With narrowed eyes, I stare at the chest. Something is different about it—other than the small break in the wood where my foot abused it. I kneel down and try to lift the lid.
Locked.
I swipe my thumb over the brass key hole. I never paid attention to it before, didn’t even realize I could lock it. My dad kept it on his desk and, when he died, I wanted to keep it close to me. I thought the wood and intricate carvings would be calming. But after a time, it just reminded me too much of Dad and I decided to push it under my bed. So the fact that it is right out here in the open…is, well…odd.
I shake the chest. It used to have spare blankets in it, but now I hear things shuffling inside like books or papers or small boxes. I try prying the lid open. It doesn’t budge.
The keyhole is scratched. I run my fingertips over the grooves slowly.
Dad’s face flashes in my head.
I stumble back.
What the hell?
“Hey Mom?” I peek out my door and call downstairs. She takes a moment to respond—I know it is just a few seconds, but it feels like years. “Yeah, hon?”
“Do you have the key to Dad’s old chest?”
Chapter 53
Jade
“What?” I fall back into my seat, the enormity of it practically swallowing me whole. “You what?”
“I had to Jade, I—I had to. It was the only way…”
I rip myself from the chair. “The only way to what?” I lunge for him, anger rippling through my muscles, in the pit of my stomach, in my twitching fingers.
“Jade, stop!” He flings his palms forward, each hand scarred with an eye.
My own momentum turned against me, I fly backward into a wall. The eyes burn, burn, burn. Wind and fire lash out at me. The old man lowers his hands and there we are: He across the room barely able to meet my eyes. Me sprawled out on the floor unable to look away from his.
“I—I am sorry, Jade. I am so sorry.” His voice quivers. Clenching his fists, he sits back down in his chair. “I took your memories so they couldn’t find you. So no one could find you. Not even me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your memories—there are ways of entering a person’s mind and tracing their memories to lead the mind reader directly to where you are, because everything we are—where we are, what we become—is based on the thousands of memories that shape us.” He leans forward and taps the desk before bringing his fingers to his temples and massaging small circles as if to ease the pain. “And—and they had found us and Giovanni and I knew the only way to protect you a while longer would be to take your memories and make you start over. New memories with not one thread they could cling to, follow, or unravel. We wanted to protect you.”
I was alive once, alive with memories, memories with this old man, memories that made me traceable. Thousands of questions replace the thousands of lost memories. “Who is searching for me? Why? What do they want? Who are you? Who am I? When—”
“We don’t have time for so many questions.”
“Why not?”
“Did you see Alathea’s shop?”
“I—yes, I did.” I breathe in, remembering the ash in the air, the heat pressing in.
“They know you are here. They sense you.”
“But—Alathea…”
“Is dead. And I will be damned if all our work, the lives cut short, and the loss of all you knew will be for nothing.” He stands up abruptly. “You have to leave. Now.”
His desperation stirs something inside me. “Will they hurt you?”
He doesn’t answer at first. I don’t shift my weight. I stare at him, waiting.
“If they do, Jade, and because of it, you stay safe, I will feel honored to bear the pain.”
“You can’t—”
“If they do and you are hurt as well, then all of this is for nothing.”
I feel so confused and frustrated. “But I don’t even know what all of this is, and I won’t if anything happens to you.”
“You will get the answers you need. Now is not the time to be reckless.”
I won’t be reckless. I can’t. But, what about that other part of me? The dark, cold one that reaches into me and pulls someone else forward, muffles my thoughts with wicked ones? “I have bad thoughts sometimes. I think, I think I have done bad things.”
“I know.” He looks at me. “You have to fight the cold one inside you, block out the ice. If you don’t, I cannot save you. If you don’t, I will have failed.”
“I don’t know how! I am trying, but it comes so quickly.”
“You figured it out once, Jade. You will figure it out again.”
“But—”
“Leave.”
“But I—”
“Leave. Now.”
I feel the wind blow from the corners of the room, pushing me backwards, pushing me out, pushing me away.
“What am I?” I scream over the howling air.
“You could or kill us all or save us. But the cold darkness inside you is getting stronger. I see her in your eyes. And that—scares me.”
Another whoosh of air pummels me and I ram into the door. The door opens and I spill out.
“But I still love you, My Jade-eyed child.” And with that, the wind is gone, and I am sitting in a puddle in a dank, secluded alley staring at a brick wall with no door at all.
I feel faint. Everything feels so unreal, as if it’s all one fine piece of thread that could so easily be severed. The alley chokes me. I fumble to my feet, bracing myself against the wall. Pushing on the brick, banging on it, screaming for my door to come back and for it to open.
But it doesn’t. I drag my feet as I stumble out of the alley. As I do, I smell rot in the air and when I look behind me back into the dead-end alley, I see a body sprawled on the ground.
At first, I want to run, run far away. But I hear the body whimper, whimper in pain.
I run toward it and fall to my knees beside her.
She’s gasping, the blood gurgling out the base of her neck. I swallow back the bile climbing up my throat.
