by Ramona Wray
We stared at one another for a long moment, her expression changing slowly, slackened by something that could’ve been incredulity. Like I’d just grown another three inches in her eyes. “Of course you do, honey. Of course you do,” she said, promptly standing up and walking out of the room.
My guess was that she went straight to the ladies’ room for a good cry. When your only daughter openly admits to loving a boy for the first time, shedding a few tears is a given for any mom, I figured. And again my chest strained to burst open with tears. Mom had never been especially strong, and what was coming would hit her the hardest.
She didn’t hurry back, which gave me time to get reacquainted with the couch where Lucian had deposited my passed-out self earlier that morning. And just like before, I found that once you moved past the dizziness inflicted by the awful floral pattern, the couch was actually comfy. Not surprisingly, given all the physical and emotional burnout, soon I was a goner. Probably snoring like an army of sinus-challenged senior citizens, too, the way Mom claimed I did when I went to bed very tired.
Proving again how all the forces of the Universe had banded together against me, I slept, but didn’t rest one bit. My would-be power nap was a tangle of images and electrifying, guilty sensations. I dreamed of baby-blue skies filled with hovering musical notes. Of angry storm clouds spiraling and twinkling lavender and gold. Of moonbeams playing in dark strands of hair. Of golden skin, plump lips, and kisses that left me breathless and aching for more. I dreamed of him. My own beloved killer.
And then, of her. My own beloved sister.
I was in a high-ceiling, white room with no windows. It should’ve been dark, yet I was surrounded by a porous white light that felt muggy against my skin. A claw-foot bathtub, empty and out of place, was resting on the bare floor, a few feet away. A single red rose, the vibrant color in striking contrast to the pristine decor, only brushed my bare feet. With one hand, I gathered my floaty white skirts and kneeled, so I could pick it up. The stem was long and smooth, with no thorns or leaves sprouting from it, so I was startled when, all of a sudden, a prickle stabbed my finger. Straightening up, I watched the single droplet of blood falling to the marble floor, marveling at how it seemed to swell and slash through the strange, spongy light, creating a vacuum as it dropped.
“It’s the blood,” I heard J’s voice say. “Where it all starts and where it ends.”
She was in the bathtub, now filled murky water, and she was clothed in one of those old-fashioned nightgowns women used to wear when they took a bath, back in the day. Her face, as white as the room, was streaked with runny black mascara.
“J?” I tried to move, but my body seemed stubbornly locked in place.
She wasn’t looking at me, but straight ahead at nothing and, as I watched, the water in the bathtub began to thicken and change color. The murkiness became rust and the rust grew richer and redder until she was floating in ... blood.
“Holy...!” I gasped. “J, what’s happening? What is this?”
The horrible image in front of me sucked all the air from my lungs and I panicked, choking and straining to regain control over my body. Still I couldn’t move an inch.
In the blink of an eye, she stood before me. It was as though reality had been fractured for a second, like the film of what was going on had been clumsily cut and then spliced together again, but in the wrong place. Static buzzed in my ears and the white around us turned to gray.
She looked down, her nightgown dripping water, her black hair hanging in wet tangles around her face, which was once more smeared with black mascara. The blood was gone.
“J?”
Without looking up, she folded my hand into her own, which was ice-cold, and then the room around us disappeared and we were somewhere else. I recognized the stream; it was where we sometimes went if the weather was nice, when we were down, or tired, or simply bored. In the real world, we both loved this secluded patch of forest.
I noticed that our clothes were also different. Normal, or, in J’s case, as normal as they would ever be. I knew the one-shoulder Grecian dress with flimsy layers of chiffon, which she kept gathered in her lap now, as her feet dangled in the stream.
“Sorry for the Ring theatricals,” she laughed. “Sometimes it’s hard to control the setting, you know?”
“No, I don’t know!” I argued, grabbing her wrist and shaking forcefully. “What’s going on?”
Her smile died and she turned away.
“J?” I pressed.
“Hey, check this out.”
Suddenly, we were on the grass, with a spread of various food items between us.
