“I just know.”
“But you’re a very loving person.”
“In terms of friendship, yes. But when it comes to romance … I’ve never felt that kind of love. It’s like trying to understand what the ocean is like by holding a conch shell against my ear.” She glanced morosely at the romance novel in Zoë’s hands. “What’s your favorite part of that book? The page you’d tell me to use in a spell.”
Zoë shook her head, beginning to flip through the book. “You’re going to make fun of me.”
“I’m not going to make fun of you.”
The page was located with an ease that implied many repeated readings. Zoë handed the open book to her, her cheeks turning pink. “Don’t read it out loud.”
“I won’t even move my lips,” Justine said. Her gaze swept down the page while Zoë busied herself at one of the counters, measuring ingredients into a mixing bowl.
“You,” he whispered, “are my Solomon’s mine, my uncharted empire. You are the only home I need to know, the only journey I want to take, the only treasure I would die to claim. You are exotic and familiar, opiate and tonic, hard conscience and sweet temptation.”
The scene continued with escalating passion for pages afterward, compelling in its unabashed lyricism. Justine wanted to read more. “Are emotions like that even possible?” she asked. “I mean, even though you and Alex are in love…”—she gestured with the book—“real life can’t be like this, right?”
Zoë’s face turned pink as she replied. “Sometimes real life is even better. Because love is there not just in the big romantic moments, but in all the little things. The way he touches your face, or covers you with a blanket when you’re taking a nap, or puts a Post-it note on the fridge to remind you about your dentist appointment. I think those things glue a relationship together even more than all the great sex.”
Justine gave her a morose glance. “You’re insufferable, Zoë,” she muttered.
A grin curled her cousin’s lips. “It’ll be that way for you someday,” she said. “You just haven’t met the right man yet.”
“I may have already,” Justine said. “I may have already met and lost him without ever knowing.”
Zoë’s smile faded. “I’ve never seen you like this. I never realized it mattered so much. You’ve never seemed to care whether you fell in love or not.”
“I’ve tried to make myself believe it wasn’t important. Sometimes I almost managed to convince myself.” Justine dropped her forehead to her folded arms. “Zo,” she asked in a muffled voice, “if you could add ten years to your life, but the catch was that you could never love someone the way you do Alex, would you do it?”
Zoë’s reply was unhesitating. “No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s like trying to describe a color you’ve never seen before. Words can’t make you understand what real love is like. But until you’ve felt it … you haven’t really lived.”
Justine was silent for a long moment. She swallowed against the tightness in her throat.
“I’m sure you’ll find true love someday,” she heard Zoë say.
I’m just as sure that I won’t, Justine thought. Unless I do something.
An idea came to her … a stupid, dangerous idea. She tried to unthink it.
But even so, she could feel the spellbook, stowed safely under her bed, calling to her.
I’ll help you, it was saying. I’ll show you how.
Two
As she cleared breakfast plates and flatware from the tables, Justine paused to chat with some of the guests. There was an older couple from Victoria, a honeymooning pair from Wyoming, and a family of four from Arizona.
The family included two boys who were busy wolfing down Zoë’s pumpkin pancakes. The boys were a couple of years apart in age, both small cyclones waiting to be set loose.
“How’s breakfast?” Justine asked the children.
“Good,” the older boy said.
The younger boy answered around a mouthful of pancake. “The syrup tastes weird.”
He had filled his plate with syrup until the pancakes were practically floating. A gluey tuft of hair stuck up in front, and another at the side of his head.
Justine smiled. “That’s probably because it’s real. Most pancake syrup you buy at the stores doesn’t have maple in it at all. It’s all corn syrup and flavoring.”
“I like that better,” the boy said with his mouth full.
“Hudson,” the mother scolded, “mind your manners.” She glanced up at Justine apologetically. “He’s made a mess.”
“No problem at all,” Justine said, and gestured to her empty plate. “May I take that for you?”
“Yes, thanks.” The woman returned her attention to the boys while Justine removed her plate and glass. The boy’s father, who was talking on his cell phone, paused his conversation long enough to say to Justine, “Take mine, too. And bring me some tea. Earl Grey, with nonfat milk. Do it fast—we have to leave soon.”
