4. Plumbing the Depths

4

PLUMBING THE DEPTHS

Seth hoped he hadn’t overtly stared at Deborah Rowe when she returned to the living room. It had been difficult, because in that simple flowered dress and with her heavy hair wound into a complicated knot at the back of her neck, she looked like some kind of goddess who’d descended from Olympus to consort with mere mortals.

Or at least, mere witches and warlocks.

But he did his best to keep his wits about him, despite how distracting she was, and after a brief discussion about going down to Helen’s house for the interview, they headed out. Now that Deborah walked next to him, he noted how tall she was, almost to his jaw, something he rarely encountered. She walked freely, with her chin up and her clear gray-blue eyes scanning the landscape around them as she appeared to take in everything as though she was seeing it for the first time.

Most likely, she was. Her memories might have deserted her but his had not, and he knew she’d never been in Jerome before.

Her free strides and utter unself-consciousness surprised him a little, just because the few truly tall women he’d met had tended to do what they could to make themselves less conspicuous, as though they knew they already attracted enough attention solely because of their height. But he thought he liked that about her, liked the way she seemed unafraid of looking at the world even though she had no real idea of her place in it.

Well, with any luck, his cousin Helen would be able to fix that.

Although neither of them had a telephone — there was one at the mercantile, and another in the surgeon’s house up on Hill Street — Seth knew it was no imposition for him and Deborah to show up like this unannounced. It was late enough that the children would have all been bathed and dressed, and because they would not be attending any kind of services…not even the homegrown ones he’d described to his unexpected guest in a very small lie…he knew it was safe enough to come here, as everyone in the McAllister clan tended to stay close to home on Sundays.

In fact, Helen opened the door so quickly, it was almost as though she’d been expecting them in that very same moment. She was not a seer — their last seer had passed away some five years earlier, and so far no one in the younger generation of McAllisters appeared to have that gift — but his cousin still had flashes of intuition from time to time.

“Good morning,” she said, her tone cheery, and directed her next words to her visitor. “I’m Helen O’Dowd, Seth’s cousin. Come inside. Have you eaten?”

With a rush of shame, Seth realized he hadn’t offered Deborah any refreshment after she awoke, not even a glass of water. He had been up for hours, and had already had coffee — he rarely ate breakfast — and he supposed he’d been so flustered by her presence that he’d forgotten she might need something more than a change of clothes to refresh herself.

“No,” he replied, and glanced at Deborah. She wore a cheerful smile and didn’t look particularly hungry, but he knew women were often very good at putting on a public face when the situation warranted. “Helen, this is Deborah Rowe. I should have gotten her something to eat, but — ”

“It’s fine,” she murmured, even as his cousin’s expression turned immediately disapproving.

“Oh, it is most certainly not ‘fine,’” Helen said, and opened the door a little wider. “Come into the sitting room, and we can have some tea and scones.”

Because Seth knew his cousin was just as good a baker as she was a healer, he thought he might overlook his propensity for skipping breakfast to have some of her delicious raisin scones.

“That would be wonderful,” he said as she led him and Deborah into her sitting room, which was certainly much larger and grander than the space where the lost young woman had spent the night on his sofa. Fine furniture, some of it shipped in from New York and some made just down the hill in the workshop adjacent to the high school, filled the space, and brocade curtains had been pulled back from the tall windows to allow a view of the tree-lined street directly in front of the house…and to allow a peek of Sedona’s red rocks and the Mogollon Rim far beyond.

Helen gestured for them to take a seat on the settee, then disappeared to fetch the promised tea and scones. Next to him, Deborah was looking around with the same lively interest she’d displayed on the walk down here.

Well, he had to admit that his cousin’s house was very fine, probably the nicest on its street. True, on the hillside above the main thoroughfare were grand homes built late in the last century, fanciful Victorian houses with stained-glass windows and even turrets, but he thought Helen’s place was homier while at the same time being quite elegant.

