Seduction

Four

“Are you all right?”

Jac looked up, jarred out of the letter.

Malachai stood in the doorway. In his trousers, silk dressing gown and velvet house slippers, he looked elegant. Not at all like he’d been sleeping in an armchair.

“I woke up,” he said, “and you were gone.”

Jac nodded. “I… I couldn’t sleep.”

There was no reason to mention the cramps. If he were a medical doctor maybe… but even then probably not. She hadn’t been far enough along to require immediate medical attention unless she was bleeding excessively. And she wasn’t. Forcing herself, she put it out of her mind. There was time enough to deal with it when she was alone again. Now she had to find out about the letter from Theo.

Looking at her mug, then at the decanter of brandy pulled out of line on the bar, he asked, “Do you mind if I join you?”

“Of course not.”

Malachai always spoke in an oddly formal manner, and while it was unusual, it was also reassuring. His old-fashioned ways comforted her. Reminded her of her grandfather, who was responsible for both her name and her love of books. When she was born, he’d brought Jac’s mother a large bouquet of freshly picked hyacinth. Audrey had been so taken with the flower’s scent-one of the few that couldn’t be extracted for perfume-she’d borrowed its name for her daughter. Jacinthe, French for “hyacinth.”

Malachai poured an inch of the amber liquid into a crystal glass and sat down on the other side of his desk, facing her.

“Now I think the house was built for nights like this, but when I stayed here as a child, storms at night scared me. There are tombs beneath the foundation and I was obsessed with the image of the rain loosening the dirt and letting the dead escape,” Malachai said.

Jac had been ready to confront him about the letter but was too curious not to ask whose tombs.

“Family crypts going all the way to Trevor Talmage and his brother Davenport.”

“Directly under the house?”

“In a subcellar, yes. I’ll show you tomorrow if you like. It’s a beautiful underground stone garden complete with marble benches and a working fountain. It’s actually a lovely place to sit and meditate.”

“Why under the house?”

“My ancestor didn’t want to be buried in a public place where grave robbers could disturb his resting place. He didn’t believe it was final, you see.”

“Because he believed in reincarnation?”

“Quite. Convinced reincarnation was real and that his death was only a respite between lives, he made elaborate plans so that when he returned in his next life he’d be able to find and access his home, his treasures and his fortune without having to start over again from scratch.”

“Has anyone ever come back claiming to be him?”

“Not that I’ve heard of but…” He paused. Malachai had noticed the envelope in front of her. Looked from it to the letter she was still holding.

“What is that you’re reading?” he asked.

She pushed it toward him.

“How did you find this, if I may inquire?” he asked.

“It’s addressed to me and you opened it. I think I get to ask the first question,” Jac countered.

“Except to find it you would have had to go looking through my briefcase. I’m not sure which of us has the right to be more outraged.”

“I do. I knocked over your briefcase by accident, and when I was putting everything back inside, I found the letter.”

The corner of his mouth lifted in an ironic smile. “There are no accidents, just as there are no coincidences.”

“Which gives you one less excuse. So if you didn’t open it by accident, why did you open it?”

“In order to protect you.”

“Oh, Malachai. We’re not in a nineteenth-century gothic novel. That sounds ridiculous. You read what Theo wrote,” Jac said. “He thinks there’s proof in Jersey validating a specific Celtic myth. Why would I need to be protected from doing my job?”

“You can explore Celtic myths without visiting Jersey,” Malachai answered without addressing her question.

“Why does where I do my job matter to you? Jersey is renowned for having hundreds of important Neolithic and Celtic ruins. If he’s really on the trail of something proving Druid-”

“Isn’t what I showed you today important enough?” Malachai interrupted.

“Malachai, you’re obfuscating. What’s wrong with my going to Jersey? Is that why you brought me here? To offer me your ruins in exchange for the ones you were hiding from me?”

“Not at all. I just think-” He broke off, then began again. “Can’t you accept that I have reasons to believe the best course of action would be for you to ignore his offer?”

“No.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“Malachai, you opened a letter that wasn’t addressed to you and then held on to it without telling me about it. That’s a fairly serious invasion of privacy. I’m not sure I should trust you.”

The cramps, which had been dormant for the last half hour, kicked up. Jac took a long sip of the now lukewarm brandy-laced tea.

Malachai stood, walked over to the fireplace and set to making a fire. Even though it was mid-August, it was a chilly night and she knew the fire would be welcome, but she also knew he was buying time. Thinking through his best possible course of action. As she watched him, this man who knew the inside of her soul, she thought about how little she really knew about him. It had always been a fairly one-sided relationship.

“Malachai, what’s going on?”

He lit a match. The scent of sulfur stung Jac’s nose. With a practiced flick of his wrist, Malachai threw the light into the nest of kindling. A first spark caught. Sputtered. Then the sticks burst into flames. Now Jac could smell the bright fresh edge of sandalwood and cedar… She smelled sweet smoke and then the odor of bitter tar.

“Why won’t you answer me?” she asked.

