Everafter

by Elizabeth Chandler

  “Did it ever occur to you that’s what she’s hoping to hear?”

  A long and thoughtful silence followed, then Ivy’s phone sounded at the same time as Will’s.

  “It’s Suzanne,” Ivy said. “A text.”

  WHO JUST BROKE BETH’S HEART?

  WHY WON’T SHE SAY WHO THIS MYSTERY GUY IS?

  SHE’S SENT ENOUGH LOVE POEMS

  TO WALLPAPER MY ROOM.

  Ivy peeked up at Will to see if he was reading the message. “Does yours begin ‘Who just broke Beth’s heart’?”

  “Yes.” He studied the text as if he was translating it. Amazement lit his face.

  “So,” said Ivy, “shall I tell Suzanne that you’ll get back to her after you’ve talked to Beth?”

  He looked at Ivy with a smile that would melt all the stars in the Northern Hemisphere. “Yeah, you tell her that.” He turned toward the inn.

  “I’d try the stairway to the beach,” Ivy advised, and laughed when he set off at a run.

  Seventeen

  WILL AND BETH, IVY THOUGHT HAPPILY AS SHE AND Tristan walked together late Monday afternoon. Sometimes love started with bewildering passion and then grew deeper through friendship; sometimes it started with deep friendship and surprised everybody—especially the two “best friends”—with its sudden romantic fire. Either way, love seemed both meant to be and a miracle.

  Ivy glanced behind her. Tristan was crouching down, reading an epitaph on an old stone. The day was unusually hot for the Cape, and they had decided to visit Michael Steadman’s grave before the evening thunderstorms rolled in. It was a chance worth taking, Tristan being out in the open. Tomorrow, she and Will had an appointment with Rosemary Donovan, the officer most familiar with the case, a meeting to which they would bring their evidence. Soon Tristan would be able to walk anywhere.

  Ivy glanced up at the sky. The clouds had gathered earlier than predicted. The glossy white of summer cumulus, rising with the heat, had become towering thunderheads, their underbellies darkening. With the sun masked, the grass faded and the trees turned a foreboding olive color, the undersides of their leaves twisting up in the breeze.

  Ivy didn’t remember there being so many trees when she had been there two weeks ago. She glanced over her shoulder to call to Tristan and discovered she had walked around a bend and could no longer see him. Despite the warmth of the day, a cold uneasiness settled in the pit of her stomach. Her arms, damp with sweat, got goose bumps. She could smell the approaching storm, but the smell was different from the salty humidity of the Cape; it was green—verdant—mossy.

  Ivy turned slowly, surveying the leaning stones. The rain had cried away some of the names and sentiments, but the statues spoke through the silence: a stone dog guarding his master, a wistful-looking youth holding a wreath of flowers, a lamb asleep on a tiny grave. Perhaps it was the dream that Gregory had seeded that made her notice two angel statues she hadn’t seen before.

  The road climbed higher, then dipped down again. Ivy entered an area in which a family’s name became important, blazoned on tall obelisks and the lintels of private mausoleums. The row of stone buildings was sunk into a hillside. Styled like miniature Greek temples, some had no windows; others had windows that had been broken or removed, and replaced with iron bars. She shivered at the thought of being left inside one of these dismal houses of bones.

  The Baines family was buried across from such a row of tombs, along Ravine Way. She remembered the plot . . . then she saw it: graves with individual headstones laid out around a tall monument, the land rising behind it. She gasped, recognizing the statue. Fifteen feet above the ground an angel stood, her left hand resting on an anchor, her right arm raised and hand pointing upward. A large tree grew at the far corner of the plot. The old copper beech, perhaps fifty feet wide and nearly as tall, dominated the landscape, its heavy limbs shading a quadrant of the tombstones, its reddish leaves forever weeping onto the family’s graves.

  Ivy walked slowly toward the massive tree, stepping around the family graves, and stopped beneath its dark canopy. Gregory Thomas Baines, she read from the surface of his shiny stone. At Peace. It was Ivy’s mother who had suggested the epitaph, who had made that vain wish.

