He found her sitting on the natural stone patio behind her beach house. There was a lawn swing there, made of bamboo. She sat in it, swinging gently, and she didn't look the least surprised to see him there.
"I didn't mean to scare you away."
She offered a small, if somewhat uncertain, smile. "It's not you that scares me." Drawing a breath as if drawing up courage, she patted the empty spot beside her.
He moved forward, sat down beside her. "I don't know what happened. I'm sorry."
She studied his face for a long moment. "Is it gone now? Whatever it was that came over you?"
He nodded. "I'd never hurt you, Melissa."
"I know."
She leaned back in the swing, seemingly relaxing a little. Maybe those all-seeing eyes of hers told her that he was no threat. Maybe she was just more confident on her home turf. Whatever, he was irrationally glad that his outburst back at the house hadn't made her decide to have no more to do with him.
The sea breeze rinsed over him, and it reminded him of what he felt emanating from Melissa. The woman was like the ocean: deep and full of mystery and power. Cool and soothing. Mystical. And emanating a fragrant, refreshing energy the way a tree emanates oxygen, sustaining and strengthening the life force of everyone within her orbit.
He sat there watching the waves as they rolled in, breaking into curls of white froth, hissing as they ran out of steam and retreated into the depths again.
"I won't ask you any more questions if you don't want me to," she said. "And if you just came for the pent', I'll take you to it."
It was some sort of a test, he thought. She didn't dare ask him any more questions without feeling him out first. And she wasn't sure what he was doing here.
"I didn't come for the pent'. I came... I don't know why I came."
She let her eyes close, lashes resting on her cheeks.
"Do you believe in luck, or coincidence, Melissa?"
"I think you make your own luck," she said, not opening her eyes. "And I don't think there's any such thing as coincidence. Synchronicity isn't random. Why?"
He leaned back, too, trying to adopt a more relaxed pose. She looked so comfortable, so at ease. He couldn't bring himself to close his eyes, though. He couldn't look at her with his eyes closed, and he found himself compelled to look at her.
"I've always been very successful. As far back as I can remember, everything I've tried to accomplish has worked out. Grades, scholarships. My career has been one lucky break after another, one amazing success after another. Opportunities seem to line up to knock on my door."
She nodded. "You work hard at what you do. I've only worked for you for two days, and I already know that. And you're good. You have a natural talent for visual storytelling. It's a gift. Probably what you were always meant to do."
"Maybe. Or maybe it was something else."
Time ticked by, silence stretching out between them, as the gentle rush of the waves over the sand whispered like a lullaby. Finally, she said, "What else could it have been, Alex?"
It was a gentle nudge, and it made him aware that he had fallen silent before completing his thought. He credited her with having distracted him. Her and the ocean.
"According to my father's diaries, it's genetic. I inherited the ability to wield his power. Anything I want, I only have to think of it to have it come to me. He wrote that it was his gift to me, but that it would fade in time, unless I learned to appreciate it and to control it."
He pushed with his feet and long legs, moving the swing gently back and forth in perfect time with the waves, and he looked at her. Her huge brown eyes were open now, plumbing the depths of his soul. He could drown in them.
"Did he say... how he expected you to do this?"
He nodded. "There's... a ritual."
Melissa sat up a little. "What kind of ritual?"
"I haven't seen it yet, but it's supposed to transfer his power to me. So that I'm not using his, but making it my own. Elizabeth knows how it goes. I guess she worked with my father a lot when he was alive. She's supposed to assist when the time comes, and I'm not supposed to know too much about it in advance."
Melissa seemed about to say something but then stopped herself.
"I thought the entire idea was ridiculous at first. But the more time I spend in that house - I don't know. It's as if it makes more sense all the time."
She nodded. "I felt him there, Alex. Your father. I think his spirit is still in that house."
