He laughed. “The stone doesn’t bother me.” He touched it. “See?”
“But you’re not as red right now as you usually are.”
“And you’re not as violet as you usually are. Does the stone bother you?”
I laid it in my palm, letting the chain curl around it like a snake. “Nope.”
“That’s because we’re alive.” He folded my fingers over the gem. “Before all else, we’re human.”
I nodded as I put on the necklace, hoping he was right.
“My turn.” He handed me his present. “It’s not what it looks like. Well, it is, but not what you think it is. Except, it is.”
“Ooo-kay.” I took off the wrapping to find a square velvet jewelry box, just like the one my temporary engagement and wedding rings had come in. My heart thudded, then calmed. If Zachary were going to ask me to marry him for real, it wouldn’t have slipped his mind, no matter how crazy the day got.
The box lid creaked open, revealing a silver Claddagh ring, hands holding a crowned heart. The classic Irish ring.
“I’ve always wanted one of these! How’d you know?”
“Look, there’s an inscription.” He pulled the ring out of the box and held it to the light. “I thought about having our initials done, but it seemed like a security risk. Then I had an idea.”
I peered at the words. MO ANAM CARAID. Soul mate.
“Zach . . .” It perfectly fit my right middle finger. “It’s beautiful, thank you. My gift for you isn’t nearly as romantic.”
“You’ve already given me the only thing I wanted.”
I squinted at him. Did he mean my virginity? Because that was a little—
“Your trust.” He ran his thumb over the Claddagh ring. “I know I broke it, on prom night. I still haven’t forgiven myself.”
“You’ve done plenty of penance.” I slipped him a birthday card. “Your present’s in here.”
Zachary tore the envelope open with abandon. He pulled out the two pieces of paper and angled them to the light.
“What—what is this?”
“Vouchers. You trade them in for tickets once the game schedule’s official. The match schedule, I mean.”
“You—you’re sending me to the U-20 World Cup final rounds? Next summer? In Milan?”
“Not sending you. Taking you.” I fidgeted with my toes. “Hopefully by then I’ll have saved money for our plane tickets.”
He kept staring at me, seemingly unable to do anything else. “Will ye come with me, then?”
“That’s the idea,” I said slowly. “I thought it’d be cool to go to Italy together.”
“You realize it’s soccer-football, not American-football.”
“Right. The college version of the World Cup. Are you okay? Did I—”
He tackled me, pinning me to the mattress and cutting off my words with a hard, joyful kiss. I realized that for Zachary, my gift to him was ten times as romantic as a ring.
“Aura, it’s the best present anyone ever gave anyone. Sorry I was pure glaikit there for a moment. I couldnae believe it.” His smile faded a little. “You hate my sort of football.”
“Then teach me to love it.” I drew my hand over his waistband. “When we go, will you wear your kilt to show national pride?”
Zachary laughed. “That’s what this gift is about? Getting me into the kilt?”
“Getting you out of the kilt, actually. Why didn’t you bring one with you on this trip?”
Comprehension dawned on his face. “Because I’m stupid. A kilt’s like male lingerie to you American lasses, isn’t it?”
“Pretty much. And you’re not stupid, just innocent.”
Zachary gasped. “Innocent? That sounds like a challenge.”
“Are you up for it?”
“Completely.” He sat up and started to remove his shirt.
The mini grandfather clock on the mantel chimed six. Reality time.
“Eight hours till solstice.” I thumped my heel against the bed in aggravation. “We have to keep apart until after I call the shades.”
Zachary tossed his shirt aside. “Earlier we only needed six hours.”
“Six hours after kissing. We’re totally mingled here.”
“I know.” He covered me with his body and pressed his mouth to the hollow of my throat. “I like us that way.”
I wanted to melt into him, but forced myself to put my hand between us. “Zach, just this once.”
“But you’re on holiday. We’re on holiday. And already spending too much of it at arm’s length.”
“After I fix the shades, we can—”
“After you fix the shades, you’ll be heaving your guts out.” His voice grew desperate. “The only bed you’ll be warming is a hospital bed.”
I pushed him away. “I have to try.”
Zachary dropped to lie on his back beside me, bunching the quilt in his fist. “This is about him, isn’t it? You care about shades not just because you’re kind, but because you were in love with one.”
He meant Logan, of course. My heart cracked to see his anger. “I loved him when he was a shade, but I wasn’t in love with him.”
“Love, in love—what’s the difference?”
I kept forgetting that guys didn’t grasp these nuances. “Loving someone means you care about them and want them to be happy. Being in love means you can’t imagine living without them.”
Zachary covered his face, dragging his fingertips over his brows. “Which is it, then, for us?”
He was really losing it if he didn’t know the answer to that question.
“I’ll always love Logan.” I took one of Zachary’s hands from his face and held it between my own. “And I’ll always be in love with you.”
He stared at the ceiling. “Do you want to know when I fell in love with you? When I knew I never wanted to leave your side?”
“When?” I imagined it to be some huge moment, like when I’d almost fallen off that cliff running from the DMP.
