The Dragon Heir
Page 27

Her hands shook in the predawn chill as she squeezed paint onto the aluminum pie pan she used for a palette. She was lucky she hadn't broken her neck on the way up the mountain in the freezing dark. Any sane person would take a photograph and paint in the parlor, where it was warm and dry.
But then, everyone knows I'm crazy.
The moment arrived. The sun crested the east shoulder of Booker Mountain and splashed onto the slopes, setting each bejeweled twig and branch aflame. Madison loaded her brush and splashed paint onto the canvas she'd started the day before. Only two more days, she judged, and the sun would've changed position enough to ruin the effect. So she painted like one possessed.
By ten o'clock, she was on her way back down the mountain, following the ravine cut by Booker Creek, the cleanest stream in Coalton County. A half hour more, and the house came into sight.
It was two stories, with five big pillars in the front, and wide porches that wrapped nearly all the way around the house on both levels. There were red brick chimneys at either end, because it was built at a time when wood-burning fireplaces provided the heat. It had always been painted white, though after five years in Carlene's care it could have done with a paint job. Though the house had good bones, it had the kind of beauty that needed constant care, or it began to look shabby.
It definitely looked shabby, now.
The house had been built by Madison's great-great-grandfather, Dredmont Booker, when he was courting her great-great-grandmother, Felicity Taylor. He was a prosperous farmer. She'd been a wild thing, a legendary blond beauty, who had no intention of staying in Coalton County and marrying a farmer, prosperous or not.
He swore he'd die if he couldn't have her. He built her the house, and a rose garden with a brick wall and gazebo and a path to nowhere. He bought her a black mare with four white stockings and a blaze on her forehead. He gave her the opal pendant that had belonged to his grandmother—blue and turquoise and green, with broad flashes of fire. It was the talk of the county because it was no proper gift from a man to a woman who was not his wife. Felicity Taylor had ignored the whispers and worn it whenever she liked.
Knowing what she knew now about inherited power, Madison wondered if Felicity had been an enchanter.
Word was, the view had finally won Felicity's heart. You could sit on the second floor porch and look right over the Ropers' place and see all the way to the river.
The pendant and Booker Mountain had been left to Min, who'd left them to Madison in turn, skipping right over Carlene. Min had left Carlene some money, which was long gone, and trust accounts for Grace and John Robert, to pay for their college.
The house and land would come to Madison later in the year. Ray McCartney had set it up. He might be in love with Carlene, but he was loyal to Min, too.
Madison would be land rich and money poor, once she gained control of Booker Mountain. Unless she sold it off, which everyone seemed to think she should do as soon as possible. If she sold out, she could attend the Art Institute of Chicago and shake the rocky soil of Coalton County right off of her shoes.
She reached under her sweatshirt and touched the opal, reassured by its solid presence. Maybe it was too fancy to be wearing around the house, but Madison wore it anyway. It was a tie to the past and it represented a possible future. It also felt like a link to the stone she'd left behind in Trinity.
The Dragonheart. She'd tried to put it out of her mind, but whenever she tried not to think of something, it seemed like she thought about it more. The only thing that could distract her from Seph McCauley was the Dragonheart. And vice versa. Some days her mind seemed to reverberate from one to the other, making her sick to her stomach. You'd think being far away from both of them would help, but not so much.
Once or twice a week, she went into town. She'd stop in at the library and find a clutch of e-mails from Seph. They were somewhat formal, polite, a little restrained, like old-fashioned love letters in digital text, where you had to read between the lines. It was as though he was afraid he'd scare her off, if he undammed his feelings.
Sometimes, she e-mailed him back, but these days she mostly wrote letters. She knew it was weird and archaic, but she didn't want to say just anything that came into her head. Instead, she'd sit up in bed and dwell over each word, as if she could infuse them with the power to untie the knots that plagued their relationship.
As for talking on the phone, that was totally out. She couldn't trust herself not to say something that would bring him flying down the interstate.
Nothing was stirring in the home yard, except Hamlet and Ophelia, the golden retrievers, who dutifully stood and swished their tails at Madison's appearance.
Lifting her canvas high out of danger, Madison squeezed between the dogs and went into the barn. It was a sturdy stone-and-wood building, once the home of Dredmont Booker's horses. During some prosperous period in the past, someone had put in water lines and servants' quarters. Now it was used as a sometime garage for Carlene's car. Madison had claimed the second floor as a studio and peopled it with dreams.
