The Awakening

So now Finn was out on the balcony, disgusted with her again, smoking.



She gnawed on her lower lip, feeling a flare of her own temper. It was his fault just as much as her own.



She didn't understand what was with him lately. He was so rough… and still, she had to admit, that no matter what… he was still exciting.



Megan rose as well and slipped into a robe. She walked out on the balcony. Finn was standing by the rail, looking out over it.



"Look, I'm sorry I screamed."



"Hey," he murmured with a shrug, not looking at her. "You had a dream."



"Horrible. I can't even remember it now. But there was this awful thing attacking me."



"Great. You're dreaming while we're making love. I hadn't a clue you were even asleep. You looked straight at me half a dozen times."



"I couldn't have," she protested.



"Megan, you did."



"Then I've started sleeping with my eyes wide open."



"And imagining that I'm an 'awful thing' attacking you." He looked at her at last. His eyes were distant He was distant. Cool, aloof. "What a surprise. Fallon hasn't shown up yet."



"Apparently, I didn't scream that loudly."



"Either that, or he's decided that you're a hopeless, abused woman."



"Finn, stop it."



She could see that his jaw was locked. It took him a minute to speak again, then his words surprised her.



"We should leave."



"Leave? We're a huge success. We've sold hundreds of CDs in two days. We've had national news coverage."



"Right. But look what's happening to us."



She frowned, feeling a little ripple of fear, but it was all so absurd. They'd be idiots to give in to it. "We can't leave. You don't just walk out on a job like that."



"If it's costing us our marriage, yes, we do."



"Working here isn't costing us our marriage!" she protested. She shook her head vehemently. "We're the only ones who can cost us our marriage. It would help if you didn't suddenly consider yourself to be the Marquis de Sade."



"What?" The word was sharp, fast, and furious.



"Finn, you're… you're just getting too rough! Like a conquering barbarian or something. I told you—"



"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!" he said angrily. "You dream that you're being attacked by 'an awful thing'



—your words, not mine—but it's me, I'm being too rough."



"You don't even remember the other night—"



"Yeah, and you were asleep through it all tonight."



She fell silent, then turned sharply and walked back into the bedroom. He followed her. "Megan, we should leave."



She stood still for a long moment. She couldn't help but recall how old Andy Markham had terrified her in the woods. Bac-Dal wants you.



And then there had been Morwenna's concern, when she'd done her "reading." There's something… I don't know, something bad. Did… Finn ever hurt you? I mean, really. There were the rumors of violence… it looks like something terrible in the future. A horrible danger, and it's as if it comes from… Finn.



She'd been irritated with her cousin. Rumor. All rumor, and everyone playing into it.



They should leave. Yes. They should have!



Right. Ruin their careers over old myths and legends and a crazy old man who liked to tell stories.



She spun on Finn. "You're saying we should leave. You don't believe in ghosts. The whole thing with Wiccans or witches or ghosts, spooks, goblins, whatever, is pure rot. But despite that, you think that we should take a chance on never getting work again—or getting really decent work again—because I, sorry—and I am sorry!—have had a few nightmares?" She was amazed at the scorn in her voice.



"Whatever, Megan. I agree, it would suck to walk out. But it might be the best thing. When we're here…



you're very strange."



She was strange?



She bit her lip, startled by the sudden flash of tears that threatened to spill from her eyes.



"Megan… this is all very strange, don't you think?"



" Yeah. And maybe it's…"



"Maybe it's what?"



She hesitated. "Maybe it has to do with our breakup," she said quietly. "We could go home… and find out that nothing was any better."



She saw the flash of anger in his eyes. "I never hurt you, Megan. I never would."



"I didn't say that you did. At least, not physically. Maybe… I don't know, maybe beneath the words we say to one another, we're still lacking trust or something. The point is, I'm not acting any more strangely than you are!"



"I don't remember acting strangely at home, or in the Keys," he said. "And I haven't been acting strangely. You're the one waking up screaming."



"That's right. You don't bother to wake up," she murmured.



"What?"



