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"What didn&039;t you tell the others?"

"There&039;s nothingher hair She knew Sa

Fruitless battles wasted energy She intended to conserve hers for when itspell would turn the tide, you&039;d have tried one before"

"You weren&039;t here before"

"I&039;ve been here since May And will there ever come a time when you don&039;t throw that in ht" She set her brush aside, rose to open the balcony doors to the sound of rain "It&039;s annoying and repetitive of ave you"

"Have you, Mia?"

The rain ared for the storm

"I&039;ve spent so people objectively The girl was so wrapped up in the boy, and in her visions of what she wanted their life to be, she couldn&039;t see he wasn&039;t ready It wasn&039;t that she ignored it, or overlooked it" Mia had searched her heart on that one point "But that she really couldn&039;t see it She assumed he loved as she loved, wanted what she wanted, and she never looked beyond that What happened to them was as ht Maybe not quite as much hers, because she was as honest as she kne to be and he wasn&039;t But she wasn&039;t blaht Maybe, maybe because she wasn&039;t any more ready than he was She just wanted to be She was so lonely in her house on the cliff, so desperately hungry for love"

"Mia"

"You shouldn&039;t interrupt when I&039; you I don&039;t intend to make a habit of it It&039;s so weak, and so typical, to blame one&039;s parents for the flaws and the failures of a life And a wo her own flaws and failures - and triu and very hard in her tiirl, we&039;ll point the finger She was young enough to deserve to assign the bla table, absently opened a little cobalt pot, dipped her fingers in and rubbed the cream over her hands "They never loved me That&039;s sad and that&039;s painful, but more, they never cared that I loved the inside oddess But I had soSam I heaped my love on you until you must have felt buried in it"

"I wanted you to love me I needed it And you"

"But not so I had us settled in a little cottage with three children and the faithful fah it cost her to dise "I can&039;t blame you for that I can still blame you for the way you ended it - so abrupt, so harsh But even thatYou were very young"

"I&039;ll regret for the rest of ht I could save myself was to hurt you"

"Youth is often cruel"

"I was I told you I was done with you and this place That I wouldn&039;t be trapped any back I wasn&039;t ever co down your face You so rarely cry It panicked me, so I was only more cruel I&039;m sorry for it"

"I believe you are I&039;d like to think that eventually we could put that part of our life where it belongs In the past"

"I need to tell you why I waited so long to co a step "That&039;s the past, too"

"No, I want you to know that when I said I wasn&039;t co back, I meant it That need to be away, to breathe soh those first years Every ti, I sla in that cave on the west coast of Ireland"

He wandered to her dressing table, picked up her brush Just turned it over and over in his hand

"Everything I felt for you, the joy of it, the fear of it, ca back into s weren&039;t a boy&039;s"

He set her brush down, looked at her "And I kneas coo, Mia"

It left her shaken, caused her to carefully control her thoughts, her voice "You took your ti back, to you, to this island, the way I&039;d left Thaddeus Logan&039;s son That Logan boy I&039;d carried that around like a godda to break it I needed toof myself For me And for you No, let me finish," he said when she started to speak

"You had all the dreaoals, all the answers Now I had my own The hotel isn&039;t just a piece of real estate to me"

"I know that"

"Maybe you do" He nodded "Maybe you would It was mine, always, part sy back here with ht I started to come back countless ti stoppedor a shove from fate But I do know that before this, it wasn&039;t ht But s us to now"

"Now, I need time to consider if the step I take is my own, or a shove from fate You&039;re welcome to sleep here I need to check on Lulu Then I want to spend soo to bed"

Frustration pushed through hi his fists in his pockets "I&039;ain, that you can lovethat whatever else I ain You&039;re not giving me a lot of room"

"I can promise you this After the full e I don&039;t want to be at odds with you We can&039;t afford to be"

"There&039;s so else" He took her arm as she started past hiive it to you now" Her fingers itched to push his hand off her arht, would be an essential eleaze levelly

"You want me to trust and believe in you Then you have to trust and believe in me"

"I will, if you&039;ll pro that could put you in jeopardy, without your circle, withoutpoint, I&039;ll need ht" If that was all, he would settle for it For now "Can I use your library?"

"Help yourself"

When she was sure Lulu was sleeping comfortably, Mia went up to the &039;s walk to stand outside in the soft rain She could see, fro that was hers And the dark that pressed against her borders, breathing cold against her warmth so the steam rose up in fitful spurts Almost absently, she lifted a hand skyward, let the power treht, hurled it like a lance through a puff of steam Then she spun away and slipped inside, into her tower

She cast the circle, lighted candles and incense She would seek a vision, but wanted no whisper of it to leak outside that ring What was in her heart and ainst those she loved

She ate the herbs, drank fro in the circle, at the center of a pentagram, she cleared her mind She opened her third eye

The storales of wind, the land was blanketed in a thin gray fog The sea lashed at the base of her cliffs as she flew over the, and over the fog that spread and thickened In the clearing at the heart of the Sisters was her circle Their hands were linked, and hers with the, but crept no further Safe, she thought as she knelt in her tower Safe and strong

She could feel the rumble of the earth below, the rumble of the sky above And her own heartbeat where she knelt, and where she saw herself

They called, in turn Earth, air, water, fire Poas rich Rising up, streaking out Though it tore at the fog, those mists reknit themselves Out of them stalked the wolf that bore her mark

When it leaped, she was alone on her cliffs She saw the red eyes burning She heard her own voice cry out - despair and triumph - as she wrapped her arms around it And took it with her off the cliffs As she fell she saw the h the storm and, with the fire of stars, shine over the island

In her tower, she knelt on the floor, her eyes blurred with visions, her heart pounding

"You give ift, after all? You would have let the innocent be harmed, the mother of my heart? Does it all come down to blood?"

