Back to You (38 page)

I stand on tiptoes to kiss his cheek, a kind of thank you for bringing me to such a wonderful place. He grabs my waist and lifts me onto a rock. A good choice, it’s a flat one, I won’t risk losing my balance. I slide my hands around his neck and lean into him. As usual, he pushes me away too soon.

“I know, you think I have this rock-solid self control, but I don’t, baby girl.”

“I wish,” I whisper.

“But Stella, you shouldn’t be trying to make me lose it altogether.” He bursts into carefree laughter, as he struggles free of my octopus arms. He steps back and moves toward a wooden bench, his eyes calling me over. He sits down stiffly, pensively. He sinks back onto the bench. I perch on the edge of it, next to him, and slip my hands around his shoulders again. What’s the worse that could happen? That he could push me away again? At this point, I’m beyond caring.

But he doesn’t push me away. He holds his breath and pulls me tight into his cold marble chest, hugging me so close I can barely breathe. But it doesn’t last long. He pushes me back, as if enfeebled, but keeps a hold on me, rocking me back and forth, slowly like a baby.

Should I? I think that maybe I should give him some space. I dare not move, not even an inch.

“No … I can take this. Just wait a moment.” His tone is controlled, full of serene grace. But his face is dark, tortured. I don’t want him to hurt. I didn’t realize the torment he suffered, but I see his eyes crying out with pain. But then his eyes soften, and a malicious smile spreads across his lips. His mouth comes looking for mine, along my neck, down my chin, a hair’s breadth from my lips. His arms snake around me; I feel as if I am in the arms of a Greek god.

“Ah,” he says, obviously satisfied with himself.

“Bearable?”

He laughs a velvety laugh for an instant, then turns serious. “I’m stronger than I thought.”

“I was just thinking about…”

“I hope you weren’t thinking of fainting or vomiting!”

“I was just thinking what a big-head you are!” He laughs again.

“Actually, I was thinking about something I’d like to do.” He raises an eyebrow; he hasn’t lost his sense of humor.

“Maybe I should close my eyes and just blindly have faith in you.”

His smile widens. He takes the lapels of his jacket and wraps them around me to protect me from the icy wind blowing in from the west. He begins to hum a lullaby, and I realize that it would take an earthquake to keep me from falling asleep in his arms. I huddle into him, nuzzling my face into his armpit. I feel like I’m about to drop off, but I fight it. I don’t want to miss a second of our time together.

“Open your eyes, Stella,” he says, almost anxiously. I do. His face is within an inch of mine, the luminosity of his turquoise eyes seeping into me. He is a godlike vision and I, a mere mortal, can’t get used to having this vision near me, next to me. It’s like spooning with Zeus, the sovereign ruler of Mount Olympus. But this perfect, marble creature really is here, holding me tight, as if I were his Hera. But in fragile human form.

“I was scared there for a second,” he confesses. “I thought that Bryan Austin had stolen your soul away and was burying it in the alley behind the bar.”

“Very funny.” I keep my eyes open, and gradually feel the vitality return to my body.

“Seriously, though, I’ve seen corpses with a healthier color.” he says.

“You were right about him,” I murmur, my eyes half-closed, my mind looking back to a few hours earlier. “You don’t try to kiss your friends.”

“Absolutely not,” he retorts, stifling a smile.

“You say him. Why didn’t you try to stop him earlier?” I ask, confused.

“You were dealing with him just fine on your own,” he winks.

I blush and almost retch again at the thought of having barfed in the bucket at the bar.

“Plus, it’s only right to give the poor kid a chance,” he coughs, to hide another laugh. “I wonder if he’s pissed at me for having stolen you away … just like Tyler, the night of your party.”

“Poor Bryan. He must have had a heart attack.” I can still feel his downtrodden eyes boring into me as I left the bar with Donn.

“But this time I didn’t bring you back.”

I swallow hard. Hadn’t he said something along those lines the night of the party?

