“What are you talking about?” I snap.
She continued on as if I haven’t spoken, but not without taking the rest of my sight. This isn’t like earlier today, in the stables. I know where I am and this time I have the full ability to concentrate. I sink to my knees and stay there, unmoving, like the prey of a shark waiting to die. Too terrified to flee and too weak to fight. I wait for Evie to get to her point as I stare into the terrifying blackness in front of me.
“I asked you this question once before. Do you remember?” She is right next to my ear now. Her presence brings with it the cold feeling of winter night air which my skin automatically reacts to. Every hair on my body stands on edge as goose bumps cover my flesh and a chill jolts throughout my veins like ice water. I shiver to her presence and Evie takes notice. “I make you uncomfortable, don’t I?” she coos.
Fighting against the extreme unease I feel with her murmuring in my ear, I swallow back the bile that has risen in my throat to answer her. “You’re not my favorite person,” I growl.
“This is so exhilarating!” she squeals and I jump to her sudden reaction. “Having this power! I must admit, at first I didn’t know I had these little quirks, but the longer I’m here the more I am able to discover what I can do! She was right!”
“What quirks? Who was right?” I ask quietly.
“Na-ah-ah,” she scolds. “My questions first. Now, this is the last time I’m going to ask you. What are you doing?”
“Would you care to clarify that question just a little?”
“What are you doing ruining my plans? Thank the Holy Grail that Liam was smart enough to get back together with you. Otherwise all my planning would have been wasted.”
I furrow my eyebrows but remain as still as possible. What is she talking about? I wish she’d stop with the evasiveness and just get on with it. Obviously she isn’t here to be friendly, as I suspected long ago. But toying with me is seriously annoying. I still don’t answer her though, mostly to the fact that I have no clue what it is she’s rambling about.
“I had Liam right where I wanted him before you came along.”
“Right where you wanted him?” I echo.
“When you came into his dismal life, I admit that it complicated things a bit. Especially when I discovered that you could see me. So I was forced to play around that, but I refused to have that be a challenge. Now, instead I see it as more amusing. Your talent is actually useful to me now. Don't you agree? Games can be so boring when twists and turns are taken out of the fun, and your ability has heightened the bar.”
“Just get on with it, Evie. You aren't making any sense to me.”
“I don’t think it’s fair that he is able to move on in life without me!” she snaps. “He should’ve died that night with me, but he didn’t. And now I’m afraid he needs to pay for that.”
Evie’s words rip through me like hot ice, her presence continuing to slam through me like arctic glaciers causing me to shudder. I am so tired of this constant feeling now – being overcome with unease and chill and terror. It’s getting monotonous. But my veins continue to pump cold blood throughout my body as I imagine my life without Liam, allowing her threat to echo in my ears. That brings more pain to me than the memories of those months he and I were apart. Even more pain than what Joseph is able to do to me. I force myself to shake off the thought, refusing to let her get to me. I push back all the negative thoughts and rebuff her attempt to crawl beneath my skin.
“If he was supposed to have died, then he would have.” I retort. “So that’s why you’re here? To cause him constant misery because he didn't die with you?” My voice shot up a few octaves taking all the menace from it.
My vision is abruptly restored and Evie is kneeling directly in front of me, inches from my well placed mask of annoyance although I am more than terrified. She looks over me like I’m a helpless little seal and she, the shark again stalking its prey, circling and taunting before the strike. I take note of her features and notice that she looks too… real. Her honey hair falls against her face as she cocks her head to the side again and as she squints her sky-blue eyes penetrating mine like she were really here in front of me as a living, breathing person, it hits me.
“You haven’t crossed,” I gasp.
That seems to catch her attention. “Crossed?”
“You’re not Home are you? Oh my God, you’re stuck just like him! That’s why you’re able to bring Liam such sadness. That’s why you affect him the way you do! And that’s why you can do this to me!”
