Ever After (23 page)

I didn’t want him dead, but there was nothing I could do about that. He wouldn’t let me spend his last days with him, so I could do nothing but fume about it.

I sent Shelby and Kaitlyn away to do some research or something ghost related.

The only relaxing place was the pool. Nancy saw me wobble past the kitchen so she assisted me down to the sparkling water.

“Now don’t you over do it, honey.” Nancy squeezed my arm after helping me sit in the extra-long lounge chair.

“I won’t.” Tears stung my eyes as she adjusted the umbrella over me.

Cole hadn’t bothered to speak to me since the day before, and I had no idea how he was.

I’d finished the fiction novel I’d started in the same day, so a school book would have to do. I missed studying and reading. The only real beauty and romance existed in books whether they were educational or fictional. No matter how many times you read them they never changed. Unlike humans.

“If you need me…” Nancy handed my book over after giving me an unsure, motherly glance.

“I know. Ring the bell.” I smiled, squeezing her hand.

Nancy had brought one of Ava’s little bells with a wooden handle out with us.

Only a spoiled brat would use it. I refused to ring it unless my life depended on it, but she needn’t know that. I was only a little under the weather, not in the throes of death.

Death.

Don’t think about it,
I thought.

I lay back. The shadow of the umbrella shaded me from the already blazing June sun. The chlorine mixed with the warm waft of roses would have normally been heavenly, but today nothing relaxed me. If Cole died, I wanted to melt into the hot breeze and be carried off into the trees with the wind. I didn’t want to exist if he didn’t.

My first day here, I hadn’t just fallen into his arms. I’d fallen madly and irrationally in love with him.

The peaceful quiet filled with sinister whispers.

I opened my eyes, sure another human was close, but there was no one.

Beyond the stone wall of the pool, the roses in the maze rustled in the wind.

I shivered despite the heat.

The feathery, menacing whispers blew through the leaves of the maze. “Don’t get too comfortable. The moon is almost gone. Choose which one of you dies first.”

As if on cue, Shelby and Kaitlyn burst out the back door of the house and headed in a beeline for me.

Torture was imminent. I picked up the book and slapped it open. Footfalls on the concrete stopped right beside my lounge chair.

“So, you trying to sneak out?” Shelby asked in a friendly tone.

“I needed fresh air.” I kept my eyes on the pages.

The girls sat on either side of me. An ambush?

“I’m ready to tell you everything,” Shelby blurted.

“Not everything, but enough.” Kaitlyn shot Shelby a glare.

“I wasn’t born for the stage the way you are. She needs to know.” Shelby put her hand up in her sister’s face.

So they’d decided to actually speak and include me.

There was a silence between them for a second. Never mind.

“Okay, I’m not going to tell her everything, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him go through this alone.” Shelby crossed her arms and stared off into the trees.

Kaitlyn turned to me. “Something big is getting ready to go down, and it’s going to happen soon. Grace is saving up her energy for something. You’ve noticed she hasn’t been bothering with you much, right?”

I nodded. Nothing had happened at all come to think of it. A few more days, and I could be done.

“Well, she has something planned, and we know what it is. So does Cole. He’s afraid if you find out, you’ll go against everything we tell you and fight against her. As powerful as he is, he’s no match for her, so he’s pretty sure you’d die in the first few seconds.” Shelby’s eyes were dead serious.

“Powerful. What do you mean, powerful?” I shoved the book off my lap. “I thought he was dying?”

“In case you haven’t figured it out, he’s a little different from us. And he doesn’t have to die. He thinks there’s a choice to be made. That it’s either you or him. He didn’t bring you here, please remember that. It was Ava. There are still things you don’t know, things we can’t tell you yet, but so far we are on schedule. Cole will die of supernatural causes if you don’t do exactly as we say. Are you in?”

“So he’s not dying of cancer or leukemia or something?” I sat straighter on the lounge chair. This changed things. Slightly.

“The ghost is draining him. She thinks he’s in love with you, and you won’t give her what she wants, so she’s killing him. That’s all we can give you for now,” Kaitlyn said.

