Legacy of the Witch Read online

  And still I said nothing.

  “I don’t know, Joe, she ain’t talking, even though I belted her. Whaddya think?”

  “Belt her again.”

  He lifted the flashlight and brought it down again. I cringed, ducked, got tangled on the desk chair, would have fallen if he hadn’t had me by the hair.

  But the blow never landed, and he just let go, because something sailed through the darkness and clocked him right between the eyes. He dropped like a sack of feed, and so did I. When I looked, the other one was being jerked, flipped and nailed to the floor.

  Then the man I had come here to rob was kneeling beside me. “Are you okay?”

  Just like before. Just like after he pulled me out of the river. Those same eyes. That same face, only older now.

  How can this be…?

  “I think…they’re getting away,” I managed, though my mind was spinning, and not just with fear and pain.

  The two thugs were on their feet and running for their lives. He went after them, but I knew they got away when I heard a car’s tires screeching and its engine roaring. I pulled myself up to my feet, clasping the desk, limping around it and finally turning on the light.

  I heard Harrison swear, then looked up to see him in the doorway staring at me just before my world went black.

  Chapter Four

  I was there again, in the secret garden in the midst of the harem, splashing in the warm water of the pool, this time by the dead of night. I kept a scrub brush nearby. Should anyone question me, I was to tell them I was cleaning away the algae. Lilia had made a loud fuss over having “filthy old housemaids” sullying the pool’s pure waters, worked the others up into a real fit about it, and then slyly suggested the job be made one of my many duties.

  She was always doing that, my Lilia. Finding out what I loved to do best and then conniving a way to make it my duty. Often times other, less pleasant, tasks had to be moved aside to make room. My life of servitude was becoming a life of fun. Doing things I loved and calling them work. So, since I’d nearly drowned playing in the waters of the sacred river, she’d decided to find a way to allow me to frolic in the waters of the harem pool, which was supposed to be for the use of the king’s harem slaves alone. Its waters were said to contain minerals that enhanced their already breathtaking beauty.

  I didn’t mind at all giving the pool a scrub while I was basking in it. It was a far better job than scrubbing the stone floors or washing the bed linens.

  This night, however, my fun was interrupted by the arrival of someone who jumped nimbly down from the wall, as he had so many times before, and landed softly, his bare feet slapping the wet stone.

  He smiled, and my heart melted the same way it always did. I crossed my arms in front of me, painfully aware that I was wearing only a scrap of cloth around my chest and another around my hips.

  He was aware of it, too, and appreciative. I felt a rush of heat and power, and thought perhaps I understood another of Lilia’s frequent cryptic comments—this one about what she called feminine magic. “The woman who can wield her own womanhood can bring any man to his knees,” she told me. Over and over, she told me this.

  “Hello, slave girl,” he said.

  “Hello, soldier boy.” I lowered my head shyly but could not dislodge my eyes from his. “Join me in the water?”

  “And lose my head for it?”

  “Everyone’s asleep. They won’t know.”

  He looked around. There was only darkness, stone walls, water trickling from the fountain in the center of the pool. Arching doorways led off in several directions, all of them dark. It was dark in the courtyard, too, where we were. The crescent moon was above us, waning, hanging low in the sky.

  Giving a nod, he set down the shoulder pack he’d been carrying, stripped off his garment and revealed the white fabric that was his undergarment. It twisted around his lean hips, down between his legs and up again, the untucked end hanging like a short curtain over his man parts. And then he was sliding into the pool with me, his breath rushing out of him as he closed his eyes. “Oh, you are so right. This is good.”

  “Yes, I know. My Lilia made it part of my duties to clean the pool, so if I’m caught, I have my scrub brush nearby.”

  “You are not only beautiful but smart, little Amarrah.”

  I blushed with pleasure.

  “What will be my explanation if I am caught, clever one?” he asked.

  I thought for a minute as he sloshed through the water, closer to me. When I looked up again he was standing very near. And something inside my belly went all molten. “You won’t need an excuse. You can run like a gazelle, leap the wall and be gone before anyone gets a close look at you.”

  “And leave you to be whipped for cavorting with an unknown male in the harem, where men are forbidden to set foot?”

  “I would say you were an intruder. That I was about to scream for help.”

  “That might work.”

  “If not, whipping isn’t so bad. I can take it.” I said it proudly, but my words made his expression darken.

  “How often have you been whipped, Amarrah?”

  “Not once—since I came to the harem. Before that?” I lowered my head. “No, I do not want to think about before.”

  “It was bad, in the king’s palace?”

  I nodded. “Never the king, though. The other servants.”

  “Wrinkled old hags, jealous of you being the most beautiful female in all of Babylon.”

  My eyebrows rose high. “I…you…think I’m…”

  “More than the harem girls, more than anyone. So beautiful that I have not been able to stop thinking of you. And I would have come to you anyway, even if I did not have…dire news to share.”

  I blinked, torn between wanting to know what this dire news was and wanting to pursue the topic of his apparent fascination with me.