“That night under the stars, when you recited the Gettysburg Address with a Scottish accent.”
“What?” I started to laugh. “You hadn’t even kissed me yet.”
“But I was about to. Before your aunt rang your cell phone and stopped me.” He took a deep breath, let it out in a frustrated groan, then shifted to the other side of the bed. “If I could survive that, I can survive this.”
I sat up, marveling at the rapid return of his composure. “Thanks.”
He flopped back onto his pillow and gazed up at me with his arm across his forehead, looking positively irresistible. “Let’s spend every birthday here.”
“Okay.”
“No matter where we are in the world, we’ll come back to this room.” He jabbed his finger against the mattress with a flourish. “To this bed.”
“I’d like that,” I said, making the understatement of the millennium.
He tucked his legs beneath the sheets. “Dunno about you, but I could use a wee nap before dinner.”
“Me too.” I slid under the covers.
Zachary rolled toward me, crooking his arm under his pillow. “If we ever want to work with ghosts together, we’ll have to do this a lot.”
“Stare at each other?”
“Stay apart for hours, even if we’re in the same room.”
I touched the soft, puffy quilt between us. “Beats video chats.”
“Aye. And you know what the best part will be?” He placed his hand near mine, our fingertips an inch apart. “The end of each workday, when we can put the ghosts aside.”
Every tiny muscle inside me quivered. “Uh-huh.”
“And be together. All over each other. In every way.”
I closed my eyes, imagining. “I can’t wait.”
As soon as I said the word, a pang struck deep inside me. I had to go home, finish school, save up money. We would have to wait. But not forever.
When I opened my eyes again, Zachary was already asleep.
I
wondered what he’d meant by “no matter where we are in the world.” Did he mean together or apart?
My thumb stroked “Laura’s” wedding band as I imagined our separate future lives: Zachary living in a house in the suburbs, married to a Scottish lady with red hair and freckles. Little kids playing tag through the kitchen, hiding behind Zachary’s long legs. Him calling the smallest one a “cheeky monkey” and lifting her high over his head, face lighting up at the sound of her giggles.
The thought of him belonging to someone else sawed out a jagged hole in my chest.
What would I be doing? Teaching science at some university in America? Or at a high school? Scampering off to PTA meetings? Blech.
Separate, our lives seemed so mundane. Together, we could travel the world, have adventures, unravel mysteries beyond the Shift, in Egypt, Indonesia, Australia, Peru. Anywhere. Meld our minds and bodies, feed our hunger for answers and each other’s touch. Carve out a shared destiny, not the one others had declared for us.
The future seemed so close. If I could reach out and grab it, I would guard it with my life.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Using my red phone, I called Gina from the car to thank her for the birthday gift. In ten minutes, she told me she missed me approximately eleven hundred times.
Megan was at my house, as planned, so she could talk to me. In addition to a music download gift card, she’d made me two post-sex playlists, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, after the William Blake poetry collections.
Songs of Innocence was romantic and earnest, to be heard after the first time I did it. The raunchier Songs of Experience was to be heard after the first time I loved it.
“Have you played the first one yet?” she asked. Code so that Gina wouldn’t know what we were talking about.
“Last night.” I gave Zachary a secretive glance, which he returned. He knew about the playlists.
“And the second one?”
I sighed. “A few hours ago.”
She let out a yip. “I’m so happy for you. That you loved the second playlist,” she added quickly.
“I loved it a lot. You know, that one was longer than I expected.” I grinned, watching Zachary blush.
“Are we talking time-wise?” Megan said.
I replayed my words, and now I was the one blushing. “Yes. Well—yes.” I covered my burning face while Zachary and Megan laughed at me. “I have to go die of embarrassment now.”
Megan snorted. “You’re being careful, right? With, you know, driving?”
Gina spoke in the background. “I am not stupid. I know what you girls are talking about.”
Kill me now. “Yes, careful. Jeez, wait’ll I tell you how careful we’ve had to be.” I was carrying our new box of condoms in my purse—we didn’t want them out of our presence for a minute.
“Can’t wait,” Megan said. “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.” I looked at Zachary while I spoke. “But not enough to want to come home.”
“Hang on,” she said. “I’m going in the other room.”
Zachary pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant where we were having our special birthday dinner. “I can go get a table if you want to talk to her alone.”
I sent him a grateful smile as he left the car.
“Okay,” Megan said, and I could tell her hand was cupped around the receiver. “You don’t want to come home? Like, ever?”
“I totally see what my mom meant in her journal, about Ireland being magical. Why would anyone want to leave?”
“Things are still better here.”
“Even with the draft?”
“I don’t know. Aura, do what makes you happy, but do it for yourself. Don’t do it for a guy.”
“You know me better than that. Megan, I need to ask you something weird. When you and Mickey did it, did you feel like you were in another place?”
“You mean like fantasizing we were on the beach instead of the back of his car?”
“I don’t mean fantasies. Somewhere totally different.”
