Double Eclipse

by Melissa de la Cruz

  “First of all,” Trent said, “I like you. I like you a lot.”

  “I like you too,” I said.

  Trent shook his head and sighed. “Has anyone ever told you about the Reawakening?” he said finally.

  The word rang a bell, but I couldn’t remember what it meant.

  “It has something to do with our reincarnation, doesn’t it? When our Midgardian bodies are destroyed and we’re born in new ones?”

  “It does,” Trent said, “but it doesn’t refer to our bodies. It refers to our memories. Our memories and our magic.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “When we’re born into a new body, we’re not born with all our memories or abilities. We’re not infants with the minds of two-thousand-year-old gods. We’re not four-year-olds with the ability to blink our eyes and kill our classmates because they spilled our chocolate milk on our finger painting. Those things come later. The magic comes gradually, starting from the time we’re born and accelerating during our teenage years before finally finishing up when we’re about thirty. But the memories hold off until, ah, juvenescence is almost over.”

  “‘Juvenescence’?” I repeated. “You mean puberty?”

  Trent’s hand squeezed a little in mine, though it felt more like a spasm than something he’d done on purpose.

  “So wait,” I continued. “Are you saying that this is happening to you now?”

  I saw Trent nod out of the corner of my eye. “It started right around the time we met last year. Slowly. Like, really vivid dreams and stuff. But it’s kept up the whole time.”

  “Well, that explains why you speak Norse in your sleep,” I said, scratching at the tattoo of the rainbow bridge that coiled around my neck. “But whatever. Keep going with this Reawakening.”

  “There’s not much more to say,” Trent said. “I mean, there’s two thousand years more, but you don’t need to hear the blow-by-blow, do you?”

  “I don’t get it. So you’re just now getting some memories that I thought you already had. What’s the big deal?”

  Trent sighed heavily and kicked at a seashell in the wet sand, sending it flying.

  “It’s not ‘some memories.’ It’s century upon century upon century of memories. I’m the god of war, Mardi. I was born in Asgard. I was there when Odin divided the nine worlds and scattered them across the universe. I’ve been to every one of them, dozens, hundreds, of times. I’ve—” He broke off, catching his breath.

  “I get it!” I said, cutting him off. “You’re old. You’ve done things. But so what? We’re both immortal. Age doesn’t mean anything to us.”

  “We’re both immortal,” Trent said. “But you’re only seventeen.”

  “So what are you saying? I’m too young for you?”

  Trent shrugged miserably. “Maybe I’m saying I’m too old for you.”

  That sounded like a cop-out to me, but I didn’t call him on it because I was just starting to figure out what was happening. I stopped walking and turned to him.

  “Trent Gardiner! Are you breaking up with me?”

  Trent turned toward me, catching my other hand in his. But even though he was holding me tightly, I felt him slipping away.

  “No. Never. We’re meant to be together, Mardi. I feel it.”

  “But?”

  “But maybe not right now. Maybe not for a decade or a century.”

  I stared at him for what felt like an eternity, dumbfounded. Then I shook his hands off and stepped back.

  “I can’t believe I’m hearing this!”

  “Mardi, please. Don’t be angry.”

  “I’m the goddess of rage, Trent.”

  “It’s not forever. It’s just until we’re on the same level.”

  “‘The same level’? Condescend much?”

  I turned and started running up the beach. But even as I was running, I was thinking, Come after me. Catch me. Tell me you were kidding. Tell me you take it all back.

  “Mardi, please!” Trent called. But he didn’t come after me.

  I kept running.

  15

  HEY, GOOD LOOKIN’

  From the Diary of Molly Overbrook

  The next day, I showed up at Rocky’s at seven in the morning. I know, what self-respecting girl shows up anywhere at seven in the morning? But it was the first day of Wimbledon, and as defending champ, Mum was scheduled for the first match of the day—it was noon over in London, but the five-hour difference meant that I had to be up at the crack of dawn if I wanted to see her kick some tennis ass.

