The mental image of Jeremy’s face made my tone sharper than necessary.
“I’m not going to the dance, McKayla, okay?”
“Fine,” she snapped. “I was just offering.”
When Gym was finally over, I walked to the parking lot without enthusiasm. I wasn’t looking forward to walking home in the rain, but I couldn’t think of how she would have been able to get my truck. Then again, was anything impossible for her?
And there it was—parked in the same spot where she’d parked the Volvo this morning. I shook my head, amazed, as I opened the door and found the key in the ignition as promised.
There was a piece of white paper folded on my seat. I got in and closed the door before I opened it. Two words were written in her fancy calligraphy handwriting.
Be safe.
The sound of the truck roaring to life startled me, and I laughed at myself.
When I got home, the handle of the door was locked, the deadbolt unlocked, just as I’d left it this morning. Inside, I went straight to the laundry room. It looked just the same as I’d left it, too. I dug for my jeans and, after finding them, checked the pockets. Empty. Maybe I’d hung my key up after all, I thought, shaking my head.
Charlie was absentminded at dinner, worried over something at work, I guessed, or maybe a basketball game, or maybe he was just really enjoying his lasagna—it was hard to tell with Charlie.
“You know, Dad … ,” I began, breaking into his reverie.
“What’s that, Beau?”
“I think you’re right about Seattle. I think I’ll wait until Jeremy or someone else can go with me.”
“Oh,” he said, surprised. “Oh, okay. So, do you want me to stay home?”
“No, Dad, don’t change your plans. I’ve got a hundred things to do … homework, laundry… . I need to go to the library and the grocery store. I’ll be in and out all day… . You go and have fun.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely, Dad. Besides, the freezer is getting dangerously low on fish—we’re down to a two, maybe three years’ supply.”
He smiled. “You’re sure easy to live with, Beau.”
“I could say the same thing about you,” I said, laughing. The sound of my laughter was off, but he didn’t seem to notice. I felt so guilty for deceiving him that I almost took Edythe’s advice and told him where I would be. Almost.
As I worked on the mindless chore of folding laundry, I wondered if, with this lie, I was choosing Edythe over my own father—after all, I was protecting her and leaving him to face … exactly what, I wasn’t sure. Would I just vanish? Would the police find some … piece of me? I knew I wasn’t able to process exactly how devastating that would be for him, that losing a child—even one he hadn’t seen much for the last decade—was a bigger tragedy than I was able to understand.
But if I told him I would be with Edythe, if I implicated her in whatever followed, how did that help Charlie? Would it make the loss more bearable if he had someone to blame? Or would it just put him in more danger? I remembered how Royal had glared at me today. I remembered Archie’s glittering black eyes, Eleanor’s arms, like long lines of steel, and Jessamine, who—for some reason I couldn’t define—was the most frightening of them all. Did I really want my father to know something that would make them feel threatened?
So really, the only thing that could help Charlie at all would be if I taped a note to the door tomorrow that read I changed my mind, and then got in my truck and drove to Seattle after all. I knew Edythe wouldn’t be angry, that a part of her was hoping for exactly that.
But I also knew that I wasn’t going to write that note. I couldn’t even imagine doing it. When she came, I would be waiting.
So I guess I was choosing her over everything. And though I knew I should feel bad—wrong, guilty, sorry—I didn’t. Maybe because it didn’t feel like a choice at all.
But all of this was only if things went badly, and I was nearly ninety percent sure that they wouldn’t. Part of it was that I still couldn’t make myself be afraid of Edythe, even when I tried to picture her as the sharp-fanged Edythe from my nightmare. I had her note in my back pocket, and I pulled it out and read it again and again. She wanted me to be safe. She’d dedicated a lot of personal effort lately to ensuring my survival. Wasn’t that who she was? When all the safeties were off, wouldn’t that part of her win?
The laundry wasn’t the best job for keeping my mind busy. As much as I tried to focus on the Edythe I knew, the one I loved, I couldn’t help picturing what ending badly might look like. Might feel like. I’d seen enough horror flicks to have some preconceived notions, and it didn’t look like the very worst way to go. Most of the victims just seemed sort of limp and out of it while they were … drained. But then I remembered what Edythe had said about bears, and I guessed that the realities of vampire attacks were not much like the Hollywood version.
But it was Edythe.
I was relieved when it was late enough to be acceptable for bedtime. I knew I would never get to sleep with all this crazy in my head, so I did something I’d never done before. I deliberately took unnecessary cold medicine—the kind that knocked me out for a good eight hours. I knew it was not the most responsible choice, but tomorrow would be complicated enough without me being loopy from sleep deprivation on top of everything else. While I waited for the drugs to kick in, I listened to Phil’s CD again. The familiar screaming was oddly comforting, and somewhere in the middle of it, I drifted off.
I woke early, having slept soundly and dreamlessly thanks to the drug abuse. Though I was well rested, I was on edge and jittery—now and then, almost panicked. I showered and threw clothes on, dressing in layers out of habit, though Edythe had promised sun today. I checked out the window; Charlie was already gone and a thin layer of clouds, white and cottony, covered the sky in a temporary-looking way. I ate without tasting the food, rushing to clean up when I was done. I’d just finished brushing my teeth when a quiet knock had me vaulting my way down the stairs.