She slid to the floor, curled in the circle For the first and last ti so back" Sarown up "I know it"

"Maybe she is" Mac pushed through the documents spread over the kitchen table They&039;d been his breakfast co er on it I&039;ve been going through everything I have on Three Sisters: the island, the women, the descendants I&039;ve read oversole Some, as the word Mia used? Interpretation "

Saht with him over the table "You can add these to your research pile, at least until she realizes I pulled theet to these anyway" Carefully, reverently, Mac took an old and scarred leather book out of the bag "Mia gave o-ahead to scour her books"

"Then we&039;ll use that when she gets pissy aboutto talk to Zack"

Saain "The Todds have been on the island as long as anyone can res all along Maybe if I can think of the right questions, he&039;ll have the right answers"

"We&039;ve got just over a week until the full , Professor" Saet to work You corunted his assent, already absorbed in the first book

Instead of going to his car, Sa toward the cave

There had always been so him there, even before Mia As a little boy he&039;d slipped away from his mother or his nanny and wandered there Even if it had been only to curl up and sleep He could still remember the time - he had been only three - when the police had been called to search for hi him out of a dream where he&039;d slept in the array eyes

She&039;d sung to hi about a handsome silkie who had loved a witch, then had left her for the sea

He&039;d understood her words, and the language of her song had become his own When he was older, he and his friends had played inside the cave, used it as a fort, a subone in alone, sneaking out of the house after bedtiht, and watch the flarown from child to boy, the woman had come to his dreams less often, and less clearly But he&039;d seen her in Mia The two ies had blurred in his mind until there had been only Mia He stepped into the cave and could smell her No, he corrected, fascinated He could smell the to him, and the deeper, richer scent of the woht they&039;d seen her carry the pelt from this place With the warmth of affection, the forh they had h she&039;d never told hi - that they had

He crouched, studying the smooth cave floor where he had seen the man curled in sleep

"You had my face," he said aloud "Just as she had Mia&039;s Once I let ether It was one of my many excuses You left I left But I ca the words he had carved into the stone so long ago As he read, he reached under his shirt to pull out the chain he wore His foot tapped against soainst the stone

With one hand closed around the ring he wore on the chain, he picked up itswas badly tarnished, but he could feel the carving that circled it The same Celtic knot pattern that circled the one he&039;d found in the cave on the west coast of Ireland The san Mia had etched under the proers over the ring and brought out a dimly remeain, the little ring glea time, then slid it onto the chain with its mate In her office, Mia printed out e-an on the paperwork generated during her brief absence She&039;d used the backlog as a legitih, she recalled, Saer to keep her around By nine, she&039;d ress, and stopped to make her first phone call She needed to

see her lawyer at the first opportunity and make a few adjust fatalistic, just practical

From her satchel she took soht froree was in order But she intended to leave Ripley her share, should anything happen

She thought Nell would appreciate that

As the will stood now, the bookstore went outright to Lulu, but she&039;d decided to change that and designate a percentage to Nell Lulu, she had no doubt, would approve And she intended to start a s the deed for the yellow cottage It was so she would do in any case

She would leave her library to Mac, as he would make the best use of it For Zack there was her star collection, and her great-grandfather&039;s watch

It was the sort of thing one left to a brother

She would leave the house to Saarden was tended And to guard the heart of the island

She put the papers in her bottom drawer, locked it She didn&039;t intend for any of these arrangely believed in being prepared She gathered up the printouts, took theot on with the day, and her life

"Soreed "There are too many people on the beach, and half of them are idiots"

"Seriously, Ripley I&039;m really worried about Mia We only have a couple of days before the full uy there, on the Mickey Mouse towel Frying like a fish in a pan Bet he&039;s from Indiana or someplace and hasn&039;t seen a beach before Give ed the brilliantly pinkfrom foot to foot while Ripley launched into her lecture, pointed skyward, leaned down and poked a finger in thedoneness

As sheit on

"My public service for the week Now, about Mia - "

"She&039;s too cal like it&039;s business as usual She caht She&039;s in there right now checking inventory We&039;re doing the biggest spell I&039;ve ever done in a matter of days, and she just pats me on the head and tells me it&039;ll be fine"

"She&039;s always had ice water for blood What&039;s new?"

"Ripley"

"All right, all right" With a huff of breath, Ripleythe seawall to finish her beach patrol

"I&039;m worried, too Satisfied? And if I wasn&039;t, Mac&039;s twitchy enough for both of us He&039;s buried hi notes He thinks Mia has so us"

"So do I"

"That makes three of us I don&039;t knohat the hell we&039;re supposed to do about it"