After a while we get up to leave. Mr. Montrose dismisses Lilian, but he keeps me behind. I look to Lilian to see what I should do, but she's already out the door. I turn back to Mr. Montrose and find him fumbling with his briefcase. After a moment, he pulls out a small box wrapped in plain brown paper.
"There we go," he says gruffly, holding up the box and giving it a long satisfied look. He turns to me then and clears his throat.
"This belonged to your mother. She had originally intended to give this to you upon your eighteenth birthday, but her will dictates that it should pass to your possession immediately in the event of her death."
I swallow hard, barely able to breathe. All this time and no one has actually said it: her death. It's always "passed" or "left us," like there's still the possibility that they'll come through the door any second. I search Mr. Montrose's face for any bit of remorse or embarrassment but there isn't any, which I appreciate.
He holds out the box to me and I just stare at it without taking it.
"What is it?" I ask without looking up.
"Honestly, I have no idea. She was just very adamant that you have it."
I might be imagining it, but I swear I see a hungry look pass over his face as he takes one last look at the box. It's that look that shakes me out of the fog that's consumed me since that SUV hopped the median and ended my family. I grab the box from his hand and mutter a quick thank you.
It's difficult not to notice the look of disappointment that crosses his face. He starts to say something else, but I turn and walk out. Lilian is standing just outside the door with a faraway look on her face. I want to say something, but nothing good enough comes to mind. She glances at me out of the corner of her eye and starts walking without waiting for me to catch up.
As we leave the office building, I chance another look at Lilian. Her face is ashen but her eyes are set with determination. She won't break down or lose control; at least, not in front of me.
We drive home in silence, which is a relief. I lean against the glass and stare out of the window at the blur of scenery. In my pocket, I clutch the little brown box and try not to think about what it means.
When we get back to my house, I expect us to have some long conversation about what this all means and where we should go from here. Instead, Lilian is on her cell the moment she's out of the car. She still hasn't looked at me properly. I sit in the living room for a while and listen to her calling moving and storage companies. When she gets on the phone with a realtor I go to my room. I know that the will intends for my parents' house to be sold, but hearing Aunt Lilian on the phone, making all the arrangements, is more than I can handle.
In my room I sit cross-legged on my bed, the box set in front of me. The sight of it fills me with an inexplicable dread. Whatever it is, I know, somehow, that it's just the beginning of a long list of secrets.
Gingerly, I pluck the box off the duvet and begin gently peeling away the paper. It comes off easily, revealing a black velvet jewelry box. My hands tremble; it's as if the contents of the box are giving off its own energy that seeps through my skin and into my bones.
I take a deep breath and quickly open it. The sight that greets me is somewhat underwhelming. It's a simple heart-shaped pendant carved out of some sort of opaque purple stone. The stone rests in a delicately silver filigree casing and it's strung from a long silver chain that lies coiled beneath it. I slide the necklace out of the box and hold it up to the light. It catches the light and seems to hold on to it for a split second before fracturing it into a million little rainbows.
My breath is ragged as I unhook the clasp and re-hook it around my neck. The stone is heavy for a second, but then it seems to melt into my skin and become part of me, as if I've always worn it.
A slight wrap on the door shakes me from my thoughts. I don't know why, but I feel compelled to hide the necklace from Lilian. I quickly grab a discarded sweater from where it lay on my bed and pull it on, making sure the collar is high enough to obscure the necklace completely.
"Come in."
The door opens and Lilian pokes her head in. She wears a guilty expression that squeezes my heart and makes feel guilty in return for keeping a secret.
"Evan? Can I..."
"Yes!" I blurt before she can finish.
Lilian smiles and her shoulders sag in relief. She walks into my room and plops down on the bed next to me, lying back so that she's looking up at the ceiling. I do the same and we just lay there for a while, our breath falling in sync.
