Page 5 of Mistaken

Good luck with that. If nothing else, her early training had made her extremely good at keeping what she was thinking well away from her face…unless she wanted it to show, of course.

The nonchalant act must have worked, because after a second or two, he shrugged and said, “Yeah, it’s all good. See you tomorrow morning.”

He turned and exited through the door, clearly wanting to be the one who ended the conversation.

Too little, too late. Whatever he did now, he’d never be able to completely forget that last winter, she’d been the one to walk away from him.

The land here was beautiful. Breathtaking rock formations that shaded from rust red to sand to striking ochre, with a green river bottom to the west and blue skies dotted with clouds above. In the distance, Abdul could see the flat-topped rock formation known as Cerro Pedernal, once beloved by the human artist Georgia O’Keeffe.

Ghost Ranch itself…well, he could see why the elders had been somewhat concerned that he had chosen this place as his new home.

To a human, the ranch would have seemed normal enough. Modest, of course, with its series of low-slung buildings and odd little nooks and corners, specifically designed so that one might easily find a place to be quiet and meditate. However, djinn had much loftier notions of what constituted a proper house, and Abdul had to admit to himself…even if he would never make such an admission to anyone else…that this place was going to require a great deal of work to make it habitable.

Small buildings dotted the property, many of them obviously used as guesthouses back when the place functioned as a retreat. None of them were at all suitable for his purposes, although he refrained from knocking them down. Perhaps at some point, he would still decide to do so, but for now, it was better to go to the only structure he thought at all viable as his future residence, an L-shaped building situated well away from the main campus, with a spectacular view of Chimney Rock in the background.

In the otherworld, djinn residences towered many stories, reaching into the brooding sky with fanciful spires and turrets, but Abdul knew at once that such a structure would not work in his new home and would obstruct the very view that was the main part of the reason why he had come here in the first place.

No, the outer appearance of the building would remain much the same, albeit with all the dirt and abrasions and scars from almost five years of vacancy swept away. Inside, though, it was utterly different, with the mixture of wood and Saltillo tile floors changed to all solid oak, the kitchen hugely enlarged, and the living area made much bigger as well, encompassing several of the former bedrooms so its dimensions might better suit his tastes.

All this was done in the djinn way, of course, with not even a snap of his fingers required to make the necessary changes. The furniture was upgraded as well, although he kept the style similar, plain dark oak and simple lines, with Navajo rugs on the floors and wrought iron fixtures hanging from the ceiling. No reason to fight the pueblo aesthetic of the place, or he might as well have taken an empty Bavarian castle for his use rather than this lonely slice of northern New Mexico.

With all that accomplished, he summoned a glass of wine and walked out into the courtyard so he might take a seat in one of the tall Adirondack chairs placed there. They faced south, directly toward the Pedernal, and he thought it would be good to sit there and breathe in the air and allow himself to relax into the space.

He was not the first person to have had this idea, of course; the chair he lowered himself into was merely a replacement for the battered ones that had been placed in this spot long before the Heat came along and changed the world forever. No one who had ever seen this view would want to do anything other than sit here so they might admire it at their leisure.

It was very quiet, with only the rustle of the wind in the grass and the far-off cry of a hawk to tell him all this was real, rather than an extremely detailed picture. Despite the near-silence, he could feel how intensely alive this place was, from the scent of sun-warmed earth in his nostrils to the bright blooms of the orange-hued penstemon wildflowers growing only a few feet away from where he sat.

So very different from the otherworld. Nothing grew there, save the plants the djinn had carefully cultivated in their palaces and courtyards, knowing that the terrestrial flora would surely die if it were ever exposed to the harsh conditions of that other plane. The sky had been an unsettling miasma of shifting colors, rather than this cool, serene blue.

Abdul breathed in and then breathed out again. Yes, this was good. He might have fought the elders, might have done his best to cling to a world the rest of them had abandoned, but now that he was here, he wondered why he had been so stubborn. It was not as though there was anyone living anywhere close to here, no one who would intrude on his solitude.

No one who would come near to poke and prod at the burden he had been forced to carry eternally.

Yes, there were the djinn and their Chosen in Santa Fe, but they had no reason to come to Ghost Ranch. Likewise, the community of surviving humans in Los Alamos might have spread into Española, and yet Abdul doubted they would have any need to explore this part of the world. There had been some agriculture here, true, spread along the valley of the Rio Chama. Still, probably not enough to pique their interest, not when they had so many matters to occupy themselves so much closer to home.

He lifted the glass of wine to his lips and drank slowly, savoring the taste of dark fruit and the warm, rich earth that had nourished it. Perhaps it was something of a pity that this wine would never be made again, for the people who had grown the cabernet grapes and bottled this particular vintage had perished nearly five years earlier. Then again, he could re-create it whenever he wished, so he would not allow himself to be too saddened by the thought.

However, he somehow knew that whatever he conjured wouldn’t be quite the same.

Chapter3

Sarah allowedherself a small measure of satisfaction when she saw she was the first one to arrive at City Hall that morning. True, Lindsay Odekirk had a three-year-old to wrangle, so she could be excused for not being exactly on time. Carson definitely didn’t have that same excuse, but he’d never been on time for anything the entire six months they’d lived together…or even during the couple of months he and Sarah had dated before that, when you would have thought he’d be on his best behavior.

The hour probably didn’t matter too much, though. It wasn’t as if anyone was expecting her at Ghost Ranch.

Lindsay came hurrying up about five minutes after Sarah arrived, looking breathless, her dark gold hair pulled back into a messy bun.

“I am so sorry,” she said. “Mandy Miller was supposed to watch Dylan this morning, but she forgot to set her alarm clock and was still asleep when I called. I hope you weren’t waiting too long.”

“Only a couple of minutes,” Sarah replied, then decided against commenting on the way Carson hadn’t even shown up yet. His absence was obvious, and she didn’t want to sound petty. As far as she knew, Lindsay had no idea that she and Carson had even been a couple for a while. Their community was small, but Sarah had realized long ago that she was a very insignificant cog in it, and there was no reason for someone who carried the double burden of serving on the town council while also assisting her scientist husband with his research to have paid any attention to the romantic entanglements of Los Alamos’ residents.

“Good,” Lindsay said.

The night before, she’d sent Sarah and Carson a quick email to meet in the downstairs conference room in the building, so that was where they stood now. Lying on the table in front of them were several folded pieces of paper, ancient Triple-A maps that must have been scrounged from Española during a gleaning mission.

She reached for one of them now and opened it on the tabletop. “Have you ever been to Ghost Ranch?”

“Once, when I was around eleven,” Sarah said. “My dad and I stayed at the Abiquiu Inn and spent about a couple of days exploring the area.”

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