The Possession (7 page)

I leaned to my right, but my eyes continued to stare to the left. “Did you hear that?”

Zach’s fingers stumbled over my wrist, closing on it. “Things echo weird in here.”

At his touch I stilled, my heart thrumming down to a steady beat. We sat in silence, listening to the growing wind and the absence of human sound.

“I think we’re okay,” he said at last. I nodded, then realized he couldn’t possibly know that.

“Me, too.” A few heartbeats passed. “I have a light. Should we use it?”

“Hold on.” He let me go and stood. I concentrated on his passing, his footfalls on the floor, the sound fading as he crossed into the other room. He hesitated only once. I heard a scraping, the ping of something metallic, and a swish. He returned, his footsteps sure as his comfort with the building re-emerged. He paused right in front of me. “Go ahead. Light it.”

I pulled the flashlight from my bag. It was one of those camper things that can be either a large flashlight or a lantern. I turned it on, the light slicing through the room at Zach’s ankle level. Placing it on its face, the light dulled until I tugged it up into lantern position.

A soft white light bathed us. Zach smiled at me through the shadows, his expression clearer as he lowered himself to sit once again beside me.

“I covered the window. Even if someone comes, they shouldn’t find us.”

I nodded. Placing my bag to the side, I glanced in that direction to make sure it really was just an audio illusion then I turned to Zach. This time
I
grabbed
his
wrist. “Talk to me, Zach. Tell me what happened. At the beach.”

He lowered his gaze. I felt the burn of it on my hand where I still held his wrist. “I can take it, Zach. You have to tell me. How can I help if I’m in the dark?”

“I want to tell you.” His voice thickened. “But I don’t.”

“Why? Don’t you trust me?” I leaned closer, my hand sliding up from his wrist to his elbow.

“I trust you more than . . . anything.” He covered my hand with his own. “And I wish you didn’t have to know.”

“Why?”

“I’m afraid it’ll bring more down on us. I don’t want it ever to happen to you.”

I sighed, exasperated. “More what? Have what happen? Just tell me, Zach. Tell me.”

He removed my hand from his arm. “Something hit me.”

I stared at him.

“You don’t believe me.”

“Yes!” My head bobbed. “That’s what it looked like.”

Zach pinned me with his gaze. I clasped my hands in my lap, knowing my touch was unwanted right now. “Your feet came up from under you, like someone shoved you. I can’t stop thinking about it.” I lowered my eyes, breaking the connection, not wanting to see his disbelief. “Right after he ripped up the chip bag.”

Our eyes met. Zach looked worn and weary. “Whoever he is, he means business. I . . . I don’t have words for it, Daphne.” He rubbed his eyes then moved to rest his back against the wall. The chill from the damp cooling air seeped into the room. I pulled the throw from my bag and took my place by his side. I tossed the throw around us, to block out the clamminess of the air. He tucked us in.

“Find your words, Zach Philbrook, and clue me in, so we can fight this together.”

His story began.

“Something was there, Daphne. You felt it. Didn’t you?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “The chip bag. It was ripped from my hands.”

“Chips everywhere. At first I wondered why the heck you did that.” He shrugged, apologetically. “But then I felt it. When I stood, something hit me.” A funny look crossed his face. “Some
one
hit me. I swear it. He came up from nowhere, in front of me, and suddenly . . .”

Zach rubbed his face. “Every fear I’ve ever had in the world was in my face, in here.” He pounded his chest then clutched it. “Inside me. All at once.”

“Like what?” I asked, barely breathing. It was rude, but I needed to know.

“Boogeymen in the dark.” He tried to smile, to ease his words, but fear shadowed his face. “My mom dying. Worry that my dad would be next. Losing Eddie. The whole world screaming in the dark that I don’t belong here.”

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

“What do you mean, you don’t belong here?” He ignored me, his eyes remaining closed. My stomach clenched. “Zach? Answer me.”

He pinched his lips together, then relented. “With you.” His eyes opened and he slanted a look my way. “I don’t belong with you.”

My breath left me in a
whoosh
and I fell back against the wall, my arm brushing his, electric. It had never occurred to me that Zach may not want this attraction.

