The Portal 00 - Legacy of the Witch

hero, aren’t you?”
    “I don’t know why it is that when a man does the right thing
he’s always called a hero. What was the alternative? Let them burn? Leave them
to be persecuted for the alleged crimes of the father? What kind of person would
have done anything different?”
    I lifted my brows. “I read your memoir, Harrison. And even
though you played down every single heroic incident, I can see through you.”
    He made a pssht noise and shook his
head.
    “It’s good, you know.”
    “Right. What do you know about memoir writing?”
    “Quite a lot, actually. I’m only a few credits shy of my BA in
English, and I’m freelance editing for a small publishing house to pay my
tuition.”
    His brows went up, and he looked interested.
    “Sort of like kismet, isn’t it?” More and more I was sure it
was exactly that. This really was fate. I’d known this man before. Lifetimes
ago. God, could that be true? “Maybe we can help each other,” I suggested.
    “How?”
    “I’ll help you finish and polish your memoir if you’ll help me
find that treasure box. I don’t even want to take it from you, I just want to
make sure it’s safe until I know what I’m supposed to do with it.”
    “It was stolen from you. It’s rightfully yours. I’ll help you
get it back. You don’t have to do anything in return.”
    His eyes met mine then, and I felt a rush of emotion rising up
in my heart, and I would have sworn a matching look filled his eyes. Before I
could even acknowledge it, he blinked and said, “Shit.”
    “What?”
    “My ex. Glenda. If you saw her on that show, they sure as hell
did, too.” He set the mug down, shooting to his feet. “She’s liable to be their
next stop,” he said, finding his jacket, pulling it on, patting down his pockets
in search of keys. “She’s in danger. I have to go.”
    “I’m coming with you,” I said.
    He didn’t argue.

Chapter Five
    I wondered many things as we barreled over the smooth
roads in his sporty red Jeep that night. I wondered, of course, if I would
finally recover the witches’ box, and I wondered if I would ever know what to do
with it if I did. I wondered what had happened between Harrison Brockson and his
beautiful fiancée, and whether the worry and fear on his face meant that he
still loved her. I wondered why that thought stabbed me in the heart with a pang
that felt like jealousy. And I wondered about the meaning of the other things
spinning through my mind as we drove through the darkness.
    Chapters of the harem witch stories unfolded in my mind, but
not episodes that my gidaty had ever told me. Nor
had I ever told them to her. And I swear to you, they didn’t feel like fiction.
They felt like…like memory.
    “You must come with me,” Harmon begged of
me that night by the harem pool. “I won’t leave you.”
    “Just let me warn them, and then I’ll
come. I promise. They’ve been good to me.”
    He stared at me, his eyes so full of
feelings that it took my breath away. Fourteen, so young now, but in those
times fourteen wasn’t young at all. Girls my age were entering the harem, or
the temple as priestess trainees. They were marrying and having babies of
their own. It was a different world.
    But at that moment I was in love in a
giddy teenage way that has stayed the same through the ages.
    When I looked at Harrison Brockson behind the wheel, I felt
that love again. But this time it was all grown-up, full-blown, deep. Old.
    And then the memory came rushing back to me.
    We’d dried off. He was dressed, and I was
wrapped in a sarong. Together we were heading into the hallway that led to
the chambers of my three favorite harem girls. Lilia, Magdalena and Indira.
But the sound of stomping feet from another hallway brought us up short, and
we ducked into an alcove as soldiers appeared in the garden we had just
left.
    At that moment Magdalena and Indira came
rushing past us, and I reached out to grab Indira’s trailing gown. She
spotted me where I hid, her eyes flashing wider when they fell on
Harmon.
    “I was coming to warn you—”
    “Shhh!” She glanced toward the soldiers.
Magdalena was already facing them. “Get yourselves out of sight. Bad things
are happening this night.” She shot a look at Harmon. “Hide her
well.”
    And then she went out to face the
soldiers, and Harmon tugged me the other way, weaving and dodging through
the vast corridors of the harem quarters until we emerged from a rear door
into the dark bleakness