The Breathless

by Tara Goedjen

  “I better get going.” She took a step back from Lance, clutching her bag. Why had he taken so long to give her the book? He seemed happy to help, but he wasn’t telling her everything.

  Lance shut the truck door and then tilted his head at her. “You know what I like most about you, Mae?” His voice was so low she could barely hear him. “I like how you’ve always judged me, in your quiet way.” He held up a hand like he expected her to protest. “Even now, you’re deciding whether to judge me.” He looked down at the gravel, seemed to be thinking. The sunlight caught the gold in his hair. “You see what you want to see, and that keeps me on my toes. I even think you used to hate me.”

  She fought the urge to take another step back. “I didn’t,” she said, “I don’t,” but her chest felt tight, and she crossed her arms. She didn’t hate him; she just didn’t trust him.

  He stepped toward her, closing the distance between them. “Hate and love are strong emotions. They make us do things…we don’t expect to do. They clutter up the mind.”

  What was he talking about? She suddenly felt exhausted—the past few days had worn her down, and she didn’t understand what he was getting at.

  Lance shrugged, and there was a little crease in his brow, like he was concerned about what would come out of his mouth next. “But if I’ve got that wrong, then maybe you think better of me now?”

  She peered up at him, at the setting sun behind his back, the large house to his side surrounded by trees. Blue Gate looked quiet, peaceful. He’d given her the book, just like she wanted, and that showed a measure of trust.

  “I do,” she told him, which was true. She did think better of him than she used to, even though he was keeping things from her. But she’d been keeping secrets too. Too many to count.

  “Good.” He was smiling again. “Because I think the world of you.”

  Her heart skipped with surprise. Before she could say anything, his hazel eyes shot toward the house. Mae saw his eyebrows rise ever so slightly, and she turned and let out a gasp.

  Ro was standing on the porch near a rocking chair, her long blond hair streaming over her shoulders.

  IT WASN’T RO, IT WAS Elle—she’d bleached her hair, and she must have put on self-tanner. She’d wiped off her usual red lipstick and gone natural, like Ro’s just-got-done-swimming look. Somehow she looked leaner, all athletic limbs and her hair wavy from air drying. Mae couldn’t look away. How had she never seen the resemblance before? It was like a Picasso suddenly rearranging itself into a realist painting. Seeing her like this flipped the world upside down—some sort of magic had taken place.

  Mae watched, half fascinated, half wary, as her sister stepped off the porch and cut through the grass toward them.

  “Your hair…,” Mae started.

  “I just did it,” Elle said, unable to keep the grin off her face. She even sounded more like Ro, as if she was deliberately lowering her voice. “Do you like it?”

  Mae fumbled for an answer, and Elle’s face fell. “It’s—”

  “You look stunning,” Lance said. “Sorry for cutting you off, Mae, but I couldn’t hold back.”

  “I was just going to say”—her eyes darted to Elle’s and saw hope there, and a strange, giddy anticipation—“the very same thing.”

  “Thanks.” Elle’s smile was back in full force as she turned to Lance. “I thought you were just grabbing something from your dad’s truck. Nice he lets you drive it instead of that old one,” she said. “Come on, Sonny’s at the bar, so we’ve got free rein.”

  “Free rein of what?” Mae asked.

  “Sweet,” Lance said, throwing his arm around Elle. “The place is all ours. You joining us for Elle’s specialty, Mayday?”

  “Probably not,” Elle said before Mae could ask what he meant. “Mae’s been disappearing lately. I’m guessing she’d rather go off and paint instead of hang out.”

  “Funny,” Lance said. “I took her for more of a reader.”

  He winked and Mae held her breath, wondering if her sister would catch on, but Elle was already heading back to the house and was tugging Lance along. Mae stared after them for a moment. Elle’s blond hair was so much like Ro’s, and her legs were tan and strong. It was like their sister was here again, like she’d come home. Mae tore her eyes away and looked down at her bag. She felt the weight of the book inside, and then opened the flap just to be sure.

  There it was. The two coffins on the front. She should show Cage. Go check on him in the barn and let him know she had it. Maybe then he’d feel better, pull out of whatever was making him sick.

