Ember

by Jessica Sorensen

  “You know everyone is looking for you, right?” I press the severity. “There are flyers all over the town with your face posted on them. This is really messed up.”

  “Messed up?” She laughs, and then starts to cry. “No, messed up is growing up in a house like I did.”

  “A lot of people have bad home lives,” I pronounce unsympathetically. “It doesn’t mean we run away.”

  “Oh yeah, what’s so messed up in your life?” Tears roll down her sun-kissed cheeks and she scratches under the leather band on her neck. “Did your dad use you to close job deals with old perverted men? I just wanted to get the hell away from it for one moment, just breathe. Haven’t you ever wanted to just breathe?”

  “Every single day of my existence,” I whisper.

  Cameron catches my eye and raises his eyebrows, seeking my response.

  “So what? You just hid her somewhere and then scattered feathers all over the shore and painted it up with X and an hourglass?” I ask him.

  Cameron’s eyebrows knit together. “I hid her, but I didn’t do the feathers and weird paint thing. Why would we do that?”

  “To make her disappearance look like the rest of them.”

  “As good of an idea as that is, we didn’t do that.”

  “But that’s what the detective said.” I fall back in the couch with my forehead creased. “Why would she do that?”

  “To mess with your head probably, see if you would let something slip.” Kelsey shrugs and rearranges the bands on her wrists. “It’s kind of their M.O.” When Cameron and I gape at her, she adds, “What? I watch a lot of Law and Order, okay?”

  I tap my boot on the floor, bubbling with anxious energy. “They think I killed you… and they think I killed Laden.”

  “No, they don’t. They just don’t have any other leads.” Cameron’s eyes journey down my body. “Although, if they saw you now, they’d probably lock you up.”

  I wrap my arms around myself. “I had an accident.”

  He points over his shoulder. “Is that why there was an ambulance at your house?”

  I focus the interest back on Mackenzie. “So what am I supposed to do? Just pretend I never saw anything and let them keep investigating me?”

  “Would you?” she asks, hopeful. “That would be really great, at least until I can figure out somewhere else to live. I’ll be eighteen in a few weeks, so I’ll be good to move out on my own.”

  I rub my exhausted eyes. “I don’t mean to sound rude, but can’t you just tell someone what’s going on?”

  She laughs, but it’s forced. “You don’t think I’ve tried? But my mom always sides with my dad, saying I’m doing it to draw attention to myself. And my dad is a big funder of the Hollows Grove Police Department.”

  “Is he paying them off?” I ask, flabbergasted, and she gives a subtle nod. I consider the dilemma for a moment, but there isn’t much to consider. “Fine, I’ll keep my mouth shut, but please try to figure something else out, before they actually arrest me.”

  “Thank you, Ember,” she says gratefully. “And I’m sorry, you know, for treating you so badly in school.” She gets up and wraps her arms around me.

  My eyes widen and I prepare myself. But her death never announces itself.

  She retreats for the doorway, telling Cameron, “I’m going to go lay down, Cam. I’m really tired.”

  Once she’s gone, I say to Cameron, “So it still doesn’t explain how the cops found out where my car was.”

  “That’s a question I can’t answer for you.” He rests his arms on his legs and intersects his fingers. “The only thing I can say is that there has to be someone else who knew where your car was.”

  Asher. And perhaps the person who was tailgating me that night.

  “Did someone save you?” he prods. “Or did you swim out of the car on your own?”

  “I have excellent panic reaction skills.” I get to my feet. “I should get home. It’s late.”

  He accompanies me to the door, but pushes it closed when I open it. “Can I show you something first, before you go?” His nice guy act is back, like when we first met and had that briefly decent moment in his Jeep.

  I go with him upstairs into his room. There’s a bed, a dresser in the corner, and a door that extends to a small patio with a camping chair. The walls are black and bare except one, a white accent wall with lines and lines of poetry.

  “Are they your words?” I ask, amazed, and he nods. I walk up to the wall and read the poem that centers them all. “In separate fields of black feathers, the birds fly. Four wings, two hearts, but only one soul. They connect in the middle, but are separated by a thin line of ash. It’s what brings them together, yet rips their feathers apart. They can never truly be together as light and dark. Unless one makes the ultimate sacrifice, blows out their candle, and joins the other in the dark.”

  Cameron watches me with interest. “So what do you think it means?”

  “They could never be together,” I say. “Unless one died? But why? What makes the other one fly in the land of the dead?”

  “That’s something you’ll have to figure out on your own.” He chips a flake of blood off my shirt. “You should know that a poet doesn’t like to explain the meaning behind his words.”

  I bite at my fingernail. “Yeah, I understand that completely. But you should know that, as a poet, I have a desire to understand words.”

  “You know,” he steps closer, “we never got to go to that poetry slam.”

  “That wasn’t my fault,” I remind him.

