Shocked, I shifted my gaze to look at him, but he avoided my glance. His cheeks turned pink with embarrassment, and his mouth turned down with disgust. I slowly realized he’d just told me an enormous secret. Something that weighed on him.
“You have no idea how awkward it is to actually remember meeting your own dad. He was nowhere for years, and then one day he shows up and we’re supposed to be this happy family.”
The sadness that laced his words was heartbreaking. I’d had no clue. I wanted to give him a hug, touch his arm or do something in a show of support and comfort, but all that I could manage was to sniffle my clogged nose and try to breathe quietly through my mouth.
“I was blindsided, but my mom was so happy to have him back. I guess I felt like I had to hate him for the both of us. He tried to bond with me, but I was kind of a brat.” He smiled a little at that. There was a hint of smugness in his tone, like he took pride in giving his father a hard time. “But then Ryder came along, and time passed. He never left us again, but I think on some level, I was always expecting it. Now we just deal with each other.”
“Your mom raised you by herself?”
“I guess we were with my grandparents for a while, but things were tense. You’re full of questions tonight.”
“Do you mind?” I asked between nibbles at my cracker.
He gave a small smile. “No. I don’t mind. When you don’t ask… I guess I wonder if you don’t care.”
“I care,” I insisted. “I just don’t want to pry.”
“You’re used to keeping secrets and hiding things, but that’s not me.” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I know that’s not fair. I’ve hidden plenty. Too much. But I don’t want to. You can ask whatever you want. I’ve got nothing to hide now.”
“So, where was your dad? The military or something?” I asked before taking a small sip of broth.
His expression dropped, and I could see the disappointment brewing beneath the surface. “He was in town,” he muttered quickly. “He just… He didn’t want to see us. He didn’t want me.” He swallowed a lump that pulled on his words. “Is the soup too hot?”
“It’s fine,” I answered, propping my head in my hand. It seemed despite his “having nothing to hide” he was ready to move on from the heavy conversation.
“Not hungry?”
I shrugged, and my dinner was cleared away. He climbed back into bed and wrapped me in his warm embrace. It felt good. Safe. Comforting.
“I want you,” I told him. “Always.”
It was a lame, late reassurance, but he held me tighter and kissed my head for it.
“Thank you for the daffodils,” I muttered into his warm shirt. “They’re making me feel a lot better.”
“Ouch.” He chuckled softly. “I wanted to get you some. I will soon, I promise. Okay?”
His words didn’t make sense to my fevered head. I sighed heavily against his chest, feeling the tug of slumber pull at my eyelids, guiding them down. I was nearly asleep when Eric’s familiar ring tone sang out.
“Sorry,” he whispered, drawing his cell from his pocket, and suddenly his body went rigid.
“What is it?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Juliet,” he answered.
I clung to a fistful of his shirt as he pressed the phone to his ear. He tried his best to sound natural. Maybe through the phone his voice sounded smooth and relaxed, but I could feel the nervous tension winding his muscles tight beneath me. I couldn’t seem to concentrate on their conversation through Eric’s thunderous heart beating by my ear. We had been waiting for her, hoping that she would call. Now it was all on the line, our questions staring us in the face. Our hopes and dreams were hanging at the edge of a cliff, and we were waiting to see if she would kick them over the edge.
The call didn’t last long, and Eric hung up before I could claw past my fear enough to listen in. I looked up at him through trembling lashes. His face was set hard like stone.
“She wants to meet,” he said.
My heart stuttered in my chest. “When?”
“Saturday morning.”
I rolled to my back beside him, weary and distraught. Saturday was so soon. What if she couldn’t help us?
And that’s when I noticed my dresser, bare of flowers. I stared at the empty spot where I had so clearly seen a vase of flowers in full, glorious bloom.
Nothing. There was nothing there.
I had hallucinated the daffodils.