Why hadn’t I realized? Common sense, though, said if the town made it a problem for me while I was here—and the short time I’m here at that—wouldn’t they make it impossible for him? Someone they had at their disposal year round?

But what if he didn’t want it because I’m . . . white. I’d never thought of myself as white. I just thought of myself as me. Like I thought of Zach as a guy. Granted, a really, really cute guy, but still . . .

Ro! Do not listen
.

Goosebumps rose on my arms. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Zach asked, eyes studying me.

We are as one. You belong with me
.

“Do we?” I asked. “Do we belong together?”

Zach sat up, the throw sliding from his shoulders. “I don’t know! You make me feel all mixed up. And the stories. I wish I didn’t know the stories, so I could figure out how much I really feel and how much is because of the stories. If any of it is because of the stories.”

He shoved the blanket off.

“What stories?” Something inside me shifted, like I already knew the answer.

Ro!

I struggled up from the wall, rising onto my knees. “Do not let them sway you. I care not what the ‘good folk’ may say!”

I threw my arms about his neck, kissing his face, his ear, his hair. I pressed myself against him. “If you love me, then love me. We will find a way.”

Vincent crushed me close, his lips finding my neck, my hair. He loosened the pins and it tumbled down my back.

Like fire. He breathed, and buried his hands in it as he claimed my lips. I melted in his embrace and together we fell to the pallet . . .

*    *    *

“Daph.” Someone’s hand tapped my cheek then rubbed up and down my arm. My eyes fluttered open. Zach’s face came into view.

He stroked my skin, pushing my hair back from my face, his hand running over my shoulder, down my arm.

I shivered. We were stretched out on the pallet. My head rested on what must be the balled up blanket. Zach leaned on one elbow, rising over me. My leg was wrapped around his in way too intimate a position. I tried to move it, but my limbs felt like lead. Panic gripped me.

My alarm must have shown in my eyes for Zach stroked my cheek again. “Shhh. It’s okay. You blacked out. Nothing happened.”

My face heated. Whether for the fact nothing happened, or the fact I thought it had, I’m not sure. I tried to move my leg again. Zach’s hand curved around the back of my thigh, down near my knee, and he gently disentangled me.

His breaths were deep. His eyes were deeper.

I remembered the voice. Rising onto my elbow, to meet him face-to-face, I asked, “Who is Ro?”

Zach’s eyebrows drew together. “Dorothea. Sarah’s mom.”

I digested this. “And Vincent was Sarah’s dad?”

“Yes.”

“Where is he buried?”

I don’t think Zach expected that question, but he had a ready answer. “Outside the cemetery.”

I considered this. “Near them?”

He shrugged a shoulder.

“Was Vincent an Indian?”

Zach frowned, his eyes glancing away. “He was called half-breed, but to hear it from my side that’s not entirely true.”

“But his eyes are gray.”

“Mine are blue.”

I waded into those eyes, fearless, needing the anchor of his strength to come through this storm. What I saw there was that he needed me, too.

Folding my elbow up beneath my head, I tugged Zach down from his perch, as well. We divvied the blanket-pillow between us. Our fingers meshed. Feet touched.

“I could look at you all day.”

I lowered my eyes, embarrassed by his declaration and afraid my joy in it might show on my face and give me away. I peeked up. His eyes were still on me.

I’ve never felt so pretty in my life as I did in that moment. “I like looking at you, too.”

His gaze shifted to my lips. I slid closer, my face tilting up. He leaned in, but placed his lips near my ear.

“I would never touch you knowing you weren’t really here.”

The warmth of his breath sent icy heat down my neck and along my arms. The truth of his quiet words resonated in my heart. I placed my lips to his ear in return.

“I know. Zach.”

Our lips drew along each other’s cheeks and met. We learned each other’s mouths, hands sought hair and shoulders, ran along arms and across backs, but never over the line. We knew what we were ready for, and what we were not.

Our lips slid away, bussing chins and forehead, and we held each other tight. I snuggled my head beneath his chin. “Tell me what you know.”

Aunt wasn’t happy. I knew that would be the case when I walked up the drive and saw the pickup in its place by the shed. I readied my argument.

