by Sarra Cannon
Please come quick
Your friend Jacob is here
In our room HURRY
When Jacob emerged, he was holding a small, leather-bound book: old, as old as the Belleyre artifacts, with delicate brown pages and a worn, fragile spine.
He held it out to Hallie, who couldn’t help herself—she reached for it, cradling the weight of it gently in her hands.
“What is it?” she asked, afraid to hear the answer. Why did he want her to have an old book?
“A diary,” he replied, “of some interest to you, I think. It belonged to Christine Belleyre. Your friend Matthew had it first, actually; he rescued it from the Belleyre house before my colleague pilfered it. And rightly so, I think… I doubt Matthew would ever have shown you, despite its relevance to your life. Now, you have a chance to know the truth.”
“What truth?”
He licked his lips.
“Haven’t you ever wondered why you feel so connected to him? To Matthew?”
Hallie didn’t reply, but her heart beat, if possible, a little faster.
“Or wondered why he’s so reticent about his past? Or even… asked yourself what on Earth a man of one hundred and seventy five years wants with a girl of only twenty?”
Her face flamed.
“I thought as much,” Jacob said drily. “Read it, Hallie. I’m not going to kill you tonight. Anyway, I’m the kind of man who likes to watch things burn.”
Chills shot through her at his small admission. This is a man who wanted her to suffer first. Who played with his prey. She backed away, still holding the book.
“Go away.”
But he advanced, backing her into the wall. He took her chin in his hands, his grip just tight enough to be painful.
“If you want what’s best for you, and for him, you’ll walk away,” he said. “I only have one goal, and that’s to make sure Matthew doesn’t get his happily ever after.”
Anger flared in her gut. She shoved him hard in the chest, but he barely moved. His fingers tightened on her chin, and he shook it side to side before letting her go.
She straightened, refusing to let him see her cowed. “Get the hell away from me.”
He shrugged, sliding his hands into his pockets, and began to stride off down the hallway, toward the stairwell. “Enjoy that,” he said over his shoulder. “Happy reading.”
As soon as he was out of sight, Hallie ran into the hotel room and slammed the door shut, locking the deadbolts. She gave the room a quick search, found it empty, and then sat on the rumpled bed with the diary. She shook her head, trying to rid it of the gnawing doubts Jacob had exposed.
What on earth did a man like him want with a girl like her?
But he was wrong; it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t so uneven between them. Was it?
Her heart thrumming in her ears, she opened the diary and flipped to the page he’d marked with a slip of paper. And there it was, there he was, in black and white:
May 6. Matthew came home today with an incredible story… You shall think I am a madwoman for believing it, but if you had seen what I saw today, you would have no choice but to believe it, too, rather than think as I did, that they are the addled ramblings of a poor soldier turned lunatic…
Hallie’s hands trembled as she turned the brittle pages.
My dear Cousin has been gifted - or cursed - with a great healing capacity. He claims he was shot through the chest at Gettysburg and walked away without the barest scratch. But I assure you that he is not raving. Nor am I. I have seen it myself, I have watched him place his hand in the fire and seen the mottled flesh mend itself, made fresh and new and unblemished as if by… by what, I cannot say.
June 20…Matthew came to me distraught today. He claims the men who gave him his gift have made demands upon him, impossible demands, that he will not keep. They have said he shall live forever in their service. He claims they have fooled him. I warned him that men with such power are likely not used to being denied. He tells me that he has been asked to watch over certain of the townsfolk, including a girl, my new arrival, Emmaline…
The diary progressed, telling the story as Matthew had told her, with the added complication that Emmaline had not just been his friend, but his charge. He was supposed to watch over her, but instead, he had fallen in love with her. And then…
Diary, many times in the last several weeks, I have picked up my pen to relate to you the recent events surrounding Matthew and Emmaline… but I have been unable to bring myself to set in writing the horrific events that transpired. The town of Abingford is sick, bleeding since the war. Rage burns in every hearth, in every eye, in every heart. When the townspeople learned of Matthew and Emmaline, it was impossible to stop them. Emmaline is dead. Her daughter is lost. And Matthew… broken.
