Waiting for the Moon

He grabbed the crystal decanter and poured himself another drink, tossing it back without tasting it. "Get Edith and Fergus and everyone up here. Now."

Johann studied him. "What are you up to, Ian?"

He threw his empty glass at the fireplace, watching it shatter against the green marble. "I'm going to lock this place up tighter than a nun's drawers. No one will come in or go out. I'll send word to all of the towns I visited, telling them that the mysterious amnesiac has been claimed. I'll stay with Selena night and day, be beside her. No one will ever find her."

It was a long moment before Johann spoke. "You're describing a prison."

Ian gave him a steely look, wishing suddenly that he hadn't spoken to Johann at all. "Think of it as a sanctuary."

"Ian-"

"Don't," he said sharply, too sharply. He saw the concern in Johann's eyes and felt a flash of conscience.

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He shouldn't do this. It was wrong. Dishonorable. The words shot through his mind like needles, trying to find purchase, seeking some remnant of the rational man he'd once been.

But there was nothing left in him except a driving, burning obsession to keep her beside him, to stay in the light. He couldn't just sit and wait for the end.

To whom it may concern ... my wife ...

"No," he screamed, surprised to hear the sound of his own voice. He couldn't give in so easily.

"Ian, you're-"

"Mad," he said with a shrill laugh. "Yes, I am. But no one will take her from me, Johann. No one."

He heard the words for what they were.

A gauntlet thrown down to God.

Selena didn't understand what was happening. Last night Ian had been a stranger to her, frightening and distant. He stood in the center of the parlor, his eyes cold and narrowed, pacing the small room like a caged tiger, crashing into the walls, reeling with every step. He'd issued order after order in a voice she didn't recognize, slurred and ugly. No one was to leave the property for any reason. The doors were to be locked and kept locked. Only Ian would answer the door, only Ian would speak to strangers. No mail would leave the asylum, not even Lara's letters to her parents, and no mail would be received. Fergus had been sent on a mysterious mission; he'd left in the dark and not yet returned.

In an instant, everything at Lethe House had changed. The change had something to do with Selena, it was somehow her fault, but she couldn't understand what she'd done so wrong.

She'd tried to ask Ian, but he wouldn't look at her, wouldn't touch her. When their gazes happened to cross, he would look away quickly, but not before she noticed the pain in his eyes or the shaking in his hands.

He was out of control and it frightened her.

232

He talked about her all the time. Every sentence he uttered carried her name, only there was no softness in his tone, no love in his voice. When she took a step, or reached for the door, or looked out her window, he was there, screaming at her to get back, to get inside. It was as if the night in the garden were a dream, a twisted vision of intimacy created by her battered mind.

The glorious world beyond the doors was suddenly closed to her, closed to all of them.

Maeve and Lara and Andrew had immediately gone back to wearing gray, to whispering among themselves with downcast eyes and hushed, hurried voices.

Selena moved to her window, all that was left to her of the world, and stared out. Another night was falling, creeping along the horizon in lengthening shadows.

She had not been out all day. She felt restless and fidgety, bruised by her confinement. She didn't know what she had done to incur Ian's wrath, but she knew that she couldn't live this way.

Perhaps he could survive in the dark, like some low, marshy forest plant, dwelling forever in the shadow of the ferns and the trees, but she could not. She was like the flowers that bloomed in the wide-open spaces, the daffodils that splashed in a yellow cascade down the grassy hillsides. She needed the sunlight on her face. It wasn't enough to breathe the air in this house, she needed to feel it fluttering against her skirts, needed to soak in its salty scent.

Straightening her spine, she plucked up her long skirt and went to her door, opening it slowly. It creaked and whined in the unnatural silence. Her heart sped up, anticipation brought a smile to her lips.

She crept down the shadowy hallway, past the closed door to Maeve's chamber, past the stairway that led to Ian's room. Down each creaking step, pausing, then moving slowly downward. At the wide, open foyer, she stopped, breath held, listening.

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