The Hidden

by Jessica Verday

  He exhaled a shaky sigh and closed his eyes, leaning his head next to mine. We would have been touching … if we could.

  I closed my eyes too. The pain pill was making me sleepy. “Will you stay?” I asked, burrowing deeper into my covers, closer to him and yet still so far away. “Stay with me.”

  “Forever,” he whispered. “I’m staying forever.”

  Chapter Three

  STRAIGHT CORNERS AND BAD ANGLES

  In this way matters went on for some time …

  —“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

  When I woke up the next morning, I noticed two things. The first was that my sling was stuck underneath me at an impossible angle, and second … I had a hot guy in my bed.

  Ignoring the dead weight sensation that I knew would lead to pins and needles when my trapped arm woke up, I lay very still and took in the sight before me. Caspian was on his side, one arm thrown up above his head. His T-shirt twisted slightly so that I could just barely make out the bare flesh above his jeans.

  My eyes traced a path down the stripe of black hair that lay across his cheekbones. Then to his nose, his lips … Lips that I wanted to kiss again. How many days until November first? How many days until the anniversary of his death day, when we can touch?

  Two weeks until school started, and then thirty-one days in October …

  Too long. Much too long.

  My gaze slipped lower. To his skin. I couldn’t help myself. Couldn’t stop myself from reaching out to try to feel that piece of him I wanted so badly. I’d never realized, never dreamt, that a relationship without something as simple as a touch could be so hard.

  Caspian’s eyes flickered open, and I knew he felt the same tingle that I did.

  “Hi,” I said softly.

  He just looked at me. Then a slow smile came across his face. “Were you ogling me?”

  “Drawing a mental picture,” I said, with a wicked grin of my own. “Remembering that night last Christmas when you took off your sweater and showed me your tattoos.”

  With one swift movement he reached down and twisted up the shirt. It slid off, and my pulse skyrocketed. “Better?” he asked.

  “Much.” I sighed. My heart beat like a drum in my ears, and the air around us felt heavy and thick. I couldn’t stop staring at him. Couldn’t stop looking at his skin. So different from mine, yet the same. It was fascinating. Little bumps and ridges made up the hollows of his collarbone, while smooth, taught flesh stretched all the way down …

  He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “Are you going to return the favor?”

  “No.” I swallowed hard.

  “No? That’s not really fair.”

  “Oh, yes. It is. I’m the injured one here, so you have to indulge me a little.”

  Caspian nodded. “All right. Have you indulged enough yet?”

  I shook my head.

  He rolled over and stretched out on his stomach, arms crossed in front of him, back fully exposed. The edges and lines of the tattoos on his shoulder blades blurred a little. The interlocking chain of small black circles and triangles all ran into one another. I realized I was staring too hard. And possibly drooling.

  I shifted and pulled my arm out from under me, turning so that I was on my side, facing him. “You aren’t … I can’t even … Does it ever bother you that we can’t touch?” I asked desperately.

  “Every day.”

  His tone was soft. Simple. But a whole different world lay behind those words. His world. A world that I couldn’t be a part of. Not yet, at least. We were miles apart.

  “What were you thinking about when you got your tattoos?” I said, changing the subject to something easier. Something with answers. “What was your inspiration?”

  He shifted too. “The stop sign outside my old house was graffitied. Someone painted big circles on it. Then someone else overlapped it with a triangle. It wasn’t the same pattern I have on me now, they were two distinct designs, but my mind just put them together in this weird way.”

  “That’s cool.”

  “It may sound hippieish,” he said, “but when I saw the circles, I felt this … connection. To the earth. Or Mother Nature. Or whatever ‘it’ is. I’ve always had this feeling that I was connected to something. Or someone.”

  “Maybe it was me.” His eyes held mine, and I would have given anything to be able to reach out and touch him. “We’re connected. Maybe we—”

  “Morning, sweetie!” Mom called from right outside the door. She came in holding a laundry basket, and I bolted upright. I’d never even heard her come up the stairs.

  My gaze flew to Caspian. Even though I knew she couldn’t see the half-naked shirtless boy on the bed, I still had a moment of panic. “Hey, Mom,” I said awkwardly.

