The Lebrus Stone (13 page)

"Have you always had panic attacks?" Syd asked, checking my pulse that night.

"Not…always," I confessed.

"Have you had any medical advice?"

"Not really."

"Why not?"

"I chose a…self-help method."

Syd's brows knitted. She was skeptical, just how I imagined people to be when they only knew fragments of the truth.

I was about to ask her if she knew about the story behind my mother's family, but again, I bottled out if it. It wasn't like I was acting my most able minded. I couldn't make her question my sanity further.

"I see." Her brows relaxed, but the skepticism in her glued gaze didn't revert from my heating face.

"Is there anything else you…choose to self-help?"

It was obvious she was asking if I was recovering from some emotional strain, some health inflicted damage or a detox rehabilitation to an illegally bought substance. It was usually what played on people's minds.

"No," I replied, hoping to leave it at that.

She held my hand. I had a feeling a lecture on my well-being and the facts of life was coming.

A knock on the door was a much needed interruption.

"Come in," I called out, then realized my mistake and who could be waiting to confront me. Call me a loser to my face. Cray. I stupidly cowered.

The door handle turned and in stepped Milton, brandishing a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin, which he shook like maracas. It was nice of him. But I had some in the bathroom medicine cabinet.

"Thought you might need these." He smiled without any other sympathy I could recognize and placed them on the bedside table.

The door was still open, subjecting me to the hallway and Cray's bedroom door. I held my breath until Milton closed it. My loose latch rattled as he did. Cray must have broken it when he forced his way in to see what was wrong with me last night.

"Not to worry. I'll screw it back on," Milton said.

He detached a mini screwdriver from his set of keys and began work.

News of my state mustn't have leaked completely to his ears; otherwise he would have given me the Spanish inquisition.

"Feeling any better?" he asked, his tone neutral.

"Yes, thanks," I replied, my eyes on his fiddling in case he re-opened my door.

He whistled a tune. It was strangely narcotic.

"If you still need to rest tomorrow I could bring your lunch and supper to your room?" Syd said, breaking my sleepy trance with a wide smile that made me smile back. Genuinely.

"If you don't mind."

I couldn't face another dinner with the Lockes yet.

"Of course not." She handed me the glass of water. "What would you like? Any favorites? I make a mean apple butter."

"I'll vouch for that," Milton said, turning to give her a wink.

Her eyes gleamed, and for the first time I caught the signs of romantic interest. They were well suited, I thought. I relaxed in the warm ambience of their company.

"I'll let you decide. I love everything you make," I said.

Syd beamed with emphasized pride, brushing back a strand of my hair.

"I'll get started," she said, and got up.

Milton and Syd exchanged an awkward smile, confirming definite romantic potential.

When she stopped by the door, she turned with a stoic expression set like stone at Milton before smiling at me and saying, "You shouldn't bottle anything up, Crystal. Tell us what's worrying you. You might be surprised how much it helps."

I wasn't sure how to phrase my reluctance to accept that kind of help; to indulge would be like allowing myself to self-destruct. I chose to nod in return for her pity speech.

Milton opened the door a slight margin of the way for her to leave. Maybe sensing my foreboding.

Syd smiled one last time, looked at Milton doubtfully, then absconded down the hall. Milton seemed to have understood what she had been silently implying. They were probably planning their next discussion on my behalf, a medical briefing on my mental health.

I grimaced at the back of him as he secured the bolt. But then it seemed silly to suspect them of anything that wasn't innocently involved in my welfare.

Milton didn't speak or try to wrangle anything out of my reluctant mouth. He just whistled his whimsical tune and helped me, for a moment, to forget and sink into an obnoxious oblivion until I fell to sleep.

~ * ~

I opened my eyes and found Zella stood by my bed, smiling down at me like Chucky the doll.

"Lunch is ready," she whispered, loud enough to make my wince.

Lunch?

Was it tomorrow already?

The clock beamed 1:25 pm, confirming it.

I shouldn't have been that shocked. I tended to oversleep after a panic attack. They were draining.

So far, I'd managed to avoid breakfast and lunch with the Lockes. But how long could I keep it up? I had to face them sooner or later. I had to face Cray and Elandra, Jess, too. See if she could tell me more.

A tray of steaming food was in Zella's hands. She placed it on my lap as I struggled to sit.

"It's buttermilk chicken and peach cobbler for dessert. Syd told me to tell you we were out of cooking apples." She grinned, pointing to a tall glass on the bedside cabinet. "That's your glass of apple juice, as compensation."

She took a seat on my hand. I yanked it out from under her and took a few gulps of my drink. It was full of ice and refreshing. My room had been super warm for a change.

Zella giggled, bouncing up and down and agitating the springs.

She stopped as soon as I picked up my knife and fork and crammed a mouthful of creamy chicken into my salivating mouth.

"Tastes yum, right? I had two." She babbled on throughout my meal without pausing to reflect. I was happy not to have to respond as I chewed on my delicious food. At least I was, until she prodded into restricted territory.

"I mean Cray doesn't like chicken much. But how can anyone not like something so plain?"

This time she conveniently waited for me to answer her.

