by Eden Maguire
I pulled away from him, but he was too strong. Instead of letting me break free, he stood up and dragged me after him, towards the small booth at the side of the stage which housed the lighting board and the sound system. He leaned on the glass door and we half fell inside. The door swung shut after us.
‘We need to go back,’ I gasped. ‘The cops, the paramedics …’
‘No. They’re saying for us to stay here, not to trust you, you’re the same as Summer Madison.’
I groaned from the pit of my stomach.
‘Yeah,’ he smiled. ‘To look at Summer you’d say she was pretty near perfect. And guys were always falling in love with her, like that loser hanging at the end of the rope, for example.’
‘But you’re not JakB,’ I argued hopelessly. ‘He was totally out of control.’
‘Right. His trouble was, he didn’t apply logic.’
‘I never saw anyone so desperate.’
‘To get the backstage pass. I know. I was never like that with Summer – I always knew where my boundaries lay. When she told me to back off, I could do it, no problem. In fact, it’s them I have to thank – they didn’t even let me get close to sharing with her how I felt because they knew how she’d laugh in my face. They just said for me to forget her, or deal with her so she couldn’t get to me any more.’
‘Summer never knew how you felt?’
Ezra pushed me back against the lighting board. He stood with his back to the door, not seeing the figure who had walked down through the auditorium and slowly up the steps on to the stage.
‘What was the point? Was I going to join a line of a dozen other guys in school and a thousand mindless fans? They said forget Summer or deal with her.’
I recognized the figure. It was Parker, come looking for us so I could talk to the cops. Walk this way! I pleaded silently. It’s confession time. Listen to what your buddy has to say!
‘How?’ I asked Ezra. ‘How did you deal with the Summer problem?’
His eyes flashed open. ‘It’s OK – I won’t share with her,’ he promised his voices. ‘I know – I already said too much.’
Parker chose the wrong direction. He walked off into the wings at the far side of the stage. I tried to draw breath.
‘No problem,’ Ezra muttered as if he was under fresh pressure. He sounded angry with his voices, or with me. ‘I know what I’m doing.’
‘OK, no more questions,’ I gasped as he moved in on me. I looked for a weapon in his hand – a gun or a knife.
‘Think it through with me, Darina. Is there any clear reason why you should walk out of here?’
‘Yes. You want me to love you? Give me time, Ezra.’
‘You mean, don’t give up on you? So where do I come in line? Is it after Logan Lavelle, after Phoenix Rohr? Are there any guys who are not dead that I should be aware of?’
‘No one,’ I murmured. He was standing so near I could feel the heat of his body through the damp shirt.
He raised his left hand to his birthmark. ‘You made a big mistake,’ he said coolly. ‘You said you liked me better without my glasses. So I knew you were lying, right from the start of this conversation.’
I gave up the pretence, pushed him backwards with both hands. ‘And I knew about what you did to Logan!’ I cried. ‘And now Summer. I know it all!’
Knocking him off balance, I reached the glass door before he hooked his arm around my neck and dragged me back, half choking me.
He kept up the pressure against my throat with the crook of his arm. I struggled, knowing that he planned to kill me with his bare hands – no gun, no high ledge to push me from. He put pressure on my throat, bending me backwards and sticking his knee in the small of my back until it felt as though he would snap my spine. My eyes rolled upwards and I could see his thin, vicious upside-down face.
I kicked. I did fight back.
And then there was a burst of white light inside the booth.
One second it was me fighting Ezra alone, the next Phoenix appeared, radiating light.
He filled the room. He blinded us with his beauty and his strength. Phoenix as I’d first seen him when he returned to the barn – stripped to the waist, broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, pale as death.
Ezra stared at him, totally shocked. This time his voices didn’t help him compute what was taking place.
Phoenix reached out and took hold of a thick cable leading to the lighting board. He wrenched it free like he was snapping sewing thread and held the raw end above his head.
Ezra saw the arc of yellow sparks crackle from the wire, knew the current should have felled Phoenix on the spot. He let go of me and got ready to burst out of the booth. I dropped to the floor.
