“How about that,” he managed.
“Im not sorry I swiped at it before. Maybe it made you work harder.”
He had to grin at her. “Maybe it did.”
“Are we okay now?”
“Were a lot better than okay.”
“Then lets go back, because I havent finished. And Im going to be very interested in what you think of what I have to say next.”
She walked back out to the living room, settled down on the floor again. “Okay,” she said, raising her voice over the conversations. “Breaks over. The point I was trying to make was that however skilled Jordan might be, this is more than a writers point of view. Its more than a series of events entertainingly woven together in story form. When you read it, you start to see how often hes linked to one of those events, or is to one of the people involved in the event. In fact, he was the first, years ago, to see or feel anything, well, otherworldly about the Peak, He once thought he saw a ghost there.”
She stopped, amused to see Malory pick up a highlighter from the crate and begin to mark the sections under discussion on Flynns copy.
“Jordan was the first of us to see, and own, one of Rowenas paintings,” Dana continued. “Flynns my brother, Brads my friend, but Jordan stepped up from being a kind of brother, from being a friend, to being my lover.”
“He broke your heart.” Malory meticulously coated typed words with bright yellow. “A shattering of innocence. Sorry,” she said to Jordan, “but theres a very strong kind of magic in that.”
“And it was Jordans blood that Kane shed.” Nodding at Malory, Dana smiled. “Hes the one who left home— orphaned, alone, young, on a quest. And came back,” she concluded, meeting Jordans eyes, “to finish it.”
“You think I have the key.” Fascinated, Jordan sat back. “I follow the logic, and the traditional elements of your theory, Dane, but where? How? When?”
“I cant know everything. But it makes sense. It just plays through. I havent hammered it all out yet. Theres still that business about goddesses walking and waiting. Walking where? Waiting for what? Then theres that image I saw when I was trying to put myself into a trance.”
Something started to click in his head, then shut off again at her last statement. “When you did what?”
“An experiment. Like meditation. Blank out the mind, that sort of thing, and see what formed. I saw the key, just sort of floating on this blue-green field. Probably my wall at Indulgence, as thats what Id been staring at.-It was like I could reach out and touch it. But I couldnt.”
Frowning, she looked back, imagined it all again. “Then the field changed. White with these blurry black lines running across it. And I heard these words in my head.”
“You heard voices?” Brad asked her. “Not exactly. But I heard the words. Wait a minute, let me think, get it right. „She walks the night, and is the night with all its… all its shadows and secrets. And when she weeps, she weeps for day.
“So, doesnt it make sense that shes the goddess— whoever the hell she is? Thats got to be one of the last pieces to put into place.”
“I can put it in place,” Jordan told her. “Its mine. I wrote that. Phantom Watch.”
There was a moment of stunned silence, then everyone began talking at once.
“Hold it!” Brad got to his feet, held up his hands. “I said hold it! Lets not lose the thread. First, lets eliminate any coincidence. Dana, did you read the book?”
“Yes, but—”
“You did?”
She rolled her eyes at Jordan. “Im not going into another round of pumping your creative ego. Yeah, I read it, but it was years ago. Even I dont remember every line of every book Ive ever read. I didnt recognize it when I heard it.”
“I read it, too.”Zoe raised her hand like a girl in a schoolroom, then, mortified, immediately lowered it. “It was great,” she said to Jordan. “But the woman, the one you wrote about walking at night, wasnt a goddess. She was a ghost.”
“Good point,” Brad put in. “But its an interesting touch that Jordan wrote that book about Warriors Peak, that he created that ghost because he thought he saw her one night.”
“You did?”Zoe asked. “Thats so cool!”
“We went up there to camp. Brad and Flynn and I. Brad managed to… liberate some beer and cigarettes.”
NowZoe turned to Brad. “Is that so?”
“We were sixteen,” he muttered.