  Of course, I could’ve just watched it at Fair Haven. Even though all eighteen TVs that had been in the mansion had left with the Gardiners, there was always the screening room with reclining stadium-style seating. But the more time I’d spent driving around with Rocky yesterday, the less I wanted to go back to Gardiners Island.

  The bright, burnished mansion I’d woken up in receded further and further and further in my memory, and the haunted house of my dreams loomed larger and larger. I know that was just my mind playing tricks on me, but even if you took the house for what it was, it was still drearily empty. Not just of people (although where the servants Mum spoke of were hiding I could never tell) but of furniture or any other sign of human habitation. Mum had been kind enough to let the Gardiners pack up their belongings when she kicked them out, but she hadn’t had the time to do any redecorating herself, so aside from my bedroom, the mansion was freakishly empty. The hallways echoed with the sound of my footsteps, and their doors opened onto one empty room after another, with nothing to show that anyone had ever lived here besides the faded outlines of paintings that had hung on the walls for generations, and similar patches on the floorboards where the carpets had lain. It was hard to shake the impression that the mansion was somehow letting go of its hold on Midgard, as if it was preparing to slide into Niflheim, and the nightmare I’d dreamed about.

  Besides all that, there was the fact that Rocky’s house—or, well, Sal’s—was neutral ground. No matter how empty Fair Haven was, it still felt like Trent’s house to me, and even though I knew Mum had acquired it fair and square, I still felt a little guilty walking through its grand, derelict rooms knowing Trent and the rest of the Gardiners were forbidden from doing the same.

  • • •

  Once again, Rocky met me on the porch. He was wearing another pair of floppy shorts, another holey T-shirt, both relatively unwrinkled, but his thick dark hair looked like he’d just rolled out of bed.

  “How do you look so wide awake?” he said in a bleary voice. “I haven’t been up this early since, I don’t know, seventh grade.”

  I’m a goddess, I almost said. I don’t actually need to sleep. But all I said aloud was “I’m a morning person. I’ve already read fifty pages of Madame Bovary, done Pilates, and touched up my nails.”

  “Why do I get the feeling that none of that is true, and that you’re dying for a coffee as much as I am?”

  “Coffee!” I screamed. “Oh, gods, yes!” I’d tried to figure out the espresso machine at Fair Haven, but it had more buttons than an airplane cockpit, and the most I’d been able to do was get it to beep angrily and shoot out jets of steam.

  Rocky held the door open for me, and I squeezed past him, inhaling a faint, pleasant whiff of clean but unshowered boy, which quickly gave way to the aroma of brewing coffee.

  “That smells heavenly.”

  “Sal does run an upscale bar, after all. He’s not going to serve Folgers.”

  “Anything with caffeine sounds appealing right now.”

  “Coming right up,” Rocky said, shuffling on his bare feet toward the kitchen at the far end of the room.

  I looked around the space. It was definitely a bachelor pad, but it was still nothing like I expected. The entire interior of the trailer had been gutted, so the room was one long tu
be, kind of like a train carriage but even longer and wider and taller. The far end held the kitchen, with gleaming Sub-Zero and Viking appliances, while the middle held a long narrow dining table made out of bleached, battered planks with eight chic mismatched chairs running down the sides, while the near end served as the living area, with a pair of low modern sectionals upholstered pale green flanking a TV that looked like a pool table on its side.

  “That is one big TV.”

  “Sal’s single, and he likes his sports. That TV’s the wife he doesn’t have.”

  “Well, let’s turn his wife on,” I said, plopping down on one of the sectionals. “Mum should be walking out on Centre Court right about now.”

  “Just lemme finish with the coffees,” Rocky said. “Hot or iced?”

  “Oh, iced! What a good idea!”

  “Milk and sugar?”

  “As Prince Charming said to Snow White, ‘I like my coffee like I like my women: pale and sweet.’”

