The Magic Circle by Katherine Neville (13 inch ebook reader .TXT) 📗

could tie most knots single-handed the way a sailor could. Sam said the Incas of Peru had used knots as a language: they could do mathematics or even tell a story with them. As a child I used to send knot messages to people—or even to myself, to see if I could recall later what they meant—like tying a string around your finger.

I had the habit of leaving pieces of yarn or rope in different places—like the rearview mirror. Then when I was under stress or working out a problem, I’d tie and untie them, sometimes even working up a complex macramé. And as the knot pattern was worked out, miraculously, so would be my problem. But I didn’t recall seeing this piece of yarn on my drive home, or even this afternoon coming in to work. My memory was getting pretty flaky.

I touched the knot as I felt the car warming. It was actually two knots, if you included the part wrapped around the mirror bar: a Solomon’s knot, signifying a critical decision, and a slippery hitch, meaning exactly what it sounds like. What did I have in mind when I’d put that there? I undid the yarn and started playing with it.

Olivier had turned on the radio and located some of the awful, twangy cowboy music he loved so much. I regretted inviting him to share my vehicle retreat; after all, we spent ninety percent of our lives under the same roof, as it was. But then I recalled that I’d seen no traces of Olivier’s entry and exit, or, indeed, anyone’s snowprints when I’d pulled up last night—correction, this morning—before the house. Though the snows and winds might well have been constant and heavy, there should have been something to show he was there. Indeed, why hadn’t he brought in any of my mail if he’d been in residence the whole time? The plot thickened.

“Olivier—where were you while I was gone?”

Olivier looked at me with dark eyes, and he kissed me lightly on the cheek. “Darling, I must confess,” he told me, “I met a cowgirl I just couldn’t resist.”

“You passed the blizzard with a cowgirl?” I said, surprised, for Olivier had never been the overnight-pickup type. “Fill in the blanks. Is she pretty? Is she a Latter-day Saint like yourself? And where was my cat while all this was going on?”

“I left the little argonaut with a large bowl of food; he fixes drinks on his own, after all. As to the lady, the past tense would best describe our relationship. It melted away along with the snow; by now, I’m afraid it’s as frozen as the ice outside.”

Very poetic.

“I have to go to Sun Valley next weekend,” I said. “Are you going to desert Jason in that frigid basement again, or should I take him with me?”

“Going skiing?” said Olivier. “Why don’t you take us both with you? I was just trying to figure out where to go to catch this new snow. In Sun Valley they have forty inches of base on the slopes, and in the bowls sixty inches of powder.” Olivier was an excellent skier and floated like a feather in the powder. I could never get the hang of powder myself, but I loved to watch him from afar.

“Well,” I said, “I probably won’t be able to be on the slopes much. My uncle’s coming to visit. He wants to discuss family matters.”

“I should imagine!” Olivier agreed. “You seem to be getting plenty of attention from your formerly absent family, now that you’re an heiress.” Then he suddenly looked sorry for having mentioned it at all.

“It’s okay,” I told Olivier. “I’m getting over it. Besides, my uncle’s very wealthy himself. He’s a famous violinist and conductor in—”

“Not Lafcadio Behn? Is that your uncle?” said Olivier. “With so few Behns in the world, I always wondered if you were related to any of the famous ones.”

“Probably to all of them,” I said with a grimace. “It’s the Behn of my existence.”

The all-clear signal blew just as I was telling Olivier he could come along this weekend if he liked. Reluctantly I turned off the warm engine to go back out into the bitter cold again. As I was locking the car door, I remembered that I had locked it on my way into the lobby. It wasn’t my imagination—someone had broken into my car.

I looked in the hatchback where the backseat was folded down. Everything I usually had was still there, but it was slightly rearranged. Someone had searched the car, too. I locked the door anyway, a kind of reflex action. I followed Olivier around to the back entrance, almost bumping into my boss, Pastor Dart, as he was going in.

“Behn—you’re back!” he said, a grin crossing that pugnacious face of his. “Come to my office in about half an hour, when I’m free. If I’d known you were coming back today I’d have cleared the decks. There’s a lot I need to discuss with you.”

Bella the security guard, filing back in just in front of us, turned and smirked over her shoulder. I told the Pod I’d be there, and went back to my office just as the phone started ringing.

“You get it,” Olivier said. “I forgot: Before you came, a lady from a newspaper phoned about some documents she said you’d inherited. But the rest of the morning, every time I answered the phone they just hung up. Probably some crank.”

I picked up the phone on the fourth ring. “Ariel Behn, Waste Management,” I answered.

“Hi, hotshot,” said that soft, familiar voice—a voice I’d believed I would never hear again except in a dream. “I’m sorry. Really, truly sorry that it had to be done this way—but I’m not dead,” Sam said. “However, I might be, soon, unless you can help me. And fast.”

THE RUNE

MARSYAS:

Black, black, intolerably black!

Go, spectre of the ages, go!

Suffice it that I passed beyond.

I found the secret of the bond

Of thought to