  She crossed the room and pulled back the curtains. “What do you want for breakfast today?”

  “I’m, uh, not really hungry.”

  “But you have to eat. Why don’t I make chocolate chip pancakes?” She went to the closet, opening up drawers and putting away socks.

  “Yeah. Fine. Good. Sounds great. I’ll get dres—”

  “Or Belgian waffles? You love those.”

  “Yeah, Mom. Okay.” I mentally willed her to leave the room. “I’ll be down as soon as I get dressed.”

  She came out of the closet and smiled at me. “I was thinking that maybe after breakfast we could do a movie day. I rented a bunch of them.”

  I got to my feet and opened the bathroom door, hopefully sending the message that I needed to get in there. “Okay. But first waffles, right?”

  Looking way too excited, she said, “You got it,” and headed out the door.

  A breath I didn’t even realize I’d been holding escaped me, and I turned back to Caspian. He reached under the sheet and pulled out his shirt. I was sad to see his bare skin get covered up. “Well, great,” I said. “Now I have to go do breakfast. Want to come with?”

  “I’d say yes, but since she can’t see me and I don’t eat, I think I’ll just hang out here.” He blew me a kiss as I padded into the bathroom, and I returned the favor.

  Already I was regretting Mom’s terrible timing, and wondered just how fast I could get back to him.

  Half an hour later I entered the kitchen and glanced at the plate stacked ten waffles high, wondering how Mom had made so many so quickly. Then I took a seat at the table. “Did you make some for the neighbors, too?”

  She grinned and brought them over to me. “I just wanted to make sure you had enough to eat.”

  I neatly slid two waffles onto my plate. Mom came over with apple and orange juice, and plunked them both down next to me. Then she put a couple of waffles on her own plate and sat down.

  “We should go get another mani-pedi once your sling is off,” she said, pausing in between bites. “I think I want to go red on my toenails.”

  “Bright red? Or dark red?”

  “I think dark red. Maybe maroon.”

  I looked down and pushed the waffle around on my plate. Kristen’s casket was dark red … Then I said, “Hey, Mom, if someone else is spending a lot of money, but it’s a purchase for you, would you get to decide the details?”

  “I don’t know what you mean. Like a car?”

  “Yeah. Like a car. If someone bought a car but it was actually for someone else, could that person make the decision about the details? Like what paint color it is?”

  Mom laughed. “Is this some kind of graduation gift hint, Abbey?”

  I moved my waffle around again. I wasn’t sure how to say what I wanted to say. After all, how exactly do you blurt out, I’m going to die soon, and I’d like to make sure that my casket is red, without sounding like a crazy person?

  “What’s your favorite flower?” I asked instead.

  “Daylilies. White ones. I know they can be sort of Easterish, but I think they make such a beautiful display.”

  Not exactly my first pick, but it wasn’t that bad.

  “What about your fa
vorite church song? Like a hymnal?”

  Mom leaned back and thought about it for a minute. “I guess I’d go with ‘Oh, When the Saints Go Marching In.’”

  “Really? I wouldn’t have guessed that one. ‘Oh, When the Saints Go Marching In’ is kind of peppy for a funeral.”

  “A funer—?” Mom stared at me. “What did you just say?”

  “Funerals have songs and flowers. I just wanted to know which ones you like.”

  “Why are you talking about this, Abigail?” Mom’s voice had that high-pitched hysterical note in it again.

  “Well, since Kristen died really young, it made me realize anything could happen. For my funeral I want a red casket. Like she had. White lilies are okay. I don’t really mind those. But pick a better song than ‘Oh, When the Saints Go Marching In,’ okay?”

  Her fork clattered to the floor. Pushing back her chair, Mom stood up abruptly. “That’s not funny. This conversation is over. I’m not in the mood to watch any movies today. You’ll have to find something else to keep yourself occupied.”

  She left the kitchen without saying another word, but her footsteps were angry as she stomped into the living room.

  I stared down at my plate. Why was everyone around me so sensitive about death all of a sudden?

