“Then there was Sophia,” I said with a sleepy smile.
“We’ll see. She may be too innocent for my taste.”
“That makes me feel awesome, thanks,” I said as I playfully slapped his shoulder.
He laughed under his breath. “You were always my favorite sinner.”
“I have to be a saint until my birthday,” I murmured as I reached for the guitar pick that was on his necklace and flashes of our first summer came to me. Images of us in our youthful past began to haunt the room.
Mason had a way of daring me to step outside of my boundaries. When we met, even though it had been almost two years since I lost my family, it still felt like yesterday. He was in pain, too. He’d lost half of himself, his twin, and we both blamed ourselves for the losses we experienced. We thought the pain of grief was a justifiable punishment, but we also had no sense of self-preservation. If there was a rule that said we shouldn’t do something or were too young to do something—we broke it. On that list of broken rules was drinking. I think Mason drank to dull the pain, but that wasn’t my reason. I drank for the warmth. Not mine, but his. I wanted to be able to feel his skin against mine, his hands, lips…everything. But without the alcohol, my raging hormones would cause everything I touched, everything around me, to freeze. No scarf could shield the emotions of a young teenage heart.
That wild spree didn’t last long, Gran, my grandmother, was waiting up on me one night. I remember her sitting next to me for hours that night, waiting for me to sober up. She knew the exact second I did; it was when the room froze over and I began to cry with shame.
I could never lie to anyone. It’s an odd flaw I have. I either tell the truth or say nothing at all. So when she asked me why I was choosing that dangerous path, I told her.
As she embraced me, let me cry, very tenderly, with a gentle whisper, she told me that if I could not be myself with someone, then I wasn’t meant to be with them. She said that masking who I was would do nothing but bring me an early grave and more sorrow than I was already fighting to bury.
The very next day, she took me to the North Wing, and my life was never the same again. Usually I have to touch things in order to unlock the memories, but that wing was different. I was able to stand in any room and watch, from a safe distance, the life I was yearning for.
“And on that day, we will have the wildest party that ever existed,” Mason whispered as his hand cupped mine over his necklace. For a second, I would have believed that he could see the images all around us now, my memories that were inside out.
Back then, when he asked me why all of a sudden I was following all the rules, I told him. I told him about the cold. Even showed him. He didn’t care, didn’t judge me or call me a freak. He just said, “I like the cold.” I told him the next time I wanted to drink and let loose would be when I was my own person, sure of myself. We both agreed that would be the day Rasure left my life. We’ve been planning this party for a while. Too long.
“I saw your brother, Ben. He had me worried,” Mason said as he tensed, then squeezed his hand against my back, as if he wanted to assure himself I was real, safe and sound in his arms.
“Why is that?”
Ben was one of the first children the Falcons took in. He was almost twenty years older than me and one of the best lawyers in practice. He was helping me weave through all the roadblocks Rasure was throwing at me. It was his brilliant idea to have everyone in our rather large family write letters on my behalf. Considering that each of them were well known in their fields, leaders of the communities they lived in, it was a good play. The judge would be a fool to block me this time. I’m sure that judge was not only weighing my future, but also his. The Falcon children are peaceful—that is, until you cross one of our own. Then we only know one word. Vengeance.
“He doesn’t trust Rasure any more than you do. He found an amendment that states that if you perish, she will gain all of your inheritance. He said he was hiring security for you.”
“Yeah, he told me the same thing,” I said faintly as I thought of earlier today, when Ben told me if I died Rasure got everything. The sad part is, I wouldn’t put it past her to try something like that. “I told him I just wanted the house and my things, for him to get her out of here, even if he had to pay her.”
“And she said the same, according to him.”
“Why does she want my house?” I said, almost to myself.
Rasure had been trying to destroy it from the inside out for years. Not only did she add that addition on, but she kept adding other things, small and large. I hated that because it placed voids in the rooms. Instead of everything opening up a dream for me, there was nothing. I almost thought she was trying to make me insane, that she knew I depended on the memories I unlocked and witnessed over and over, each time finding something that I’d never seen before.
“I don’t know…was your uncle Jamison always a space cadet?” Mason said with a hint of disdain.
I had to think about that for a second. When I was a kid, he traveled a lot. Even though he had homes of his own, this was the one place he always came to for month-long stays. He used to be the fun uncle, the one that would catch us sneaking ice cream, and instead of telling on us he’d make himself a bowl and tell us stories about all his travels, with added details to keep our suspense. He had a medical degree and used it in third world countries. When he wasn’t off doing that, he was building schools or raising awareness and funds for the less fortunate. Typical Falcon.
That all changed when he came home with Mrs. Rasure. Apparently, they had eloped abroad, and at that point he no longer wanted to help save the world or travel. I knew my mother and grandmother were more than furious with him, but he was family, so they accepted Rasure. He was never the same after marrying her. Cadence and I called him a puppet behind his back. Since my grandmother’s stroke, I hadn’t really seen him. He stays in his wing and only comes out when social occasions demand that he does, when Mrs. Rasure does.
“No, he’s under her spell.”