  Ivy gazed down at the soft swelling of earth where Gregory was supposed to be at rest, listening to the wind gathering in the trees. It moved from grove to grove in the cemetery, and yet the leaves of the beech tree hung lifeless. Then the leaves on the lowest limbs began to tremble, and the trembling moved from the lowest twigs upward. Ivy heard a groaning from beneath the earth. The ground at her feet broke open. Gregory, in his own body, rose up like a dark angel.

  She screamed and stepped back. Gregory moved with her, matching her step for step. His gray eyes burned with hate so intense it singed and shriveled the skin of his face.

  Ivy wanted to run, but was afraid to turn her back on him. “Tristan!” she called out. “Tristan, help me!”

  The wind whipped around the copper beech, and still Gregory and she moved within the silent eye of the storm’s fury. His clothes hung motionless on his emaciated body.

  “Mine,” he said, his voice like a moan from beneath the earth. “All mine.”

  She shrank from the anguish she saw in his eyes. He raised his arm and she felt a cold that burned. His fingers stretched and curled like talons. She stepped sideways, slipping away from him.

  “Look what you’ve done to me,” he said. He turned his head to the right. She saw the gash on the left side of his skull, tarred with blood. Then Gregory twisted the trunk of his body, and Ivy gasped. His shirt hung torn over a protruding bone, a piece of his spine, broken in his fall from the railroad bridge.

  His face swung back to her. “Vengeance is mine!”

  Ivy shook her head. “You did this to yourself.”

  He laughed, and the air smelled of damp earth and decaying leaves. “Better say your prayers. It’s your turn, Ivy. It is written: Vengeance is mine!”

  “ ‘Saith the Lord,’ ” Ivy replied, finishing the quote from the Bible. “Vengeance is His, not ours.”

  Gregory lunged for her. Ivy tore free from his grasp and ran. She could hear a rasping sound behind her, like breathing torn by sharp bones. It was coming closer and closer.

  “Angels, help me!”

  Her toe caught on a stone curb. She tumbled forward. Her hands went out in front of her, but she couldn’t catch herself. “Angels! Angels!”

  “Ivy, no!”

  Hands yanked her backward. Tires shrieked.

  “My God, girl! Watch where you’re going!” The man’s voice was both angry and scared.

  “Ivy, listen to me! Come back to me!” Tristan pleaded.

  Ivy blinked and looked around her. Just a few trees shaded the cemetery from the bright afternoon sun. The graves had simple headstones. Directly in front of her was a narrow cemetery road. Tristan held Ivy from behind, as if he’d pulled her back just before she’d tumbled into the path of a van. The driver glared at her, then drove on.

  Ivy sank back against Tristan. Her heart was still racing, and her head hurt. “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure.” He led her to a bench, holding her firmly as they walked, then easing her onto it, keeping her close to him as he sat down.

  She tried to get her bearings. “I’m on the Cape.”

  “Where did you think you were?” Tristan asked.

  “Riverstone Rise.” She heard his sharp intake of breath.

  “The cemetery at Stone Hill,” he said. “Where I’m buried.”

  “And where Gregory’s buried.” She shuddered. “It was so real, Tristan. He was there, looking as he did after he fell from the train bridge.”

  “And he was chasing you,” Tristan guessed. “You were running, Ivy, your eyes wide open, but not seeing where you were going. You looked awake and terrified, but I couldn’t get through to you. Then you tripped on a grave marker and almost fell in front of the van.”

  Ivy buried her face in his should
er. “Hold me, just hold me.”

  He tightened his arms around her. Laying his cheek against her head, he rocked her gently. “I’m here. You’re safe.”

  Ivy tried to push the frightening images out of her mind. “Tristan, Gregory can do more than seed a dream. He can create a waking vision.”

  Tristan swallowed hard and turned his head to look toward the road.

  She knew what he was thinking. “He doesn’t need to track me down with a gun. If you hadn’t been here just now, I would have—”

  Tristan laid his finger on her lips. “Hush, my love. It’s not going to happen. I won’t let it.”

  She said no more, as if Tristan had put an end to her newest fears. But he couldn’t quiet her mind and heart. As long as no one else suffers, Ivy told herself. Angels, help me.

  TRISTAN WAS SCARED. HE HAD BEGGED IVY TO STAY at the house with him, but she’d insisted on returning to the cottage for a few hours, before rejoining him after dark. “I’m okay,” she kept saying.

