Waking Rory

by Elizabeth Jeannel

  Nash walked straight toward me, an unusual expression on his face. “Even, what are you doing?”

  “My job?” I shrugged, holding up one of the documents that I’d begun reading.

  “You were supposed to meet me at the elevators fifteen minutes ago. Let’s get some lunch.”

  “No one told me that.”

  “Maybe you should check your phone.” He laughed lightly. This was funny to him, this phone thing.

  “I think I left it at the house,” I said, wincing as I stood. These heels were the absolute worst.

  “We can grab it on our way through. Come on.”

  I followed him back out of the office, feeling the eyes of several of the girls there. Oh, my God, they were checking him out. And giving me the stink eye. Gross, I’m his niece, but I had a feeling some of them didn’t know that. Or maybe they didn’t care.

  Word had probably already gotten out that he was single again. Not that most women who knew who Nash was cared much about that. But when he was single, women were clingy, overly nice, incredibly flirty. And Nash? Nash was oblivious.

  “How’s your day so far?” Nash asked as we climbed into the elevator.

  I forced myself not to shrug or roll my eyes. “She’s giving me busy work, so I guess it could be worse.”

  “Everyone’s job here is important, Even.”

  I nodded. “Of course.”

  “Have you learned anything new yet?” he said, as the doors opened and we stepped into the busy entryway.

  “Yeah, I really suck at business jargon.” I sighed. God, I hated big crowds.

  Nash laughed. He actually laughed. At least someone was enjoying their day.

  “You’ll get better at it,” he insisted as we reached the car. “I’m sure you’ll be using it like me in no time.”

  I didn’t like the way he said that. Something about his tone, maybe. Something about it lingered between us. Like there was some hidden meaning behind it.

  I was still debating whether this was worse than jail in Seattle when I got back from lunch. Something about McCoy Enterprises felt like a prison to me. Still, I made my way back through the lobby, to the elevator, and pushed number 33. At least the numbers were the same in French.

  Once in the office, I quickly went back to my seat. Partly because I didn’t want to be yelled at by my scary boss, but also because I wasn’t a fan of the looks I was still getting from the other girls there.

  He’s my uncle. I thought to myself, but I didn’t think that would matter. Uncle or not, I’d only gotten this job because of him, and that was probably enough to make most of them hate me. Hell, it kind of made me hate me.

  As my desk came into view, my boss was standing over it, looking over the work I’d done so far. Thank God I’d closed out the computer. I couldn’t imagine what she would have done had she seen that.

  “Ah,” she breathed, barely looking up. “How was your first French meal?”

  “Good.” I nodded, feeling my throat get tight.

  “Your work ethic, not so much, eh?”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I figured it probably wasn’t good.

  “Read these again, I think you missed something.” She slammed the documents down on my desk, causing me to jump and sauntered past me. She looked fierce walking in heels. I looked like a new born goat. I looked up at the ceiling, letting out a sigh.

  I wasn’t cut out for this.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon rereading the documents I’d already done, and still couldn’t find anything else wrong with them. I was on the verge of tears by the time my phone buzzed in my pocket. I knew there were only two people who could have possibly sent me a message, so I braced myself for whatever came my way.

  “Should be down to get you in fifteen. Almost ready to go?” Having Nash around more should have made me happy, but it just seemed odd.

  “Yeah.” I sent back, but I wasn’t really sure about that.

  No one else seemed to be ready to end their day. Phones were still ringing, and papers were still being printed. My boss was still stalking around the room being rather theatrical about the orders she barked to every assistant, intern, and employee in the room. When she finally made her way to me, I felt myself stiffen.

  “Do you have any documents for me?” she asked, holding out her hand.

  I presented her with the documents, though they had no additional errors circled or marked. She gave a tisk noise with her mouth and turned away, not saying another word. I put my head in my hands. Please just send me back to Seattle. At least there I know what the freaking expectations are.

  Nash walked in a minute later, reaching my boss quicker than I could reach the doors, and I knew I was in for it. So, I did the only rational thing. I went straight to the stairs, down to the lobby, and out to the waiting car. If he was going to yell at me, he could do it at the house, not in front of people I’d have to see every day for the next three months.

  Chapter 6

  “All I needed you to do was try, Even.” Nash was exhausted, I could tell. “Why couldn’t you do that?”

  “I did try, Nash!” I let out a painful laugh. “Did she not tell you the part where I read through the same documents twice, and still didn’t find whatever issues she did?”

  “They were all on the first page! The titles barely matched what was in them.”

  “I told you, I don’t understand business jargon! And she said I was looking for grammatical errors not business title errors. I didn’t even look at the titles. Besides, why give me work she already knows how to fix?”

  “She was giving you a chance to prove yourself.” He sighed, looking around the room, probably for a bottle of something brown.

  “Prove myself.” I scoffed. “Okay, I get it. I’m a fuck-up. Send me back to Seattle, I can rot in jail all summer. Then you won’t have to worry about me tarnishing your precious image.”

  He winced. “It’s not my image I’m worried about.”

