by Conell, Zach
Rose had finally buried her stepfather on Friday, nine days after she’d originally planned. Many of Erdmann’s friends and colleagues, as well as Rose’s friends and acquaintances, had attended, except Dr. Leamington, of course, who had still been held in custody over her involvement in Mulvaney’s scheme.
Things had been so hectic since Cillian and Rose had escaped death in Mulvaney’s apartment that they had not really been able to talk until after the funeral, when Rose had expressed her sadness and regret over hiding the fact that Erdmann was her stepfather and not disclosing her criminal record. Cillian had sincerely answered that he didn’t care and could even relate to it to some extent as he did not like informing people about certain things in his past either. Rose had been overjoyed and impulsively declared that she had feelings for him and wanted to be with him. He had not known what to say at first, but had finally confessed that he cared about her too, but that he wasn’t sure if he was ready for a relationship and needed time to think about it.
Cillian had been “thinking about it” for one week now, but he still didn’t know what to do. Rose was nice, interesting, smart, beautiful, adventurous even, and he felt pretty great when he was with her. But she was not his fiancée. She was not Amanda, the woman with whom he had planned to grow old, until she disappeared. While working together with Rose, it had been easy to focus on the present only and forget about his past for the time being. But now that he was back in his tomb of an apartment, the past was everywhere, confronting him with questions he still didn’t have answers to.
Where did you go, Amanda? he thought now, as he lay in bed late at night, peering into the darkness like old times. How can I forget you if I don’t know whether you are really gone, or if I might see you again someday? How can I move on, start a new life with someone new, if I am not sure that my old life really is lost forever? How can I…
Cillian’s reflections were interrupted by the sound of an incoming message on his phone, his old one. He took it from the nightstand and opened the message, which was sent from a number he didn’t recognize. It read:
Dear Sea, an almond with a heart as big as ever and a ring that never rusts, is dancing around Bluebonnets, but in red shoes. Will you come to break the spell?
It was a strange riddle, but he immediately understood the first part of it. “Almond” was Amanda, and he was “Sea.” “A heart as big as ever” implied that she still loved him, while “a ring that never rusts” referred to the stand-in engagement ring he had given her made out of one of his shoelaces.
Is this you…? Can it be? he wondered, as he tried to come to terms with the idea that Amanda may have sent him this message.
Cillian vaguely remembered hearing the name “Bluebonnet” before, but he couldn’t recall in what context, so he did a quick online search on his phone. Apparently it was a plant known for its beautiful blue flowers. Then it hit him. State flowers, the game we used to play, he thought and immediately began searching for a list of state flowers. It took him barely ten seconds to learn that Bluebonnet was the state flower of Texas.
It really is Amanda, he realized. She is somewhere in Texas. He pondered for a moment what “red shoes” could mean, but then he understood it. All of it. “Red shoes” had to refer to the fairy tale The Red Shoes by Hans Christian Andersen in which a girl ends up dancing in a pair of cursed red shoes that never come off and never stop dancing. Cillian and Amanda had once seen a theater performance based on this fairy tale. So if Amanda was dancing in a pair of red shoes around Bluebonnets, it implied that she was not free, that something, or someone more likely, was forcing her to be in Texas! And this meant that the question at the end was a plea for him to come and rescue her from whoever was holding her captive!
So she was kidnapped, Cillian reckoned, and taken to Texas. He imagined that somehow Amanda must have finally found a way to send him a message, probably from the phone of her kidnapper(s). And to prevent the latter from finding out what she had sent and to whom, she had encrypted her message through references that only Cillian could possibly decipher. Like Professor Erdmann had done with the clues he had left for Rose.
As he sat there, staring at his phone, reading Amanda’s message—her cry for help—over and over again, Cillian cured himself of all his doubts. He knew exactly what to do now, the only thing that he could do: go to Texas and find Amanda, his fiancée, the love of his life.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
If you liked COLD LOVE then please consider taking a second out of your day and leaving your thoughts behind for others.
It takes a couple seconds, but seriously would mean a ton to me and help get the word out there about my books!
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Thanks,
Zach Connell
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