Phoenix swung the heavy cable around his head like a lasso. It sparked and fizzed when he threw it, wrapped itself around Ezra’s neck, connected with the wet shirt and let the volts shoot through him.
Ezra’s head jerked back. His hand shot up to wrench himself free of the cable, but the muscles in his arm locked, the current gripped him and his heart juddered to a halt.
Phoenix turned towards me before his knees buckled and he dropped to the floor beside Ezra. He gave me the ghost of a smile.
I bent over him, begging him to open his eyes.
He lay with his head turned towards me. His light was fading, his power was draining away.
I’d seen this before – the Beautiful Dead flee from lightning storms, they can’t be near electrical current of any kind. If it happens, they fade and dissolve.
They never come back.
‘Why did you do that?’ I sobbed, raising his head clear of the floor and stroking the hair back from his forehead. I kissed the smooth, pale skin, willing him to stay with me.
Beside us, Ezra sprawled face up, one arm locked crossways across his chest, the live wire still sparking through his body.
Phoenix had risked everything, and so did Hunter and Dean.
They came to us in the death booth, materializing in that suffocating space. Their light blazed as Phoenix faded.
Hunter bent over and lifted Phoenix. He stood tall, bearing his weight without effort. I saw he was strong where Phoenix was weak.
I took Dean’s hand. He made me tear my gaze away from Phoenix and fold myself into his arms, ready for the journey.
I was hurting again and the wings were beating, the light blazing all around. I had my arms locked tight around Dean’s neck.
Donna held open the barn door to let us in.
Outside in the still, silent yard, a late-afternoon sun cast long shadows.
‘Where’s Phoenix?’ Donna asked, her eyes shaded with dread.
‘With Hunter.’ It was time for Dean to unlock my arms and sit me down on the worn and splintered steps. He surveyed the gloomy interior of the barn. ‘What about Summer?’
‘Upstairs, sitting in the last rays of the sun.’
I closed my eyes and held my breath, prayed that Hunter’s light would soon lift the gloom and that Phoenix would open his eyes and grow strong again.
An age passed. The door opened and Hunter walked in. Alone.
A shock went through my heart. It stopped. I wanted it never to start again.
Hunter’s frame was outlined against the daylight, his features lost in shadow.
As I tried to stand and run towards him, he raised his hand. ‘There’s hardly any time – only minutes,’ he warned.
‘What happened to Phoenix? I need to know.’
Hunter looked beyond me, up towards the top of the steps and my heart flooded with joy as I saw my Beautiful Dead saviour with his arm around Summer. She leaned against him. He was strong again.
‘Thank you,’ I breathed into the dark, dust-laden space.
Hunter lowered his head in acknowledgement.
Phoenix led Summer down the steps. ‘Hunter and I came past your house,’ he was telling her, willing her to gather her wandering thoughts. ‘Your dad was in the garden. Your mom was in her studio.’
&n
bsp; ‘Painting?’ Summer whispered. She stumbled on the bottom step and would have sunk to the ground if Phoenix hadn’t supported her.
‘And playing a soundtrack.’
‘Which one?’
‘“Time to Go” – the song you said Darina should give her.’
Summer raised her head to look at me. She held out her hand and I took it. ‘And it is,’ she murmured. ‘Time for me to go.’
We walked her slowly out of the barn, Phoenix and I, past the rusting truck in the yard, past the weed-strewn corral, out towards a meadow speckled with blue flowers.
‘Phoenix told me about Ezra,’ she sighed, and she squeezed my fingers.
I squeezed back. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Sad,’ she breathed. ‘And glad too. Thank you, Darina.’
Her face was so fine and delicate as she left us, walking alone across the meadow, glancing over her shoulder towards the barn. A breeze blew strands of golden hair across her cheeks. She smiled and turned towards the mountains.
There was a wilderness beyond, where eagles soared and snow stayed on the peaks until summer, where footsteps didn’t tread. Summer walked barefoot, looking straight ahead, into the shimmering haze.
Phoenix and I stood hand in hand, at peace. He turned to me and studied my face, soaking up what he saw. ‘I have to make this last,’ he whispered.
