Winter Falls

by Nicole Maggi

  Chapter Twelve

  The Graveyard

  The ancient wrought-iron gate creaked when I pushed it open. The wind blew it shut as I stepped into the graveyard. I shuddered and pulled my scarf tighter around my throat. Dead leaves skittered across the ground, and the night wind gusted through the graves, making it sound as if the souls beneath were whispering. Every hair on my body stood at attention, every nerve alive and tingling, as I walked quickly through the headstones. I hadn’t gone on many dates before, but I was pretty sure that a first date in a cemetery was not normal.

  I threaded through the aisles of old and new graves. Alexander Smith died 1790. And just beyond it, Dolly Salter. I stopped. Someone—it must have been Mr. Salter—had left a bouquet of daisies recently. I touched the cold marble that covered Dolly and wondered if she could see me standing at her grave. Did she know I was here?

  “Did you know her?”

  I shrieked and jumped about a foot in the air, my heart in my throat. I whirled around to see Jonah standing a few steps away from me, his black coat buttoned all the way up his neck, hands shoved deep into his pockets.

  “I’m sorry.” He grinned. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “You can’t sneak up on people like that in a graveyard,” I said, trying to steady my breath. “Yes, I did know her. She was Mr. Salter’s wife. He owns the hardware store in town.”

  Jonah looked at the grave, his eyes boring into the stone. “Oh yeah. There’s a picture of her over the register. My dad and I were in there the other day.”

  “Somehow I don’t see your dad as the hardware store type.”

  “He’s not.” Jonah brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes. “But he pretends that he is, you know, to get in touch with the ‘common man.’”

  “What about you? Are you the hardware store type?”

  “I can hammer a nail when necessary,” Jonah said, miming a hammer with his hands. “You must be pretty handy, living on a farm and all.”

  “Oh, I can milk a goat,” I said, “but when I was eleven I accidentally nailed the barn door shut, and I haven’t been allowed to hold a hammer since.”

  Jonah laughed. “So no power tools for you.”

  “Nary a screwdriver. My mom even wrote a note to get me out of shop class.”

  “You’re lucky. My dad made me take an after school shop class. Three schools ago.”

  “Ugh.”

  “And he made Bree join a home ec club. One day we decided to switch. When my dad found out I’d been baking pies all afternoon and Bree had been building a bird feeder, he flipped out.”

  “He’s really into those traditional roles, isn’t he?”

  “I’m thinking of becoming a ballet dancer just to piss him off.” He smiled at me. The fluttery feeling I usually got with him was replaced with a warm contentedness. He closed the distance between us and offered his elbow. “Want to take a stroll?”

  “Okay.” I tucked my hand through his arm. We turned away from Mrs. Salter’s grave. “So, um, when I said ‘tell me where,’ I didn’t think that would mean a graveyard.”

  “Well, I like to be different.” Jonah didn’t elaborate.

  There was a fine line between different and weird. Says the girl who turns into a Falcon, I reminded myself.

  We meandered to the older, more historic headstones. I pointed out the oldest one from 1765. “I’m thinking they all died of boredom from living here,” I said, gesturing to the row of ancient graves.

  “Oh, come on.” Jonah touched a moss-covered cherub that sat atop one of the headstones. “Something interesting must have happened in three hundred-odd years.”

  “Well, actually . . .” I looked up into his face, edged in shadow. “When my dad brought us back from Italy. That caused a ruckus.”

  “Oh yeah?” Jonah grinned, his teeth flashing white in the dark. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

  “Apparently my dad was the catch of the county. Every girl from here to Bangor wanted him. So when he returned from Italy with a wife and kid, he got a lot of crap from some very disappointed girls.”

  “What kind of crap?”

  I bit back the giggles that always seemed to bubble up whenever I told this story. “Literally. A flaming bag of pooh. On our front step. My mother still overcleans the spot.”

  Jonah stopped in his tracks and doubled over with laughter. When he straightened, he said, “Your dad must be one good-looking guy.”

