by Jen Christie
I shrieked with joy and ran toward it. The wall was very steep, and unlike before, where I could use the face of the rock to climb, here the face was smooth as glass. A small squeak sounded out, and I looked at the base of the wall to see at the base of it a litter of silver-gray puppies.
There were four of them. Three were silver and one was the color of coffee with cream. They heard my movements and turned toward me, their eyes shut and mouths open, so trusting and expectant. I picked up the cream one. It was a girl and her belly was round and fat, her fur sleek and soft as butter.
She mewled and squirmed, making jerky movements, and I hugged her. She was a ball of warmth on my skin. I gave her a kiss on the head and tucked her in with her mates.
Then I turned to the wall and tried to climb. I tried until my fingers bled, until my legs shook with the effort of trying to shimmy up the corners. Then, I began to yell, to scream at the top of my lungs, but then stopped when my throat began to hurt and I realized that I had no water.
It was useless. I slid to the ground and took a spot beside the puppies and watched the small hole in the rock above me, as the clouds raced by. I picked up the cream puppy again, and nestled her next to me, and waited for Maxie to return to her pups.
Soon enough, I slept again, and was surprised to be woken by Maxie licking my face and thumping me with her tail. “Maxie!” I cried, and threw my arms around her. She jumped all over me, wiggling and squirming and licking my hands, and then she walked over to her pups and turned back to me, and I thought I detected a touch of motherly pride in her actions.
“They’re beautiful Maxie,” I told her. “You did a great job. You really did.”
To see Maxie, full of life and happiness, licking her puppies and nursing them—it opened up a hole in my heart that was agony. For the first time I broke down and sobbed. They were wracking, heaving sobs and when I was finally reduced to hiccups, my eyes were dry. My thoughts were dark, and I wondered again if I should have stepped off the cliff. But no, then Lucas would have the familiar pain of a loved one lost forever, never counted among the living or the dead. Just lost, and I couldn’t do that to him. I had to try to get out. I sat sniffling in my own misery, when in the far, shadowed corner of the cavern, something white caught my eye. I stood and went to it.
They were bones. Human bones. Covered in the tatters of what had once been a red dress. A ruby necklace stretched around the skeleton’s neck. Jewels lay scattered around her.
I stood for a long moment, before I knelt down and touched my finger lightly, respectfully to the finger of the skeleton. “I have found you, Celeste.” Then, all of a sudden, tears rolled down my face again and I began to talk to her. “I’m so sorry,” I told her. “I wanted so badly to be like you. Lucas loved you so much. But the house of glass got ahold of you, didn’t it? It got in the way.” I hung my head and couldn’t look at her, as the shame of my actions settled in. “For me, too.
“Lucas looked for you every night. For years and years he looked for you, and he heard you, didn’t he? That’s why he was so haunted by you—he knew you were out there, crying out for help. His worst fear was that you suffered.” I looked at her, at the position of her body, curled up in a ball. “I see you did suffer, and I’m so sorry for it.” My throat grew tight and it was hard to talk. “I hope that you found some peace at the end, and now—” I took a deep shuddering breath realizing a certain truth “—I will join you…”
I didn’t mean to sound angry, but I could hear the sharpness of my voice echo in the cave. How strange it was that Celeste wanted riches and jewels, and I wanted Lucas, but both of us wanted the house. And now we would die in the same hollow cave. “I’m the one who will suffer now,” I said. “But, I deserve it, don’t I? Becoming so obsessed? I was so afraid and I wanted him to love me and the one time I felt sure of myself was in the house. The only thing I wanted more than his love was to be in that house, where nothing mattered but him. I’m so sorry, Celeste. I hope you can forgive me.”
The cave was quiet when I left Celeste alone in the shadows. I made a promise to myself, that if I wasn’t found, I would not call out to Lucas. I didn’t want him to suffer the same tragedy yet again.
I sat down again, and I was strangely comforted to know that Celeste was there, that perhaps she watched over me. All the crying had dried out my throat. I was so thirsty; the skin on my lips had already begun to crack.
Maxie walked toward me, and it reminded me of the time that Lucas had asked me to marry him, when the leather strap dangled from her neck, strung with a yellow diamond.
The necklace.
Maxie.
I could put the necklace around her neck, stringing my diamond ring next to the shell. Maybe, just maybe, if Maxie went to the house and begged for food, someone would notice and with a little luck, be clever and follow her back here.
“Maxie, come here,” I was so excited that I could barely speak. It took my scraped and injured fingers several tries before I undid the knot. I wound the strap around her neck and then pulled my ring from my finger and threaded the strand through it and when I knotted the necklace together a new, small hope was born inside me.
It wasn’t until late that I saw Maxie leave the cave. By the light of the moon I saw how she did it, jumping onto the tiniest ridge, all the way on the opposing wall, and then halfway again she landed on another flake, and then like magic, she jumped out of the hole.
I woke later with Maxie licking my face. When I opened my eyes, I saw a beam of light sweeping the cavern from the hole above. A man’s voice called down.
“Reyna? Are you in here?” It was Lucas.
“Lucas.” I whispered. “I’m here!” I yelled, my voice sounded strange and high-pitched, panicked.
I heard a commotion above, a lot of yelling and short bursts of noise. A rope was lowered and right before it hit the ground I ran to it and was hugging Lucas before he could even stand up. He dropped to the ground and hugged me, and I clamped myself to him, sobbing into his chest, until I could barely even breathe.
He lifted my hand and held it tight. There was something between our palms, and I knew exactly what it was. I sobbed anew, and he let me, but not before he whispered into my ear the words that I will cherish forever.
“I remember,” he said.
Eventually, I quieted, and Lucas tied the necklace around my neck.
He covered me in his jacket, and lifted me into his arms, and just like when I first met him, he carried me up and away from danger.
Epilogue
To this day I still wear the necklace, though a gold chain has replaced the leather one.
We never discovered why Celeste was in the cave. Sometimes, in a quiet moment when I fall to thinking about it, I am certain that the glass house had something to do with it. Certain that it poisoned her mind in some way. As it did mine.
Lucas makes light of my notion, but I can tell that he is relieved the house is gone.
Every once in a while, I remember the man I saw on the dock, the one who reached out and saved me, who gave me a simple seashell and stole my heart. I never saw that side of Lucas again, the carefree and laughing side of him. Some part of him returned, a lighter spirit, and I was glad of that. He never shed his intensity, the fierce passions or the explosive temper that I grew to love, and for that I am glad, too.
The sketch that Lucas drew of me hangs above the fireplace and it warms my heart every time I lay eyes on it. It reminds me what Lucas values most in me—my belief in him. As for me, I can still be found on cloudless nights, roaming the gardens of Devlin Manor.
About the Author
Jen Christie is a writer who has a passion for reading and writing gothic romances. Jen lives in St. Augustine, Florida, with her husband and three daughters. She has a love of history, and her secret desire is to stop and read every roadside historical marker she drives by.
eISBN: 978-1-4603-3620-5
HOUSE OF GLASS
Copyright © 2014 by Jenni
fer Grannis
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author…s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com