“Of course,” Justine said pleasantly. “Should I bring it in a to-go cup?”
He responded with a brief nod and a grunt, and resumed his phone conversation.
As Justine headed to the kitchen with the dishes, someone appeared at the doorway of the dining room.
“’Scuse me.” The speaker was a young woman in a slim black skirt suit and sensible medium-height pumps, her penny-colored hair cut in a perfect shoulder-length bob. Her features were fine, her eyes luminous blue. She wore no jewelry except for a fine gold chain around her neck. Her appearance would have led Justine to expect a cut-glass British accent. Instead, she spoke in a West Virginia drawl as thick as diesel-spec engine oil. “I’m here for check-in, but there’s no one in the office.”
“Sorry,” Justine said, “we’re a little shorthanded at the moment. My breakfast help couldn’t make it this morning. Are you with the group that’s coming in today?”
A careful nod. “Inari Enterprises. I’m Priscilla Fiveash.”
Justine recognized the name. She was the executive assistant who would handle the advance check-in for Jason Black and his entourage. “I’ll be free in about ten minutes. Would you like a cup of coffee while you wait?”
“No, thank you.” The young woman didn’t seem unfriendly so much as guarded, her emotions tightly laced and double-knotted. “Is there a place where I could make some calls in private?”
“Sure, you can use the office. It’s unlocked.”
“Thank you.”
The father of the two boys asked irritably from the table, “My tea?”
“Right away,” Justine assured him. But before leaving the room, she paused to say to the woman, “Fiveash … that’s an unusual name. English, Irish?”
“I’m told it came from England. A village they can’t find anymore, with five ash trees in the center.”
It sounded like a Tradition name. Ash trees were nearly as powerful as oak trees. And the number five was especially significant to those in the craft, whose symbol was the five-pointed star enclosed in a circle. Although Justine was tempted to ask more, she only smiled and headed toward the kitchen.
A few moments later, she heard alarming sounds from the dining room. A mother’s cry, a clatter of plates and flatware, a chair overturned. Turning swiftly, Justine hurried back and dumped the armload of dishes onto a table.
The younger of the two boys appeared to be choking. His eyes were wide and white with panic, his hands pawing at his throat. The mother patted his back helplessly.
Priscilla had already reached the boy. Locking her arms around him from behind, she jerked her fist upward and inward in a sharp movement. The procedure was repeated three more times, but the obstruction was not dislodged. The boy’s face was gray, his lips moving in spasms.
“You’re hurting him,” the mother cried. “Stop—she’s hurting him—”
“He’s choking,” the father snapped. His fists clenched as he watched Priscilla. “Do you know what the hell you’re doing?”
Priscilla didn’t answer. Her mouth was grim, her face white except for two patches of red color high on her cheeks. Her gaze met Justine’s. “Won’t come loose,” she said. “Might be stuck all the way along his gullet.”
“Call 911.”
While Priscilla snatched up her nearby bag and rummaged for a phone, Justine took her place behind the boy’s heaving body. She tried a couple of steep-angled jerks up into the surface of his upper abdomen, and muttered a few words under her breath. “Sylphs of air I conjure thee, help him breathe, so mote it be.”
The plug of food was abruptly expelled. The boy stopped writhing and began to draw in huge breaths. Both parents rushed forward and pulled him close, the mother sobbing in gratitude.
Justine pushed back a lock of hair that had come loose from her ponytail. She let out an unsteady sigh, trying to quiet the clackety rhythm of her heart.
Priscilla’s black leather pumps came into the periphery of her vision. Justine glanced upward with a weak smile. Relief had drained all the strength out of her until she was as limp as a pillowcase on a clothesline.
The moonstone-blue eyes looked down at her intently. “You sure got a funny way of doing the Heimlich,” Priscilla said.
* * *
After the commotion was settled and breakfast had been cleared, Justine sat with Priscilla in the small office. The entire inn had been rented out for the next five days to a half-dozen employees and colleagues of Inari Gaming Enterprises, an in-house development team of a major software company. The rest of the inn would go unoccupied even though it had been paid for.