CHAPTER 5
INCOGNITO
The diner where we planned to meet Juliet was definitely off the grid, off of a remote highway exit about an hour from campus. Eric and I were seated at a table near the window. I was so nervous that I couldn’t eat-couldn’t even drink-so the only thing we ordered was Eric’s coffee.
The waitress stopped by our table to refill his mug. We sat in silence, listening to the static radio music that drifted faintly through the restaurant. Wind battered the trees outside, and an occasional stray leaf pelted the glass beside me. The sky was a gloomy gray, threatening to storm. I glanced around the parking lot, hands in my lap to hide my nervous trembling. This girl held our lives and future in her hands, and she was late.
Eric checked his phone again, reading the time. She was now forty minutes late, and we had gotten there early just in case. Eric’s hand rested on my leg, and I slipped my hand into his, holding on for dear life. He felt cold, the opposite of how he usually felt. He was nervous, and downing three mugs of coffee on an empty stomach probably wasn’t the best thing to do. His leg bounced under the table from all the caffeine, so I waved the waitress back to our table. She approached, quiet and reserved, which worked perfectly for us in our precarious state.
“Could we get a plate of toast and scrambled eggs, please?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said.
Eric looked to me. “You have to eat,” I told him.
He smiled shyly. “So do you.”
“We’ll share.”
Eric dropped my hand and hung his arm around my shoulders, pressing me tight against his side. He kissed my hair and leaned his chin against my ear as he looked out the window. He was scanning the parking lot for Juliet, just as I had been doing for a while.
“She’s not coming, is she?” I asked quietly.
“We’ll wait,” he answered softly.
A plate of food was set before us, and I lifted a crispy piece of toast drowning in butter.
Over an hour later, half of the food was gone and still no Juliet. The tables began to fill in around us with people seeking lunch, and I wondered how long we could keep our table without offending anyone.
A check was set before Eric, and he counted out cash, leaving a tip higher than our bill. He took my hand and led me outside. I shivered in the blustery wind. The last remnants of my cold were still hanging on, dragging my energy level down and keeping my head in a dense fog. We stood outside for a moment and Eric wrapped his arms around me, shielding me from the wind. I didn’t know what to do from there. We had spent over two hours waiting for nothing.
I leaned my forehead against Eric’s chest. My head ached, and I couldn’t tell if it was from my cold or something else.
“She won’t help us. She’s afraid,” I said. If she truly knew anything about our situation, she had every right to be.
“I’m not letting this go. I’ll call her again. I’ll go home, see her family. I won’t let this chance slip away, I promise you.” He looked into my eyes and stroked my wind-flushed cheek tenderly. “Everything will work out.”
“Eric,” someone called.
I glanced across the parking lot to a girl who seemed familiar. She was leaning against a faded red car. Her hair was long, curly, and the kind of red that was almost blonde with a strawberry tone. It was wild, blowing in the wind, and pulled half up, making her freckled pink cheeks seem more pronounced on her heart-shaped face.
I knew her. We’d met before. She’d drawn a picture of me sitting on the stairs duri
ng sophomore year. What was her name?
Eric’s eyes lit up. A relieved smile crept into his expression as he turned us to face her. “Cassandra, I’d like you to meet Juliet McLeary.”
She smiled and huffed at the same time, amusement playing in her gray eyes. “Tom’s the only one who calls me that anymore. Just call me Julie.”
Oh my God… She actually came.
Her head tipped to the side as she looked us both over carefully, but not harshly. It was like she was seeing something she had hoped for.
“You waited longer than I expected,” she said, sounding slightly impressed. Her gaze flitted back to Eric, lingering on his face with a warm smile. She turned away and opened the door to the red Neon behind her. “Follow me,” she said, sliding into the driver’s seat and starting the engine.
We got into Eric’s Pontiac quickly. “That car was here the whole time,” I mentioned. We had thought it belonged to our waitress. He maneuvered us onto the road behind hers.
