by Lauren Kate
“Gonna be a shame to have to beat up on you just when I touched up my manicure. Oh well,” she said, proceeding to kick Cam repeatedly in the stomach, relishing each kick like a kid winning at an arcade game.
He staggered up into a crouch. Luce couldn’t see his face anymore—it was buried between his knees—but he was moaning in pain and choking on his own breath.
Luce stood and looked from Gabbe to Cam and back again, unable to make sense of what she was seeing. Cam was twice the size of her, but Gabbe seemed to have the upper hand. Just yesterday, Luce had seen Cam beat up that huge guy at the bar. And the other night, outside the library, Daniel and Cam had seemed evenly matched. Luce marveled at Gabbe, with her rainbow ribbon holding her hair back in a high ponytail. Now she had Cam pinned to the ground and was twisting his arm back. “Uncle?” she taunted. “Just say the magic word, sugar. I’ll let you go.”
“Never,” Cam spat into the ground.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” she said, and shoved his head down into the dirt, hard.
Daniel put his hand on Luce’s neck. She relaxed against him and looked back, terrified to see his expression. He must hate her right now.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Cam, he—”
“Why would you come here to meet him?” Daniel sounded hurt and incensed at the same time. He grabbed her chin to make her look at him. His fingers were freezing against her skin. His eyes were all violet, no gray.
Luce’s lip quivered. “I thought I could take care of it. Be up-front with Cam so that you and I could just be together and not have to worry about anything else.”
Daniel snorted, and Luce realized how stupid she sounded.
“That kiss …,” she said, wringing her hands. She wanted to spit it from her mouth. “It was such a huge mistake.”
Daniel closed his eyes and turned away. Twice he opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. He gripped his hair in his hands and swayed. Watching him, Luce feared he might cry. Finally, he took her in his arms.
“Are you mad at me?” She buried her face in his chest and breathed in the sweet smell of his skin.
“I’m just glad we got here in time.”
The sound of Cam’s whimpers made both of them glance over. Then grimace. Daniel took Luce’s hand and tried to pull her away, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Gabbe, who had Cam in a headlock and wasn’t even winded. Cam looked battered and pathetic. It just didn’t make any sense.
“What’s going on, Daniel?” Luce whispered. “How can Gabbe kick the crap out of Cam? Why is he letting her?”
Daniel half sighed, half chuckled. “He’s not letting her. What you’re seeing is only a sample of what that girl can do.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand. How—”
Daniel stroked her cheek. “Will you take a walk with me?” he asked. “I’m going to try to explain things, but I think you should probably sit down.”
Luce had a few things of her own to come clean about to Daniel. Or, if not to come clean about, at least to throw out into the conversation, to see if he showed signs of thinking she was completely, verifiably deranged. That violet light, for one thing. And the dreams she couldn’t—didn’t want to—stop.
Daniel led her toward a part of the cemetery Luce had never seen before, a clear, flat space where two peach trees had grown together. Their trunks bowed toward each other, forming the outline of a heart in the air below them.
He led her under the strange, gnarled coupling of the branches and took her hands, tracing her fingers with his.
The evening was quiet except for the song of crickets. Luce imagined all the other students in the dining hall. Spooning mashed potatoes onto their trays, slurping thick room-temperature milk through a straw. It was as if, all of a sudden, she and Daniel were on a different plane of being from the rest of the school. Everything but his hand around hers, his hair shining in the light of the setting sun, his warm gray eyes—everything else felt so far away.
“I don’t know where to start,” he said, pressing harder as he massaged her fingers, like he could rub the answer out. “There’s so much to tell you, and I have to get it right.”
As much as she wanted Daniel’s words to be a simple confession of love, Luce knew better. Daniel had something difficult to say, something that might explain a lot about him, but might also be hard for Luce to hear.
“Maybe do one of those I-have-good-news-and-bad-news kind of things?” she suggested.
