Painted Blind (12 page)

“He’s not a monster,” I cried.

“He hasn’t been honest with you either.” She closed the closets and looked around once more. “If he’s what you want, you’ll be the luckiest girl in the world.” Her tone didn’t make that sound like a good thing.

Savannah bid me luck as we parted at the portal. It was dusk when I returned to the palace alone. I changed into a gown and put on Erik’s gifts, but Eudora and Aeas didn’t come.

I rummaged through the kitchen and found bread, cheese and smoked fish for dinner. My stomach churned, and I tasted nothing. Much as I tried to convince myself that Savannah was wrong, I doubted Erik myself in the beginning. He seemed to offer the kind of love I’d always dreamed about, but it wasn’t fair for him to ask me to love him blindly. It might be a trick. I craved more of him every day. If I was going to break free, it had to be soon.

As the light waned, I grew more restless. I longed for his company and hoped he wouldn’t come. I didn’t want to betray the only guy who had ever loved me, but then again, maybe it was a lie. He had seen my face. He had seen more than that on the billboard. Maybe like every other guy in the world, he just wanted what he saw and all of this was an elaborate ploy to take what didn’t belong to him. The fish threatened to come up.

I found mint sprigs and munched on a leaf to settle my stomach. Eudora told me it made the food settle better. I hoped she was right.

The palace grew dark, and my mood followed. I didn’t know which was more crazy: to betray him or to believe him. I waited in the stillness with a stormy heart.

“Psyche?” As soon as Erik said my name, I knew something was wrong. His voice was deflated. My dad sounded like that on nights when he ate left-overs and went straight to bed.

I wondered if Erik somehow knew my doubts. “Are you all right?” My voice quivered.

“Exhausted.”

“Too much mischief today?” I forced lightness into the words.

A half-hearted laugh was all he could manage. He came forward and rested his head on my shoulder.

“I’ll have Pixis take me to the portal,” I offered. It was better to run away than betray him.

“No, stay with me.” He fingers slid down my arm and took my hand.

I thought he would throw himself on the lounge and doze, but he led me through the hall to his bedroom. I balked in the doorway.

“I just want you near me,” he said.

A pillar of moonlight slid through the open window, but it cast beams on the far side of the room, away from Erik and his bed. He coaxed me forward, then lay down with a moan. I gave in. I snuggled up next to him and let him wrap his arms around me. Within moments his breath turned heavy in my hair.

The moonlight climbed higher overhead and cast fewer beams into the room. It was very late now. Was it possible the gentle arms curled around me belonged to a hideous face? He was sound asleep. Should I put my fears to rest?

Erik didn’t stir as I slid out of his arms. I crept past the foot post of the bed and felt my way to the dresser where the candle stood. Beside it was a box of matches. I opened the box and struck a match. The hiss of the flame seemed to echo through the silence. I froze, listening for him to wake, but his breath remained steady. As I lit the candle and shook out the match, I noticed a heart-shaped silver box on the dresser. It was closed by a looped clasp. I slid aside the clasp and eased the lid open. Inside was fine pink dust.

Erik murmured my name. I turned to face him. He was sound asleep, and he was no monster.

Delicate skin smoothed over his high cheekbones. His full lips were naturally coral, and thick lashes adorned his closed eyes. Even Aeas, who would be gorgeous in my world, didn’t compare to Erik’s beauty.

He wore the robe of his world wrapped around and tied at the waist. His bare chest was rippled with sculpted muscle. From his broad shoulders to his ridged abdomen, he took perfection to a level beyond imagination. I was mesmerized, unable to pull my eyes from his glorious personage. Most surprising, I had seen him once from a distance on the first day of school. He was staring at the billboard of Venus when he turned around and saw me.

I moved closer, compelled to touch him and reassure my senses that he was not an illusion. I forgot I was holding the candle and the box of dust. I leaned closer. The hot wax dripped on his flawless shoulder.

He awoke with a start. I jumped and sent a cloud of dust into my face. I coughed and sneezed, and when I looked at him, heat flooded my veins.

“You fool! What have you done?” He jumped up, fury in his eyes. They were violet and the most beautiful that had ever looked on me. “You’re covered in dust.” He snatched the candle and the box from my hands.

“It doesn’t matter. I loved you before I saw you.” I reached for him, but he pushed me away shaking his head.

“Love cannot live without trust.”

All the little droplets of knowledge I’d gleaned about him—this place, the dust, the winged horses and the robes—finally pooled into understanding. “Eros,” I whispered. “You’re the god of love.”

“I’m no god, and it isn’t love. It’s just dust,” he spat. “Now you’re under its power.”

