“I was given them on my trip to New Guinea.”
She looked around the bedroom again. He owned texts and treasures that belonged in museums—and why? “When I came in, I asked where you got all this stuff. You never answered me.”
“Some are mine, collected while on my travels. Some my Chosen Ones brought me as souvenirs. Some I was lucky enough to borrow from the Gypsy Travel Agency and thus save from the blast.”
“Because . . . ?” She trolled the shelves, finding more and more precious manuscripts, relics, and oddities.
“I’ve been doing research on speechless communication. It’s a marvel that occurs so rarely among the gifted that some say it doesn’t exist.”
She stopped and stared at a display of uncut crystals. Gems? “Does this have to do with the lady whose nose had been split down the middle?”
“I don’t know. Does it?”
She swung around in a fury. “That is really irritating. If I knew the answer, I wouldn’t ask it.”
“I don’t have answers, either, and I need them.” Irving was suddenly intense, the formidable leader who had guided the Gypsy Travel Agency through disaster to stability. “I need to know what happened yesterday, and how. Until this team chooses a leader, I can direct you, but I need a focus, and you are the only one who can provide it. Find the place where you should be and see.”
“Sure. It’s easy. Go to the attic, Jacqueline. Don’t worry about what’s up there.”
“The attic?” It was almost funny to see Irving go on alert, like an English pointer at a bird.
“When I was little, I was afraid of your attic. I thought there was something up there that would get me.” He still had that wide-eyed, I’m-on-the-scent expression, and she sighed. “Really, Irving. It was a kid thing.”
“All seers have a place where they can best call their visions in. Where they can control them. Where all is clear. Zusane needed to be near the earth. She told me when she had her first vision, she was locked in the cellar.”
“Locked in the cellar? Who would have locked her in the cellar?” Jacqueline caught a whiff of smoke again. She looked around, but saw nothing. “Are your smoke alarms working?”
“McKenna replaced the batteries last month. Stop trying to change the subject.” Irving pointed one finger at the ceiling. “Perhaps you need to be close to the sky. To go up. Up to my attic.” Then in a totally prosaic tone of voice, he said, “If it doesn’t work, what are you out?”
“Nothing. I guess.” But that attic still creeped her out, and the smell of smoke was getting stronger. “Why don’t you bug Tyler? He’s a psychic, too.”
“I intend to. But you . . . you are destined to be the greatest psychic we’ve ever had.”
“What if I just want to be an oenophile?”
“You can be that, too. You can be whatever you want. Those roles are like clothes you don and discard. But a seer is who you are in your soul.” Using both his large hands to pluck the crystal ball off its stand, he held it up for inspection. The globe glowed in the sunlight, colors moving, melding, sliding over its smooth surface and vanishing into thin air.
Jacqueline couldn’t take her gaze off it.
“I am not one of the Chosen Ones. But my mother’s great-great-grandmother was an African slave imported into the Bahamas to work the cane, and she knew her voodoo. My father’s grandmother was Romany. She made her living with this”—Irving lifted the ball high—“traveling from town to town, enticing the women into her tent to tell their fortunes. The globe is nothing special, something she tossed into a trunk when she was traveling, and most of what she said was hokum, of course. But sometimes, I don’t know why or how, she did see the future. Maybe she saw it in this globe. Maybe she simply had a gift. Take it. See what you can do with it. Consider it a present.”
“With strings attached.” Going to him, she knelt at his feet and looked up into his dark eyes. “Why should I do this thing?”
Taking her wrists, he stripped off her gloves. He placed the globe between her palms, and put his hands over hers. “Jacqueline, if you don’t help us, we are destined to fall, and all the children like you, the children who are abandoned and without hope, will go straight to the devil. Please. We need you. Will you help us?” He looked so fragile, so ancient, so appealing. . . .
The old charlatan.
Then, from the depths of his soul, a painful cry of anguish. “Most of those people who died yesterday were young enough to be my children or my grandchildren or my great-grandchildren.” He faltered. Tears welled in his eyes, and he fumbled for his handkerchief. “I should have died first. I should have died first.” Putting his hand to his face, he sobbed out loud.
It was a horrible, gut-wrenching sound, torn from a man deceptively strong, a man who never broke down, a man now tortured and in pain.
Jumping to her feet, Jacqueline placed the globe on its stand. Sitting on the arm of his chair, she put her arm around his shoulders, trying to impart comfort where none could be found. “I never realized that you thought that way,” she whispered.
He blew his nose. He lifted his head. His eyes were bloodshot, tears still wet the creases in his cheeks, and he looked suddenly as old as his age. “You’re young, but . . . can you understand? I have been preparing myself to pass into the next world, hoping that I’ve lived a good, productive life, that I did my best, that I was leaving a legacy. Instead, I’ve lost everything I’ve built for the last sixty years.”