“Good idea. Which do you want first?”
“Most people want the good news first.”
“Maybe so,” he said. “But you are worlds away from most people.”
“Okay, I’ll take the bad news first.”
He bit his lip. “Then promise me you won’t leave before I get to the good news?”
She had no plans to leave. Not now, now that he was no longer pushing her away. Not when he might be about to offer up some answers to the long list of questions she’d been obsessing over for the past few weeks.
He brought her hands to his chest and held them against his heart. “I’m going to tell you the truth,” he said. “You won’t believe me, but you deserve to know. Even if it kills you.”
“Okay.” A raw knot of pain took hold of Luce’s in-sides, and she could feel her knees start to shake. She was glad when Daniel made her sit down.
He paced back and forth, then took a deep breath. “In the Bible …”
Luce groaned. She couldn’t help it; she had a knee-jerk reaction to Sunday school talk. Besides, she wanted to discuss the two of them, not some moralistic parable. The Bible wasn’t going to hold the answers to any of the questions she had about Daniel.
“Just listen,” he said, shooting her a look. “In the Bible, you know how God makes a big deal about how everyone should love him with all their soul? How it has to be unconditional, and unrivaled?”
Luce shrugged. “I guess so.”
“Well—” Daniel seemed to be searching for the right words. “That request doesn’t only apply to people.”
“What do you mean? Who else? Animals?”
“Sometimes, sure,” Daniel said. “Like the serpent. He was damned after he tempted Eve. Cursed to slither on the ground forever.”
Luce shivered, thinking back to Cam. The snake. Their picnic. That necklace. She rubbed at her clean, bare neck, glad to be rid of it.
He ran his fingers down her hair, along her jawline, and into the hollow of her neck. She sighed, in a state of bliss.
“I’m trying to say … I guess you could say I’m damned, too, Luce. I’ve been damned for a long, long time.” He spoke as if the words tasted bitter. “I made a choice once, a choice that I believed in—that I still believe in, even though—”
“I don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head.
“Of course you don’t,” he said, dropping down onto the ground next to her. “And I don’t have the best track record at explaining it to you.” He scratched his head and lowered his voice, like he was speaking to himself. “But all I can do is try. Here goes nothing.”
“Okay,” she said. He was confusing her, and he’d barely even said anything yet. But she tried to act less lost than she felt.
“I fall in love,” he explained, taking her hands and holding them tightly. “Over and over again. And each time, it ends catastrophically.”
“Over and over again.” The words made her ill. Luce closed her eyes and withdrew her hands. He’d already told her this. That day at the lake. He’d had breakups. He’d been burned. Why bring up those other girls now? It had hurt then and it hurt even more now, like a sharp pain in her ribs. He squeezed her fingers.
“Look at me,” he pleaded. “Here’s where it gets hard.”
She opened her eyes.
“The person I fall in love with each time is you.”
She’d been holding her breath, and meant to exhale, but it came out as a sharp, cutting laugh.
&nbs
p; “Right, Daniel,” she said, starting to stand up. “Wow, you really are damned. That sounds horrible.”
“Listen.” He pulled her back down with a force that made her shoulder throb. His eyes flashed violet and she could tell he was getting angry. Well, so was she.
Daniel looked up into the peach tree canopy, as if for help. “I’m begging you, let me explain.” His voice quaked. “The problem isn’t loving you.”
She took a deep breath. “What is it?” She willed herself to listen, to be stronger and not to feel hurt. Daniel looked like he was broken up enough for both of them.
“I get to live forever,” he said.
The trees rustled around them, and Luce noticed the faintest trickle of a shadow out of the corner of her eye. Not the sick, all-consuming swirl of blackness from the bar last night, but a warning. The shadow was keeping its distance, seething coldly around the corner, but it was waiting. For her. Luce felt a deep chill, down in her bones. She couldn’t shake the sensation that something colossal, black as night, something final was on its way.
