Ever After

by Odessa Gillespie Black

“You can talk back and forth with him.”

  They both nodded. Shelby put a finger over her lips and her stare bore into me.

  That was it. A ghost, a man who ate raw meat, a corpse, mind readers, the man I’d been fantasizing about knowing full well that I’d been fantasizing.

  “I need some time.” I turned from them. From them all.

  I held my chest and walked the rest of the way down the flight of stairs that closed in on me the farther I went.

  * * * *

  Avoiding anyone who had extra-sensory gifts, I spent a few days resting. I’d never had anything more alarming happen to me in my whole life, and something worse was coming. So, I stared at the walls of my room for hours on end, leaving only to run errands in town with Dalton, but not out of spite. Because he was funny. He took my mind off all things bad.

  I did turn Preston away, though. I’d had Thomas put him off. Any other visitors, I’d had banned from my room, including the twins, until further notice.

  They were hurt, but I was too.

  Everyone had lied to me.

  Dalton was the only person I trusted at this point, other than the elders of the household, so when he knocked and poked his head in, he didn’t get it bitten off or something hurled at him. Dalton winced. “Hey, Cole wants to see you. I know what you said, but he looks bad. Real bad.”

  I considered this for a few seconds. My heart pounded out of my chest at the sound of his name. I hated myself for caving. “I’m probably going to regret this but let him in.”

  The blue sky sprinkled with little cotton balls of clouds calmed me as I sat on the end of the bed, waiting.

  The door squeaked open.

  Cole sighed. “So, do you ever plan on coming out of here?”

  “You can hear what I think so there’s no need for me to verbalize. And no. I plan to stay in here till you all let me leave.”

  “I get that you’re angry. I’m sorry. You see now, why I don’t bother with people, friends, or romance. There’s no use.” Cole’s voice got closer.

  I kept my gaze from his. “If you hadn’t lied to me, I probably would have been fascinated. But you eavesdropped on all those stupid little fantasies I had about you. I’m sure you got a lot of good laughs.”

  “It wasn’t like that at all.” His presence neared me.

  I hated that I could sense it. “Right now, I’m pretty sure I hate everything to do with you.”

  “Look.” Cole formulated his words carefully. “I know I’m strange. I know I’ve held things back from you, but I had the best intentions. There was no reason to burden you with this.”

  “You know what they say about good intentions.” I balled my fists.

  “That’s not fair.” The end of the bed sank with his weight.

  I turned to look at Cole finally.

  “Have you slept?” I sat straighter.

  His eyes were red rimmed, his face washed out, and his cheeks gaunt. He was a dead man walking. His hands were shaky. He raked one of them through his dark, flat hair. Even it had lost its shine. Cole’s face darkened as he regarded the floor, his shoulders sagging. “I’m not here to talk about me. I know I have no right to. I came to ask something of you.”

  “Tell me the truth, and I’ll do whatever you ask. I want to know the real reason you look like that. Every single detail. What in the world could take someone’s health so quickly?”

  “Okay. I’ll give you what you want.” Cole’s determined gaze settled on me.

  I sat in rapt attention.

  “I promised myself I’d never do this to you, but there have been so many times it’s saved your life I couldn’t keep that promise. You’ve asked for the truth, and this is the only way you’ll get it. First of all, your new BFF’s are on a timeline. They know all my secrets and were instructed by Ava to tell you parts of those secrets as each day passed. Each part is going to lead you to an ultimate truth that I’m sure you won’t be able to handle. It’s going to get you killed. Between now and the night of the last sliver of moon, I need you to stay as far away from me as possible and bind your lips from admitting your feelings for me.” Cole took my hand. “Don’t think of me. Don’t talk about me, and, no matter what that ghost says or does, don’t listen to her, do you hear me? You only have to save yourself when the time comes. I may have lied to you before, but I promise I wouldn’t lie to you about this: She’s going to tell you that I will die if you don’t admit you love me. She’s lying. Our souls are destined to be together. They are over a hundred years old, and they travel from body to body, searching for one another. My soul keeps the memories of us, but as time passes, you forget. Your sister is our ghost, who out of a jealous rage made us this way over a hundred years ago. If you admit you love me, that admission will open your body for her soul to possess it for the rest of your life this time around. If you don’t say the words, yes, the body I live in will die, but the part of me that makes me, me—my soul—doesn’t die. My soul will be born into a new body around the same time as yours, and we will find each other again. It always happens, but I avoid you to keep you safe. Up until now, we’ve only ever touched once, which is a story for another day. Ava tricked us this time. When we touched, it triggered the curse, set it in motion. Now one of us has to go, and it’s going to be me.”