  When she glanced up again, Elle’s hand was still on Lance’s wrist—she was leading him into the side yard.

  “It’s back here,” Elle called out, and then laughed at something Lance said. Mae felt a pang in her heart. She couldn’t let this imitation Ro out of her sight, not yet. It wasn’t just the bleached hair; it was the mannerisms too. Elle would have never grabbed Lance’s wrist like that—that was always Ro’s territory, and now here she was, barely distinguishable from their older sister at a distance. Mae watched as she rounded the back of the house, Lance still in tow. There was the sound of a key scraping against a lock, the creak of a gate. Without another thought she trailed after them, ducking down by some bushes beside the edge of the house. When she peeked out, Lance’s white shirt was disappearing into the garden.

  She eased her way forward, her steps quiet through the grass in the yard. Giving the rusted gate wide berth, she made her way to the hedge. Her heart felt like it was being called by Ro, like she was beckoning to her. She wanted to see her again, just a little longer. When she peered through the hedge’s sharp leaves, she gasped.

  Her sister was staring straight at her.

  Mae ducked back, waited for a yell. It didn’t come. A few seconds passed and it still didn’t come. She leaned in again and parted the leaves, wincing as their sharpness dug into her hands.

  The garden had been transformed. It was aglow with candles, and iron lanterns hung from a wire. The house loomed over everything, stately in the way that only old houses could be. In the wavering light, Blue Gate seemed as though it had been heaved a hundred years into the past, generations ago.

  Mae stared at her sister, unable to take her eyes from her. She was sitting beside Lance at the wrought-iron table set with steaming plates of food. He tipped his chair back, his hands threaded behind his head, and then said something Mae couldn’t hear. A minute later they began to eat, and she realized she was starving, that she hadn’t eaten in a long time, and that watching this mirror of Ro was making her aware of the emptiness inside her, the hole that her older sister had left.

  She closed her eyes, imagining the black door where she kept all the Ro memories, all the sadness. It needed to stay shut, but it was hard to keep it that way with Elle like this, somehow eating exactly how Ro used to. Ro had been the type to delicately rip off each section of a tangerine with her teeth, savoring the juice on her tongue with every bite, while Elle would just peel it and eat the thing whole. Now she was savoring each forkful of whatever she’d made—Mae saw bacon and grits and what must have been a quiche, and warm fluffy biscuits covered with jam and cream. It must have been a practice run for the B and B, breakfast for dinner, but they were eating like kings.

  Lance leaned back in his chair again, listening to Elle talk about her plans for Blue Gate, how it’d be good for Sonny to run a guesthouse. Before, the occasional prize money from his sport fishing had been enough to pay the bills, but he hadn’t gone out on the water all year.

  “Besides, I think it could really work,” Elle was saying, slathering more jam on her biscuit. “I mean, isn’t it nice out here?”

  “It’s beautiful,” Lance said, but he wasn’t looking at the garden; he was looking at Elle.

  Mae stiffened, suddenly feeling protective. She leaned in closer, the leaves of the hedge spiky against her face, the thorns scratching at her forearms, her hands. The pain was welcome; it helped
her think. Ro had always said not to let a guy close unless you knew exactly what you wanted, but Elle had never taken her advice, and right now Mae was worried for her sister.

  “You know, Ro made breakfast for me once.” Lance reached out to tuck a strand of blond hair behind Elle’s ear. “And then we went to the dock. It was real early, before class. I caught a ten-pound grouper and she came up empty-handed.”

  Mae wished she was close enough to read his eyes, see if he was lying—carried away by the moment and bragging when he shouldn’t. Ro had always outfished anyone.

  “She was furious with me, smoked half a pack of cloves afterward. Probably one of my favorite memories of her.” He laughed softly. “She was different from most people. Had different ideas about the world, you know? With her, it was like the terms of the universe didn’t apply.” He looked up at the sky, seemed to study it. “And she could do just about anything too. You ever hunt with her? She never missed. I was always jealous because my dad and Sonny worshipped her.”

  “Maybe…,” Elle started.

  Don’t say it, don’t say it, Mae thought, squeezing her eyes shut. Her sister would be devastated if he turned her down. Because Elle wasn’t like Ro, not on the inside. She was always getting upset over some guy not calling. She’d walk around the house like a zombie for days. Right now Elle’s face was lit up, and Mae wanted it to stay that way.