  If she knew how she had looked at him during the dream vision: like he was the devil himself! Tristan shuddered at the memory. How could he defeat someone who could control a mind to the point that the victim saw only what Gregory willed?

  Tristan vowed he would fight Gregory to the death, but for the first time, he wasn’t sure that would be enough to save Ivy and himself. He paced the house. Dinnertime came and went; he wasn’t hungry. A brilliant sunset faded; he didn’t care. He waited in the dark, unable to think of anything but Ivy and how to keep her safe.

  Then he heard it, the light whistling of a song from Carousel. His relief and joy were so intense he almost laughed out loud. He hurried to the door and opened it.

  A gloved hand grabbed Tristan by the arm and jabbed him with a needle. He looked up just in time to see Bryan’s face and the moonlit night crumble into darkness.

  “AHOY, MATEY. AHOY, MATEY.” THE PARROTLIKE VOICE startled Ivy out of her thoughts. She had just emerged from the shower when Philip’s phone call came through. She shook out her hair and glanced at the clock: ten-fifteen.

  “Ahoy. Why aren’t you in bed?”

  “I am,” her brother replied. “I’m under the sheets.”

  Ivy laughed.

  “Mom said we would call you tomorrow.”

  “Call me . . . about?”

  “My tree house. It was set on fire.”

  “What?!”

  “It’s gone. The firefighters had to chop it out of the tree with their axes.”

  “Someone set it on fire?” Ivy sat down on the bed.

  “Last night.”

  Her mind raced ahead. She seethed with anger: If Gregory dared to try it again, dragging Philip into his battle with her — “Why didn’t Andrew and Mom call me?”

  “They said they would tomorrow, when they knew more. The fire investigator and police came today.”

  “What did they find?” Ivy asked, trying to keep her voice calm.

  “That somebody dumped stuff on it to make it burn.”

  “You mean an accelerant of some kind?”

  “Yeah. They think it was some teenagers around here.”

  Ivy steadied herself. Vandalism happened.

  “But it wasn’t,” Philip said.

  “Why—what makes you say that?”

  “I saw him.”

  She forced herself to be patient. “Saw?”

  “Gregory.”

  Ivy shut her eyes and a sick feeling washed over her. Then she thought quickly: To contradict Philip, to lie and tell him it wasn’t possible, would not reassure him. Her little brother had the same certainty in his voice as when he first told her he saw Angel Tristan.

  “How do you know it was Gregory?” she asked.

  “He was watching the fire, and he turned to look at me.”

  The skin on the back of Ivy’s neck prickled.

  “He looked up at my bedroom window and pointed at me. His face was different, but it was Gregory.”

  “Philip, don’t go near that person! No matter what he says or does, don’t listen to or believe him. Don’t let him in. Don’t go out to him. Do you understand me?”

  “Dad’s setting the house alarm tonight.”

  Which meant “Bryan” couldn’t break in undetected, but what about Gregory? What could he do from afar?

  “And I have my angel statues.”

  Oh, Angels, protect him, Ivy prayed. Aloud she said, “I’m coming home. Call Lacey and ask her to stay with you until I get there.”

  “I’m not scared.”

  Ivy was pulling on her jeans as she spoke. “Just call Lacey. Do it for me, okay?”

  She grabbed a clean T-shirt and her sneakers. In her haste she knocked things off the top of her bureau—earrings, her comb, and keys. A round piece of gold caught her eye. She picked up Philip’s angel coin and slipped it into her pocket. Angels, protect him.

  Five minutes later, she was in her car and flipping open her second phone to call Tristan. Then she set it down again. If she told him about this, he’d want to come with her. He’d vowed to fight Gregory to the end—until one of them died, she thought, and it couldn’t be Tristan. She started the car and headed for the Mid-Cape Highway. Just after crossing the canal, she pulled over to the side of the road and called Will’s and Beth’s cell phones. Neither one answered. For a moment, Ivy smiled, thinking of them in their new world together, remembering what it had been like when she and Tristan first confessed to each other that they were in love.

  Ivy texted the same message to both of them: WORRIED ABOUT PHILIP. GOING HOME. TAKE EVIDENCE TO POLICE ASAP. THANX. LOVE.

