Oh, come on, she told hersel f. Ch eer up a little. What happened to the power of Poppytive thinking? Where's Poppyanna when you need her? Where's Mary Poppy-ins?
God, I'm even making myself gag, she thought.
But she found herself smiling faintly, with selfdeprecating humor if nothing else. And the nurses were nice here, and the bed was extremely cool. It had a remote control on the side that bent it into every imaginable position.
Her mother came in while she was playing with it.
"I got hold of Cliff; h e'll be here later. Meanwhile, I think you'd better change so you're ready for the tests."
Poppy looked at the blue-and-white striped seersucker hospital robe and felt a painful spasm that seemed to reach from her stomach to her back. And something in the deepest part of her said Please, not yet. I'll never be ready.
James pulled his Integra into a parking space on Ferry Street near Stoneham. It wasn't a nice part of town. Tourists visiting Los Angeles avoided this area.
The building was sagging and decrepit. Several stores were vacant, with cardboard taped over broken windows. Graffiti covered the peeling paint on the cinder-block walls.
Even the smog seemed to hang thicker here. The air itself seemed yellow and cloying. Like a poisonous miasma, it darkened the brightest day and made everything look unreal and ominous.
James walked around to the back of the building. There, among the freight entrances of the stores in front, was one door unmarked by graffiti. The sign above it had no words. Just a picture of a black flower.
A black iris.
James knocked. The door opened two inches, and a skinny kid in a wrinkled T-shirt peered out with beady eyes.
"It's me, Ulf," James said, resisting the temptation to kick the door in. Werewolves, he thought. Why do they have to be so territorial?
World. I don't want to break any laws. I just want her well."
The slanted blue eyes were searching his face. "Are you sure you haven't broken the laws already?" And when James looked determined not to understand this, she added in a lowered voice, "Are you sure you're not in love with her?"
James made himself meet the probing gaze directly. He spoke softly and dangerously. "Don't say that unless you want a fight."
Gisele looked away. She played with her ring. The candle flame dwindled and died.
"James, I've known you for a long time," she said without looking up. "I don't want to get you in trouble. I believe you when you say you haven't broken any laws--but I think we'd both better forget this conversation. Just walk out now and I'll pretend it never happened."
"And the spell?"
"There's no such thing. And if there was, I wouldn't help you.
Just go."
James went. There was one other possibility that he could think of. He drove to Brentwood, to an area that was as different from the last as a diamond is f rom coal. He parked in a covered carport by a quaint adobe building with a fountain.
Red and purple bougainvillaea climbed up the walls to the Spanish tile on the roof.
Walking through an archway into a courtyard, he came to an office with gold letters on the door. Jasper R. Rasmussen, Ph.D. His father was a psychologist.
Before he could reach for the handle, the door opened and a woman came out. She was like most of his father's clients, forty-something, obviously rich, wearing a designer jogging suit and high-heeled sandals.
She looked a little dazed and dreamy, and there were two small, rapidly healing puncture wounds on her neck.
James went into the office. There was a waiting room, but no receptionist. Strains of Mozart came from the inner office.
James knocked on the door.
"Dad?"
The door opened to reveal a handsome man with dark hair. He was wearing a perfectly tailored gray suit and a shirt with French cuffs. He had an aura of power and purpose.
But not of warmth. He said, "What is it, James?" in the same voice he used for his clients: thoughtful, deliberate, confident.
"Do you have a minute?"
His father glanced at his Rolex. "As a matter of fact, my next patient won't be here for half an hour."
"There's something I need to talk about."
His father looked at him keenly, then gestured to an overstuffed chair. James eased into it, but found himself pulling forward to sit on the edge.
"What's on your mind?"
James searched for the right words. Everything depended on whether he could make his father understand. But what were the right words? At last he settled for bluntness.
"It's Poppy. She's been sick for a while, and now they think she has c ancer."
Dr. Rasmussen looked surprised. "I'm sorry to hear that." But there was no sorrow in his voice.
"And it's a bad cancer. It's incredibly painful and ju st abou t one hundred percent incurable."
"That's a pity." Again there was nothing but mild surprise in his father's voice. And suddenly James knew where that came from. It wasn't surprise that Poppy was sick; it was surprise that James had made a trip just to tell him this.
"Dad, if she's got this cancer, she's dying. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
Dr. Rasmussen steepled his fingers and stared into the ruddy gloss of his mahogany desk. He spoke slowly and steadily.
"James, we've been through this before. You know that your mother and I are worried about you getting too dose to Poppy.
Too . . . attached ... to her."
James felt a surge of cold rage. "Like I got too attached to Miss Emma?"
His father didn't blink. "Something like that."
James fought the pictures that wanted to form in his mind. He couldn't think about Miss Emma now; he needed to be detached. That was the only way to convince his father.