“Just tell me where I am,” I plead. “This is a really shitty time to be obscure.”
She shakes her head. The Ancients sent me to guide you home.
“The Ancients?” I croak.
You need to go back now, Ruby.
“I don’t understand. Am I in the Otherworld?” My stomach defects, and I double over. My mother—my mother is standing in front of me. How is any of this possible?
You have a gift, and as long as you keep coming here, you’re in danger. Grabbing my arm, she pulls me back to the middle of the ruin. It’s time, Ruby. And beware the Watcher.
“Wait!” I plant my feet in the dirt, rustling up a dust shower that morphs into small silvery droplets of water. “You can’t send me away yet. I have so many questions.”
They know you now. There’s no time.
“Make time!” I shout, covering my mouth when I realize I’m yelling. “You have to tell me.”
Tell you what, love?
“Why you left.”
Everyone leaves. It’s the way of the universe, Ruby.
“You sound like Ezra,” I whimper.
My mother’s expression changes. She looks down at me through unreal lashes, narrowing her eyes. Watchers aren’t to mix with True of Heart.
“What?” I croak.
It’s forbidden.
I stare, completely dumbfounded. Mom’s circuitous answers split me down the middle, fragmenting my ability to reason. All her words—The Ancients, Watcher, True of Heart—I’ve heard them before, but still they mean nothing.
The sky starts to fade as a deafening roar shakes the forest. She grabs my hand and pulls. No more talking. You must go.
“Don’t …” I sob.
Stay away, Ruby. Leave the gate to the Watcher.
I step back away from her, breathless, sick, and completely confused. “The Watcher, is it Leo?” I croak.
Another thunderous roar shakes the trees. Mom grabs my hand and pulls. You must stay away!
“You keep saying that! But I don’t understand why!”
White clouds spread like snaking filament across the fading night, agitating the forest. Behind Mom, an enormous creature crashes into the clearing. Like a smudge against cream paper, its leathery grey contours fade against the incandescent sky. It opens its mouth, exposing wickedly curved teeth, roaring silently.
My mother stands very still. She grasps my hand so hard it hurts, then quickly shoots upward, cutting a path through the atmosphere. Light as a feather, I fly like a bird alongside her, grasping at the ribbons of her dress, soaring over the serpentine Pecos River. Thunderclouds explode over La Luna, and she closes her eyes, breaking away from me toward the mountains.
“Mom!” I scream. “Don’t leave me.”
Her body fades as she merges with the skyline, leaving me suspended. She flies east, fading to a speck against the grey sky. Dangling high above the pass, I open my hand, staring at the tattered yellow ribbon wound between my fingers. It smells like the ocean—briny, vast, and wild. Yellow like the midday sun, it flares in my palm, blinding me as I tumble to the ground.
“Ruby!” Liddy screeches. “Do you know where you are?”
“Morocco?” I squawk, bolting upright.
She chews furiously on a nail, staring between Torrance and Ezra, who look a lot like people who’ve gathered for a funeral.
“Wishful thinking?” I peer up at them, bleary-eyed.
“Jesus!” she yells.
Ezra sits down next to me on my bed, pale as a snowdrift. His eyes are near wild.
“What happened?” I look around my room, trying to remember if I walked home. My throat feels like sandpaper, and my body hurts the way bodies do after a killer hike.
“You never came home. Torrance, Ezra, and Angel went out looking for you.”
“Angel?” I swallow.
“He’s in the kitchen,” Ezra says quietly, “trying to get through to the hospital.”
“Storm knocked the phone lines out,” Torrance adds. “It’s the only place in the house picking up cell reception.”
I try getting out of bed but decide against it when my brain explodes. “I went hiking.”
“We found you up the mountain. Near the ruin. That was Ezra’s call, and a good one. We carried you down,” Torrance says.
Liddy wipes her eyes. “What were you doing up there, Ruby?”
Ezra shoots me a look but doesn’t say anything.
“I saw Mom,” I whisper.
Liddy holds a shaky hand over her mouth. I can tell she’s been crying. “Sweetheart,” she says tenderly, “you were unconscious.”