“The Gypsy Travel Agency.”
“No. Not the institution. That never mattered. I built that so the people, the Chosen Ones, those talented, gifted few, could fulfill their destinies and do good. I took a personal interest in each one of them. I was so proud of them.” He thumped his chest, his voice grew gruff, and again he fought for composure. “Now they’re gone. Jesse and Monica and Olivia. Jack, Kevin and Natalie. Fred, Mildred, Erin, Carol, Owen. So many gone; their names are written on my heart. They were my children, and no father should ever have to see his children die.”
Damn him. He meant it. She knew he did. He had always lived and breathed the Gypsy Travel Agency and its secret mission. He knew every employee, every travel guide, every one of the Chosen Ones. He sent e-mails for each birthday, he praised each achievement and he congratulated each one on each marriage and offspring. And now, with their deaths, the old man’s hopes and dreams were shattered.
“All right.” Jacqueline, heir to the same gift and sign as the world’s first seer, picked up the crystal ball. “I’ll do it.” She walked to the door, opened it, hesitated, and turned back.
Irving watched her with such hope on his face and tears in his eyes.
She said, “But damned if I ever come up to share wine with you again, Irving Shea.”
Chapter 21
Crystal ball in hand, Jacqueline stepped into the attic. She’d played here when she was a kid. Large, bright, and empty, it hadn’t changed.
The walls and floor were painted white. Dust motes floated along on the sun rays pouring through the big windows on the west side and covered everything in a fine layer. A door on the far wall led to another room like this one, and a storage closet filled the corner.
She’d run through this room, pulling a toy dog on a leash. She’d played with her dolls, and read her books.
Then one day, when she was eight, she’d stopped coming. She didn’t remember why. She only remembered being afraid.
Now she wasn’t afraid. She was a little tipsy. She was a lot disgruntled. The smell of smoke tainted the air, and that stupid crystal ball was not only heavy; it was so slick, she tucked it under one arm to keep from dropping it.
Wandering through the big room to the cupboard, she opened it. Old coats hung on hangers, and old drapes were folded on the shelves. She went to the door and tried the knob, and looked inside. The room beyond matched this one—the same windows, the same sunlight, the same cupboard—but the shadows seemed deeper. She couldn’t see a source of the smoke, though, so
she shut the door and meandered into a square of sunshine on the floor.
She held the crystal ball in the light and watched the colors, blue, gold, green, slide across the shiny surface.
Zusane effortlessly slipped in and out of her visions, but mostly Jacqueline felt silly trying. How did a person bring on a vision? Chant? Do yoga breathing? Perform a rain dance?
The wine had relaxed her. That would probably help. . . .
This wasn’t going to work, and worse, the smell of smoke was getting stronger. She should go back downstairs and tell McKenna that they had a wiring problem or something up here. It could cause a real problem if a fire started, and they didn’t need any more problems. The explosion was enough. . . .
Man, this was boring.
The smoke made Jacqueline’s eyes feel funny, and she was briefly alarmed.
Then the colors disappeared from the surface of the crystal ball. Deep in its center, a flame glowed red, followed by a blast of yellow. The globe slid out of her hand. In slow motion, it twirled in the air and landed on the floor with such a heavy thud shards of wood blew into the air—and froze in motion.
The world became sepia-toned, and she realized . . .
This was it. A vision. Irving was right. She might not want to, but she had the ability. This was a vision.
Then someone screamed in her ear, high and panicked and pure terror. The shriek jerked Jacqueline back to the real world, but when she looked . . . she wasn’t in the attic.
She stood in the aisle of an airplane, a private jet with a dozen luxurious seats set around tables and a flickering fifty-inch television dominating one wall. A young woman stood in front of it in a black silk YSL gown, arms at her side, fists clenched. She was the one screaming. And screaming. And screaming.
Jacqueline recognized this plane. She’d been on it before, with Caleb on the way from California to New York City.
Everything was different now. Thick, black smoke filled the cabin. The oxygen masks hung from the ceiling. An alarm shrieked in the cockpit. A dozen people shouted and stumbled from wall to wall while the plane pitched back and forth like a bronco ride in a cowboy bar.
The aircraft twisted, throwing Jacqueline off balance. She slammed against the table, scattering playing cards and breaking a bottle. For one second, the sharp licorice smell of ouzo washed the air clean.
Her hand hurt. She looked down. A shard of glass stuck out of her bare palm, cutting her tattoo in half. She pulled the glass out. It was sharp and wide and thick, and blood welled up, bright and crimson.
She’d been flung headfirst into a disaster.
But it was only a vision. Only a vision.
The electricity flickered and went off. It was dark outside. And Jacqueline saw sparks blowing off the left wing.
Low-level emergency lights flashed on in the cabin.