“Sh, sh, sh…” I whisper to her, grabbing her hands in mind. “Please, we will get you help. I will get you help.” I start to stagger to my feet to call out, but the dying girl’s hands drag me back down. A boiling heat cascades over me and I am only inches away from the girl’s face. She’s not choking anymore. She’s still and glassy eyed. I can smell the blood on her skin.
“Improbus essssss.” The words ooze out of her mouth and I flinch away. I stumble backwards and shake my head, violently. I didn’t do this. I didn’t. I couldn’t have. I want to scream out in anguish. I want to vomit. I want to make this girl whole again.
But when I look at the blood on my hands, cold slithers into me. And the blood is lovely. I stand up taller and stare at the dead girl.
A hunger growls in my belly, a lust trickling up my veins. I want to lean in and lick my fingertips, to taste the salty blood on my tongue.
Don’t let the cold dark win. The old man’s voice whispers. I jerk my hand away from my face and use the wall to brace myself to my feet.
Part of me wants to stay in this alley and part of me wants to run. Every step takes all my effort, every step my hunger grows, but I keep walking away, hoping I will have the strength to not turn back.
Chapter 54
Connor
Mom didn’t have the key. The chest sits on my bed upstairs as I look for something blunt and sharp to pry the top open.
Mom is listening to the news.
“Breaking News: Another possible victim of the Etcher has been found in New Orleans. Cut with the same symbol as the others, it has come to our attention that all of the victims have a second mark. A branding of another symbol below their hair line. Detectives have a theory that the murderer may be involved in some demonic religion and is making human sacrifices.”
I stare at the TV screen. An artist with paint splatter on his face comes onto the screen with a microphone ai
med at him from some other reporter.
“Sir, how did you come across the body?”
“Well, I was walking by an alley to try to set up another stand of my artwork and I saw this heap of something down at the end of it. When I came up on her, I saw a bloody handprint on the wall beside her. She was dead when I found her. Poor young thing…”
“Did you see any suspicious activity before you discovered the body?”
“Oh yes, I didn’t think much of it at the time. But around dawn when I got here to start unloading my paintings, I remember looking up and seeing some woman walking out of the alley with red all down her arms. I just thought it was paint, you see, so I didn’t think anything of it. But, I bet it was blood.”
“What did this woman look like?”
“I didn’t see her from the front. She was walking away.”
“Walking away?”
“Yeah, she was walking away… slowly even. She wore a flannel shirt, grey sweatpants, and had black hair.”
He looks defeated then. “That’s all I know, Ma’am.”
The TV flickers off. “Can you believe that people can be so terrible?” Mom says.
I don’t answer her.
“So where’s Jade? She left early last night.”
“Mom, I don’t want to talk about it.”
She looks at me. “What happened?”
“Nothing, Mom. Jade and I aren’t going to—be hanging out anymore.”
“What did you do?”
“Me?” I scoff, “I didn’t do anything!”
“Well, what happened? Did you get all jealous about that boy who came over?”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You are going to fix this, Connor. That girl is the best thing to ever happen to you and you know it. Now go on over to her house. If you want an excuse just ask for your daddy’s shirt back.”
“Mom, I—” I stop, Dad’s shirt? I remember the fabric whipping out in violent flaps. A resolve settles over me. “Yeah, Mom. I’ll go get Dad’s shirt.”
Nanan opens the door. Her dress is splotched with flour. She beams at me. Nanan is one of those women who doesn’t hide their emotions. If she hates you, she’ll pull out her broom and chase you away from her yard. If she loves you—even if she hasn’t known you for long—she’ll do whatever you need to keep you standing. She’s taken in runaways before, but Nanan usually settles them in with the church within a short time. But Nanan seems cozy with Jade here and shows no urgency to see her leave. I wonder what she would do if I told her the girl living in her attic was a monster. I want to tell her, I want to warn her. But with the way Nanan looks at Jade and the way she looks at me whenever she sees me with Jade, I doubt anything I say would taint Nanan’s affection for her new child.
“You come callin’ on my Jade?” Nanan lets me in. I nod. “Ya know boy, someday here soon I’m gonna be askin’ you bout yo’ intentions with my girl.” She smacks my shoulder and tells me to knock on Jade’s door. “She’s been out like a light all mornin’. Maybe you can wake her up.” I make my way up to Jade’s room. I don’t knock and her door is unlocked.
Jade is in a heap on the bed under a pile of covers.
I walk over to her and strip the covers off in one quick motion. Jade startles awake and curls into a fetal position.
I grab her wrist. “We need to talk, Jade.”
“Ow, stop it!”
I stare at her.
Lazy eyes blink at me. “Oh, Connor, Connor—I…”
I let go of her, still staring at her shirt.
Her own eyes shift down and she snaps her head back to me, her eyes wide. “No Connor… No. Connor, it isn’t what you think!”
I’m out the door before she can stand up, running out of the house.
Her shirt, my dad’s flannel shirt, is stained with blood.
Chapter 55
Jade
Heat crashes over me in waves, knocks me over and leaves me gasping.
