Heart Journey by Robin Owens Read Free Book Online Page B

with a master,” Straif said.
    When they reached the playroom, Del spared it a glance. It was easy to see this was the family center. There was a wealth of toys scattered around cat perches. It smelled like children’s food and drink and was just right for a growing family, with sturdy furniture a girl could knock over with no reprimand.
    Then her gaze was riveted to the little girl walking, running, staggering toward them: Helendula. “Gaaaaa. Mmmm. Dddd.”
    She looked like the Elecampanes. Bright blond hair that would shade into nearly yellow, tightly curled. Pale green eyes.
    She looked like Del.
    But Helendula’s lashes were long and her smile triangular and sweet, like her dead father’s, Elfwort’s.
    Del’s knees collapsed and she plunked onto the couch.
    Mitchella scooped up the child, squeezed her, and put her back on her feet, pointed her in Del’s direction saying, “This is your cuz, Helena. She has a name like yours.” Mitchella caressed the little shoulder as she urged the girl forward. Helendula walked to Del and stared up at her with huge peridot eyes, barely taller than Del’s knees.
    Del cleared her throat. “You can call me Del. I mean, when you begin to talk, you can call me Del.” She drew in a long breath. “I have something for you.” She pulled out the small landscape globe she’d made the night before after feeling the link between herself and the child. It had pieces of wood and gray stone; some minuscule flower petals and greenery; a hair from Del’s head, short and fine and blond; and a tiny beige feather.
    The young child looked at it and gurgled. She smiled widely, showing a few tiny teeth and drooling. She shook the globe, watched the bits inside settle, then shook it again, holding it in both hands. She wobbled then plopped down on her rump to roll it, tilt it side to side, raise it to her eyes . . .
    “She likes it.” Mitchella’s lips curved, her hands clenched.
    Del raised her eyebrows. “I made it especially for her. My creative Flair.” She wasn’t about to tell the woman that the globe would help Del make up her mind. If the child considered T’Blackthorn Residence “home,” it would show.
    Straif frowned. “She’s already played with it longer than most toys.” At that moment their oldest child, a teenaged boy, hustled in. He stopped and gave Del a hard stare, then changed his stride to a casual stroll. “Greetyou, parents, greetyou, D’Elecampane.”
    “Our son, Antenn,” Straif said.
    “Greetyou,” Del responded.
    The boy folded himself onto the sturdy carpeting next to Helendula, watched as her little fingers shook the globe once more. “Whatcha got there, Doolee?” He reached for it.
    She shouted, pulled the globe close to her chest. “Mmmaam!”
    “Yours.” He nodded. “Sorry. Would you show it to me?”
    Sniffing, her face scrunched up and she offered him the glass globe, now grubby with finger smudges.
    “Thank you.” He peered inside the curved interior, shook it, looked at it from all sides, shook it some more. Shrugged and gave it back to her. She grinned, rubbed it on her soft top, and looked inside again.
    The teen glanced up at Del, hunched a shoulder. “Don’t know what she sees in it.”
    “A gift from her true Family.” Mitchella’s voice shook.
    He scowled, sat straight, puffing out his chest, met Del’s eyes. “We’re her true Family. We love her.”
    Del nodded, gestured to the globe that continued to occupy Helendula’s attention. “I may be a cartographer, but our Family Flair is for scrying. Her father was brilliant; she could be, too. Try her with water in a reflective bowl.”
    Antenn went to the end of the room where there was a sink. He opened a cupboard over it and took down a smooth, thick granite bowl with rounded edges. The inside was coated with glisten, a shiny silver-with-rainbows metal. A real scrybowl for communication.
    “We had to move all the scrybowls that were anywhere within climbing range of