There is something pulling at me, willing me to put the answers to the puzzle together. I put my hand to my mouth as I think. Sera suspects that Joseph is able to do the things he can to me because he hasn't crossed over; he’s earthbound. But Liam seems to be able to feel him too and I could never make much sense of that before. Sera mentioned something about spirit attachment, but I just figured that Liam has some sensitivity to what I can do and just maybe didn't know it. Now, I’m not so sure. And then with Evie – Liam can feel her as well. That much is obvious with the sadness that seems to set in whenever she appears. Okay, so earthbound ghosts can manipulate people's emotions whether the person has a gift like me or not. But why, what’s the purpose behind it?
“You say you have quirks,” I say, focusing on her eyes. My voice is extremely shaky and she notices.
“Yes,” she responds with a mocking smile. “The longer I’m here, the more powerful they seem to become. So don’t you worry little miss. I plan on sticking around a long time.”
“What can you do… exactly?” Sera didn’t have anything to contribute when it came to my questions about the subject, so I figure why not ask Evie since she seems to be such an expert.
“Well, at first not much of anything. I was very confused when I first got here,” she answers as she releases her stare on me and focuses to the distance. “No one seemed to be able to see me or hear me, and that was baffling. And maddening. I felt like I was going crazy. I remember seeing Liam lying somewhere. It was cold and wet and everything was wrong and different. I wasn't sure where I was, but when he was taken away I followed and stayed by his side. No one seemed to mind me being there, so I remained next to him. I paced and I cried and I screamed, but not a single person noticed. I had so many questions.
“When his parents were finally able to visit, that’s when I discovered what had happened to me – to us. Liam was unconscious of course, but that didn’t keep his mother from talking to him and squealing the truth. She was so pathetic standing there yammering about her poor little baby… yada yada. Poor little him, but what about me? I was the one who was dead for bloody sake.
“So there I stood, going through all the emotions of death, well not in the sense of losing someone but rather realizing I was the one who was dead, when at last I became so angry that all I could do was focus on the rage. Mad that I’d died, mad that Liam lived, mad that I had no one, mad that I’d never get to experience life. That’s when everything got dark. I was suddenly surrounded by nothing and you thought that I would’ve been scared, but I wasn’t. I liked it. I could feel the power coming from the darkness and I reached out to it, caressing it and holding myself to it. It took away the lonely feeling that had encased me. Because before that, I was scared. Terrified and alone. When the darkness came and saved me, all of those feelings went away. She promised me that I could be happy again, and that I could bring Liam with me. I knew that it would take some work, but that's what should’ve happened all along.”
Evie starts floating back and forth across the floor, not taking any steps to do so and all I can do is follow her non-existing pacing with my eyes. I’ve curled myself up into a ball on the floor. Not from pain, but from terror. Evie is menacing and dark, but worst of all is that she likes it. But as long as she is spilling her guts, I'll stay and let her torment me.
“So imagine my surprise when you came along,” she continues. “When I had come back from the darkness and found Liam, I star
ted to focus all of my anger onto him. I had no idea of course that it would cause him such sadness; I figured it would make him angry just as I was. But funnily enough, I found that to my liking even better. Every tear he cried over me made me blissfully happy.”
“Evie, listen to me,” I interrupt, hoping she’ll listen. The “darkness” she seems to be talking about appears to be fueling her. I know nothing of Evie, except for what Liam has told me and from everything he’s said, I know this isn’t her. Not the real Evie. Not the girl Liam had loved and lost. She is long gone.
“No. You listen to me,” she says threateningly. Her high soprano voice has dropped to a sinister growl; so low she sounds like a contorted demon. “Liam has no right living life when I can’t. It was taken away from me and if I have to be stuck forever like this, always remembering the life I once had and then imagining what I would’ve had, then he should, too. He was never supposed to feel anything again other than the pain and anger and guilt of losing me. Every day he was just one step closer to joining my side.”
“Joining your side?” I repeat.