IMPROBUS ESSSSS. The voice slithers into my ears and scratches my skull. Dead girls scream and cry around me. I clamp my hands over my ears, but the voices are locked inside. I grit my teeth. Please, please, please go away! I whimper. Nanan comes to the door.
She can’t come in. She can’t! I am a monster.
“Yes?” I wince at the broken sound of my voice.
”Cher, are you okay?”
“Yes, yes Nanan I am fine… I just, I need to rest.”
A pause. “Tell me if you need somethin’, cher. Okay?”
“I will.” I won’t.
Beads of sweat that burn like fire.
“You won’t, will you?” Nanan hasn’t moved from the door. She knows me too well. “Someone is here for you.”
Heaving myself upright, I stare at the door. Connor. He came back. He came back!
“Should I tell him you can’t talk?”
I throw myself at the door, away from the dark corners of the room and the shadows uncoiling there. The voices come with me, jabbing deeper and deeper. I swing the door open and see Nanan’s stunned expression as I barrel down the stairs.
Connor…
I turn into the front room and skid to a stop, breathless.
Not Connor. My surge of energy dies and I feel weak and wilting.
“Hey, princess.” Dominic smirks and then looks me up and down. “You look like shit.”
“I—I wasn’t asking for your commentary.” Every word feels labored as I breathe out through the sweltering heat and breathe it back in.
Immmmppprrroooobussssessssssssss. The voices pummel the inside of my brain. It feels like the heat is melting me down.
I fall to my knees, gasping.
“Jade!” Dom steps into the house and the air shifts, changes. I am too dazed to recognize how. Delirium is clawing its way inside me.
Nanan’s shouting something, but I can’t make out the words. Her words can’t compete with the ones in my head. Arms lift me up right before I black out.
“She’s waking up.”
“Well, boy, I see that. I’m old. Not blind.”
I’m nestled against something hard and cool. I mold my body to it, burrowing my forehead against it. There is no more heat crashing. No more voices taunting. I sigh in relief.
A low, rumbling chuckle vibrates under my cheek. A very familiar sound. I stiffen and close my fingers grasping the t-shirt beneath them. “See, princess. I knew you would warm up to me.”
I jolt upright.
Nanan sits on a chair close in front of the couch and Dominic…and I, I am on Dominic’s lap.
I scoot off him. “What—what happened? What are you doing here?”
“Be nice, Jade. This fella came in and helped me get you inside. Looks like you got heat exhaustion which doesn’t make a lick a sense cuz you been in yo’ room for the past day and a half.”
“I was sick?”
“Yeah, you were boiling up. You just needed to cool off a bit.” Dom smiled.
He smiles too much.
I see the impression on the couch where I sat. So very, very close to him. “How long was I out?”
“Oh darlin’ you were out only a few minutes.”
A few minutes? How could I go from collapsing from voices and heat to being completely comfortable with cool and silence?
“But we were still worried about you.” I look at Dom and am surprised to see his face plastered with something close to concern, close to vulnerability.
“Absolutely. But between Dominic and me, we got you fixed up all right.” Nanan handed me a glass of water. “Now I know this boy came over to see you, so I’ll be off and let y’all talk. You be sure to say thank you, Jade. Lord knows I couldn’t have dragged you on this couch with these old bones.”
Nanan moves to leave and I want to grasp at her to stay.
I feel Dom’s stare and the couch shifts as he edges closer to me. I put my hand out to keep him from getting too close. “Thanks for helping Nanan,” I say, feeling the rise
and fall of his chest under my palm. “But I think you better go.”
“You know, I have helped you out quite a few times now and I never get a real thank you.” He cocks his head to the side. “Don’t you think I deserve one?”
“I—” I fall silent as he takes my palm in his hands, gently, and traces the lines , then he swirls his finger in a round motion and glides his finger down my wrist. The touch is so soft, so light, like a flutter against my skin, but it awakens something foreign and primal inside, a need, a longing I can’t quite understand.
“You aren’t wicked, Jade.”
I inhale sharply. “Wha—what?”
He looks at me with his black eyes. I think I can get lost in them.
“You aren’t wicked. You kept saying that while you were knocked out.” His fingers glide over my palm, wrist, on the soft stretch of my forearm. A tiny part inside me tells me to pull my arm away. But I don’t. I just keep listening to his voice, and looking into his deep, black, bottomless eyes. “You are beautiful.” When he says it, he’s looking into my eyes, not my breasts or my legs. “You are strong.” He lifts my palm to his lips. “And you are powerful.” And kisses it. “And that’s why I want you.”
I quiver under his touch, the cool soft feel of his mouth. His words feel like velvet and silk in my mind.
“Get dressed.”
“What?”
“It is time you gave me a real thank you.”
Chapter 56
Connor
It took a pry bar and all of my weight to get the chest open. In it was an old leather bound book.
Symbols scrolled across the top of it. I untie the knot that keeps it shut.
Inside are hundreds of pages… each page filled with script I don’t understand. As I pass my fingers over the lettering, I feel a slight hum under my fingertips. Alive. The pages feel alive. I snatch my hand away.
And a thought sifts into place.
Ashes and Ice Page 16