"Finn, we're going to see this gig out," she said quietly. "If we were to walk out… well, what we did would surely make the news. We wouldn't be taken seriously. Maybe really big names could get away with it. Or people without any kind of a track record at all. But walking out would hurt our reputation badly. And in time, you'd really resent me. So… if I walk out on anything, it will be you… for the time that we're here."



She was startled by her own words. She hadn't really meant them that way, but as she listened to her own voice, she didn't know how to stop. Or explain.



And when she finished speaking, he was dead still. Straight, tense as a bowstring, features in a deadlock.



He turned his back on her and walked out on the balcony.



She stood still for a long moment, then fled after him, determined to explain herself. To suggest that, since she seemed plagued by the ridiculous nightmares, she should sleep at Morwenna's or something, and therefore, no one could ever accuse him of hurting her in the night.



But when she reached the balcony, he was gone. She stood staring out at the moonlit night. It was crazy.



He had jumped the little wrought iron fence in the chilly darkness, and gone walking around with bare feet and nothing but a bathrobe.



"Finn?" she called his name softly, but there was no answer. "Finn!" she called more loudly, and still no answer.



"You didn't understand!" she murmured miserably out loud. But still, there was no one to hear, and no one to reply.



She stood on the balcony for a long, long time, until the chill of the night seemed to seep into her bones, and she was shivering so violently she had to go back in.



There, she paced by the bed. She alternated between being terribly hurt, and then angry. At last, she gave out, and wrapped in the bathrobe and the blankets, she lay back down. The tears that had earlier stung her eyes must have flooded over because her cheeks were damp.



How long had he been gone? How could he be out there in nothing but a bathrobe?



As last, still alternating between a growing fury and a deep, knifing pain, she drifted to sleep.



And did not dream again.



Megan was gone.



She had been there when he had come back in at last, cursing himself for having been the biggest idiot in the world. But now… peering at the bedside clock he could see that it was nearly eleven. And Megan was up.



He rolled out of bed and walked toward the bathroom. "Meg?" He hadn't really needed to call out; the room had felt empty. He knew, as well, that she wasn't out on the balcony, and he doubted that she was in Huntington House at all.



Last night had been a maneuver of sheer stupidity. And yet…



Walking away—even crawling over the iron railing and scraping the family package—had seemed right.



He'd needed to get away. Into the cold night air, barefoot, barely dressed. He'd felt an unreasoning sense of anger growing. Albeit, a lot of it was due to the fact that she hadn't been awake. Impossible. Or worse. She couldn't have fallen asleep in the middle of their lovemaking. That would surely be one of the worst affronts to man, ever. And then, imagining, or dreaming, that he was some kind of a terrible thing.



His walk had taken him out to a large rock at the front of the property where he had sat, convinced that he'd be alone—it was past even the "wee" hours of the night, and Salem, even with all its happenings, wasn't Vegas or even New Orleans. It did close down. But hell, leave it to his luck, he'd been sitting on the rock, smoking another of the cigarettes he stashed into his robe pocket, when a young couple had sauntered by. She had screamed—he seemed to have that effect on women lately—and the guy had said hello, but they walked around him as if they'd come upon dog poop. But then the girl had looked back.



She'd recognized him, and despite the man, she'd turned back, startling Finn at first, causing him to rise.



Then she'd gushed about his music, and kept touching him, on the shoulder, the arm… and he'd found himself saying that he couldn't sleep, so he was sitting on the rock. In a robe. In forty degree weather.



Well, hell, that would probably be all over town by now.



He showered and dressed, hoping that Megan would return while he was so occupied. She didn't.



He came through the house and found that, despite the fact that breakfast time had long passed, John and Sally, the picture-perfect young American couple they had met at breakfast their first day, were enjoying coffee by the fire.



"Hey!" Sally called in greeting.



"We caught your act the other night," John said.



Finn paused. "You did? Great. Thanks for coming."



"Well, it was strange," John admitted. "We were just heading out to dinner, and we'd heard they had a decent meal out there, and usually, some kind of entertainment We'd just happened to pick up the national paper and there was an article in it about you and your wife, and it mentioned you were playing.