His face floated, inches from her own--soft, dark, handsome, hypnotic. "We are not barbarians in the Summer Country. No man will take you against your will. Come with me, Maureen. Come with me to your own homeland."
She smelled the land on him--the warm earth, the green grass, the peat fires, the slow river-waters flowing smooth and tannin-dark across the water-weed. The word pictures flowed through her head using Grandfather O'Brian's voice, the voice of safety. Sean's lips burned against hers without any trace of the cold north wind. Maureen fell into the kiss, losing herself, barely conscious of his hands drawing her body against his.
Something in the back of her head screamed terror and warning, but it was weak and far away. Her pulse buried it under the rushing, throbbing heat in her breasts and belly.
* * *
Jo blinked again. Maureen had been right there. Maureen, kissing a man. And then Jo had blinked with shock, and the two of them were gone.
She must have stepped back inside the store. It could have been a minute rather than a second, Jo's surprise being what it was.
Jo pushed through the icy wind and into the Quick Shop. Just checking, she reminded herself. She owed it to Maureen, she owed it to herself, to make sure everything was fine. She hadn't seen her sister since the morning she moved out. They hadn't ever thrashed things out about Buddy, either. There'd never been a chance.
The greasy little man behind the counter looked up and jumped. Jo had seen that look before: Maureen walked out and Jo walked in, different clothes on the same woman with no time to change. Sometimes they used to do it for a joke, just like real twins.
"Where's Maureen?"
The man's eyes narrowed as they groped their way up and down Jo's body. Fucking slimeball, she thought. Come out from behind that counter and I'll kick you in the cojones. Freebie, special for Maureen, just for having to work with you.
"Stepped outside a minute ago. She never told me she had a twin sister."
"She doesn't."
Jo pushed back through the door, right into a gust of wind that might as well have been liquid nitrogen. Her teeth felt like they were going to crack from thermal stress. Maybe Mo had ducked around the corner, hiding out in the shadows and a bit of shelter.
Smooching.
Maureen? No way in God's green tomato patch. Something was wrong here. The whole scene, wrong. It stank like a week-old road-killed skunk. If that Brian character had tangled her up in trouble, Jo would skin him alive with her fingernails.
She'd been right to check on Mo.
Jo closed her eyes. There was a trick they used to do, she and Maureen, it played hell with games of hide-and-seek: find the sister. Get calm enough, quiet enough, and listen to the chunk of brain just on top of your spinal cord. If Maureen was anywhere within a couple-hundred yards, Jo could find her. And vice-versa. In some ways, they were twins. Nothing mystical or magic: her back-brain probably just knew how Maureen thought, where she was likely to go.
The wind nipped at her and she drifted along with it, around that hypothetical corner into a calm eddy. No Maureen.
She quieted herself, relaxed, slowed her breathing. Slow, in through the nose, out through the mouth, like the stress meditation they taught her when coping with insanity was driving her insane. Count heartbeats against the breath, inhale four counts, hold the breath four counts, exhale eight counts. Nothing existed except her breathing.
Center my self in peace.
Part of me is missing. Where is she?
A faint echo returned, at the edge of her sister-sonar: Maureen, that way, around back. She might be embarrassed as hell, Jo catching her making out with a man. Tough shit. Jo wouldn't be able to sleep tonight if she didn't track her sister down.
Eyes closed, Jo turned and took a careful, sliding step. The feeling strengthened as the air fell still around her. Careful, careful, there was ice underfoot. Another step brought a touch of warmth to her face, and she opened her eyes, expecting an unseen vent.
Sweat jumped out of her spine and froze there.
She stood in formless dark. Phantoms played with the corners of her eyes, then disappeared when she flicked her vision after them. Faint whispers echoed sight in her ears, voices and words just beyond or beneath understanding. The damp coolness of a cave hung musty around her, mixed with some sense of graveyard earth. Under the Sidhe hill, she giggled hysterically to herself, a waking dream.
She was going crazy. She was following her sister straight into the loony bin.
Jo snatched at her only way out. Where was Maureen?
Calming breaths, again. In. Hold. Out. Relax back into the center. Open herself to the void. Seek the emptiness in her mind. Seek the peace.
Maureen was that way. Now Jo was trying to save herself instead of her sister. Too late to back out now--she didn't even know which way was out. She was committed.
Another cautious step and Jo felt the ground firm beneath her feet, spongy with turf rather than the crusty winter muck coating Naskeag Falls. She opened her eyes again.
Grass. Trees. Green, rolling hills. Blue sky. Sun.
This isn't real. She blinked and shook her head like a horse tormented by flies. The impossible world mocked her confusion by continuing to exist.
Jo shivered even though she was no longer cold.
She stood by a fieldstone wall that separated pastures from ancient woods. The breeze caressed her cheeks, wiping the bite of winter away and bringing the sweet warmth of spring to her nose. Dazed beyond fear, she slipped off her gloves and ran cold-reddened fingers over the moss on the stone. Damp. Velvet soft. Coolness that felt warm by contrast with her touch-memory of Maine ice. She brought fingers to her nose and drank in the sour wet smell of lichen eating stone.
It was real. Either real or delusions strong enough to