Last night we had visitors—the same men Matthew had denied… They call themselves ‘Guardians.’ They kicked open my door in search of him. I ran downstairs in my nightdress at the sound. They forced me into the parlor where they were holding his face close to the fire. God help me. Immediately I began to pray, but they mocked me, and pushed me down onto the rug beside Matthew, whose face was bloody and bruised.
They told him that this pain was the price of defying them. He had received unequivocal orders… and he had denied them, and as a result Emmaline was dead. They held his face to the fire and he screamed, heaven forgive me, but he screamed so loudly that I wished for his death.
Then, while his face burned, they said that he would be forever bound to them, and to a life of eternal loneliness. And when he passed out from the pain, they told me that he would be an outcast, and that his only escape from suffering—his only chance at death—would be at the behest of his first, and truest, love.
“But Emmaline is dead,” I told them.
“Her spirit lives,” they replied. “Her soul will return. He will find it. They always do… But for him, the discovery will be not a blessing, but a curse.”
When he woke, I told Matthew these things. He asked what they meant when they claimed ‘her spirit lives.’ I did and do not know. Immediately, he packed up his trunk and left Abingford.
My heart aches for my poor, good-hearted Cousin. It is enough to have loved and lost… No man should walk this earth alone.
Hallie set the diary down on her lap and stared straight ahead, her reflection staring back at her from the blackened television screen.
She thought of Matthew in Emmaline’s parlor, his face melting in the fire.
She imagined Christine’s screams. Matthew’s screams. Emmaline’s… Hers.
Something restless and desperate inside her stilled.
That was the big secret, wasn’t it? Deep down in her soul, she was Emmaline. Reincarnated, reembodied, revived. Echoes of a young woman from long ago, whose pain haunted Hallie’s dreams, lived inside her. And that was why Matthew had sought her out. Why he had pursued her. Why he was still with her, despite her drama and baggage and—
Someone slid the key card in the door and tried to push it open. The deadbolts held it firmly shut.
“Hallie? Hallie! It’s me, it’s Matthew. Tell me you’re in there. Open the door.”
Numbly, Hallie stood and and crossed the room to unlock the deadbolts. When she opened the door, he ducked inside quickly, reaching for her as he did so. She dodged his touch.
“Are you all right?” he asked, looking around. “Alone?”
She nodded. “Jacob was here. But he left pretty quickly.”
“What did he want? What did he say?”
Hallie lifted her chin. She expected to feel angry, but instead she felt dangerously serene. “Why?” she asked. “I mean, is there something you didn’t want him to tell me?” She leveled her gaze at his.
“No, I…” But he trailed off as his eyes fell on the diary where she’d left it on the bed. He paled.
Hallie picked it up and handed it to him. “There. That’s yours. They stole it from you, after we stole it from the Belleyre hous
e. He marked the relevant pages and I…” She trailed off, still reeling too much to give a complete explanation.
“Hallie…”
The way he said her name, so low and tender, soft and placating, reminded her of the way he’d spoken her name in the Westie, when his hands had roamed her body until she cried out for him. How foolish she’d been. How foolish he’d made her.
“So,” she said drily. “I’m… her. Emmaline.”
He winced. “Yes. No. It’s more complicated than that, Hallie, so please, let me—”
“And Isabella? Am I Isabella, too?”
“Please, if you just let me expl—”
“That’s okay,” she said, her voice clipped and calm. “I don’t really need an explanation. That diary was enough.”
“It can’t have been. Let me explain,” he said again.
“What’s there to explain?” she burst out. “You had regrets. You wanted to —” She couldn’t say the word aloud, but she forced herself. “—to die. You needed me to do it. You pursued me. Looked after me. Made me—” The pain in her chest sharpened so acutely that she almost cried out. “Made me love you,” she finished, shaking her head because it was as much an admission to herself as to him.