  I swallowed. “Yeah,” I said, staring at the stars that had come out from behind the clouds. “He was.”

  “Was?”

  I kept my eyes fixed on the sky. “He died. Last year. Of a heart attack.”

  Jonah slid his hand into mine. His palm was rough and calloused. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “Is he buried here?”

  “No,” I said. “He was cremated. We scattered his ashes over the sea. He loved the sea,” I whispered and swallowed again, blinking rapidly. I didn’t want to cry on a first date. I shook my head a little to get rid of my thoughts about my dad. I just wanted to be normal tonight.

  We stood there and gazed at the stars for a long time. I tried to find Orion’s Belt but couldn’t until Jonah pointed it out to me. We sat down side by side on the bench under the willow tree near the older graves. The wind blasted through the branches and blew leaves into our laps. I moved a little closer to Jonah for warmth and liked how it felt to be pressed up against his side. I hooked my elbow around his and buried my hand in the folds of his coat to keep warm.

  “I know it’s weird to have a date in a graveyard,” he said, breaking the silence that had stretched comfortably between us. “But I’ve always liked them.” He looked down at me. “Remember how I said I didn’t like crowds because I couldn’t hear my own thoughts?”

  I nodded.

  “In a graveyard, you’re surrounded by people, but they’re all quiet. So I can be alone without being alone.”

  “It’s like being in a meditation room,” I said.

  Jonah’s face lit up at my understanding.

  I leaned into him. “Is that why you skip so many of your classes?” I asked softly. “Because you can’t hear your own thoughts in school?”

  “Yeah. Ironic, isn’t it? Not being able to think in school? By the afternoon it gets to be too much for me.”

  “That’s why you always eat lunch outside,” I said, more to myself than to him.

  “Yeah.” He locked his eyes on mine. “But you could come out there with me. Being with you—actually—makes my thoughts clearer.”

  I barely breathed. We held each other’s eyes for a moment, and then, quickly as if he didn’t want to overthink it, he lowered his head and pressed his lips to mine. His mouth was cold from the wintry air, but his breath was warm. After a moment, I was no longer cold. I put my free hand on the back of his head, curling his hair around my fingers. Jonah wrapped his arm around me and held me to him.

  We sat like that for a long while, alternating between talking and kissing. He told me about how Bree used to make him dress like a girl when they were little because she wanted an identical twin. I told him about how over the summer I had left the pasture gate open one night and all the goats had escaped and Lidia and I spent two days chasing them back into the barn. “That’s when my mom realized we couldn’t run the farm by ourselves.”

  “So she hired that guy.”

  “What guy?” My senses were filled with the spicy smell and taste of Jonah, and it made my brain fuzzy.

  “The guy who picked you up last night.”

  I blinked, my mind suddenly clear. “Heath?” I tightened my arms around Jonah’s neck. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

  “I don’t want to talk,” Jonah murmured and bent his head toward my throat.

  The night clouds parted to reveal the moon directly over our heads. “Oh, shit!” I scrambled off the bench, freed my cell phone from my pocket, and flipped it open. I had five missed calls from home, and it was just past midnight. “Shit, s
hit, shit! My mother is going to kill me!”

  “What’s wrong?” Jonah got to his feet and shoved his hands into his pockets again.

  “I was supposed to be home at ten, and it’s after midnight. Shit!” I dashed through the gravestones, dodging in and out of the macabre aisles.

  Jonah caught up to me and grabbed my elbow. “Hang on. I’ll walk you home and apologize to her.”

  “Uh, no. Trust me. You do not want to be subjected to my mother’s wrath.” I rushed toward the entrance gate to the cemetery.

  Jonah fell into step with me. “No, I don’t mind. I could tell her that I took you to a late movie or my car broke down on our way home from the restaurant or we ran into some other friends and lost track of time or—”

  “Wow, you really have a treasure trove of excuses, don’t you?” We reached the gate, and I pushed it open. The loud, rusty creaking was a thousand times creepier at midnight than it had been when I’d come in earlier. “Don’t you have to get home, too? What’s your curfew?”