“And you screwed it all up. I ought to make you pay, too.”
“Breckin?” Liam calls from my door. “Are you ready, love?”
I hurriedly stumble up from the cold bathroom floor and run to him, slamming the bathroom door into the wall and slipping in my socks on the wooden floor. I don’t slow though, and when I reach him, I crash into his body causing him to rock back on his heels. I bury my face into his chest.
“Breckin,” he says with clear alarm. “What’s wrong?”
I feel Evie directly behind me. When she speaks, her voice is directly next to my ear again with nips of ice biting my skin. “I can do a lot worse, Breckin. Stay out of my way or I might just have to show you exactly what I’m capable of. I’m afraid there isn’t room for both of us over here. I’ll just make you wish you were dead.”
And then she was gone.
I stare up to meet Liam’s anxious eyes and I don’t know whether to start crying or hyperventilating or faint. When he feels my quivering frame, he scoops me up into his arms and walks straight out of the room and heads toward his. Once inside, he slams the door behind him and sits on the edge of his bed with me wrapped in his arms while I am unable to talk or move or blink, clutching to his chest with my hands. I’m not sure how long we sit like that, but when Liam finally speaks breaking the profound silence, I shudder to the sound.
“Which one was it?” he asks soothingly.
I open my mouth to speak but can’t find the words. I hide my face in his neck as tears finally form inside my wide eyes and start silently running down my cheeks. Damn Evie for making me cry and having this effect on me. Damn her.
“It's getting worse. I’m going to find a way to protect you,” he vows. “I won’t let you live out the rest of our lives like this.”
“We just have to get them to crossover and then it will all be over,” I finally whisper. “We just have to... cross them... she can’t hurt us then. We can just make her go away,” I’m mumbling. “Get them to cross. They'll go away.”
“Them? She?” he responds after a long pause.
I nod into his neck. “It looks like Joseph isn’t the only one that hasn’t gone Home.” I respond, now looking up to Liam’s face. “Evie hasn’t crossed either. And I think she wants to kill me.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Liam canceled our little side trip into London; he didn’t want me to have an “episode” while we were out and about. I argued a tiny bit and said I still wanted to go, but Liam wouldn’t budge on it. I had even managed my best puppy-dog-eyes and pout in which Liam returned with a shake of his head and mouthed the word “no”.
Then I tried the approach of telling him that I didn’t want to live in constant fear (like I had said earlier) and reminded him that that was no way to be, to live, to please still take me and I’d be safe as long I was with him, etcetera. That didn’t work either, though. So after a very long and uneventful afternoon with a protective (although uselessly protective, but I’d never say that to him) Liam by my side, it was finally time for dinner. I wondered if tonight would be as awkward and upsetting as last night had been with Liam’s father in attendance. Maybe we'll get lucky and his father will be too busy with work to join us.
But no.
Beth and her husband sit on one end of the table, while Liam and I sit at the extreme other end as Marjorie carries out the food. Mr. Francis is reading a thick newspaper while Liam’s mother studies a small stack of paper work. Tonight is stuffed chicken breast and sweet baby peas. Rolls and butter, along with a fresh fruit plate lay to the side, and as Marjorie pours Liam’s father a drink, I peek up to Liam’s face. Just as I’d figured it would be, Liam’s expression is hard, but at least his body isn’t as rigid as the night before. No one is talking and the tension in the room is billowing in a dark thunder cloud around us. If someone doesn’t speak soon, the air might actually crack and explode just like a storm.
I stare at my plate, pushing around my peas trying to figure out something to say as I listen to the clink and clank of forks against plates. Ice jiggles in Mr. Francis’s glass as he takes needy sips of an amber colored liquid. Beth’s pen scratches on the surface of her paperwork as she jots down quick notes. Normally I wouldn’t be so apt to put my voice out there in a situation like this, but seeing Liam constantly on edge around his father has me tense and the silence is making me jittery. The nervous stomach I have isn’t allowing me much appetite and my leg bounces up and down uneasily under the table. So awkward, I think.
