Everlasting

by Elizabeth Chandler

  In the middle of the night, the state park was closed except to campers. Ivy checked the map, looking for a place to leave her car outside the park. She was beginning to regret her distinctive white Beetle. She did not want to leave it too close to a gate by Ruth Pond, like a flag for anyone wanting to find Luke, but the crescent moon didn’t shed much light and she didn’t want to use the small flashlight she had brought unless absolutely necessary. She ended up on a road off of 6A, about a mile from where a paved road crossed over a hiking trail that led to Ruth Pond. She felt almost giddy walking down the empty road outside the park at two thirty in the morning. She felt like spreading her arms and singing. Then a car passed, slowing when it was behind her, as if the driver were taking a second look. She sobered quickly.

  She glanced over her shoulder, but the car had disappeared around a corner. A second car went by, slowing like the first. There was no time for her to duck out of sight. No big deal, Ivy told herself; she would do the same thing if she came upon a girl walking alone in the middle of the night. Still, she was relieved when she reached the wooded footpath.

  Fifty feet down the path, despite the fact that her eyes were well adjusted to the darkness, Ivy couldn’t see where she was going. The nearest campsite was a little over a quarter mile away. She reluctantly turned on her flashlight, hoping the woods were dense enough to prevent someone from seeing the moving beam. She focused it on the ground, just in front of her feet, wrapping her fingers around its head, trying to filter and soften the light.

  Behind her a branch cracked. Ivy flicked off her light, turned, and looked toward the clearing where the trail crossed the paved road. The darkness enveloping her was lighter toward the clearing, like black velvet brushed the wrong way, but she could see nothing distinctly. Chiding herself for being skittish, she continued on.

  She had planned to count her steps as a way of keeping track of how far she’d gone, but they were stumbling strides at odd lengths, so there was no point. She knew there was a place where the trail divided into three paths. The two paths to the right traveled close to the pond’s edge. The one to the left eventually looped around the pond but veered away from its shore. If Tristan had sent the message via Lacey, wouldn’t he stay close to the pond? Even so, he’d be hidden, Ivy reasoned, so she would have to be seen—she would have to make herself obvious, if they were to connect.

  A crisp splintering of wood followed by a trampling of brush made her whirl around. She raised the flashlight’s beam to a point fifty feet behind her, striping the trees, making a kind of optical illusion in which it was hard to distinguish solid tree trunk from space between. She lowered the beam a notch, which succeeded only in tangling the light in fallen branches and brush.

  Ivy reminded herself that animals made noise—they weren’t all as stealthy as cats. She continued on. The walk to the fork seemed endless, and she wondered if she had missed it. She went twenty feet farther, then raised her flashlight. There it was: the trail marker! Breathing a sigh of relief, she chose the middle route, which tracked closest to the water.

  Under the crescent moon, the pond lay perfectly still, a surface of polished ebony. If Tristan were here, how could she get his attention? Hiding and calling to him would be safer for her, but silently letting herself be seen would be safer for him. Ivy ducked under branches, walked through waist-high reeds, and waded into the pond.

  AFTER LACEY LEFT, TRISTAN HADN’T BEEN ABLE TO keep his eyes open. The route between the hospital and Nickerson was about twenty miles each way, a long hike to make in one day. With the park’s campsites clustered around three ponds, Cliff, Little Cliff, and Flax, he had settled at Ruth’s Pond several days ago. The woods here were his refuge, wrapping him in gentle night. He fell asleep and dreamed.

  In his dream he was lying on the porch of an old house, watching Ivy wade into a pond. She swam for a long time, unaware of him, sending ripples of gold over the sapphire surface. He watched her with wonder, the way she had come to love the water. After a while she turned on her back and floated.

  He longed to go to her, gaze down at her face, and touch the tips of her floating hair. He knew how it would look, spreading out from her face like rays of the sun.

  Then he heard her speak, her voice so close to him that he heard it inside him: It’s such a great feeling, floating on a pond, a circle of trees around you, the sun sparkling at the tips of your fingers and toes. Her words had once been his, when he’d taught her to swim.