She should never have come home. Booker Mountain had a way of grabbing onto you, clouding your mind, and making you forget your intentions. Just like it had Felicity Taylor more than a hundred years ago.
Since she'd been away from Seph, her work had lost that lurid, dangerous quality and settled back into what Sara called ethereal exuberance. It could mean the hex magic had dissipated. She'd written to Seph, asking if he was feeling better, but he never responded.
A set of three small canvases glittered from the corner— each a view of the changeable Dragonheart stone against a matte black. The Dragonheart Series.
She cleaned her brushes in the sink and walked back to the house, skirting frozen puddles and patches of mud, followed by the dogs, their tails wagging hopefully.
She paused at the foot of the porch steps to look over the flower beds. New shoots were poking up from the prickly skeletons of the tea roses, and the climber on the trellis by the porch was leafing out bravely.
It was Saturday. Carlene had worked late the night before, and her door was closed. She'd still be in bed. There was breakfast debris on the table, signaling that Grace and John Robert were loose on the mountain. Rounding them up was like herding cats or butterflies. But they'd show up hungry any time now.
She'd take them to town for lunch, she decided. They could wander around Main Street and she'd buy some fertilizer for the garden.
Madison pulled the truck into the angle parking in front of the courthouse. The kids were out of the truck almost before it rolled to a stop.
She shoved two twenty-dollar bills into Grace's hand, taken from her dwindling supply of waitressing money. “Robertson's is having a sale,” she said. “Why don't you look for clothes in there? Then take J.R. to to the five-and-dime. I'll meet you at the Bluebird in an hour, and we'll have lunch.”
Grace studied the money as if it might be some kind of trick, then folded the bills and put them into her tiny purse.
“Stay together and don't wander off Main Street, so I can find you when I'm done.” Madison turned away.
“Where are you going to be?” Grace had a tight hold of John Robert's hand. He was pulling away like a puppy on a leash.
“Hazelton's. I'm going to get some fertilizer for the flower beds.”
Madison went into Hazelton's Implements. Josh Hazelton was behind the counter, as she knew he'd be. He'd been in Madison's class at school. Once they'd been friends and told each other secrets. He'd even kissed her under the stands at a football game. They'd awkwardly bumped lips like two goldfish meeting.
That was before he'd gotten in with Brice and them. Funny. Ordinarily, Brice wouldn't give Josh the time of day. So Josh was flattered to be invited into Brice's crowd.
Madison didn't have a crowd. Only Josh. And then not even him.
When Josh looked up and saw her, a guilty blush spread from his collar all the way to his ears. “Hey, Maddie!” he said, turning away from three other customers, all of whom Madison knew. “I heard you were back in town.”
“For a -while,” Madison said, running her hand over a display of mailboxes painted with flowers in colors unknown to nature. “I need some fertilizer.”
“Here, I'll show you,” he said, eagerly pushing past the swinging gate at the end of the counter.
She raised her hand to stop him. “You've got customers. Just tell me where it is, all right?”
Josh pointed to the back right corner of the store. “Back there. Regular and organic. Five- and ten-pound bags.”
She chose a bag of organic fertilizer and some gardening gloves, and brought them to the counter. By then the other customers had left. Josh rang them up for her.
“So how do you like it up north?” he asked, handing her the receipt.
“I like it.”
“As well as here?”
“Better.” She went to turn away.
“Uh, Maddie?” Josh hesitated, and then the words tumbled out like cats from a bag. “I thought maybe, you know, that you left because…because of all that crap last year.” He waited, and when she didn't say anything, added, “Look, I'm sorry if…Some of us were just having some fun, you know?”
“I didn't realize we were having fun.” She looked him in the eyes until he looked away, ears naming.
“I never believed it. What they said about you,” he mumbled.
“Really? I never heard you speak up.”
“Well. Anyway. I'm glad you're back.”
“Not for long,” she said, pretending to look at purple-martin houses.
Josh still hovered. “Have you seen Brice since you've been back?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She tried not to make a face. “You still hang around with him?”
He shook his head, coloring again. “Nah. I guess he's really busy.”
“Right,” she said.
“I hear he has some new friends who don't go to our school.” He paused, then said, awkwardly, “You never liked him.”