The days are getting shorter now. Sasha always loved the winter months. In her opinion, nothing was better than curling up next to the fireplace and reading a romance or watching one on TV. It’s only five o’clock when we finish eating, but the sun buries itself beneath the tree line, leaving the park covered in shadows.
“I should head back,” I say. “We have a ton of orders to fill.”
“No worries.” Elijah rises from the bench and stretches his arms up over his head. We throw away our trash and then start on the short walk back toward the flower shop. Elijah laces his fingers into mine as we walk, stepping around tourists who are lined up outside of an old-fashioned ice cream parlor for a slice of their famous cherry pie. His hand fits into mine like it was molded specifically for me to hold. I lean against his shoulder as we walk, positively high on the fluttery feeling he gives me, and the hope that this man Elijah knew as a kid will show him kindness now that he’s an adult.
“You haven’t left yet and I already miss you.”
He chuckles. “I would say I could stay until you get off work, but I’m not sure your parents would be cool with that.”
“On a school night?” I say with a snort. “Definitely not. Although they’ve been asking about you a lot.”
“Oh yeah? Good or bad asking?”
I lift an eyebrow and let him get all nervous about it for a second. “Good asking,” I finally say. “I’m sorry for all of that … stuff … the last few days. I just want you to stay safe.”
“I know.” He stops in the middle of the sidewalk, his hands grabbing my waist and lifting me until my feet are floating and I’m at his eye level. Giggling, I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him closer for a kiss. When I’m in his arms, it’s so easy to forget all of the unknowns we still face. “You’re making it really hard to go back to work,” I whisper, peering down at him.
He sets me back on the sidewalk, his bottom lip rolling under his teeth. “You have no idea.” His voice is a low growl that sends a shiver into my toes.
“Maybe you two should get a room.”
All of my muscles tighten at the sound of a familiar voice. Zack stands just a few feet away, his fingers woven with the slender fingers of Savannah Weststar, varsity softball player. She smiles uncomfortably at me. We’ve never really been friends, but she was a part of the Dying Sasha Fan Club for a short while.
My heart crawls up in my chest, but then Zack winks as they walk by us.
“Who was that?” Elijah asks.
“Just someone from my past.” I’m actually smiling, believe it or not. “But right now, all I care about is my future.”
***
When I get home from work, there’s a thick manila envelope on my bed. It claims to be from the PCHS Scholarship Fund, not that one exists. Whatever this next adventure is, I’ll get to share it with Elijah as we move forward together, finding our place in this world that took away someone special, but also brought us this gift.
I rip open the letter, going through the contents one by one. An envelope of cash, a letter addressed to The Parents of Raquel Clearwater, a plastic hotel key, printed-out reservations and a gas station gift card.
Happy tears flood my eyes as I grip Sasha’s handwritten letter in my hand. Of course she knew exactly what we’d need.
Yep, I’m sending you guys on vacation! Trust me, you’ll have a blast.
Love you and miss you always,
Sasha
Chapter Twenty-Four
I can’t believe Mom fell for it. Following Sasha’s instructions, I dropped the fake letter in a mailbox near Izzy’s, and the next day, it arrived in our mailbox. Printed on card stock, it congratulated the parents of Raquel Clearwater for their daughter’s award, an “Excellence in Education Weekend Getaway” at the Black Bear Lodge in Dallas, Texas, along with ten other high school seniors. My parents then spent an entire dinner telling me how proud they were of me for keeping up my grades, even during the aftermath of losing my best friend.
One week later, I’m tossing my suitcase into the trunk of my car.
“Always keep a full tank of gas,” Mom says. She’s in her pajamas because it’s six in the morning, her feet shifting on the cold concrete. “Fill it up again when you’re at half a tank. And keep your phone charged. You never know when there will be an emergency.”
It’s over two hundred miles to Dallas, and I’ve never driven even half that far away, so she’s sort of freaking out. “You don’t have to worry, Mom. I’ll be extra safe. I’ll walk around with blinking lights and a reflector vest if you want.”