  He yearned to hold her. All he wanted was to kiss her one more time. He waded in. He reached for her, but as he brought her close, he felt himself being pulled under.

  “Ivy!”

  “Tristan? Tristan, where are you?”

  “Ivy!”

  His own heaviness drew him down into the darkness. The surface of the water, rising over his head, became his sky. Submerged tree limbs entangled him. He fought to get back to her.

  “Ivy!”

  “Tristan? Are you here?”

  He jolted awake. Sharp-scented pine branches surrounded the place where he was lying. Lifting his head, looking toward a clearing, he saw a thin moon hanging high in the sky. Tristan rose to his feet and saw someone wading in Ruth Pond. As she moved, the silver light made bright circles in the water.

  “Ivy,” he called softly.

  She turned around, searching for him among the trees, then hurried in the direction of his voice. When he emerged from the pines, he saw her stop and look uncertain. He laughed, remembering his beard and shorn hair.

  Then she laughed and rushed to him. “Oh God! It’s really you.”

  He held her tight, burying his face in her hair. To see her, to touch her, to hear her—were those the longings of a fallen angel? He didn’t care; he needed these things.

  She clung to him. “How I have missed you!”

  “Every minute,” he said. “Every day.”

  “I thought you had left.”

  “I couldn’t bear to.”

  Then she turned in his arms, glancing over her shoulder. “We have to be careful. Someone might see us.”

  “No one’s around,” he told her. All that mattered was being with her. Being with her made him reckless.

  “But out in the open like this—”

  Reluctantly he released her, then led her to the pine brush where he had been sleeping. Kneeling down, he tried to make a soft place for her to sit. When he glanced up, she was smiling.

  “Thanks for fluffing the pine needles,” she teased, “but I plan to use you for a pillow.”

  Tristan stood up and kissed her, not touching her with his hands, holding her only with a long and pure kiss, until she melted against him. When they sat, he propped himself against a tree trunk and pulled her to him. She laid her cheek against his chest.

  For a long time they didn’t speak. He was happy just to hear her breathing, just to feel a strand of her hair tumble over his wrist.

  “If we could stop time,” he said, “or wind it back . . .”

  She raised her head. “We don’t need to, Tristan. The miracle is that we’ve been given another chance to be together.”

  It was the second time today the word miracle had been used. Were Andy and Ivy right, or was Lacey? Was being in Luke’s body a miracle or punishment?

  “I’ve been trying to figure something out,” Ivy said, and told him about Donovan’s visit and the recovery of the cell phone. “What happened to the one Kip lent you?”

  “I gave it back. I left it in the shed with his other things.”

  “So the phone found at the highway rest stop must have belonged to the real Luke. Donovan talked as if it were proof that you had left the Cape. But Luke would have stopped using it before he died, four weeks ago or more. You’d think they’d check on whether calls had been made from it in the last several days.”

  “Someone might have used it. It could even have been taken and recently used by the person who killed Luke.”

  Ivy sat all the way up. “I wish we kne
w what happened the night you were found on the beach. If I could get my hands on the police report—”

  “You don’t think they’d be a little suspicious when you asked for it? Ivy, I think the best strategy for you is to pretend you want nothing to do with me.”

  “Then maybe the medical report. If I could talk to Andy—”

  “I already did.”

  Tristan recounted his conversation from earlier that day, and Ivy listened intently.

  “A drug that doesn’t leave a chemical trace,” she repeated slowly. “Then the attack was premeditated.”

  “Yes.”

  “Tristan, please be careful!”

  “I will, I am,” he said soothingly.

  “If the murderer has followed the news, then he believes that Luke has survived. What if he comes back for you? He tried it once, he’ll try—”

  “I don’t think he’d risk it. He would know the police are hot on my trail. Why risk being caught for murder, when he could leave his revenge to the law?”

