Gray didn’t recognize the incoming number. When he clicked on and answered, the line went dead.
Chapter 12
“Marley,” Sykes hissed into her ear. “Pretend you’re with us, will you?”
With Winnie on her lap and still in her nightie and robe with a work smock over the top, she sat in one of Uncle Pascal’s green suede wing chairs. Sykes crouched beside her, wickedly handsome as ever in a white poet’s shirt, dark jeans and with his feet bare. “Yeah,” she muttered, but her mind wandered just the same.
Uncle Pascal had convened this meeting of all Millets present in New Orleans. Ten a.m. sharp. Marley was there in body, but whichever way her thoughts strayed, they found their way to Gray Fisher, Amber Lee and Liza Soaper.
And why hadn’t she, Marley, been able to stay and rescue the woman she had seen earlier that morning? A new twist occurred to her; there could be a limit on how long she could be away from her body.
This time the decision to terminate the trip had been made for her.
Frantic to reach the woman again, as soon as Marley had reentered her body, she attempted to travel back through the funnel. With her energy sapped, she had been powerless and the tunnel disappeared. She could not summon it up again.
“A discussion about the Mentor is overdue,” Uncle Pascal said. “You’ve all lulled me into thinking I didn’t need to remind you. I was wrong.”
Marley looked hard at Sykes, who rolled his eyes, then at Willow who sank deeper into another of Uncle’s green chairs and wouldn’t meet anyone’s glance. She wore a green Mean ’n Green Maids T-shirt—standard issue to all those who worked for her maid service—over white crop pants. Her white tennis shoes had thick green soles and green laces.
“Before we get into reminders about our family pledges,” Uncle said, “I must tell you how disappointed you’ve made me, Marley. I don’t know everything you got up to last night, but I will. Sykes will help me make sure of that.”
Marley met Sykes’s blue eyes again and sent him a secret message.
Sykes turned on his impassive face and just as she thought he would ignore her, she got the response.
A corner of Willow’s mouth hooked upward, but flattened out quickly. Not quickly enough for Marley to have missed it. Who knew how powerful Willow might or might not be? She adhered so tightly to her story about not believing the Millets were different from any other family that she had almost convinced the rest of them she was nothing more—or less—than human. To various degrees, the Millets were in contact with several other psychic families. These people were also “normal” according to Willow.
Marley was almost sure her younger sister was picking up at least hints of the channels opening and closing between Marley and Sykes. If so, little Willow was a good deal more than human, even though it wouldn’t be possible for her to actually intercept conversation unless invited.
The biggest puzzle for Willow’s relatives was the reason for her apparent determination not to accept who and what she was—or probably was. There had been a relationship with Benedict Fortune, the eldest son of one of those families with whom they shared similarities and it had ended badly. Marley had never been quite sure why, and Willow wouldn’t discuss Ben. There was no doubt that she and Ben had appeared very much in love.
From the closed expression on Willow’s face, nothing was about to change her attitude soon.
Today had dawned with the promise of heat, and that promise had been kept. The overhead fans in Uncle’s clubby quarters above the shop did little more than move hot air around. Tired, desperate to be on her way, Marley had groaned when Uncle Pascal’s summons arrived. For her it had come while she was in her workroom and barely conscious after her unceremonious reentry from her travels.
Sometimes Uncle Pascal’s dark moods were immovable. This morning his frown was formidable and he kept sinking into long silences.
His shaved head shone. Marley knew the family story about how he had cut off his mahogany red curls. At that time he told his brother Antoine—her father—that he chose to have “no hair color at all if it means you’re going to stick me with your offspring and the care of this impossible family.” That had been when the final decision about Sykes had been made; a dark-haired male could not be entrusted with the Millets’ fate, not when he might well bring disaster on the family.
Sykes, so the story went, had laughed too much when he insisted he didn’t care that he was being cast out of his family position. He had said he wouldn’t have anything to do with such responsibilities anyway. Sykes, still a teenager at the time, had announced that he would spend his life honing skills none of the rest of them could hope to share. He’d been right. In addition to being an impressive psychic power, he sculpted figures from lumps of stone and rarely finished a piece without more than one buyer demanding to be the owner.
But although they made light of their parents’ decision to leave New Orleans (and Papa’s rightful place as head of the family) and search for answers about the family curse, Marley, Sykes and their sisters doubted just how hard Antoine and Leandra Millet were looking—and they were quietly saddened by the willing defection of the older Millets.
“Willow,” Uncle Pascal said, “you will have to put in more work improving yourself. It’s time you got over this silly
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Willow said. “No, I don’t know at all and don’t want to.”
“Then you can sit there and I’ll tell you.”
Willow’s beeper went off. She unhooked it from her waist and took a look. “Time’s up,” she said. “I’ve got a business to run.”
“Business?” Uncle Pascal echoed ominously.
Willow got up, yawned and stretched, then let her arms fall heavily. “You’re all an embarrassment with your gifts and powers garbage. I don’t know why you hauled me in here to watch you play games. G’bye.”
“Willow,” Uncle Pascal said, and the warning was implicit.
She smiled and stood on tiptoe to kiss his chin. Her hair, currently the reddest in the clan, bounced.
“Let her go,” Sykes said although Willow had already opened the door to the flat.
The door closed again and Uncle Pascal threw up his hands. “She’s living a lie. Eventually something will happen and she’ll have to face up to what she really is. What a terrible shock that could be.”
“I know,” Marley said. “When I’m not feeling wobbly I worry about her.” She let her eyes close and knew it was useless to hope Uncle Pascal and Sykes hadn’t noticed what she’d just said.
“Wobbly?” Uncle said on cue. “Yes, yes, of course that’s how you feel and it’s because you’ve strayed from the Mentor. You must correct yourself at once.”
Marley sighed at the imperious tone of voice. Whether Uncle Pascal liked it or not, he had possessed the qualities needed to head the family after what was now referred to as Papa’s “abdication.”
In addition to having a strong mind, Uncle Pascal lifted weights and it showed. Even in the green robe—he favored green a good deal—he wore over workout gear, his muscles were impressive.
All the Millets were good-looking, or so Marley had been told often enough, and her uncle was no exception. Anyone who didn’t know he dealt in obscure objets d’art would never associate him with anything other than a very physical occupation.
“I’ve heard from Antoine and Leandra,” he said abruptly. The grim set of his mouth warned that he had not learned anything that pleased him. “Apparently Alex and Riley are enjoying their stay in London.”
Sykes stood. “What does that mean?”