She rolls her eyes and then pulls me into a hug. “I’m your mother, Raquel. It’s my job to worry.”
I start up my car and blast the heater since it takes a while to get warm. Mom puts a hand on top of my open car door and rattles off a few more safety warnings. Don’t leave the resort after dark, never drink anything from a stranger, don’t carry all your cash on you at once.
“I sure hope you kids have fun. Black Bear Lodge is kind of … juvenile. You and Sasha got bored of it when you were about fourteen.”
“Fifteen,” I say, recalling two summers ago when we told her parents we’d like to go to the Guadalupe River for spring break instead of the lodge. It was the first year since we were eight that we didn’t go to the resort famous for having the country’s biggest indoor water park. Mom’s right about it being kind of … young. I can’t imagine the high school actually choosing Black Bear Lodge for a high school student event. Of course, they didn’t.
I wait until I’m out of our neighborhood and on the main road before I set the GPS to the address I’d programmed last night.
Mr. Reinhart took in Elijah the day he messaged him on Facebook. Elijah formally quit working at Monterrey’s Auto Body Shop for the second time, and then he moved into the Reinharts’ spare bedroom. I had hoped something good would come from Elijah reconnecting with the man who had shown kindness to him all those years ago, but this is better than I imagined. I even sleep easier at night knowing Elijah is no longer sleeping on some shady guy’s couch. Things are only going to get better from now on. I can feel it.
The Reinharts live in a little ranch-style house in the suburbs just outside the Austin city limits. As soon as my tires roll to a stop, I notice movement in the open garage. I park and wave at Elijah. He’s standing next to his motorcycle, which is parked next to an old Crown Vic. A tall man with a full head of solid white hair is beside him, and they both turn to look at me.
There’s an awkward second where I wonder if I should get out and introduce myself, but then Elijah shakes the guy’s hand and jogs across the lawn, climbing into my car. The scent of his cinnamon gum is everywhere.
“Hey.” He grins, tossing an overstuffed backpack into the back seat of my car. With a jerk of his head, his unruly black locks shake away from his eyes, which lock on mine. “Want to stop for coffee?”
He smells like heaven rolled up in that distinct scent of boy, and that glimmer in his gaze knocks all the breath out of my lungs.
“Yeah,” I say, clearing my throat. I put the car into drive and focus on the road in front of me. “Coffee.”
I can feel his eyes on me while I drive, but we’re silent for a long time. This is the start of something new. Elijah and me, together and figuring out our life. This is big, this is powerful, and I know we both feel it.
“So, that was Mr. Reinhart’s house.” Elijah drums his fingers on the inside of the passenger door. “Turns out he’s even nicer than I remembered. He says I can stay as long as I need to.”
“Wow, that’s great.”
“Sorry my emails have been sporadic. Anthony is pissed at me for ditching him. I had to get as much of my stuff as I could from the apartment with only my motorcycle, so it took me a few trips with a backpack. Then, Mr. Reinhart and his wife are like the sweetest people on earth. They fe
ed me and clothe me and want to talk about things. I didn’t want to be rude and ask for the Wi-Fi password in the middle of that.”
I reach over the console and grab his hand. “It’s fine. You’re here now.”
After an hour of driving in mostly silence, I pull to a stop at a red light. I can feel him watching me from the passenger seat, so I glance over. He grins, and those eyes make my toes tingle.
“I really want to kiss you,” I say.
“Can’t.” He shakes his head. “That’s not what Sasha wants.”
Panic colors my vision. “What?” I thought we’d moved past this.
Elijah grins. “We’re technically on the next adventure, and she wants us to be kids, right?”
I let out my breath in a relieved laugh. “Right.”
That is exactly what her email said.
Black Bear Lodge is a kid’s ultimate vacation. There’s game rooms, the water park, an arcade, inflatable bounce houses and so much candy you want to eat until you throw up and then eat more. Black Bear Lodge was the essence of my childhood. We went twice a year, every year, and I always got to take my best friend with me. So although it’s kind of a haven for children, and you guys are almost adults, just be kids for the weekend, okay? I want Elijah to experience what it would have been like to be a kid in the Cade household. Also, there’s something I need you guys to do when you’re there, and being a kid will make all the difference.
