I dressed in my room, watching the corners for moving shadows and things I would not want to see me unclothed.
Then I thought of Mathias.
And the way his lips felt like music on mine, and I found myself touching my fingertips against my mouth.
The thought of him made my insides churn and ache. My hands began to tremble, and I shoved them into the pockets of my jeans and forced myself to walk down into Spirits and Words and walk back into the world of the living, pushing away the thoughts of the lost and forgotten.
My heart ached from those words, and I had to rub at my chest to ease the sting. Lost and forgotten.
No. I needed to forget it all. I didn’t need a fairy tale. I needed something real. I rushed down the steps and burst into the bookstore, excited for the friendly smiles I would see.
“I’m back,” I called out, smiling so wide it hurt my face. Three months was a long time to be gone. I hoped no one worried about me too much.
Nobody even turned in my direction.
One lone woman leaned against the stacks of mysteries. For some fun, I always placed the mystery books with their spines facing in so it would be a puzzle as to what book to choose. But someone had turned all the books with spines and titles out while I was away. My shoulders slumped a little.
Another customer sat at a table with a full glass of wine, reading something he must have just purchased, a bag of other books sat across from him.
Behind the register was Terry Ann, who always had trouble remembering my name even though she had worked here for as long as I could remember.
“Terry Ann?” I said softly, not wanting to startle her. She was an older woman with a head of pure white hair and lips the shade of a fire engine.
She squinted up at me, the skin around her eyes like wrinkled tissue paper showing no shred of care. “Did you open the new shipment yet? It’s been a few days since I asked you.” She went about shuffling a few paperbacks about on the counter, then added, “And we’re out of Pinot Grigio.” She walked away, mumbling with the pile of books in her hand. “I’ll never understand why that’s always the first to go. It tastes god awful, it does.”
“Uh. Okay,” I said, stunned. Was I mistaken about how long I was gone? I had to be. I laughed at myself and leaned over the counter to face the digital calendar once more toward me.
The stupid thing still said January. Saturday, January 5. Had Terry Ann not noticed I was gone this whole time?
And son of a bitch, I missed Christmas too!
My stomach rumbled and cramped into knots. I couldn’t remember the last time I ate anything, and suddenly I was nauseous with a lump of bile threatening to explode from the back of my throat. I ran back upstairs and ransacked the small refrigerator, but everything inside was spoiled. The date on the milk carton read October 30, and it sat in thick chunks of yellowish white goo. My apples were withered and bruised black, and my bananas were nothing more than dark slime stuck to the top of a shelf.
I held my hand across my nose to block the stench of decay and rot. It was overwhelming, stinging my eyes and building heavier at the base of my esophagus. In the very back of the refrigerator was an unopened bottle of soda, and I grabbed it and slammed the refrigerator door closed. The smell still lingered in my nose.
I twisted off the soda cap and downed the entire bottle, then belched so embarrassingly loud, I was glad no one was there to witness it. When I looked down at the bottle, it read I was sharing a Coke with Hemlock.
I dropped it immediately and ran for my coat.
I was going to find my friends. Megan and Amy. But first I needed to find Eric. He would have missed me after three months.
Outside the bookstore, the world seemed too bright—everything seemed too alive—too crisp and real and vast. I could smell everything as I walked through the streets, the rich, bitter scent of coffee and sugared dough from the bakery across the avenue to the tangy basil and garlic sauce from the pizzeria on the corner. Everywhere I passed, trails of scents followed me—soapy shampoos from the hair salon and fragrant roses just about to start wilting in the flower shop—the real world seemed too lucid and overpowering, almost sickening. Everything had an eye-opening transience to it that was both dizzying and terrifying. It was as though I was looking at the world with new eyes—a world I could no longer wrap my head around.
Crossing a street, my gaze drifted to an old man, sitting on a chair in the front porch of his house. As soon as I noticed him, my heart leapt in alarm. The man’s feet were covered ankle deep in snow, and he wore an old military uniform I had only seen in movies. His head was bowed, and a long rifle rested on his knees. He looked too old to be wearing a uniform, too old to be sitting outside in the ice and snow. And it sounded like he was humming a lullaby.