“You know,” he says, gravely. “If I have to go to hell, I may as well go in style.” He smiles, but his words are laden with gravity. I wait for him to say something else, something that makes more sense. But the seconds tick by.

“You seem to have formed a rather detailed opinion about my intelligence,” I mutter.

He smiles apologetically.

“I think I was just testing your faith.”

“Do you often rescue girls who make the same mistake twice?” I ask, feeling a little guilty.

“Don’t worry about it.” There’s his breathtaking crooked smile again.

“Thank you, I won’t.”

My breathing has become regular again, but I’m not a hundred percent sure I can keep my eyes open for much longer. I let my head fall lazily onto his chest, my eyes dragging themselves closed.

“That’s better,” he whispers soothingly. A pale hand caresses my cheek, the other resting over my weary eyes. My ears are still ringing, but my head is no longer throbbing. He removes his hands from my face, and I half open one eye to look at him. He’s staring at me, restlessly. My heart starts to thump again madly. And I know that he notices.

“The other day, in the library, when I touched you, you seemed uncertain. But it still felt like you. I need to know why. Is it too late? Did I hurt you irreparably? Or have you really managed to put it all behind you, as you claim? It would be the right thing to do. But I would protest your decision. Don’t be afraid of how I’ll react to your answer, please. Just tell me if, after everything I’ve done to you, you could still possibly think of us, well, as an
us
?” he whispers. “Can you?”

Jeez, despite how special, handsome, and perfect he is compared to me, he seems taken beyond repair. I don’t know what to say.

“What kind of a dumbass question is that?” I stammer.

His eyes soften, they seem to laugh, but his lips are immobile. “Just answer. Please.”

“There never was an
us
,” I spurt out, without thinking. “But that doesn’t mean that I don’t care about you. And what I felt for you before, I still feel for you now.”

Torment racks his face.

“Maybe time will change your mind.”

“I like this idea of time. OK.” I want to relieve his anguish, any way anyhow. But I realize that my words are actually more sincere than they set out to be.

“You’re always wearing a mask. What I want to know is what happened to the real Dorian Grayshire. That is your name, right?”

“Dorian Grayshire died a long time ago.” His tone betrays no emotion, despite the atmosphere suddenly turning heavy.

I close my eyes, trying to imagine that man he was. When I open them again, Donn is leaning down toward me. He holds me close to his chest, so sweetly, so tenderly, I can barely imagine being loved more. But I’m wrong. As soon as my eyes meet his, his gives me a quick peck on the cheek, cold and unfeeling.

I lose all sense of time. We are in the back seat of the car again, I can’t quite remember getting there. The driver is in the front seat, no one speaks.

“Are you still alive?” Donn asks, his brow furrowed.

“More or less. I’m sorry, I think I must have dozed off for a second,” I mumble, disoriented.

“Don’t worry,” he whispers in my ear. “A second is just a grain of sand in the hourglass of eternity.”

“Yep, we have a whole life ahead. Enough time not to worry about a few seconds, that’s for sure.”

“An eternal lifetime,” he corrects me warily, cradling me in that disarming way of his. A few minutes later, we pull up in front of Jeff’s house. The lights in the parlor are off.

“My dad will kill me,” I say laughing. “I told him I wouldn’t be home late.”

I open the door to climb out, turning to him as I do.

“Thanks for the ride home. I had fun.” I’m not sure ‘fun’ is the right word.

“Sure,” he replies.

“I’m sorry about … you know, on the bench after my mom called.”

“It doesn’t matter.” His fingers run down my spine, I can feel the iciness of his breath approaching my cheek. I have to force myself not to reach out and touch his chest. I turn to rubber.

Then he stops and smiles at me. “Still feeling the effects of the drink? Or is it the effect of my expert kiss?”

“I dunno. I still feel woozy,” I manage to mumble. “Both, maybe.”

“Living for two hundred years has its advantages.”

“Maybe.”

“Remember that next time.”

“What next time?”

And his lips stretch into that perfect smile I so adore.

“Big head!” I moan.

