The Enchantment of Emma Fletcher

by L. D. Crichton

  Now Emma’s mother looks surprised, poker face gone. She manages an “Oh.”

  Marley sits down. “We came to watch movies last night. It got late and Emma said we could all stay here.”

  This earns Marley a nod and a strained smile. “Of course you’re welcome to stay, dear. That goes for all of you.”

  Mateo grins. “Thanks, Mama Fletcher.” He kisses the top of Marley’s head before swinging his gaze back to me. “I have to go. My turn for a coffee run. I’ll see you guys later. Guess I won’t see Emma at the gym today, huh?”

  “The gym?” Bernadette sounds surprised. I’m not sure why—I mean, Emma runs every single day, so the idea that she might be at a gym should not be all that shocking.

  I nod. “Mateo is teaching Emma some self-defense.”

  Emma’s mother visibly cringes and she takes a sip of her coffee. I wonder what is going through her mind. Maternal instinct, even at the most basic level, has to be a real bitch to handle when something happens to your kid. I wonder how much, if anything, Emma has told her mother. I almost spit out the truth, nearly telling Mama Fletcher that Gabe may be here—but she seems to have enough on her plate, and I think that among the four of us, we have it handled.

  Emma emerges from her bedroom. “I’m still going to the gym. Morning, Mom.” She looks at Marley. “We were watching movies and it got pretty late.”

  Bernadette’s eyes dart to the bandage on Emma’s hand. “What happened to your hand?”

  Emma places it over her chest protectively. “I made more popcorn for us after you went to bed. Some of the grease spilled. I got burned.”

  Her mom accepts the lie easily, and for some reason, it irritates me. We all tell her mother good-bye, thank her for her hospitality, and leave. After we drop Marley off and I start in the direction of the gym, I pull the truck over and cut the engine.

  “Something wrong?” Emma asks.

  “Yeah.”

  She picks at her cuticles. “What?”

  “For starters, how about the fact that the guy who raped you is presumably around here and you’re acting like last night didn’t happen.”

  “I had my meltdown last night and trust me, it was enough for a lifetime. How I am supposed to act? You want me to be a mental case like I was before you showed up, is that it?”

  What? “No,” I tell her, not trying to hide my disgust. “I want you to do the right thing and call the fucking cops, Em. Get the bastard locked up.”

  “No,” she says quickly. “I won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know why,” she says. “They won’t do anything. They won’t care.”

  “That’s not true and you know it. You’re not in the same place anymore. That big city where you’re just another number, another victim of some heinous crime. You’re in Stonefall. Everything is different.”

  She shakes her head. “I’m not calling them. I can’t.”

  “Emma. Think about this, please. You’re not making any sense. You need to call the police.”

  Emma raises her voice at me. “No, Tristan, you need to drop it.”

  I love this girl, but she’s working my last nerve. “There is a fine line between being brave and being stupid, Em. I’m afraid you’re getting awfully close to crossing it.”

  She crosses her arms over her chest. “You think I’m being stupid?”

  “Is that a rhetorical question?” I fire back. “Do I think it’s stupid that you’re refusing to call the police when a guy who raped you and basically tried to kill you could be creeping nearby? Yes, Emma, I do. In fact, I think it’s the colossal kind of dumb.”

  Her teeth capture her bottom lip and I can see her eyes fill as the words spill out of my mouth. I’d take them back if they weren’t so true. I reach for her arm, something to let her know I didn’t mean to hurt her, but she pulls away from me.

  “Don’t touch me,” she says. Her words dagger me in the gut. “There is a fine line between stupid and masochistic. I don’t even like to utter the word rape, and I sure as hell don’t want to remember what happened to me.” Her voice increases in pitch as the tears begin to roll down her face. “I don’t like to think of the crackling of the fire that was nearby, the static from the speaker of Bailey Donaldson’s truck, or how the whiskey tasted like cinnamon. I’ve tried everything to forget the way he looked at me—the stench of his breath, the taste of vodka on his mouth. I don’t want to think about the sound of my clothes ripping, the taste of Gabe’s blood when I bit his hand for clamping my mouth shut, the sticky, warm feeling of it seeping from my skin when I was certain, without any doubt, that that was how I was going to die.”