“I’m sorry,” she said, dragging her eyes back to Daniel. “Could you, um, say that again?”
“I get to live forever,” he repeated. Luce was still lost, but he kept talking, a stream of words pouring out of his mouth. “I get to live, and to watch babies being born, and grow up, and fall in love. I watch them have babies of their own and grow old. I watch them die. I am condemned, Luce, to watch it all over again and again. Everyone but you.” His eyes were glassy. His voice dropped to a whisper. “You don’t get to fall in love—”
“But …,” she whispered back. “I’ve … fallen in love.”
“You don’t get to have babies and grow old, Luce.”
“Why not?”
“You come along every seventeen years.”
“Please—”
“We meet. We always meet, somehow we’re always thrown together, no matter where I go, no matter how I try to distance myself from you. It never matters. You always find me.”
He was staring down at his clenched fists now, looking like he wanted to hit something, unable to raise his eyes.
“And every time we meet, you fall for me—”
“Daniel—”
“I can resist you or flee from you or try my hardest not to respond to you, but it makes no difference. You fall in love with me, and I with you.”
“Is that so terrible?”
“And it kills you.”
“Stop it!” she cried. “What are you trying to do? Scare me away?”
“No.” He snorted. “It wouldn’t work, anyway.”
“If you don’t want to be with me …,” she said, hoping that it was all an elaborate joke, a breakup speech to end all breakup speeches, and not the truth. It could not be the truth. “… there’s probably a more believable story to tell.”
“I know you can’t believe me. This is why I couldn’t tell you until now, when I have to tell you. Because I thought I understood the rules and … we kissed, and now I don’t understand anything.”
His words from the night before came back to her: I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know what to do.
“Because you kissed me.”
He nodded.
“You kissed me and when we were done, you were surprised.”
He nodded again, having the grace to look a little sheepish.
“You kissed me,” Luce continued, searching for a way to put it all together, “and you thought I wasn’t going to survive it?”
“Based on previous experience,” he said hoarsely. “Yes.”
“That’s just crazy,” she said.
“It’s not about the kiss this time, it’s about what it means. In some lives we can kiss, but in most we can’t.” He stroked her cheek, and she wrestled with how good it felt. “I must say, I prefer the lives where we can kiss.” He looked down. “Though it does make losing you that much harder.”
She wanted to be mad at him. For making up such a bizarre story when they should have been locked in an embrace. But something was there, like an itch at the back of her mind, telling her not to run from Daniel now, but to stick around and listen as long as she could.
“When you lose me,” she said, feeling out the shape of the word in her mouth. “How does it happen? Why?”
“It depends on you, on how much you can see about our past, on how well you’ve come to know me, who I am.” He tossed his hands up in a shrug. “I know this sounds incredibly—”
“Crazy?”
He smiled. “I was going to say vague. But I’m trying not to hide anything from you. It’s just a very, very delicate subject. Sometimes, in the past, just talking like this has …”
She watched for the shape of the words on his lips, but he wouldn’t say anything.
“Killed me?”
“I was going to say ‘broken my heart.’”
He was in obvious pain, and Luce wanted to comfort him. She could feel herself drawn, something in her breast tugging her forward. But she couldn’t. That was when she felt certain that Daniel knew about the glowing violet light. That he had everything to do with it.
“What are you?” she asked. “Some kind of—”
“I wander the earth always knowing at the back of my mind that you’re coming. I used to look for you. But then, when I started hiding from you—from the heartbreak I knew was inevitable—you started seeking me out. It didn’t take long to realize that you came around every seventeen years.”
Luce’s seventeenth birthday had been in late August, two weeks before she enrolled at Sword & Cross. It had been a sad celebration, just Luce, her parents, and a store-bought cake. There were no candles, just in case. And what about her family? Did they come back every seventeen years, too?
“It’s not long enough for me to ever have gotten over the last time,” he said. “Just long enough that I would let my guard down again.”