  “They don’t care,” Jonah said and took my hand as we turned in the direction of my house. He was walking far too slow, and I tried to pick up our pace, almost dragging him down the deserted street. “They’ll be in my dad’s office, fighting. They always fight after they think we’ve gone to bed.” His tone bit through the still air.

  Despite my desperation to get home, I stopped and stared at him. He swallowed and looked away, but I still saw the pain that flashed through his eyes. “I’m sorry, Jonah,” I said and touched his arm. “That must be really tough.”

  He stiffened. “It is what it is.”

  “What do they fight about?”

  He met my eyes again.

  “I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me. It’s none of my business.”

  Jonah talked fast, like he wanted to get rid of something. “My mom used to be the breadwinner, and she put my dad through school to get his MBA and PhD and all that.”

  I held still while he talked, afraid that if I moved he would stop.

  “Then when my dad got the job with the Guild he made my mom quit her career and become the perfect housewife. And she hates it.” He took a deep breath. “Whatever. As long as he’s happy, right?”

  “So he gets to be happy, and everyone else is miserable?” I shook my head. “No wonder they fight.”

  “Yeah, it sucks,” Jonah said in a tone that told me he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. He tugged on my hand. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

  “Listen,” I said, “you don’t have to walk me home. You’ll just have to backtrack to your house. And I-I kinda lied to my mom about where I was tonight. So it’ll probably be better if I deal with her alone.”

  “Whatever,” he said again and pulled his hand out of mine.

  I reached out and grabbed his wrist. He tried to pull away, but I held fast. “Hey, I didn’t mean that I wanted our date to be over. I don’t. I’m just thinking of your own best interest. You don’t want to meet my mom when she’s angry.”

  He smiled and slid his hand back into mine. “I don’t want this night to be over, either.” Moonlight moved over his face, shadows shape-shifting in his eyes.

  I stepped into him and stood on tiptoe to kiss his lips. He snaked an arm around my waist and held me close. Thoughts of my mother and curfew flew from my mind. I was already late; what did a few more minutes matter?

  “Alessia Maria Jacobs!”

  I sprang away from Jonah and whirled toward the sound of my mother’s voice.

  Lidia emerged from the darkness like a flash of brilliant white light, her eyes blazing, her face flaming with anger.

  “Mom?” I took a step toward her, caught a better look at the expression on her face, and stepped back toward Jonah. “What are you doing here? I was just coming home.”

  “I’m very sorry I kept her out so late,” Jonah said.

  I glanced at him; how could he talk like silk and chocolate under such duress?

  My mother stalked toward us, her gaze fixed on Jonah like she was thinking about which knife in her collection would do the job best.

  He held out his hand. “I’m Jonah—”

  She halted and cocked her head. “Does your mother allow you to be out this late?”

  “Of course,” Jonah said with a shrug.

  Lidia took hold of my wrist, her fingers like the iron manacles I was certain she would have me in from now on. “Well, in my house we do things a bit differently. Alessia has a curfew. And she knows better than to defy me.” She tightened her fingers, and I winced as my skin pinched under her grasp. She gave Jonah a curt nod. “Buonanotte.”

  “Good night,” Jonah said. “And again, sorry.”

  I tried to smile at him, and he lifted his shoulders a little, then let them go with a sigh. As my mother turned away and pulled me with her, I stretched my free arm back and felt Jonah’s fingers brush mine. My fingertips tingled after we’d let go.

  I jogged behind Lidia, my wrist still in her fierce grasp. She muttered under her breath in Italian—not a good sign. I gave up trying to follow her words until she burst out in English, “Two hours late! I think, she must be dead in a ditch somewhere, so I go out to look for you, and instead you’re kissing a boy in the middle of the street like a puttana!”

  “Mom!” I stopped. It was the worst thing she had ever said to me. Shame and hurt roiled inside me.