No sight or sound of her three children, and Seth guessed that she’d made sure Calum was keeping them occupied in their postage stamp of a backyard, most likely playing with a ball or possibly the croquet set, although he thought they were still a little young for that. However they were being kept busy, the house was much quieter than it usually was, and he wondered if he should say something to fill the silence.

Exactly what, he wasn’t sure; other than his McAllister cousins, he did not have any great experience with young ladies. He knew some of the unattached men in the family frequented the bar at the Connor Hotel, where they might meet women they could kiss and do quite a bit more with, but while he’d entertained the idea from time to time, something about it had never felt right to him. When he was sixteen, his father had taken him aside and explained something of what was supposed to pass between a man and a woman when they were married, and he’d absorbed as much of that unexpected information as he could, even as he told himself he would not indulge in such activities with the women at his town’s bars and hotels, the ones who made themselves freely available to anyone who had the coin to pay their prices.

Because even though he knew Helen could take care of whatever illnesses he might acquire while enjoying the company of such a woman, the thought of asking his cousin for that particular kind of help was just too awkward.

No, he supposed when the time came, his parents would help him meet a sufficiently distant cousin from Prescott or Payson or Wickenburg, and he would settle down with her and finally learn for himself exactly what passed between a man and a woman.

It occurred to him that he shouldn’t be thinking about those sorts of things, not with such an exquisite creature as Deborah Rowe sitting next to him, and yet…

…and yet he was beginning to realize she affected him in a way no other woman ever had. The purely cynical might have pointed out that was most likely because she was very pretty and also a complete stranger, and therefore exotic in a way a McAllister cousin could never be, but he couldn’t help thinking the attraction must involve something more than mere novelty.

To his relief, Helen re-entered the room, now carrying a silver tray laden with her rose-painted tea set and a basket piled high with her raisin scones, and therefore he didn’t have to come up with something clever to say to Deborah. A few minutes were spent pouring tea for everyone and handing out plates so they might help themselves to a scone, but soon enough, the refreshments had been provided, and it was time to start getting to the bottom of the mystery surrounding Deborah Rowe.

“Have you tried thinking of anything that might have happened before you were found at the mine?” Helen asked.

Deborah had just taken a bite of scone, so she had to finish chewing before she could set down the pastry, wipe her fingers on the napkin Helen had provided, and allow herself some time to ponder the question.

“I’ve tried,” she said. As far as Seth could tell, there wasn’t a hint of doubt in her tone, so he had to believe she was telling the truth. “But I can’t remember anything at all. I woke up this morning on Mr. McAllister’s couch, and that’s pretty much all I know. Everything before that is just…darkness.”

Helen’s mouth pursed, making her look more like one of the dolls his mother displayed at the mercantile than ever, and she didn’t respond immediately, instead taking a sip of tea as if that might help to focus her thoughts.

“It can happen that way sometimes, especially if someone has experienced a traumatic event. Why, some of our boys came back from the war hardly knowing who they were or where they’d been.”

A sad truth, one Seth couldn’t deny. Although the McAllister family would have preferred not to send any of its sons to fight overseas, they also knew that avoiding military service through excuses and lies would have only invited the kind of scrutiny no witch clan could afford. He and his brother Charles had been too young to enlist, thank the Goddess, but twenty-two men of eligible age had gone…and only twelve returned. Those survivors were tight-lipped to this day about what they had seen or done, and two of them, his cousins Ernest and Stephen, seemed to have lost their minds entirely. They spent their days in a small house at the edge of town, tended to by their families, but any hope of their coming back to themselves was long gone. A disease of the mind wasn’t something that could be easily cured by a healer, the way Helen had made sure that those with the racking coughs brought on by exposure to mustard gas regained all their lung function.

For a moment, Deborah appeared almost confused by his cousin’s comment, as though she wasn’t sure which war Helen had been talking about, but then she nodded. “World War 1, right,” she said.