  She stops rambling long enough to inhale, but it’s sharp and it barely gives her the breath to continue. “Remembering those things, thinking those things, goes well beyond dumb, Tristan—it’s fucking masochistic,” she says again. “So yeah, I don’t want to call the police. I don’t want to tell them what happened. I don’t want to relive every single solitary second of it because I may as well offer myself up for Gabe to do it all over again.”

  I feel like a dick. I am a dick. I turn the ignition back on, put the car into reverse, and mumble, “I’m sorry.” It’s going against every instinct I have. I want to wrap my arms around her, to pull her to me, hold her close. I want to take her somewhere I know she’ll be safe.

  No cops. I’ll have to settle for the next best thing and deliver Emma to Mateo’s very capable hands in silence.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Emma

  It’s been two weeks and three days. Two weeks and three days of no appetite, of not being able to sleep, of never being able to relax. My connection to Tristan is still growing, but it’s strained. The tension is thick and unrelenting. Ever since my blowup when we were driving, an unspoken agreement exists between us. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Even so, the stress of constantly looking over my shoulder is getting the best of me. If Gabe is here, he’s camouflaged himself. Given that Stonefall is a small place, I try to reason that he can’t possibly be hiding. There is nowhere for him to go. Not to mention the babysitter squad I have consisting of three full-grown adults.

  Each morning starts with my run with my new tag-along, Marley. Every. Single. Day. That’s followed by a session at the gym with Mateo, and my afternoons are spent at Banks Auto. I feel more confident than ever in my ability to prevent the worst from happening again, but the knowledge has failed to make me less edgy.

  I’m at Banks Auto, standing at the counter hunched over a computer screen, ordering basic supplies for the garage. Tristan has come in from the back and set some car part on a shelf behind me. There’s a huge crash, and I must jump at least a foot in the air as I turn around. The weight of the car part must have been too much for the shelf, and now it’s on the floor along with everything else that was on it.

  Tristan is at my side almost instantly, his hands rubbing my arms. “Sorry,” he says. “You okay?”

  I start to clean up the mess, and as I pick each item off the floor, I can see that my hands are trembling.

  “Em,” he says. “You all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  Tristan picks up the part that is to blame for the collapse of the shelf and casts his eyes over to me. “This is stupid. We need to get away from this place,” he says.

  “The shop?”

  “No, not the shop. Stonefall.”

  “What?”

  “We need to leave. A little vacation. My parents have a cottage about an hour and a half south of here. We’re going,” he decides.

  “What about work?”

  He shrugs. “What about it? It’ll be here when we get back. We need this; I can’t stand seeing you this way. We can even bring Mat and Marley if you want.”

  Getting away from all of it, even for a weekend, sounds amazing. “You really wan
t to take a vacation?”

  “A mini getaway. I think it would do us some good if we had some time to clear our heads and reconnect a little. You’re jumpy, running scared, Em. I can cut the tension in this place with a knife. I don’t think getting away for a few days is going to hurt anything.”

  His words are nothing but the truth. “Do you think your parents will mind?”

  Tristan gives a small laugh, shakes his head, and winks. “Are you kidding me? Not even a little.”

  Tristan

  The drive to the cottage proves that this was a great decision. Emma is relaxed and cracking jokes with Marley, mostly at Mateo’s expense. We arrive just in time to see the sun setting. I used to love this place when I was a kid. I remember spending weekends here sometimes, fishing with my old man while my mother would bake chocolate chip cookies and leave them on the windowsill to cool. I always thought I was a sneaky little bastard, pocketing a few on the way in, but surely she saw that her dozen was down by two. Either way, she never said anything.