She paused. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. But I’m sort of insanely jealous. You were, like, transported or something on just your second time?”
“The first time, too. It was cosmic. I know it sounds all New Agey, but that’s the only word that fits.”
“Aura, that’s almost unbelievable. Except, I know you two, and I know about the power-mingling and the First and Last thing. I felt your connection the first time you met in the courtyard at school.”
“You felt that?”
“Please. I wanted to give you guys bibs for your drool.” She sighed. “Maybe you should stay there. You’ve found where you belong. Most people never get that lucky their whole lives.”
The front door of the restaurant opened, and Zachary stepped out under the awning.
“I gotta go,” I told Megan.
“Yes, you do,” she said. “You absolutely do.”
After dinner and a long night of live pub music, we drove to a secluded area near the coastal village of Clogherhead. When we stepped out of the car, I almost forgot what I’d come for.
“The sky!” I pointed to the crystal black expanse above us, then spied the North Star, Polaris, much higher than I’d ever seen it. “I forgot the stars would be in different places.”
“Did you really?”
“No.” I grinned at Zachary over the roof of the car. “That was one of the things I was looking forward to most. Does that make me horribly geeky?”
“You’re asking the wrong person.”
“Hey, have you ever seen the aurora borealis?”
He gazed at me. “Not with you.”
My skin warmed at his implication: It wouldn’t count until I was with him. Everything felt like that now—meteor showers, comets, even sunrises. They’d all be pale and dull if we were apart.
Zachary put his hands in his pockets as he surveyed our surroundings. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Positive. I can help these people. Besides, it might teach us more about the Shift. After what happened yesterday morning at New-grange, obviously there’s tons of stuff we don’t know.”
He gave his I-hate-that-she’s-right-again sigh. “Just in case? I’ve mapped the route to the nearest hospital.”
“Hospitals can’t help shade sickness. It has to wear off.”
“They could give you fluids.”
“If my entire digestive system turns inside out, you mean?” I put a hand to my stomach, as it rolled with anticipation. “You should probably take cover now.”
“Good luck.” He pulled his sleeve down over his hand and reached for me over the car hood. I stretched forward and met his touch with my gloved hand, long enough to feel his warmth. Our eyes met, and in that moment under the north-shifted stars, I’d never felt more hope for our future.
Then he slipped into the backseat, where I covered him from head to toe with a thick black-and-purple blanket we’d bought at a local store. I double-checked that my change of clothes, nausea medicine, and case of bottled water were within easy reach. Who knew what state I’d be in after the shades had gone through me?
I walked toward the rocky shore, following the rumble of the Irish Sea. As I topped a small, sandy hill, a glimmer of violet appeared near the water.
The ghost of what looked like a young woman strolled along the beach, wearing a modest light-colored sundress that fell past her knees. She walked barefoot, swinging her arms in the carefree manner of a summer day.
As if sensing my presence, the woman turned and looked at me. Smiling, I raised my hand in a polite wave. She returned the gesture shyly, then moved on, her steps lighter than before.
My hope grew. If a ghost could stand to look at me, then I wasn’t red at all. It was a relief to know that eight hours away from Zachary’s touch was enough to return me to normal.
I pulled out the list of shades I’d gotten from the DMP website before I left. I’d been paranoid that
someone would find the list on me, so I’d written them in code and then transcribed them when I got to Ireland.
It was time.
“Mary Pickering!” I yelled it to the sky. I shouted another name, then opened my mouth to call the third.
It was too late.
Like before, my head and stomach pitched as the screeching shades bore down on me, sounding like the sky ripping down the middle. Like before, blackness shrouded my vision as the shades enveloped me, bringing me to my knees.
But then, everything was different.
The dark energy roiled inside me in a maelstrom of misery, but this time, it didn’t depart. It didn’t stream out, leaving me a sick, empty shell.
It stayed.
On my knees, I stared at the inky, white-capped sea, wondering if I’d ever move again, stand again, breathe again.
But I must have kept breathing, though I felt as dead as the shades that dwelled within me now. I was caught in nothingness, lulled by the waves’ uneven rhythm. I could stay here.
“Aura!”
Zachary’s voice shattered the spell like a sledgehammer into a crystal ball. I covered my ears and screamed.
He called again, closer.
“No . . .” The pain punctured my ears, scrambling my brain. Now I had to move, had to get away.
I sprang to my feet and ran. When my boots met sand, I stumbled, but his voice rang out again, panicky. I threw my weight forward, hoping my feet would catch me. If I reached the water, I could put my head under to drown out his voice.
He grabbed me from behind, his fingers like hot pokers. I shrieked and struggled to get away, but he held fast.
“Aura, stop! What are you doing?”
I spiked my boot heel onto the top of Zachary’s foot. He cried out, and his grip loosened enough for me to slip my arms out of my coat.
I kept running. Icy water splashed under my feet.
“I won’t let you go!” He tackled me, dragging me into the cold sea. I punched and kicked, but he held on, wrapping me in my own coat so I couldn’t get my arms up.
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