by Gwen Hayes
Haden looked at me darkly. “You’re fine.”
I nodded.
“Theia, you were attacked by some kind of magic spell about ten minutes ago. It’s okay to be upset.”
I nodded again. “I hope Amelia doesn’t blame herself.”
“She probably does. The spell was likely reacting to Mara’s blood inside you. She couldn’t have known that would happen.”
Now was my chance to tell him how I’d been worried about the hunger I’d felt. I tried to find the words, but before I could speak, Haden kissed my knuckles.
“Let’s go back to the house. I’ll make you some of that tea you like so much.”
I swallowed the words I’d meant to say. “Tea sounds lovely.”
By the time we got back, everyone had left. I had a couple of texts from Donny and Amelia to call them when I felt like talking. Varnie made an excuse to go to bed early so Haden and I could have some privacy.
I settled in on Varnie’s ugly, lumpy couch. “You’re getting quite good at making tea,” I told Haden. “I think it’s sweet that you keep PG Tips here for me.”
He looked down slightly, adorably embarrassed to be complimented for being sweet. His dark briar of eyelashes swept across his eyes. “That’s what you like. I want you to be comfortable here.” He looked at me through those lashes. “This is where I live. My home. You need to feel welcome wherever I am, but especially here.”
My heart clutched. He needed this life he’d found in Serendipity Falls. He’d been so alone for so long—but now he had a lumpy couch, and friends, and a home where he felt at peace. It would be selfish of me to tell him about my worries that I would lose the ability to stay in control of the demon urges. They could be just that—worries. I hadn’t acted on the hunger. There was no need to make him worry too. Not yet.
He leaned back into the couch, so I curled into him and rested my cheek on his chest. “You and Varnie are odd roommates, you know.”
Haden kissed the top of my head. “How so?”
“Well, he dresses like a woman, for one thing.”
“Only for his clients. He still won’t let me drink his beer, you know. Can you believe that? I’m technically older than him, in demon years, but he still says no.”
“He feels responsible for you,” I said. “I think it’s sweet.”
“You think everything is sweet.”
“Did you figure out his real first name yet?” I asked.
“All the bills come to A. E. Varnie, and he refuses to tell me anything other than that it’s awful and he considers legally changing it every day.”
I pondered that. “So, it can’t be something normal like Adam or Andrew.”
“No. I bet his license has it . . . but I don’t want to snoop. Do you need to go home soon?”
In the quiet of the room, the stillness between us, I felt like I could breathe again. I leaned back to look at Haden. “Probably. My father is still avoiding me, but I don’t want to give him any reasons to swing back into overprotective mode either.”
Haden got up first and pulled me after. We stared at each other for a long moment. The stress of the evening began to fade and I felt myself falling into the place where nothing mattered but the two of us.
He took my hands into his, the touch of his skin electrifying mine. He brought one hand to his lips and kissed the backs of my fingers, and the jolt of his touch thrummed as if on a direct wire to my center. I finally looked at him, his inky dark eyes full of mischief and desire.
“I can hear your pulse racing faster. Do I still make you nervous, love?”
“Yes,” I admitted, thinking that I gave him more power than I wanted to as the word slipped out on a quick breath.
Instead, my truth seemed to do the opposite. Haden’s expression softened and somehow, by admitting my weakness, I gained control. As I felt the shift of power come back to me, I brought his other hand to my chest, placing it over my wildly beating heart. He swallowed hard and pressed his hand more firmly against my skin.
We stood so close that we shared the same air, breathing each other in and out. My heart pounded beneath his fingers like it was trying to break free. The moment stretched, the corners of the room rounded, and the light around us seemed to sparkle and dance. A need took form in the center of my heart. It grew and spread, hollowing me until the only thing that would ease the growing ache was Haden.
“It’s not safe to want you this badly,” he said simply.
“I don’t care,” I said.
He closed his eyes, trying to find that reserve of control he kept deep inside. The one I’d found myself trying to crack since the night my dreams led me to his world. The atmosphere held a charge, each passing second threatening to detonate everything. “You should.”
He was acting very strangely all of a sudden. “Haden? What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Some days are harder than others,” he said, as if that explained anything. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”
He had erected a wall between us and I could see no reason for it. But I was tired and worn out from the attack, so I pretended everything was fine.
I was getting pretty good at that.
* * *
A moon hung large and impossibly full in the purple sky as the wind moaned solemnly through winter trees barren of leaves. The trunks were bent and curved like old women and I shivered at the creepy mosaic of long shadows they created. And also at the bitter cold. I’d gone to bed wearing yoga pants and a T-shirt in case I woke up in Under, but it didn’t change the outcome—I still awoke wearing my white nightgown. I shivered again.
The shadows danced without movement from their source, gyrating into complex patterns and then back to the shape of the trees. Around me were the crooked headstones of an uncared-for graveyard. Forgotten. No grass or flowers grew in the untended cemetery. The midnight chill felt like a permanent feature of the desolate burial ground.