  Responsibility first. Always. Duty to those I served was my only reason for being. This I had been taught from the very cradle. And now that I was slave girl to the slave girls, I was willing—even eager—to serve them.

  “What is this dire news, Harmon?”

  He lowered his head. “There’s talk in the ranks. It’s been suggested that your beloved Lilia has been unfaithful to the king—with one of his soldiers, no less.”

  My hand flew to my lips and my eyes widened, for I knew it to be absolutely true. I had to warn her! I turned toward the pool’s edge, but Harmon stopped me with a hand on my arm.

  “There’s more,” he said.

  I turned to face him, tears already burning in my eyes. “Hurry, then. I must warn Lilia before it’s too late.”

  “It might already be, Amarrah. I came as soon as I could, but—”

  “Just tell me. What else is there to know?”

  He took a deep breath, nodded resignedly. “It’s been whispered that they are witches—Lilia and her two sisters, as well. The high priest has been told. This harem is a very dangerous place for you now, Amarrah. I want you to leave with me—tonight. I’ll find a way to hide you, to disguise you, until this has all been forgotten.”

  I went very still, tipping my head to one side, staring at his beautiful dark eyes, thick lashes, dark skin. “You would do that for me? Risk your father’s wrath—and the king’s—along with your future?”

  He held my eyes, said nothing, just nodded.

  “Why?” I asked him.

  And then his gaze lowered. “Because you have somehow burrowed your way into my heart, and I cannot get you out. So please come with me, Amarrah.”

  Tears burned, and my throat squeezed so tightly I could barely force words through. “I can leap that wall as easily as you, my beloved soldier boy. But I cannot leave this place until I have warned my friends. They’ve been so good to me. I owe them that.”

  “They would not do the same for you.”

  “I think they would.”

  He held my eyes, then finally nodded. “You have more honor than any man in the kin
g’s guard. More courage, too. No wonder I love you.” And then he clasped my head in his hands, pulled me close and kissed me.

  It was my first kiss. And I heard a whisper inside my mind, a vow. I will never forget this moment, this feeling, not even if I live a thousand thousand lifetimes.

  And I didn’t.

  *

  “Amarrah, are you all right?”

  I blinked up at him, and for just a moment his face swam in front of my eyes. In that odd, surreal, timeless instant, I was the little girl from that…that vision or hallucination…and he was the boy. My young hero. Harmon, son of Brock. All grown up.

  Such a feeling of déjà vu washed over me that I was momentarily dizzy as I stared at him and leaned in closer, my eyes falling closed, awaiting his kiss.

  He leaned in, too, his lips moving so close to mine that I felt his breath, warm and unsteady. Then he seemed to pause, and he straightened away again.

  I opened my eyes, and bit by bit the puzzle pieces of the here and now fit back into place. When I looked into his eyes, I saw the confusion there. He’d almost kissed me, and he was trying to figure out why.

  “Are they gone?” I asked, recalling the break-in, along with all the rest. Why those men had been here. Why I was here myself.

  “Yeah, they took off.” He slid his arms under mine, helped me to my feet, but having him holding me that closely made my heart begin to hammer. This was too real.

  It’s a childhood fantasy. I spun it from the strands of that story Gidaty was always telling me. It’s not real.

  “Did they get the box?” I asked, nearly panicking at the thought.

  He frowned at me.

  “They came for the box. The one that looks like a miniature treasure chest, with the odd symbols painted on the bottom, and the old iron lock.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “How do you know about that?”

  I looked at the floor. “They were asking me about it.”

  “I heard that part. I was coming up the stairs. They didn’t describe it—not the way you just did.” He let go of my shoulders and took a step back, away from me. “How did you know what it looks like, Amarrah?”

  I drew a deep breath, then lowered my head and blew the air out of my lungs all at once. “I’ve never been any good at deception. That’s how I lost the thing to begin with.”

  “Lost…?”

  I forced myself to meet his eyes. “I should have told you the truth to begin with. I—” My knees buckled, and I clasped his shoulders instinctively to keep from falling down.

  He swore softly, then scooped me up off my feet and carried me back through the house, down the stairs. He settled me onto the big cushy sofa and went to the kitchen. I heard water running, pans clattering. When he returned two minutes later he had a steaming mug in each hand and the scent of chocolate surrounding him.

  He handed me one. I sat up straighter, and he took the other end of the sofa, leaning back against the arm and facing me.

  “Okay,” he said. “Start talking.”

  I nodded. “I grew up in Iraq. My parents…they disappeared. A lot of people did in those days. So my grandmother raised me. On her deathbed she gave me the box and made me swear to keep it safe for my entire life.”

  “My box? Are you sure it’s the same one?”

  I nodded. I was dying to ask him how he had gotten it himself and where it was now, but I owed him an explanation first. “Then she died, and I was sent to relatives here in the States. I was thirteen. At the airport, before I left my country for the last time, a customs agent confiscated it. I never saw it again until the other day on one of those antique shows on TV, and I assume that’s where those burglars saw it, too.”

  “So you’re not here to help me with my book.”