I found her in the study where the windows looked out over the sea and the smell of knowledge permeated every nook.

“But you never said don’t go out. I’m seventeen! It’s only eleven o’clock. What’s the problem?”

“The problem, young lady,” Aunt informed me, “is that I came home to an empty house without even a clue as to where you might be. Ordinarily not a problem, you may well want to believe, but considering the crap that’s been happening around here lately, very inconsiderate on your part.”

I had to hand it to her. When Aunt made a point, she made sure there was no wiggle room.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

I really meant it, and I think that must have shone through because Aunt took the apology without argument. “In future, leave me a note.” She did not reopen the book she had folded closed when I entered. “So what were you and Zach up to?”

“What makes you think I was with Zach?” I posed.

“What would make me think you weren’t?” she countered.

Good point. I thought about the evening and something I hadn’t really registered earlier nipped my memory.

“Why does Zach think he lost you?”

“Ooooo.”

Aunt Dwill put the book aside. “Let’s walk.”

We went out the back door onto the small patch of lawn that broke up the distance between keep and light. Both of us strolled right to the light without words, entered the connecting building, and began the climb. At the top we passed onto the hurricane deck and circled to the front, overlooking the sea.

The wind stirred up whitecaps, but it didn’t look treacherous. We placed our arms along the rail and breathed in the salt-tinged wet air. We exhaled and Aunt turned her face directly to me.

“Do you like it here, Daphne?”

I looked at her like she was a loon. “Are you kidding? Do you think I keep coming back year after year just to get away from the others? I have other options, you know.” Indignant, I gave her my best ‘get over it’ look.

Aunt smiled. “The lighthouse gets to you, doesn’t it?”

I contemplated her words. The sea undulated beneath us. The call crashed over and over again against the rocks. I looked out across the water. Black. Markless. If not for us . . . if not for the light.

“I love it here. We do good here.”

Aunt threw her arm around my shoulders and drew me near. “You are a keeper of the light, Daphne. Don’t let anyone tell you no.”

I turned my gaze to her, studying. Lighthouse work was hard, even now. “What made you agree, Aunt, to take this on? It’s a lot of work. It’s hard.”

She dropped her arm from me and braced herself against the railing. Her expression shifted, remembering. “It is hard, Daphne. When I first came here, though, I fell in love with the place. The land, the house, the sea. Everything was perfect.”

She glanced back to the light, reaffirming it worked correctly, then drew me off to the side. We could still see the sea from here, but could also look across the property towards the woods, and the drive.

“Still, Uncle Jack had been dead nearly a year. I was young, inexperienced in running a property like this. I started to think I would fail.”

“What did you do?”

“I got lucky. There was a man . . . a handyman. At the attorney’s request, he had continued to watch over the property when the owner died. His own wife had died about a year earlier.”

I sucked in my breath. “Uncle Jack and Zach’s mom died at the same time?”

“Just about.”

“And you and Mr. Philbrook . . . ?” I couldn’t finish my question. It seemed at once like something I knew and something I could never understand.

“We clicked, you know? I needed help. He knew the property and what needed to be done. He’d bring his son with him. I needed that. It worked.”

I thought of Zach. So young. His mom gone. This warm and wonderful woman taking him under her wing.

“Do you love him?”

“Zach? Yes. Like he’s my own.”

“No.” I shook my head, determined to find out the truth even if Aunt got as pissed at me as she could be. “Zach’s dad. Jay.”

I purposefully used the nickname I’d heard her use. Her eyes were sharp on mine. “You ask an awful lot of difficult questions.”

“I’m a difficult Wentworth,” I replied, smiling. That seemed to punch her gut, taking the wind out of her sails.

“I know, Daphne. That’s why I worry.”

I straightened, ignoring the warning in the air. “Why did you guys split up?”

“Jay . . . Mr. Philbrook had to put Zach first.”

“Did everyone in town say it wasn’t real? Because of the legend?”

Aunt’s face paled. “What do you know of that?”

My eyes narrowed, the heat of anger welling in me. “I know that people teased Zach and called him names because of it. Half-breed and Baby Killer. And that none of it mattered to him as long as he had you.”