  “Lacey,” she called out as she pulled back onto the road. “Lacey, I told Philip to call you. I need you to watch over Philip. Please!” Hopefully, Lacey was already there. Ivy knew the angel was more likely to respond to Philip than herself.

  Ivy was speeding down the dark stretch of Route 25 when she had to hit her brakes and veer to avoid a hitchhiker. What a stupid and dangerous place for a person to—she braked again and looked in her rearview mirror.

  “Why am I not surprised?” Ivy muttered, pulling over to the shoulder, then backing up.

  “I was wondering if you’d see me,” Lacey said, climbing into the car.

  “If I’d hit you, what would have happened?” Ivy asked.

  “I don’t know. My soul would continue on. I guess the rest of me would just go poof!”

  “All the same, now that you’re riding with me, buckle your seat belt.”

  “Now that I’m riding with you,” Lacey scoffed. “You’re the one who summoned me.”

  After the angel complied, Ivy continued down the highway. “I was hoping Philip would call you. I told him to.”

  “He called, but he was sound asleep when I got there. What’s up?”

  Ivy told Lacey about Philip’s conviction that Gregory had set fire to the tree house, then recounted the waking vision she’d had of Gregory in the cemetery.

  “He’s way too powerful,” Lacey said.

  “I know. Would you go back to Philip and stay with him until I get there?”

  Lacey remained silent for a moment. “I will. But I think you’re the one who’s most in danger.”

  “I can handle Gregory.”

  “Getting a little cocky, aren’t you?”

  Ivy shrugged.

  “Where’s Tristan?”

  “At the Steadmans’ house, I guess.”

  “You haven’t called him?” Lacey asked. “You haven’t told him what you’re doing?”

  “I will,” Ivy replied. “I’m just waiting till I’m far enough from the Cape not to be tempted to go back and get him.”

  Lacey leaned forward, straining against her seat belt, until Ivy felt her staring. The angel nodded in approval. “Sometimes, chick, you surprise me,” she said, then disappeared. A half second later, as if it was an afterthought, Ivy heard an unnecessary sound effect. Poof!

  Eighteen

  TRISTAN AWOKE TO THE DISTANT
RUMBLE OF THUNDER. The stillness around him told him he was alone. His hands were tied. A rope hung loosely around his legs. Sitting up slowly, he tried to make sense of the chilly air, the hard stone bed beneath him, and the pervasive scent of rotting things—leaves and something more animal-like.

  Pale moonlight sifted in through the round eye of a window, an aperture covered with a grate. About a foot too high for him to see out of, the window was set in a gable that supported the low roof of his prison. Slipping one foot then the other out of the rope that had bound his legs, Tristan stood cautiously, not knowing what he might step on. His hands still tied together, he struggled to feel the wall across from him. There was a long straight edge, parallel to the ground, and then another like it several feet above it. Everything that his fingers touched was damp stone. Tristan shivered. His prison was a mausoleum.

  He thought back to Ivy’s waking dream. Had Gregory brought him to Stonehill’s cemetery?

  He awkwardly felt the pocket where he kept his cell phone: gone. Moving toward the window, he bumped into something knee-high, knocking it aside. It sounded like wood tumbling against stone. Bending over, feeling for the object, he found and set the crate in front of the window so he could step up and look outside.

  The slice of moon was blotted by mist, but Tristan could make out the shapes of the grave markers across from the mausoleum, ghostly white, some of them standing straight, others leaning with weariness. His eyes shifted to an impressive monument, a tall base supporting an angel. He had been here before, at the funeral of Gregory’s mother. He remembered the dark tree that spread its heavy limbs above one corner of the Baines plot, the corner where she—and he assumed Gregory—was buried.

  Scanning the landscape, Tristan saw no one. He decided against calling out; if Gregory was nearby, it would tell him that Tristan had regained consciousness. Stepping down from the box, using his fingers as much as his eyes, he explored the surface of the metal door beneath the window. Its center seam and double set of hinges indicated that it was two doors. Neither panel had a handle, meaning the doors were not intended to be opened from inside the mausoleum. Even so, he pressed against them. They gave slightly along the seam, and he suspected that they were secured by something added on the outside, like a padlock or bolt.