“Jason likes his privacy,” Priscilla had explained, which had hardly been a surprise. Jason Black, who had produced the most successful fantasy video-game series ever released, was notoriously elusive. He never attended promotional events. He turned down all interview requests from broadcast media, and only agreed to the occasional print interview with the provisions that his private life would not be discussed and he wouldn’t allow his picture to be taken.
In fact, Justine, Zoë, and the two women who helped to clean the inn had all been required to sign nondisclosure agreements in advance. As a result, they were legally prohibited from revealing details about Jason Black. If they so much as revealed the color of his socks, they would be sued into the next century.
After typing his name into a few Internet search engines, Justine had found reams of information about the gaming company and its achievements, but only a sparse handful of facts about the man himself. He’d been brought up in California and had gone to USC on a football scholarship. Halfway through sophomore year, he’d taken a leave from college and had gone, of all places, to live at a Zen monastery near the Los Padres National Forest. He had dropped off the radar for a couple of years and had never returned to school. Eventually he had applied for a job in the game-development division of a software company. After several successes, he had taken another job with Inari Software to head its gaming division, and he had become the project leader and developer of the top-selling video-game series of all time.
As far as Jason Black’s personal life went, there had been a few discreet relationships, but he’d never been engaged or married. There were a few candid photos of him available on the Net, getting in and out of a car, escorting someone to a social function, but his face was averted in most of them, his dislike of the camera obvious. The best shot of him had been a pixelated blur.
“Why’s he so publicity shy?” Justine asked Priscilla.
“You can ask, but I can’t say.”
“Is he handsome?”
“Too much for his own good,” Priscilla said darkly.
Justine’s brows lifted. “Are you involved with him?”
Priscilla’s brief huff of laughter held no amusement. “Never. My job is too important to me—I’d never risk it for anything. ’Sides, he and I wouldn’t suit.”
“Why not?”
Priscilla began to check off reasons on her fingers. “He’s too used to having his way. And basically I wouldn’t trust him with my left shoe.” She pulled an electronic tablet from her briefcase and brought up a file. “Here’s the updated list for Jason’s room. Let’s go over it.”
“It’s already taken care of. You e-mailed the updated list to me a few days ago.”
“This is the updated updated list.”
Jason Black required a west-facing second-floor room maintained at a temperature of sixty-eight degrees. A king-size bed with high-thread-count sheets and goose-down pillows with no feathers. Two bottles of chilled spring water were to be brought to his room every morning, along with a health shake. He also required two white bath towels per day. Unscented soap and shampoo. An LED desk lamp on the table in his room, wireless access, a white flower arrangement, and a package of foam earplugs on the nightstand. A selection of organic unwaxed fruit. No newspapers or magazines—he preferred digital formats. And every night at nine, two shots of chilled Stolichnaya vodka were to be delivered to his room.
“Why two?” Justine asked.
Priscilla shrugged. “I don’t usually ask Jason why he wants something. It makes him ornery, and he never explains anyway.”
“Good to know.” Justine returned her attention to the list. “I think I’ve got everything. Except for the flower arrangement. What kind of white flowers? Daisies? Lilies?”
“That’s up to you. Nothing too strong-smelling, though.”
“I have one more question. You know how each room at the inn pays homage to a different artist? Well, there are two second-floor west-facing rooms. One is the Roy Lichtenstein, and the other is the Gustav Klimt. Which one do you think Mr. Black would prefer?”
Tucking a coppery sweep of hair neatly behind her ear, Priscilla considered the question. “To me they both sound like something you’d take antibiotics for,” she said. “Could you tell me about ’em? I don’t know art from apple butter.”
Justine liked her frankness. “Roy Lichtenstein was an American pop artist. His most famous paintings looked like comic strips, with lettering and thought balloons. His work is more about irony and technique than emotion. Klimt, on the other hand, is all about sensuality. He was an Austrian painter in the 1800s, and his style was what they call Art Nouveau, with lines and curves inspired by Japanese woodblock prints. His best-known painting is The Kiss—there’s a print of it in the room. So … which one would suit Mr. Black? Lichtenstein or Klimt?”