  “Now I know you’re delusional, Cole. I think you’re buying into some weird ghost story way too much.” Tearing my gaze from his, I pulled my hand away.

  “It’s good you think I’m mentally unstable. It actually makes what I’m about to do easier. Promise me you won’t hate me when this is all over,” Cole said.

  “Only if you’ll confess one thing.” Every question I could ask suddenly didn’t matter. There was one thing I had to know. “If this ghost story weren’t your reality now, you’d love me?”

  Cole leaned in close to my cheek, letting his lips graze my ear. “I never said I didn’t.”

  I held deathly still.

  He leaned out and, with his forefinger, turned my face toward him. “Look into my eyes.”

  I did.

  “Remember nothing of the last few minutes except the express instructions I’ve given you to keep you alive.” Cole’s eyes brightened in intensity and their green flashed.

  The front lobe of my brain swam. The bridge of my nose had the funniest sensation. My body heated as if someone had inserted a morphine drip into my veins.

  “Now that you’ve successfully provoked me once again, I have to go find your new BFF’s and fire them.” Cole sauntered to the door.

  “Fire them.” What did he tell me? What had we just talked about? “Why are you going to fire them?”

  “Because they are going to get you killed, and I can’t let that happen.”

  “I trust them because they try to show me the truth. I don’t want them gone. If you fire them, I’ll rehire them.” I stood up. “Tell me your secrets and this argument won’t have to happen.”

  Still facing the door, Cole stopped.

  “I want to be a part of your life,” I thought to him.

  Cole turned, his eyes widened to a fearful expression.

  “You really can hear me.” The room spun. “How?”

  “I can’t answer your questions,” he said firmly.

  “Thinking back, this is embarrassing.” I covered my face with my hands. All those explicit thoughts. “How, Cole? How can you do that? I want to understand.”

  “I don’t understand it, so there’s no way to explain it to you. Allie, you’ve forced me into this corner. Shelby and Kaitlyn have to go. I was wrong to trust them. They mean well, I know, but if they don’t handle this situation with delicate precision, you will die. I can’t let you die because of me.”

  “You are embedded with old superstitions, and I think you aren’t as open-minded as you need to be. I’ll be the first to admit this house is diseased with something other-worldly, but I know there are actions we can take to prevent some of the
symptoms.” I walked up to him and took both his hands.

  “No closer, Allie.” Looking stricken, Cole bumped against the door. “Something’s not right. You shouldn’t be able to walk toward me.”

  “I’m done with other people telling me how close I can get to you, including you. I might not be able to read minds, but I do know by your body language that it takes every ounce of your restraint to stay away.” Suddenly I couldn’t go any closer. Something inside me made me step back.

  “Stop talking.” Cole’s eyes grew greener, his voice raising a decibel.

  “Let her kill me. If I’m going to have to live out my life letting her dictate what I can and can’t do with the man I—” The words wouldn’t come out, and it didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if they would change anything. “I’m going to do everything it takes to take down this stalker of yours, and then you’re going to admit you love me, if it kills me.”

  Cole took a sharp deep breath and shook his head.

  A strange pull held me in Cole’s gaze.

  He formulated his words with precision, and I saw no lie in the next string of them. His eyes narrowed and his expression flattened. “I fell in love with another woman years ago. She was in my arms long before you, and no one will ever compare to her or take her place. I spent all of last night in bed with another woman who tried to swipe the memory of her from my mind. Even that didn’t work. Let me make this clear. There’s nothing here to love.”