  Rocky laughed so hard he almost spilled the milk he was pouring into a pair of tall glasses. He stirred in some sugar, then hurried down to my end of the trailer.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, setting the glasses on the coffee table. “Let’s see if I can remember how to work this thing.” He picked up an iPad. “Sal’s got everything networked. Guys and their gadgets,” he scoffed, and his voice was a little harsher than it had to be.

  “So how’s that been, anyway?” I said while he fiddled with the iPad. I had pointedly ignored the subject of family during our time together yesterday.

  “Oh, fine, I guess,” Rocky said distractedly, his fingers swiping and stabbing over the tablet’s screen. “Sal’s trying really, really hard. Like when he asked me what I wanted for dinner last night and I said, ‘Anything,’ and he said, ‘If you could have anything in the world for dinner, what would it be?’ and I said, ‘Filet mignon, I guess,’ which is funny because I don’t actually like filet mignon. I mean, I don’t hate it or anything, but if I’m going to have a steak, I like a good T-bone and—finally!”

  The TV glowed to life. It was already tuned to ESPN. There was Mum, still dressed in her warm-up jacket, swatting balls lightly across the court.

  “Wow. She is not a small woman, is she?”

  “She’s listed at six foot two, but when you stand next to her, she feels even bigger. So: filet mignon?”

  “Oh, right. So anyway, yeah, Sal doesn’t even, like, get the fact that I’m joking; he just called up some place called Michael’s and asked them if they delivered.”

  “Michael’s? They’re in East Hampton. That’s forty-five minutes away.”

  “Which must be why it took an hour and a half for our dinner to get here, and it was pretty much ice cold by the time it arrived.”

  “But it was a nice gesture, no? Like you said, he’s trying.”

  “I guess.” Rocky shrugged. “I just wish—no, that’s not fair.”

  “What?”

  Rocky sighed. “I was just going to say, I wish he’d tried this hard when Mom was alive.”

  “Ouch,” I said. “You’re right. Not fair.”

  Rocky shrugged again. “A lot of things aren’t fair. But whatever, let’s not be morbid. We’ve got some tennis to watch. Here’s to a speedy victory by Janet Steele.”

  We clinked glasses and settled in for the match. Mum was playing someone named Svetlana Turkena—or something. I could look it up, but it would take more time than the match did.

  “Do we have an official stat on this?” one of the announcers said over nineteen minutes later. “Is this the fastest match in history? Janet Steele just demolished her opponent.”

  “That poor girl,” Rocky said, nodding at Mum’s opponent, who was clearly holding back tears as she packed up her rackets and tried to get off court before she started bawling.

  “If it makes you feel better, she got paid something like thirty thousand dollars for losing this match.”

  “I suppose money does soften the blow.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was past 7:30. Somehow when I’d suggested that we watch the match today, I’d pictured us hanging out together all morning and into the afternoon, drinking coffee, snacking on chips and popcorn, maybe ordering some burgers from North Inn. At some point around the early afternoon, I was going to suggest casually that we head to the beach for a swim, which would have naturally transitioned to the two of us lying next to each other on towels, at which point I was pretty sure my body in a bikini would push things to their natural next step. I don’t mean to sound conceited, but I am a goddess. But 7:30 is a little early to start macking on someone.

  Rocky seemed to be similarly at a loss.

  “So, uh, did you have breakfast?”

  “I haven’t actually.”

  “I think we’ve got eggs?” He said it with a question mark, although I couldn’t tell if he wasn’t sure if Sal had eggs, or if he wanted to make them. I decided to put him to the test.

  “I would love eggs!” I said with forced brightness. “Poached, please!”

  Rocky laughed in my face. “I can do scrambled or burned.”

  “Scrambled, please.”

  “Fine. But you have to do the toast.”

  We got up and made our way to the kitchen.

  “Such gallantry,” I said. “Do you always make your dates sing for their supper?”