But I can’t be bothered to continue. I’ve spent too much time thinking about him, and right now all I want to do is get home and into bed before I suffer the consequences of spending time with him. Again. All I need to do is get in the door, and I‘ll forget him. I know I will.

Dilemma

The next day
is Sunday and I have to work. Something has changed. The sun shines brightly outside, white streaky clouds race across the sky. Above them, I catch a glimpse of denser, smoky gray ones. The wind ruffles the treetops.

The light is the usual grayish-green, the sort you see in a forest when the sky is overcast, but it is somehow clearer, crisper than usual. Despite the numerous clouds, it doesn’t look like rain will fall just yet, but the light mist that I’m now so used to hangs stagnant in the air.

So I awoke to sunshine today and the realization that I have managed to escape another encounter with Donn. Always astonishing. My heart races and my hands are clammy with sweat.

I feel like crap. I could barely sleep, my stomach feels like an acid pit and the throbbing in my head doesn’t look like it plans to wane anytime soon.

And the worse thing? The memory of Donn’s sweet, but aloof face kissing my forehead and rocking me gently in his arms. I know that in the hours lost in the unconsciousness of sleep, my mind did not try to come to terms with what’s right and what’s wrong.

I’m beat, I really am. Yesterday was a long day, but now that it’s over, I don’t feel in the slightest bit relieved. It’s as if I feared that the worst was still to come. What a dumb premonition. What could be worse? It’s just the effects of the hangover.

“What’s up?” asks Scott as soon as I enter the bar. I turn my head to the counter, thinking that he’s talking to me. Guilty conscience. He’s only talking to another two hikers––a father and––who are sitting at the counter nibbling peanuts.

They must be the two friends of Tyler’s who were due to visit today. I look around to see him, but he’s not in his usual place behind the counter.

“I don’t know,” says the tall dark-haired man. “The thing is that the story sounds a little … strange.”

“Spill!” continues Scott, his curiosity aroused. Since Tyler has been working here, the bar seems more like a hiker’s stop-off joint than the usual Patriots’ fan hangout.

“We saw the giant cougar,” confesses the father. “I told Tyler earlier.” He tries to say it in a nonchalant manner, but there’s a quiver in his voice. “A male, no doubt about it. A beauty.”

“Scott, I swear, it was huge!” exclaims his wheat-colored haired son. “I’ve never seen such a thing, it was bigger than a bear.”

“But it’s not the only one. Apparently there’s a pack of them, four,” adds the older man sitting next to the boy.

“Last weekend, Tess only saw one, as did the bearded hiker from yesterday.”

“How many did you say that you saw?” I cut in casually.

“Four,” repeats the kid. “They saw us, too. But …” He can barely get the words out in his excitement. “They ran off before we got a chance to make a getaway. Isn’t that weird?”

“Cougars …” sniggers Scott. “The rangers say the footprints belong to bears… cougars aren’t that big. But they’ve got their work cut out today. Three hikers got lost on the main trail between the lakes, those long ones.” He sounds worried.

I guess Tyler’s family is out looking for them; none of them are sitting in the bar, not even Locke.

“The Finger Lakes?” asks the father. “The ones in the Green Mountains forest?”

“Yes, they say that the first rain of the day washed away all trace of them,” adds Scott.

“Do you know what happened?” I ask, for some reason suspicious, as I join him behind the counter.

“I guess they just got lost, like lots of other hikers before them,” he muses. “Sometimes their bodies haven’t even been found. No trace of them, except for remains in caves and in the depths of the lakes.”

Good God! Before now, I had never made the connection, but as Scott speaks, a light bulb goes on in my head. I pay little attention to what is being said now, their voices are just buzzing flies as my subconscious emits a verdict that it has probably been drawing up since Tuesday without me even realizing it. Of course, I had a lot of things in my head; vampires hunting me, mutating wolves, a chasm opening up in the center of my chest. But in the face of all these clues, the truth is staring me in the face so hard that I ought to be ashamed of myself for not having thought of it before.

