I tug on his shirt, and then point to his arm. “Your tattoo, Chris. Come on, did you make the story up? What does that tattoo mean, then? Some girlfriend you didn’t want to tell me about?”
His face contorts; the lines on his forehead multiply. There are two thick black smudges on his temple. Maybe he was near a campfire.
I point at his shirt again, tapping it a couple times for emphasis. “Your tattoo.”
He slowly reaches up to his right shirtsleeve and rolls it up. I wait for the scrolling T and the delicate red letter A to appear on his weathered skin. But there’s nothing there. Instead, a light scar is in its place.
My limbs go cold and the stairs sway slightly in my vision. I knit my brows together. Perhaps I’m truly losing my mind. His dark eyes no longer look sad. They look empty.
“Did you—did you get it removed?” I ask, shaking my head. “How did you do that? Was it, like, henna or something? Temporary?”
He shakes his head and turns away from me, his boots echoing on each of the wide gray slate stairs below. Lumbering. Plodding. “There is no Taylor. Never was.”
I stand there, stunned. “What about Roslyn? You had a daughter named Roslyn, too, Chris. I know that was a real story. People just don’t make that stuff up.”
Or do they?
He shakes his head, and his broad back shrinks into the darkness as he descends the stairs. His next words echo in the staircase. Biting. Cold. Unfamiliar. “And don’t call me Chris.”
41
Another gourmet meal of roast Provençal chicken, summer vegetables, and chocolate pudding for dessert. I should be devouring this meal. But I cannot eat a bite. I stare at my food while the conversation buzzes in the background. Pete says something. Zoe and Lilly laugh.
“Where’s Chris?” I whisper to Tre sitting next to me.
He shakes his head. “Haven’t seen him.”
“I saw him on the stairs. He was acting so weird. His tattoo was gone.”
Tre exhales slowly, nodding, clearly stressed. Maybe this is the start of Chris shedding his skin.
Our eyes meet for half a second, a bond, a zing, a connection. I feel so incredibly close to him. I want to ask more questions, but Tre casts a wary glance to me and then offers a half smile to everyone else.
I take a small bite of chicken and try to tune into the conversation. But I’m consumed with worries about what’s happening here with rebirthing and what’s happening on the outside with the Boulder shooting. My brother. His restaurant. I need to know what’s happening out there.
And yet here I sit, stuck with these people for what could be months. Waiting for who knows what. I can never leave. This is my life. I cannot breathe.
Tre squeezes my hand under the table. My lifeboat.
Pete talks with his mouth full about some reality TV show depicting a guy backpacking in New Zealand as part of a scavenger hunt. “Dude,” Pete says. “He’s out in this blizzard and has no fucking idea where he is. He gets to the top, wind is blowing, man. He starts rambling on, totally crying like he’s going to die.” He laughs. “Right there on TV. I mean there’s a cameraman totally there with him. Probably with a cell phone or whatever. But he thinks he’s going to die and then, get this: two guys on skis fly past him. Seriously! The camera pans and there’s a ski lift to his left. He’s not at all lost. Man. He’s on top of a goddamn ski hill. Hilarious!”
Lilly giggles, applauds for Pete, the Magnificent Teller of Stories from TV. Brilliant.
I can’t laugh. In fact, it makes me mad. I can’t hold back my frustration at the stupidity of this place any longer. “New Zealand,” I blurt. “You’ve got to be freaking kidding me.”
Pete looks at me with surprise, his eyebrows raised, the smile still faintly on his face. “Yeah, it’s a country by Australia, right? Or is it, like, by Africa?”
“No, seriously,” I say. Anger boils inside me. “That kind of story is like torture. Travel? Adventure? We are like locked in here… in this place, Pete! You just… just… live vicariously through other people out there? Just sit around watching people on TV. People who are really living—even if it is for some dumb reality TV game? What the hell?”
Everyone grows silent. Silverware clinks and then goes still. Lilly stops mid-sip from her glass, wide-eyed, waiting for me to finish. Zoe’s face is blank, cool, and maybe even threatening. The muscles in her jaw and temple flicker.