  Katie and I came here sometimes, to stargaze. My heart feels a bit heavy as I pull up the unpaved drive, because the last time I was here, she was by my side. But as I look at Emma, Mat, and Marley and the gravel crunches under the tires of the truck, I swear the air gets lighter.

  “I see your dad still hasn’t sold the boat,” Mateo says.

  I shake my head. “I don’t think he’s ever going to, to be honest. My parents still come here a lot. I haven’t been since before I left for MIT.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Emma says.

  “Yeah, it’s not so bad.” I point out her window. “Just behind the cottage there’s a trail. It’s dirt, but it’s cleared pretty well. Enough to go for your run in the morning.”

  Marley looks at me via the rearview mirror and rolls her eyes. “Oh joy! Running. My favorite thing.”

  I laugh. “We all know you love running, Scott.” I park the car, and Mateo and I unload while the girls check out the view. This place really is something else, and if I pretend, just a little, I can see it the way Emma does, as if I’m looking at it for the first time.

  It’s a waterfront retreat that my parents bought ten years before I even came into existence. Every year after my birth, they tackled one renovation after the other, and now the place is worth ten times what they paid for it.

  All of the walls are painted a pale blue with white wainscoting. The entire place is nautical themed, so there’s no shortage of anchors, ropes, octopus motifs, and oars on display.

  We walk in the door and I can already tell Emma loves it. I direct Marley and Mateo to the guest room and set our stuff down in the master bedroom. My dad’s telescope, the same one Katie used to use, is set up by the window and Emma goes to it and hunches over, looking through the glass.

  “My dad’s,” I tell her. I stand behind her and put my hands on her hips. She straightens, turns, and gives me a butterfly-soft kiss.

  “I always thought the universe is a pretty amazing thing,” she says. “To create people like you for people like me.”

  I frame her face in my hands. “The universe is a pretty amazing thing—but so are you.”

  She smiles.

  “Put on a sweater and wait right here. There’s something I want to show you.”

  “Okay.”

  I head to the kitchen and root through the box I’d brought until I find the wine. I select a bottle, grab a corkscrew from the drawer, and slip it into my pocket before retrieving two large plastic wineglasses.

  I return to Emma, wine bottle in hand. Then I scoop the blanket from the end of the bed and give it to her, along with the glasses. “You carry these.” Grabbing the telescope and the tripod, I fold the thing and motion to the door. “After you.”

  Marley and Mateo are in the kitchen when we head back through the cottage. Marley is unpacking food from a giant Tupperware container she’d barely been able to fit into the back of the truck. She looks up at Emma and me, her eyes darting to the wine, then the telescope.

  “Stargazing, lovers?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I’ll have dinner ready when you get back,” Marley says.

  “We will have dinner ready,” Mat corrects.

  She beams. “We.”

  I lead Emma down one of the dirt paths to the small beach by the lake. Laying the blanket out, I set up the telescope. Seems almost pointless, moving the thing a whole hundred yards from the house, but there’s something I need to share with her.

  Emma sets the wine on the blanket and stands beside me.

  I lean in to the scope and look for the Big Dipper. When I locate it, it doesn’t take me long to find Katie’s star.

  I straighten and point to the telescope. “Look. Do you see the Big Dipper?”

  Emma crouches down and sets her sights to the sky. “Yes.” She points to it and traces the outline with her fingertip. “Right there.”

  “Count about four stars to the left, then six or so up.”

  Her lips move as she counts, but no words come out.

  “Okay,” she says.

  “That’s Katie’s star,” I tell Emma. “I bought it for her.”

  A beat passes before Emma looks away from the telescope, rising to her full height and dabbing at her eyes. “You bought her a star?”

  I nod. “She loved the stars.”

  “That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  I didn’t bring her out here for flattery. “For the longest time, I never believed that I could love anyone as completely as I did Katie. And then I met you.”