Cole was willing to die for me. All the fight in me wasn’t gone yet.

“I promise I’ll do what I can as long as he doesn’t try to hook up with me again. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m no good at saying no where he’s concerned. What can I do to save him?”

“Well, for one, you can’t go off all half-cocked and try to take her on by yourself. Promise us you won’t do that. No one is going to die. Please, forget that part for now, if you can, and focus. We have a short window of time to fill you in on what’s going on. Things I think you’re going to need to know when the time comes. What do you know about rocks and stones?” Shelby said.

Instant headache.

Her question had nothing to do with Cole.

“Seriously? Is that college lingo for drugs? I don’t know where you can find any if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Drugs?” Shelby jolted with shock. “Do we look like crack heads?”

“Don’t answer that. We mean jewels.” Kaitlyn shook her head impatiently at her sister.

“Rubies, diamonds, emeralds, alchemy,” Shelby said.

“Oh.” As crazy as it was not to use fake ones, sapphires were randomly placed all round each stone pillar.

Shelby followed my gaze. “Each stone has different protective qualities. Sapphire is symbolic of water, but water is symbolic for life.”

“What can alchemy do to save Cole?”

“Everything,” Kaitlyn said.

I sat Indian style.

Shelby and Kaitlyn looked at each other.

“You’d have to care about someone an awful lot to die for them, wouldn’t you.” Butterflies tickled my stomach, but flew away. “Not that I’m going to let him do that.”

The girls’ eyes narrowed. They both looked to the woods before the crackling of sticks and cursing interrupted us.

“You know he does.” Shelby’s voice was strained.

More rustling in the bushes came from behind the rock wall that separated the pool from the woods.

“Hi, girls. Gossiping?” Cole wiped his hands on his pants and gave the girls a cold stare.

I scooped my book up and flipped it open.

“We’re going to get back to work. We’ll see you at dinner.” Kaitlyn stood.

Shelby followed suit.

“Thanks for nothing.” Just when I was close to some ultimate truth. Interruptions. Always interruptions.

As they left, Cole stepped from the canopy of trees into the sunlight. He draped over the rock wall.

When our gazes locked, my insides went into further turmoil.

Cole’s cheekbones protruded and his eyes sank farther in. He looked me over. “I called Nancy to check in, and she said you weren’t feeling well, so I took a shortcut to come see about you.”

“I’m not the one we need to be worried about.” I pretended to scan over a page of my school book. “You look like you’ve been run over by a truck.”

“There’s nothing we can do about me. You’re the one we’re trying to save, and if you are sick, I need to know.”

“Probably just nerves or something.” I kept my eyes on the book. “Don’t worry. I’ll be here to get this ghost off your back for the remainder of your life. I’m not going to desert you.”

He nodded and stared at the electric blue water.

I stared a hole in the middle my book.

I hated this.

“A good day to sit beside the pool.” Cole stepped back from the wall.

“Yeah.”

He lowered his gaze to the little white wicker table beside me.

“A bell?” He actually laughed and stepped closer again.

I’d miss that laugh if the girls were wrong.

“Nancy’s idea.” How long would we go on talking about dumb stuff when there was so much more we both needed to say?

“You wouldn’t ring that thing unless you were half dead,” he said.

“Yeah, I know.” I sent him a half-hearted smile over my book.

He could break right into the inside of me, as if he’d known me all his life. As if we were more than this.

“Well, I hope you feel better. If you need anything, you know the drill.” Cole looked toward the house.

“I know. Call someone else.”

“That would probably be best, but it’s not what I really want.” Cole stalked to the house, his head down with his hands in his pockets. His T-shirt tail was torn and splashes of red streaked his back.

* * * *

Shelby, Kaitlyn, and I took our dinner in the dining room that evening.

Cole sat at the end of the table.

They took the seats right in front of him.

He rose from his place setting and started from the room with his dishes. At least he spoke. “Some girl time might be good for you guys.”

“You don’t have to leave.” My appetite turned to a rock in my stomach.

“Yes, I do.” When Cole distanced himself from me, it left my soul frostbitten. From the conversation at the pool, I’d thought we’d made some progress.

