by Suzi Davis
David was out for the rest of the day, supposedly looking for a job. I had the definite sense that he had no interest in finding work or making any change to his current living situation, despite what he sometimes claimed. I could tell it bothered him to be depending on the generosity of others, but at the same time, he seemed content enough to continue on for now.
Sebastian insisted I go to my room early and get some rest after dinner. The sun had barely set when he ushered me into my bedroom and tucked me into bed himself. As he leaned down to place a kiss on my forehead, I turned my face up, my lips meeting his in a long and lingering kiss that left me yearning for more. I could tell from the brightness in his eyes that he was feeling the same way.
“Stay with me?” I asked softly, my fingers trailing slowly down his arm. I thought I saw him shiver. He slowly and reluctantly shook his head.
“Grace… you should rest. Besides, I think it would make the Jensons and David uncomfortable if I were to stay in your room.”
“Stay,” I repeated. My fingers slid down to his hand and began slowly tracing a spiral into his palm. “Just for a little while.”
He hesitated, his conviction wavering. “I want to, Grace, but…”
“Then stay.”
I boldly pulled him down on top of me, my fingers already twisting into his black, mussed hair.
He gave in with a soft moan, his lips crushing against mine roughly. My heart pounded as he kissed me, his tongue slipping into my mouth and teasing against mine, our lips moving together with an increasing need. His body pressed against me, his hands touched my face, stroked my hair, slid down my body in a gentle caress that made my back arch as I gasped in pleasure. I could feel him everywhere; I could taste his lips and smell his skin, I could feel his body down the length of mine but it still wasn’t enough. I wanted more.
But, as always, Sebastian pulled back, he slowed down, he slid over to my side, trailing sweet kisses down my neck to my shoulder. I stifled a moan.
“I can’t stay,” he whispered against my skin. His warm breath combined with the soft movement of his lips sent fresh shivers all over my body.
“Yes, you can,” I argued.
“I can’t trust myself with you,” he confessed, his voice rough, his eyes hungry. “Alone, in your room, in your bed, the way you look right now… I want you so badly.”
I swallowed hard as his eyes burned into mine. It wasn’t often he spoke so directly. It was both intimidating and exciting.
“So what’s the problem?” I couldn’t believe how forward I was being but we were engaged, after all. I was almost nineteen, we’d been together for nearly a year and we’d been through so much. I knew exactly what I wanted—what we both wanted—and I could no longer understand why we should let anything stand in our way.
My heart was in my throat, my body hot and flushed all over as I waited for him to answer. The fire in his eyes didn’t cool for a moment.
“December 9th will be exactly a year since we first kissed,” he stated unexpectedly. His eyes were smoldering with heat and passion, at odds with his choice of words.
I blinked in confusion.
“Ok…”
“Let’s make it our anniversary.”
“Isn’t it already?” I asked, not understanding.
“Our wedding anniversary.”
My breath caught in my throat. The glowing embers in his eyes flared with joy, a beautiful smile slowly spreading across his handsome face. He laughed at my speechlessness.
“Are you busy that day? We don’t have to, if you already have plans.”
“No, but…” He watched me uncertainly as I paused. “But that’s over two months away.”
Sebastian tossed back his head and laughed.
“Don’t laugh at me,” I scolded but I was smiling too. My heart felt light and joyful at the prospect of becoming Sebastian’s wife soon, even if it was still weeks away. “Why don’t we just get married now? Tonight, or tomorrow, or even next weekend? I feel like I’m always waiting, and the longer I wait, the further away it seems to get.”
Sebastian smiled. “I know. I feel like that sometimes too but December 9th really isn’t that far away. And besides, your mother tells me your dress won’t be ready until the end of November anyway.”
“When did you speak to my mother?” I asked warily.
Sebastian smirked. “Recently. Has she shared with you her plans for our wedding?”
“Yes, she did today. I actually met the wedding planner.”
“Oh, did you now? And what did you think? Are we indulging her or are we going to rebel and elope?” Sebastian asked, a mischievous sparkle to his eye.
“I was actually leaning towards indulgence,” I confessed. Sebastian’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. I rushed to explain myself. “I’m going to tone it down—what she’s planning is currently far too extravagant—but… some of her ideas are actually quite good. And I think planning the wedding might be something we can bond over and that alone is worth it to me. But that’s only if it’s what you want…?”
“I just want to marry you.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’ve had some second thoughts, but I think you’re pretty much the best I can get.”
I giggled and tried to smack him. “I’m serious, Sebastian.”
“So am I. I love you. I want you. Forever. Nothing else—besides your happiness—matters to me.”
His words reached out and touched me deep inside, resonating in my heart. I was moved.
He smiled and stood up, leaving me full of excitement and longing, in no condition to fall asleep any time soon.
“Only 61 days,” he whispered, and I could hear the excitement in his voice.
“So far away,” I groaned.
He chuckled softly. “Good night, Grace. I love you.”
“I love you too,” I whispered back as he closed the door.