“Isn’t it cool?” she asked, biting into a Twinkie.
But I found it hard to share her glee.
“Where are we, J? How are you…? Is it you that’s doing this?”
“Duh!” She laughed again, snapping her fingers. The canopy of trees above us grew thicker, so no rays of sun penetrated it anymore. The shadow felt soft and restful.
“I like it here,” she declared.
The food disappeared and we were standing now, nose to nose, staring at each other.
“What do you mean, you like it here? Here, where?”
She shrugged. “His domain, his mind; I’m not sure which.”
“His … who, you mean, Ryder’s?”
A spooky gust of wind howled through the trees and she snatched my hands, pulling me closer.
“He’s not who you think he is!” she hissed, her eyes burning fiercely.
“I know —”
“No!” she interrupted, squeezing my fingers so hard I winced. “You mustn’t do it! You mustn’t get me out.”
“Mustn’t?” I repeated, confused. “Listen, J, it’s alright, I know —”
“Katherine,” she cut me off softly.
One glimpse of the old-fashioned clothes we were suddenly wearing and my heart jumped, because I realized she wasn’t J anymore. I was standing in front of my sister.
“Elizabeth,” I whispered.
Tears trickled down her face and she stared back, into my eyes, with a sadness that felt like the oldest thing I’d ever come near.
“Forgive me, sister,” she sobbed. “I did not know … I did not mean —”
“Forgive you?” I gasped, pulling her into my arms. Her body jerked as she wept. “There’s nothing to forgive, Elizabeth. You have to forgive me. I am the one who —”
“Shh!” She stopped me. “What you did was human, something that has happened and will happen, time and time again. But what I did was unpardonable! An aberration, the evilest of deeds. I deserve my fate fully.”
“No.” I pulled back. “I’m going to take you out of here. I’m going to wake you up.”
She shook her head. “Then he will win again.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll die either way. The chill … is already here.”
My words hit her like a blow and she staggered backward, unsure on her feet. For a few long moments neither of us said a thing while the wind picked up, roaring through the bending trees like a beast, stripping away leaves and branches. Our long, burdensome dresses billowed and flapped around us like flags signaling surrender.
“So be it, then,” my sister cried over the tempest heaving around us. “But, this time, you shall be ready for him. Come! There isn’t much time.”
She took my hands again, gripping hard, her eyes darting around the stormy forest like those of a haunted animal. Like prey. Afraid.
“What’s going on?”
“I haven’t much left, but what I have I give to you, freely and with all my heart.”
Her head went up and she cried out, “Blood of my blood, hear me! Find her. Open her mind!”
A grayish-white light covered her like a new layer of skin, pulsing and humming as if it were alive. Next, as our eyes locked again, I watched the light moving, pouring into me, and felt it charging me with liquid fire, and knowledge, and secrets I had no hope of unraveling. Power. Magic, of what
it had been, and was, and what might come to be again, it all poured and flowed inside me.
Her cheek touched mine briefly. “Forgive me, sister,” she whispered.
“Bu —” I wanted to protest, but by the time I pulled back, Elizabeth was gone and I was staring again at my own, one-hundred-percent twenty-firstcentury best friend.
J grinned her impish grin and winked at me.
“We are so kicking his butt now!” she exclaimed, high-fiving me.
The smacking sound woke me up. When my eyes opened, the dream hovered on the outskirts of my consciousness for a split-second and then it was gone. I couldn’t remember any of it.
While I wrestled the feeling of having lost something very important, I failed to notice the the sun going down. Eventually, though, it hit me: it was twilight, and that meant … A hole gaped in my stomach.
“Hi, there, sleepyhead.”
A big part of me still buzzed with a strange mix of emotions stirred by the dream I could no longer recall. Hearing Lucian’s voice hit me like a cold shower; every muscle in my body tensed, unhappy with the intrusion. He sat across the room, on the other side of J’s bed, his long legs tossed in a careless pose in front of his chair.
