The Eternity Key (25 page)

“Feeling up for having a diva moment?” I ask Joe as he walks over to show me his script. I nod ever so slightly toward our spectators.

“My pleasure,” Joe says with a wink. Then he reels around, pointing his fingers toward the back of the auditorium. He squints like he can’t see who’s out there beyond the stage’s light. “Someone out there keeps popping his jaw! I can hear it all the way up here. It’s disgusting! How am I supposed to work like this?” He throws down his script. “That’s it. Rehearsal is over!”

“Um, Joe,” Mr. Morgan says. “Today is our first rehearsal with the full cast. You can’t just call it off.”

“Well, then, what am I supposed to do about the jaw popper over there? You either tell them to leave or I will.”

“Those are the chorus members.…”

“Not those two,” Joe says, while pointing out Terresa and Calix. “I don’t remember casting those two. They could be pirates, for all I know. I don’t need some kid recording my songs on a crappy phone and putting them up on YouTube before opening night. Either get them out of here or I’m leaving.”

Mr. Morgan stands up and addresses the students in the back of the auditorium. “If you are not part of the cast, please leave.
Everyone else, there are no cell phones permitted, and you know it.”

Calix and some random student with an iPhone in the back of the auditorium stand up to go, but Terresa approaches the stage instead. “Actually, my cousin and I were going to ask if we might join your tech crew. I guess you could say that lighting things up is one of my specialties.”

Before Mr. Morgan can respond, Joe pretends to get hysterical. “No. No jaw poppers on my stage. All the crew positions are filled. Get out of my auditorium!” he yells, even though this auditorium is hardly his. Mr. Morgan looks flustered for a moment, like he’s wondering what he’s gotten himself into, working with a spoiled rock star, but then he tells Terresa and Calix that they need to leave.

Terresa goes, but she gives Joe a glare that makes me worry she might be able to “light things up” with her mind in addition to her hands. Still, I have to say I am happy to see her leave.

I relax into my role much more afterward. We are focused today on the second and third acts of the musical, which are both set in the underworld and outline the trials and travels of Orpheus and Eurydice as they search for each other and try to escape. Tobin and I both rehearse our solos, and then we have a duet toward the end, when my character is whisked off the stage (and across the lake once we move to rehearsing on the lakeside amphitheater as soon as it warms up a bit) and ripped back into the underworld. As we sing, I find myself connecting with the songs and the story more than I ever had during our previous read-throughs and rehearsals with the leads. I am so caught up in the emotion and the tragedy of it all that when Mr. Morgan calls it a day, I am surprised that three hours have already gone. I pass
Haden as we all pack up to leave, and looking over my shoulder, I whisper: “Meet me in the grove.”

Haden is already on the defensive when he enters the grove. I can not only see it in his body language, but also in the tone he puts off—solid, rigid notes, forming a wall to fend off my attack.

“Relax,” I say. “I didn’t ask you here to yell at you.”

“You didn’t?” His inner tone softens ever so slightly.

“No, because I get it. You did what you had to do. But you’re not the only one keeping secrets.”

“I’m not?” He takes a step toward me, but his tone sounds hesitant and farther away.

“Stay right there,” I say, holding out my hand. “Remember how I wanted to show you something before? That night I stayed at your house? Before all the craziness happened?”

He nods. His tone warbles as if the memory of that moment makes him anxious … or perhaps
nervous
is the better word.

“I want to try it again, only this time, it’s going to be so much better.”

Haden’s tone suddenly spikes with a high note. I look at him, wondering what he was just thinking, but he glances away like he’s embarrassed.

“Watch me,” I say.

I open my outstretched hand. In it are a few green leaves, fresh buds from the early spring saplings that surround Orpheus’s tree. I open my mouth and sing a series of notes like I’m doing a vocal exercise in Mr. Morgan’s class, but it’s the leaf buds that provide the key instead of a piano. I am singing their melody, and they respond by quivering in my hand almost instantly. When I had tried this with the raindrops and then in front of Haden, using a
few wilted basil leaves, it had taken an extreme amount of concentration to get this far, but now this feels like nothing. I switch from the vocal exercises into singing the words from the scroll’s song, keeping my voice in the same key as the buds. I toss them into the air and think,
Dance for me
. Instead of falling to the ground, the leaf buds float in front of me, twirling and spinning about each other, like partners in a dance.