It wasn’t as difficult to fall asleep as I had predicted. It had been a long day: wedding plans with my mother, going to the park with Sebastian, the fall, the necklace, the hospital visit with Dr. Mackey. I was exhausted. My head started to spin and my eyelids drooped. The shadows around me darkened and shifted. It might have been my imagination, but I thought I heard someone whisper my name just as I was falling asleep, their stale breath tickling my ear as my mind sank into black unconsciousness.
I awoke in the morning feeling tired and disturbed, blinking sleepily as I gazed around my room. I was certain I’d had another bad dream even though I couldn’t remember specifically what it was about. A shadow of unease lurked around my mind. I squeezed my dry eyes shut, straining to remember. Something to do with being lost and someone or something was chasing me but it had been so dark and confusing… No matter how I struggled, the memory of the dream rapidly faded away. I was left feeling ill at ease, the threat and danger from my nightmare seeping over into my waking mind.
Something definitely didn’t feel right. I opened my eyes, sensing that something around me was out of place. Sitting up slowly, I scanned my room, searching for the source of my unease. And that’s when I saw it.
There was a blanket draped across the end of my bed that hadn’t been there when I went to sleep; in fact, it hadn’t even been in my room. My skin prickled all over as the feel of invisible eyes on me returned. I noticed my window was closed, and I was certain when I fell asleep last night I had left it open. And the chair at my writing desk was no longer neatly tucked in. It had been pulled out at an angle, as if someone had sat there, watching me while I slept. I shivered, my eyes growing wider, my breathing becoming shallow.
Ever so faintly, the curtains at my window stirred. My breath caught in my throat.
“Who’s there?” I whispered, feeling ridiculous. My voice came out breathy and weak. I swallowed and reached for my necklace, squeezing the circular pendant tightly in my fist and immediately drawing strength and reassurance from it. My curtains stirred again, brushed gently by some unseen force. I sat
up straighter, refusing to be afraid anymore.
“Who are you? What do you want from me?” I demanded, my voice growing stronger with each word that I spoke. The curtains resettled and stilled, an eerie silence hung in the air. The sense that I was not alone was still strong and overpowering.
“I want you to leave me alone. Now!”
My bedroom door suddenly flew open. My heart leaped into my throat. I flinched back in fear and then surprise as David burst into my room.
“Grace? Are you alright?” David’s eyes searched my room, confusion written across his handsome face. His brows pulled down into a frown. “I heard you talking to someone; you sounded afraid.”
“What were you doing outside of my room?” I demanded softly, leaving the question behind his words unanswered.
David stared back at me, his face suddenly expressionless, his eyes darkening at my tone. “I was on my way to the bathroom when I heard you yell. I thought I should check on you. Who were you talking to?”
His dark brown hair was rumpled on one side from sleep and his t-shirt and pajama bottoms looked wrinkled. It was the most unkempt I’d ever seen him and I had to admit, there was something attractive about his rumpled appearance. There was a sharpness to his eyes though that didn’t appear sleepy at all, a shrewd intelligence that was making me feel increasingly uneasy. I gave my head a little shake. What was wrong with me? David was just worried about me, that was all.
“I was just singing to myself. I’m sorry, it probably sounded awful.” A rosy blush warmed my cheeks, giving away my lie.
He took a step closer, his eyes full of concern. My heart started beating strangely. He was making me feel nervous, I realized but my reaction to him made no sense. I shifted uneasily.
“Grace… I’m worried about you. You’ve been acting strangely lately. I know you think of me as Sebastian’s friend but please don’t doubt that I’m your friend too.” He sank down onto the bed beside me, sitting so close I could easily reach out and touch him. My heart was pounding; I wanted to run. “There’s a connection between us,” he murmured, his eyes steady on mine. “I like you, Grace, and not just because you’re Sebastian’s girlfriend. I respect you. I feel like we… understand each other.”
“How do you mean?” My voice sounded unfamiliar.
“We both want what’s best for Sebastian. We both know him well. And we’re both seeking answers to questions that Sebastian wants to ignore.”
A weighted silence hung in the air. My heart pounded deafeningly in my ears.
“You want to know what happened in Greece?”
“I won’t accept that those memories are gone forever, I can’t anymore,” David responded. “Sebastian told me you’ve been researching the explosion, that you’d discovered some strange similarities between the survivors. I’ve been looking into it too. Did you know that on the day of the explosion, a nearby hostel in Thessaloniki mysteriously burnt to the ground? They found unidentified remains inside: a girl, estimated to be in her late teens. It was just a few hours before the explosion at the Necromanteion.”
“Strange,” I agreed softly, not certain what to say. I felt like I was betraying Sebastian somehow by having this discussion with David. “Sebastian said you didn’t want to look into the past. That you had both agreed it was better left alone.”
David’s sharp eyes narrowed slightly, as if I were accusing him of something. He answered slowly and deliberately.
“I didn’t want to examine the past too closely. I thought there must be something that we were all meant to forget. But then when your mother mentioned that I had an uncle, it made me start to wonder about my family, about my friends, about what my life was like before.”
It sounded reasonable enough.
“I know Sebastian doesn’t want to talk about it but that’s why I’m here,” he continued in his low voice. He leant forward. “If you need someone to talk to, I’m here. We both have questions, we both want the same thing. Maybe we can help each other rediscover what we’ve lost.”
