I want to pull Roman into my arms, to share the pain he’s feeling as he relives the experience, the moment that changed his existence forever. His eyes are glowing red with anger, and I decide to let him finish.
“That was the first of Victor’s many lies,” he says. “He didn’t save the others. I was the only survivor, and, in truth, I died as well that day.”
“I’m so sorry, Roman.”
He looks at me tenderly, almost with a sense of relief in his face. “I’ve never told anyone this before,” he says. “It’s been too difficult to admit that I played the leading role in my own fate.”
“We all make mistakes,” I say.
“Not like this,” he says. “Please, Katherine. Promise you will not share this with anyone else.”
“My promise means all,” I say, and I see a hint of a smile on his lips.
“So, Katherine, what is the meaning of all this mine talk?”
Now I no longer want to ask him what I’d planned to—I’d had no idea I would be asking him to return to the site of his worst moments. “Oh, nothing,” I say.
“It is not nothing,” he says. “I can tell.”
“Okay.” I take a breath and look him in the eye. “Do you think you could find your way back into the mine?”
He looks a little taken aback, but not traumatized, by what I’ve asked. “No, I couldn’t,” Roman says. “The earthquake buried it. No one knows where it is. If they did, they’d have gone back in for the gold.”
“What if I told you that I found an entrance?”
“To the Lost Mine?” He looks surprised. “Where?”
“If I tell you, will you go? Will you do something for me?”
“I’ll do anything for you.”
“It’s dangerous.”
He shakes his head. “Though the memory haunts me, that mine does not scare me. Not anymore. There is nothing that could happen there that is worse than what already has.”
I tell Roman all about the pond, about the gold. I do my best to describe how to get there, even though I probably couldn’t find it again if I tried. But he nods, as if he knows where I’m talking about.
“I will look for it,” he says. “And I should probably remind you that this is Victor’s gold.”
“It’s my only chance,” I say. “My only chance to buy back the land.”
“I understand,” he says. “After what Victor has taken from so many others, I don’t mind taking a little something from him. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
I wrap my arms around Roman, and we lock our bodies together. I’ve never truly forgotten what it feels like to be in Roman’s arms, and being here again makes me want to stay forever. “Thank you,” I whisper. “This means everything to me.”
“And you, Katherine, mean everything to me.”
Thirty-two
The dressing rooms are located deep below the stage, down a long flight of stairs. When I head down there, I feel as if I’m descending into a cave—there are no windows, only a handful of posters for past productions covering the concrete walls.
There are two large dressing rooms, one for guys and one for girls, and one main room with a large mirror, where we all sit to have our makeup applied. I’m wearing a sweater over my costume and watching as Franklin, the costume and makeup manager, covers my face with a thick foundation.
“Don’t you think that’s a bit much?” I ask.
“Hardly,” says Franklin. “It always looks awful down here. But up there, under those lights, if you didn’t have all this, your face would wash out like the bright side of the moon.”
“I guess that’s why they keep the theater at freezing temperatures,” I say, “so all this goo doesn’t melt away.”
“That’s right. And don’t worry, you’ll be plenty warm under those spots.”
When he’s finished, I pull off the sweater and stand in front of the mirror to get a full view of myself in my nun’s habit.
“You look hot,” Tyler comments.
I roll my eyes. “Please. I’m a nun.”
“Exactly.” He grins. “The allure of the forbidden.”
I wave him away and check my makeup once more. Being in full costume makes my character feel so much more real. Until tonight, I’d thought costumes were for the benefit of the audience, but now I see that they’re for the actors as well, so that we believe our roles are genuine.
Tonight, I am Isabella.
I turn away from the mirror and look around at the various cast members wandering about, adjusting their costumes and makeup.
I see Lucy and wave her over. She sways toward me. As Mistress Overdone, she is decked out in a garish outfit suitable for a lady of the night.
“Have you seen Virginia?” I ask.
“No,” Lucy says, as she checks her own makeup—just as thick as mine but much bolder, with thick false eyelashes and bright red lipstick. “Not that she talks to me anyway. Why?”
“Nate was asking about her a few minutes ago. She’s not here yet, and nobody has heard from her.”
Lucy’s eyes widen. “I’ll ask around.”
She begins to walk around the room, approaching the others, her high heels clicking on the concrete floor. I still feel bad that, only a few days ago, Virginia had finally gotten the role of Isabella, only for me to snatch it back from her. But I don’t think she’d go so far as to boycott the dress rehearsal over it. She may despise me, but she’s always been professional about her role.
As they say, the show must go on, and we eventually have to begin the dress rehearsal without her. A stagehand, Nicole, reads Virginia’s lines, script in hand. The chaos level is high, and I wonder how in the world everything will come together by tomorrow night. Some of the costumes aren’t quite ready, the set is missing a wall and a door, and the lighting is still off: In one key scene, when I stand where I’m supposed to stand, the spotlight hits the wall instead of me.
After the rehearsal is over, we change out of our costumes and meet on the edge of the stage, just as we did during our very first meeting.