Seth and his cousin exchanged a mystified look. Why in the world…pardon the expression…would Deborah have phrased her comment that way when everyone knew it had been the war to end all wars?

But then she added, “Against the Kaiser,” and Seth allowed himself a nod.

“Yes,” he said. “So, you remember that much?”

“I suppose I do,” Deborah replied, although now it was her turn to appear confused. “Is it strange that I would remember something about the war but nothing about who I am or where I came from?”

“Not necessarily,” Helen said. “Sometimes the mind can hold on to facts it sees as neutral and not specifically connected to itself. Can you tell us who the President is?”

Deborah’s face went utterly blank. “Um…Teddy Roosevelt?”

“No,” Helen said, her tone now gentle. “That was quite some years ago. Our current President is Calvin Coolidge.”

“Oh,” Deborah responded. She sounded worried, and Seth couldn’t blame her.

How was it that she’d known about the Great War, but had no idea who the current President was?

However, his cousin didn’t appear too concerned. “It’s not so strange that you might retain some facts and not others, Miss. Rowe. Can you tell me when Arizona became a state?”

“February 14 th , 1912,” Deborah responded immediately.

Well, that was something. Although her memory was gone, and it seemed as though there were large gaps in the knowledge she still retained, she clearly hadn’t forgotten everything.

Helen set down her teacup. “Miss Rowe, I would like to see if you have any signs of head trauma. Only with your permission, of course.”

Seth slanted a glance at his cousin, and she responded with a barely perceptible shake of her head. He would have thought she’d learned everything she needed the night before, but maybe it was possible that if she performed a more thorough laying-on of hands, she would be able to learn if anything truly traumatic had happened to Deborah Rowe before she’d been abandoned in that mineshaft.

“That’s fine,” Deborah said. However, her expression appeared more anxious than ever, belying her words.

What was she afraid that his cousin might find?

However, she didn’t flinch when Helen came over to her and pressed gentle hands against her skull, clearly trying to see if she had any bumps or bruises that had been overlooked. Even that careful examination caused a strand of hair to come loose from the bun at the back of Deborah’s neck, falling softly against her cheekbone.

In that moment, Seth wished he could reach out and push it back…and maybe, just maybe, touch her cheek as well to feel the velvet softness of her skin.

As best he could, he dismissed that entirely inappropriate thought. How was it that he’d traveled through life without ever getting distracted by a woman, and now, less than twenty-four hours after meeting Deborah Rowe, he could think of nothing more than how much he wanted to kiss her, to pull the pins from her hair and let all of its glorious masses fall free over his hands?

It was an entirely different kind of witchcraft from the one he knew.

To his relief, Helen spoke then, pulling him away from the dangerous course his mind seemed determined to take.

“I can’t find any obvious signs of injury,” she said. “No bumps or knots or half-healed wounds.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” Deborah ventured, but Helen’s troubled expression didn’t change.

“Normally, I would say yes,” she replied. “But if you weren’t knocked out by a blow to the head, then something else must be causing your amnesia. I suppose it’s possible you were administered ether and it somehow scrambled your memory. I’ve read of that happening occasionally, and often the memories lost are the ones from immediately before a patient was etherized.”

Deborah’s blue-gray eyes widened. “Why on earth would anyone give me ether?”

“I have no idea,” his cousin replied. “And unless your memory somehow comes back on its own, none of us may ever know.”

They were all somewhat subdued after that exchange, even as Seth’s thoughts kept tumbling over one another, trying to determine whether being etherized and dropped in the mine was worse than getting hit over the head, until he decided at last that both were equally unpleasant propositions. After all, they were both predicated on some unknown assailant or assailants having dark designs on Deborah Rowe, for whatever reason.

And that was a scenario he had a hard time accepting, mostly because she seemed so kind and friendly that he couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to cause her harm.