Memories come back to me, playing out on the ceiling like a movie. There's Lilian, just seventeen, coming to babysit me when I was five. We built pillow forts and watched Sixteen Candles, even though that movie was way too inappropriate for me. Fast forward to me at thirteen, locked in the bathroom, screaming for Aunt Lilian. She was the only one I would talk to when I finally got my period. Fast forward to me at seventeen, sitting in a waiting room, waiting for someone to tell me my parents were dead.
In that moment that she appeared, wide-eyed and frantic, there was no doubt in my heart that we would stick together. There isn't anyone else in the world that I could possibly trust to take care of me as well as my parents had, or at least tried to; it wasn't their fault that I was never whole to begin with. Now, nothing in the world is right and no one will try to save me. My parents were gone and Lilian will be gone, too. It won't be long before her busy life soaks her back up and I'm forgotten.
The tears that had stayed frozen inside of me since that last cry in the shower, the day after the accident, rise and spill out of me in great torrents of ache that my body struggles to contain. My sobs come out as strange, animalistic sounds. I'm terrified that my skin will split open and my bones will dissolve.
Lilian squeezes my hand and lets me cry until my voice is hoarse and my eyes feel dry and pinched. I breathe deeply, in and out, trying to center myself. I had expected to feel worse if I let go and gave in to my emotions, but I feel oddly better.
Aunt Lilian sits up and begins smoothing the duvet in small precise circles. I stay where I am, believing for a moment that if I don't move then the words won't come. But they do. Lilian takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. I feel myself begin to lock up and the familiar numbness starts to take over.
"Evan. I can't say that I'm not surprised, that I'm not completely thrown for a fucking loop. But, your parents weren't stupid, or cruel. They were good. They were the best people I've ever known. And...and if this is what they wanted, then there must be a really good reason. A hell of a reason. Not that they bothered to mention that reason somewhere in that stupid piece of paper, but that wasn't really their style, was it?"
She turns and looks at me, finally. I meet her eyes and force myself to swallow the truth. She's right. She's more than right. The truth doesn't make it any easier, though. My whole body feels heavy, as if a pile of lead bricks that's being sucked to the center of the earth by some sort of super gravitational pull is sitting on my chest. Even so, I manage a small smile. "I guess I better get packing."
Lilian smiles in return, but it doesn't quite meet her eyes. She pats my knee and leaves the room without saying anything more. My hand finds its way to the heart-shaped lump just beneath my sweater. I trace the outline of the pendent with my finger.
It must be my imagination again, because I feel the stone grow warm to my touch. It becomes so hot that I'm sure that my skin is burned. I sit up and pull off my sweater. Gently, I push the pendant aside and find myself unharmed. I press my palm flat over the stone. Once again it's cool.
Chapter Three
The drive from Connecticut to Upstate New York is long and wet. Spring rain soaks the landscape, turning the foliage a bright green and the earth a depthless black. We're driving my parents' red Cadillac, which they had left to Lilian. The car cuts noiselessly along the New York thruway pulling me closer to the answers I'm sure only my grandmother can give me. I don't think it's a coincidence that the necklace came on the same da
y I was told I had to go live with her.
Even though I'm sitting perfectly still, my heart is pounding against my ribs. It doesn't help that the stone on my necklace has burned like molten lava against my skin since I woke up this morning. I don't mention any of this to Lilian, because I'm pretty sure I'm imagining it, most likely because I've gone nuts. Maybe I hit my head in the accident and the doctors had failed to notice that I'm brain-damaged.
Fields and farmhouses flit by one after another making it seem like we're on some sort of endless loop. I have no idea where we're actually going. I don't bother to ask and Lilian doesn't bother to tell me. All that I know is that Lilian's right eyebrow shot up and her face folded into a bemused expression when she read the paperwork Mr. Montrose gave her. Since we're going to my grandmother's, I can only assume we're heading toward my mother's hometown.