  I went back upstairs to Caspian and threw myself down onto the bed. Groaning, I said, “You’re so lucky you don’t have a mother to deal with anymore.”

  He didn’t respond.

  I looked up, regretting the words already. He was sitting at my desk, hands folded. “Sorry. I didn’t mean …” I sighed loudly. “I keep doing this. Keep saying the wrong things. I don’t know what it is, but it’s like I’m all straight corners and bad angles.”

  He came over and reached for my face. I sat still, unsure if he was actually going to try to touch me, or was going to keep some space between us. I felt the faint buzz on my cheek, and I turned my face toward him. “Is it November first yet?” I whispered.

  Caspian shook his head and mouthed a silent No. But he held his hand there a bit longer. “Just let her get over everything, Abbey, okay? Give her some extra time. And space. She’s going to need it.”

  “I know, I know. When did you get so smart?”

  “I’ve always been this smart. Wait, are you into smart guys?”

  “Definitely into smart guys.” I smiled at him, then looked away. I didn’t know how much more of this not-touching I could take. It felt like this invisible wall was between us every time we got close, and I couldn’t tear it down. I got up and walked over to the window.

  The window Vincent Drake had escaped from.

  I traced a line down the glass. It made a soft rubbing noise as my finger slipped down it. An invisible trail left behind.

  “Don’t you think it’s kind of messed up that the Revenants want me dead, while Vincent wants me alive?” I mused, keeping my fingertip on the glass pane.

  Caspian came up behind me. “What did you say?”

  “Vincent doesn’t want to kill me. In fact, he even told me not to do anything stupid.”

  “What does he want, then?” he asked.

  “Me. Alive. Why? I don’t know.”

  I stared out the window, lost in my thoughts. I couldn’t stop the scene with Vincent from playing out again and again in my head. If I’d only done something different … defended myself somehow, or made him pay for what he’d done to Kristen … If only I could make it all go away …

  I turned, and my eyes landed on an old perfume notebook gathering dust on the corner of my desk. I couldn’t even distract myself with a project; all of my perfuming supplies had been inside the cabinet Vincent had destroyed.

  “I wish I had something new to work on,” I said. “Maybe it’s time to take Mom on a little shopping trip for some perfume stuff. Spend some quality time together. That should make her happy.” I crossed over to the chair and rested my sling on the desk.

  “You could always learn to draw,” he replied.

  “I could? Know anyone who would teach me?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.” He picked up his drawing pad and a charcoal, then sat down on the bed. “Come here.”

  Quickly abandoning the desk, I went to go sit beside him. Caspian flipped to a new page and pointed to it. “Draw a tree,” he instructed.

  “I can’t. It’s not going to be any good. I can barely hold a pencil, let alone draw anything.”

  “So? Just try.”

  I sighed, then grasped the charcoal carefully. It left black streaks on my fingers. Conjuring up all of the things my elementary school art teacher had once said about basic shapes and “becoming one with the object,” I tried to sketch the barest outline of a tree.

  It looked like a squiggle.

  My hand shook as I tried to smooth it out, tried to press the charcoal down harder and make the branches take shape, the trunk appear, the limbs extend outward.

  It still looked like a squiggle. Only … worse.

  “Yeah, I got nothing.”

  Caspian looked down at it. “That’s not true.”

  “I have some black smears. Hardly anything to get excited about.” I turned the page sideways and studied it, putting the charcoal down. “Hey, if you look at it this way, it kind of looks like a giant monster hand or something.”

  He laughed. “Let’s see what we can do with this.” Picking up the charcoal again, he set it to the page and started making quick, short strokes. Dark magic seemed to flow from his hands and settle right onto the paper. Long, smooth lines were next, and I could see something taking shape.

  “Is that a forest?”

  He nodded and kept working, transforming my pathetic, spindly attempts at a tree into a dark, twisted stump. The background came together, and trees started springing up, gathering around the edges in a wild dance of abandon. Some of the trees had spiky, forked branches, a stern warning to pay attention to what they had to say—while others pointed whimsically this way and that, their arched spines and flowing limbs swaying in time to some unheard beat.