“Interesting.”
I looked up at him. “What does that mean?”
“Just odd that there is no record of her before she married him, yet she has all of this stuff in the manor that came from her imaginary family.”
“Did you guys take that stuff to the charity auction today?” I asked him.
His grin told me he did, and that he enjoyed every second of it.
I was counteracting Rasure in our silent war. I’d decided to take all of the things out of this house that were not attached to me or my family and donate them to charity. At least, I’d started to do that. Mason and Gavin took the first load of things I’d found. Rasure was going to be furious, and I could not wait to see that in her eyes.
I did have the foresight to check with my brother Ben first; the items were not on her wing, but in the area that was designated to be mine after our last war when I was eighteen. I was in the clear to give them away. I had Mason and Gavin do it so it would come as a bigger surprise. In the past, moving trucks were too easy for her to see coming. I was going to do this nice and slow. What can I say? I learned torture from the best. Rasure herself.
“Pretty old stuff, too,” I muttered, glancing to the stone wall behind us. I’d found a lot of books that made no sense, journals in another language. I decided to hide them, maybe find someone to decode them for me. Until I figured out who, or if I even wanted to, I hid them in the wall in my sacred room.
Mason yawned, then hooked his leg around me. “You’re pinned down, sleep without fear.”
“You’re just looking for an excuse for Jewls to break it off with you,” I said under my breath in a weak protest. “You should go.”
“Too tired to go,” he said as he closed his eyes and gripped me tighter.
I adjusted the blanket to ensure that it was keeping him warm and took in the sensation of the vision that I saw when I embraced this cloth. It was the blanket that rested on the couch in our playroom w
hen we were kids. Each time I touched it, I could see my sisters, my parents, hear the laughter, the absolute bliss of our family.
I dreamed for the first time ever, but I wish I hadn’t. I must have fought that ice, that lake, a million times over. Each time, I never made it back for my camera. I never saw any of us get out of the ice water. It was so real to me. I could smell the freezing water, feel the emotions that no soul should have to.
Then all at once, the dream vibrated, my body vibrated. I woke with a gasp to find Mason’s phone that was clipped to his waist going off.
He stretched and pulled it off its clip so he could see it. “Damn, it’s like, two.”
“In the morning,” I said as I sat up and tried to wake up, to push my dreams away.
“In the afternoon.”
“What? Crap! I have a paper due in, like, now,” I said as I bolted up from the couch, then took the stone steps two at a time, stumbling more than once.
Gavin was sitting on the edge of Cadence’s bed. He had his phone in one hand and held out my laptop with the other. He must have been the one who sent the wake up call.
“Thanks,” I muttered as I took it from him and sat on the floor next to him.
At the speed of light, I opened the files I needed and then attached them to an email to my professor. While it tried to send that file, I fumbled through the calendar, making sure I was not late on anything else. Winter Break was a few weeks away. I’d managed to comp out of most of my midterms. All I really had left to do was take a few pictures for my portfolio, and that was more so for the finals.
This past summer, I’d finished my Bachelor’s in business, a basic degree I chose to appease Rasure. I was more interested in the arts and photography, a skill that Rasure thought was belittling. Nevertheless, I found classes to take and escape from her for a few hours every day. That and the coffee bar were the only time I wasn’t forced to share space with her.
“Email’s jacked up,” I muttered, seeing that my file was still sending. The laptop fell off my knee. I picked it up, only for it to drop again. That is when my dream instantly came to life around me. When everything turned to ice without warning and I felt death clawing its way to me—I lost it.
I shoved the laptop across the floor, balled my fists, squeezed my eyes closed, and thought of a raging fire, warmth. In that beat, Gavin’s strong arms were around me, holding me through the breakdown. I doubted he’d ever seen me create this much ice. I’d always had that scarf to deflect this damnable curse.
When I felt my breath and heart rate slowing down once more, I cautiously opened my eyes. The room was normal again, but I was falling apart.
Gavin whispered, “I won’t let anything hurt you. No fear.”
He pushed a small pillow into my arms, the one with the ‘F’ on it, my quick and easy vice. The visions were immediate. I saw my mom, her smile, and I felt warmth. I hugged the pillow with one arm as I leaned into Gavin and let the tension float away. With utmost care, he traced my brow with his fingertips. I glanced up to see his pensive stare. He managed to smile slightly when our eyes met. “Better?” he asked.
“I’m losing it,” I said, shifting my eyes away.
“Maybe you’re finally gripping it,” he said so quietly that I doubted I heard him right. I glanced up, but he didn’t bother to elaborate his near silent statement.
“Why can’t I dream right?” I asked, knowing I had not been right since I woke from that night terror.
“Who says you do it wrong? Maybe you are the only one who does it right,” Gavin said as his hand slowly moved up and down my arm. He’d always admired the visions I saw because of his vivid imagination, the one that allowed him to slip into untold stories. We both seemed to stare into a seemingly empty room for hours at a time.
“If you have plans to write a horror story, I may have an idea for you,” I teased. Dry humor was one of the many walls I hid behind when I tried to understand who or what I was.