“I mean, come on,” I continue. My voice ardent. My face hot. “It’s brutal. How can you guys just sit around and act like this is okay?”
I don’t wait for a response to my question. Tre reaches out to touch my arm gently. “Ember.”
I sloppily stand up, bumping the table with my knees, and hobble out of the dining room and up the stairs. I slam the bedroom door, fall onto the bed, and bury my burning face in the silken pillows. In my beautiful room. My luxurious prison cell.
42
“Look what I found,” Pete says softly. He moves so close to me I can smell the onions on his breath. His hair falls over his eyes as he reaches into his pocket.
Maybe Pete will want to talk about what happened at dinner. But he doesn’t mention it. Instead, he glances over his shoulder down the hall and slowly pulls out a rusted tin box. Inside, a pile of crystals, amber, white, purple, pink, yellow. There are at least a dozen of them, the size of coins.
“Your rock collection?” I ask, still irritated from dinner.
He shakes his head. “Naw, man. I found them. And they’re wicked hot. Like, they produce heat.” He shakes the tin, and the dim light catches the purple color of two of the quartz pieces.
The color triggers a memory of the day Mom showed me that very same kind of quartz. She held the lavender quartz up to the sunlight where we sat on a bench outside the gallery. “People used this one for healing and spiritual growth. They call it the violet flame,” she told me.
Mom placed it in my small ten-year-old hand, and I turned the golf-ball-sized crystal over in my fingers, examining the sharp edges, the way the purple color seemed to drain out of the rock. Mom told me she had a friend when she was young who was interested in crystals, and she showed her how energy is all around us. “It’s in everything,” she said. “Life. Death. The earth. Rocks. Trees. You. Me. Everything. It’s all connected.”
Mom and I studied those rocks for a long while before Bo Summers’s mom came over to us with arms full of plastic shopping bags, her enormous sunglasses taking up half her face. She asked if we were having some kind of séance. Mom didn’t respond. But I did, explaining brightly that we were talking about the energy of crystals.
“Oh, Dezi, please tell me you’re not training your daughter to believe in all that ancient Druid witchcraft stuff and fear of black magic.” Jennie Summers smiled at us, but her words cut. Mom smiled back, but it was forced. I have a feeling people ridiculed her more than I knew. She held up another quartz to the sunlight and leaned her head close to mine. The purple color looked like it emanated into the air and into the blue sky. “This one,” she whispered to me, “can block negative energy.”
Tre strides down the hallway toward us. “What’s up?”
“This,” Pete says holding the tin up to him. “I tripped on something on my way to the lake, then saw this pile of dirt. Dug this out. Full of a bunch of mind-bending rocks.”
Curious, Tre peeks into the tin. “Cool.”
“I figured I’d show you guys since you’re, like, so smart,” Pete says. “Maybe you’d know what they are?”
Tre shrugs.
“My mom told me that ancient Druids thought they could harness the power of the earth with crystals,” I say.
Pete shoves the tin in my hands and wipes his fingers on his shorts. “You keep it.”
“Me?” I ask.
“I don’t even want it near me anymore.”
The weight of the rocks feels heavier in my hand than I would have thought. After a moment, it’s as if I can feel the heat emanating from the metal box. Burn
ing my hand.
“Feel these,” I say, handing the tin to Tre.
Holding it in his palm, the whites of his eyes get bigger. “They’re on fire.”
Pete takes a step back from us and raises his palms up. “I don’t want anything to do with them. Creeps me out.”
Of course, nothing else in this place is at all creepy to him.
“Maybe they’ll protect us somehow,” I say. “Maybe they offer some hint on how to get home.” Like magic. Like a freaking fairy tale.
“You two do that,” Pete says, taking a step backward. “I don’t want to go home. My life sucked. It freaking sucked.” He pulls on his hair with two hands, as if he could yank bad memories right out of his head. “Besides, if I did go back, I’d just probably just do all the stuff my dad did to me, beating the crap out of someone else. Dude, telling ya, I’m a lost cause.”
“No, don’t say that,” I say softly. “You can choose whatever you want to be, Pete.”
“Yeah,” Tre agrees, half paying attention as he pushes the translucent rocks around with a finger.