“I saw her,” I insist. “I was awake, Lid. I just … went somewhere.”
Ezra drops his head. He starts to speak, but Angel walks in. “I got through to St. Vincent’s in Santa Fe,” he says in a rush. “They’re sending an ambulance, but it’ll take a while. Until then, they said to make sure she doesn’t have a concussion.” He holds up a piece of paper. “I wrote it all down.” Angel stops when he sees me, dropping down beside the bed. “Ruby, you’re awake.”
I try smiling, but it’s difficult to do under Ezra’s watchful, worried eyes. “Surprise,” I rasp, wiping a tear off my cheek. “Best Halloween ever.”
Angel clasps his hand around mine. “Thank God, you’re all right.”
Liddy plucks the paper off the bed and starts ticking through the hospital’s list, making me recall my name, and the date I was born, and who the president is. When she’s sure I’m not about to drop dead, she leans over me and rubs a hand across my forehead tenderly. “I think you’ll probably live,” she says, still apprehensive. “But at least one of us should stay with you until the paramedics arrive.”
Torrance takes Liddy’s hand. “Angel can stay and keep an eye on her.”
Angel straightens up, smoothing his dirty, slightly damp dress pants with his palm. He looks worried but manages to smile. “Ezra should stay with her.”
Liddy looks upset, like she doesn’t want to go, and stands in the doorframe, wavering.
“I’m okay,” I whisper, unsure if I believe myself.
“Way to turn eighteen,” she says tearfully. “I’m sorry, Ruby. We’ll make it up to you. Ezra, you come down if you need anything.”
When the door closes behind them, Ezra shuts his eyes for a moment. “Ruby …” he starts. He takes my hand and rocks his fingers between mine restlessly. “What were you doing up there? You promised.”
“I wanted to be alone. But I didn’t mean to go to the ruin. I just ended up there. Ezra, I … I saw my mom again. It was like I was dreaming but not.”
Ezra presses his hand against his head so forcefully he seems angry, but his soft eyes look thoughtful. He strokes my forehead. “Your mother’s dead.”
“I’m telling you, Ez. I went somewhere.”
“Ruby.” He looks down at me sadly, oozing a kind of sympathy I hate.
“She was wearing the same yellow dress we buried her in.” I open my fist, revealing the dirty yellow ribbon still in my palm.
Ezra stares down at it, but his expression is so impenetrable it’s daunting. He looks away, breathing audibly, and when he turns back again his face is stony. “I know you want to believe you saw her. But it’s just a rag. Something you picked up on your hike.”
“You think I’m crazy?” I ask, waving the ribbon at him.
“No. I think you’re exhausted.” He shakes his head. “And that you’re right that something is off. But I think it’s you, Ruby. And I don’t want you going to the ruin. Not with me, not alone.”
“I didn’t faint,” I whisper.
Ezra lays out lengthwise next to me on the bed, pulling me to his body. “Call it what you want. I don’t care. Just stay away from it.”
“Mom told me to stay away. She said Watchers don’t mix with True of Heart. I don’t know what it means, but it reminded me of her letter.”
An impossible tension mars Ezra’s very dark eyes. “Ruby, it’s your fi
rst birthday without her. And you’re still angry. It’s just the letter messing with you.” He swallows before saying, “Let’s just rest now. The ambulance will be here soon.”
“You’re acting weird, Ezra.” I push up, trying to forge a pocket between us so I can see him better. “What’s wrong?”
“Other than that, my girlfriend fainted—again?” he answers gently, rubbing a palm over his mouth. “You scared the shit out of me. My heart nearly stopped when I saw you lying on the ground.”
“She must have brought me back …” I trail off, feeling unbearably tired. “Where I went, it was like the forest was on fire, and there was this … this thing, like a creature, and a planet . . . a bunch of planets. Like your Pecos Circle. They eclipsed the sky.”
“Shhh.” Ezra kisses the top of my head, stroking my hair.
“You don’t believe me?”
“I already told you what I think.”
“Ezra …” I start to protest, but he shushes me again before I can finish.