  “I just don’t get what I’m doing here, Nash!” I yelled. “I’m completely useless.”

  “We are here to take care of people,” he said calmly—too calmly. He was so different since the plane. I hated it.

  “The only person I need to take care of is myself, you taught me that.”

  “That’s not a good mindset, Even. I know that now. We have the potential to make a difference—to really take care of people.”

  “Oh, like you take care of me?” I scoffed.

  He sighed. “I’m trying here, Ev. I really am.”

  “When you spend more nights in your own bed than you do on a pull-out couch at the office, then I’ll believe you’re trying.”

  I turned toward the door, feeling him eye me as I went. This whole trip was a bad idea. He should have just let me rot in juvi. Hell, he should have just let me go to foster care. I’m sure he’d be much happier. And there was a chance so would I.

  “Where are you going?” he asked, as I reached the front door.

  “I just need some air, is that okay?”

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered, halfway under his breath.

  “For what?” I asked, pausing in the doorway.

  He looked up, surprised. “Not being there when I should have been.”

  I swallowed hard, closing the door behind me. I was not going to feel guilty for him not being there for me. I was not. That was on him. That was his problem. Still, there was a knot in my throat because he was the only family I had, and I wanted him to love me. Shit, I just wanted someone to love me.

  Once outside, I reached into my jacket pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and stormed off as far from the house as I could.

  Shit, it was beautiful here. The house Nash had rented for the summer backed up to the Grand Parc Miribel Jonage. It was a nature reserve, which I only knew because I could see the sign as I made my way around the pool and through the back yard.

  The sun was setting as I made my way to the park. I wasn’t sure what the restr
ictions were. Parks in Seattle close when it gets dark, but only riff raff like me were brave enough to go anyway. Brave enough? Stupid enough? Did it matter?

  At least I had the excuse that I wasn’t from around here. Though, with Nash being so stern about going to jail if I got in trouble, I had a feeling that wouldn’t save me all that much. He was probably just waiting for the opportunity. He’d probably get more work done without me around.

  It wasn’t long before I was in the woods, on a trail, walking aimlessly. I was probably going to get lost, which was fine by me. It’s not like anyone would really miss me, anyway. Only it was pretty dark in the woods now, and that felt eerie, even to a trouble maker like myself.

  I was a trouble-maker, not a ghost chaser.

  I was just about to turn back when I saw it; the same glowing orb from my dream was dancing about only a few feet from the trail. I don’t know how I knew it was the same orb, but I knew.

  My feet were leading me off the trail before I could think better of it, and I should have. Dream orb hadn’t seemed all that nice.

  It was floating near the base of a tree. I could almost see the outline of—something in all that light when I heard a crack, and the earth beneath my feet gave way.

  Chapter 7

  I was falling down a hole that felt endless. I’d given up screaming, and I’d started reaching for anything I could instead. My hands caught on three different books, a tea-pot, and a basket full of apples before I started pinching myself. I reached out for a rope, but I’d only just caught my grip when I realized it was human hair and quickly let go. I grabbed onto a vine, but the pumpkin on the end gave way with me, bouncing against the wall and bursting, leaving me covered in seeds. The air had a hint of salt as I reached out and nearly got snagged on a fishing net. But it was when I caught a lit candelabra that yelled at me that I knew I was dreaming.

  Another shriek escaped my lips as I reached for the walls of this never-ending hole that seemed to be caving in on me, but all I could feel were loose rocks. I must have pulled one too many, because once the hole began to curve, an avalanche of rocks came tumbling after me.

  I crashed into a cold stone wall, and I’d only just let out a groan when the loose rocks came crashing into the entry-way of the hole, leaving me trapped in a tiny space, barely big enough to breathe.

  I instantly felt myself swell with panic. I was going to die, and no one would even know where to start looking. And, sure, that sounded alright when I was down in the dumps, but I still had survival instincts. Why was I so stupid? Sure, Even, just walk off into the woods and go off-trail after a floating orb from your dream. That’s brilliant.

  I tried to focus my breathing, trying to ground myself. It was dark, but I could feel four walls all around me. My heart began to race. I felt my breath quicken, and for a moment, I was back in my parents’ car. My eyes started to swell, and I tried slowing my breathing again, but I felt like it wouldn’t be long before I ran out of air.

  I tried to count to ten. I only got to three before I stuttered and had to start over. I tried grounding again, because that always worked. Only it didn’t. It was too dark to see anything. There was absolutely no grounding my way out of this one.

  I kicked at the rocks as best I could, but they wouldn’t budge.

  I needed light. Wait, I had my stupid phone. I squirmed, struggling to reach for it in my back pocket. Of course, I had no signal. Perfect. At least the battery was still almost full. Wasn’t like I could do much with the damn thing to drain it down.

  My vision was going black from all the breathing, but I tried to use the light anyway. How was I getting out of here? A door! There was a tiny door just big enough for my shoulders to fit through. I pushed on it, and it gave way with a rather loud creak, but the moment I slipped through onto the stairs outside of it, I could breathe again.