  The tears she had tried to wipe away come back.

  “Sometimes I think that if there is a God, he meant for the two of us to collide. I think Katie would have wanted me to be happy. I think she would have loved you.”

  “It means a lot to me that you would say that,” Emma says. “There’s no way Katie couldn’t have loved you with everything she had and then some.”

  A knot lodges itself in my throat and for the first time since she’s been gone, it feels okay to have it there. I’m allowed to be sad, but it doesn’t mean I need to live in the past. Just like Emma, I need to know it’s okay to move on.

  I take the corkscrew from my pocket, open the wine, and pour a glass for Emma and one for myself. She sits on the blanket, crossing her long legs over each other. I take my place beside her and hold up my glass.

  “To you, Emma. For giving me a reason to want to get up every morning.”

  “To Katie,” Emma says. “To her memory and everything she meant to you.”

  “To Katie,” I agree. “I’ll never forget.”

  An hour or so later we’re back at the cottage and the place smells amazing. Marley is standing over a frying pan, tending to what smells like shallots cooking, and Mateo is right beside her, watching intently with a proud smile on his face.

  The countertop is completely covered with the mounds of garlic, spices, peppers, prawns, olive oil, mussels, chicken, stock, and rice.

  Marley looks at us. “I’m making paella.”

  My stomach grumbles in response. I reach to grab a slice of green pepper from the mix, but Marley slaps my hand with her spatula. “Hands off, Banks.”

  I take the pepper anyway and wink at Emma. “That’s not what she said.”

  Emma

  The moment shared with Tristan underneath Katie’s star meant the world to me. The fact that he trusts me, loves me enough to share the deepest part of himself, means there is no turning back for us. This is it. He is my future.

  Marley is chopping away at more veggies and when she looks at me, she smiles and it’s infectious. In that moment, the only thing I can see is the promise of what is to come.

  I head to a wine rack in the kitchen and carefully select another bottle of red, then find four matching wineglas
ses. I pour each of us a glass, setting Mat’s and Marley’s on the counter in front of them and placing Tristan’s in his hand.

  I clear my throat. “I propose a toast.” Marley and Mateo pick up their glasses. “Someone once told me to stop letting the past define me,” I say.

  “And don’t let the future intimidate you,” Marley adds.

  “Live in the present,” Tristan says.

  Mateo grins, looking at Marley before brushing the fingers of his free hand through her hair. “And make every single moment beautiful.”

  I hold my glass up. “Here’s to leaving the past where it belongs, looking forward to the future, and embracing every moment.” I realize I’d toasted to this same thing with my mother the night Gabe sent the card, the very thing that brought us here.

  “Cheers!” Everyone says in unison.

  For the first time in weeks—since Gabe’s ghostly return—everything is exactly as it should be.

  The most I’ve seen Marley do in the kitchen is make me a peanut butter sandwich to cure a hangover, so it comes as a surprise that her dinner tastes as good as it smelled when it was cooking. I had no idea she was so skilled in the kitchen.

  Mateo and Tristan do the dishes while Marley and I sit on the couch, polishing off another bottle of wine. “We should have a bonfire,” Mat says, coming to sit beside Marley.

  “Shit,” Tristan says as he joins us. “I knew I was forgetting something.”

  “You forgot firewood?”

  He nods.

  “Wow,” Mateo says. “I’m revoking your Boy Scout badge.”

  “I’ll get some tomorrow,” Tristan pledges. “And I never had a Boy Scout badge.”

  Mateo sighs and looks around the room, drumming his fingers on the couch. Then he quickly stands and hauls Marley off the couch, tossing her over his shoulder. She squeals and Mateo turns to face Tristan and me. “As much as I’d love to sit here and indulge in a game of Go Fish, there are more important things I’d rather indulge in. No campfire means we will have to make our own heat tonight.”

  Tristan grimaces, but I can’t help myself. I am grinning like an idiot for Marley.