The Evensong (28 page)

After an hour at the teahouse, I only had ice in my glass, and we were ready to go. Since it was only one thirty, I asked if they could just drop me at Linden’s house on the way to wherever they were going. He would be surprised—and worried—that I was there early, but I was itching to see him again. I promised Aly I would see her again soon, and hugged her one more time before I got out of the car.

As I walked up the steps of the porch, I hoped Linden was in another part of the house where he couldn’t see us pull up. The chances of him not hearing were slim, but I still opened the front door silently anyway. I heard his voice as soon as I stepped in, but I paused before I closed the door. He was on the phone.

“Yeah, I know that, but you don’t get it,” he was saying, his voice traveling from upstairs. “No, you haven’t been here to see anything—come on, don’t be biased.” There was a long pause and he groaned with exaggeration. “Jesus, people
change
. I’m not ready to go, all right? This place is fine. Don’t—don’t give me that! To hell with instinct—yes, Calder, I am serious about settling this time. That good enough for you?”

Again a pause, and I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears. Who is Calder? Maybe a relative he was talking about, but
what
they were talking about concerned me most.

“Right, whatever you say. Call me when you’re not shoving this down my throat . . . uh-huh, never . . . sure, tell her I said hi. And no, I wouldn’t take a plane so keep your money. I’ll need gas.” A laugh. “Whatever. Bye.”

I heard the phone click and I allowed myself to breathe again. How much more would come at me? His footsteps were resounding through the floorboards, so I stepped onto the porch again, pulling the door shut. I waited a few seconds, calming down before I opened the door again. He was just walking down the stairs as I smiled up at him.

“Hey,” I said.

He frowned and kept walking down, checking the kitchen clock. “It’s 1:45. Did something happen?”

“Not really—but I can go back if you want me to,” I said, reaching for the door.

“No, no, I didn’t mean that, I just wasn’t expecting it. You didn’t walk, did you?”

“Nah, Aly and Aidan bailed me out,” I smiled. I explained to him what happened with Rene as he shook his head to himself.

“I should have hung around in case that happened,” he said.

I put my arms around his waist, shaking him a little. “No, it wasn’t a crisis, calm down. It was unbelievable and annoying but I made it out alive.”

“Barely. I can tell something’s wrong.”

My good mood waivered a little at the thought of my eavesdropping. “It was just unexpected. I’ll be totally fine in a few hours. Movie?” I made the quick suggestion, anything to get us both concentrating on something else.

“Sure,” he said, steering me towards the living room. “But you’ll tell me eventually.”

“Wishful thinking,” I quoted.

DISTURBANCE

Rene tried calling multiple times the next few days, but I never answered and told Linden to let it ring. It would be a long time before I was up to talking to her again. Luckily, she hadn’t tried coming over yet, but I’m sure those days weren’t far ahead.

It had been a little over a week since I had been staying with Linden. I only tried working a few more times, these experiences being a little less traumatic. Besides trying to put some things behind me, Linden’s last phone call was still a nagging disturbance in the back of my mind. Words like drifter and instincts kept going through my mind. He said he moved around a lot, and were his Elemental instincts too strong to ignore? I could only guess; I was too ashamed to flat out ask him about the whole conversation.

Even his actions seemed to point to something. Though he didn’t know I was awake, I knew he didn’t sleep at night. I would wake up when I felt the bed move and he would sit on the edge, his head in his hands, once for almost an hour. Sometimes he would stand and leave the room, and I would lie there holding my breath listening for the sound of the door shutting or his car starting. But he always came back, his skin cool as he lay against me.

What a whirlwind of ideas: someone trying to find me, someone maybe leaving me, everyone against my word. The negativity was mounting.

“Are you . . . tired?” I asked one night as we lay on his bed, rephrasing the common question of the month. He didn’t seem ‘okay’, so I tried the other approach.

“Yeah, kind of,” he replied, struggling to get out of his shirt while lying down. “I haven’t slept all that great lately.”

Yeah, that was an understatement. “Why not?”

“I don’t know, stupid reasons I guess. The family calls and they bring up a whole new slew of problems.”

“They called again?” I asked innocently.

“Yeah. Reunions are rare, but I can wait till next year.” I nodded, wondering if I should bring up what I’d heard. “I just can’t wait till everyone is out of this rut.”

“Me neither,” I said, fully believing that.

He paused for a second, wadding up his shirt before throwing it across the room. “Do you feel better when you project?”

“
What?
” The change of subject was random enough, but his question caught me completely off guard.

“Oh—ah, I was going to pretend like I didn’t know about that,” he said, grimacing. “Sorry, I can just tell when you do it.”

Oh no.
I thought about the few times I had projected near him, especially the most recent event when I detached from the plant on his desk. Now I stared at the plant accusingly. I rolled over in embarrassment, my cheeks burning.

“What? Is that some big secret or something?” he asked.

“No—no it’s not that. But how do you know? Can you—can you see me?”

“Not if I’m not on another plane. I can only feel it.”

Great, that’s not any better.
“Awesome.”

I couldn’t look at him, and he didn’t say anything for a while before he started laughing. “Don’t be embarrassed, it’s flattering.”

I just groaned, wishing I had never done it.

“Riley,” he said in his coaxing voice as he turned me onto my back. “Hey, I never said I was guilt-free.”

I peered at him through my fingers, finally lowering my hands. “You can project?”

“You could call it that,” he shrugged.

I just stared at him for a second before I grinned. “Creep.”