“Quiet now. Stop talking. Just don’t fall asleep, okay? Hospital’s rule until we know for sure you don’t have a concussion.”
My head objects to every movement I make, every word I speak, even the light. Closing my eyes, I snuggle against his chest, feeling calmer with his strong arms wrapped around my sore body. “I’ll try. But I still want to talk about it later.”
Clutching the ribbon to my chest, I rub the satiny fragment with my thumb. It isn’t just trash I picked up on the mountain. I know it in my gut the same way I know Mom had to be talking about Ezra’s clan. Watchers and Guardians of the Mountain. Maybe she was warning me about Leo. Just because Ezra doesn’t know Leo, doesn’t mean they don’t share the same background.
“Such a fitting Halloween.” Dazed, I cling to him. “Happy Samhain, Ezra.”
He pulls me closer, whispering into my hair, “Happy birthday, Ruby.”
Seventeen
Aftermath
Ezra and Liddy linger in a corner of my room while EMTs take my vitals and shine lights in my eyes. After they give me a clean bill of health, Liddy lets Ezra stay the night. We don’t talk much, but Ezra watches me carefully, as if trying to unpack my every movement and expression. It’s unsettling but having him near also calms my mind, and I eventually drift off.
The next morning, though the paramedics assured Liddy everything looks normal, Liddy still takes me to an urgent care in Santa Fe. Like the paramedics, the urgent care gives me a clean bill of health—no bumps on my head indicating I fell, no hypoglycemic markers, no nothing, and I resist the urge to tell Liddy, I told you so.
Because I’m not about to die, I convince her that despite The Great Ruin Debacle, a title no one but me thinks is funny, it’s okay to go hiking with Torrance out at Bandelier like they’d planned. And thank God. Her hovering is driving me for-real crazy.
Almost as soon as Liddy and Torrance are out the door, Ezra comes back over. But he’s as morose as ever, and his disquiet is like a flashing neon sign.
“Will you please stop worrying?” I ask as I pat the bed.
Ezra crawls in beside me and snuggles against my side, warm and soft in all the right places. I’m tired, but also so aware of his body. He moves closer, and I search his face, visually tracing a scar from his chin to the neck of his T-shirt.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I just really love you.”
“If I tell you I love you again, will you get naked with me?”
“Tell me and find out.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” I joke. “I need incentive.”
“Then don’t tell me.”
Ezra stares up at the ceiling, unsmiling. When he tries to sit up, I grab his arm and pull him back. “I love you,” I tell him earnestly. I wind my arms around his neck, kissing his face, then his ear. “More every minute. I’ll still love you even if you don’t want to see me naked.”
Ezra’s stony face breaks. He props himself up on an elbow and leans over me, landing a kiss on my lips. I pull him down against my body, locking him in place with my legs, and he drops his weight, looking down at me all moony-eyed. “You’re everything to me, Ruby. No matter what happens, I need you to know that.”
Before Ezra can protest, I unlatch my legs and tug my T-shirt off, wriggling beneath him. Surprised, Ezra sits up. “What are you doing?”
“Following through.”
“Ruby …” he starts.
“Shhh …” I put my finger to his lips.
I kick myself out of my jeans and push him on his back, then unbuckle his pants, moving his hands away when he tries to stop me. “It’s not about sex, I swear,” I promise. “I just want to be close to you. Will you let me?”
“Can we just … do this?” he croaks, pulling me flush against him. “I’m not very disciplined.”
“Look at me, at least,” I swallow, laying out beside him. I take his hand and place it on my bare stomach. “Please.”
Ezra turns on his side and runs a hand over my body. His eyes are wide and bright. “You’re beautiful.”
With a push, I roll him over and kiss his chest and stomach, bunching his shirt out of the way. I wind myself around his body, wrapping my bare legs around his blue jeans. Being so exposed yet connected is enough; I feel alive in his arms, and my love for him travels between us as if he’s inside me.
“Are you good?” I ask a little breathlessly.
“Are you?”