He spoke softly, intimately. I automatically leant back, brushing my hair back over my shoulder and running my fingers through it nervously. David’s soft, quick inhale made my eyes snap back to his face. His eyes were bright, burning with a dark fire as he stared at the necklace hanging around my neck.
“What is that?” His eyes didn’t stray from my pendant as he spoke. He wasn’t even blinking. My body tensed under his gaze. I suddenly became more alert, my heartbeat calming, my mind and thoughts focusing. I clenched the pendant firmly in my hand, blocking it from his view. Annoyance flickered across his face.
“It’s a gift from Sebastian,” I told him firmly, my tone inviting no further questions.
“Pass it to me; I’d like to take a closer look,” David commanded.
“No.”
His lips compressed together, his eyes narrowed. He wasn’t nearly so handsome when he was annoyed.
I was suddenly overwhelmed by déjà vu. I blinked, trying to clear my cloudy thoughts but instead, an image appeared behind my eyelids, a memory from the past that mirrored this moment in time. As clear as a summer sky, I could remember Walter reaching out his hand, his face twisted in anger and irritation as I had defied him somehow. I remembered how tightly I had clutched at my necklace, the perfect teardrop shape fitting precisely into the center of my closed fist. He had been so angry that I wouldn’t let him see my necklace, the memory made me shudder. I could even remember how the sky outside had seemed to darken with his increasing rage…
I blinked. The memory cut off, it was severed from continuing but I still remembered it even if I couldn’t entirely understand. Walter, my mother’s butler and companion was more than he had seemed, he had been dangerous somehow; of that I was now absolutely sure. But why had he wanted my necklace and why had it felt so vital to keep it from him? It made no sense.
“Grace?” David watched me uncertainly. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been silent for. I thought I’d only paused for a second but it was difficult to hide my disorientation and confusion.
“Thank you for checking on me but I’m fine. I’ll keep in mind that you’re here to talk to if I need to. It is appreciated but now I’d like you to leave,” I told him plainly.
David straightened, his face becoming expressionless once more, his eyes cold.
“I need to get dressed,” I added, hoping to take some of the sting from my words. I hadn’t meant to offend him, I wasn’t entirely sure why I was suddenly feeling so antagonistic towards him.
“Of course,” he answered politely, standing as he spoke. He hesitated beside my bed, his eyes briefly glancing back to my necklace still hidden in my hand. “I’m here for you, Grace, if you need me.”
“Thank you,” I murmured as he turned and walked back out my bedroom door.
I let out my breath after he disappeared, only now aware that I had been holding it. My eyes shifted nervously to the chair at the foot of my bed and the gently swaying curtains at my window. My eyes widened as I realized the window was now wide open, allowing the morning breeze to find its way into my room. Had I been dreaming still when I thought it had been closed? Had I imagined the curtains moving on their own? The sense that I was being watched began to slowly return. I wondered if I was losing my mind? I grabbed my clothes and then fled from my room, wondering if I’d be able to sleep there tonight.
I didn’t tell Sebastian about my strange morning: the window, my conversation with David, the brief flash of memory I’d experienced. I didn’t want to hear more about his post-traumatic stress theories and I also didn’t want to worry him. I really was starting to feel like I was going crazy.
I was called in to the art gallery that day and was grateful for the distraction of work to keep my mind off things. Over the next few days I put in some long hours, volunteering to stay late and working myself to the point of near exhaustion. It was never a problem falling asleep at night. But every morning I awoke with the same, strange sense that I’d
suffered through another night of tormenting, violent nightmares even though I would forget all the details as soon as my eyes opened. And there was always that haunting sensation of someone silently watching me. If I listened too hard to the silence, I would start to hear strange whispered words. If I looked too long into the shadows, I would start to think I could see a figure hiding at the edge of the darkness. And so I didn’t.
I kept myself so busy with work that it was nearly a week later when I finally remembered to tell my mother that Sebastian and I had set a date for our wedding. Naïvely, I had thought she would be pleased. You would think that after nineteen years, I would know better.
“December 9th? But that’s a Friday! And Elisa Mayher is marrying the Thornton boy the weekend before that. We’ll want some time between the two events so that her wedding doesn’t overshadow ours. It’ll have to be Saturday the 17th then. It’s only a week before Christmas but—”
“No, Mother,” I interrupted in a gentle but firm voice. “December the 9th is the only possible date. It’s an important day for Sebastian and me; I can’t compromise on this.”
My mother’s shrewd hazel eyes narrowed at me.
“You’re not being very flexible, Grace,” she snipped.
“No, I’m not. Not about this.”
“Fine. This is going to be a nightmare to plan for a Friday though! How selfish of you to not consult with me before discussing dates with Sebastian. Susanna and I have been arranging all the plans around the idea of a spring wedding. Now we’ll have to entirely change the concept of the wedding. I thought you were planning on a long engagement?” she accused.
“We were but then last week, Sebastian decided to surprise me with a date he had in mind. The only date,” I repeated, my voice still firm. My mother’s eyes narrowed.