“I … That’s not what I’m worried about.”
“What are you worried about?”
“What did I say?”
She smiled. “You miss your mother. When it rains, the sound makes you restless. You used to talk about home a lot, but it’s less often now. Once you said, ‘It’s too green.’ ” She laughed softly, hoping not to offend me again.
“Anything else?” I demanded.
She knew what I was getting at. “You did say my name,” she admitted.
I sighed in defeat. “A lot?”
“Define ‘a lot.’ ”
“Oh no,” I groaned.
Like it was easy, natural, she put her arms around my shoulders and leaned her head against my chest. Automatically, my arms came up to wrap around her. To hold her there.
“Don’t be selfconscious,” she whispered. “You already told me that you dream about me, remember?”
“That’s different. I knew what I was saying.”
“If I could dream at all, it would be about you. And I’m not ashamed of it.”
I stroked her hair. I guessed I really didn’t mind, when it came down to it. It wasn’t like I expected her to follow normal human rules anyway. The rules she’d made for herself seemed like enough.
“I’m not ashamed,” I whispered.
She hummed, almost like a purr, her cheek pressed over my heart.
Then we both heard the sound of tires on the brick driveway, saw the headlights flash through the front windows, down the hall to us. I jumped, and dropped my arms as she pulled away.
“Do you want your father to know that I’m here?” she asked.
I tried to think it through quickly. “Um …”
“Another time, then …”
And I was alone.
“Edythe?” I whispered.
I heard a quiet laugh, and then nothing else.
My father’s key turned in the door.
“Beau?” he called. I remembered finding that funny before; who else would it be? Suddenly he didn’t seem so far off base.
“In here.”
Was my voice too agitated? I took another bite of my lasagna so I could be chewing when he came in. His footsteps sounded extra noisy after I’d spent the day with Edythe.
“Did you take all the lasagna?” he asked, looking at my plate.
“Oh, sorry. Here, have some.”
“No worries, Beau. I’ll make myself a sandwich.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled again.
Charlie banged around the kitchen getting what he needed. I worked on eating my giant plate of food as fast as was humanly possible while not choking to death. I was thinking about what Edythe had just said—Do you want your father to know that I’m here? Which was not the same as Do you want your father to know that I was here? in the past tense. So did that mean she hadn’t actually left? I hoped so.
Sandwich in hand, Charlie sat in the chair across from me. It was hard to imagine Edythe sitting in the same place just minutes ago. Charlie fit. The memory of her was like a dream that couldn’t possibly have been real.
“How was your day? Did you get everything done that you wanted to?”
“Um, not really. It was … too nice out to stay indoors. Were the fish biting?”
“Yep. They like the good weather, too.”
I scraped the last of the lasagna into one huge mouthful and started chewing.
“Got plans for tonight?” he asked suddenly.
I shook my head, maybe a little too emphatically.
“You look kinda keyed up,” he noted.
Of course he would have to pay attention tonight.
I swallowed. “Really?”
“It’s Saturday,” he mused.
I didn’t respond.
“I guess you’re missing that dance tonight… .”
“As intended,” I said.
He nodded. “Sure, dancing, I get it. But maybe next week—you could take that Newton girl out for dinner or something. Get out of the house. Socialize.”
“I told you, she’s dating my friend.”
He frowned. “Well, there’re lots of other fish in the sea.”
“Not at the rate you’re going.”
He laughed. “I do my best… . So you’re not going out tonight?” he asked again.
“Nowhere to go,” I told him. “Besides, I’m tired. I’m just going to go to bed early again.”
I got up and took my plate to the sink.
“Uh-huh,” he said, chewing thoughtfully. “None of the girls in town are your type, eh?”
I shrugged as I scrubbed the plate.
I could feel him staring at me, and I tried really hard to keep the blood out of my neck. I wasn’t sure I was succeeding.
“Don’t be too hard on a small town,” he said. “I know we don’t have the variety of a big city—”
“There’s plenty of variety, Dad. Don’t worry about me.”
“Okay, okay. None of my business anyway.” He sounded kind of dejected.
I sighed. “Well, I’m done. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“’Night, Beau.”
I tried to make my footsteps drag as I walked up the stairs, like I was super tired. I wondered if he bought my bad acting. I hadn’t actually lied to him or anything. I definitely wasn’t planning on going out tonight.
I shut my bedroom door loud enough for him to hear downstairs, then sprinted as quietly as I could to the window. I shoved it open and leaned out into the dark. I couldn’t see anything, just the shadow of the treetops.
“Edythe?” I whispered, feeling completely idiotic.
The quiet, laughing response came from behind me. “Yes?”
I spun around so fast I knocked a book off my desk. It fell with a thud to the floor.
She was lying across my bed, hands behind her head, ankles crossed, a huge dimpled smile on her face. She looked the color of frost in the darkness.
“Oh!” I breathed, reaching out to grab the desk for support.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Just give me a second to restart my heart.”
She sat up—moving slowly like she did when she was either trying to act human or trying not to startle me—and dangled her legs over the edge of the bed. She patted the space next to her.