I stretched to chase away the stiffness in my body, yawning none too discreetly. “Been there long?”
“I came to check on J. Your mom had some stuff to do at the shop and I didn’t want to leave you alone.”
He shrugged, and the gesture rendered him vulnerable somehow; it was as if he tried to lessen the meaning of his own words, but couldn’t quite get it right. So the words dangled there, suspended between us, the way he was suspended outside time. He cared, which, to me, was mystifying. What was I supposed to do with this knowledge?
“Er … thanks,” I said uneasily.
Growing aware of my dress showing more leg than I was comfortable with, I rearranged myself into a less casual position. I smoothed the folds of my skirt, fumbling with the fabric longer than necessary. The silence was ohso-awkward.
“Katherine, I’m sorry,” he said softly.
“For what?”
“Because I didn’t find you earlier. For not getting here sooner. The last thing I ever wanted was for him to get this close to you.”
I shrugged as casually as I could. “Water under the bridge.”
He sighed. “If only —”
Luckily, whatever he wanted to add got canceled by Mom’s arrival.
“Oh, good, you’re up,” she pronounced, as soon as she came through the door. “It’s time,” she went on, nodding toward the windows, where, in the meantime, the sun had slipped fully below the horizon.
I rose, wishing that my knees wouldn’t shake so hard.
“Yes, it is.”
“I went by J’s place on my way back,” she reported while I grabbed my jacket, chewing on my lip so hard it almost bled. “But Delilah still wasn’t there. I left a note in the door, but I’m not holding my breath. I don’t think she’ll be back until tomorrow night, when she needs to work.”
With a stiff nod, I scrutinized her face with all the purpose of wanting to forever burn every single line into my memory. Her mouth froze in a silent O.
“Honey, what’s wrong? That look in your eye …”
Bracing myself against the inevitable rush of pain, I pulled her in a hug. Almost crushing her ribs in the process was just one of the perks. “I love you, Mom. You’re the best.”
After a few seconds, while the surprise beat her reaction speed, she forced me away. Gently, but without offering any room for protest.
“Enough, Lillian Marie,” she reproached in her sternest of voices. “I know how painful the contact is for you,” she added, softer, eyes sweeping my face with concern. But it was doubtful my expression betrayed anything; my best poker-face was firmly plastered in place.
“Don’t be nervous, honey,” she said, now in her usual trilling tone. “You’ll do fine. The candles will work, they always do. By tomorrow night you and J will be ready to take Dad up on his offer and we’ll go camping. You’ll see.”
I nodded as if agreeing with her, and even though it was hard to, I smiled. With one last look at her and then at J’s pale face, I turned around, ready to leave, when I noticed Lucian waiting by the door. He didn’t tower anymore, which was a ridiculous thing to think, considering that he couldn’t have shrunk in the last few hours. He was the same athletic, tall guy, but something inside him seemed broken. If possible, he struck me as ... fragile.
The change gave me the urge to bash my head into the wall before me. On the one hand, there was guilt at not feeling anything in return for him. On the other, there was even more guilt at considering it. Wasn’t I being unfaithful to Ryder by experiencing regret at not having feelings for someone else? And no, I didn’t owe Ryder anything, but my mentally challenged heart didn’t care about that.
“I’m coming with you,” he announced, blue eyes glittering sharper than usual, all stubbornness.
No-freaking-way, I wanted to shout, but settled for muttering quietly, “I work alone, Lucian. Having someone around messes with my focus.”
If I’d had a scintilla of luck, he would’ve given up then. Except, luck? Me? Huh! “Then I’ll take you home, at least.”
Argh! “I have my car.”
His lips pressed together tightly, but not nearly tight enough to stop the frustrated groan that squeezed past them. “I need to talk to you,” he insisted.
Behind me, I sensed Mom fidgeting, watching the scene without even pretending not to. It was only a few hours since I’d declared that Ryder was my boyfriend, and Lucian’s behavior now painted me a liar. It was my turn to groan; I didn’t want Mom to suspect me of having lied to her. Not wanting to prolong the moment, I exhaled a cloud of annoyance and gave in.