“Harpies
,
”
Haden whispers with awe, and steps forward. “Are you doing that?”

I smile as I sing.
He ain’t seen nothing yet
. I’d chosen the grove for this demonstration not only for its seclusion, but also because I know extraordinary things will happen here when I sing—especially now that I know what I’m doing. I want Haden to see how powerful I am. I want him to know that I’m not just some lilting flower he needs to protect. That he doesn’t have to succumb to threats on my behalf. I point to a pile of yellowed leaves that have been swept up against a large rock by the wind. I beckon them to join the dance, and they fly up from the ground, swirling and twisting into the air around Haden and me as if in a small whirlwind.

Next, I call the droplets of water that cling to the grass from the little rain shower earlier today. They bobble up into the air, floating around us as if it were raining in reverse. I can see the awe on Haden’s face. I can hear his excited tone mingling with my song. But I don’t stop until I’ve invited the trees to sway and the rocks to thump, adding a drum-line beat to the mix. Watching me, Haden smiles. He turns in a slow circle, seeming to try to take it all in at once.

As an extra touch, I command the dirt to move, filling in the holes that we dug in our search for the Key. Making the ground almost undisturbed.

I can feel my energy start to wane. The swirling dance starts to slow, so I end the song on a final note, letting it draw out until I have no more breath. When I stop, all the leaves and raindrops and the wind fall away. The trees go still and silent. I step back, gasping for breath, and then look at Haden.

“So … um … surprise?” I say.

He stares at me, completely dumbfounded. Or maybe a little afraid.

I quirk an uneasy smile. “So what do you think?”

“I love it.” He takes two long strides until he’s standing right in front of me. His hands reach for me, his fingers cupping my face, and he pulls me against him. “And I love you.”

I gasp.

He leans in, pulling my face toward his.

He’s going to kiss me
.

I know he’s going to kiss me
.

And I am shocked by how much I want to let him.

I meet him halfway, stopping just a hairbreadth from his lips and let him finish. I expect his kiss to be hard and overwhelming, fraught with passion, but his lips come to me softly at first. Almost questioning. When my mouth parts in response, his kiss gains confidence and he grips me against him, one hand in my hair, the other pressing against the small of my back. My stomach feels hot as if it were melting against his abdomen, and I find myself wishing that our skin were touching there. Electricity pulses around us to the rhythm of a racing heart. I can feel every hair on my body standing on end, tingling in anticipation. With every movement of his lips, with every touch, he shows me what he has already said—that he
loves me
.

And that’s when the heat in my stomach grows sharp.
Twisting. Almost like an ulcer. And what had felt so right only a moment before suddenly fills me with panic. Haden’s lips implore for more, but I find myself unable to give. I push the heel of my hand against his chest, pushing him back. His grip on me loosens, and I start to pull away.

“What is it?” he asks, out of breath. “Did I shock you again?”

He looks at me with so much concern that tears prick at the corners of my eyes. I thought I had been out of breath finishing my song, but now I feel as though the wind has been knocked out of me. I can’t speak. Can’t think. Can’t respond.

He lets me go.

“I’m sorry, Haden. I can’t do this.”

“What do you mean?” he asks, that look of concern growing even deeper.

“I just can’t do
this
.” I wave my hand between the two of us, because I don’t even understand what I’m feeling enough to find the words to describe what I mean. “I can’t say.…” My voice fails me.

“You don’t have to say anything back,” he says, like he’s trying to reassure me. “It’s all right—I just needed to say it. I needed to tell you. I’ve wanted to tell you for so long. It’s why I refused my father’s offer, why I wouldn’t give you to him. I love you. I’m
in love
with you.” Haden’s words come tumbling out of him so fast, it’s as if he’s afraid he won’t be able to say them if he hesitates for even a second. I know they’re meant to comfort me, but they make me pull back even more. I’d suspected as much. Hell, deep down, I’d
known
it, but his admission only overwhelms me—a reminder that every threat we are under is because of me. Because he loves me, the world might very well end.