  I met his eyes. “No. And I cancelled the temp who was supposed to come, when the agency phoned earlier to explain why the original person hadn’t shown up, because I thought I would need to remain here long enough to find the box.”

  He tipped his head back—in frustration, I thought. “It’s not here.”

  “I know. I searched the entire house.” I lowered my head, ashamed, blushing hot. “I’m very sorry.”

  He shrugged as if it didn’t matter all that much. His face was pensive, and so very handsome in the firelight. “What’s the big deal with this box, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. I only know it’s very important, and that my grandmother said I would have to keep it safe, that evil forces wanted it, and that I must never let them have it.”

  “What are you supposed to do with it when you get it?”

  “Grandmother said I would know when the time came.”

  “And you know nothing about why these guys broke in and tried to steal it?”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t.” I sighed, and let a moment of silence tick awkwardly past. Then I asked, “Where is it, Harrison?”

  “Last I knew, it was at my former fiancée’s place.”

  “You gave it to her?” I asked, mortified. And then, “Former?”

  “Yes, former. And no, I didn’t give it to her, just took it by to show her. She was interested in antiques, and frankly, it’s something I’m proud of because of where it came from. She was supposed to return it to me when we broke things off, but she hasn’t followed through. You say you saw it on TV?”

  “Yeah. A blonde woman was having it appraised. You know, on that show where people bring in stuff they’ve found lying around their attic to have it appraised? They told her it wasn’t worth anything, though.”

  He nodded. “It’s priceless to me. And apparently to you, too.”

  I nodded. “How did…how did you end up with it?”

  “I…helped a woman and her kids get out of a burning house near the Kuwaiti border. Her husband had been an Iraqi official, but he was accused of spying for Kuwait and taken away. His wife left behind a mansion, a fortune, but she took that little box with her as she tried to find a way to get herself and her kids across the border. She said she never knew how he got the chest, but she always felt there was something special about it. In fact, I almost lost her because she wouldn’t leave the house without it. It was kind of an obsession with her.”

  “Somehow, she knew,” I whispered.

  “I was stunned when she gave it to me. To thank me for saving her children.” He lowered his head.

  “Did they make it—into Kuwait?” I asked softly.

  He nodded. “I made sure of it, though if you ever tell a soul, I’ll swear you’re making it up.”

  I blinked at him. “You’re a hero, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know why it is that when a man does the right thing he’s always called a hero. What was the alternative? Let them burn? Leave them to be persecuted for the alleged crimes of the father? What kind of person would have done anything different?”

  I lifted my brows. “I read your memoir, Harrison. And even though you played down every single heroic incident, I can see through you.”

  He made a pssht noise and shook his head.

  “It’s good, you know.”

  “Right. What do you know about memoir writing?”

  “Quite a lot, actually. I’m only a few credits shy of my BA in English, and I’m freelance editing for a small publishing house to pay my tuition.”

  His brows went up, and he looked interested.

  “Sort of like kismet, isn’t it?” More and more I was sure it was exactly that. This really was fate. I’d known this man before. Lifetimes ago. God, could that be true? “Maybe we can help each other,” I suggested.

  “How?”

  “I’ll help you finish and polish your memoir if you’ll help me find that treasure box. I don’t even want to take it from you, I just want to make sure it’s safe until I know what I’m supposed to do with it.”

  “It was stolen from you. It’s rightfully yours. I’ll help you get it back. You don’t have to do anything in return.”

  His eyes met mine then, and I felt
a rush of emotion rising up in my heart, and I would have sworn a matching look filled his eyes. Before I could even acknowledge it, he blinked and said, “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “My ex. Glenda. If you saw her on that show, they sure as hell did, too.” He set the mug down, shooting to his feet. “She’s liable to be their next stop,” he said, finding his jacket, pulling it on, patting down his pockets in search of keys. “She’s in danger. I have to go.”

  “I’m coming with you,” I said.

  He didn’t argue.

  Chapter Five

  I wondered many things as we barreled over the smooth roads in his sporty red Jeep that night. I wondered, of course, if I would finally recover the witches’ box, and I wondered if I would ever know what to do with it if I did. I wondered what had happened between Harrison Brockson and his beautiful fiancée, and whether the worry and fear on his face meant that he still loved her. I wondered why that thought stabbed me in the heart with a pang that felt like jealousy. And I wondered about the meaning of the other things spinning through my mind as we drove through the darkness.

  Chapters of the harem witch stories unfolded in my mind, but not episodes that my gidaty had ever told me. Nor had I ever told them to her. And I swear to you, they didn’t feel like fiction. They felt like…like memory.

  “You must come with me,” Harmon begged of me that night by the harem pool. “I won’t leave you.”

  “Just let me warn them, and then I’ll come. I promise. They’ve been good to me.”

  He stared at me, his eyes so full of feelings that it took my breath away. Fourteen, so young now, but in those times fourteen wasn’t young at all. Girls my age were entering the harem, or the temple as priestess trainees. They were marrying and having babies of their own. It was a different world.

  But at that moment I was in love in a giddy teenage way that has stayed the same through the ages.