I looked up and over the house. It was Judith Hanover’s house. She would come to the bookstore every night after her dinner and have a sherry and read a book. If my memory served me right, she was somewhere in her nineties and lived alone, never having children or remarrying. She was a widow for decades, her husband killed in the Vietnam War.
My mind felt like it was slipping, splitting in two.
Maybe I was just having a panic attack.
A freaking major one.
The old man’s head lifted, and a pair of dead pale eyes stared back at me. My heart slammed wildly, and I struggled to catch my breath. Chills ran through my body, and I wanted to look away and run.
“Can you see me, young lady?” his voice called as he pulled himself off the chair.
I found myself shaking my head. I was too terrified to speak. His rifle was clasped tightly in his hand, and the only thought I had was if it still would fire at me.
“Miss, could you…could you just go inside and tell my wife I’m waiting right outside for her?”
Holy shit.
What was happening to me? Did I come back from Ravenswood changed? Did I have the ability to see the rips in our world and peek through the cracks into the world of the dead?
I blinked, and the man was gone—the chair covered with the thinnest dusting of snow as if someone had been sitting there through the storm.
I bolted down the block, huffing and trudging over the unshoveled sidewalks until I reached Eric’s parents' house and almost killed myself tumbling down the stairs to the entryway of his basement apartment.
I banged on the door like a madwoman.
His car was out front, and it was a Saturday, so I knew he was home. I banged harder and looked over my shoulder, feeling a creepy sensation that the old dead soldier was standing behind me. The steps above me were empty, but I felt it, that icy chill of the dead pressing against my back. As soon as Eric’s door opened I shoved through, not even saying hello.
“Rainey?” His voice cracked as he said my name.
I pushed the door closed behind me and leaned my back against it, smiling up at him. I must have looked insane.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, chuckling awkwardly. His hair was a crumpled mess, and he was only sporting a pair of boxers. I must have woken him up. It was a sight for sore eyes. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and ask him if we could start fresh, just throw away all the bad feelings and long, lonely nights of his sports obsessions. I would go with him to every game. I’d root for all his favorite teams. Hell, I’d even buy myself a few sexy cheerleading outfits and do a cheer routine during halftimes and commercials just for him.
He actually looked really handsome—confused but handsome. A flash of blue eyes and pale cool skin popped into my head, and I cursed under my breath and lunged at the breathing boy in front of me, hugging him hard.
Eric staggered back and gave a little surprised yelp, but I didn’t care. I just closed my eyes tight and savored the warmth of a real life embrace.
It was only when he gently pushed me back and I opened my eyes that I noticed Amy standing behind him, wearing a small T-shirt that didn’t quite make it down past her ass and her bed-head more ruffl
ed and wild than his.
Chapter 25
“Amy?” I moved myself out of Eric’s arms, my eyes darting between Amy’s and Eric’s shamed-filled ones. “What the fuck? Seriously?”
Eric grabbed my hands, which I was apparently waving in the air without even realizing. “Look, Raine—”
“Ugh. Don’t you dare call me that!” I snapped. Nobody gets to call me that, nobody but…just nobody.
“Let us just get dressed, and we can talk, okay?” he said, gently pushing me by the shoulders to sit on his couch. I cringed as my body landed on the hard cushions. Did they have sex on this couch like we did? I jumped up immediately, feeling sick.
“No, thanks,” I said softly. “There’s nothing to talk about.” I paused, humiliation washing over me.
Amy cursed under her breath and walked back into the bedroom and closed the door. What the hell did she have to be angry at—getting caught, or me coming back?
Eric sighed and moved closer to me. “Rainey, you were gone for so long, I just…” He sat down on the arm of the couch I refused to sit on and thought for a moment. “And you didn’t call me when you landed.” Of course he was blaming me. Everything was always my fault.
