar, and suddenly it hits Shannon.

  The woman confirms it.

  “I’m Margarete Walker, Lucien’s sister.” She holds out her hand.

  “Hi,” Shannon says cautiously.

  She takes the woman’s hand and shakes it. Margarete’s flesh is cold. Shannon wonders if this is her natural skin temperature or if she has just come in from the chill. An instinct tells her that it is the former.

  “I wonder if I may speak with you privately,” Margarete says.

  In the brief months that Shannon has dated Lucien, he has barely spoken about his family. Nor has he offered to bring her home to meet with them. Shannon attributes this to Lucien’s resolve to keep her as far away as possible from the witches. She doubts he has even spoken to his family about her, and she is content to keep it that way.

  But now, apparently, a spoke has been thrown into the wheel.

  Shannon looks around the Laundromat. Only one other customer is there – a huge man in a plaid shirt and ripped jeans who resembles the typical logger stereotype. He looks up at the pair, takes in Shannon’s slim form appreciatively, and looks away again. Shannon notices the ring on his fourth finger.

  “Sure,” she says. “If you could wait till I finish up. I’m at my final spin cycle, I think.”

  “Maybe we could go outside,” insists the woman.

  She looks like one of those impatient types, Shannon decides. The kind who thinks that people should be moved around like chessmen. Deciding that the logger would probably not be interested in her clean clothing, Shannon grabs her jacket and purse and exits the Laundromat with Margarete Walker.

  Once outside, Margarete says: “You are seeing my brother.”

  “Yes,” Shannon says. She is not quite sure how to approach this. Has Lucien mentioned her? Is she supposed to play dumb about their relationship? They haven’t rehearsed this, obviously.