As if the smoke had found her again, it rose off the floor and like a boa constrictor coiled around her, blinding her, filling her lungs. She coughed, tried to get a breath, coughed again.
A vision. This was only a vision.
The jet pitched. She slammed into the far wall, banging her hip against one of the seats.
But this didn’t feel like a vision. She was choking on the smoke. The blood was sticky in her hand. Her hip was bruised and throbbing. She wanted to close her eyes, plug her ears, get out of this vision, but she didn’t dare. She was here. On this plane. And it was disaster.
Another alarm went off. Some guy in a uniform shouted, directing the passengers, handing out life jackets.
No, not life jackets. Parachutes.
My God. The steward—or was he the pilot?—was going to open the door. She wanted to look out the window, see if there were lights, if they were over land or headed into the sea.
Then across the cabin, something moved and caught her eye—a woman, speaking calmly to the man in the uniform. But . . . that dress, sparkling with gold sequins. That form, so opulent and curvy. That elegant coiffure of glorious blond hair, held up with a diamond clip . . .
“Mother!” Jacqueline screamed.
Zusane looked up.
Their eyes met.
And Zusane saw her.
Jacqueline was truly here.
The lurch and roll of the aircraft grew in intensity.
Zusane fought her way toward Jacqueline.
Jacqueline fought her way toward Zusane.
“I never saw this,” Zusane shouted. “You shouldn’t be here!”
“Mother, you have to take a parachute. You have to save yourself!”
“It’s too late for that.”
Jacqueline made a grab for her.
Zusane evaded her. “Don’t touch me!”
Hurt, Jacqueline dropped her hands, and looked at them. The one still bled freely, blurring her tattoo.
Was Zusane worried about blood on her gown?
Or was she worried that Jacqueline had ruined her gift with the slice through her palm?
“Darling, don’t be that way,” Zusane said. “I don’t know why or how, but you should not be here. Don’t make it more real than it already is.”
Jacqueline didn’t understand what she meant. She didn’t know what any of this meant.
The uniformed man got the door open. Cold blasted into the plane, clearing the air . . . except where Zusane stood. There the smoke coiled, dense, dark and oily. Zusane waved her hand. Her gesture seemed to call the smoke. It wrapped her, wrapped Jacqueline, tightening its coils.
Frightened, Jacqueline shouted, “What is it?”
Zusane looked over Jacqueline’s shoulder, through the dense smoke. She saw something, something that made her eyes widen and her head jerk back as if she’d been slapped. Lifting her arms as if to ward off a blow, she clearly said, “Oh, Zusane. You fool.”
Bewildered, Jacqueline turned and followed her mother’s gaze.
A man stood there, bald, middle-aged, of slight build and dressed in a black, tailored suit. He looked like just another of her mother’s wealthy boyfriends . . . until he looked straight at her.
A blue flame lit his eyes . . . from the inside.
In panic, Jacqueline gasped, choked on the smoke, and coughed, and coughed.
She knew who he was. She had always heard tales about him, always been warned about him . . . but no one ever really saw him. She had thought, hoped he was a myth.
Now she knew better.
One by one, the passengers donned their parachutes, rushed to the door, and leaped into space. The girl in the YSL gown jumped without fastening her parachute. It flew back into the cabin, and they heard her scream as she plummeted toward the ground.
Dear God, this was hell.
“Not yet.” Although she hadn’t spoken aloud, the man answered her.
“Mother, come on!” Clutching her aching chest, Jacqueline headed toward the uniformed steward.
Zusane followed close on her heels.
A freezing wind blasted through the opening.
The smoke hung close to them both.
Grabbing a parachute, Jacqueline shoved it at her mother. “Take it,” she shouted. “Take it!”
“There’s no point in jumping.” Through the alarms, the shrieks, the blasting wind, Jacqueline clearly heard the man with the flaming eyes. His voice was quiet, calm, informational—and pervasive, invading every molecule of air, speaking in her head and in her ears. “The ground’s too close. The parachutes won’t open. You’re both going to die.”
Fear gripped Jacqueline by the throat.
He was right. Of course he was right. He had engineered this whole scenario to destroy them both.
Her mother knew it, too. Knew it, and blamed herself. Yet she smiled. She was calm. “Darling Jacqueline,” she said, “there’s only one thing to do. Come on. Let’s step close to the door.”
As they did, the man in the uniform strapped on a parachute, and jumped. And screeched.
Only three people were left on the plane.
Zusane. Jacqueline. And t
he man with the flaming blue eyes.
With a panicked glance over her shoulder, Jacqueline saw him moving toward them. He walked with an ease that belied the rocking plane—because he was making it rock.
“Always remember, I love you.” Zusane almost touched Jacqueline, almost cupped her cheek.
Jacqueline wanted to scream in fear. But the smoke still clung to her, filling her lungs, making her voice nothing but a scratch. “Mother! Hurry!”