“So are you! I heard you sneeze the first time you came to my school!” I threw my arms around him.

He peeled me off his body and dragged me toward the balcony where he threw open the doors. A sharp whistle cut from his lips. “Pixis!” The horse landed on the balcony and Erik pushed me toward him. “Throw her back into her own world, and close the portal.”

“No!” I clung to him. “Give me another chance.”

“Another chance to betray me?” He tried to force me onto the horse’s back, but I put my feet out and pushed against him. In frustration, Eros caged me in his arms. “Down,” he ordered.

The horse unfurled his wings and leaped off the balcony. Before I understood what was happening, Eros launched me after him. I screamed as I fell through the night, but Pixis came up under me. I seized a handful of his mane and clung to him. He bobbed in flight, which set me onto his back, then he flew full speed toward the edge of the meadow. He didn’t land in the clearing where he usually did, but barreled through the trees. He tucked his wings and glided through the dark cave, then gave a mighty flap to cross the ravine. On the rock outcropping, he landed. A full moon outlined the familiar woods and mountains. Cold prickled up my arms.

“No, I won’t leave,” I protested.

He knelt on his left knee. When I didn’t move, he put his ears back and whinnied. I felt his muscles tense. I relented and slid off his back. Pixis brushed his nose against my cheek, then he put his head down and nudged me hard. I tumbled off the rock and fell into the frosty grass.

He bucked and his hind feet struck the invisible bridge.

“No!” I lunged toward the outcropping, but it was too late. I heard the bridge crash to the rocks on the other side of the ravine. Pixis looked back at me one last time before stretching his wings and crossing the ravine.

“I’ll wait here in the cold!” I cried. “I’ll never give up.”

The words echoed back to me from the opposite cliff, but the horse was gone. I collapsed on the rock shivering and wrenching with bitter regret. Eros hid his beauty from me so I would love him instead of his face, and I turned out to be as shallow as every guy who gawked at the billboard. I’d wanted the shell instead of the pearl inside.

The night grew colder, but I refused to move. Pixis might return. Eros might relent and let me come back. Even as those thoughts came to mind, I knew it was impossible. He wasn’t going to forgive me. I waited until the moon fell in the sky. I shivered uncontrollably. Curling into a ball preserved some of my body heat, but I was no match for the mountain. Near dawn it started to snow, but by then I was no longer cold.

Chapter 11

The crack of a rifle tore through my consciousness. There was light all around me, but I couldn’t open my eyes.

“I hit him in the shoulder. There’s a ravine ahead. He won’t get far.” The voice was unfamiliar. Not Dad. Not Erik. The last name was painful, but I couldn’t remember why. Didn’t matter. Too sleepy.

“… a green Subaru in the brush. Hope he doesn’t start tracking my buck.” The voice was soft but near. “Check for blood.” The next sentence was a string of profanities even my dad wouldn’t say.

“Blood trail?” asked another voice farther away.

“No, it’s a girl. The car must be hers.” His breath smelled like chew. I felt his hand, but I couldn’t move. “She’s ice cold, but I found a pulse. See if there’s ID in the car. I’ll get the truck.”

I struggled to speak, but he was gone. A pickup rumbled closer. He pulled me into his arms. My limbs wouldn’t struggle. “No…” I managed. I didn’t want to go.

My protest was lost. I felt warm air and scratchy seat covers. Coats and blankets wrapped around me. The other voice returned. “I found a backpack and high school ID. It says Psyche Middleton. Think she’s Ron’s girl?”

“Yeah, the girl from the billboard.”

The pickup bounced down the road. “What the hell was she doing up here? Did you see what she’s wearing?”

I didn’t hear more. The warmth put me under.

I felt a hand in my hair. “Erik?” I whispered without opening my eyes. It must have been a dream. I fell asleep in his arms and had nightmares.

“Hey, kiddo.”

“Dad?” I pulled my eyes open. My throat felt like sandpaper. The room was beige with muted curtains and sterile tile floors. There was a TV mounted on the wall. A hospital room. “What happened?” I croaked.

He turned to the table behind him and came back with a plastic mug. He put the straw to my mouth. “I was hoping you could tell me. A couple of hunters found you this morning. I thought you were at Savannah’s house.”

“Erik,” I murmured. The memories hit me like a crashing wave—how I betrayed him and he threw me out.

“You were with Erik last night? Why did he leave you in the snow, and where are your clothes?” My dad’s expression turned hard. “I’ve got plenty of questions for Erik.”

I let my head fall back on the pillow. “Save it. I’ll never see him again.”