“Where is she taking us?” I asked, not actually expecting an answer. My hands balled tightly as nerves pummeled my poor stomach. Her car veered off the pavement and onto a dirt path. Eric followed. His tires bounced on the bumpy, grassy road as it led into dense woods.
Juliet’s car stopped in a dirt lot beside a rushing stream. The water gurgled and whooshed over rocks and around a bend. She got out of her car and sat casually on the hood, swinging her feet. Eric’s eyes never left her. His gaze was intense, a sign that he was just as nervous as I felt. When in the face of fear, I would shake and shift my weight, but Eric would stand perfectly still, face so serious. We were opposites in tense situations.
I wished I could deal more like he did. I felt like a complete mess. Wind blew my unruly hair across my face, and I pushed it back nervously as we approached her. A unique necklace hung around Julie’s neck, quartz and other colored stones tethered together with gray wire. A silver star charm hung beside the netting of rocks. She noticed where my glance fell and gripped the charm in her fist.
“You know about us, don’t you?” Eric asked, his voice smooth. If I didn’t know him so well, I’d think he wasn’t nervous at all from how steadily he spoke.
He hadn’t said much in the message he’d left on her answering machine. Only that he hadn’t seen her in a while and would like to. It had come across casual, like an old friend calling to catch up, but her reaction was anything but. She twirled a lock of hair and chewed on the inside of her cheek.
“I know some things,” she admitted slowly. Her gaze was locked on Eric’s eyes, refusing to leave his face. “That girl you dated before was a Bacster, wasn’t she?”
Eric nodded. Aurora’s last name may be Mason, but her mother’s maiden name was Bacster, a name that would have been a red flag for Eric to steer clear of her. His family and the Bacsters had a long line of bad blood between them, starting with us in the early 1800s.
“And this girl, Sandy,” Julie said, calling me the name that she had called me years ago, “is a Whitenburg.”
“I am,” I answered in a mousy squeak. Despite my last name of Whitmer, and my lack of family tree knowledge, we knew it was true. Juliet smiled softly at my nervous reaction, and I gripped Eric’s hand tightly.
Her eyes scanned the woods. I watched the trees, wondering what she was looking for. She glanced back to us hesitantly. She looked to Eric with an expression I couldn’t place. “There is so much magic in your life, Eric. More than you realize,” she said quietly.
“How long have you known about our reincarnations?” he asked.
She blinked at the word reincarnations. I thought for a miserable second that maybe she didn’t actually know anything, but then she wrung her hands anxiously. “Since you shot the blonde. After that, my aunts told me why they had wanted me to stay away from you. What made you so dangerous wasn’t a curse on your name or that house. It’s who you are that makes you a threat to us.”
“What happened to Rose is entirely my fault,” Eric said, lowering his head with sincere emotion. “I am so sorry for what happened.”
Her pale pink lips pursed with thought. “How long have you known?”
“Not long. Months. We’ve been trying to put the pieces together.”
“What do you know about her? About Rose?” she asked. A flicker of vulnerability ignited in her eyes.
“We don’t know much, but she was a good friend to me. She was strong. Fearless. And she wanted to help us.”
She looked down and brushed her palm absently over the hood of her car. “You know about the books. It’s why you called, isn’t it?”
I squeezed Eric’s hand tighter. “Do you have them?” I asked.
Her eyes narrowed at mine. “I watched you both this morning, but mostly you, Sandy. I can see that you are not the witch I was warned about. You are a victim in this just as Rose was. I don’t know what you want with the spells, but my family wants nothing more to do with them.”
She hopped down from the hood, her paint-splattered shoes hit the gravel with a crunching sound. “I’m going home for Thanksgiving. I’ll get them then, on one condition. This stays a secret. Even from your parents.” She gave Eric a pointed look. “We don’t want another witch-hunt in Cranes Hollow.”
He nodded solemnly. “Of course.”
She twirled the unique charm in her hands, and it suddenly occurred to me that she, just as Rose had been, was a witch.
“Rose knew a spell that could help us stop Aurora. Do you know it?” I asked desperately. “Will you help us?”