  “Maybe we could go together sometime?”

  Lance took a drink from his glass, seemed to consider. “Are we talking fishing or hunting?”

  “Both,” Elle said, her fork clinking against her plate as she set it down.

  Lance shrugged, and Mae stopped breathing for a moment. Then he smiled. “Why not?” he said. “We’ll start with fishing. No better time to be out on the water.”

  “You’ve got a deal.” Elle wiped her mouth with her wrist and made it look elegant, exactly how Ro used to. It was like she’d been practicing. Mae stared at her sister, trying to figure her out. The look on Elle’s face made Mae realize she hadn’t seen Elle happy—really happy—in a long time.

  “I tried a little fishing when we were kids, but when we got older it was mostly just Ro and my dad who went out. I want to get good at it.”

  Mae felt her insides twist. Lance’s hand was on Elle’s, and they were gazing at each other like they might never stop. She knew she shouldn’t be watching, but she couldn’t turn away from the sister who was so much like Ro.

  She gripped the waxy leaves of the hedge, their tips biting into her palms while she stared into the garden. For some reason she thought of Cage: how he’d stood there in the storm last night, how the rain had seemed to wash him down to his very essence. And now here was Lance, somehow made warmer by the candlelight, leaning in to kiss her sister, getting closer, closer, the light flickering across their faces, and then—

  “What are you doing, Mae?”

  She stumbled back at the same time that the chairs scraped across the cobblestones. When she turned, she saw Fern leaning against the hedge, seemingly oblivious to the thorns. Her little blond curls were hooked in the leaves, floating up above her head as she smirked.

  “Lance says to never get caught when you’re spying,” Fern sang out.

  “Isn’t it past your bedtime?” Mae whispered. Her neck blazed with heat.

  “I spy better than you,” Fern said. “I spy on you all the time and you don’t even know it.”

  “Never admit to such a thing,” Mae said quickly as her sister rounded the hedge looking furious.

  “What are you doing?” Elle asked, her voice sharp.

  The truth would sound too strange—I couldn’t help but stare at you because you look exactly like Ro—so she didn’t say anything.

  Fern started giggling, and Elle folded her arms across her chest and glared. “I don’t know what you’re up to,” she said, “but I’d appreciate it if you’d give us some space.”

  Lance strolled around the corner with his hands tucked into his pockets, his white shirt luminescent in the fading light. “Or join us. It’s much nicer on the other side, I promise.”

  He grinned at Mae, looking like the same person who’d opened up to her in the attic—the guy who seemed like a friend. Almost.

  “I’ve been searching all over for you,” Fern said to her cousin. She stepped away from the hedge, yanked her hair loose from the leaves. “Mae here was just having a little look-see. Be careful around her.”

  “Was she?” Lance said, and grinned.

  “What the hell, Mae,” Elle said. She was holding one of her elbows like Ro used to, the other arm dangling against her hip. “There’s plenty of food. I already saved you a plate.”

  Mae’s eyes watered. That was what Ro would say.

  “We’re pretty much finished anyway,” Lance added. “Best breakfast for dinner I’ve ever had.” He squeezed Elle’s shoulder and she grinned at him; then she turned to Mae. “Well,” she said, “want to try some?”

  She was so embarrassed that her appetite had vanished. “Thanks, but later. I’m not really hungry right now.”

  Elle frowned. “Suit yourself. I knew you wouldn’t say yes.”

  Mae had a sudden and intense craving to be alone, but she owed Elle some sort of explanation. There’d been so many secrets lately, and for once she could be honest. “Sorry I looked in on you. I was just wondering what you were doing.”

  “All you had to do was ask,” Elle said. She shifted her weight. She seemed flustered like the old Elle for a moment, and Mae could tell she was upset.

  “Well, I, for one, am flattered,” Lance said.

  “Hey!” Fern scrunched her nose. “What’s with your hair, Elle?”

