Rising Darkness (Game of Shadows #1)(7)

When she had been a child, the dreams had not been as intense or vivid, but they had always been unsettling. They had gained in color, detail and emotion as she had grown older.

As a med student at Notre Dame University, in an attempt to put whatever demons existed inside her mind to rest, she’d taken advantage of the counseling offered through the university. For over a year, she and her counselor had explored her childhood and the possible symbolism involved in the dream imagery.

Justin was right. She had lived an entirely normal childhood. She had fallen out of trees, tripped and misspoke in school plays, made cupcakes for bake sales and had sleepovers with friends. She remembered her childhood with detailed clarity. Other than the death of her parents when she was fourteen, there was simply nothing for her to be haunted about. Even then she had gone to live with a loving aunt who had been attentive to the needs of a grief-stricken child.

She wasn’t interested in sex, although for a while she wanted to be. The concept, while intriguing, was less than compelling in execution. Instead of finding intimacy to be emotionally and physically rewarding, she felt clinical, detached and rather repulsed by the act, and she loathed casual dating.

At first she had been relieved that Justin hadn’t seemed to be very interested either in physical intimacy. During their marriage, their sexual relationship had been perfunctory at best. When he had finally faced the truth about himself and admitted that he was g*y, she had made an almost seamless adjustment into the role of supportive friend. Their split-up had been a relief for the both of them.

She had tried for a brief time to blame her tendency to isolate on the early loss of her parents, but she couldn’t convince herself for long. There was a reason why she didn’t have a social life, and it wasn’t just because she had a hectic job with irregular hours.

She just knew she had this desperate need for . . . something . . . but she couldn’t figure out what it was. She only knew that other people couldn’t give it to her. She had to find a way to heal herself, to fill her own needs. Maybe then she could make a meaningful connection outside of herself.

When she realized that the therapy didn’t seem to be leading anywhere, she had terminated the sessions. Then she got accepted into med school, and she and Justin divorced. Now she lived in her ivory tower. As far as she could tell the attempt at counseling had been a complete failure.

The painting she was trying to work on was a failure as well. No matter how she tried she couldn’t replicate the impression from her dream.

She lifted the canvas from the easel and set it against one wall to dry. Then she took up sketchpad and pencils, hoping that the change in medium might help her convey some of the delicacy that she could see so clearly with her mind’s eye.

As she worked, an old memory shook itself out of a dark recess in her mind. She paused to let it solidify.

She had always drawn as a child. As soon as her fingers were big enough to clutch a crayon she would draw, over and over again, people in cages.

It became an elaborate secret project over the years. The people acquired names and personalities. They had rooms in their prisons. She would draw crude beds, chairs, bookcases, kitchens, all behind bars. They were her people, and she would never let them go.

Over time, she had stopped with that obsession but she had never spoken of it to anyone, and she’d always destroyed the pictures with a hot sense of shame. What kind of monster was she to daydream about caged people?

Seven. Her breathing hitched. She had always drawn seven people.

How could she have forgotten that?

She sketched, her movements slow as she struggled past the adult’s acquired finesse to approximate something of the child’s crudity as she worked to recapture the details from years ago. A simple triangle of an ankle-length dress, the long sleeves, the curl of hair . . . she hesitated at the hem of the dress and her forehead wrinkled. If she remembered right, she had never drawn hands or feet.

Her college counselor would have had a field day with that imagery. She shut the sketchbook with a sharp slap.

Chapter Four

THE DAY WAS filled with blades.

The thin spring sunlight knifed through budding leaves on trees. Sharp yellow light and green shadows surrounded the old woman as she tore slender shoots of weeds from the garden bed by her front door. She regarded the dark and light that dappled her gnarled hands, savoring the fugitive promise in the sunlit warmth even as a frigid wind blew off the lake and tore through her battered jacket with invisible talons.

Breathing deep, she lifted her face and sat back on her heels. The serrated wind held a hint of moisture from the vast, restless body of nearby water, the trace of perfume from early wildflowers, the scent of pine and damp loam, and news.

She cocked her head. Using senses and skills alien to the elderly human female she appeared to be, she attuned to the patterns of energy swirling around her. Then she started down the path in the woods toward the small bay where Lake Michigan lapped at a pebbled shore.

She stood waiting at the pier when a battered, sturdy motorboat chugged into view and coasted to a gentle stop. The boat carried two dark-haired occupants who bore a clear family resemblance to each other, their indigenous ancestry revealed in the strong, broad angles of their faces.

A handsome, slim boy-man sat at the motor’s helm. A much older man hunched on the floor of the boat, his dark, graying hair pulled into an unruly ponytail. He leaned against the young man’s legs, wrapped in blankets against the slicing wind.