Heaven and Earth Read Free Page B

actually done the first, but now I’ll give some serious consideration to the second. Ripley.” Nell touched Ripley’s arm, rubbed lightly. “I don’t want you to move out.”
    “Jesus, Nell, it’s a small island. It’s not like I’d be hard to reach wherever I landed.”
    “I don’t want you to move,” she said again. “I’m speaking for myself, not for Zack. You can talk to him separately if you want and get his feelings about it. Ripley . . . I never had a sister before.”
    “Oh, man.” She cringed, scanning the area from behind her dark glasses. “Don’t get mushy, not right out on the street like this.”
    “I can’t help it. I like knowing you’re there, that I can talk to you whenever. I only had a few days with your parents when they came back for the wedding, but knowing them now and having you, I have a family again. Can’t we just leave things the way they are, for now, anyway?”
    “Does Zack ever say no to you once you turn those big blue headlights on him?”
    “Not when he knows it’s really important to me. And if you stay, I’ll promise that when Zack and I have sex, we’ll pretend we’re not married.”
    “It might help. Anyway, since some jerk from New York snagged the cottage right under my nose, I’ll have to let things ride.” She let out a pained sigh. “Paranormal researcher, my butt. Ph.D.” She sneered and felt marginally cheered. “Mia probably rented the place to him just to piss me off.”
    “I doubt it, but I’m sure she’s enjoying that side benefit. I wish the two of you wouldn’t jab at each other somuch. I’d really hoped, after . . . after what happened on Halloween you would be friends again.”
    Instantly, Ripley closed in. “Everybody did what had to be done. Now it’s over. Nothing’s changed for me.”
    “Only one phase is over,” Nell corrected. “If the legend—”
    “The legend is hooey.” Even thinking of it blighted Ripley’s mood.
    “What we are isn’t. What’s inside us isn’t.”
    “And what I do with what’s inside me is my business. Don’t go there, Nell.”
    “All right.” But Nell squeezed Ripley’s hand and even through the gloves that both women wore, there was a spark of energy. “I’ll see you at dinner.”
    Ripley balled her hand as Nell walked away. Her skin still hummed from the contact. Sneaky little witch, Ripley thought.
    She had to admire that.

    Dreams came late in the night, when her mind was open and her will at rest. She could deny by day, close herself off, stand by the choice she’d made more than a decade before.
    But sleep was a power of its own, and seduced the dreaming.
    In dreams, she stood on the beach, where the waves rose like terror. They pounded, black and bitter, on the shore, a thousand mad heartbeats, under a blind sky.
    The only light was the snake-whips of lightning that slashed each time she raised her arms. And the light that came from her was a furious gold edged with murderous red.
    The wind roared.
    The violence of it, the sheer, unharnessed power of it, thrilled her in some deep and secret place. She was beyond now, beyond right, beyond rules.
    Beyond hope.
    And part of her, still flickering, wept grievous tears for the loss.
    She had done what she had done, and now wrongs were avenged. Death to death to death. A circle formed by hate. One times three.
    She cried out in triumph as the dark smoke of black magic streamed inside her, smearing and choking out what she had been, what she had vowed. What she had believed.
    This, she thought as her cupped hands trembled at the force and the greed, was better. What had come before was pale and weak, a soft belly, compared to the strength and muscle of what was now.
    She could do all and any. She could take and could rule. There was nothing and no one to stop her.
    In a mad dance she spun across the sand, above it, her arms spread like wings, her hair falling in coils like snakes. She could taste the death of her sister’s