"They're birds, right? Birds are tasty; flying rodents, but yummy." She prattled on and on till it was back to Cray and his food preference. "Cray likes fish…oh, and red meat, cooked rare and bleeding. I hate that. Tastes like rusted iron."

I suddenly lost my appetite.

"Gal says Cray's a carnivorous leech," she added.

My stomach lurched.

"I call him a carnivorous vampire. That sounds better, don't you think? Like a dangerous flesh eater that stalks the night, hunting and biting the living," she went on.

I belched up chicken and juice and ran for the bathroom.

"He'd bite just animals, though, that's all," she yelled.

I rushed to the sink, waiting to heave and hurl, but nothing happened to relieve the acid bubbling in my chest.

"Are you alright?" she asked, helping herself into the bathroom. "It was just a joke." She laughed. "Cray's too fussy to blood suck."

I rinsed my mouth out with water and dried it with a towel. "Can you please stop saying that?" I snapped.

"What?"

"Nothing"

"Blood?"

"Yes!"

Silence.

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

"Are you squeamish?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

Silence.

"Are you ill?"

"No."

"Aunt Marsi says you're intoxicated."

"She's lying."

"Oh. Then why did you hurt Cray?" She looked so upset and bewildered I had to tell her why, even if it pained me to.

"I didn't hit him, Zella. I lashed out at him by mistake; it was just a spur of the moment thing."

She frowned, folding her arms. "How do you give someone a black eye by mistake?"

"It's not black."

"It's green, verging on black," she insisted. "And there's a scratch down the middle."

"How do you know?"

"I saw it."

"How? He's wearing shades all the time."

"I knocked them off to see what he was hiding."

"That mustn't have gone well."

"No. He threw them in my drink."

"Oh." I tried not to snicker. "I'm…sorry"

"It's ok, just tell me what happened."

"I had a nightmare. He must have heard me screaming and came in to see why. Only he frightened me and made me react by scratching his face."

"What was the nightmare?"

"I'm not sure."

"Was he in it?"

I shook my head. "No…no, he wasn't"

"I guess that explains a lot. Is that why you didn't join us for breakfast?"

"Partly. Plus I'm a little tired since I didn't get much sleep last night."

"I don't think he blames you, you know."

"Why do you say that?"

"Just something he said last night."

"What?"

"Something about reaping what you sow and learning from your mistakes."

"Sounds ominous," I replied, disappointed it wasn't an apology.

"And he told Aunt Marsi where to stick her verdict."

"What verdict?"

"That you're clinically insane."

I should have been flattered, but wasn't, just humiliated.

"And?" I pressed.

"Dangerously becoming obsessed."

"With what?"

"…Him."

~ * ~

I couldn't sleep that night, not when I'd slept so much already, not when it was still really hot, and especially not with so much to think about. And
definitely
not with thoughts of Cray rotating in my mind in between trying.

Could Marsi be right? Was I becoming obsessed?

It didn't make it any easier to know Cray was sleeping a few yards away, most likely snoring into la la land while I stewed and fumed, tossing and turning like an out of water fish.

My only intrusion was an owl hooting outside my balcony window. It was a welcome one, especially now that nothing ghostly screamed or appeared in my room. Thank goodness.

When I heard a gentle tapping at my window pane, I wasn't afraid of it. For some reason I felt the need to climb out of bed and investigate. I liked being summoned and wanted. I deserved it. I wanted to feel less alone.

Drawing back the curtains to the French doors, I peered out into the night sky. It didn't take me long to see the owl perched on the balcony rail: silvery gray and spotted with black that looked like dabs of paint. Its feathers were ruffled and spread out like quilted tufts of fingers. Its large round eyes stared back at me like open windows; a glass soul of shining blue twilight.

As I pushed the doors open, a gust of wind tossed my hair around my face. My night shirt fell down my shoulders, the sheer white fabric molded around my curves.

The owl didn't move or bristle as I gained closer. It just watched me with fluid human-like eyes that perhaps pined to be reached. I thoughtlessly lifted my hand and held it inches from its feathery, glossy coat. With one finger, I stroked just below its beak, listening to the hoot that was more like a lowered purr somehow, a hum that vibrated through me.

It skipped onto my finger. Its long sharp talons fastened around it like rings, dark and solid, but carefully wrapping around me like open arms of a friend, lover and companion, a forgotten soul-mate. It sounded strange in my head, but true to how it felt.

A rapping on my bedroom door destroyed my link to the covetable bond. The owl flapped its wings and flew away, glancing back as if to memorize my face.

The rapping continued, becoming impatient.

I stepped into my room backwards, reluctant to leave the balcony in case the owl returned and brought back the familiarity of its amenity. The rapping didn't stop.

I was so annoyed I made my way to the door and opened it without thinking about who it could be. It turned out to be Cray stood obscure in the hallway, his hair stuck up at the crown. My heart pounded at the sight of him. Even shadowed he was breathtakingly handsome.

He barged in without my permission, stopping in the center of the room where he looked out to the open French doors.

"What were you doing?" he asked, without turning.

I closed the door since I had no way of physically removing him from my room. A part of me wanted him to stay, to keep me company. I wanted him to try to be nice for a change.

But I knew he wasn't going to be that way with me, so I chose to keep my guard up. Yet my heart continued to pound.

"What business is it of yours?" I asked as evenly as I could.