Intermezzo Ch 19-Part 4 (Link to entire thing on Blogger)
Fiona sighed, maybe a little more loudly than was absolutely necessary, settled against the back of the bench and looked at Jay with what she intended to be a sincere expression. Once again she was distracted by the cloud of sparkling lights crowding the toy. What was up with that? Had Hailie left old jelly to dry on its coat? It really did look as if it had moved, too. She shrugged and went back to Jay.
"My father knew something about spaces that we can't see or use and so did my mother. They were getting to the same place, just using different tools."
Jay stretched in the chair, locking his hands behind his head, his mouth tight, and his attention seemed to wander. She thought he was looking past her at the lights on the marina as if giving up. "Kenley Dirac did not believe in magic," he said flatly. "Come on Fiona."
She rubbed her right knee where she'd jammed it against something earlier in the day. She'd probably have a bruise. Where had she bumped it? When she got out of Jay's car at the lake? When she was walking away from her mother, the mother with the strange tatoos? She's alive, Fiona told herself firmly. The dead didn't change their looks like that.
"What's string theory Jay? What's quantum entanglement? What my father was doing was unexplained, not inexplicable. You're calling it magic because you don't understand it. My mother wasn't condescending. She would have told him to cut it out if she thought it was worthless. You don't know a thing about them. I inherited what I can see from my father. My mother loved him, she didn't humor him."
"Bullshit." He leaned forward, leaning into his answer, casual, except he was gripping his right hand hard with his left. "If magic's real, you'd be sitting here with Gabe Lombardo instead of me. My mother would have slammed out a spell years ago to make me Gabe or at least like him. You couldn't keep power like that a secret, not from my mother. I believe your father tried to find your mother and something terrible happened. I believe he tried to use magic if you say so, but how'd that work out for him? He never came back."
The ground moved and slid under them. Rocks groaned with the deep noise an earthquake makes when one piece of the planet breaks another one and it cries out as it cracks. With a monstrous groan a tower rose up out of the dirt and water on the northern end of the park, a wall of arches, doors and windows, curtains. Candles suddenly lit, fire bursting out of nowhere.
An archway of white stone glowed above a low flight of stone steps. White flowers and pink flowers curled up columns and hung over similar white stone. There was ivy in the doors, and gigantic willow trees, and flagstones that stretched across the dirt toward them.
The little girl from the pier walked down the steps. Her name, Fiona scrambled to remember her name. Alisana, it was Alisana. Alisana's crow hopped over to the steps behind her and looked in their direction then stalked around the flagstones as if searching for something to stab with its beak.
She waved and smiled at them. "Hello Fiona. You have Hailie's little dragon with you and it’s sparkling so I came. Is she here?"
Thank you @kashmiresims for the pose box I used for Jay sitting and for your moral support. I really appreciate it! And thank you again @esotheria-sims and @fracturedmoonlight for the dragon...