Plenty of bad people existed in the world, though…or at least, that was the sort of sentiment his parents or the clan elders liked to intone whenever someone got a hankering to leave Jerome and try their luck elsewhere in McAllister territory. Seth had never heard of any harm coming to his cousins in Payson or Prescott or even Wickenburg, but he also had to admit that those weren’t the places where their clan had originally settled and therefore were slightly less known.

“But,” his cousin Helen said as they finished their tea, “until we can learn where you came from and why you ended up here in Jerome, Deborah, we need to get you in a more settled situation. After all, it just wouldn’t look proper for you to continue sleeping on Seth’s sofa.”

“I have a second bedroom,” he replied, and she sent him a look so stern, he wondered if she’d borrowed the expression from his mother.

“That won’t do, and you know it,” Helen told him. “It’s entirely improper for an unmarried man to have an unmarried woman who isn’t his sister or other close relative staying in his home.” She turned her gaze toward Deborah, adding, “I would offer you a room here, but now that little Nicholas is out of the nursery, I’m afraid I don’t have any spare bedrooms.”

Deborah’s mouth pursed. “I don’t want to be any trouble — ”she began, and immediately, Helen shook her head.

“You’re not any trouble,” she said. “There are plenty of houses in this town where people do have spare rooms. We just have to determine which one would be best for you.”

“Maybe a boarding house?” Deborah ventured.

Seth didn’t like that idea at all. Most of the boarding houses in Jerome were occupied by miners or other mine workers, and a rough, untidy lot they were — even if many of them were on his crew, people he knew well enough. And the places that weren’t filled with unattached men housed the same women who frequented the bars…and whose reputations were nothing to be proud of.

True, there was the surgeon’s house, where the nurses who worked at the sanatorium lived, but as far as he knew, they didn’t have any extra space available. Besides, Deborah wasn’t a nurse…or rather, he didn’t believe she was. He supposed a nursing background might have been just another element hidden in the black gulf that currently comprised her memory, and yet he didn’t think so.

It seemed his cousin Helen was of the same mind, because she said at once, “Oh, no — the boarding houses here in Jerome wouldn’t be suitable for you at all. It’s much better if we put you up with one of our cousins. We McAllisters are a very large family, and I’m sure someone will have room for you.”

“What about Daphne’s room at Aunt Ruth and Uncle Timothy’s house?” Seth suggested. Most likely, he’d thought of his cousin because she was already fresh in his mind, thanks to using her as a fit reference so his mother could choose clothing of the correct size for Deborah. “She and Jack Emory just got married and moved into that house on Holly Avenue, so her room would be empty now.”

“Of course,” Helen said, relief clear on her porcelain features. “I should have thought of that. Why don’t you run up to Ruth and Timothy’s house now to ask them if they’d be all right with taking on a guest, and I can walk Deborah over to your place while we’re waiting?”

The words sounded casual enough, but because of the significant look his cousin gave him, he knew she expected him to blink himself up to their house once he was outside and safely out of Deborah’s line of sight.

Which was already what he’d planned to do, so in this at least, they agreed.

He looked down at Deborah. Through all their back and forth, she’d seemed calm enough, but he noticed now the way her fingers were wrapped around the handle of her teacup a little too tightly, as though she wasn’t sure what she would do once she let go.

Well, he had to admit that it was probably uncomfortable to have to sit there and listen to them discuss her fate. Better to get this over with, just so she — and they — would know what was happening next.

Because as much as he would have liked to continue arguing that it was fine for her to stay at his house, he knew there was no point in wasting his breath. Such an arrangement would be scandalous at best, and he certainly didn’t want to impair Deborah Rowe’s reputation if or when her memory returned to her and she went back whence she came.

“This won’t take very long,” he assured her, and sent her a quick smile to, with any luck, let her know they were all trying to look out for her best interests.

She managed to smile in return, although he thought he detected something forced about her expression, that she was doing so only because she’d realized she wasn’t in a position to argue. And that was the terrible thing about the whole situation, wasn’t it? Left here with no resources, without even a penny to her name and only the utterly inappropriate clothing on her back, what else was she supposed to do except rely on the support of those around her?