Suddenly that seems selfish on his part.

“You looked so happy,” he says. “So strong. So powerful. I couldn’t hold it in anymore.” His tone is so earnest, it makes my heart ache, but it doesn’t change the way I feel. “It is all right if you’re not ready to say it back.”

“It’s not just that … I can’t do any of this. I can’t do
us
.”

Both Haden’s tone and face are stricken. “Do you not care for me, then?” he asks.

“That’s not the reason.” I can’t lie. I know I have feelings for him.

“Then is it because you don’t trust me?”

“Yes … no … I don’t know.” I shake my head, feeling like I can’t say anything right. “That’s not it, either.…”

“Is it because you can’t see me as part of your future?”

That strikes a chord with me but not in the way that I expect. I’d worried that Haden and I could never work because we’re from two different realms, but it’s something more than that.… “I don’t even know if I have a future anymore, let alone if you fit in it. What if the world doesn’t exist in a few weeks?”

And it’s all my fault
.

How can he contemplate a relationship under these circumstances?

Haden makes a move toward me, his hand extended as if he wants to offer me comfort.

I wave to stop him. “I just can’t do this. Not with everything that is going on. Not with the weight of the world on my shoulders. Not with not knowing if I even have a future past the next few weeks. I just can’t.”

He takes a step back. His inner tone has fallen completely silent. I can’t read him at all. He searches my eyes, as if looking for a different answer.

“At least not right now,” I whisper, and look away.

The cell phone that starts ringing in my jacket pocket might as well have been an explosion for how high I jump at the sound.

I turn away from Haden, fumbling to answer the call. Desperate not to have to look him in the eyes right now.

“Hello?” I say.

“What up, chica?” Lexie’s voice fills my ear. “Guess who just got a booty call?”

“I’m pretty sure that falls in the TMI category of our budding friendship.”

“Geez, not a literal booty call. Rowan called.”

“He did?” I pull my phone from my ear and push the speaker button. I wave for Haden to listen but don’t actually look at him. “She says Rowan called.”

“Sure did,” Lexie says. “He told me he wants to meet with Haden in the school parking lot tonight at midnight. Why do people always want to have secret rendezvous at midnight? Why not 11:27 or 4:30 in the afternoon?”

“Did he say anything else?”

“Yeah, he
claims
he’ll bring the Compass, and then he said something about how Haden had better bring the money and the talisman, or he’ll rip out Haden’s spleen and feed it to him, or whatever. I stopped listening because the details were kind of graphic.… But the good news is that after he hung up, I got pinged on my Friends with Benefits app. Which means that I know where he was when he made the call. And the address is right smack-dab in the middle of a ritzy beach house community the next town over. What do you want to bet those are his new digs?”

“His new what?” Haden asks.

“His new house,” I say.

“Oh. Right. Can you forward me the address?” he asks.

“Will do,” she says.

I hang up the phone and tuck it into my pocket, but I can’t bring myself to look up at Haden. We stand there awkwardly, neither one seeming to want to restart the conversation that had been interrupted by Lexie. I’d expected Haden to start arguing with me, to try to convince me to change my mind. But he doesn’t.

Part of me is relieved that he respects my right to refuse him, but part of me is surprised he doesn’t try to fight for me.

“I guess we’d better figure out how this exchange with Rowan is going to go down,” I finally say.

He clears his throat. “Yes. I should do that. I’m going to go find Dax.” His inner song is still silent, but it wouldn’t take any supernatural abilities to hear the detached tone in his voice. I imagine if I were to look at him, I would see that impassive mask he wears when he pretends to be emotionless.

I wish I were capable of doing the same.

“Will you track down Tobin?” he asks. “I’m going to need him.”

It isn’t until Haden leaves that I realize he’d only used the word
I
in the last things he said to me. There was no
we
.

And that pains me more than I could have imagined, considering I was the one who had said there could be no
us
.