He laughed hard and pulled my hands away from my face, about to kiss me when there was a loud thump on the roof.

I froze, and Linden remained tense, staring hard at the ceiling. Nothing else happened as I waited for another sound.

“What was that?” I barely whispered.

“Shh.”

I hoped beyond all reason that it was some rogue cat—a huge one to have made that much noise, and not something in the attic.

Again there was another thump, louder this time and on the side of the house. Linden stood slowly as I reached out and grabbed his arm.

“What are you doing?” I hissed.

“Stay there,” he said, creeping up to the window. It was pitch black outside, so I didn’t know how he expected to see anything. Maybe he had some kind of heightened vision I didn’t know about. He seemed to be looking at something, and I lay absolutely still, listening for any noises in the house.

After ten minutes of silence except for the crickets, Linden left the window. “He’s gone.”

“He?” Damn.

“Who else would it be?” he asked.

Omar. “What was he doing?”

Linden shook his head. “I don’t know, throwing things, nothing bad yet. But he walked away.”

That brought back the deal we had made on the roof.
But if anything ever happens, we’ll have to do something about it. Deal?

Did this constitute as ‘something’?

I didn’t ask now. It could wait until morning. Even Linden admitted he was too tired to think about it, but he would still be on alert. That meant another sleepless night, and just the thought of him lying there thinking kept me awake well into the early hours of the morning.

The night’s events put a strain on Linden that I’d never seen before. I woke up much earlier than him, and just watched TV downstairs until I heard him in the hall. He showered, but he seemed somewhat wilted when he walked down the stairs. I leaned over the back of the couch as he mechanically walked into the kitchen for a glass of water.

“Have you gone outside?” he called. His voice sounded flat.

“No, why?” I replied. I only heard him mumble something in reply as he appeared in the portal.

“I have to go get some things in town,” he said, “and I want you to stay here.”

“Okay . . .” I said slowly, waiting for some kind of explanation.

“I don’t think you should go out; it’s safer here, even when I’m gone. Sound good?”

I nodded, watching him put on his shoes and grab a black hoodie from the hook beside the door. Before he left he hugged my shoulders and kissed the top of my head. “I’ll be back soon, twenty minutes tops.”

I took his word for it, holding down the panic that was threatening to send me into a freak-out. He wasn’t leaving for good, not after last night. And he said twenty minutes.

I checked the clock as soon as his car pulled away. Taking note of the time, I wouldn’t be watching it every minute but I would still be secretly timing.

Ten minutes went by. I had kept the TV on but I was hardly listening or watching. My leg shook impatiently, and I was frustrated with myself after a few seconds.

“Just trust him,” I muttered to myself as I stood, making for the kitchen. I would make cereal—or anything—to distract me from the soft but ominous ticking of the clock.

I was just standing on tiptoes to reach the top shelf when there was a loud knocking on the door. I dropped down immediately and looked towards the window. Linden would obviously not bother to knock on his own door. Remembering the noises from the previous night, my heart sped up a little. Linden said I would be safe even when he wasn’t home, but did that include any kind of spell Omar could come up with? And what if it wasn’t him but a neighbor or something?

The knocking continued as I crept towards the front door. There was a peephole looking to the porch, and I silently went towards it and peered out. I couldn’t really even see the strangers face, only knowing it was a man because I was staring at the design on the front of his shirt. He was so tall, I could just see his chin. He knocked again, harder this time, and I hesitantly turned the lock.

I was right, he was tall—intimidatingly so. He looked all the way down at me and frowned, taking a large step back. Holding the door, I frowned at his reaction. “Hi.”

“Um—I think I got the wrong house,” he said, his voice so deep I thought I could feel it in my chest.

“Who’re you looking for?” I asked, now curious. I’d never seen him before, but there was definitely something familiar about him. Anyone would have noticed him for his height, or how obviously fit he was, so he wasn’t from town. I could compare his arms to my waist if I chose to exaggerate a little, and he didn’t seem that old. I guessed somewhere in his twenties.

As I took this all in, he seemed to be taking me in as well, his frown deepening. He was tense like he was about to walk away any second, and I couldn’t help but think there was definite distaste in his expression.

“I’m looking for Linden,” he said, glancing past me into the house.

I was shocked, and held my breath for a minute. “Yeah, he lives here.”

He didn’t seem to believe me, narrowing his eyes a little. “Really.” It was like he thought I might be lying. “Is he here?”

“No, he just left a little while ago, but he should be back soon,” I said, giving him my own look of displeasure. “Did you need something?”

His eyebrow raised a fraction at my tone. “Yeah, but you can just give him a message for me.”

“Okay.”

“Just tell him Nerio stopped by. I was just passing through, so don’t forget to say it, got it?”

I wanted to scoff, but I just shrugged. “Okay. And who are you, Nerio?”

His shoulders bunched a little when I said his name. “Who are
you?
”

“A friend,” I said, then waited for him to answer me.

Again with that disgust. “I’m his brother, so don’t let it slip your mind.”

He turned and walked off the porch, leaving me stunned. My brain was still repeating the word: brother?
Brother?

Nerio had disappeared down the road when I finally stepped back inside and closed the door. So that’s why he seemed familiar . . . his eyes were very similar to Linden’s, though they were green in his olive toned skin. But Linden had never mentioned he had a brother, not to my knowledge. So was Nerio lying, or . . .

I was completely confused the rest of the time I was alone. When there were footsteps on the porch, I half expected another knock, but the door opened and Linden let himself in.