Crystal Warrior: Through All Eternity (Atlantean Crystal Saga Book 1) by Jen YatesNZ Page A

always came with the memory of him. Pain and guilt all rolled into a torturous mass of confused longing. She wasn't even sure what she longed for. His presence had been almost as painful as his absence.
    Merryn's hands stilled and her slim fingers closed tightly round Georgina's. Gritting her teeth, Georgina waited. Being the eldest might give Merryn family status and rights but there were some things Georgina knew she couldn't share. Whatever it was she and Torr had shared it was theirs, alone.
    ‘Georgina, why do you—feel responsible—for Fran and Gould going on that expedition?’
    Merryn's carefully worded question wasn't what Georgina was expecting. She stared for a moment into her sister's deeply concerned gaze, and floundered. Was that pity she saw there?
    ‘It's nothing. I was just—babbling,’ she prevaricated.
    ‘George!’ Merryn snapped straight back. ‘Stop it! All your life you've covered up for Fran—or hidden behind her. Time and again I've seen you take a punishment that should've been hers. I won't let you do this to yourself again!’
    Georgina stared at Merryn.
    ‘What are you talking about?’
    ‘I'm talking about Fran being so pipped about Torr taking off she decided to compensate herself with Gould.’
    Feeling as if her eyes had taken over the whole of her face, Georgina whispered, ‘That—is—ludicrous.’
    ‘No it's not,’ Merryn averred, shaking at Georgina's hands as if to make her see sense. ‘Where do you think she was those last few days before she left?’
    ‘At Mum's.’
    ‘She slept there. But each day from nine till four she was at your house—with Gould.’
    A strange cold stillness settled within Georgina.
    ‘How do you know?’ she asked.
    ‘She borrowed my car, poured her heart out to me before she left and swore me to secrecy. She didn't want to hurt you. I tried to tell her it would hurt you less if she was open with you but she wasn't sure that what she was feeling for Gould wasn't just rebound from Torr. It was all so sudden.’
    ‘And Gould? What was he feeling?’ Georgina had the strangest sense of standing apart from herself, her life with Gould, and observing it like a spectator at a show.
    ‘I don't really know. I wasn't talking to him. But I got the impression they both felt they needed to test things out first before they—in case—’
    ‘In case Gould lost out on both of us?’ Georgina snarled, remembering the night he'd made love to her as if in a trance.
    ‘You don't believe that of Gould, Georgina,’ Merryn chided gently. ‘You have to see it from their point of view. Neither of them wanted to hurt you if—’
    ‘—if it was all just a bit of prurient lust?’
    ‘Oh Georgina, don't!’ Merryn begged, leaning forward to enfold her sister in her embrace.
    Georgina gently pushed her away, stood up, and began pacing around the room. There was something inside her struggling to get out. Just for the moment she wasn't sure what that something was so she'd pace until her body had decided for her because her mind was well past deciding anything. Her hands fluttered over an arrangement of purple pointed crystals around a large clear one, then moved on to hover over another circle of dark smoky points placed round a sphere gleaming with rainbows. Every flat surface above toddler height in Case and Merryn's home held an arrangement of crystals and Georgina drifted from one to another in a sort of pent-up trance, scarcely aware of what she did.
    All she knew was any moment soon, something was going to erupt out of her. Case and Merryn knew it too, their eyes following her, bodies tensed ready to move the moment she fell apart. Case rose to place wee Jordie in his walker.
    Then Georgina understood what it was gathering within her with all the tension of an electrical storm.
    Laughter. Deep and ugly, but laughter. It heaved in her stomach, churned up into her chest, bubbled into her throat and out of her mouth.
    ‘Oh God!’ she gasped, and leaned