  Tristan studied Ivy’s face, trying to discern if she believed that line of reasoning. In his gut, he didn’t. His experience with Gregory had taught him that murderers, even those who began with careful plans, didn’t think through all the consequences, not even consequences to themselves. Once Gregory had started killing, he couldn’t stop.

  “How’s Beth?” Tristan asked, deliberately changing the subject. “Do you still think Gregory is haunting her?”

  “I think she . . . is struggling. She’s pulling away from everyone but Will, and Will won’t talk about the change in her. It’s like he’s in denial.”

  Tristan sensed that there was more and waited patiently, but Ivy simply shook her head. “I can’t reach Beth. The best I can do is try to win back Will’s trust in me, then get him to help her.”

  Tristan suspected that Ivy wasn’t telling him everything that worried her, but then, he wasn’t telling Ivy his worst fears. Using his own brand of denial, he pushed all thoughts of danger out of his mind. And really, for him, there was only one kind of danger, because death was defined just one way: separation from Ivy. Right now he had her with him, and that was the only thing that mattered.

  Nine

  “NO, I’M BEACHING WITH IVY,” DHANYA ANNOUNCED Friday afternoon.

  Ivy, who was pulling a T-shirt over her bikini, glanced up, as surprised as Kelsey by this announcement. Beth and Will were meeting on the beach closest to the inn, and Ivy had planned to join them, even if she sat with them for just a few minutes before taking a walk along the surf. She was snatching every available opportunity to mend her relationship with Will and prove she could be trusted. It would take both of them to fight Gregory.

  “But we’re supposed to go to Chatham,” Kelsey objected.

  “We’re going tonight and tomorrow night,” Dhanya replied. “Isn’t that enough?”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “Kelsey, just because I don’t spend every waking moment with you doesn’t mean I’m mad at you.”

  “So you didn’t mind me flirting with Max two nights ago.”

  Dhanya frowned, trying to remember the moment. “Why would I mind? Besides, if you were flirting with Max, you were also flirting with everyone on Bryan’s hockey team.”

  “Of course I was!”

  They both laughed, and Dhanya turned to Ivy. “Ready?”

  “Yeah. Let me grab my book.”

  A few minutes later Ivy and Dhanya crossed the garden, circled the outside of the inn, and stopped at the top of the stairway leading down the bluff to the beach. The view was breathtaking: the broad dunes, the sweep of flat white beach, and the glimmering blue of the sea beyond. To the north, the ocean slipped around a sandy point, creating an inlet where lobstermen and pleasure-boaters anchored.

  Halfway down the fifty-two steps, Beth and Will sat on facing benches on a landing. Will leaned over a sketchpad, his hand moving quickly. Beth sat quietly, showing no interest in Will’s drawings or the binder that lay open next to her.

  When Ivy and Dhanya were a few steps above them, Beth suddenly looked up, as if they had been sneaking up on her. “Why are you following me?” she demanded.

  “Excuse me?” Dhanya replied.

  “Not you. Ivy. Why are you following me?”

  Will lifted his head, his expression speculative as he looked from Beth to Ivy.

  “I’m going to the beach with Dhanya.”

  “But I’m here,” Beth protested.

  Dhanya glanced sideways at Ivy, shook her head, then said, “It’s a big beach, Beth.”

  “And you don’t have to sit with us. I can see you’re busy with the novel,” Ivy added, trying to sound calm and understanding as she led Dhanya past Beth and Will.

  “She’s getting weirder and weirder,” Dhanya remarked, when they reached the end of a narrow boardwalk that connected to a path through the dunes.

  “She’s not herself, that’s for sure.”

  They trudged across the warm sand.

  “Kelsey warned me that her cousin was strange, but I thought she meant her own definition of strange, meaning anyone who doesn’t play sports, party hard, and chase guys.”

  They spread their towels a distance from the other beachgoers, most of whom were guests staying at the Seabright.

  “What’s wrong with Beth?” Dhanya asked bluntly.

  “I don’t really know.”

  Feeling alone in her fear for Beth, Ivy wished she could confide in Dhanya. But Dhanya wasn’t likely to believe her—and if she did, she’d probably freak out. As graceful and composed as Dhanya seemed on first meeting, people and experiences that ran beyond her expectations rattled her and were usually rejected. Max, for instance.