Pete’s eyes look sad and vulnerable. “You think so?” he asks.
“Definitely not a lost cause,” I say.
Alone in my room, Tre and I examine the quartz, sitting side by side on the bed. I tell him about Mom and her obsession with stones and the energy they supposedly hold. We talk about what-ifs. What if we can shake them in the meadow and magically appear in the middle of my school’s football field in Leadville? What if we can hold them out on a full moon and the gate magically appears? I wish Mom could tell me more. I wish I had asked more.
I lean over to tuck the tin under the mattress for safekeeping. And when I sit back up, Tre’s mouth is on mine. My insides light up as the kiss consumes me. He slides his hands around my waist and up my back and around my hair. As we kiss, I touch his rough cheek and then lose my fingers in his hair. I feel the curve of his arms and his heart beating in his chest and the muscles along his shoulder blades. The heat between us makes me sweat. My hair becomes damp. My cheeks flush. I can’t get enough of him.
Alarm bells sound in the deep crevasses of my mind. I’m alone in this room, lying on this bed, with this incredibly amazing boy. My body is entwined with his, wanting him, wanting us. But my mind is screaming at me. What if he wants more from you? What if we don’t stop? What if I don’t want to stop? I’m not ready for that. I’m not ready for anything. I can barely keep my own head on straight. And we’re living in a freaking nightmare.
My lips must stop moving because Tre pulls away slightly. “What?” His voice is soft and he gazes at me, a curious smile meandering across his face. His mouth is still close to mine. “You okay?” His thumb grazes my cheek.
I nod. “Let’s just not—”
“I know,” he whispers and then runs a finger down my nose, landing on my lips. He kisses me again, gently, slowly, like a swirling painting of color. Bright turquoise blue. Lemon yellow. Pink, the color of lip gloss. My worries melt away with his gentleness. Because we kiss—and that’s all, and it’s perfect, like a piece of Mom’s dark chocolate from the freezer after dinner. Sweet. Indulgent. Not too much. Perfect.
Sleepy, we eventually curl up side by side, two moon slivers on top of the bed.
I lie awake, listening to the shushing inhale and exhale of Tre’s breath. I can’t help but be in awe that I even found him. Two generations, two worlds, thrown together by this crazy place. Trinity brought us together. And he has lit something inside me, like a candle in a dark, cold room.
I imagine the two of us traveling together and going to school. I will write songs for him and introduce him to Jared and Maddie—once I apologize to her. I smile, laughing silently through my nose at the idea that I’m seriously planning for the future with him.
But inevitably, the icy reality returns: Trinity brought us together and it could easily rip us apart. It could beat us down until we no longer remember anything about each other or ourselves—like Chris. I can’t let that happen.
I hear whispering voices outside the bedroom door. I shuffle quietly out to the hallway and catch a glimpse of Zoe at the bottom of the staircase, standing close to Pete, dripping wet with a towel around his waist. I squat by the railing to watch them from above, attempting to quiet my breath. I wonder why they’re up so late.
“You did so well in the Bath House,” she says.
“Thanks.” He pauses for a moment. “But you know, I’ve been thinking and stuff, about what Ember said at dinner, and I don’t know if I want to keep doing this. I realized maybe I miss riding waves on my board, and maybe checking out some different beaches would be cool.” Pete’s voice is absent its usual pep, and his words excite and scare me at once. Maybe he wants to figure a way out, too.
“Shhhh…” She extends a long, delicate finger to his lips and takes a step closer to him. From up here, I don’t sense that mind-altering vibe she gives off, but Pete must. He sways like a tree in the wind, and his face sags.
“Pete,” she says. “We both know you are worthless to the world as Pete Alaban. Plus, years have passed now, so it’s pointless to try to go home. Without rebirth, you’ll have no friends, no job, no significance, no money. Most important, no power. Only Trinity can save you.”
“But… I—” he mumbles.
“If you don’t give in and surrender, rebirthing will not work. And instead of a better life, you will be in pain. Excruciating pain. You will die. We don’t want that, do we?” She wraps her arm around his shoulder and walks him down the hallway. “Surrender,” she murmurs.