He went out the front door and then immediately around to the side yard, where he was sheltered by several luxuriant holly bushes and could allow himself to disappear without anyone seeing him. Directly afterward, he appeared at Aunt Ruth and Uncle Timothy’s house, again choosing a spot to emerge in their side yard that was hidden from the street. Their neighbors on either side and across the way were also McAllisters, and therefore, he could have probably emerged right in the middle of the front walk without any real repercussions, but he’d learned as a child at his mother’s knee that members of the witch community had to be circumspect at all times.

Even though he was following Helen’s advice — and even though he knew logically that it wouldn’t look at all appropriate to have Deborah stay with him — he also hated the thought of fobbing her off on his relatives. He was the one who’d found her, and he believed he should have been the one to give her a place to stay until they could sort out the mystery of who she actually was and where she had come from. After all, his was probably the most familiar face in town to her.

But none of those arguments would hold up against the weight of societal disapproval, which was why he resigned himself to walking up the steps to Aunt Ruth and Uncle Timothy’s house and rapping twice with the brass knocker affixed to the front door.

Aunt Ruth was the one who answered. She looked only mildly surprised to see him; the McAllisters were always running back and forth between their clan members’ various houses, whether it was to ask to borrow a cup of flour or possibly deliver some news.

“What is it, Seth?” she asked, stepping aside so he could enter the foyer. Like cousin Helen’s house, this one was also large and well-appointed, although the furnishings had been purchased before the turn of the century and everything was beginning to look a bit old-fashioned. And Ruth was a little old-fashioned, too, with her graying blonde hair piled up into a pompadour rather than the low buns most women sported these days if they hadn’t bobbed their long locks. Her daughter Daphne had been the youngest of her children and the last to leave the nest, and Ruth already had her first grandchild on the way.

As quickly as Seth could, he explained how he’d found Deborah Rowe in the mine the evening before, and how Helen had determined that she seemed to be just fine physically despite the loss of almost all her memories.

“It wouldn’t look right for me to put her up at my place,” he concluded. “So we were hoping you and Uncle Timothy might let her stay in Daphne’s old bedroom.”

Ruth had listened to the story with alternating surprise and worry, but she nodded at once after the true reason for his visit had been revealed. “The poor girl,” she said. “This must have all been a terrible shock for her.”

“It was,” he replied. “But she’s handling it pretty well, despite everything. I just want to make sure she has a safe place to stay until we can try to get this figured out.”

“Well, one thing we have is plenty of room,” Ruth said, which was only the truth. Their big Victorian had four bedrooms, and now only one of them was probably in use. Seth had heard Timothy comment about wanting to change one of the extra bedrooms into an office, but even if he’d carried out those plans, that still left two spares, either of which should be fine for Deborah. “You just send her along whenever you like. Timothy’s out working in the garden, but otherwise, we didn’t have any plans for today.”

It definitely didn’t sound as if Deborah was going to impose on them too much. Still, Seth found himself wondering if there was some way he could keep her at his house just a little longer.

He wanted to spend as much time in her company as he could.

Ruth came to his rescue then, adding, “And why don’t you come over for dinner after she’s settled? That way, she can have a familiar face around her this first night. It might make things easier for her.”

“That’s a wonderful idea,” he said, even as he hoped he didn’t sound enthusiastic to the point where his reaction might raise suspicions. “What time?”

“Oh, six as usual,” she replied. “You can bring her over whenever you like, though.”

Well, he thought he might as well get this over with, especially now that he knew he’d have a chance to see Deborah again soon enough. “Within the hour, probably.”

“We’ll be expecting her.”

With the matter settled, he thanked Aunt Ruth, told her he’d be back soon enough, and then disappeared so he could meet Helen and Deborah at his own house. Everyone in his clan was used to his magical comings and goings by now, so he knew she probably hadn’t even batted an eye.

Now he just had to let Deborah know where she was going.