My hands were suddenly too big for the simple deadbolt, and it took me a second, but finally I threw the door open, and there she was.
I took a deep breath. All the nerves faded to nothing, and I was totally calm.
She wasn’t smiling at first—her face was serious, even wary. But then she looked me over and her expression lightened. She laughed.
“Good morning,” she chuckled.
“What’s wrong?” I glanced down to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything important, like shoes, or pants.
“We match.” She laughed again.
She had on a light tan sweater with a scoop neck, a white t-shirt on underneath, and jeans. My sweater was the exact same shade, though that and my white tee both had crew necks. My jeans were the same color blue, too. Only, she looked like a runway model, and I knew that I did not.
I locked the door behind me while she walked to the truck. She waited by the passenger door with a martyred expression that was easy to understand.
“You agreed to this,” I reminded her as I unlocked her door and opened it.
She gave me a dark look as she climbed past me.
I got in my side and tried not to cringe as I revved the engine very loudly to life.
“Where to?” I asked.
“Put your seat belt on—I’m nervous already.”
I rolled my eyes but did what she asked. “Where to?” I repeated.
“Take the one-oh-one north.”
It was surprisingly difficult to concentrate on the road while feeling her eyes on my face. I compensated by driving more carefully than usual through the still-sleeping town.
“Were you planning to make it out of Forks before nightfall?”
“This truck is old enough to be the Volvo’s grandfather—have a little respect.”
We were soon out of the town limits, despite her pessimism. Thick underbrush and dense forest replaced the lawns and houses.
“Turn right on the one-ten,” s
he instructed just as I was about to ask. I obeyed silently.
“Now we drive until the pavement ends.”
I could hear a smile in her voice, but I was too afraid of driving off the road and proving her right to look over and be sure.
“And what’s there, at the pavement’s end?” I wondered.
“A trail.”
“We’re hiking?”
“Is that a problem?”
“No.” I tried to make the lie sound confident. But if she thought my truck was slow …
“Don’t worry, it’s only five miles or so and we’re in no hurry.”
Five miles. I didn’t answer, so that she wouldn’t hear the panic in my voice. How far had I hiked last Saturday—a mile? And how many times had I managed to trip in that distance? This was going to be humiliating.
We drove in silence for a while. I was imagining what her expression would look like the twentieth time I face-planted.
“What are you thinking?” she asked impatiently after a few minutes.
I lied again. “Just wondering where we’re going.”
“It’s a place I like to go when the weather is nice.” We both glanced out the windows at the thinning clouds.
“Charlie said it would be warm today.”
“And did you tell Charlie what you were up to?” she asked.
“Nope.”
“But you probably said something to Jeremy about me driving you to Seattle,” she said thoughtfully.
“No, I didn’t.”
“No one knows you’re with me?” Angrily, now.
“That depends… . I assume you told Archie?”
“That’s very helpful, Beau,” she snapped.
I pretended I didn’t hear that.
“Is it the weather? Seasonal affective disorder? Has Forks made you so depressed you’re actually suicidal?”
“You said it might cause problems for you … us being together publicly,” I explained.
“So you’re worried about the trouble it might cause me—if you don’t come home?” Her voice was a mix of ice and acid.
I nodded, keeping my eyes on the road.
She muttered something under her breath, the words flowing so quickly that I couldn’t understand them.
It was silent for the rest of the drive. I could feel the waves of fury and disapproval rolling off her, and I couldn’t think of the right way to apologize when I wasn’t sorry.
The road ended at a small wooden marker. I could see the thin foot trail stretching away into the forest. I parked on the narrow shoulder and stepped out, not sure what to do because she was angry and I didn’t have driving as an excuse not to look at her anymore.
It was warm now, warmer than it had been in Forks since the day I’d arrived, almost muggy under the thin clouds. I yanked off my sweater and tossed it into the cab, glad I’d worn the t-shirt—especially with five miles of hiking ahead of me.
I heard her door slam, and looked over to see that she’d removed her sweater, too, and twisted her hair into another messy bun. All she had on was a thin tank top. She was facing away from me, staring into the forest, and I could see the delicate shapes of her shoulder blades almost like furled wings under her pale skin. Her arms were so thin; it was hard to believe they contained the strength that I knew was in them.
“This way,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at me, still annoyed. She started walking into the dark forest directly to the east of the truck.
“The trail?” I asked, trying to hide the panic in my voice as I hurried around the front of the truck to catch up to her.
“I said there was a trail at the end of the road, not that we were taking it.”
“No trail? Really?”
“I won’t let you get lost.”
She turned then, with a mocking half-smile, and I couldn’t breathe.
I’d never seen so much of her skin. Her pale arms, her slim shoulders, the fragile-looking twigs of her collarbones, the vulnerable hollows above them, the swanlike column of her neck, the gentle swell of her breasts—don’t stare, don’t stare—and the ribs I could nearly count under the thin cotton. She was too perfect, I realized with a crushing wave of despair. There was no way this goddess could ever belong with me.