I'm contemplating a nap when the car starts to slow. The GPS is prompting us to take an exit on the right. I sit up and glance at the sign. My heart stills its furious beating. I turn questioningly to Lilian but she keeps her eyes on the road.
"Lil, I thought mom was from Greendale."
Lilian is silent for a moment before she answers. "So did I."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that your mother was not from Greendale. She was raised in a town called Price," Lilian says with a hint of finality. At least I'm not alone in my surprise.
I gulp, the letters on the sign flashing before me in my mind. "Price? As in Magda Price?"
Lilian finally looks at me, her mouth twisted into a wry grin. "The one and only."
.
We end up somewhere northwest of Albany, in a tiny quaint town where all the streets are lined with flowering trees that are heavy with wet, unopened buds. The main street is paved with brick and teems with gleaming storefronts and ornate public buildings.
I take in this small glimpse of the town with an uneasy feeling as Lilian drives straight through. She follows Main Street until the brick begins to peter out and is replaced by a smooth dark road. The pavement is so dark that I imagine it would look wet even when it's dry. The trees that line this stretch of Main Street are tall and leafy and incredibly still; there are no buildings or houses on either side of the road.
Eventually, we take a left turn that brings us up a long paved driveway that ends in an enormous wrought-iron gate. There's a little black box with a speaker on the left that Lilian mutters into until the gates begin to slowly swing open.
I'm prepared for a big house, a mansion even. I'm not prepared to find an exact replica of a noble English estate in Upstate New York. The house, if you can call it that, is easily four stories high and outdoes any imagination of Mr. Darcy's Pemberley. It's built from brick the color of aged parchment.
Tall windows that gleam look down on a lush landscape that's been carefully molded with neatly trimmed hedges and ornamental trees. The buds of hundreds of flowers are heavy with rain and aching to burst. In the center of it all is a giant three-tiered neoclassical marble fountain, which is empty save for the murky rainwater that has collected in the bottom of each of its three basins.
Lilian and I turn to each other, our mouths gaping. We both had clearly underestimated what Mr. Montrose had meant by "very wealthy." The idea that this was my mother's childhood home is impossible to swallow. Our four-bedroom colonial back in Connecticut is practically a cottage compared to what stands before us.
"I can't do this." My voice barely registers as a croak because my mouth has suddenly gone sandpaper-dry. There is no way in hell I'm moving into this place, on the edge of some creepy little town in the middle of nowhere, with a crazy old lady I haven't seen in over a decade. Instead, I'll just run away until I turn eighteen and no one can make me do anything anymore.
Lilian's laughter cuts into my panicked thoughts. I stare at her as she bends over and continues to laugh herself into hysterics.
"What the fuck, Lilian," I spit out, trying, and failing, to sound pissed.
That just makes her laugh harder. Tears are streaming down her face and she grips the steering wheel for support. I try to be mad, but her laughter is contagious and soon I'm shaking with my own hysterical giggles. We stop only when a sharp wrap on the window startles us into silence.
A gorgeous woman, with pale blonde hair that's cut in a severe line at her chin and icy blue eyes that bear no hint of amusement, gazes at us through the driver-side window. I gulp down the last of my giggles and step out of the car.
.
Ms. Icy-blue eyes turns out to be Greta, my grandmother's assistant. Greta regretfully informs us that Ms. Price has been called out of town at the last minute on an urgent business matter, but assures us that she'll return in three days. Lilian is understandably outraged; she tries to insist on staying with me until Magda gets back, but I refuse to let her.
"Aunt Lil," I plead gently, "it'll just be easier if you go now. It's not like I don't want you to stay. It's just that..."
"Evan," she sighs, "it's OK. I understand." My expression is doubtful which makes her laugh. "Really, I do."
We stand awkwardly for a few moments in the entryway, which is actually a giant marble hall that stretches into an enormous white marble staircase outfitted with a plush red carpet. A chandelier with about a million crystals practically floats above us.