I didn’t think Haden would have arranged such a meeting, but I was unmistakably in Under. I tried to read the epitaphs on the gravestones, but most were worn away or cracks ran through the words, making them indecipherable. A crushed-rock path wove through the graves, I hoped leading out of the cemetery. The living in Under were scary enough; I didn’t want to meet the dead.
While I knew better than to assume the trail was safe, it seemed preferable to walking over the graves, so I stepped carefully onto it, hoping the rocks wouldn’t cut the bottom of my feet. I followed the winding path through the hilly yard with every hair on my neck prickling. The night was eerily serene despite the mournful wind, and moonlight illuminated my way. I kept looking over my shoulder, waiting for the doom I was sure to find at any moment.
I finally reached the end of the trail, its conclusion a black iron gate leading out of the graveyard. The tips of the fence spires were shaped into knife points, chilling my blood again. Were the blades to keep someone in or out? I wondered.
I opened the gate slowly, the creaks and groans lamenting how long it had been since the hinges were last used. Latching it back into place, I turned and found that the other side of the fence was rife with glimmering figures. Ghosts.
My heart thundered in my chest, but they didn’t seem to notice me. They glowed phosphorescently white, transparent and yet not. The apparitions, all girls of varying ages with blond hair, were tending what looked like flower beds. As I peered closer, I realized they were gardens of bones.
Poking through the mulch of ash were joints and femurs and skulls . . . and more. Some of the ghosts held watering cans, while others were on their knees weeding through ash. One young girl holding a basket was picking the bones, depositing each piece of her harvest into the straw container.
She turned and looked at me and I lost the feeling in my limbs as I froze in horror. She was about ten years old. I recognized the dress. She was me.
I sucked in a breath and looked at the faces of each ghost—all of them were apparitions of my youth. They smiled and waved at me
before returning to their work. Tending their dead blooms.
I backed into the gate, desperately wanting to get back to the other graveyard. The latch was stuck, so I turned to fiddle with it. A sensation of frost coated my back and I turned around to see that all of the ghosts had formed in a horizontal line behind me. There seemed to be one for every year of my life, the eldest holding a baby wearing a gown I recognized from my christening pictures.
I rattled the gate as they began to walk towards me. It wouldn’t open. There was nowhere to run. The ghosts of me formed a semicircle, trapping me against the fence. The eldest—my current age—stood directly in front of me and held the baby towards me as if she wanted me to take it. I shook my head but her face melted into an angry expression, her lips pulling back into an evil snarl at my refusal. I held out my arms and she put the noncorporeal baby into my hands.
The child was weightless but cold. Freezing cold. I didn’t want to hold her, but I couldn’t put her down or give her back. From behind me a shadow loomed. I couldn’t see what was blocking the moon, but as it edged over my shoulder, the darkness ate the luminosity of the baby in my hands until it disappeared completely into a pinpoint of black and I awoke shuddering.
My bed was covered in frost.
* * *
There would be no more sleep for me that night. I’d found I needed less since my return anyway.
Despite my attempts to distract myself with books or even homework, I remained haunted by the chill of Under and what I’d seen. The frost had burned off my bed in a hiss of smoke after I’d jumped out of it—but I was still unnaturally cold.
A warm bath helped, but I couldn’t stop seeing the ghosts. Every time I closed my eyes, they were there—they were me. I finally gave up and went downstairs for tea. It was almost time to get up anyway.
I was surprised to see my father in the kitchen.
“Good morning, Theia.”
I looked at the clock above his head. “Is everything all right? You’re usually at the office by now.”
“Everything is fine,” his voice said, but his posture told another story.
My father was not a physically big man, but the way he carried himself made him seem to loom large over others despite his absence of height or girth. As I watched him rinse out his teacup, he seemed shrunken to me.
“Father, are you ill?”
He turned to look at me, surprised that I had asked. “Just a little tired.”
“Something is going around my school,” I said, thinking of the way Brittany had looked yesterday. “Perhaps you have a touch of it.”
“Yes, that’s possible.”
And then there was the silence.
Why was it so hard for us to connect? We were so polite it was like living with a stranger. All these years, all we’d had was each other and yet we never did. We never had each other. How unbelievably sad.
I’d rather have had him explode with anger because he thought I’d run away than ignore the fact that I’d been gone.
The silence roared between us, louder than anything I’d ever heard. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he reacted to me. I wanted to tell him about the demon queen, Mara—how she’d kidnapped me and poisoned me. He needed to know about my strange trip to Under last night and how scared I was. I needed my father to comfort me as my life unraveled, but he was nowhere to be found despite standing directly in front of me. I searched his eyes for something, but the contact made him look away.
“I won’t be home for dinner this evening,” he said, reaching for his briefcase.
“What else is new?” I said softly to his back.
He paused at the door as if he were going to respond to my words, but changed his mind and left.
CHAPTER FOUR
School seemed pointless. I’d missed too much to make up, though they said if I took summer classes and an extra class period next year I could still graduate on time next spring. Everyone insisted that I still attend as if things were normal, so I went from class to class drowning in normal.
I was checking texts on my way to history class and didn’t notice Haden was sitting in my seat until I reached it.
He smiled and pulled me into his lap. “You’re very quiet today.”