He nodded slowly. "He's trapped there, according to Elizabeth. He won't be free until I undergo this - this rite. He can't rest in peace. I know it sounds crazy, but God, I feel him there, too. Then again, he died of brain cancer. All of this might just be the crazy ramblings of a man whose mind had deteriorated to the point of madness."
"Or maybe it's a little bit of both," she told him.
He nodded. "I've thought of that, too."
"What about the pentacle?" she asked.
"It was his. He'd left it with Elizabeth with instructions to give it to me when I came - he seemed to know I would in time."
"Maybe he did. But Alex, do you really believe that you have everything you do because of him, and not because of your own hard work and talent?"
He thought for a long moment about that. "My father... he was extremely wealthy. Looking over the things he writes about his life, it seems that he was a lot like me. Everything he tried turned out to be successful. His diaries claim that he used magic to make it that way - that he used that same magic to ensure my life would be that way, as well." He drew a deep breath, sighed. "That's why I wanted you to teach me about magic. So that - on the off chance it is true and this ritual does grant me some kind of... power... I will know how to use it."
She jumped to her feet. "God, Alex, you don't intend to go through with this!"
He frowned. "Why wouldn't I?"
"Alex, everything in me tells me it's black magic, and that your father has been practicing it all his adult life - he would have to have in order to be as powerful as he claims to be. Do you have any idea the kind of negativity that must be clinging to his spirit by now? Can't you feel the darkness in that house of his? You don't want to open yourself up and invite all that darkness to jump from his lingering spirit into you. My God, it would be like - like walking unvaccinated through a smallpox ward."
Alex shook his head slowly. "I don't think he was evil," he said. "I really don't."
She stared down at him, her eyes intense. "What about the note? What about your mother's warnings?"
He had thought of that. Over and over he had thought of that, wondered about it.
"Alex, when you work magic or do anything else that causes harm to others, or takes things that were rightly meant for others, that harm brands you. It marks your soul. And the more harm you do, the bigger the mark. That mark becomes a beacon for negative energy. So the harm you do comes back. It's impossible for it not to."
He sighed, lowering his head and running his hand over the nape of his neck. "Dammit, Melissa, I think you're making too much out of all of this. You don't know he did harm to anyone. There's no proof of that."
"No?"
He shook his head.
"What about your mother? What about the harm he did to her?"
His head came up slowly. He reached out a hand, but she backstepped just enough to avoid his touch. "We don't know he did her any harm at all."
"How did your mother die, Alex?"
He shook his head hard, instant, absolute denial. "Come on, Melissa. Don't you think you're giving in to melodrama here?"
"You don't know, do you?"
"No. I don't know. The diaries only say that she took their newborn son and left." He met her eyes. "Seems to me that she was the one who did harm to him."
"Maybe." She didn't look as if she believed it, though. "I think you should find out for sure."
He threw his hands in the air. "Why the hell did I think I could talk to you about any of this? Jesus, Melissa, I thought you would understand. I thought you would give me some practical advice, not accuse a dead man - one I spent my whole life searching for - of everything from black magic to murder."
"You want practical advice?" she asked him. And even though his voice had been rising, hers remained steady, deep, and firm. "Here it is: Get away from everything to do with that man. Get as far away as you can. Have a cleansing ritual performed on you. Get the stink of his negativity off you. Give away everything he gave you. Or share his fate."
"His fate? He died a billionaire who could have anything he wanted."
"He died an old man, without a family, without his wife or his son. He died alone, horribly. And if he got his wealth the way I think he did, his next lifetime isn't likely to be much better. That is his fate. The fate he created for himself. The fate he wants to pass on to you from beyond the grave."
Alex sighed heavily and turned away from her.
"You're not listening, are you? You're not hearing a word I say."
"I have to go. Before I do, I want my pent' back."
"Fine." She started off down the steps that led to the beach below but didn't step into the circle area.
Sacred space, he figured. She wouldn't take his father's filth into her precious white-lighter circle. She walked along the beach a little ways, off toward the left. He saw a branch standing there, one end driven deep into the sand. That was where she stopped, and then, using the branch as a digging tool, she unearthed the pentacle.