I walked unsteadily to the bed and sat down beside her. She put her hand on mine.
“How’s your heart?”
“You tell me—I’m sure you hear it better than I do.”
She laughed quietly.
We sat there for a moment in silence, both listening to my heartbeat slow. I thought about Edythe in my room … and my father’s suspicious questions … and my lasagna breath.
“Can I have a minute to be human?”
“Certainly.”
I stood, and then looked at her, sitting there all perfect on the edge of my bed, and I thought that maybe I was just hallucinating everything.
“You’ll be here when I get back, right?”
“I won’t move a muscle,” she promised.
And then she became totally motionless, a statue again, perched on the edge of my bed.
I grabbed my pajamas out of their drawer and hurried to the bathroom, banging the door so Charlie would know it was occupied.
I brushed my teeth twice. Then I washed my face and traded clothes. I always just wore a pair of holey sweatpants and an old t-shirt to bed—it was from a barbecue place that my mom liked, and it had a pig smiling between two buns. I wished I had something less … me. But I really hadn’t been expecting guests, and then it was probably dumb to worry anyway. If she hung out here at night, she already knew what I wore to sleep.
I brushed my teeth one more time.
When I opened the door, I had another small heart attack. Charlie was at the top of the stairs; I almost walked into him.
“Huh!” I coughed out.
“Oh, sorry, Beau. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m good
.”
He looked at my pajamas, and then made a little harrumph sound in the back of his throat like he was surprised.
“You heading to bed, too?” I asked.
“Yeah, I guess. I’ve got an early one again tomorrow.”
“Okay. ’Night.”
“Yeah.”
I walked into my room, glad that the bed wasn’t visible from where Charlie was standing, then shut the door firmly behind me.
Edythe hadn’t moved even a fraction of an inch. I smiled and her lips twitched; she relaxed, and she was suddenly human again. Or close enough. I went back to sit next to her. She twisted to face me, pulling her legs up and crossing them.
“I’m not sure how I feel about that shirt,” she said. Her voice was so quiet that I didn’t have any worries that Charlie would hear us.
“I can change.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not you wearing it—its entire existence.” She reached out and brushed her fingers across the smiling pig. My pulse spiked, but she politely ignored that. “Should he be so happy to be food?”
I had to grin. “Well, we don’t know his side of the story, do we? He might have a reason to smile.”
She looked at me like she was doubting my sanity.
I reached out to hold her hand. It felt really natural, but at the same time, I couldn’t believe I was so lucky. What had I ever done to deserve this?
“Your dad thinks you might be sneaking out,” she told me.
“I know. Apparently I look keyed up.”
“Are you?”
“A little more than that, I think. Thank you. For staying.”
“It’s what I wanted, too.”
My heart started beating … not faster exactly, but stronger somehow. For some reason I would never understand, she wanted to be with me.
Moving at human speed, she unfolded her legs and draped them across mine. Then she curled up against my chest again the way she seemed to prefer, with her ear against my heart, which was reacting probably more than was necessary. I folded my arms around her and pressed my lips to her hair.
“Mmm,” she hummed.
“This … ,” I murmured into her hair, “… is much easier than I thought it would be.”
“Does it seem easy to you?” It sounded like she was smiling. She angled her face up, and I felt her nose trace a cold line up the side of my neck.
“Well,” I said breathlessly. Her lips were brushing the edge of my jaw. “It seems to be easier than it was this morning, at least.”
“Hmm,” she said. Her arms slid over my shoulders and then wrapped around my neck. She pulled herself up until her lips were brushing my ear.
“Why is that”—my voice shook embarrassingly—“do you think?”
“Mind over matter,” she breathed right into my ear.
A tremor ran down my body. She froze, then leaned carefully back. One hand brushed across the skin just under the sleeve of my t-shirt.
“You’re cold,” she said. I could feel the goose bumps rise under her fingertips.
“I’m fine.”
She frowned and climbed back to her original position. My arms weren’t willing to let her go. As she slid out of them, my hands stayed on her hips.
“Your whole body is shivering.”
“I don’t think that’s from being cold,” I told her.
We looked at each other for a second in the dark.
“I’m not sure what I’m allowed to do,” I admitted. “How careful do I need to be?”
She hesitated. “It’s not easier,” she said finally, answering my earlier question. Her hand brushed across my forearm, and I felt goose bumps again. “But this afternoon … I was still undecided. I’m sorry, it was unforgivable for me to behave as I did.”
“I forgive you,” I murmured.
“Thank you.” She smiled and then was serious as she looked down at the bumps on my arm. “You see … I wasn’t sure if I was strong enough… .” She lifted my hand and pressed it to her cheek, still looking down. “And while there was still that possibility that I might be … overcome”—she breathed in the scent at my wrist—“I was … susceptible. Until I made up my mind that I was strong enough, that there was no possibility at all that I would … that I ever could …”
I’d never seen her struggle so hard for words. It was so human.
“So there’s no possibility now?”