  Rocky winked back at me. “Oh, so this is a date?”

  I blushed. I couldn’t believe I’d let that slip out.

  “Hey, I’m not the one who was on social media looking up hot prospects in the East End.”

  “Really?” Rocky smirked. “That’s how you want to play this?”

  “What’re you talking about, McLaughlin?” I said, grabbing a loaf of bread and twisting it open.

  “I’m just saying I don’t think I was the only person who was looking around Instagram for, um, what was the term? ‘Hot prospects’?”

  He handed me his phone, which was open to his social media feed. The header read Who’s been checking me out? and the first name on the list: Molly Overbrook.

  “What the Hell,” I said, grabbing his phone. I glanced at the time stamp, saw that it was from four days ago, right before Dad’s accident.

  “Why, that little sneak!” I said.

  “What?” Rocky said, opening the fridge and grabbing a carton of eggs.

  “Mardi was using my profile when she looked you up!”

  Rocky laughed skeptically. “Sure she was.”

  “Seriously? You don’t think I know how to do private viewing?”

  “Well, maybe you wanted me to know you’d been checking me out.”

  “Um, excuse me,” I said, taking a step back. I waved my hand down my body like a game-show girl showing off a refrigerator. “Does this look like I have to work that hard?”

  Rocky turned pink. But then he recovered enough to say, “Well, even if it was your sister who looked up my profile, you still knew who I was when you met me the other day.”

  “Yeah? Well, you knew who I was too!” I almost yelled.

  “So I guess that makes us even, doesn’t it!” Rocky shot back.

  “I guess it does!”

  “So I guess I’m going to kiss you now!”

  “I guess you damn well better!”

  Turns out 7:30 in the morning isn’t too early for macking at all. Or making out for that matter.

  16

  WRECKING BALL

  Mardi-Overbrook-Journal.docx

  Two miserable days after Trent dumped me on the beach, while I was hanging out with Ingrid’s kids, my phone rang. It was a local number, but it wasn’t in my phone book.

  “No!” Henry screamed at Jo. “First you have to play the jacks, then you have to play the queens, and THEN you play the kings. EVERYBODY knows that.”

 
“Whatever,” Jo said, slapping down a handful of cards. “I think you’re just making the rules up as you go along!”

  “Hey!” I yelled. “Keep it down! I’ve got a phone call!” And a headache, I added silently.

  “Hello?” I said guardedly.

  “Mardi!” a deep male voice all but yelled into the phone. “Oh, thank God!”

  “Sal?” I said. I was pretty sure it was him. “What’s the matter?”

  “One moment, ma’am,” Sal said, although I didn’t think he was talking to me. Then, louder: “Herring crème fraîche is the matter!”

  “Um . . . sorry?”

  “Ma’am, I said I’ll be with you in a moment!” Sal repeated in a sharper tone of voice. “Mardi, please, you’ve got to help me out. I just got an order for six quarts of herring crème fraîche down at the Cheesemonger!”

  “Um, okay.” I racked my brain for the significance of this factoid. I had vague memories of a sandwich called the Debbie Harry. Molly told me it was one of Marshall’s, a.k.a. Alberich’s, more inspired creations. Hickory smoked salmon, fermented dill pesto, and herring crème fraîche served on a sourdough and onion brioche. Sounds gross, but somehow it was really good.

  “I think it’s for the Debbie Harry.”

  “In my world, Debbie Harry is still the twenty-eight-year-old ex–Playboy Bunny who sang ‘Atomic’ and ‘Heart of Glass.’ She is not—thank you!” he interrupted himself in a sarcastic tone. “Please come again! She is not a sandwich. Nevertheless, the East End seems to be full of people who don’t know anything about her music career and everything about her reincarnation as one of the most disgusting combinations of flavors I can possibly imagine.”

  “It’s kind of an acquired taste,” I admitted. “But what’s all this got to do with me?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Sal said testily. “Except that you said you’d make them for me.”