43
I nestle closer to Tre. What I saw between Zoe and Pete has truly rattled me to the core. Rebirthing could come at any day, at any time. Zoe exudes some sort of power, some sort of hypnotic tonic that can make all of us zombies, make all of us give in.
“I won’t give in,” I whisper over and over to myself, trying to will myself to sleep again.
It doesn’t work. Eventually, I get up and go explore the mansion, peeking inside rooms and looking at the expensive art. Maybe I’ll find more clues. The splotchy paintings lining the east hallway look like a line of Rorschach tests.
A piano. I hear music being played on a piano. It’s violet and indigo blue, flowing like a crisp mountain stream, racing around corners, and trickling between tight spaces. The minor chord is delicate yet haunting with hints of sadness and regret.
The indigo blue evolves into a Color Crayon vision of Zoe. I see her in a cluttered, dirty room with faded blue walls. Dressed in a ’70s brown fringy top and bellbottom jeans, she’s folded in the corner. Her face looks hard and angry, and her chin rests on her knees. A trembling hand holds a needle over the soft, delicate skin of her turned-up forearm. The image floods me with an enormous feeling of desperation that sucks my breath away, and I stop in the hallway, immobile, panting, shutting my eyes, willing the image to leave my vision.
After a few seconds, the apparition fades and I follow the sky colors until I reach the ballroom, where we had our dance party my first night. The air feels thick, like damp, heavy towels and sweaty arms and legs and stale, hot breath.
The music, however, is mesmerizing. In the corner, Zoe sits at the piano, her back to me, fingers gliding gracefully over the black and white keys. I wonder if that vision of a different Zoe, a less refined Zoe, a crumbling, desperate Zoe, was just my imagination.
I stand and listen to the colors as they shift in wavy clouds and lines. The way she moves now, the way she carries herself, the sound from the piano, doesn’t fit with what I just saw.
The song ends, and she remains still. Her hands rest on the keys, her posture perfectly straight.
“You must be worried about your brother,” she says, turning around slowly. She knew I was listening. She knew I was here.
I blink. “Yeah. I am.”
She stands and turns to face me, leaning like a bent flower against the side of the piano. Gracefully, she lights a cigarette, takes a deep inhale, an
d then lets it dangle from her hand.
“And I cannot imagine,” she says, sighing the word, “how you’d feel if more bad things were to happen out there to the people you love because of any of the actions taken here.”
She’s threatening me. Panic squeezes my chest. Maybe my backlash at dinner and what I said to Pete caused another horrible thing to happen out there.
My body contracts and then explodes with anger. “Did you do something else? Did you?”
“Be careful, Emby.” She tilts her head to the side. She takes another long drag of the cigarette and tilts her head up to gently blow the smoke through a rounded mouth. The stench begins to make its way across the room.
“Why am I worth hurting other people?” I ask, fighting the urge to run across the floor and body tackle her. If I do, Trinity will inevitably hurt more people.
“You will see that you have a gift,” she says. Her voice slinks across the room, low, like a purring cat. She pushes off the piano and stands straight, a lithe and gorgeous giant in silk pajamas. “When you’re reborn, you’ll keep parts of yourself—you’ll be able to sing like you love. You’ll do everything better, faster, easier. You’ll be a superior being, really. You can travel the world, and you’ll have all the wealth and power necessary to do it comfortably.”
These must be lies. I can’t shake what I saw just moments ago as she played the music.
“I see visions—only since I came here to Trinity. It’s only when I hear sounds, voices, music, like my synesthesia. Why is that happening?”
A tiny smile crosses her face. “Ahh, your gift is stronger here in Trinity, then. This place is powerful.”
“I saw a vision of you shooting up something in your veins, maybe heroin,” I whisper.
She freezes, her eyes shifting, a flicker of something moves through her. Surprise, perhaps. Confusion? Recollection. Her body shifts. It’s subtle, but I notice it. Her shoulders slump a fraction of a centimeter and her chin juts slightly. A hip unfolds. For the first time ever, I see a crack in that polished, beautiful shell.
Ember Burning Page 20