She stared at me, shocked by my tortured expression.
“Do you want to go home?” she asked quietly, a different pain than mine saturating her voice.
“No.”
I walked forward till I was close beside her, anxious not to waste one second of the obviously numbered hours I had with her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice still soft.
“I’m not a fast hiker,” I answered dully. “You’ll have to be very patient.”
“I can be patient—if I make a great effort.” She smiled, holding my gaze, trying to pull me out of my suddenly glum mood.
I tried to smile back, but I could feel that the smile was less than convincing. She searched my face.
“I’ll take you home,” she promised, but I couldn’t tell if the promise was unconditional, or restricted to an immediate departure. Obviously, she thought it was fear of my impending demise that had upset me, and I was glad that I was the one person whose mind she couldn’t hear.
“If you want me to hack five miles through the jungle before sundown, you’d better start leading the way,” I said bitterly. Her eyebrows pulled down as she tried to understand my tone and expression.
She gave up after a moment and led the way into the forest.
It wasn’t as hard as I’d been afraid it would be. The way was mostly flat, and she seemed content to go at my pace. Twice I tripped over roots, but each time her hand shot out and steadied my elbow before I could fall. When she touched me, my heart thudded and stuttered like usual. I saw her expression the second time that happened, and I was suddenly sure she could hear it.
I tried to keep from looking at her; every time I did, her beauty filled me with the same sadness. Mostly we walked in silence. Occasionally, she would ask a random question that she hadn’t gotten to in the last two days of interrogation. She asked about birthdays, grade school teachers, childhood pets—and I had to admit that after killing three fish in a row, I’d given up on the practice. She laughed at that, louder than usual, the bell-like echoes bouncing back to me from the trees.
The hike took me most of the morning, but she never seemed impatient. The forest spread out around us in a labyrinth of identical trees, and I started to get nervous that we wouldn’t be able to find our way out again. She was perfectly at ease in the green maze, never showing any doubt about our direction.
After several hours, the green light that filtered down through the canopy brightened into yellow. The day had turned sunny, just as promised. For the first time since we’d started, I felt excitement again.
“Are we there yet?” I asked.
She smiled at the change in my mood. “Nearly. Do you see the clearer light ahead?”
I stared into the thick forest. “Um, should I?”
“Maybe it is a bit soon for your eyes.”
“Time to visit the optometrist.” I sighed and she grinned.
And then, after another hundred yards, I could definitely see a brighter spot in the trees ahead, a glow that was yellow-white instead of yellow-green. I picked up the pace, and she let me lead now, following noiselessly.
I reached the edge of the pool of light and stepped through the last fringe of ferns into the most beautiful place I had ever seen.
The meadow was small, perfectly round, and filled with wildflowers—violet, yellow, and white. Somewhere nearby, I could hear the liquid rush of a stream. The sun was directly overhead, filling the circle with a haze of buttery sunshine. I walked slowly forward through the soft grass, swaying flowers, and warm, gilded air. After that first minute of awe, I turned, wanting to share this with her, but she wasn’t behind me where I thought she’d be. I spun around, searching for her, suddenly anxious. Finally I found her, still under the de
nse shade of the canopy at the edge of the hollow, watching me with cautious eyes, and I remembered why we were here. The mystery of Edythe and the sun—which she’d promised to solve for me today.
I took a step back, my hand stretched out toward her. Her eyes were wary, reluctant—oddly, it reminded me of stage fright. I smiled encouragingly and started walking back to her. She held up a warning hand and I stopped, rocking back onto my heels.
Edythe took a deep breath, closed her eyes, then stepped out into the bright glare of the midday sun.
13. CONFESSIONS
EYES CLOSED, EDYTHE STEPPED BLINDLY INTO THE LIGHT.
My heart jumped into my throat and I started sprinting toward her.
“Edythe!”
It was only when her eyes flashed open and I got close enough to begin to understand what I was seeing that I realized she hadn’t caught on fire. She threw up her hand again, palm forward, and I stumbled to a stop, almost falling to my knees.
The light blazed off her skin, danced in prism-like rainbows across her face and neck, down her arms. She was so bright that I had to squint, like I was trying to stare at the sun.
I thought about falling to my knees on purpose. This was the kind of beauty you worshipped. The kind you built temples for and offered sacrifices to. I wished I had something in my empty hands to give her, but what would a goddess want from a mediocre mortal like me?
It took me a while to see past her incandescence to the expression on her face. She was watching me with wide eyes—it almost looked like she was afraid of something. I took a step toward her, and she cringed just slightly.
“Does that hurt you?” I whispered.
“No,” she whispered back.
I took another step toward her—she was the magnet again, and I was just a helpless piece of dull metal. She let her warning hand drop to her side. As she moved, the fire shimmered down her arm. Slowly, I circled around her, keeping my distance, just needing to absorb this, to see her from every angle. The sun played off her skin, refracting and magnifying every color light could hold. My eyes were adjusting, and they opened wide with wonder.
I knew that she’d chosen her clothes with care, that she’d been determined to show me this, but the way she held herself now, shoulders tight, legs braced, made me wonder if she wasn’t second-guessing the decision now.
Life and Death Page 23