“You were very quiet last night,” I countered.
He inspected my hand and kissed the back of it. “I’m sorry. I was in a foul mood. I didn’t like what happened with that spell.” He shifted so I was looking at him. “Are you all right?”
“I’m a little out of sorts myself.” I shrugged. “Things are strained with my father and I went to Under last night. . . .”
Haden had stopped listening to me. Something seemed to have upset him, so I followed his gaze and saw Brittany walking down the aisle between chairs. She wasn’t even in this class—what was she doing?
She clearly wasn’t well, her eyes even more sunken than yesterday. She sat down and rested her head on her arms. The teacher had to tell her she had history next period and that she’d come to the wrong class.
After she left, the room buzzed with how weird she had been acting the last week or so. I heard someone say, “She looked like hell.” I looked back at Haden. He was troubled by her appearance. I didn’t want to feel jealous about that, but I did. I slid off his lap and he barely registered my absence.
And then it struck me. I wheezed on air and the anger dissipated into cold dread. Brittany looked like hell, I repeated to myself. A simple expression to most people—if they didn’t live in Serendipity Falls, because in this town, hell literally came calling. I thought of my father, his still slightly gaunt face that resembled poor Brittany’s. And I recalled Haden’s distress at her appearance.
Brittany looked like hell. And Haden had looked guilty.
* * *
Between classes later that day, Mike Matheny stopped me at my locker. He asked me about the trig homework, but I was distracted by yet another girl walking down the hall who looked like she hadn’t slept in months. She reminded me of Brittany, the way she moved as if every step was in a vat of molasses.
She was alone. People actually seemed to veer away from her as they went past, but they didn’t look at her when they did it. It was like they were instinctually avoiding getting too close.
I was glad when she turned into the nurse’s office. Please be the flu. If Haden were somehow responsible . . . no. No. He wouldn’t do that.
“This is going to sound dumb,” Mike said.
I blinked, bringing my attention back to him. “What is?”
He handed me a plastic bubble from a toy-vending machine. Inside was a fake gold chain with charms on it. “I want to give you this.”
I rattled the container. “Why?”
“It’s stupid. But my little sister wanted the pink heart diamond ring in the machine. I mean, she was psycho scary about it—I know you don’t have a little sister, but they can be pretty nutty. Anyway, I put a bunch of quarters in until we got it, and, well . . . this stupid bracelet kinda made me think of you.”
He kept looking from his feet to the bracelet and back to his feet.
I was curious, so I opened the plastic. The charms were a compass, a map, and a treasure box. I cocked my head and looked back at him for an explanation.
“I just thought . . . you know . . . if you get lost again.”
My breath hitched. It was a bittersweet gesture. If I ever got abducted again, I wouldn’t need a twenty-five-cent charm to remind me I wanted to go home, but he couldn’t know. He thought only to let me know I was missed.
“Thank you.”
Mike shook his head. “It’s dumb. I know. I’ll talk to you later.”
“No, wait.” I sent him a reassuring smile. “I really like it. Will you help me with the clasp?”
Mike smiled earnestly and dropped his books on the floor. His hands shook slightly as he put the bracelet on my wrist and a bead of sweat formed on his temple. Had I made him nervous? How strange.
; “You have really pretty wrists,” he said and then blushed.
“Um . . . thank you.”
He scooped up his dropped books and was down the hall before I could tell him how much I appreciated it.
“Please tell me I don’t have to kill him.”
I hadn’t even seen Haden arrive. It was like he materialized in front of me. I stretched and kissed his cheek.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” I said. “We have enough obstacles in our path already. Visiting you in prison would make things even more difficult.”
He twirled a finger in my curls. “Are we okay? Things feel . . . strange.”
I wanted things to be okay. I didn’t like doubting Haden. Everything just seemed so overwhelming. “We’re fine,” I decided as I said it out loud. We had to be.
It was daunting, really, to try to understand love. Six months ago I hadn’t known Haden existed. How did my heart recognize his so quickly? How did I go from not knowing him to risking my life for him? I used to think that love at first sight was ridiculous, but now I understood that it was never instantaneous. . . . Love was older than time. It wasn’t ruled by logic or our concept of reality—it was the reason we had souls.
“You’re deep in thought, love,” Haden whispered in my ear. “Maybe I need to step up my game if you find it so easy to tune me out.”
He nipped my earlobe and every nerve in my body fired a new rhythm. Haden tied me in knots and then loosened them at will. I was about to fall at his feet in a boneless heap.
He pulled back, pretending to be oblivious to my near state of Theia-puddle. “If you keep looking at me like that, we’re going to have to skip class.”
That sounded lovely to me. I never used to skip classes, but it hardly seemed like a big deal anymore. I was about to tell Haden we should go when I saw his expression change again.
I followed his gaze to see which girl was making his jaw tic this time and was surprised to see two sneetches in letter jackets standing behind me. Haden wasn’t just upset; he was furious.
Not paying attention to the fuming demon next to me, one of them, who’d never spoken a word to me before, said, “Hey, Theia. We just wanted to let you know a bunch of us are going to Hootenany’s after the baseball game. You should come.”