The Reaping of Norah Bentley (40 page)

When I opened my eyes, though, he was still there.

“You’re awake.” He was really awake.

He blinked once, slowly, as if to say yes; as if speaking or nodding his head would have taken too much effort.

I didn’t waste any more time. “Good. Let’s go. I have to get away from here—and you’re coming with me.”

I swayed my body back and forth, trying to sit up straight again; but before I could orient myself, a voice stopped me. Not Eli’s.

Luke. Alternating between shouting and whispering, saying please—
Norah, please just wake up. Please come back.

Eli’s eyes were half-shut now, like opening them for those few seconds had taken everything he had.

“…Eli? Come on. Let’s get out of here. Please.”

But he just closed his eyes again. And then his lips moved silently, formed a single word that was painfully easy to read: “Go.”

The world shook, and my balance swayed like someone had jerked the ground out from underneath me. The noise was unbearable all of a sudden; waves crashing, people shouting, wind howling. And Luke’s voice, above it all—

Norah? No, no, no, breathe, damnit! No…no…this can’t be happening…

No, it couldn’t. I couldn’t let it happen.

“Eli, please…I can’t—”

But he was gone again, his eyes closed, his soul looking more and more transparent. I was too late. I’d taken too long, and nothing I’d done—nothing I’d faced— mattered at all in the end.

Because I had to go.

#

I’d never seen Luke cry. The closest he’d come was on that ski trip we’d took two years ago, when he’d smacked into a tree and broke his leg in three places. It was awful looking, all swollen with part of the bone breaking through the skin just above his knee, and his face bright red and streaked with involuntary tears. But even then, he’d laughed through the tears. He’d joked all the way down the trail, and made Rachel’s Dad and mine, who were carrying him, laugh so hard that they almost dropped him more than once.

He didn’t laugh now. He didn’t cry now, either, but his eyes were already puffy, and his cheek felt sticky when he pressed it against mine. For a long time he didn’t say anything. He just held me against him, rocking me back and forth, running his fingers through my hair.

We were in the beach house, sitting on the bed in the master bedroom. Awful dark purple walls surrounded us, almost as distracting and discomforting as the dresser littered with all the “treasures” that Luke’s grandma had collected while walking on the beach. Giant conch shells, sand dollars, chunks of seaglass. I thought of the necklace Eli had given me, and I had to look away from a particularly large piece of blue-green glass reflected in the center of the dresser’s vanity mirror. I stared at the patchwork quilt bunched up at the foot of the bed for a long time before Luke finally took a deep breath through his nose and attempted to speak.

“If you
ever
do anything like that to me again. If you
ever…”
And then he just trailed off, because I don’t think he could come up with a threat strong enough.

He kissed me, then. Gently—like he was afraid I might break—on my forehead, my cheeks, my lips. I didn’t stop him, and I didn’t really mind that in that moment we looked for all the world like two lovers who’d just reunited after years of separation. We were complicated. We’d probably always be complicated. But complicated was better than nothing. Whatever we were to each other, at least I still
had
Luke, at least I could actually feel his warm skin underneath my fingertips, and his rough, unshaven cheek against my face.

We didn’t talk about the one I didn’t have any more. I started to tell Luke what had happened, but I only made it a few sentences in before my voice broke, and he didn’t press for more. So I asked him, instead, what had happened here.

“How long was I out for, anyway?” My voice was detached, belonged to someone else trying to make small talk for me while the real me wandered aimlessly around the room.

Luke shrugged. “A couple hours, I guess.” Suddenly, he looked like he might be sick. “It felt like forever.”

“…And we’d been gone for hours before that,” I said. “The hospital must have realized you’re missing by now.”

“Yeah,” he said, voice still shaking a bit. “They called Grandma. She called me—I only answered because I didn’t want her to freak out and have a heart attack or something.” He hesitated. “Same with Helen.”

“You talked to Helen?”

“Yeah. And I
think
I managed to calm her down enough that she wasn’t going to call the cops as soon as we hung up. I didn’t tell her where we were, but I think I convinced her you were safe, and just needed some time away from Sutton.” He laughed, and sounded a little more like his easy-going self when he said, “I dunno though. If I hear sirens, you can bet your ass I’m running.”

I tried to smile.

“I should probably call her back,” he said. “I told her I would.” He stopped twirling his fingers through my hair for a second, and in an uncertain voice he added, “You should get some more sleep. You sort of look like death.”

I gave him a look. He coughed, looking almost embarrassed—an emotion I sometimes wondered if he was even capable of.

“Too soon, huh?” he asked sheepishly.

“Much.”

“Still. You should sleep. That way, if you’re out of it again when I call her, I won’t feel bad for not handing the phone over to you—I’ll just tell Helen the truth: that you’re resting.”

“I should talk to her.”

He looked surprised. “…You can always call her back later. I know you probably don’t feel like dealing with her right now—and I really don’t mind. It’s not like she’s never threatened me before.” He grinned his lopsided grin. “I can take it,” he said.

But I just shook my head and held out my hand expectantly. He stared at it for a minute, still looking confused, then he leaned back and reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

“If you really want to,” he said, depositing the phone in my palm.

“I need to.”

Luke just shrugged and barrel-rolled his way off the bed. “I’ll give you some privacy then,” he said, heading for the door. “And if she asks where I am, you don’t know, and I had nothing to do with anything that happened tonight.”

“Fair enough.”

He left, hesitating in the doorway on the way out. I stared at the phone’s keypad, at the number “7” that had all but rubbed off the button, until I finally gathered the courage to dial Helen. The whole time it was ringing, the lump in my throat was getting bigger, and when I finally heard her tired voice on the other end I had to swallow several times before I could actually speak.