“Okay, then. Let’s go.”
At last, with that, I left my best friend’s room.
And went to meet my death.
Chapter: Twenty-Six
Until we were out of Rosemound Clinic, neither of us said a word. In what looked like a pattern by now, the silence between us was deafening. It was dense, like blocks of concrete raining down on us.
Finally, just as we stepped into the parking lot, he paused, planting himself in front of me, leaving me no other choice but to follow. Around us, the shadows of dusk were growing thicker and the lights normally illuminating the lot hadn’t been switched on yet. But even in the dim light I could see his blue eyes glowing, turning charcoal, seething. He was angry. Oh, good, just what I needed.
“What?” I asked, dropping my gaze because his pulsed with too much feeling. Holding it was too intimate.
“I’m not ready,” he answered in a tight voice.
“Ready for what?”
“To do this again. Lose you. I can’t … it’s … I need more time to …”
Tears bubbled under the fierce tone. I looked at his face then, at those chiseled features reminding me of Greek statues and Olympian gods. Every inch of him was perfectly arched and full and lean. His eyes ... a color should’ve been named after his eyes, maybe in French: le bleu de Lucien. He was devastatingly beautiful.
How could anyone look at him and not feel the smallest of sparks? I shook my head, resigned. Freak girl, what can you do; I had to be the one immune to his charms. Yeah, he was hot. So what?
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled awkwardly. Absentmindedly picking at my fingernails, I almost missed his hand closing in and only avoided it by a whisker. “How can you give me the cold shoulder? Even now?”
He was hurt, but even more so, his expression spilled over with disbelief. Like he couldn’t quite understand how a girl, any girl, could possibly not want him. I stifled a snort. It figured; someone like him, looking the way he did … his ego was probably as big as Asia.
But I answered evenly, resolved on spending my energy on better, more important things. “I’m not giving you the cold shoulder. I just don’t want you to touch me, is all.”
Bad enough that the blue tendrils, alert as always, pulled at me with the leverage of an eighteen-wheeler. It was so draining to keep backing away from him, when all my body wanted was to give in and let that electric yarn knit us together.
At that, he gave me a strange look, no longer mad, or surprised, or hurt. In fact, I couldn’t guess at all what was going through his mind. Whatever it was, though, he seemed determined to see it through. “You can stop the pain, you know,” he said, completely off-topic. “Your blood can block it, if you demand it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The pain you feel when you touch someone. It can be suppressed momentarily. If you’ll only hold on for a minute or two.”
I stared back in shock. “What, are you mad? Y-you think I went a lifetime afraid to touch anyone because it was fun? ’Cause I like being a lonely freak? Don’t you think I’d know if there was any way around it?”
He threw his head back, releasing a noise that was almost a howl. “Hell’s teeth, Katherine! Every. Single. Time.”
He tensed, launching at me and snatching my arms. This time, just like in my room when he’d shown me the past, there was pain. Excruciating pain! Picture having every limb being pierced at the same time by a million knives, your face catching fire, and the inside of your head suddenly hot enough to melt metal. I couldn’t fight, couldn’t pull back or do a thing about the hundreds of instances of his life skewering my brain like red-hot pokers. All I could do was …
“Aww!”
Yep, bay like a jackal at the moon.
And still the emotion fired up by what he was showing me rose above the pain. Because these weren’t just random moments of his long existence; no, they were detailed, explicit flashes of us. There wasn’t even a timeline I could follow, but considering the once-again fancy-schmancy clothes reminiscent of Marie Antoinette, we had to be somewhere around the year of our Lord 1790. But forget the petticoats and the innumerable layers of skirts matching the feathers — feathers! — on my head. Forget the fact that I wasn’t Katherine anymore, and obviously not Lily, either, which meant I didn’t know my own name, or even where we were. But forget all that; I only caught glimpses of it, anyway. Because Lucian wasn’t interested in giving me the historical tour, not unless I saw him as the main attraction of the eighteenth century, that is.