Nate reads from a clipboard, noting adjustments that need to be made, act by act. The Duke is not loud enough in Act I, Claudio’s entrance in Act III is too slow, the lighting in Act V is too dark. And so on. By the time he reaches the end of his notes, I think we’re all wishing we had another few weeks to practice.
As if sensing this, Nate says, “We’re almost there, people. We’re ready.”
“What about Virginia?” asks Lucy.
Nate looks at his clipboard, as if the answer might be in his notes. Nicole did fine considering she had no preparation, but if Virginia doesn’t show up tomorrow night, we can’t have Nicole standing onstage holding a script.
“Nicole, you think you can memorize those lines by tomorrow night?”
“I’ll try,” she says. I can tell she’s nervous but also excited at the opportunity to be onstage.
“Good. Hopefully our Mariana will turn up. But if not, Nicole will be ready. Now go get some sleep, everyone.”
“Except Nicole,” Tyler says, with that grin of his.
“Shut up, jerk,” says Nicole.
~
It’s late, and I’m exhausted, yet I can’t stop thinking about Roman. He was planning to go look for the mine this evening, and I want to know what he found, if anything. So I stop by the hotel on my way home. Even though he has his job back, he’s decided to stay there, renting his room by the week. I suppose after having a cook and maid at Victor’s mansion, it’s hard to transition to a plain old apartment without laundry and room service.
This time, I skip the concierge desk and take the stairs up to his room and knock on the door. I wait, then knock again, but it’s clear he’s not back yet. I check my cell phone, but there are no messages, not that Roman would leave one. He hardly ever uses even a regular phone.
I stop by the front desk and ask if anyone left a message for me, by any chance. Nothing.
I shouldn’t worry
—of everyone I know, Roman can take care of himself—but still, I can’t help it. I think of him up there with the undead miners, all those ghosts that were once so alive and real to him. Some of those miners are likely old friends of his, and I wonder if this endeavor could be even more dangerous than I’d imagined. What if they’re angry about what happened? What if they blame Roman for being saved while the rest of them perished? I remember that Alex said vampires try to stay clear of ghosts.
What, exactly, have I asked Roman to do?
I have to get up there.
I hurry back to my cottage, get dressed for running, and grab my flashlight. Even though it’s dark, the night air is still hot and dry. I don’t have to worry about layering tonight.
I start up the hill, feeling a dull ache in my legs as I ascend. The last time I was up here I pushed myself too hard, and now I’m paying the price. I have to stop near the Highland Hills development to walk.
Then I hear a noise in the dark. I point my flashlight toward the sound.
I see a lumbering form, hear a guttural noise.
Even in the dark, I can’t believe my eyes. “Dad? Is that you?”
He stumbles forward.
“Hey, Scooter!”
I can tell right away that he is drunk—that he is more than drunk, holding a half-empty bottle and weaving from side to side as he gets closer.
“Dad, what on earth are you doing out here?”
“Just out for a little stroll. Stretching the ol’ legs.”
“You’re drinking,” I say. “Why? What happened?”
“Why?” He lets out a gravelly laugh. “Why not is the question, Scooter. I’ve got time, plenty of time. All the time in the world.”
“What are you talking about?” I grab him by the shoulders to get his attention. “What is going on with you?”
“He fired me.”
“Who?”
“Ed Jacobs, that’s who. He fired me, the bastard. Said my position had been eliminated. Not me, the position. Damn coward.”
I feel panic rising within me. “What about the land, Dad?”
“The land? What’s it matter anymore?”
“It matters to me. Tell me. What does this mean for the land?”
He looks at me, and I can see the life drain from his face. The arrogance I last witnessed, when he thought he was on the verge of great wealth, has disappeared, and it’s been replaced by a hollowed-out face, slumped shoulders, and eyes that can barely meet mine.
“It’s his now.”
“What do you mean, his? How much is his?”
“All of it. He made all these promises, showed me all these fancy contracts and spreadsheets with lots of zeros on them. He took me to his ranch, showed me his antique car collection, his horses. Said I’d be living this way soon. The lawyers said it was too good to pass up. Just sign the papers.”
My father leans his head back and drains what’s left in the liquor bottle, then tosses it over the chain-link fence. I hear it shatter on the concrete foundation of a home. It is an eerie sound, echoing into the night.
Dad is staring through the fence, as though he wants the bottle back. “It’s all over,” he says. “Everything’s gone.”
I don’t know what to say. I know what I want to say—that he was used by Ed Jacobs in the same way he used me, that he now knows the meaning of the word karma. That this is nothing less than what he deserved, after all that he’s done.
But I can’t say any of that. Because I know what it’s like to be where he is right now. I know that awful, sinking feeling of having trusted someone you shouldn’t have. Of wishing you could start over and knowing you can’t.
So I say instead, “Dad, you need to go home and get some rest.”
“What for?” He sounds hopeless.
“Because tomorrow you’ll have to get up and start over. You’ll get back on your feet, like you always do.”
He looks at me. “I’m sorry, Katie. I screwed up.”