Her face tensed, lips pursing tightly. She looked betrayed, like I had just reached inside of her heart, stolen a piece of it, and held it out in front of her. Maybe I had.
“My family has learned our lesson through Rose,” she snapped, her words clipped with annoyance. “Your problems are not ours. We will not interfere with the Bacster witch again. I’ll get the books for you, but my help ends there.” She opened the door to her car. “I’ll see you in a few weeks,” she said before sliding into the seat and shutting the door hard.
We watched her drive away and continued to stare well after her car was out of sight.
A feeling of relief settled over us. We’d done it. We’d found the missing books. We had a plan, and it was in motion. Eric exhaled a relieved laugh. I looked up at him, my jaw unhinged, in awe of what we’d accomplished together. He quickly pulled me to his chest in a firm embrace.
Our memory chasing hadn’t been for nothing. Reliving our deaths had brought some good. Soon the books would be ours, to trade for our freedom or use to save ourselves. For once, our lives and futures were in our own hands.
CHAPTER 6
BRAZEN
When Bailey laughed, like really laughed, her whole face turned red. She was bright as a cherry, struggling to breathe, and I couldn’t help but chuckle a little with her. Sometimes, I just didn’t understand the things she found funny. It was as if everything was an inside joke, but little by little, we were beginning to share our own. And this one… I got.
The guy wearing the fedora glanced up, wondering what was going on at our cafeteria table. Bailey hid her face behind a book while I just shook my head, biting away my smile.
“He definitely thinks you’re laughing at him,” I told her with an amused snicker. The poor guy was way off.
“Now I feel bad,” she whispered between gasping giggles.
“Don’t be. It’s his fault for wearing a fedora.”
“But I like the fedora.”
“I think you more than like it. I think you love it.”
She sighed like a lovesick teenager and collapsed over the table. “Oh, you’re right. I should just buy one already.”
“You can have mine. I’ll get it when I go home for Thanksgiving.”
“Best friend ever!” she declared, jerking my arm excitedly. My fork flew from my fingers and clattered to the floor. “Now I can finally be a mob boss!”
I shook my head again, laughing. For someone so n
ice, she had lofty ideas for the mock crime spree she was planning, starting with setting up headquarters in an ice cream shop. That way she could keep the bodies on ice and enjoy delicious deserts at all hours. And it would all begin with the fedora. I would just be glad to be rid of mine. The shape really didn’t suit my face, and it only reminded me of when I was bald. It was my first hat after the surgery. I hated it, and the person who’d given it to me. I couldn’t understand why I’d kept it so long anyway.
“I’m going to get a new fork,” I said between giggles and headed into the kitchen area. The utensils stood in oversized cups beside a stack of dishes. I drew a fresh fork, but before I could turn back, my hand was taken and I was whisked away.
I skittered into an alcove beside a rack of chips. Eric’s body and mouth pressed against mine so quickly, I barely had the chance to realize that it was him. His hands grasped my hips, pulling me flush against him as his tongue delved into my mouth. Someone whistled at us, but I didn’t even care. Eric was kissing me like the past few months hadn’t even happened. I didn’t have to initiate. I didn’t need to push. He came to me.
He drew back slightly, giving me a chance to breathe. Oxygen began to move through me again, and my cheeks blazed red. His fingertips brushed down my face and he chuckled.
“What was that for?” I asked breathlessly, seeing stars from the sudden rush.
“I couldn’t help it. You looked so cute standing there with your fork.”
I swallowed slowly. Eric’s body was still pinning me to the wall, and I needed him to hold me up. My legs had turned to pudding. “I thought you were painting.”
He held up a sandwich wrapped in wax paper. “I needed provisions. Besides, I knew you’d be here, and I needed a squeeze.” At that, his hand slid down from my hip and he grabbed my butt. My eyes nearly bugged out of my head. He’d just… and… he… In public? “You don’t mind, do you?” he dared.
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