Her words hovered in the air between them, perverse, words that should have been beautiful but were now tainted with pain and betrayal. She loved him and wished she didn’t. She shut her eyes against the hurt rising in her throat and tried to breathe.
Then his hand touched her hip, and his other slid over her cheek and into her hair. He’d moved in close; he smelled of wind and sand, soap and sex.
“It might have started that way,” he said, as his warmth enveloped her, “but it’s not true anymore. I don’t want death from you. I want a life with you. A lifetime with you, however I can have it.”
She couldn’t think of a worse time or place to hear these things from him—now, when they rang so false. His touch was firm, calming, soothing. Or tried to be. He sent shivers down her spine, which she was stunned to find made her feel sick, rather than safe. How quickly the feel of his hands had gone from comforting to alienating—they were no longer the hands of a man who loved her, who had her trust.
She pushed him away. “Just—stop.” She kept her palms outstretched between them, holding him at bay. “You planned from the start to hurt me and you didn’t care enough to stop. Even after all the things you learned about me, my life, my past, Louisa and my parents. What kind of person does that? Makes someone fall in love with them just so they can leave?”
She shook her head, laughing bitterly at the absurdity of it all. Here she was, again, reeling after the trust she’d put in someone else crumbled around her.
“Do you have any idea what this feels like?” she said, and his face was anguished, pained, as he looked down at her. “I would have thought that by now, you’d understand that I can’t do this again.” Tears welled in her eyes. She didn’t want to stop them, but somehow they didn’t come, hovering, blurring her vision as her chest tightened painfully. “I’m so stupid,” she muttered. “I didn’t think you’d hurt me.”
“Hallie,” he gasped her name with such vehemence that she met his gaze, looked up at him and found those kind, searching blue eyes that, even now, made her want to curl up in his arms. “Please, please hear me when I say that the moment I met you, I knew I couldn’t do it. It took me a while to recognize that, to admit how I felt about you. And I’ll never forgive myself for treating your heart so callously, even in the privacy of my mind. But I was a fool, then. Selfish and single-minded. Being with you woke me up.”
“How?” she said. “How did I wake you up? Was it by reminding you of Emmaline? Of Isabella? Of these women you’d loved and lost?”
He faltered, shaking his head. “What? Of course not. You woke me up by— by waking me up.” He shook his head again. “I’m talking about the dancing. The night at my house. Breaking into Christine’s house. The ferris wheel. I loved being with you.”
“Haven’t you ever thought about why, Matthew? You didn’t love me. Not for me. You don’t fall in love with someone like that, that fast. You loved the idea of me…. Of not being alone anymore, and finding what you lost. I reminded you of that and you couldn’t walk away.”
Matthew clenched his fists in his hair, shaking his head. “You’re wrong, Hallie. You couldn’t be more wrong.”
“Well, let’s see,” she said, ticking off her fingers as she spoke. “You needed help. You were alone and in pain. Then you found me, and I was having a hell of a time, I was suffering and lonely and vulnerable. I was even looking for a loved one.” She touched his chest tenderly, almost pitying him. “You couldn’t help it. Maybe when you found me all of your old feelings, everything leftover from when you loved Emmaline, took over. She’s who you’re meant to love, Matthew. Not me. It’s never been just you and me in this relationship.”
Matthew seized her hand where it lay pressed against his chest, his grip tight. For all of his moods, his moments of darkness, she’d never experienced the full force of his anger. His eyes blazed, and he seemed to vibrate with fury, with frustration—every part of his face darkened and creased. His mouth drew tight and thin.
Even so, she could sense that he was not angry with her, but rather, that his anger was directed inward, at himself.
“Hallie,” he began, “If you think that I loved Emma and not you, then I’ve failed you more than I realized. When I held you, or kissed you, or touched you”—he reached up and brushed his thumb over her cheek, and she shuddered— “do you really think that was all for Emma? Because of some big cosmic plan meant to bring us together, then tear us apart?”