“Are you kids going to venture into the city tonight?” Beth says, trying to break the silence. She has set her work to the side to focus on us and I’m thankful for that, as I am having a hard time coming up with any topic of discussion. “London really is quite breathtaking at night. The air is a bit crisp, but the newly fallen snow should add to the beauty to make up for it.”
I feel my face light up in hopes that Liam will change his mind.
“No, we’re sticking around here,” he answers before I can say anything. I expected his voice to be harsh, but toward his mother I’m glad to see he has no ill feelings. His voice is deep, soft, and beautifully accented just the way I like it.
“Oh? I was under the impression you were going out tonight,” Beth responds in surprise.
“We were,” Liam begins again. I have opened my mouth to say something in the way of how I’d like to go out, still hoping Liam will change his mind, however he puts a hand on my jiggling knee and speaks for the both of us. “But the weather forecast is calling for more snow and wind tonight, so Breckin and I decided to wait until tomorrow evening. Clear skies and calm air is what their calling for then.” He smiles his heart stopping smile. Grrrr. It isn’t fair how he can wrap everyone around his finger with that face and persuasive tone.
My shoulders slump and my face falls. I probably look like a pouting toddler, but his mother doesn’t seem to notice. At least she pretends not to.
“Oh yes, then I agree. Tomorrow will be much better,” his mother smiles back. “We can’t be sending you home sick. Your mother wouldn’t let you return!” Beth adds with a wink.
“Sure she would,” I respond. “Just maybe in the summer months instead. She wouldn't want me to miss out on the fine sights of London just because of some silly weather issues.” I’m still pushing.
“Breckin, love, we'll have plenty of time tomorrow.” Liam says firmly while squeezing my knee.
Beth lightly laughs and I look up to read Liam’s face once more. I planned on sticking my tongue out at him or making a face to show just how disappointed I am, but the smile he wears washes all that away. At least he’s thawed out just a little as his mouth curves slightly upward at the corners and his beautiful eyes show a trace of the sparkle I always manage to get lost in.
“So, what does your mother do, Breckin? I’ve been so busy the past couple of days I feel I haven’t gotten to know you we
ll enough. Apologies for my bad manners.”
“That’s okay.” I respond after clearing my throat. “She’s an emergency room nurse.”
“And your father?” she prompts.
“Ummm, last I knew he was still working on the road selling… things.”
“Last you knew?” Beth asks as her eyebrows shoot up to the ceiling. Her concern isn't polite, it’s genuine, and I feel a tiny bit better confiding in her about my loser father.
“Yeah, sorry, I don’t see him very often and he doesn’t keep in touch. I haven’t talked to him since last Christmas and he’s kind of known for jumping from job to job. I don’t even know what it is that he sells,” I admit feeling completely moronic.
“I’m truly sorry for that, sweetheart.” She says, looking and sounding truly sympathetic.
“It’s okay,” I shrug. Liam rubs my arm soothingly while I stammer on. “You can’t really miss anything you never had. My mom left when I was young and he forgot about us both. I was never a priority, but it’s fine. Really. I’ve never felt slighted.” Shut up, Breckin, she doesn't care that much about your deadbeat dad.
“Your mum must be a good woman,” she muses.
“The best.” I agree. “I do have a half-brother, though. Same dad, different moms. His name is Axel.”
“Axel?” she wonders aloud. “That’s an interesting name.”
“His mom kind of gets caught up in romance. She was a big Marie Antoinette fan when he was born.”
“Ah, yes. I know the story well. Axel Fersen,” she laughs. “Does your father see your brother, then?”
“No,” I shake my head.
“Don’t be surprised if we’re late tomorrow, Mum,” Liam says, changing the subject. I give him a small smile of gratitude. “There’s so much I want to show Breckin, and it seems I’ll only get one night to do it.”
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