Slowly he turned away from the fire and back toward her. The firelight was behind him, his features cast in shade. His shadow loomed large on the ceiling. He was about to say something. Then he changed his mind and instead walked over to the bookshelves, where he plucked something nestled between two books.

“Malachai, what is going on? There has never been any actual proof that Druids existed,” Jac said. “If Theo has access to that proof, I want to see it. Why are you being so cryptic?”

He caressed the thing in his hand for a moment and then brought it over to the desk and placed it in front of Jac. The perfectly carved amber-bejeweled owl was no more than three inches tall. In the low light from the Tiffany lamp, the bird’s diamond eyes glinted almost magically.

Fabergé. Malachai’s voice massaged the single word, giving it weight and importance. “It’s very rare and extremely valuable.” He picked it up and handed it to her.

She was aware of his watching as she inspected it. He’d been one of the most important people in her life. But what was she to him? Another curio in his collection? Objets d’art and patients-by now he had amassed a great number of both.

When she was young, Malachai had been the first therapist out of half a dozen who’d actually helped her. She’d arrived at Blixer Rath suffering borderline personality symptoms exacerbated by the recent death of her mother. The suicide had devastated both Jac and her younger brother, but she’d been upended by it. Jac had been the one to find Audrey and read the note that made no mention of either of her children, only vitriol for her most recent lover.

It was Malachai who, over twelve months at Blixer Rath and more than a thousand hours of therapy, had given Jac the tools she needed to save herself. In the intervening years, he’d remained in her life, touching base every few months, making sure she was all right. Always offering encouragement. Checking to see if she was still on track or needed a tune-up.

Then this past May, when her brother had gotten into trouble and she’d flown to Paris to be with Robbie, Malachai had followed. He’d looked out for her and helped in a way she hadn’t expected and wasn’t used to.

“The owl,” he was saying, “is one of the most curious creatures. A bird that stays awake when the rest of the world sleeps. He can see in the dark. I find that so interesting, to be mired in reality when the rest of the world is dreaming. What does he see and what does he know that the rest of the world is missing?” He paused. “You know, I had an owl once.”

Malachai so rarely talked about himself, Jac was surprised by the admission.

“He let me pet him,” he said wistfully.

“Did he live in your house?”

“No. We were residing outside London on an estate that had a bird sanctuary on the grounds, and the owl befriended me. He must have felt sorry for the lonely little boy who was always by himself. I learned a lot about animals and birds from those who inhabited those woods. Creatures have an authenticity about them, a purity people don’t possess. Our complexity overwhelms us.”

Jac handed the amulet back to Malachai, and he reverently returned it to the shelf and picked up another object. It was an amber sphere with a complicated design carved into its surface.

“No less amazing,” he said as he handed it to her. “This is an Asian seal. A very rare one. No matter what part of it you press down, you get the exact same configuration.”

Jac expected him to pull out a stick of sealing wax and demonstrate. She had no doubt that he used it on his personal letters. Like the woods, this mansion, its antiques and collectibles, Malachai was oddly out of time. And she was an explorer of other times, of the ancient stories we’ve turned into holy grails. That was their tie, she thought. What had kept them bound to each other, long after her stint in therapy was past.

“Or so you think upon first glance.” He was expounding on what he’d already said about the seal. “But there are minute markings, only visible with a magnifying glass, making each configuration unique.” He took it back and rolled it between his palms. “Nothing is what it seems.”

“When are you going to answer my question?”

“Theo was a troubled boy.”

“Yes, he was, and I was troubled then too.”

“The two of you were a terrible influence on each other.”

“I don’t remember that at all. We were good friends. He was my only real friend there.”

Malachai sighed. “You’re going to have to trust me on this, Jac, but due to patient-doctor confidentiality, I can’t reveal what I know or explain why Theo’s a dangerous personality for you to interact with. But he is, Jac.”

She looked at him. Trying to read his unreadable visage.

“Druids believed in reincarnation,” she said, eyeing the translucent amber egg he was still holding. The soft light made it look as if there were living fire trapped in its heart, burning forever.

“Yes, they did,” Malachai said.

“If I went, I would share what I found with you. I could look for proof of your myth while I’m looking for mine.”

“Reincarnation is not a myth. You know, I had this very same conversation with Griffin North not two months ago.”

Jac held herself steady. Bit the inside of her cheek. She felt tears threatening. She couldn’t allow herself to think about Griffin now. She’d just lost even more of him. He wasn’t part of her life. They couldn’t be together. He was with his wife and little girl where he belonged. She took a breath.

Focus.

“I’ll look for proof of your theory then, is that better?” she asked, fighting to stay in the moment. “Maybe there are memory tools in Jersey.”

Jac knew how much Malachai yearned to find one of the legendary sacred objects presumed to be memory aids to facilitate past-life regressions. It was believed that four to six thousand years ago, in the Indus Valley, mystics created these meditation tools to help people enter into deep states of relaxation, during which they would have access to past-life memories.