“So you knew I was coming?” she asked dubiously. He looked serious, but she still couldn’t believe him. She didn’t want to.
Daniel shook his head. “Not the day you showed up. It’s not like that. Don’t you remember my reaction when I saw you?” He looked up, like he was thinking back on it himself. “For the first few seconds every time, I’m always so elated. I forget myself. Then I remember.”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “You smiled, and then … is that why you flipped me off?”
He frowned.
“But if this happens every seventeen years like you say,” she said, “you still knew I was coming. In some sense, you knew.”
“It’s complicated, Luce.”
“I saw you that day, before you saw me. You were laughing with Roland outside Augustine. You were laughing so hard I was jealous. If you know all this, Daniel, if you’re so smart that you can predict when I’m going to come, and when I’m going to die, and how hard all of that is going to be for you, how could you laugh like that? I don’t believe you,” she said, feeling her voice tremble. “I don’t believe any of this.”
Daniel gently pressed his thumb to her eye to wipe away a tear. “It’s such a beautiful question, Luce. I adore you for asking it, and I wish I could explain it better. All I can tell you is this: The only way to survive eternity is to be able to appreciate each moment. That’s all I was doing.”
“Eternity,” Luce repeated. “Yet another thing I wouldn’t understand.”
“It doesn’t matter. I can’t laugh like that anymore. As soon as you show up, I’m overtaken.”
“You’re not making any sense,” she said, wanting to leave before it got too dark. But Daniel’s story was so much more than nonsensical. The whole time she’d been at Sword & Cross, she’d half believed she was crazy. Her madness paled in comparison to Daniel’s.
“There’s no manual for how to explain this … thing to the girl you love,” he pleaded, brushing her hair with his fingers. “I’m doing the best I can. I want you to believe me, Luce. What do I need to do?”
“Tell a different story,” she said bitterly. “Make up a saner excuse.”
“You said yourself you felt as if you knew me. I tried to deny it as long as I could because I knew this would happen.”
“I felt I knew you from somewhere, sure,” she said. Now her voice was clotted with fear. “Like the mall or summer camp or something. Not some former life.” She shook her head. “No … I can’t.”
She covered her ears. Daniel uncovered them.
“And yet you know in your heart it’s true.” He clasped her knees and looked her deeply in the eye. “You knew it when I followed you to the top of Corcovado in Rio, when you wanted to see the statue up close. You knew it when I carried you two sweaty miles to the River Jordan after you got sick outside Jerusalem. I told you not to eat all those dates. You knew it when you were my nurse in that Italian hospital during the first World War, and before that when I hid in your cellar during the tsar’s purge of St. Petersburg. When I scaled the turret of your castle in Scotland during the Reformation, and danced you around and around at the king’s coronation ball at Versailles. You were the only woman dressed in black. There was that artists’ colony in Quintana Roo, and the protest march in Cape Town where we both spent the night in the pen. The opening of the Globe Theatre in London. We had the best seats in the house. And when my ship wrecked in Tahiti, you were there, as you were when I was a convict in Melbourne, and a pickpocket in eighteenth-century Nîmes, and a monk in Tibet. You turn up everywhere, always, and sooner or later you sense all the things I’ve just told you. But you won’t let yourself accept what you feel might be the truth.”
Daniel stopped to catch his breath and looked past her, unseeing. Then he reached over, pressing his hand to her knee and sending that fire through her again.
She closed her eyes, and when she’d opened them, Daniel was holding the most perfect white peony. It practically glowed. She turned to see where he had plucked it from, how she hadn’t noticed it before. There were only weeds and the rotting flesh of fallen fruit. They held the flower together.
“You knew it when you picked white peonies every day for a month that summer in Helston. Remember that?” he stared at her, like he was trying to see inside her. “No,” he sighed after a moment. “Of course you don’t. I envy you for that.”
