Read Changespell 01 Dunn Lady's Jess for Free Online Page B

forgiveness or judgement on her face, only doubt.
    "Jess," Jaime said matter-of-factly, "Dayna and Eric are concerned about you. They don't understand what's happened to you, or why you behave differently than we do, and they're trying to decide how to best help you."
    Jess held her breath for a moment and let it out in a deep sigh. "Good girl," Jaime said, and squeezed her hand.
    "Did you understand that?" Dayna asked Jess in surprise. At Jess' nod, she added, "You didn't understand us when we found you though, right?"
    "No," Jess said, then hesitated, glancing at Jaime, who nodded encouragement. But instead Jess shook her head and brought her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them to look at no one, obviously not trusting them enough to try to convey her thoughts.
    Eric said softly, "You thought we would help you and we were talking about sending you away. We might be strange to you, but everything else is twice as strange, isn't it?"
    Jess nodded mutely.
    "All right," Dayna said, finally catching the mood of this forthright conversation. "There are some things we need to know. Have you been sick lately? Been in any kind of a hospital?" Jess shook her head, and her hands crept down to the bony knobs of her ankles to feel the dressings that covered her scrapes. "Have you done something wrong, or against the law?"
    A decided shake of her head.
    "Where do you come from then?" Dayna asked in frustration. "Why is everything so strange to you?"
    Jess shook her head helplessly. "Send me away . . . ?"
    "I don't know," Eric's quiet voice took the sting out of the words. "We don't know how else we can help you."
    "Carey," Jess said, a heartbreaking plea.
    "I know," Eric said.
    * * *
    Late afternoon. With Dayna on her way to work, the others retired briefly to Jaime's house to call around in search of Carey.
    "We're calling the places where Carey might be if he was hurt, or if he went for help," Eric explained absently, dialing the first of the emergency numbers listed on the telephone book's inside cover. He perched atop a stool, balancing the white pages on his knee, the phone crammed between his neck and shoulder. Jess sat quietly at the kitchen half-bar while Jaime poked around in the refrigerator, eventually pulling out a plastic soda bottle. Ice, then glasses . . . she felt Jess' gaze on her as she poured the drinks and pushed them across the bar.
    Jaime might have guessed that Jess' eyes would widen at the carbonation, though perhaps the sudden giggle was less predictable. Jess checked to see that Eric's drink was behaving in the same bubbly way and tried a sip, then a swallow. She looked absolutely astonished at the belch that followed; in the background, Eric smirked, but Jaime tried to keep a straight face. "That happens," she said. "But when it does, it's polite to say 'excuse me.' " In the back of her mind, she was trying not to ascribe any significance to the fact that horses were incapable of belching, that Jess was certainly paying attention to the details if she knew her surprise was appropriate.
    "Excuse me," Jess tried dutifully.
    Eric hung up the phone with a clunk and reached for his drink. "No one named Carey in any of the hospitals," he said. "At least, none of 'em within 60 miles. I figure that's far enough, if he was on foot like Jess. Was he naked, too, Jess?" he asked straightforwardly.
    Jess had one finger held above the surface of the soda, where the carbonation fizz bounced off of it. She put the finger in her mouth and said, "Naked?"
    "Like you were when we found you. No clothes." At her continued lack of response he rolled his eyes and said, "No blankets, Jess."
    "Blankets, yes," she answered.
    "Blankets?" Jaime inquired, and heard the story of the few objects Jess identified on her own. She absorbed it with a thoughtful finger against her lips, then shook her head. "This is . . . pretty strange." The words she finally settled on were woefully inadequate, but she knew she would find none