There were supposed to be twelve memory tools, Malachai had told her, twelve being a mystical number repeated all through various religions and in nature. Twelve objects to help pull memories through the membrane of time, he’d said.

Malachai believed two of these tools had been found in the past few years. The first was a cache of precious stones and the second was an ancient flute made of human bone. Both had subsequently been lost. A third tool, a fragrance that acted as an olfactory trigger, had also surfaced for a short time, but that too had disappeared. But the legends about these tools had grown. There were rumors that men had killed for them and that fortunes had been lost trying to find them. Treasure hunters never gave up looking for the fabled devices, and hustlers tried to defraud innocent collectors with objects they tried to pass off as authentic. Adventure movies had been made and thriller novels had been written about spectacular searches for the memory tools, or fantasies about how they were exploited for evil.

They were Malachai’s holy grail. Jac knew he lusted after finding one the way some men lust after money and power.

“Bribery will not change my mind. Your well-being is more important,” he said.

“I’m surprised to hear you say that. I didn’t think there was anything you wanted more than finding a memory tool.”

“You wound me, Jac. Do you really think I’d sacrifice your safety for some object?”

She studied his face in the firelight. Until that moment, if she’d been asked that question she might have said she wasn’t sure. Malachai didn’t just study reincarnation. He believed in it deeply. It was the reason he’d been at Blixer Rath in the 1990s.

Like Jung, Malachai theorized that many people suffering from what traditional therapists think are personality disorders are in fact suffering from past-life issues. Memories of other incarnations that are bubbling to the surface and causing fears, phobias, anxiety, even alternate personalities. They believed many issues could be tracked back to unresolved past-life conflicts demanding attention in this life.

Malachai had been at the clinic because regression therapy was part of their protocol. Using hypnosis, he explored patients’ recent and more buried pasts. Jac hadn’t been a good subject, though. Under hypnosis, she hadn’t been able to regress any further back than her own recent childhood.

Reincarnation was not Malachai’s passion, it was his lifeblood. Jac admired him for his zeal and for believing in something so profoundly. Envied his certainty. She questioned everything and yearned for a code, a creed. Jac had always wanted to be one of those people who know exactly who they are and operate from a position of unquestionable loyalty to their core.

Instead she was fascinated by all beliefs, myths and legends but had faith in none. If pressed, the only thing in the world she was sure of was that no matter how deeply you care about someone-friend, family or lover-sooner or later, one way or another, you will be hurt or disappointed. She had come to believe in the instability of the known. Time and experience had made her a cynic.

Mythfinders, both the book and TV show, was a cynic’s look at mythology. The stories had value as metaphor, of course. But she thought it was important to expose the fragile ground fables stood on. Jac hoped by tracing a myth back to the actual person or event whence it had sprung, and showing how that small moment had been exaggerated and romanticized into a fantasy, she’d help people manage expectations. Trying to live up to grandiose ideals made life more difficult. Yearning to be who we cannot be, for what we cannot accomplish, engenders discontent.

Hadn’t she seen it firsthand? Her father had exhausted himself trying to live up to the family legends and lost most of what he’d cared about in the process. Her mother’s ambition to achieve literary goals beyond her talent had so destroyed her self-esteem she’d turned to ruinous affairs.

But the opposite of what Jac had imagined had happened with Mythfinders. People found it inspiring. The kernel of proof she tried to show was so small backfired. To know the legends had sprung from reality-even a kernel of reality-was empowering and encouraging. Her followers had found hope in her deconstructions.

“Well, if that’s your best shot, you’ve failed,” Jac said, folding up Theo’s letter and putting it back in the envelope Malachai had left on the desk. “You haven’t given me a good enough reason to refuse the invitation.”

“Your safety isn’t a good enough reason?” he asked.

“It would be if I believed my safety were actually at stake. But what you’re saying is vague. All you can tell me is that when we were both teenagers, Theo and I were potentially-what? Partners in crime? I know that. I remember the rules we broke that summer.”

“You didn’t just break rules. You fell under his spell. You were attracted to his need to seek out and put himself in danger. You hiked on unexplored trails that were off-limits. Stayed out past curfew. He offered you wine and you drank it. Marijuana and you smoked it-”

“I was a fourteen-year-old and had a crush on him.”

“It was more serious than that. You were susceptible to him in a profound way.”

“Maybe I was but I was just a kid.”

“What if I told you that you still could be susceptible to him? We had to send him home, Jac. We couldn’t treat him. He still might be untreated.”

“It was seventeen years ago. He was a sixteen-year-old kid in some kind of distress. Do you realize, even for you, how illogical and farfetched this all sounds?”

“No matter what I say, you’re determined to go, aren’t you?”

“Stop talking in riddles. What else could you say?”

“He could seduce you, Jac. And I don’t just mean sexually. I mean emotionally. At your core. He could use you to achieve his goals.”

“Malachai, you’re talking about it as if you think he’s some kind of evil sorcerer.”

“As far as you are concerned, I think he is.”