The light turns green and I take one last look at him before turning my attention back to the road. “I agree. Let’s be kids.”
***
“Whoa.” Elijah is all but pressed against the glass, drooling like a five-year-old.
“Yeah, it’s pretty impressive,” I say, turning into the parking lot of Black Bear Lodge. Set on top of a hill, the mighty resort has fourteen floors of hotel rooms to one side and a massive water park to the other. In the center, two fifty-feet-tall concrete bears sit guarding the entrance on their steel-reinforced haunches. As a kid, it felt like you were arriving in a magical world when you walked between the bears. Something tells me that as an almost adult, it’ll feel just as surreal.
“Cute,” Elijah says, eyeing my suitcase as I heft it out of my trunk. It’s hot pink with emojis all over it. My only excuse for buying something so delightfully tacky is that it was on sale.
“Shut up,” I mutter.
Keeping a nice distance of at least three feet between us, I breathe slowly and concentrate on telling myself not to think about how cute he is, how great he smells, how I sort of love that innocent excitement in his eyes. This trip is not about how badly I want to make out with Elijah. It’s about pretending to be a kid for Sasha.
“Have you ever been to a place like this?” I ask, figuring it’s a perfectly acceptable platonic thing to say.
He stops right in the middle of the enormous entrance that looks more like it was built for giants and looks at me. “What do you think?”
The lodge feels cozier in November than in the summer. Fewer kids running all over the place, and more older couples who look like they came to get away from the headache of planning Thanksgiving dinner.
Elijah’s head wobbles all over the place as he tries to take in the sight. The ceiling is at least five stories high, and a forest canopy of fake trees almost covers the top. Winding stairways go up the tree trunks with little hideout spots to find along the way. Fairies zoom across the room on nearly invisible wires, and life-sized animatronic bears hide in between the fake trees. A waterfall pours straight from the ceiling, emptying into a concrete pond filled with fish you can feed from paper cups of fish food. I have to tug on Elijah’s shirt to get him to follow me to the reception desk.
“Your pretend-to-be-a-kid act is convincing,” I say, pulling him in between the velvet ropes that form a winding line to the check-in desk.
“Totally not an act,” he says, peering down at me. There’s a waterfall behind us and a big fake toucan hanging from a branch just above our heads. That single dimple in his cheek appears again. “I’m really psyched for this.”
Butterflies hop around in my stomach when I bring my printed reservation up to the front desk. What if we’re turned around, identified as frauds? A woman with Susan on her name tag gives me a warm smile and scans the barcode on my paper. The computer chimes, so that must be a good sign.
“You’re all set,” she says, sliding over two silver wristbands that are made to withstand the water park during your entire vacation. Relief floods through me and I reach for them. “Oh, wait,” Susan says, frowning. “There’s something else here in the reservation notes. Just a moment.”
Elijah slides the wristbands off the counter and slips one onto my wrist, then wraps the other one around his. “Why so freaked out?” he asks quietly, nudging me with his shoulder.
I lift my shoulders, eyes wide. “There’s some kind of problem,” I say, trying to decipher what Susan is saying to another woman when she points back at us. “What if this doesn’t work? Where will we go?”
“Relax, chicka. This is Sasha, remember?” I look up at him and he winks. “She won’t let us down.”
Susan slips into a back room and then returns a few seconds later, a white envelope in her hand. “This was sent here for you, Miss Clearwater. Now you’re all set. Please enjoy your stay at Black Bear Lodge!”
I reach for the envelope, my name in pink Sharpie scrawled across the front. I don’t have to look at Elijah to know he’s no doubt wearing a smirk the size of the parking lot. In the elevator, I go to rip it open, but stop when I see Sasha’s note written across the seal.
Do not open until you check out on Sunday!
Elijah leans over, reading the instructions. “Interesting.”