  “That’s amazing,” I breathed. “You’re making it all so real. I can see the story there.”

  He kept working, smoothing and shading, until the edges were perfect. The lines sharp where they needed to be sharp, and soft where they needed to be soft. I didn’t speak, barely breathed, not wanting to interrupt him.

  Finally he finished.

  When he looked up at me, his eyes were bright and happy. He nudged back the sweep of hair that had fallen into one eye, leaving a charcoal smear on his forehead. Overwhelming gratitude filled me to have this chance, this perfect moment, to witness his happiness.

  His passion.

  “What should we call it?” he asked.

  Without hesitation the words flew out of me. “Dance of the Forest.”

  “Perfect.” He scrawled the name on the bottom of the paper, and then ripped the page out of the art pad, placing it on the covers beside me. “For you. See what a good team we make?”

  I snorted. “Yeah, right. Without my terrible tree you totally couldn’t have made that brilliant drawing.”

  “I wouldn’t have had anything to start with,” he corrected. “So, I wouldn’t have ended up with that.” He began another piece as he spoke, this one just a simple river. It was finished quickly, and he flipped the page again. Next a garden came to life, and he filled it with flowers.

  I could have watched him draw all morning, but eventually he broke the stillness. “You know, you’re not completely out of perfume supplies, if you want to make something.”

  “Yes, I am. Vincent broke everything.”

  “What about your supply briefcase?”

  My briefcase? I got up and went to check under my desk. “It’s still here! You’re right! I can make something with the supplies I have in here.”

  I propped it up on the desk and opened the latches. Delight filled me as I ran my uninjured hand over the rows and rows of shiny amber glass bottles. I grabbed vanilla
essential oil, butter CO2, basil essential oil, and oakmoss absolute to start with. Then I plucked up a handful of transfer pipettes and a mixing glass, and sat in the chair.

  After pulling out a bottle of jojoba oil, I poured twenty drops into the mixing glass and flipped open the nearby perfumer’s notebook to write down which oils I was using.

  “Did you know that the art of perfume is one that goes back to ancient times?” I said to Caspian. “Perfume was commonly found in the Bible. Cypress, sandalwood, myrrh, frankincense, cinnamon, and Balsam essential oils were used in the preparation of anointing oils and were burned as incense for sacrificial offerings.” I carefully measured out ten drops of basil oil and mixed it with the jojoba carrier oil. Five drops of oakmoss came after that. And then five of vanilla.

  Caspian watched over my shoulder.

  “There was even a bunch of perfume on the Titanic,” I said. “Adolphe Saalfeld was a perfumer who lived in England but wanted to market his scents in the United States. So he booked passage on the ship and took sixty-five test tubes of concentrated perfume scents with him. He survived the sinking, but left the perfumes behind. When they made that big discovery over the crash site a couple of years ago, they found his perfume samples and brought them up. Almost all of them had been perfectly preserved and they were able to re-create them.”

  Using one of the transfer pipettes, I stirred the mixture awkwardly, not used to having to work around a sling, and then put the lid on. “Can you even imagine that? Being able to re-create a perfume that sat for all that time buried under the depths of the ocean? God, what a find.” I opened the bottle a couple of seconds later and inhaled deeply.

  He watched in rapt fascination as I kept writing and mixing, adding more drops of this and that, then recapping and smelling.

  “Needs more woodsy tone,” I muttered to myself after the fifth try. “Something …” I searched my supply case, eyeing what I had left. Spotting the Balsam oil, I grabbed for it. “Like that.”

  Caspian read the label. “Isn’t that a Christmas tree?”

  I nodded. “But you’re thinking of Balsam fir. That’s the pine-needle-smelling kind. This is Balsam from the Balsam bush. It smells spicy. A little bit like cinnamon. Unless it gets old. Then it smells like vanilla.” I added a couple of drops and made a note. “Some people believed that Balsam was harvested by a group of people called the Essenes who lived in Egypt and were known for their healing practices using essential oils. They lived where there were Balsam bushes and became cultivators of it, collecting it to sell and using it to support their way of life.”