‘For how long?’ I wanted to know.
‘Until.’
‘Until it’s your turn.’ I already knew the answer. Phoenix and the Beautiful Dead would leave now and go back to limbo. The barn and the house would sink into silence, I would miss him so much it would half kill me.
Then, when Hunter was ready, they would return.
‘Stay safe,’ Phoenix murmured as he brushed my cheek with the side of his thumb.
I nodded, sighed and let go of his cold hand.
In a week or two, maybe a month, he would come back to me one last time.
Read on for a sneak peak of Book 4: Phoenix
Maybe none of it is true.
I reach the end and I wimp out – ‘I woke up and it was all a dream!’
Imagine that; I made up the Beautiful Dead, the whole thing. Jonas, Arizona, Summer and Phoenix out at Foxton Ridge. I did it because I wanted them back in my life so bad.
But there really is no such being as Hunter the overlord, no zombies stepping out of limbo back to the far side – nothing except me and my crazy, grief-fuelled brain.
I play Summer Madison’s song as I drive a winding road, late spring aspens rising silver and green to either side. ‘I love you so, But it was time to go. You spoke my name, I never came, ’Cos it was time for me to go.’
He’s dead, I tell myself. Beautiful Phoenix, every day you break my heart. Your eyes stare into mine, but not really. You hold my hand and it’s cold as death. ‘You spoke my name, I never came, ’Cos it was time for me to go.’
I drive into the mountains. The roof is down, I feel the wind in my hair.
Mid-May and the aspen leaves shake and shimmer in the breeze. Hot sun bakes my face and the sandy soil. The dirt track crunches under my tyres. I hit a sudden hollow, the Summer CD jumps and sticks – ‘t-t-time for m-me to go …’ I press the OFF button. Where am I heading? Who do I hope to see? Half a mile from Foxton Ridge I brake suddenly. The engine stalls.
I’m half a mile from Angel Rock and the steep dip into the hidden valley, where the spring meadow surrounds the empty barn and the old ranch house. Scarlet poppies sing and zing there in the fresh green grass, a wave of wind rolls through and sighs up the dust in the deserted yard.
In the silence after the engine cuts out I’m unable to act. I sit trapped by invisible threads of memory and hope.
We never needed to talk, Phoenix and me. I would look into those grey-blue eyes and know – just know – what he was thinking. I remember the way he would push his dark hair clear of his forehead, once, twice, three times, without knowing he was doing it. And I would lift my hand to do it for him, then he would smile. That smile – raised higher on the right side, uneven, quirky. The love light in his eyes. Inside my silver memory cocoon I sit.
Should I reach out and turn on the engine? I see myself coming to the end of the track, getting out of the car, walking into the shade of the rusting water tower and pausing to gaze down at the barn.
The barn will cast a long shadow across the yard. The door will hang open. Nailed above the door will be the moose antlers. Beside it and in the old corral beyond, pure blue columbines will stand out amongst straggly thorn bushes. No footsteps will disturb decades of untrodden dirt, no movement, no sound.
I know – I’ve done this many times.
Once, twice, three times I walk down to the barn and peer inside. ‘Be here!’ I breathe.
My heart batters my rib-cage.
Four, five, six times I make out spiky farm tools stacked in a corner, horse halters hanging like nooses, an avalanche of decaying straw.
Seven, eight times I turn away. Maybe in the ranch house? ‘Be here!’ I cross the yard and step up on to the porch. The old boards creak, I press my face to the window pane. ‘Be here!’
Nine, ten times the stove is there, the table and the rocking-chair, the plates on the rack. And undisturbed dust. I don’t even try the door – I know it’s bolted.
Twenty times I’ve gone through this ritual of hope.
Now – today – the rocking-chair will rock, today the plates will be taken down from the rack, a fire will heat the stove. Someone will come down the stairs and into the tiny kitchen – stern, serious Hunter who built this place a hundred years ago and who died here, will throw another log on the fire, he will turn to speak to someone in the shadows. A tall figure will step out. I know every inch of this person – the broad shoulders, the thick, dark hair, high forehead and lop-sided smile. Today I will whisper his name.