Eternal (19 page)

“And then?”

My chest shook as fresh tears flooded my eyes. “I was trying to see what she was writing. I wasn’t paying close enough attention. There was a truck…” In my mind’s eye, I saw the glaring headlights zooming in on us. I revisited that slow motion turn of my head and then the cacophonous chorus of our screams and then—nothing.

I blinked against the awful memory.

“What would you say to your friend if she was here?” was all Jeremiah uttered.

I’d never thought of that. I realized I’d only considered how others perceived me, how I perceived myself. My gaze fixed on the rumpled fan pattern on the quilt. “I would ask her if she could ever forgive me. I’d tell her it was an accident.”

“And if you were in her place? If you were the one who’d died and she felt guilt over your death and told you the same thing, what would be your answer?”

My gaze slid to his. “I’d hug her and tell her that I understood. I’d tell her that I wasn’t…I wasn’t angry.”

“I spent many years as a ghost before I came to the realization my parents were not angry at me. They grieved because they missed me and because they missed my brothers. I’d been selfish and did not have the sense to know it.”

I pulled my hands from his and then wiped my tears away with the collar of my pajama top. “Kira’s family. All my friends. They all know it was my fault. That’s why we had to move here.”

“Fate works in mysterious ways.” He stroked my hair. “If you hadn’t come here, you and I would never have met. If you hadn’t been in the accident, you might never have been aware of me.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think our destinies are predetermined.” There was no way I could justify Kira’s death, not even for Jeremiah, although now I couldn’t imagine life without him.

On some level, I felt I didn’t deserve love. His or anyone else’s.

“Maybe we decide who we will love before we are ever born,” he said. “And our souls will do anything to find that other person.”

I trembled, and it had nothing to do with the temperature of the room but everything to do with the knowledge that our souls were now forever entwined.

He motioned with his fingers for me to come back into his arms. I didn’t hesitate. My lashes fluttered closed and I reveled in the feel of his arms around me, in the comfort of knowing he loved me despite anything I’d done in my past. His love healed me.

“Jeremiah?”

“Hmm?”

“I love you, too,” I whispered into his shirt.

Eleven

My smile stretched from ear to ear as I descended the stairs to eat breakfast the next morning.

When I awakened, Jeremiah was gone but where his head had been on the pillow, lay a single scarlet cardinal’s feather. I giggled aloud, recalling the delicious memory of sleeping half the night in the arms of the man I loved.

I felt changed. Healed.

But most of all, I was in love. Love! I wanted to shout it. I wanted to skip and sing it out loud like they did in those Hollywood musicals. When I burst into the kitchen, Mom noticed the difference immediately. “Wren? I think some rest did you wonders.”

“It did.” I skirted Ella to get the milk out of the refrigerator. “I feel much better today.”

I heard the now familiar creak of the front door opening.

“David’s home,” Mom said, seemingly relieved.

“Where’s he been?” I asked, pouring a bowl of cereal.

“He got called back in to work last night,” she said darkly. “The man they brought in yesterday died last night.”

I swallowed. “Tom?” I couldn’t get that poor spirit woman’s face out of my head. She’d begged him to stay with their son before she’d ended up not going into the Light. A shiver traversed my spine.

Mom shrugged. “I don’t know what his name was.”

“How did you know his name was Tom?” David asked from the kitchen doorway.

I whirled, realizing I had given myself away. I couldn’t very well tell them the woman who died in the wreck—the woman whose spirit I had seen—had called Tom by name.

“I guess I heard you talking about it,” I mumbled, wondering where that woman was, now. Haunting the hospital? Was she desperately trying to find people, like me, who could see and hear her?

Darkly, I thought of Jeremiah. Had he, too, been desperate for help or calmly resigned to his fate?

David yawned as he moved into the kitchen. Garbed in rumpled green scrubs, he looked exhausted.

“What about the boy?” I asked but I knew the answer before David uttered the words.

“Hanging by a thread,” he said dismally. “Now he’s got no one but some distant, great aunt who lives in Sacramento.”

“That’s terrible,” Mom said as she poured a cup of coffee for David. “Is she coming for him? What will happen if he recovers?”