“He’d better hope
I
never see him, or I’ll put him in the ground.”

My nose itched, and I reached to scratch it, only to hit my face with a mess of bandages. “My hands.”

“Frostbite. You were lucky. You won’t lose any fingers.”

“My face?”

Dad brushed my cheek with his fingers, and his eyes got a little moist. “Still perfect.”

“Has Savannah been here?” I had no idea how long I’d been out.

“She called this afternoon, and I told her you were here. She’s worried.” He squeezed my arm. “I’ll call and tell her you’re awake, then you’re going to tell me exactly what happened. You understand?”

I closed my eyes and nodded. My mind was too foggy to lie, but the truth wasn’t an option. I put a bandaged hand to my forehead. The pendant was gone. Maybe it was lying in the valley below Erik’s balcony. No, his name wasn’t Erik. Eros was so much more, and he was no longer mine. The words he whispered to me that first day I crossed the portal came into my mind. I’d heard them before, but couldn’t remember where. “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind…” The rest of the stanza from
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
now came into my mind, “…And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.”

He tried to tell me, but I was too afraid to listen.

I’d heard the phrase “broken-hearted” thousands of times, but until that moment, I didn’t realize it would actually hurt, that the anguish of losing his love would make my chest ache and my lungs constrict so that even breathing was painful. I was glad it hurt—glad my body could vouch for my suffering. For my stupidity.

I remembered Eros’s glorious face and those angry violet eyes. No matter how long I lived, no one would compare to his beauty. His image was seared onto my memory where it would haunt me indefinitely. Every other face would be flawed, every other voice flat. If I was empty before he loved me, I was a desert now, a barren heart with no hope of rain where there had once been a valley full of lush tenderness. My hands ached under the bandages, and I wanted to cry. But how do you pull tears out of dry sand?

“What happened to you?” Savannah rushed into the room with my dad following somewhere behind.

I blinked awake and held out my arms. She hugged me. “I did what you said. I lit the candle and looked at him.”

“He was a monster?” she whispered.

“No! He was a thousand times better than Holden.”

“Holden?” It took a moment for the name to register. “You’re on a first-name basis with Holden
Valentine
?”

“He was like a mirage, beautiful beyond belief. I reached out to touch him.” My voice grew weak. “The candle wax dripped on his shoulder. I burned him. Literally.” I was aware that my dad was standing at the foot of the bed listening, but I didn’t care.

“So he did this to you?” She touched the bandages.

“He threw me out, but I couldn’t leave. He has to come back sometime. He has to!”

She nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure he’ll come back. You can apologize.”

“He threw you out of his house?” Dad interrupted. “Then why were you in the forest?”

I met his eyes. “There’s a portal between his world and ours. It’s in the forest.”

“A portal?” He shook his head.

“Savannah has been there. Tell him, Savannah.”

She looked at my dad and back at me with wide eyes. “Ron, could we have a moment?”

My dad gave me a suspicious look and trudged out the door.

As soon as he was gone, I grabbed her arm. “You make him understand, Savannah. You have to.”

“You’ve been through a lot. Just give this some time.” She looked around the room. “You were wearing the stuff from his world when they found you?”

“Yeah, and I don’t know what happened to the pendant. Will you see if you can find it?”

“Sure.” She went to the closet and pulled out the plastic bag with “Personal Belongings” on the side. She drew out the dress and laid it on the chair next to my bed. Then she pulled out the sandals, belt, bracelet and arm cuff. At the very bottom was the pendant. She held it up for me to see.

I snatched it from her hands and brought it to my lips. “Thank goodness. It’s all I have left of him.”

“I could stash this stuff at my house until you get out of here?” she offered. Savannah folded the dress and placed it in the bag along with the sandals. Then she carefully wrapped the belt around her hand, slid it off her fingers and set it on top with the bracelet and arm cuff inside. She looked up and waited for the pendant.

I studied the amethyst in the center of the signature. “I know his name now. It’s not Erik. It’s Eros.”

“Eros, as in the… God …of
Love
?” She blinked. “I guess that is a thousand times better than Holden Valentine.” She held out her hand, and I dropped the pendant into her palm. “This pendant means you belong to him?”

“Not anymore.”

Savannah considered the pendant, then placed it on top of the other things in the bag. “I’ll keep these safe.” She squeezed my arm. “Let them pamper you for a few days. You deserve it.” With the bag in her hand, she left the room and closed the door. Through the window, I saw her talking to my dad. She held up the bag for him to see, and made a small gesture toward me.