  “You’re the one that ran away that day.” He places a hand on my wrist and tenderly drags it up to my shoulder. “I was trying to make you jealous.”

  “Cameron,” I say with caution, looking at the wall. “You didn’t happen to see a black car with really tinted windows up at the lake, did you?”

  His fingers discover my collarbone and he traces gentle circles over my skin. “No, why? Did something happen with this car?”

  A soundless sensation numbs my mind and I feel myself falling to him. But I shake my head and sigh through it. “I should get going. “

  His fingers travel down the front of my body as I turn to leave and he hitches the bottom of my shirt. “You can stay here, if you want. You can sleep in my bed.” He raises his hand innocently. “I promise not to touch you, unless you ask.”

  “Is that the same thing you told Mackenzie?”

  “Mackenzie and I are just friends. But I like that you care.”

  I dither back and forth between him and the door.

  “Come on, Ember,” he coaxes in that voice that’s hard to resist. “Please stay.”

  I force my willpower to my legs and back away for the door. “I’m sorry, Cameron, but I think you’re a little too much for me.”

  “That’s what all the girls say,” he jokes, but there is a vast sea of pain in his eyes. He sighs. “Hold on. I’ll walk you to the door.”

  Chapter 18

  When I was thirteen, my mom locked me in the attic for an entire day because she believed I killed several of her house plants. It really wasn’t that big of a deal, only she didn’t let me have anything to drink or eat and there were no bathroom breaks permitted. I walked out of the situation without being too traumatized.

  The only thing that bothered me was her belief that I killed the plants on purpose. At the time, it seemed ridiculous; the idea a person could dry out houseplants in less than five minutes. But now I wonder if perhaps I did do it. And if my mom has always known there was something different about me.

  I wake up on the couch, with my legs flopped over the back and my head hanging upside down. It’s late in the afternoon, the sky tinted a pale pink. Children are laughing outside and someone is throttling a motorcycle.

  I lie motionless, with a splitting headache, trying to fall back asleep, not ready to face the day, or find out what Ian’s been doing in his studio all night. I heard someone sneak in late last night, but I didn’t care en
ough to go see who. There were muffled voices on the stairway and then footsteps headed into the attic.

  Without changing position, I reach for the remote on the coffee table. The front door swings open and someone comes whisking into the house. Their high heels click against the floor. “What the hell happened?” Raven asks. “Why was there an ambulance here yesterday?”

  She looks strange upside down, dressed up as an angel with white-feather wings and a silvery-satin dress. Her hair is curled and wound with white ribbon to form a halo on the top of her head.

  I sit up and rub my eyes. “Because my mom flipped out and tried to slit her wrists.” The words tumble out.

  “Ember…” She doesn’t have a clue how to react to my honesty. “What can I do to help?”

  I drag my butt off the sofa and her glitter-framed eyes widen at the blood all over my shirt. “You can let me go to sleep for a really, really long time. That’s all I want to do is sleep.”

  She gasps. “Why is there dried blood all over you?”

  “Because my mom stabbed me with a pair of scissors,” I confess.

  She pries open the gap in my shirt where the scissors had violently entered. “Em, that’s not funny.”

  “I’m not trying to be funny,” I tell her. “She stabbed me with the scissors and then I almost killed her by sucking the life out of her to heal myself.”

  “You’re in shock.” She pulls her hands away. “Or did you hit your head?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with me.” I push past her. “I’m going to go up to bed to get some rest. Maybe I’ll sleep for an eternity.”

  She seizes the back of my shirt. “No, you’re not. You’re going to go to this party and have some fun. Depression runs in your family. And I will not let you sink into that dark hole.”

  I spin on my heels. “My mom is locked up on suicide watch and I found out that my death omen curse stretches farther than I originally thought. I sucked my mom’s life away to help myself survive. I’m not going to a stupid Halloween party.”

  “You are not going up to your room to write sad poetry about death and pain,” she insists. “Your mom’s pulled a similar stunt before, when she locked you up in the attic for an entire day after she thought you purposefully killed all the plants.”

  “No, that was different—she actually killed me this time,” I say. But was it her or the Grim Reaper? It seemed like she could hear him and see him.

  “I don’t care what she did,” Raven says with a bossy attitude. “You’re going.”

  “Have you lost your mind?” I annunciate each word. “My. Mom. Tried. To. Kill. Me.”

  “Are you sure?” She twists the silver chain of her necklace. “Maybe you should think about it really hard.”

  “I…” I stare at her, watching her eye twitch. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Nothing.” She rubs the corner of her eye like she has something stuck in it. “I just think you should go out and have some fun for once.”

  “I think you should go,” Ian intrudes from the bottom of the staircase. He’s dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt with red paint smeared on it, along with his face and arms. “In fact, I’ll drop you off on my way to my own party.”