“Leaning more toward the paranormal side of things,” he said, squeezing my arm. “You want to talk about it?”
“No, I want to forget it.” I moved my laptop farther away. “I want to be able to send a freaking email without going spastic.”
“It’s the storm,” Gavin said as he nodded to the window. Even though it was the afternoon, the snow was pelting down and it looked more like dusk.
“Cadence at class?” I asked, wondering where she was. If they were really on the outs, the last thing she needed to see was him consoling me.
“She tried to go. She said no one was there. I guess they cancelled. She’s taking a shower.”
I leaned away from him, knowing that if she saw me near him I would have to live through countless coded conversations that would end up making her mad in the end.
“What are you up to today?” I asked, daring to look into his eyes. There, I found the same concerned, penetrating stare that I always did in his gaze.
“You tell me.”
“Why does Cadence think you guys are on the outs?” I asked as Mason came out from behind the bookcase, looking less than awake.
“She wants to get inside my head, and I don’t want her in there.”
“She analyzes me, too. Don’t take it personally.”
“Not,” he said, squeezing my shoulder. “Just not ready to open all the doors, you know.”
“Right,” I said under my breath, thinking of his sister, the one he lost, the point in his life that he could not get past. Even after I showed her to him, after I told him that the only way I could see her, show her to him would be if she were at peace and looking for one last goodbye, he couldn’t get past it.
I understood why he felt that way. So did Mason, which is why we were allowed in and no one else.
“I need a shower. You guys want to meet at the coffee bar later?”
“If it even opens. If not, we’ll hang out here, if you’re cool with that,” Gavin said, catching Mason’s agreeing nod as he stood.
“Works for me.” Storm or no storm, I was not staying in this house all day, and they knew that.
I knew once I moved through my morning routine, I would be able to shake this night terror. I blushed as I thought of going to the North Wing. When I thought of that voice, those eyes that I knew would be there.
Chapter Four
After a long, steaming shower, I covered the bruises on my body with a bronzing lotion. I inhaled the sweet cocoa scent, craving a beach, warmth at that moment. I layered on my clothes, ripped skintight jeans that had flower patterns patched here and there, a tight tank top, then a larger one that had a sizeable skull centering it. Short combat boots, laces untied, were the perfect complement to my attire. I smirked when I looked in the mirror. I loved how my style did not match my home, or my life. I loved how independent it made me feel. And how bad it ticked off Rasure. Nearly made her apoplectic, in fact.
Still feeling empty without my scarf bracelet, I scurried around, looking for gloves, hoping that would serve as a barrier if I lost control today. I found black ones that had the fingers cut out; they were almost too small, barely reaching my wrist.
I began to pin a few layers of my short blonde hair back here and there, trying to create an on purpose, messy look. I reached for the brush and straightened, then angled my long bangs to the side. With each stroke, I brought memories to life. I’d shared this brush with my sisters when they were alive, and each time I used it visions of them would come to life around me. I would see them getting ready for school, talking about trivial stuff, nothing that really mattered. It always made me happy, gave me peace.
I had a daily routine that I’d been trying to break myself from for months. Each day I found an excuse to go, and today the absence of the scarf was the perfect justification to seek the warmth I knew I’d find.
I looked over myself once more. Smirking, you’d have thought that I wanted to make sure I looked right in case the image I was about to see would acknowledge me. A warm hum centered above
my heart and started to spread through my chest as I began to walk toward the North Wing.
The first time my grandmother walked me down here, I felt the same way. You would think by now that it would just be a routine or like watching the same movie a hundred times over, but I knew that each time I came here I would see something different. Those emotions I wanted to feel in real life were going to flood me.
Gran told me that this wing was mine, that it would help me understand who I was, am, and would be. I didn’t understand why she thought that. I assumed she was just trying to get me to grasp the Falcon legacy. The North Wing is the original wing of the manor. It connects to all my favorite rooms as well, the massive three-story library along with the dome room. It was nothing less than regal. Every piece of furniture in that wing was hand-selected and handcrafted by Falcons. It was so priceless that it had been sealed for years before my grandmother gave it to me. Not surprisingly, when Rasure drew up plans to add on to the manor, she planned to tear this wing down and build it again; she claimed it needed to be restored. We went to court. I won. The wing remained untouched—well, except for my slow walks through it each morning.
Sometimes late at night, when I was all alone, I would let my imagination run wild. I would tell myself that the life behind these doors was mine, that the one I was living that was rich with dark grief was just a nightmare that I would wake from one day.
I knew those thoughts were destructive, that because I let myself become addicted to this image in the North Wing that I had shut myself off from feeling anything like it in my present life. I knew that if I never felt the way I did when I was here that I would have forced myself to try harder in the relationships I’d let fall apart. The thing is, though, you have to willingly choose to get over an addiction. It will not go away on its own, and I chose to embrace this one. I chose to watch this life instead of live mine.
My hands trembled slightly as I reached to open the door that led to the wing. My heartbeat picked up as the air carrying the aroma of warm spices washed over my face.
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