She looked up at me finally and smiled. “Mind over matter.”
“Sounds easy,” I said, grinning so that she knew I was teasing.
“Rather than easy I would say … herculean, but possible. And so … in answer to your other question …”
“Sorry,” I said.
She laughed quietly. “Why do you apologize?” It was a rhetorical question, and she went on quickly, putting a finger to my lips just in case I felt like I needed to explain. “It is not easy, and so, if it is acceptable to you, I would prefer if you would … follow my lead?” She let her finger drop. “Is that fair?”
“Of course,” I said quickly. “Whatever you want.” As usual, I meant that literally.
“If it gets to be … too much, I’m sure I will be able to make myself leave.”
I frowned. “I will make sure it’s not too much.”
“It will be harder tomorrow,” she said. “I’ve had the scent of you in my head all day, and I’ve grown amazingly desensitized. If I’m away from you for any length of time, I’ll have to start over again. Not quite from scratch, though, I think.”
“Never go away,” I suggested.
Her face relaxed into a smile. “That suits me. Bring on the shackles—I am your prisoner.” While she spoke, she laced her cold fingers around my wrist like a manacle. “And now, if you don’t mind, may I borrow a blanket?”
It took me a second. “Oh, um, sure. Here.”
I reached behind her with my free hand and snagged the old quilt that was folded over the foot of my bed, then offered it to her. She dropped my wrist, took the blanket and shook it out, then handed it back to me.
“I’d be happier if I knew you were comfortable.”
“I’m very comfortable.”
“Please?”
Quickly, I threw the quilt over my shoulders like a cape.
She chuckled quietly. “Not exactly what I was thinking.” She was already on her feet, rearranging the blanket over my legs and pulling it all the way up to my shoulders. Before I could understand what she was doing, she had climbed onto my lap again and nestled against my chest. The quilt made a barrier between any place that our skin might touch.
“Better?” she asked.
“I’m not sure about that.”
“Good enough?”
“Better than that.”
She laughed. I stroked her hair. That seemed careful.
“It’s so strange,” she said. “You read about something … you hear about it in other people’s minds, you watch it happen to them … and it doesn’t prepare you even in the slightest for experiencing it yourself. The glory of first love. It’s more than I was expecting.”
“Much more,” I agreed fervently.
“And other emotions, too—jealousy, for example. I thought I understood that one clearly. I’ve read about it a hundred thousand times, seen actors portray it in a thousand plays and movies, listened to it in the minds around me daily—even felt it myself in a shallow way, wishing I had what I didn’t… . But I was shocked.” She scowled. “Do you remember the day that McKayla asked you to the dance?”
I nodded, though that day was most memorable to me for a different reason. “The day you started talking to me again.”
“I was stunned by the flare of resentment, almost fury, that I felt—I didn’t recognize what it was at first. I didn’t know jealousy could be so powerful … so painful. And then you refused her, and I didn’t know why. It was more aggravating than usual that I couldn’t just hear what you were thinking. Was there someone else? Was it simply for Jeremy’s sake? I knew I had no
right to care either way. I tried not to care.
“And then the line started forming.”
I groaned, and she laughed.
“I waited,” she went on, “more anxious than I should be to hear what you would say to them, to try to decipher your expressions. I couldn’t deny the relief I felt, watching the annoyance on your face. But I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t know what your answer would have been, if I’d asked… .”
She looked up at me. “That was the first night I came here. I wrestled all night, watching you sleep, with the chasm between what I knew was right, moral, ethical, honorable, and what I wanted. I knew that if I continued to ignore you as I should, or if I left for a few years, till you were gone, that someday you would find someone you wanted, someone human like McKayla. It made me sad.
“And then”—her voice dropped to an even quieter whisper—“as you were sleeping, you said my name. You spoke so clearly, at first I thought you’d woken. But you rolled over restlessly and mumbled my name once more, and sighed. The emotion that coursed through me then was unnerving … staggering. And I knew I couldn’t ignore you any longer.”
She was quiet for a moment, probably listening to the uneven pounding of my heart.
“But jealousy … it’s so irrational. Just now, when Charlie asked you about that annoying girl …”
“That made you jealous. Really?”
“I’m new at this. You’re resurrecting the human in me, and everything feels stronger because it’s fresh.”
“Honestly, though, for that to bother you, after I have to hear that Royal—male model of the year, Royal, Mr. Perfect, Royal—was meant for you. Eleanor or no Eleanor, how can I compete with that?”
Her teeth gleamed and her arms wove around my neck again. “There’s no competition.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Tentatively, I folded my arms around her. “Is this okay?” I checked.
“Very.” She sighed happily. “Of course Royal is beautiful in his way, but even if he wasn’t like a brother to me, even if he didn’t belong with Eleanor, he could never have one tenth, no, one hundredth of the attraction you hold for me.” She was serious now, thoughtful. “For almost ninety years I’ve walked among my kind, and yours … all the time thinking I was complete in myself, not realizing what I was seeking. And not finding anything, because you weren’t alive yet.”
Life and Death Page 27