  Lidia let go of my wrist and turned. Her eyes glistened in the darkness, and she put her hand up to her mouth, pulling at her lips. “Mi scusi, Alessia,” she whispered and rubbed her face. “I just don’t know what’s gotten into you lately. Cutting school, staying out late . . . this isn’t like you.”

  “Maybe it is.” My voice echoed down the empty street. “Maybe this is who I really am, okay?”

  “No. It’s not.”

  “How do you know?” I yelled. “You know nothing about who I really am. Nothing!”

  Lidia sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Let’s just go home. Bene?”

  “Bene,” I muttered.

  The house was ablaze with light when we returned. Lidia had left the front door ajar. She kept up a steady stream of Italian, asking God for the strength to deal with such a willful daughter, as we turned off the lights and locked the doors. When I reached the top of the stairs she switched to English. “You’re grounded.”

  “Are you kidding?” I had never been grounded before. Never, ever.

  Lidia crossed the landing and cupped my face with her hand. “You’ve always been such a good girl.” She stroked my temple with her thumb, her eyes boring into mine. “If there is something going on, you can tell me. I hope you know that you can tell me . . . anything.”

  I blinked several times, but her eyes never left mine. All the pieces I knew came rushing back—the amulet in the basement, Lidia’s reaction to the mention of the Benandanti, Friuli. What did she know? And was she the one person for whom I could break the cardinal rule? You must not speak of the Benandanti. “There’s nothing going on,” I whispered, my mouth dry.

  She searched my face for another moment, then sighed and dropped her hand. “Good night, cara.”

  I watched her disappear into her room before dodging into mine and locking the door. My eyes adjusted to the darkness in an instant, my vision clear as my Falcon’s. I freed the locket from inside my sweater and clutched it in one hand. By the time I crossed the room and opened the window, my body was already tingling.

  Grounded my ass, I thought as I soared out into the night.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Plan

  The dawn light crested the horizon as I rose over the treetops. My wings ached from the exhausting pace Heath had set for the last couple of weeks.

  One more time, Heath commanded.

  It’s nearly morning.

  You’ve got to get this. One more time and then we’ll go home.

  I choked back a screech, circled a tall pine tree, and hovered in midair. My speed as a Falcon was so f
ast that sometimes I overshot a target, and that was what today’s lesson was all about. I plunged straight down at breakneck speed, my talons stretched out in front of me. The ground gained alarmingly fast, but I didn’t slow down. Just before I hit the earth, I slowed enough to snatch a pinecone that Heath had placed as a target.

  I shot upward and came to rest on one of the upper branches of the pine tree. Happy?

  Very. That was great. Okay, let’s go home.

  I flew low to the ground and kept pace with Heath as we raced back to the farm. We’d been training every night for two weeks, which was easier to get away with as far as Lidia was concerned, but it left me drained. Sometimes I skipped working in the office first period, instead finding a quiet corner in the auditorium to catch up on sleep.

  Heath broke into my thoughts. You’re doing well. Of course you have your awesome and amazing Guide to thank for that—

  Oh, shut up.

  I heard his laughter in my mind and decided to jump on his good mood. Do you think I’m ready now? Can we retake the Waterfall?

  It’s not up to me to make that decision. It’s up to the Stag—he’s the head of our Clan. And I don’t know if he’ll throw you into battle so soon. He tossed his head, white fur glistening in the darkness. Patience, young Padawan.

  I almost fell out of the air. Heath! Did you finally get a DVD player?

  Better than that—Blu-ray.

  So many kids in my government class had a hard time finding any con to argue about the Guild’s plan that Mr. Clemens had to postpone the debates so everyone could do some research. He gave over class time for us to meet with our partners, but when I sat down opposite Bree, she didn’t even look up from the journal she was scribbling in.

  I cleared my throat.

  Nothing.

  “Um, hello?”

  With an exaggerated sigh, she flung her pen down. “What?”

  I gritted my teeth and leaned toward her. “Look around you. Everyone else is working with their partner. Can we please go over what we’re going to do when we get up in front of the class, so we don’t make fools of ourselves?”