David took a sip of the coffee and sighed as if he was drinking the nectar of the gods. “I don’t think it’s going to be an issue.”

“There are worse things than dying,” I echoed Jeremiah’s earlier words.

Mom and David exchanged worried looks. My morbid view of life obviously disturbed them. David then glanced at Ella who stared back at him with huge eyes. His gaze swiveled to me, his expression telling me without words that the boy was not expected to live.

“Who are you talking about?” Ella demanded. She slammed her spoon down on the counter.

“Some of David’s patients at the hospital,” Mom said, trying to sound as bland as possible so Ella would let it go.

Mom’s efforts proved futile. Ella never let anything go. “Are they going to die?” she asked.

David wrapped both hands around his coffee cup. “We don’t know, Ella.”

Undaunted, her gaze shot to Mom’s. “Are they?”

Mom inhaled. “Like David said, honey, we don’t know.”

“Tell me!” Ella cried.

“Ella—” Mom’s eyebrow arched in warning.

“Nobody ever tells me anything.” With dramatic flair, Ella pushed her bowl away as if she intended to protest by going on a hunger strike.

But not even David’s sad news or one of Ella’s daily tantrums could spoil my good mood.

Jeremiah loved me.

And I loved him.

Everything was perfect.

I ate my usual bowl of whole grain cereal but I hardly tasted it. Every new breath filled me with joy now that my life included Jeremiah.

Later, when I walked with Ella toward the waiting school bus, not even Ella’s purple pants and a brown shirt under her bubblegum pink hoodie, spoiled my mood. My feet floated over the driveway as if I could fly as high as the bright scarlet cardinal soaring along beside me.

The bus hissed to a halt as the red stop flag popped out before Ella and I climbed in.

Laura waved excitedly to me and I maneuvered back to where she’d saved me a seat.

“Are you feeling better?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied. Yesterday seemed like such a long time ago and as the bus pulled away from my house, I looked back at it with longing. It would be eight endless hours before I could return home to Jeremiah.

“So?” Laura asked, her blue eyes sparkling with mischief.

For a split second, I thought I might have blurted out everything about Jeremiah. My expression must have mirrored my horror and confusion.

She gave my arm a playful punch. “Waylon?”

My lips parted.

“He came over Saturday, didn’t he?” she asked. “What happened?”

“Oh,” I said, finally comprehending. “No. It’s not like…like that.”

Laura’s dubious gaze told me she couldn’t believe I had no interest in Waylon. “I thought you liked him.”

“I do,” I said. “As a friend.”

“But—”

“We talked about it and I’m just not ready to…to date anybody yet.”

Laura pursed her lips in mock chagrin. “You’re going to have to get over that. And soon. Everybody wants to go out with Waylon.”

I laughed it off but as the bus neared the school, Briar and her cryptic threat of clearings reentered my mind.

The nearer we got to school, the more my earlier euphoria transformed into foreboding apprehension.

After we arrived, I stepped out of the bus and followed the mob of students through the hall.

Surprise and a sense of worry gnawed at me when I found Waylon lingering around my locker. His unusually serious expression unleashed butterflies in my stomach. I steeled myself for bad news as I approached him.

“How is…
he
?” Waylon asked under his breath.

I searched his blue eyes. “Fine. It was a false alarm.” I hoped that was the extent of his apprehension. The look in his eyes told me otherwise.

Waylon’s gaze shifted back and forth and he leaned in a fraction closer. His shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. “Briar is for real.”

Panic needled me. “I’ve thought that all along.”

Waylon raised an eyebrow. His mouth tightened into a grim line. His thoughts rang loud and clear in my head.

She’s dangerous.

Briar’s ability reached far beyond what I’d initially thought her capable of.

The bell blasted and Waylon pressed a roll of papers into my hand. “Don’t let anyone see this.” He searched my eyes and then rushed off toward his homeroom.

I twisted my combination lock with trembling fingers, opened my locker and then crammed my books inside. Using the door as a shield, I unrolled the papers just far enough to take a furtive glance at them. Waylon had print-screened Briar’s Facebook page.

Before anyone else could see, I folded the papers and shoved them deep into my backpack. I certainly didn’t want her seeing what Waylon had given me. I shivered. Energy bristled all around me.

Jeremiah was angry.