“Did you call me?” I asked. In my head I heard Mathias’s words, Always remember you are enough, the exact right amount of perfect, always, especially to me.
“No, I just—”
A cool breeze blew against the nape of my neck, making the little hairs there tingle and stand on end. “No, you just started fucking the next friend.”
“It wasn’t like that. You know how much you mean to me.” He stood up and placed his hand on my shoulder; it was heavy and clammy and uncomfortable.
“How much do I mean to you?” I had never asked him before. I was always too hurt by the way he brushed me off for everything and everyone else. My feelings never seemed to matter to him, so I never told him them.
He smiled his familiar smile that three months ago I found so alluring, but now I realized how fake it was, a mask of lies and deceit. “You look fantastic, by the way,” he said, changing the subject. His eyes darted quickly to his bedroom door, as if he was checking to see if it was still closed, and he leaned in and kissed me.
For a brief minute, I wanted him to. I wanted him to erase a dead man’s lips that felt tattooed to my skin. I wanted to be me again—little Miss Antisocial Book Nerd who never left her bookshop—who read way too many romance novels and psychological thrillers so I could feel things.
But I couldn’t kiss Eric back. My lips were no longer his to kiss, and it felt wrong and shameful if I did. I tightened my mouth and pushed him off me. For the first time in all the years I crushed on Eric, I didn’t want him to touch me. I stepped back, disgusted. I was worth more than being someone’s second choice. I wanted to be the exact amount of perfect for someone, and I wasn’t going to accept any less.
I cleared my throat and tucked a wild strand of hair behind my ear. I didn’t want to go back outside to face whatever dead people I was all of a sudden privy to seeing, but I didn’t want to stand in front of Eric either and give him the power to hurt me anymore. I walked toward the door, reached out for the knob and hesitated only a moment.
“Did it happen after I left or before?” I asked him over my shoulder.
“I swear it was after,” he said. But I couldn’t trust his words, and I realized I never fully did. The whole time I was with him, I was just waiting for something like this to happen. Jesus, every single one of my relationships was like this.
I straightened my back and held my chin up. This was nothing. Eric and Amy were nothing compared to everything I had been through and seen over the last three months. He wasn’t worth my time, but I was worth standing up for myself.
“You know, Eric, you lost me. And it wasn’t because I was this difficult person to be with or I wasn’t enough for you. It was because of your absence and all the awesome things I am that you’ll never know because you chose to ignore me.”
“That’s not true,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“Yes, it is.” My voice was hard and curt. I wanted to make a point that had been boiling inside me for a long time. “You know what the shittiest part was? Even when you were right next to me, I thought you were so out of my league. You made me feel like I was never important enough to put your phone down for, never good enough to invite to one of your cherished sports games. I wasn’t even important enough to see on my birthday. When we dated, all I thought about was how I could get your attention, and you know what? Your attention, and just you…you’re not worthy of me.” I opened the door, and a blast of wintry air exhaled over me, whipping my hair around.
“Damn, what happened to you in Louisiana?” he taunted.
I laughed. “Looks like Amy went through my shit and took out my trash for me.” I closed the door right after, not saying another word. He wasn’t worth it; neither of them were. My grandmother had been murdered in cold blood, and I went all alone to follow the clues to who killed her while they hooked up. I didn’t need those kinds of caring friends. They could have each other.
I ended up walking the cold streets for hours, watching people live their lives and the pale apparitions of the others I could now see glide past me, hovering over the ones they loved. In the coffee shop, I discovered a new mom sitting with a crying infant. She was frazzled and sleep-deprived and beginning to quietly sob herself, until the soft translucent form of an older women appeared bending over her shoulder, cooing and calming the child down.
My eyes welled with tears, and warmth spread across my chest. I stared in awe at what I was witnessing. The new mother glanced up at me, the look of sheer relief plastered all over her face.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “This is our first time out. I just needed a coffee. She was up fussing all night. But look,” she smiled, “she’s fine now.”