The cougars that Donn mentioned in the library tower are the same ones that Tess, Seth, and the hikers talked about. I can remember, word for word, Donn’s spiel before we made our oath about the pact that day in the depths of the library. Especially the third condition:

“Stella, you are requested to avoid the East Coast, especially the area of Cape Cod, and not to enter Vermont, the territory of the lions.”

“The territory of the cougars? But Scott lives in Cape Cod, on the East Coast…”

“I said you were requested not to go, it’s not a prohibition. The cougars safeguard stability. They are not the real threat.”

“The cougars?”

“One thing at a time, baby. Be patient, everything will be revealed. You already have problems of stability, I don’t want you to be too disorientated. As I said, it is more of a suggestion. Do you understand your conditions?”

“Yes, I understand. But we’re talking about Jason, Vuk, and Tyler here.”

And he smiled again.

“Yes, more or less all three of them.”

“What have they all got to do with it?”

“They are the most important satellites that gravitate around you.”

The sound of Donn’s voice in my head fades and I realize that I have missed a chunk of the actual conversation. But I manage to easily slide back into the flow of the dialogue.

“So this cougar situation is getting too much for the rangers to handle?” asks the kid warily.

“It’s bad news, real complicated,” is the only thing Scott manages to reply.

“I think you right,” cuts in the other man. “This time the word is that the rangers found blood, too.”

“That doesn’t mean the cougars had anything to do with it…” I add.

“What else can reduce a person to shreds?” scoffs the blond, skeptically.

I shrug my shoulders. I bet he doesn’t believe in the legend of vampires. But if he goes trekking and the percentage of people disappearing is so high, he’d better start believing, for his own good.

“Listen, Scott,” I say. “I’m gonna go say hi to Tyler.”

“He’s in the store room,” he says, his thumbs pointing in the direction.

“Where’s Locke?” I ask, looking around.

“Don’t you worry about Locke, Stella,” he grumbles. It would seem that word gets around fast on the coast. “I think he went out with Amelia.”

Ok, Amelia is one of them.

“I’m going to the store room,” I say, aware that another conversation is being held at the counter. I hear the kid’s voice droning on as I walk away. He seems to be describing the minute details of the events. He’s a little vague on the description of where they actually saw the cougars, but says it was off the beaten track, northwards near Stratton Mountain.

The bar is empty this afternoon, few passersby, probably due to the good weather. Jeff and Ronald have booked a place on the golf course until four o’clock, then there’s the football game on TV at five.

I don’t want to talk to Tyler about my visit to the coast on Saturday, but I’m not sure that avoiding the issue is the best move. So I decide to say something. If I can’t get anything satisfactory out of him, I think I’ll tell Scott about it tomorrow. Anxiety amplifies the thudding in my head. I’ve got so many questions swimming around in it that I almost feel dizzy, almost all of them for Tyler. How is Locke? What was said after I left? How did Fergus take it? And, especially, what did Tyler think about Locke’s weird and imperfect feelings?

What did he think was going on? Could he think why Locke would be so down in the dumps? Is there any basis to Locke’s fears and instincts?

Before going into the storeroom, I try to get the pieces in order. Through the crack of the door, I see Tyler on his feet arranging the cases of beer in the corridor next to Scott’s office. I don’t say anything yet, I just watch him at work. I think of Locke. To hell with it, I think to myself, and stride up to Tyler decidedly. He hears the sound of my footsteps coming toward him.

“Hey,” he calls out.

“Tyler, it’s me, Stella,” I whimper.

“I know.” He looks up at me. “What have you been up to now?” His voice is light-hearted, friendly, but his tone and his words seem to be saying that he knows everything. But how could he know what happened last night?

Just then, in the dark shadows of the darkened office, about ten feet away, I notice some amber-colored eyes. The Siberian rangers.

They are watching me attentively from the room. The back door is open, I can see the Jeep parked outside in the alley. There are four pair. I squint at one of the faces; it looks familiar, but it’s not Locke. I’m suddenly overcome by a wave of emotions. First surprise, then doubt. It looks like Bryan.