“I know. It’s okay.” I realize, for the first time, that I’m not angry anymore. I’m not quite sure why that is, but it’s a good feeling, all that tension having melted away into sympathy and even a bit of understanding.
“Will you ever forgive me?”
“Sure, Dad. Now, come on, you have to get home.”
He is still weaving on his feet. “What about you?”
“I—” I struggle to find something to tell him. “I lost my keys on the trail earlier. I know exactly where they are. I’m just going to grab them and go right home myself.”
“It’s late. You can stay at my place. Get the keys tomorrow.”
I shake my head. “It’s okay. I won’t be long.”
“I’ll go with you.” He tries to take a few steps toward me but slips and falls onto the dirt. “Okay, maybe not. But I’m not leaving you up here, Katie. I’ll wait for you right here.”
I start to argue, but I realize he’s probably in more danger heading back to town alone than he would be with me and my flashlight. “Okay, fine. I’ll be right back.”
“If you have any trouble up there, just holler. I’ll come running, okay?”
“Okay.”
There is something so sad about him now, and it actually tugs at me and makes me reluctant to turn away. It’s almost as if a part of him has died—the bad part—and the part left over is a part I’ve never seen.
“I won’t be long,” I tell him.
“I’ll be here,” he says, his voice a little stronger. “From now on, I’ll be here for you, Katie. I promise.”
And for once, I almost believe him.
But this is no time for family reunions—I have to find Roman and then get Dad home. So I turn and head up the trail.
The wind has picked up, a dry, warm wind. I look up to see the shadows of clouds overhead, making the path ahead even darker. Fortunately, I’ve been up this trail enough times to know almost every rut and curve by heart.
I reach the point in the trail where my mom led me to the swimming hole, and I leave the trail and begin tiptoeing over the brush and dead branches. Minutes pass, until I’m no longer sure where I am. I shine my flashlight all around, but nothing is recognizable, let alone familiar. I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever find the pool again.
“Roman!” I can picture him now, deep in the mine, chipping away at those walls, risking everything for me. And I’m worried; I’m no longer sure whether even Roman can be safe here anymore.
Suddenly, the earth begins to shake under my feet, so violently that I fall to the ground.
An earthquake.
I’ve never been in an earthquake before and don’t know what to do. I stay on the ground and cover my head, expecting trees to begin toppling onto me any moment. Again I picture Roman down inside the mine, and I wonder what is happening down there as the earth continues its rumbling.
There’s another strong jolt, and it feels as if the land itself is angry, shaking us. I hear Professor Lindquist’s voice in my head: The land will protect itself.
I wait for what feels like forever but is probably only about five minutes. When the earth stops trembling, I stand and look around in the darkness. The forest looks completely undisturbed, as if nothing has happened. I begin to walk again, but I’ve gotten turned around and have no idea in what direction I am headed.
Nervous, I pick up my pace until I’m jogging. I don’t care if I’m headed in the wrong direction; I just need to move quickly. I feel the urgency of time, every second weighing on me. Roman’s life in the balance. This land in the balance.
The next thing I know, I’m back on the trail. I’ve gone in a complete circle without getting any closer to the swimming hole. Again I shout out Roman’s name over the wind, but I get no response.
And then, when I look into the woods, I see them.
The miners.
I brace myself for another falling tree; I brace myself to run. Then one of the miners steps forward, and in that moment I draw on the strength that my m
other’s ghost has given me. And instead of fleeing, I call to him.
“Are you going to try to hit me with a tree again?”
He does not respond.
“Where’s Roman?” I ask.
The others are gathered behind this one miner, and they are all silent.
“You almost killed me,” I remind them. “Was that because of the Horton land? Is that what you’re protecting?”
Still, they say nothing.
“I’m going to get it back,” I say. “The land. I promise you.”
But they only stare back at me, and I feel my inner strength begin to weaken.
Then the entire forest seems to vibrate, and winds are screaming through the trees so wildly that I think every tree will come crashing down, all at once.
The ghosts have their arms raised, and the winds swirl the trees around like blades of grass.
Before I can take in what’s happening, a bolt of lightning strikes the tree closest to the cluster of ghosts, and it bursts into flames. Thunder, simultaneous with the light, sucks the air out of my lungs and causes me to fall backward onto the dirt.
The ghosts have widened their circle to make way for the quickly growing fire. The flames are leaping upward and outward, driven by the wind and the steady supply of dry leaves, pine needles, and grasses.
I jump back to my feet, and when I glance behind me, I see yet another fire starting—the embers and sparks are airborne, spreading fire like some fast-moving virus, and it’s spreading all around me, surrounding me.
I’m running now, racing against the flames, which are now on both sides of me and moving quickly, aiming to join together up ahead and block me from getting back to town.
Where is Roman?
Yet I can’t wait for him—I have to get out of here, and I have to find my father, and I have to get to town, to the fire department. I’m sprinting now, in blistering heat, the fire only an arm’s reach away on either side of me as I push myself forward. It’s hard to breathe in all this heat and smoke, and I close my mind to everything else as I keep going, one foot in front of the other, over and over again until I feel my breath come a little easier, and then a little easier still.
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