We ate quietly.

For some reason, the twins were distant. The glances passed back and forth between them didn’t hold communication, either.

To clear the awkwardness, I tried to make light conversation, but they barely answered me. The most we talked about was how it was darker sooner every day and that the weather had been nice.

After clearing up our dishes and loading the dishwasher, an overwhelming ache churned in my stomach. Cole had to know how I felt. About everything.

“Can you tell me where he is?” I asked, twisting my shirt in my hands.

The girls both stared at the black and white tile.

“Sleeping,” Kaitlyn answered.

“How can you know that?” This would be interesting.

Shelby put soap in the dishwasher. “I know he acts like an emotionless drone, but he is a man, and his dreams can be primal.”

“Primal? Like you-know-what kind of primal?” I shot her a look. Even if he was complicated and on the semi-emotionally, unstable side, to be the object of one of his dreams…. Whew! It may have been a little crude to have a fantasy about a dying man, but to be his last request would have been quite an honor.

“Well, I can tell you, the face alternates back and forth between you and another girl.” A smile spread across Shelby’s face.

Kaitlyn glared at her sister. “Shelby.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.” My little fantasy went up in a poof of smoke. How gross. So he was one of those types of guys.

“Don’t listen to her. Her clues are only going to shove you further away from him. At this point we need you to at least want to help him. Both the girls in the dream are you. One’s just a little younger version of you.” Kaitlyn glared at her sister, then settled her more calm gaze back on me.

“I don’t even want to know any more about that. Subject change. How is Cole related to the Colby Kinsley I found in the graveyard?”

A kitchen chair could have fit in both of their mouths. “Yeah, I know about Colby and Annabeth. I know they were to be married, and that they also died the same year. I want to know why all three of them, the two sisters and the guy, died so close to the same time. And if we can do something to lay this whole thing to rest. Annabeth and Colby at least deserve that closure.”

Shelby sang an old song. “So close, yet so far away.”

Kaitlyn nudged her again with her pointy elbow.

“Ouch.” Shelby massaged her arm.

“We’ll tell you in a few days. Promise. On that note, we found something very interesting when we were doing a little investigation. It might answer a few of your questions. Or raise a few more,” Kaitlyn said.

On the third floor, doors lined the hallway. There were so many bedrooms and sitting rooms no one could ever possibly use them at the same time.

Shelby and Kaitlyn stopped at a door with the only old glass knob left intact. It wobbled but wouldn’t turn. The lock would only open with a skeleton key, unlike all the other modernized doors in the house.

“I’m an excellent lock picker.” Shelby’s eyes sparkled. “It’s one of my many talents. But it won’t help here. This door is unlocked, and it still won’t open. Do you understand what that means?”

“It had to have been secured from the inside?” My curiosity piqued.

“Smart girl,” Kaitlyn said. “Probably with nails and two-by-fours.”

Shelby nodded at the door with her hands on her hips. “On the other side of this door, a fairytale awaits. I can feel it in my bones.”

“I bet there’s a pry bar or an axe in the barn.” I stared at the door thoughtfully.

“An axe would be even more fun, but it’s time to come clean.” Shelby leaned closer to the door.

“It’s about time you put your brain to good use,” Kaitlyn said to her sister.

Wood creaked and one by one nails and screws plopped out on our side of the door. The door facing fell off.

We stumbled back to miss being hit.

“And now for the rest.” Shelby stared at the door, and it fell forward onto a pile of old nails.

“That’s impossible,” I blurted.

Kaitlyn plopped a hand over my mouth but pulled back to watch my face. She smiled triumphantly. “Putting her brain to good use or what you saw?”

“Keep her quiet. If Cole hears, he’ll draw and quarter us, then possibly feed us to some big, nasty animal.” Shelby couldn’t help but smile, entirely too pleased with herself.

“I don’t know what to say.” I stared at both girls incredulously.

“Then don’t say anything. Let’s go. There’s something in that room you need to see. I can feel it.” Kaitlyn took my hand.

“So. What? She can move things, and you feel things?” I followed.

“Something like that.” Kaitlyn squeezed my hand.