Impossible. Highly unlikely.

“I’m listening,” continues Tyler, his own amber eyes flashing.

I glance toward the office again, the fourth figure has disappeared. Now there are only three rangers and, judging by what I can make out, it’s Fergus, Dora, and Amelia. I have to stop letting my imagination run riot. I suddenly fear that I was hallucinating, a symptom of the exhaustion from last night’s escapades.

“I need to talk to you. Alone,” I specify.

Tyler looks over his shoulder. He knows to whom I’m referring. Everyone awaits his reply.

“Ok,” he finally says. He turns and walks to the end of the corridor. The others, who I imagine to be Dora and Amelia, are immobile in the room, next to Fergus, following us with their amber eyes, shining like cats’ eyes in the dark. As he passes the door, Tyler says something in a language I don’t understand. Russian, I guess.

My nerves are getting increasingly on edge as I think about what Locke is going through and the fact that Tyler is letting it all happen under his very nose. Fergus being all cool, calm, and collected about the whole matter helps none. Tyler holds open the door for me and pulls me outside, hand in hand, into the damp night.

“Let’s get this over with,” he blurts out, a certain determination in his voice. I get a knot in my throat.

“You already know what I want to know.”

He doesn’t answer, he just stares at me challengingly. I stare back in silence. He takes a deep breath and let’s my hand fall.

“Let’s go for a little walk,” he says. “Scott can hold the fort without us for a few minutes.”

He strides off in the direction of the alleyway, I have to trot to keep up with him. I hear the familiar sound of gravel crunching underfoot. Our feet squelch in the wet mud along the sidewalk by the Jeep; it must have fallen from the bumper of the car. He turns and comes to a sudden halt, blocking my path.

“I’m worried about Locke.”

Tyler studies my expression, not seeming too pleased with what he sees.

“Have you seen him today?” The question comes out of my mouth before I even have time to think.

“From a distance,” he finally replies. “Why?”

I’m bursting with questions. “Have you tried to talk to Fergus?”

Out of sight of the others, Tyler seems more relaxed, but no more willing to give anything away.

“Fergus Bradford?”

“Yes. I think Locke is having some problems with your aloof, cool-headed brother.”

“Ella May, whatever he said to you, I’m sure it’s nothing.” The conversation hasn’t exactly gotten off on the right foot. But I have no intention of giving up.

“I think you’re wrong,” I continue. “I think that weird things happen in Jackson, and I’m scared. Locke told me about his relationship with Fergus. About how he wants to go to college. And about you’re indifference to what he wants. But you’re not like that, Tyler. Why don’t you defend him against Fergus?”

I rub salt into the wound.

“He was scared yesterday, he was sure he’d be the next victim. Now he’s probably behaving just like the rest of them, never leaving Fergus’ side.”

His eyes bore into me, searching my face. I guess that means he taking me seriously.

“You’re wrong. But I think you’ve misunderstood the situation. Fergus Bradford is a good man. A model Siberian and a well-respected ranger,” he says, a placating tone in his voice. “He’s doing a great job on the reserve. And you should listen to what the rest of the clan says about him.”

“Oh, let me guess. That the sun shines out of his heavenly ass?” Too defensive, too aggressive? Have I shown my hand too soon? “That’s not the way things are, Tyler. Locke is scared of him.” Exasperation is etched on his face.

“It’s not Fergus’s fault, he’s doing his best to help him!”

“Sure,” I exclaim, pulling a face of fake understating. “He’s helping him. Locke is just a kid. He’s just exaggerating. I’m not worried. And I’m sure that he’ll be just fine!”

I can’t believe the way he’s reacting to all this, but I can feel that the battle is lost. There’s nothing worse than a deaf man who refuses to admit stuff.

“Who told you that Locke is blowing things out of proportion? Fergus? That’s a wicked lie, Tyler, don’t believe it! Why are you blaming Locke for what Fergus is doing to him? Why do you let him tell Locke not to get too close to me?”