“Maybe it wasn’t conscious,” she said, “but that doesn’t make it any less true.”
He let out a growl of frustration. “Emmaline is dead.”
“And you want her back.”
He shook his head, as if trying to free it of her words. “No.” His voice was hoarse. “No.”
“How on earth am I supposed to believe that? After everything you’ve told me? It’s not a coincidence that you sought me out, found me, and made me feel the way I feel for you. None of it was real. None of it. From the beginning, you only wanted me because I’m her.”
At this, he slid his free hand into her hair again, stepping close, dangerously close, refusing to let her pull away. She closed her eyes and he pressed his lips to her temple.
“You,” he said, “are not Emmaline. You are gentler, softer than she was. More compassionate. Wiser. A little more neurotic.” He kissed her cheek. “There’s no point in comparing, though. Do you think our souls remain the same, life after life, Hallie? You are proof that they don’t. Mine hasn’t stayed the same, either. You’re not Emmaline and I don’t want Emmaline, not anymore. I care for your soul—am drawn to it—because I know it, intimately. That much is true. But I love it because I love you.”
Something inside her cracked at his words—surely, she was bleeding internally. But it hurt so good, so wonderfully, like so much else about being with him.
And that was why she had to stop.
“I’m leaving, Matthew.”
At this, he reeled back, stricken. When he met her gaze, his eyes were red. Wet. He brushed at them roughly.
“Don’t,” he whispered. “Please.”
But she had to. All of her life had been this way, full of hurt and betrayal and doubt. The doubt, maybe, was worst of all, because it was the thing she couldn’t get over. And just as she didn’t deserve it, neither did Matthew. She would never be able to love him, really love him properly, if she was constantly worrying that he didn’t want her—that he would tire of her, or realize someday that she wasn’t enough. That maybe someday he’d be telling another girl how different she was from Hallie.
Her throat tightened. No matter what he said, it had mattered that he chose her… and now she realized that had never really been the case.
“Stay,” he said. But she shook her head.
“I’m leaving,” she whispered again, breaking from his grasp and rounding the bed to pick up her suitcase. She hadn’t unpacked much, just her toothbrush and shower stuff, which were in a bag in the bathroom. She rolled her suitcase around him, lifted her book bag over her shoulder, and stopped in the bathroom for her little bag of soap.
She’d always been neat with her things, ready to pack up and leave at a moment’s notice.
“Hallie, wait—”
His words were the last things she heard before the door clicked shut behind her, and she knew she’d never forget it, that note of anguish she’d left in his voice.
Chapter 26
Hallie drove with both hands clamped tight on the wheel, blinking away her tears as they fell. They wouldn’t stop. She was still in her sundress and the sun was rising now; she needed a shower and something warm to drink. And a nap. She had flipped on the radio some fifteen miles out of the little resort town, hoping that the music would distract her, but the melodic twang of a woman singing country tunes captured her instead. She let the fuzzy country station play, imagining it was a soundtrack to her tears.
If she’d been anyone else, she would have thought that this was pretty freaking pathetic. Crying over a boy while country music played in the background and she drove west to nowhere. But now… she didn’t think she’d ever make fun of heartbreak again.
She thought of the empty chair beside her, the loss of his low warm voice telling her some story about being on the road, or complaining about his cell phone. The sweet slow slide of his lips against hers. The strange sense of peace she felt in moments when he tapped her nose, or tickled her, or pulled her close in his sleep. How tightly he held her when she cried. The way that his laughter burst from low in his chest and seemed to surprise even himself. The fact that she didn’t have to pretend to be anything she wasn’t, when she was with him.
The pain of leaving Matthew stung with every beat of her heart, like it had sprung a painful leak and all of the warmth, the sense of belonging, that he had given her was trickling away. With each heartbeat, each mile marker that passed, she lost more of him. There were no words to express the profound loneliness that consumed her—and that must be consuming him now, too.