Page 28 of Rainshadow

“And I don’t think I can tell you the truth, but you just have to believe… you have to trust me that you’re in danger. Please don’t return to Rainshadow.”

“What? You have to tell me.” It wasn’t a question, more of a demand. Flora was starting to regret accepting the ride. “What is so dangerous?”

“Ethan… Is that what you called him? Ethan is dangerous. And I think the woman, Sylvia, is under his control.”

Flora looked at Blythe.

“Blythe, if you knew them you’d know that’s crazy. Ethan is under her control. She is…” Flora shook her head. “She’s terrible to him.

“How well do you know him?” Blythe asked. “How much time have you spent with him?”

Flora took a breath. She didn’t want to make it obvious that she had very strong feelings about him. “I’ve spent time with him.”

“How much time? Are you?—”

“Blythe,” Flora said, breathing out, “I know you’re just trying to be helpful, but?—”

“Be helpful?” She laughed. “I don’t care about being helpful to you, Flora. If you’re caught in his web, there is very little likelihood that you’ll escape. But when you realize that it’s too late, you won’t be able to say I didn’t warn you.”

“Ok,” Flora said with a snort of laughter.

“I think he had something to do with that boy.”

“Matt?” Flora sounded incredulous. They were getting closer to her house, but not fast enough.

Blythe nodded. “All the signs were there. And there have been others. I’ve been watching. And I think you know, don’t you? That something is terribly wrong there? Something has happened, hasn’t it?”

Flora gazed out of the car window, wishing the ride was over. “You’re crazy, Blythe,” was all she said.

Still, she was unsettled. It was an insane accusation.

Blythe dropped her off in front of her house, and looked at her for a moment, pleadingly, as she grabbed her bag and swept from the car. “Thanks for the ride.”

“This is bigger than you, Flora,” Blythe said. “More people than you are in danger, and if you think you’re going to get anything out of this or come out on top?—”

“Come out on top of what?” she asked, shaking her head, flustered.

“I don’t know. But there’s something you want. You’re not going to get it.”

“You don’t know anything?—”

Blythe took a deep breath. “I’m a witch, Flora,” she said, and there was a wild, desperate edge in her voice. “I’m a witch and I can… intuit things. I could feel that…thing’spresence on the island. I can feel your… intense desire. I wish I could tell you more, but I can’t. I can’t see specifics. I know that something bad is happening, has likely already happened. You saw something. What happened there, Flora? Has someone died?”

Flora looked at her, thinking of Bane, the horrible accident.

“No,” she said. “Sorry to disappoint you, but everything is fine.”

“I know you’re lying.”

She slammed the door in Blythe’s face and rushed inside, where her mother was sleeping curled on the loveseat with the TV running. Flora found herself wishing she was at Rainshadow, wishing she could tell Ethan all the crazy things Blythe had just said.

She imagined them laughing together, the two of them against the world.

14

When Flora returned to work, something at Rainshadow had changed. It was clear as soon as she stepped into the barn that the horses were agitated, like they hadn’t been fed. There was a water hose left on, still running, next to the barn. It trickled into a deep, muddy pool that had wound like a black snake into one of the lavender fields. Flora turned it off, fed the horses, and decided that she had to go knock on the front door.

She rapped on the door, first a few quick taps, then stood waiting. She wasn’t looking forward to a confrontation with Sylvia, but there was something wrong, something giving her an uneasy feeling, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to work until she knew what was going on. She didn’t really believe there was anythingevilhere, but her conversation with Blythe had unsettled her.

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