  Each word pierced my heart like flaming daggers of the most torturous pain.

  His eyes didn’t lie. He’d done it. He really had let someone else in his bed. In his arms. In the most intimate place they could have ever been with him.

  I dropped his hands because for some reason he hadn’t done it first. Backing away from him, I shook my head.

  The green in his eyes dulled to a lifeless olive.

  “Leave.” My voice was barely more than an audible whisper. Family had angered me. Guys who’d used my friends as a pawn in their games had enraged me, but this. I had never been so humiliated. “Don’t speak to me again. Forget I exist.”

  Cole’s determined expression returned. With a lift of his chin, he exited the room.

  Chapter 15

  “I’m out.” I continued to calmly pack my suitcase.

  Shelby and Kaitlyn stared at me as I went back and forth between the closet and the drawers.

  I could almost hear the wheels turning like clockwork in their minds.

  “That’s it. We have no choice but to put plan B into motion. Get her.” Kaitlyn put her hand over the lid of the suitcase. She turned her attention back to me. “We have a road trip to go on. An excursion of sorts. You’re coming. We have lots to discuss.”

  “You didn’t hear me. I’m going home. I’ll leave this place to charity.”

  Sounding bored, Kaitlyn said, “You’ll do no such thing. Pack a light jacket. As I’m sure you already know North Carolina Mountains can get cool at night. Oh, and don’t forget your toothbrush.”

  “Didn’t you hear me? If you can hear what I’m thinking, you can obviously tell I’m not joking. I’m not living in a house where a ghost is trying to kill me over a man who has no use for me other than to continually humiliate me. She wins. Cole’s made it obvious there’s nothing to fight for here, so I’m done.” I moved Kaitlyn’s hand off my suitcase.

  Shelby went to the closet and took out a jacket. She gave it her style guru’s nod of approval.

  “Are either of you listening to me?” I lost my cool.

  “Loud and clear.” Kaitlyn retrieved my toothbrush from the bathroom. “Hold her until we get her stuff packed. She’s obviously not going to leave with us willingly.”

  My legs wouldn’t work. A gentle, unseen force placed me in a sitting position on the bed. Invisible thread sewed my lips together. Rage almost equal to my contempt for Cole boiled inside my head.

  Shelby grabbed a small bag and transplanted some clothes from my suitcase into it. “Now don’t be all mad. You’ll only need one or two changes of clothes. We’re going to the mountains of North Carolina near the Nantahala Gorge. You’ve needed a vacation, and now you get one. There are jewel mines close to there, and we need a few stones that have been untouched by human hands. We’ll have to mine them from the mountains near the freshwater streams.”

  I shuddered under her grip.

  “Cole, you’re welcome to go, but if you do you have to keep your mouth shut and quit angering our new boss.” Shelby spoke to the air.

  I vehemently tried to shake my head no. If I was forced to go anywhere, I sure as hell didn’t want that man-whore in the car with me. The stupid prostitute he’d hooked up with the night before had probably given him something that would jump off him and land on me in the backseat.

  Cole finally made an entrance to my room. He didn’t merely show up. When he stepped into a room, he took up all the air. My air. I hated that. I hated being in lov—

  Cole’s dark eyes bore into mine.

  I couldn’t look away.

  Dammit Shelby.

  As I stared into Cole’s green eyes, a twinkle sent euphoria all over my body. My anger was replaced with the odd notion that I shouldn’t think or say how I felt about him.

  Cole’s stare relaxed as he looked to the bag the girls packed for me.

  My brain went fuzzy and the anger returned. When I could move, I was going to throw them from the window.

  “I did some digging and found some interesting anomalies in Allie’s memories. I can’t believe you used the Jedi mind tricks. You promised you wouldn’t do that.” Shelby picked up my bag and tossed it to Cole. “Trunk of the car, please.”