But honestly? Talking to her wasn’t that bad. She apologized a lot, and once or twice I think I heard her sniffing back tears. She blamed it on allergies, and I nodded along and told her yeah, they were really bad this year. All this pollen.

It was all sort of embarrassing, really. Her insisting over and over again that I didn’t have to go back to see the counselor if I didn’t want to, and asking was I really okay here with Luke? Did I really trust him? Was there anything he’d done, or said, to me that I wanted to talk about?

Then she started talking about Eli, telling me he really
did
seem like a nice boy, and she was just worried, you know? Teenagers these days. And maybe his parents could come over for dinner, and we could all get to know each other a little better. Then she’d feel better about the whole thing. I said maybe. We could talk about it more when I got back, first thing in the morning.

Then I hung up, and I cried until the lilac pillowcase was completely soaked and darkened to the shame shade as those awful walls around me.

#

Sleep is a wonderful, deliciously deceptive thing. Especially when it’s deep, and the dreams it brings with it are lucidly convincing like they were tonight. In my dreams I wasn’t tired, my body and soul didn’t feel like they had been ripped into pieces. It didn’t feel like part of me was here, but all the parts that mattered were still floating, lingering somewhere between the earth and sky. With him.

In my dreams I was whole, and so was Eli. I relived every moment, every kiss, except now the shroud of death and uncertainty that had hung over us the whole time was gone. It was just me and him, pure and beautiful and alive.

And it made waking up to face reality that much harder.

I had to do it, eventually, though. I spent a long time arguing with myself about it, part of me wanting to just close my eyes again and see if I could get away with sleeping forever, while the other part of me—in a much less whiny voice, I’ll admit—demanded that I get up. Now.

In the end, the latter voice won out, and I lifted my tired legs up one by one, kicked the covers away, and climbed out of bed.

There was a tall bay window on the far side of the room, and Luke had left it open. The ocean breeze fluttered the sheer linen curtains, carrying with it the muted murmur of the waves. It wasn’t as late as I’d thought, I realized as I stepped toward the window. Because the sun had just barely cleared the distant horizon. It was still a brilliant ball of red fire, reflected in its entirety on the choppy water. It was blinding, but for some reason I didn’t want to look away.

Even when I heard a voice say my name. Even when that same voice said, “I was hoping you’d be awake.”

The window bench suddenly seemed a lot closer. Or maybe it was just how fast I fell to my knees.

“I’m not awake,” I said, planting a hand firmly on the bench to keep it from spinning. “I’m not. My dreams are just really vivid tonight. I…I thought I’d managed to wake myself up but I…”

“…Do you want me to come back when you’re awake, then?”

I could hear the smile in his voice. So familiar. So hard to believe.

“You’re not real. You can’t be real.” But even as I said it, every part of me was hoping I was wrong. I turned around then, because I had to see for myself.

“I feel like we’ve had this discussion before,” Eli was saying. His words didn’t matter, though. What mattered was that he was there. Really there. And he looked completely solid.

My body rose on its own, moving towards him with trance-like steps. My eyes still burned from staring into the sun, and the sudden change in light made them water. And since the tears had already started, there didn’t seem any point in stopping them, so by the time I reached Eli a pool of them had collected at my chin and I could hardly see for the wall of them shimmering over my eyes.

“Don’t cry,” he said, using the sleeve of his shirt to wipe a fresh tear from my cheek. “Please don’t cry.”

I sucked in a deep breath, and tried to make the tears stop.

“How is this possible?” I asked. “How are you…how can you be here? How can you be—” I reached up, pressed a shaking hand against the side of his face. His skin was as solid as it looked, and more warm than I’d ever felt it.

“I’m not sure.” He laid his hand over mine, pressing it even closer to that unbelievable warmth for a second. Then he brought his other hand up to cup the side of my face, and pulled my lips against his. His kiss didn’t linger, though; he drew back, studying me like he was just as scared as I was. Like if he blinked, he might lose me again.

“How?” I repeated. Because I wasn’t going to believe I wasn’t dreaming until he explained that.

He breathed in deep, and gave me another kiss, a little slower this time.

“I remember dying,” he said. “Or at least, I think that’s what it was. It was familiar—the feeling of fighting, and then the falling, and then I was just
lost.
And tired. God, I was so tired. It was all just like the first time I’d ever been to the in-between. I didn’t know what to do, how to get out of it, and I just wanted to forget everything and everyone I’d ever known and every place I’d ever been.” I’d never seen him so animated; he actually had to stop and take a breath before he could finish. “But then I remember hearing your voice,” he said. “And thinking maybe I could hold on.”

“I couldn’t, though. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I had to go. I didn’t want to leave you.”

He shook his head, and crossed the few steps over to the window. I followed him, beginning to believe, wanting to hear the rest, and just thinking:
he heard my voice. He heard me. He listened to me.

“It never really felt like you left,” Eli said. “Because there was still that pull, making me open my eyes, keeping me awake. Except it was nothing,
nothing
like what I’ve felt before; it wasn’t the pull to reap, it wasn’t just glimpses of someone’s soul, their feelings—it was
everything
about them.”

He took my hands in his and lowered his head, staring at the tangle of our fingers. “It was everything about you. And me. You were thinking about us.” He looked up, his smile slight, his eyes shining with color. “And that pull,” he said. “I…I couldn’t have fought it off if I’d tried.”

I closed my eyes, pushing out the warm, moist tears clinging to their edges. Opened them again. He was still there.

A warm breeze rushed through the window and the curtains billowed, the edge of them hitting his arm and folding around it. It was such a simple thing, but in that moment it seemed like the world was confirming him. Proving to anyone who was watching that he was more than just a dream. He was a person, soul
and
body. And it was amazing. And I had no idea how long it was going to last, or what was going to happen now.