Just as I’d suspected, Sasha reserved the Wolf Pack room for our stay. The coolest and most expensive room option available, it has two queen beds and a “Wolf Den,” which is a cave built into the wall, with bunk beds made of treated logs inside. There’s a little platform you get to by ladder, and your own private TV mounted on the wall. It is a kids’ paradise, and Elijah’s jaw falls to the ground when he sees it.
I move into the main part of the room, dropping my suitcase at the foot of the queen bed nearest to the window. We’re ten floors high and have a beautiful view of the Dallas skyline. We’re also spending this entire weekend together. I swallow.
Elijah’s voice echoes from inside the man-made cave. “If you think I’m not sleeping on this kid-sized bunk bed, you’re wrong.”
Laughing, I go to the window and draw the drapes shut, darkening the room.
“Just wait until you see this,” I say, slipping into the cave with him. The light at the top of the cave is shaped like a moon — although why a moon would be inside a cave, I don’t know. I wiggle my eyebrows, my grin so big my cheeks hurt. “You ready for this?” I ask, hovering my fingers over the light switch, which is shaped like an inchworm.
Elijah nods, and I flip the lights.
The Wolf Den has a sound system rigged to the light. When it turns off, the sounds of a forest fill the space. The buzzing of bugs, a sweet song of a bird and the occasional wolf howling at the moon. Tiny dots in the walls light up like fireflies, disappearing the second you look at them.
Elijah exhales.
“It lasts for about an hour,” I say, turning the lights back on. “The perfect amount of time to fall asleep.”
“This was Sasha’s childhood,” he says, more like he’s talking to himself.
I nod. “I was lucky enough to come along. My parents could never afford something like this.”
Elijah shrugs off his backpack and tosses it on the top bunk. “So what was on the table?”
“Huh?” Ducking out of the cave, I notice a package on the table, a little white card with our names on it taped to the top.
Ripping it open, I find a letter from Sash
a and —
“A wand?” Elijah says, reaching into the box and pulling out a plastic wand painted in so much glitter nail polish you can barely see the brown of the original design.
“Not just any wand,” I say, unable to hold back my smile in the wake of all this nostalgia. “That is the wand.”
“Explain,” he says, aiming the wand at me like simply saying the word will compel me to answer. But that’s not how the magic works.
“I think Sasha probably will,” I say, opening the letter. Pulling in a deep breath, I read.
“‘Elijah, this would have been your childhood had we grown up together. This place is literally the place of dreams, screw what Disney says. Rocki’s favorite part was the water park and the arcade room, but Wizard’s Quest was mine. I want you to have fun this weekend, so I’m only leaving you one rule: play one last game of Wizard’s Quest for me, okay? I have bestowed my wand upon the two of you. It has fresh batteries and, of course, it’s still registered to my name so that my digital legacy will continue. Make me proud. I love you and miss you both … Sasha.’”
“Is this some kind of game?” Elijah asks, turning the plastic wand over in his hands.
“You have no idea,” I say. Reaching for the wand, I twist the handle to the right, making the tip of it light up purple as it starts a new game. The wand vibrates and a tinny voice sounds from a small speaker in the bottom.
“Do you have what it takes to complete a Wizard’s Quest, young warlock?”
There’s a spark of adventure in Elijah’s eyes, the same exact look I’ve seen so many times while in the presence of this wand.
“Come on,” I say, tapping his chest with the purple light. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Wizard’s Quest was ahead of its time back when Sasha and I were kids. State-of-the-art technology plus the genius of a bunch of MIT students who never quite grew out of role-playing games came together to create an interactive masterpiece. The game was installed in Black Bear Lodge nearly ten years ago, and I still remember the first year it appeared. I was wearing my iCarly one-piece bathing suit, towel around my shoulders, goggles hanging off my wrist, the scent of chlorine beckoning me from the water park. Sasha had grown too tall for her bathing suit; a problem we didn’t realize until it was time to go swimming. So Mrs. Cade took us down to the gift shop on the first floor to buy a new suit while Mr. Cade stayed in our hotel room, ordering room service breakfast and getting some work done remotely.
The Last Wish of Sasha Cade Page 18