  I lay on the cobblestone steps for what felt like an eternity before I could breathe normally. My heart rate slowed down to a normal level, and I finally stopped shaking. Once I felt okay again, I knew I had to get up and get the hell out of here. I knew what was behind me, so the only way out was up.

  The stairs ascended for what felt like forever, winding until I felt like I had to be touching the clouds. There weren’t any windows just an endless spiral of cobblestone that led up and up and up. I couldn’t see down, which meant my options for getting out of here were dwindling by the minute. But I kept going. There had to be something up there.

  My legs ached by the time I reached an old, worn wooden door, similar to the one down below, but fit for the size of a human rather than a dog. I eyed it for a moment. There was a chance it was locked. That thought made my heart sink. I took a deep breath and pushed. It gave way with a whoosh as it opened, kicking up a gust of dust. It almost felt like I’d opened an airtight seal.

  Inside was a simple but large bedroom from what I could see with the little light that came through the boarded window. An armoire sat across from an oversized bed. The canopy bed was made of beautiful twisted branches, covered with a sheer, white material, that was also covered in a thick layer of dust.

  I made my way around the room, kicking up clouds with my sneakers, as I reached the armoire. Atop it was a silver-handled mirror, a brush, and a book. All of them were coated in dust as well. The cover of the book was so coated that I couldn’t see the title, and without thinking better of it I picked it up.

  What I expected to be some sort of novel was actually more of a journal. The writing was in French, and I could barely read some of the words as some of the phrases were older, from another time. People just didn’t talk like that anymore, but I found it interesting anyway as I leafed through the pages. My curiosity was spiraling as I flipped carefully through the old delicate sheets, scanning for anything that made sense.

  My eyes fell upon a name that made me freeze and the book slipped from my hands.

  Aurora.

  This was a joke. It had to be a joke. No, I was dreaming. That’s all. I leaned down to pick up the book, and heard something, twisting for the sound of it—the sound of…breathing.

  Impossible, I knew that, but as I found myself holding my own shaking breath, I heard it again. I set the book down and slowly made my way toward the shrouded bed. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was occupied.

  My heart began to thunder again as I inched closer, shaking more with each step. The figure came into view more the closer I came, a small figure in the middle of the bed, saved from the dust only because of the thin woven fabric draping over the canopy.

  I moved the sheer fabric only slightly and sucked in a quick breath of air.

  In my life, I’d never accepted the possibility of true love, love at first sight, or soulmates. Nothing was meant to be. Our existence was but a blink in the life of time. We were simply happenstance. And for so long I’d denied the possibility that anything was perfect. Everything had flaws.

  She did not.

  This soft-skinned being, whose face looked like it might have been sculpted from clay, a work of art that would have taken a lifetime. Her hair cascaded down the pillow in strands that someone could have told me were made of real gold and I would have believed them. Each breath she took felt like it came from my own lungs, and it challenged every belief I had. Because despite myself, the moment I saw the rose in her cheeks, the only word I could find for my feelings of her was love.

  Every fiber in my being was urging me forward, giving me no ability to ask why. My brain, out of sorts as it was, told me to kiss her, wake her, love her. Though my breath was still shaky, there was a part of me that could not stop myself as I leaned forward to her—no I was being pulled to her instinctively by a desire I didn’t quite understand until my lips met hers. Because as I looked at her, I knew her.

  I’m not sure what I expected as a gust of wind washed over us. It sent most of the dust from the room, knocking down the boards on the window, and let in a light that illuminated the space so clearly that I could see every sha
de of blue in her diamond eyes. Her skin glowed as her eyes met mine, a familiarity washing over them. And then she shrieked.

  I jumped back at the sound, falling onto the floor hard. A groan escaped my lips. She backed up all the way to the wall, pulling her feet underneath herself as she shouted to me in incomprehensible French that sounded old. Her hands were ushering toward the door, which was my only real indicator of what she was saying.

  “Oh, shit.” I stammered, trying to get on my feet without scaring her. “Of course…Of course you speak French. That would be my luck. Ummm. Aurora?”

  She locked eyes with me. I let out a breath.

  “Okay, um…” I would struggle remembering every single word of French I’d ever been taught.

  “You speak English,” she breathed. The words were somewhat broken, but they made sense.

  “You speak English!”

  “I speak six languages.” Her eyebrow raised like she was trying to be intimidating, but really it was just cute. “Now, you leave or I call the guard.”

  I swallowed hard. How was I supposed to tell her there wasn’t a guard? No king or queen. No kingdom. France had a president now. Her family was gone. Everything she knew was changed. Unless she wasn’t really a few hundred-year-old princess who’d been waiting all this time for my kiss. There was still a chance this was all just a dream.

  “Are you really Aurora?” I asked. “Like, the Princess Aurora?”

  “But of course. And who are you?”

  “I’m…just Even.” I shrugged, as she eyed me with a sharp glare.

  I let out a breath and bit my lip. How was I supposed to tell her?

  “Garde!” She yelled, eyeing me when there was no response.

  “Aurora,” I breathed. “There’s no guard.”

  “What have you done?”