He stood there, watching. When it was uncovered, she knelt in the sand, reached her hand toward it, but didn't touch it. The moonlight bathed her face, and the sea wind played in her hair.
She shook her head. "It's still bad," she said. "I can feel it from here. You should leave it for three nights, Alex. Even then, I'm not sure - "
He reached down, not for the pent' but for her. He couldn't stand this, couldn't stand not touching her when he wanted to so very badly. His hand closed on her upper arm, and he pulled her to her feet.
"Alex?"
He pulled her closer, gently, giving her all the time in the world to resist. But she didn't. He closed his arms around her, and he kissed her. The water washed up over their feet and the moon beamed down on them and he kissed her. He thought, vaguely, that it was magical.
When he could break contact and speak again, he cradled her head to his chest, buried his hand in her wild hair. "Why am I so drawn to you? Are you messing with my head, working your own brand of magic on me?"
"I wouldn't use magic to make you feel anything for me. It would be unethical. But I have to tell you, Alex, I've been wondering the same thing about you."
"No. I wouldn't know how."
"Then what is this?" she asked him, whispering.
"I don't know."
She drew a breath, sighed.
"I've searched for him for twenty years, Melissa. I can't just deny him what was his dying wish. Please don't ask me to."
Closing her eyes slowly, she laced her fingers through his, hands at their sides. "It's a mistake, Alex. At least... at least think about this some more. And promise to let me know your decision before you go ahead with it."
"That much I can do."
She nodded. "You need cleansing, and shielding. You need wards. God, the thought of you going back into that house..."
"I'll be fine."
She stepped back, glancing down at the pent' in the sand. "Your pent' - "
"Leave it. Three nights, like you said."
She smiled, though it was shaky. "Good. Good, it can't hurt."
He held her gaze for a long moment. "Don't give up on me, Melissa. Things are - things are so messed up right now. But for some reason, at this moment, I don't want anything in the world quite as badly as I want... as I want you."
He tipped her chin up with his hand, kissed her again, and buried the pentacle in the sand with his feet.
"I should go," he whispered. "Because if I don't, I'm not going to."
She kissed him again, then pushed him away. Reaching down, she picked up the branch and thrust it into the ground to mark the spot where the pent' lay buried.
They turned, and he put his arm around her shoulders, held her close beside him, and they walked back toward the little beach house. But instead of veering left, toward the house, they veered right, toward her special place on the beach.
He let her lead him, unsure why she was taking him there. At least, he was until she stopped and turned to face him. Slowly, she tugged her fleece shirt upward, over her head, and dropped it into the sand beside her.
Alex caught his breath, his throat going dry.
She heeled off her shoes and socks, then slid the soft gray fleece down over her hips and stepped out of the pants. She stood there, naked in the moonlight. And more than ever before, she seemed like some mystical creature. The spirit of the sea itself, bathed in moonlight.
"My God, you're beautiful," he whispered.
He drew her close, his hands sliding over her warm, smooth skin, and he kissed her again. Her body felt good, pressed against his. He helped her undress him as they kissed, and they fell to their knees in the sand. She lay down, pulling him with her, opening to him, welcoming him.
When he slid inside her, his body trembled, shook, and he thought he heard thunder, but whether it was in the distant sky or only within him he couldn't be sure. He held her, she wrapped herself around him, and they moved in time with the waves washing up over the sand. And he felt it - the power building, surrounding them, heat and passion and something more. It grew higher, stronger, until it was unbearable. And then it seemed to break loose at the moment when she cried out his name and he poured his very soul, it seemed, into her. For a moment it seemed the very air around them glowed.
For a long time, they lay there, just holding each other. Alex didn't know what had just happened between them. It hadn't been just sex. It hadn't even been just lovemaking. It had been something else, something more powerful than he'd ever felt before. And he knew, somewhere down deep, that it was something he would never feel again - not with anyone but Melissa.