  “You’ve both lost your minds.” I head for the stairs, but he blocks my path. “Move out of my way, Ian. Please.”

  He shakes his head. “I’m not going to leave you are here by yourself after what just happened. Mom will be fine—you’ll be fine. In fact, I got a call from the hospital this morning and they said she’s doing really well. Her wounds are healing really quickly and the meds have stabilized her mood. We should be able to see her tomorrow.”

  I thrum my fingers on the sides of my legs. “I’m still not going.”

  “Yes, you are,” Raven insists.

  I shake my head. “I always go with you to every party you’ve ever asked me to, but not this time.”

  Ian gently shoves me toward the stairway. “Quit being a baby, go get a damn costume on, and go have some fun for one flippin’ night in your life.”

  “Asher will be there,” Raven entices with a waggle of her eyebrows. “He texted me and said to make sure you were still coming, because you wouldn’t answer your phone.”

  Asher. The Anamotti. The X on my mom’s head. It all rushes back to me.

  “Okay, I think I—”

  Suddenly the Grim Reaper materializes behind Ian. His head is tipped down as he rises up to the ceiling. He elevates his hand to his face and the sleeve slips down his arm, revealing his human hand.

  “He’s human,” I whisper, unable to move.

  He puts his finger to his lips. “Shhh… There’s no need to be afraid. The answers are in me,” he purrs mellifluously and the sound of his voice is enthralling. “Come with me, Ember. I’m begging you. Never look the other way.”

  My mind starts to melt to his request, but the touch of Raven’s hand on my arm pulls me back.

  “Em, get it together,” she commands.

  I blink the feeling away. “I told you to stay away from me.”

  His finger shifts to bone and beneath the hood, flames ignite. He swoops for me and I duck to the floor. He hovers above my head, his cape flowing onto my back. He puts his mouth up to my ear and his breath smells like a thousand stolen graves. “I got your mother to kill you, imagine what else I can do. Do not go against my wishes, Ember Rose Edwards. The only answers you need are from me.”

  I feel him whisk away, a hush of air across my back. When I push back to my feet, he’s gone and Raven and Ian are staring at me, their faces frozen in horror.

  “Em,” Raven speaks tentatively. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah… I think so.” But I need to get the hell away from all this madness. I need to breathe.

  “Look,” she says in her stern tone. “You’ve been through a lot the last couple of weeks and I don’t want you home alone, especially on Halloween—you know how crazy things get sometimes.”

  “I know… Alright, I’ll go.” I snag my jacket from the banister and dash vigorously for the door. Against the Reaper’s warning, I’m going to Asher for answers. I’ve been forced by the control of death too much in my life and I think it’s time to break free of it.

  “Um… Em.” Raven steps in front of me. “Don’t you think you need to change first?”

  I shrug at my bloody and ripped clothes. “I’m sure no one will notice. It’s Halloween.”

  She shoos me toward the stairs. “You may not care, but I already have other plans for you. Big plans. One that will make Asher fall on his knees.”

  “I’m not really worried about how I look right now or whether or not Asher will fall on his knees,” I hinder at the bottom step, disputing. “I’m only going because I need to talk to Asher about something and it’s not important if I look hot.”

  “Just give me like an hour,” she pleads, with her hands folded in front of her. “One hour to work my magic and then we’re out. Okay?”

  ***

  Two hours later we’re still in my room. I’m sitting on my bed, while she lines my eyes heavily with black eyeliner. Then she traces my lips with a deep red lipstick. Every one of her touches brings quietness, not death. Something has changed in her—or maybe in me. I need to test it out, find out if death has finally left me. Or if it’s left her somehow.

  I try to text Asher while I sit there, to see if I can persuade him to come to my house instead. But he won’t answer my text.

  “Keep texting him all you want,” Raven singsongs. “But he’s under strict orders not to let you off the hook for going to this party.”

  I growl at the phone and shove it aside.

  She leans back and admires her handiwork. “I am damn good if I do say so myself.” She steps aside so I can look in the mirror. My grey eyes sparkle against the silver and black eyeliner and my lips appear full and plump. She’s tucked a rose over my ear and my black hair flows down my back. Around my neck is a choker centered with a rose and a black dre
ss fits against body. My feet are laced up by a pair of my black boots and black feathered wings span out from my back. Suddenly, I’m kind of excited, like for one night I can pretend to be someone else.

  “Isn’t it a little weird, though,” I say, inspecting myself in the mirror. “I mean, the black feathers… people already think I made Laden disappear and that might set them off more. And then there’s the Mackenzie thing…” I haven’t shared the truth about that with Raven yet.

  “Who gives a shit what they think,” she declares, flicking a mascara wand through her eyelashes. “You didn’t do anything and if anyone gives you crap, you’ll knock them out—bring out the bar-fighting Ember I know.”