Greta clears her throat softly and gives us a smile that seems easy but doesn't reach her eyes. Lilian smiles too, but her smile hides a multitude of secret feelings and comes from a deeper place. She places her hand on the side of my face before turning to leave. We don't say goodbye. We never do.
The big oak doors thud softly into place as she leaves. Greta gestures for me to follow her. She drones on and on about the features of the house as she leads me on a mini tour, but I'm too distracted to focus.
"Evan, sweetheart, I am so sorry about the tragedy that brought you here, but you really need to pay attention if you want to be able to find your way around. I'm only here for the day, and then I need to join Ms. Price."
I give her a blank look and she sighs, moving on. The tour ends at my new bedroom. Most of my luggage is already there. It's not much. I basically just packed most of my clothes and my books, along with a few mementos to remind me of my home and my parents. Everything else has been packed up and placed into storage until I'm ready to deal with it, if that time ever comes.
Greta seems unconcerned by my lack of belongings. In fact, she proclaims that it's much better to start from scratch in circumstances like these. Before she leaves me to my own devices, she gives me an envelope that has a debit card and the details of my personal bank account. I just stare at it, dumbfounded. I've never been given so much as an allowance. The bank account my parents set up for me holds the accumulation of birthday and holiday savings, which is a paltry sum compared to what I've just been handed. Not that I've ever gone without, it's just that my parents operated on a less is more basis. As in, the less I took for granted the harder I worked for what I did have.
Greta has a pleased look on her face as she watches me take it all in. "When you're ready, it will be arranged for you to be taken to town where you can do some shopping and get to know the area." She turns to leave, but pauses and looks back at me over her Chanel-clad shoulder. "We are all so happy to have you here." Her smile is genuine for the first time since I met her.
The door snaps shut leaving me alone. I feel the beginnings of a panic attack rise in my chest, cutting off my breath. I squeeze my eyes shut and reach for my necklace. My fingers find their way easily to the smooth lump just above my breast.
I press my palm firmly to the stone, feeling it burn a gentle warmth into my hand. The warmth seems to saturate my skin and seep into my blood where it travels to my heart and calms me. I breathe in and out a few times before opening my eyes and turning to face my new life.
Chapter Four
My new bedroom is the size of my living room and dining room back home, combined. On one end, there is a four-poster
bed dressed in light blue silk hangings and dark blue Egyptian-cotton bedding. The duvet is covered in blossoms stitched with gold thread. The bed itself is made out of a dark polished wood that contrasts sharply with the pale blue hangings but compliments the bedding perfectly. On either side of the king-sized bed are nightstands made of the same wood. They are bare on top, except for a smattering of silver candleholders in different shapes and sizes, each outfitted with buttery yellow candles. The drawers on each small table are adorned with sterling silver drawers pulls.
Opposite the bed is an ornate white marble fireplace. It would seem as though the entire place is carved out of one giant piece of white marble, if it wasn't for the lush dark wood floors. Two matching sky-blue sofas sit facing each other in front of the fireplace. Between them, a coffee table, the same wood as everything else, rests on an ornate rug woven with designs in red, blue, and gold.
The room is empty save for those few furnishings, but it doesn't exactly feel empty. The soft gray wallpaper and dark wood French doors, that appear to open to a balcony, give the room a cozy fullness.
In the corner, by the bed, I notice an antique wooden writing desk. The wood is lighter than everything else, almost red. There is an off-white colored inkblot and small gas lamp on top, but nothing else. It's placed just below the window so that one could sit and look out over the landscape while they contemplated their thoughts. Charming.
My eyes drop from the window to the lamp on the desk. The sight of it makes me realize that it's the first piece of lighting I've seen in the room, besides the candles. There is no overhead light and no electric lamps of any sort. I pick up one of the smaller bags and amble over to the desk, pulling out my laptop and setting it in the center of the inkblot. I kneel down and search the molding at the base of the wall for an empty outlet.
Evan Elemental (The Evan Elemental Series) Page 2