Page 39 of Wind Called

“Nothing,” she replied. “I mean, I remember going hiking with Marc, and I remember starting to walk across the bridge, but after that, everything just went…dark…for a few minutes.”

“It was frightening,” he put in. “It felt like she’d completely checked out.”

“But she spoke to you.”

Marc nodded, and his fingers tightened on Bellamy’s. “Yes, she answered me when I asked her a question. She said the voices on the wind were trying to tell her that the Collector was out there.”

The three elders exchanged worried glances. “Have you ever heard of someone like that, Levi?” Tricia asked, and he shook his blond head, which now showed a few strands of silver.

Odd to think that he was aging like a regular person, even though he’d always said his body was just as human as anyone else’s. Still, this was the first time Bellamy truly understood that Levi’s claims of mortality had been the simple truth.

“Not that I can recall,” he said. “Not in this world…or the one I came from.”

Allegra’s sparse brows drew together. Her pupils looked oddly dilated, and Bellamy wondered if that was an after-effect from her visit to the ophthalmologist the day before.

“I’ve never heard of such a person, either,” she said. “This is…concerning.”

That was one word for it. Bellamy thought the “Collector” must be someone pretty scary, or she didn’t think the voices on the wind would have been trying so hard to warn her about him.

“But you say nothing happened at Marc’s Airbnb the night before?” Tricia asked then.

Color flushed Bellamy’s cheeks, even as she thought,Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘nothing.’

However, she knew that wasn’t what Marc’s grandmother had meant. She guessed this must be pretty embarrassing for him, to all but come right out and say they were sleeping together, but she supposed he was a big boy and could handle whatever he needed to. Besides, he was obviously single, and so was she, and if two consenting witch-kind decided to get together, then it was nobody’s business but their own.

“No,” she said. “Everything was quiet. I didn’t hear any voices, or have any bad dreams, or anything like that.”

For a moment, the three elders didn’t say anything. Levi looked particularly thoughtful, though, so Bellamy wasn’t too surprised to hear him speak first.

“Are there any maps of the vortexes in Sedona?”

“There must be,” Tricia replied. “They’re a big draw for the tourists. Why?”

“Because if Sedona energy is involved in all this — I’m not saying it is for sure, but that’s the only theory we have to work with right now — then it’s possible Bellamy heard the voices out on the Devil’s Bridge because there’s a strong vortex in that area,” Levi replied. “Likewise, it could be that the property where the Airbnb is located is relatively quiescent. We’ll need to do more research to be sure.”

In a way, those words felt oddly comforting to Bellamy. If something outside her was trying to reach out and communicate, to use her magical power of harmony with the winds to send an important message, then she sort of liked the idea that she’d gotten hit so hard out on the Devil’s Bridge because the vortex energy in that area was insanely strong. True, she’d never heard of the vortexes sending people into a trance, but their effects did tend to vary from person to person.

“Let me get my laptop,” Tricia said, rising from her chair. “I should be able to find something online.”

“How did you feel after you got back to the house?” Allegra asked then, probably thinking she should do something to fill the awkward silence that had fallen after Tricia left the room.

“Fine,” Bellamy replied at once. “I mean, I was a little tired from the hike, but after I took a shower and had something to eat, I was ready to get going.”

Marc gently released her hand, saying, “I asked her the same thing. Once we were away from the Devil’s Bridge area, she seemed fine.”

“Iamfine,” Bellamy told him, then returned her gaze to the two elders. “I’m not going to lie — the whole thing was a little creepy. But it’s not as if I’ve had weird voices in my head ever since or anything like that.”

That wasn’t to say she hadn’t been on edge the whole time, wondering if those strange whispers were going to start up again. If, as Levi had postulated, the Airbnb sat on neutral ground, they wouldn’t have been able to reach her there, and once she and Marc had left Sedona to drive over to Cottonwood, she would have been well out of range of the vortexes and any influence they might have on her.

Small blessings, she supposed.

“Here we go,” Tricia said as she came back into the living room. She set her laptop down on the coffee table and then opened it, showing that she’d already found an online map of the various vortexes in the Sedona area. “There’s a huge one in Boynton Canyon — ”

“But we had lunch at Enchantment yesterday morning and nothing happened,” Bellamy protested.

“True,” Levi said. “You were in a public place, though, and often, the mere presence of others can be enough to protect you from those sorts of forces.”

Maybe that was something of an explanation. Still….

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