  Ivy and Dhanya had just opened their paperbacks to read when Will and Beth joined them, placing their towels on the other side of Dhanya, away from Ivy. Ivy pretended not to notice. “How are the new adventures coming?” she asked.

  They were creating a graphic novel at the request of her brother, Philip, a series of adventures for Lacey and Ella the Cat Angel.

  In response to her question, Beth stared out at the ocean.

  “This batch is taking place on Cape Cod, right?” Ivy persisted, banking on Will’s politeness.

  He nodded. “Philip wanted pirates.”

  “Why, shiver me timbers!” Ivy replied, and he smiled a little.

  Dhanya put down her book. “Can we see your sketches?”

  “I’m still working on settings more than the action. We, uh, have some writing to do,” he said with a glance toward Beth.

  Beth had started blocking after the séance—the first sign, Ivy now realized, that something was taking over her mind.

  “But see what you think of these,” Will continued, opening the sketchpad to his most recent sketches and handing it to Dhanya. Dhanya shared it with Ivy.

  “The church with the bell tower,” Ivy said. “It’s terrific, Will.”

  “It looks abandoned,” Dhanya said.

  “It is.”

  “Will always gives an atmosphere to his buildings,” Ivy told Dhanya.

  She flipped the page.

  “Ella.” Ivy smiled. “Ella was my cat,” she explained to Dhanya.

  “The one Gregory killed?”

  Beth looked over her shoulder at them.

  “Yes. She’s looking quite pleased with herself, Will, walking along the back of the church pew.”

  “Like she owns the place,” Will said. “I think we’re going to make it her and Lacey’s home on the Cape.” He leaned toward them and turned the page: Ella sat in the bell tower.

  “As high as the birds,” Ivy observed. “Ella really is in cat heaven!”

  “The details are awesome,” Dhanya said as they flipped more pages and studied interior scenes of the church.

  “Yes, they are,” Ivy said thoughtfully. She hadn’t teased Will since they’d broken up and wondered how he’d react. “You know I thought the church’s windows had panes of
opaque glass—meaning you can’t see into the church from the outside.”

  Will smiled a little.

  “There’s something you should know about Will,” Ivy said to Dhanya. “He’s an upstanding, law-abiding citizen, except when it comes to getting a closer look at something he wants to draw.”

  “The latch on one of the basement windows is broken,” Will explained.

  “Oh, a personal invitation!” Ivy teased.

  “In the basement you can see the original stone that is the base of the bell tower,” he went on enthusiastically, “and a piece of coiled rope. It must have run up to the bell.”

  “Did you get into the tower?” Ivy asked.

  “There’s no stairway to it. On the main floor of the church, there’s a trapdoor in the ceiling, right below the tower, and a ladder that goes up to it. Maybe they rang the bell from the basement.”

  “‘Ask not for whom the bell tolls,’” Beth said, moving her head slowly till her eyes met Ivy’s. “‘It tolls for thee.’”

  Dhanya gave Ivy a see-what-I-mean look. Will acted as if he hadn’t heard Beth.

  He sees the change in her, Ivy thought, but he can’t admit it.

  Still, she was making progress. She had received the first smile from him in weeks, and though Dhanya had made the request, he’d been willing to share his drawings and interest in the church with Ivy. They looked at a few more drawings, then she and Dhanya returned to their reading and Will to his sketching.

  The sun on Ivy’s back made her drowsy. Short of sleep from the night before, she quickly drifted off. Sometime later, she was awakened by voices and laughter.

  Ivy lifted her head, and Kelsey remarked, “Get enough rest? You’d think you were the one out late partying.”

  “Maybe she is and we don’t know it,” Chase said, laying down a card. The two of them, Bryan, and Max were playing on a picnic blanket spread next to Ivy. Will was sketching and Dhanya reading. Beth was gone.

  “You’d go to someone else’s party and not mine?” Max asked.