Instead, she said, “I’m going to get you a glass of water. I’ll be right back.”
Then without delay, Sibyl ran from the Summer House, feelings of guilt tearing through her.
She couldn’t help but think she was responsible for this. Maybe her mother was a witch. Maybe that made Sibyl a witch. Maybe these dreams she was having were coming to life. Or, she’d always felt there was something strange and magical about Brightrose Cottage, maybe it was the house.
She flew into the kitchen and grabbed a glass. A phone was ringing and she saw a mobile on the kitchen counter. Without thinking, she grabbed it, flipped it open and put it to her ear.
“Hello?” Sibyl uttered the greeting distractedly and turned on the tap, her eyes moving to look through window in the backdoor to ascertain if she could see Colin but she couldn’t.
There was no response on the phone and when Sibyl was about ready to flip it shut again, a refined woman’s voice said, “I’m sorry, I thought I was ringing Colin Morgan’s phone.”
Sibyl froze.
Was it Mistress Freeze, the long-since-absent Tamara?
Colin had told Sibyl that she could not allow another man to touch her while she was with him, but he made no such promise to her. She’d entirely forgotten the other woman in the extremes of her drama and he’d just spent a week in London.
Dear goddess, he could have been with her.
Sibyl felt waves of sickening jealousy she was not entitled to feel crash through her and said hesitantly, “This is Colin’s phone. He’s…” she peered through the window again and still could not see him, “out back. Um…” She was at a loss of what to say.
“This is his sister, Claire. Who’s this?” Her voice was friendly and engaging but, even so, as her concern fled that she was talking to Tamara, Sibyl’s body jerked at the thought of speaking to Colin’s sister.
She didn’t even know he had a sister.
In fact, Sibyl thought that Colin was akin to a quicksilver god born of the elements, not having parents or siblings or anything mere mortals would possess.
Before Sibyl could reply, Claire asked chattily as if they were going to spend the next hour in pleasant conversation, “You’re American aren’t you?”
Sibyl put the glass under the tap not believing this was happening, especially not now, considering the fact she had unawakened witchy powers and Colin was angrily recovering from an episode of real multiple personalities.
“Yes, I’m American,” she answered.
“Oh, where are you from in America? I love America.” Then before Sibyl could respond Claire went on, her voice sounding amused and very sisterly, almost exactly like her own sister, (except less annoying). “You must be the reason no one has heard from Colin in weeks.”
Sibyl pulled the glass from under the faucet and turned it off.
As an answer, she hedged, “Perhaps I should get Colin.”
“Sure,” Claire agreed happily. “Here I am, monopolising the conversation, as usual. I didn’t get your name.”
Sibyl opened the backdoor and walked stiffly through the garden. She loved her garden, with its flagstone paths and beautifully laid flower beds that were carefully created to look wild.
At that moment, however, she didn’t even see it.
“Sibyl Godwin,” she replied without thinking and heard the woman’s shocked gasp.
Her extremely shocked gasp.
“What did you say?” Claire whispered, her voice sounding strange in Sibyl’s ear.
Why everyone that had anything to do with Colin (although, if she was honest, it was really just Marian, Colin and now his sister, then again, those were the only people Sibyl knew who had anything to do with Colin) reacted so strongly to her name was beyond her.
She didn’t have time to consider it; Sibyl had made it to the door of the Summer House.
Colin was still sitting in the wicker chair, his forehead resting in his hand, his elbow resting on his knee.
He glanced up at her when she arrived and instead of repeating her name to his sister, Sibyl told her, “He’s right here.”
Claire didn’t reply and her silence was deafening.
Sibyl extended the phone to Colin and announced, “It’s your sister.”
He took the phone but stared at Sibyl intently. She had no idea what her faced looked like but she could tell by his look that he could read her dazed reaction to the phone call clearly.
“Claire,” he said by way of greeting, his eyes never leaving Sibyl’s face. Then upon whatever his sister was saying, they closed, slowly, and when they opened again, they rolled to the ceiling of the Summer House in exasperation.
Sibyl stood motionless inside the doorway. But at his rolling of eyes, she moved jerkily forward, set the glass of water on a counter and went to finish with the salts.
She heard him talking behind her and felt his eyes on her back.
“Claire, can you be quiet for one minute?” Silence and then, “Do not call Mum.” More silence. “Claire, if you tell –”
He must have been interrupted because, seconds later, she heard the electronic beep of him disconnecting and the flip of the phone being shut.
Before he could light into her, she quickly and defensively explained to her salts, “I was thinking about you. I heard the phone ringing and I just grabbed it. It was a reflex action.”
She felt him come up behind her but she didn’t turn.
Instead of his voice being angry as she expected it to be, it was soft when he asked, “What are you doing?”
She was surprised at his question and the curious tone behind it.
“Making bath salts. I have a small business,” she answered.
He made no reply.
Then she felt his finger run gently along the marks on her right arm and the skin tingled where he touched it. Then she felt him move closer to her back.
She continued talking to her salts; she’d completely filled the jars and was now screwing on their lids. “Have you ever had an episode like that before?”
His reply was immediate. “Never.”
She felt the word on her neck and then, to her complete surprise, she felt his chin settle on her shoulder as his arms slid around her belly.
She sucked in breath. It was a moment so tender, so unlike anything she and Colin had ever shared, Sibyl froze.
And in that moment, she knew she should tell him everything but she decided there was the good possibility that if she informed him that she thought she was a latent witch, expunging magical powers through her dreams or possibly her home (or both) and he was bewitched, he would think (perhaps rightly) she was a screaming loon.