“Don’t apologize,” I whispered back. “Enjoy your coffee for a while, no one here minds.” The shadowy figure smiled at me and spent the next twenty minutes singing the most beautiful lullaby I ever heard so the mom could relax for a few moments.
As I passed the park, a family of four was taking part in a snowball fight. Near the youngest child, the outline of another older child helped him pack the snow into perfect sized spheres.
Down the block, a teenager shoveled a sidewalk as the grayish form of someone who might have been his father stood behind him wearing a proud smile and guiding him to all the spots he missed.
Something did happen to me in Ravenswood. It was somehow a part of me. Or maybe I was a part of Ravenswood. I didn’t know what was what, but I wasn’t the same; I did come back different.
Back in the bookstore, I browsed through the religion and spirituality section, thumbing through all the occult, paranormal, and parapsychology books I could find. I poured myself a glass of Merlot, and no one bothered me; only Terry Ann, who called me Alice all night, the name of her daughter who died over twenty years before.
I read books about mediums and electromagnetic fields and ancient religions that worshiped their dead, but nothing mentioned Ravenswood or a king who collected souls.
After closing time, Terry-Ann shut the lights on me and locked the gates down over the front doors, not having the slightest clue I was still inside, deep in the back, hunched down in the corner, reading through a stack of books. I sighed out loud to myself and climbed to my feet. Tripping over the pile of hardcovers, I stumbled my way in the dark to the back light switch and flipped it on.
When I turned around, a little shadow girl was staring back at me. I flinched back and screamed, heart slamming fast, almost leaping out of my mouth.
“Where’s Adelaide?” she asked, her voice an echo of long ago.
I pressed myself close to the farthest wall, my eyes so wide they ached. There was no way I would ever get used to this. “She’s…uh, she’s not here anymore. She… um, she died.”
The apparition thought for a moment, her litt
le pigtails bouncing without wind. “May I still read the books?”
“Addy.” My voice cracked harshly, and I had to swallow a large knot to clear it. “Adelaide let you read books here?”
The little girl nodded. “And kept us safe.”
“Kept you safe?” I asked, stepping closer and crouching down to her level.
“Yes, silly. Like she kept you safe.”
I blinked and stood back up fast, taking a long, deep breath. “What’s your name?” I asked, chills crawling up my spine.
“Ceceila.”
“I’m Rainey,” I whispered back.
She nodded. “I know.”
“Ceceila, who did Addy keep you safe from?”
“The same person she kept you safe from. We can’t visit our families if he traps us.” Suddenly, her eyes widened and she looked toward the front of the store. “I have to go now,” she said, cupping her mouth with her hand. “Will you come back to Ravenswood and help us? It misses you.”
Before I could answer her, she faded quickly, leaving nothing but a soft sparkling of dust on the rug.
I stared at the empty spot, dumbfounded.
“I need sleep, that’s all. Too much paranormal books, and not enough sleep,” I said to the empty room. I rushed back to the occult section and scooped up my glass of wine. I headed for my apartment door, grabbing another bottle of Merlot from the bar along the way. Stomping up the steps, I reached the top and glanced at one of the storage room doors just as a dark shadow spread across the floor and slipped underneath the closed door.
“This is my life now?” I carefully put down the bottle but still held on to the stem of my wineglass and quietly tiptoed over and opened the storage room door. I flicked the light switch up fast. There were no shadows, nothing strange, just boxes piled on top of boxes of books.
I shut the door and grabbed up my bottle of wine, my hands trembling with fear.
Locking myself in the apartment, I put on every light. There was no one to keep anyone safe now. Hemlock knew where I was. He put the soda with his name on it in my refrigerator. It was only a matter of time before I ended up like Addy or my mother. And right now I think he’s toying with me. Or maybe the kid was right, maybe I could keep them safe, maybe Ravenswood did miss me.
Ravenswood (Ravenswood Series Book 1) Page 21