“Better than good.” I kiss his nose again, rubbing my lips against its waxy texture. “You’re perfect.” Ezra is the best medicine. Being close to him like this, it’s like last night’s catastrophe happened in another lifetime.
Ezra sits up a little, pulling me back against the bed with him. He picks up the tattered yellow ribbon off my bed stand where I left it and rubs it between his fingers. “Last night you mentioned Samhain. Do you know what that is?”
“Yeah. It has something to do with Halloween.”
“It’s the night the veil between the living and dead is thinnest.”
“Right,” I say, remembering my conversation with Leo. “I’ve heard that before.”
He lets his breath out slowly, taking a minute. “I think that’s why you fainted.”
“You believe I saw her?” I sit up straighter, over him.
“I believe you saw something. Despite what I said last night, I do think the mountain is trying to tell you something. If you won’t listen to me, then listen to her.”
“You mean about the Watcher?” I stare at him, holding my breath while I wait for an answer.
“I mean about going up there.” He sits up, inadvertently creating more space between us. “Do you trust me?”
“I’m sitting here practically naked.” I snort. “What do you think?”
He frowns, inhaling deeply before letting out an audible sigh. “You asked me about the ruin. Why I don’t want you up there. I know this won’t make sense to you, but …” He sighs again and closes his eyes. “I have to go away for a while.”
“Why?”
“To tie up loose ends.”
“What loose ends?”
“It has to do with my family. You’ll have to trust me.” He looks pained. “I swear I’ll tell you everything when I come back.”
“I do trust you. But I don’t understand.” I trace circles on a patch of smooth, tanned skin over his muscled stomach, closing my eyes for a moment while I try to refocus my mind. Ezra doesn’t always mean exactly what he says when he says something.
He touches his chin, flicking a finger absently over the tiniest cleft still visible beneath the scarring. “You will, later.”
“How long will you be gone for?” I whisper.
“A couple of days? A couple of weeks? I don’t know.” He moves his legs over the side of the bed, pulling his shirt down over his stomach. “A client offered me a job out in Las Cruces a couple months back. Restoring an old church. I’ve been thinking about taking it for a while.”
“Wait, a
re you serious?” Every muscle in my body goes numb—just minutes ago we were on the verge of committing to something much deeper. Now he’s talking about leaving? “That’s your loose end? A client in Las Cruces? Bullshit. You’re running away, aren’t you?”
Ezra scrubs his forehead vigorously. “I’m not. I’m coming back. I just need time.”
Angrier than I am confused, I bite my lip hard enough to taste blood. “When are you going?”
“Tomorrow, probably.”
“Tomorrow!” I shriek. “You could have told me that before I took my clothes off and threw myself at you.” I chuck a pillow at his face and jump up off the bed, pulling on my jeans and shirt. “Is it because of what happened last night?” I whimper, hating myself for being so whiny. “Because I went up there when you told me not to? Or because you’re mad at me. Or afraid of losing me?”
Ezra stands and walks toward the window. “I am afraid of losing you. But it’s going to happen anyway if I don’t leave.”
My heart beats so hard I feel dizzy. “Is there someone else, Ezra?”
“Ruby, no!” He turns toward me with real anguish in his eyes. “I’m in love with you. But my life … the truth is … shit, I don’t know what it is anymore.”
The truth. My feet wobble, decidedly uninterested in supporting my weight any longer. I drop on the bed and stare wildly. Has he been lying to me about how he feels? Has he been planning his escape all along?
“Don’t.” Ezra sits down on the bed beside me. He rubs a thumb between my eyes, smoothing out a frown line. “Don’t do that. If we’re really in this together—and I want that more than anything—I need to set things straight. And I don’t know how to do that yet. But I’m trying.”
“How long have you been thinking about this?”
“Since the first time you told me you love me.”
I stare at him incredulously. How do I answer? How do I stop him? “Fine, I don’t love you. Will you stay now?”
“I’m coming back.”
“What am I supposed to do until then? Sit around with my fingers crossed, hoping you’ll figure out I’m not a waste of your time? Or that you’re not a waste of mine? Ezra, whatever it is, we can work it out.”
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