  “And yours are any better. Besides, what other choice did I have? You two make it impossible to keep her alive.” Cole looked at the bag and then to me.

  “You think she’s going to be able to live with herself knowing you had to die to keep her living? And you could have told her that the woman you spent the night with forces herself into your bed. And the fact that she’s a stupid ghost.” Kaitlyn pulled me up from the bed to a standing position.

  “Whatever will make her hate me.” Cole gritted his teeth.

  “She will be furious when she figures out who she is and what you’ve done. I think the years have clouded your judgment. Maybe Grace deserved you more after all.” Shelby shook her head.

  Kaitlyn’s eyebrows rose to punctuated arches.

  “Could you please shut up?” Cole turned his focus from Shelby to me. He stared into my eyes with a concentrated gaze.

  What was this?

  “My love, forget the conversation since I’ve walked into the room. I’m sorry to do this to you again, but it’s for the best,” Cole said.

  My vision blurred.

  Cole’s stare relaxed, and he looked back to the girls.

  “Do it again, and I spill it all.” Shelby poked Cole’s chest.

  I was lost. Cole was in my room, and I didn’t remember him coming in.

  “They’re not your secrets to tell.” Cole gripped the handles of my bag so tight his knuckles whitened.

  Funny. I didn’t remember him picking it up.

  Shelby and Cole stared each other down.

  “Okay,” Shelby said her fist clenched at her side.

  “All right,” Cole said, turning back to me.

  Him with another woman the evening before. The vision wouldn’t stop torturing me. I would sock him in the face if I had to be alone with him.

  “So you think you have an idea to stop Grace,” Cole asked the girls. His jaw worked angrily.

  I loved that.

  I hated him.

  “Yes,” Kaitlyn answered.

  “Do your business, and leave her out of it.” Cole’s voice was low and cautious.

  Silence. They purposely cut me off from the conversation.

  “Well no damned wonder she’s leaving. Come on.” Shelby turned to me.

&nb
sp; I had no choice. She made me walk.

  “Now you can walk of your own free will to our car, or I’ll carry you, whichever you prefer.” Shelby was quickly becoming my least favorite person.

  “I warned you. There’s no fairytale here,” Cole told Kaitlyn aloud. He wouldn’t meet my gaze.

  I didn’t want him to. Him. Another woman. Together. Red clouded my vision. But why? I’d always preached to Mama against staying with a pig, and here I was. Oink, oink.

  More silent, infuriating head nodding, growls, head tosses, mean and meaningful looks passed between all of them.

  I was going to scream. How could I have let myself lov—

  “Allie, stop that,” Shelby warned.

  “You’d hate me forever if I didn’t force you to hear what we have to say, so I’m doing this as your friend. You can go home afterward, but you need to hear it.” Kaitlyn touched my arm.

  No matter how much I hated Cole now, something in the depths of my heart told me she was right. I nodded, now able to move.

  Shelby blocked the door so Kaitlyn and I could move safely by Cole.

  * * * *

  Once in the car, Kaitlyn geared down to first and sped down the winding driveway. Shelby smiled at her sister from the front passenger seat.

  “We’re so close to the end of this.” Kaitlyn shifted gears and stared at me in the mirror.

  I could still open the door and roll out.

  Shelby pressed me against the seat with a firmer mind grip.

  “Okay, okay. I’m not jumping. But I don’t want to talk about him. I don’t even want to hear his name.”

  Shelby spoke anyway. “We didn’t expect to become emotionally involved, and though you can be somewhat aggravating, you’re hard to dislike. That being said, it’s need to know time. The ghost is trying to get inside you as a gateway to Cole. And yes. Her body is the one you dreamed about on the bottom of the pond. If we can get an Amiante stone found only in the mines of the North Carolina mountains, we can trap her there. But before we can trust you to help us from this point forward, we need to be sure you’re on board. That requires giving you an in depth history lesson.

  “Grace lost her mind. She did atrocious things to people on the farm and became a threat to herself and others, but her father would never see to her being put away, so Colby concocted a plan.