“Please don’t do anything to her,” I whispered at the risk of the guy in the locker next to mine thinking I’d lost my mind.

Jeremiah would never tolerate an attempt from Briar to separate us. “You shouldn’t have come here,” I muttered through clenched teeth. “What if she can take you away from me?”

A sudden, strong rush of air swept through the hallway like a tornado. My hair whipped wildly across my face. Locker doors slammed in the wake of the inexplicable wind. Shocked bystanders collided with each other.

I trembled, biting my bottom lip so hard I tasted blood. Terror consumed me that Jeremiah was going after Briar. But there was no sight of him, no ghostly apparition looming in the halls—only papers drifting down like giant snowflakes around befuddled students.

Jeremiah knew something that I did not. I desperately needed to find out what it was. But there’d be no looking at the papers in any depth at school, especially when Briar sat two desks behind me in my first period class.

Irritated and edgy, I grabbed my gov-ec book and banged my locker shut before heading through the throng of confused kids who tried to sort out the mess of papers, notebooks and backpacks.

Such chaos had ensued, I couldn’t have sensed Jeremiah’s presence if my soul depended on it—his soul, however, did depend on it.

* * * * *

My nerves were tangled knots by lunchtime. The printed pages stuffed in my backpack beckoned me with an unrelenting vengeance, but I hadn’t been able to find any time or private place to read them. I’d considered skipping lunch and hiding in a bathroom stall to read but I hoped Waylon would give me the gist of what he’d found without me having to risk my blood sugar hitting rock bottom.

The fact that Briar had been conspicuously absent from first period was not lost on me. Jeremiah’s coincidental absence also nagged at me.

Where was he?

He might not possess the ability to hear my thoughts but he could feel my emotions. He had to know terror consumed me but I no choice except to wait. I clenched my teeth in frustration.

As I moved through the lunch line, the sight of food nauseated me. I had absolutely no appetite but if I didn’t eat, I’d only feel worse. To appease my churning stomach, I opted for fruit and cheese.

After I paid, I sank onto my seat at our usual table. Frank, Holly and Laura weren’t here yet and I hoped Waylon would beat them by at least five minutes. That would give us time to talk.

When Waylon finally came through the double doors, I released the breath I’d been holding. I could hardly wait until he heaped his plate high and joined me at the table. As soon as he joined me, though, Frank and Laura came in. Holly was right behind them. I knew I had to talk fast.

“I haven’t had a chance to look at the papers you gave me,” I said urgently. “What do they say?”

Sick dread settled in my gut at the sight of Waylon’s grave expression. “You were right about her being able to get rid of…your friend.”

Shaking uncontrollably, I stared. “How?”

“She writes all about it on her page. There’s something about a stick she uses. Sage, I think.”

I swallowed. Hard. My gaze dropped to the slices of apple on my plate as I grappled for some sort of solution. I didn’t know what to do and I had no idea where to start learning.

Briar had provoked Jeremiah…

What if he was already gone? What if…

Waylon’s big hand dropped on my shoulder. “Are you all right?”

I shook my head. My throat constricted and I couldn’t speak. Everything crashed in on me. First Kira and now Jeremiah. Why was everything good taken from me? I felt so powerless, so out of control.

Blinking to keep from succumbing to tears, I lifted my gaze to Waylon’s. “I…I love him.”

Waylon’s eyes searched mine before he drew me into a one armed hug.

“I don’t know what to do,” I confessed, taking what comfort I could in Waylon’s friendship.

“We’ll figure it out,” he said. “I’ll help you.”

“After he scared you, you would do that for him?” I asked, breathing in the familiar scent of Waylon’s cologne mingled with the fresh fragrance of detergent on his jersey.

A laugh rumbled in Waylon’s chest. “I’ll do it for you. Besides, your friend was a Civil War soldier and I can’t blame him for being jealous over you.”

“Aren’t we looking all cozy?” Laura teased as she slid her plate onto the table and sat.

I straightened and sniffed.

Laura’s happy expression faded when she saw my face. “Wait a minute. What’s wrong?”

Always more alert than he seemed, Waylon quickly covered for me. “Nothing. Someone asked Wren about her scar and she said it brought back memories from her accident.”