I sank back relieved. She was explaining. He wouldn’t think I was crazy, and maybe he wouldn’t ask too many painful questions about Erik. It would be all right. When I got out of here, I would go back to the portal. I would find a way to cross the ravine, and I would get to Olympus. I wouldn’t stop trying until he forgave me. Whatever it took, I would win Eros back.

When Dad returned a few hours later, he had a sandwich and a bottle of chocolate milk from the cafeteria. He didn’t ask any questions, for which I felt a profound gratitude to Savannah. He settled in the chair and picked up the television remote.

“How long do I have to stay?” I asked.

“Overnight.” He frowned at the football game on the screen. MSU was losing. “They want to run some tests.”

“For what?”

The offense fumbled the ball, took a timeout, and the screen went to commercial. Dad turned to me, his expression softer. “I just want you to get better.” There was genuine sadness in his voice. He wasn’t talking about hypothermia or frostbite.

The hospital released me the following afternoon. Dad drove through the wet streets. Snow clung to the upper elevations, but it rained in the valley. As soon as I got home, I called Savannah’s cell phone. It went straight to voice mail. I called a dozen times over the next few hours but she didn’t answer.

I called her house, and her mom answered on the first ring. “Psyche?”

“Is Savannah around? I tried her cell, but I got voice mail.”

“I was just going to call you,” Katherine said. “I thought you knew where she was.”

“I haven’t seen her since she visited me in the hospital.” I waited, but she didn’t reply. “Katherine?”

“I need to go. I’ll tell her you called.”

After she hung up, I called Travis, but he hadn’t spoken to Savannah since Friday morning at school. I debated calling the police, but her parents beat me to it. An hour later a couple of deputies showed up at the door.

“Are you Psyche Middleton?” the deputy asked.

He was young, and I didn’t know him, but when his partner came trudging up the steps after him, his face was familiar. “Hey, Todd,” I said.

“Your dad around?”

“No. He went to check on the job. You want me to call him?”

Todd nodded. “We need to ask you some questions about your friend Savannah Schofield, and we’d rather he was here.”

I pulled the cordless from its charger on the kitchen bar. “Do you guys want to come in?”

The younger officer started through the doorway, but Todd set a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll wait in the car until your dad gets here.”

When my dad’s truck pulled up half an hour later, Todd and his partner crossed the wet grass toward the driveway. From the living room window I watched the three men approach the house. Something was definitely wrong.

The officers sat facing us in the living room, and the scene looked oddly like something from my dad’s favorite cop show. Todd took out a pocket spiral notebook and a ballpoint pen. “When was the last time you saw Savannah?”

“She came to visit me at the hospital.” I looked at my dad for help. Time had passed in blips and blurs. There wasn’t clock in the hospital room.

“It was about one o’clock yesterday afternoon. They released her today around noon.”

“Have you spoken to her since?”

I answered, “No. I’ve been trying to call her. She took some of my belongings from the hospital for safe keeping, and I want them back.”

“What kind of belongings?”

“A dress, sandals, and some jewelry.” At my answer, Dad’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t speak.

“What can you tell me about this?” Todd reached into the pocket of his coat and drew out a plastic evidence bag that held a sheet of notebook paper, which he turned over for me to read. “Her parents found this in her room just before they made the missing person’s report.” The letter was in Savannah’s handwriting.

     
Mom & Dad,

       I know you’ll be worried about me, but you shouldn’t be. I’d tell you where I’m going, but you wouldn’t believe me. I can only say that Psyche has been there, and it’s completely safe. I was devastated when Travis broke up with me, but now I realize it was for the best. There is someone better for me, and I’m going to be with him. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more. Just know that I’m going to be happy (and very rich).

       Love you,

       Savannah

“No, she wouldn’t,” I stared in disbelief at the paper in my hands. It was impossible for my best friend to betray me so completely. I had known her since preschool. She wouldn’t do this to me. But the dark reaches of my mind conjured involuntary images, like eighth grade when I confessed I had a crush on the guy who sat in front of me in English. The next day I caught Savannah talking with him at her locker. I accused her of telling him my secret, but she swore she didn’t. Two days later they were a couple.

“What can I say?” She’d shrugged. “He likes me, not you.”

Todd interrupted my thoughts, “Do you know where she might have gone?”

I wanted to hurl all over the coffee table. “She’s going after Erik. I can’t believe it. She has my pendant.” She wasn’t keeping it safe for me. She was using it to win him for herself. I hated her with more vehemence than I believed myself capable.

“Psyche,” Dad said calmly. “Savannah said you rented that costume and that the jewelry was hers. She said you invented Erik’s world.”