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consciousness, had become the subject of her every waking thought? When she closed her eyes, she could still see his beautiful face, hovering above hers. She would make it go away. She would make him go away. If only it was Killian who was halfway around the world and not her love.
    Bran called earlier: he had arrived safely in Denmark and was on his way to his meeting. She knew she had to get used to it; from the beginning he had explained that his life and his work entailed a great amount of travel and that he was rarely home, but he was planning to slow down after the wedding. Hearing his voice had cheered her up a little, but her dark mood continued to build as she leaned back on the bar, watching customers arrive. Dan Jerrods and his new girlfriend, Amanda Turner, walked in, and an image flashed in Freya’s mind: Dan had Amanda up against a wall, the two of them gasping and clutching at each other, Amanda’s blouse unbuttoned, Dan’s jeans at his knees. That was just a few minutes before they’d set off for the bar. It was early in their relationship, and sex was still their way of saying hello. Freya certainly spoke that language.
    Right behind the postcoital couple was Mayor Todd Hutchinson (fervent masturbation last night in front of a computer), with his friend, flashy developer Blake Aland (a tangle of some sort in his car the other week: it was blurry and the vision wouldn’t focus, but Freya sensed some kind of sexual frustration here), then the good reverend and his wife (a flash of leather whips and masks over the holiday weekend). Sometimes Freya felt a bit dizzy from all the information. She should be used to it by now, her talent—she refused to call it a “gift”—but it still came as a surprise.
    This was just another manifestation of her nature, the ability to see intense emotion—and it wasn’t just sexual passion or romantic love that she was able to see. Freya could also read intense anger and hatred, the opposite of love as it were: murderous rage, overwhelming anxiety. Over the centuries, her talent had been very useful. Although there was very little of it, North Hampton was not immune from crime. When it did happen, it was usually scandalous and spectacular, like the chilling murder of a socialite who had been poisoned at her own dinner party, or sad and unusual, like what had happened to Bill and Maura Thatcher. Their bodies had been found on the beach just last winter, both of them bleeding from the head. Bill died from his injuries but Maura was still in intensive care, comatose at the hospital.
    Freya had been instrumental in bringing the socialite’s murderer to justice. An aggrieved housekeeper who was an occasional patron was behind the heiress’s death. Freya saw exactly how she did it, putting a thimbleful of poison into the champagne, expertly popping back the cork. She had pointed the police in the right direction so that they were able to build their case. The detectives had found a bottle of the toxic substance among the housekeeper’s possessions, which led to the conviction, a thrilling conclusion all around.
    She was glad to be helpful, to be able to use her natural talents in a discreet way that was technically still within the restriction placed upon her. She wasn’t practicing any witchcraft, after all. She couldn’t help it if she could see motive, intent, and guilt, and since almost everyone in town walked into the North Inn, Freya kept the pulse of the community in hand. She always knew who had stolen from the cash register, or broken into the guest house, or vandalized the public school. If the policemen had once been skeptical of her they were no longer, except for that one detective who kept badgering her for explanations of her hunches. So it was odd that she still had no idea what had happened to the Thatchers, who had both been well-liked. Perhaps the police were right, it was a random act of a vagrant, a stranger, but it frustrated Freya not to know.
    She