  Elle stepped forward and grabbed Fern’s finger. “It’s rude to point,” she told her. “And it’s past your bedtime. I’ll fix you a plate to take home to your mom.” She glanced toward Mae with an unreadable look on her face before walking off around the side of the hedge. Mae’s neck felt like it was on fire, and she couldn’t believe she’d been caught.

  “I’m taking you home,” Lance said, giving Fern a playful shove. “After you apologize for pointing at Elle.”

  “How about this for pointing?” Fern stuck her middle finger up at him and then skipped away toward the truck and started singing. “Sommme-times the cat comes back, sommme-times the…”

  Lance turned to Mae. “See you later,” he said. “We might even have a surprise for you in a few days.” He smiled as he said it, but then his jaw tightened and that crease in his brow appeared again.

  “What sort of surprise?” Mae couldn’t keep the suspicion out of her voice. Lance was full of surprises lately. And who was we: he and Fern, or he and Elle?

  “Wait and see,” he said. “I sure hope you will, anyway. It’s for her anniversary.”

  Mae stiffened. “What are you talking about?” Her dad wouldn’t want a reminder of Ro’s death; he wouldn’t want to mark the day. It was thoughtful if Lance had some memorial in mind, but he couldn’t just spring it on them. Sonny hated surprises. So did Elle.

  “You’ll see. Trust me.” He looked at her intently, his hazel eyes serious. “I want the best for you, Mae. For all of you.”

  “Lance, you can’t just—” But he’d turned away and was jogging over to Elle, catching up with her and Fern in the side yard. Mae lingered at the corner of the hedge while they headed toward his truck, shadowy in the night. The engine started up, and Elle got in too, the door slamming behind her.

  Mae was left alone, just like she’d wanted, only now she felt empty, as if something was missing. She dug into her bag, found the green book inside. The sight of it would get Cage to his feet, but she needed a moment to think first.

  She walked over to the garden and sat in one of the chairs near the gift cherub’s good eye. She blew out the candles on the table, watching the smoke fade away. A cloth napkin was draped over a bowl and she lifted it, revealing a pile of biscuits. She picked at one and then pulled the green book from h
er bag.

  A nagging suspicion itched at the corner of her mind. Would she notice if Lance had ripped out any of the pages?

  She flipped open the cover under the lantern light from the hedge, breathed in the musky scent of the paper. Scrolling through the book, she checked to see if anything seemed different. Her eyes snagged on those strange words again, Chana 4 chana, written next to the note in the margin that she’d seen before, RC = AC, J = E, H = GCI. She moved past it, going faster now, skipping over the remedies and the section of rituals for curses and love. The raising ritual was at the end, and when she reached it she started going backward again, to find the page with Ro’s writing, and then—

  Something caught her eye and she stopped, the breath hollowing out of her lungs.

  In front of her was a sketch of a ring. Three intricately detailed tear-shaped stones at the top. She gasped, held the page to the light. She would recognize it anywhere: it was the one she’d found in Ro’s bedroom, the one from Cage. Written next to the band was tight cursive: Your chana is my life.

  The handwriting didn’t look like Ro’s—though surely she’d been the one to draw the ring after Cage had given it to her? But that didn’t make sense either. He’d asked her to marry him the day she died….

  Mae’s neck tingled as she brought the page closer. Another sketch was beside the ring, done in the same style. It was of a thick, braided thread, with small objects scattered around it. A bone, some beads, a sand dollar, a lodestone. Cursive was in the margin.

  For Lucky

  It wasn’t Ro’s handwriting. Mae stared at the ring again, tracked its inky curves, the trio of tear-shaped rubies at the top. It was definitely identical to the one in Ro’s room—Cage had given her his family ring, that was what he’d said.

  But why was there a sketch of his family ring in the green book, if Ro couldn’t have drawn it?

  She felt a bead of sweat trickle down her face. The book fell from her hands, clattering to the table.

  “Oh God,” she breathed. Cage’s ring was in the green book, which only meant one thing. Her heart was going faster now; it was hard to breathe. Cage was a Cole. Cage was related to them, to Ro. Had Ro known? The thought made her stomach turn. Of course she hadn’t. The discovery was bursting in her chest—it was painful, sharp. So many questions were running through her head, and Ro’s black door was shining in her mind like oil. Cage would be devastated if he knew. Ro would have been devastated.