Copyright © Bianca Hunter 2018
Bianca Hunter
The Eternal
Bianca Hunter has asserted their right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Cover Design by: Elaine Joubert
Cover font: Trajanus Roman by Roger White
ISBN: 978-1-64370-341-1
To all the fierce, fabulous females that have supported me through this
Erin Liles
Monica Campos
Jo Howes
Alice Howes
Elaine Joubert
I would never have dusted this off the shelf if it wasn’t for you
The Eternal
Bianca Hunter
PROLOGUE
How do you do it?
How do you ever breathe again?
The gray suede couch was laying on its side, and I was hugging it, desperately trying to inhale the smells of the house I had lived in for almost ten years. The movers were yelling at each other, and the harder they worked to empty the house, the more their voices echoed as I fiercely tried to pretend none of it was happening. You have to let go, Evelyn. But I don’t want to. I also don’t have a choice.
Please be a bad dream. Please.
Have you ever said something or done something that makes you feel sick to your stomach? Something that wakes you up at 3:00 a.m., your heart beating fiercely against your chest, wanting to scream until the regret somehow leaves your body and you can return to how life was before you said what you said or did what you did? I had been feeling like that for three weeks.
I heard footsteps come into the sitting room. The movers had avoided me since seeing my puffy red eyes and my trembling bottom lip, but I guess they had finally emptied out every other room. I hugged the couch closer like a five-year-old hanging desperately on to a ragdoll. The sun from the bay window warmed my arm. They’re going to tell you to move, and you’re not going to have a choice. A mixture of anger and sorrow filled my veins, a poison travelling through me, stiffening my back and filling my already-heavy chest.
“Miss?” His voice was gentle. The moving company had probably given him a quick summary of what had happened and how they should be nice to me. I squeezed my eyes shut. I need another minute, just a minute. That’s the thing about death. You constantly bargain, beg, or get so angry that you want to scream at the walls, at the floor, at yourself.
“We have finished the rest of the house. We’ll have to start here,” he said as he stepped into the room, his heavy work boots echoing in the bare room. I tried to focus on the sunlight on my arm. Pretend you’re asleep. It will buy you a minute. I’m pretty sure he could hear my heart hammering against my chest.
“Your bag is waiting for you by the front door,” he added in his heavy Polish accent. In other words: It’s time for you to go.
Everyone always thinks the worst day imaginable is the day someone you love dies. That’s a lie. The worst day is the one after the funeral, and then every day after that.
I had one family member left. After fourteen days of searching, the law firm had finally found Kate, my biological mom’s sister. From the moment the lawyer told me that she existed and that I would have to move to Greyhaven in Scotland, I felt like an observer in my own life, like fate had stuck me in a jar, punched a few holes in the lid, and thrown me in a river.
“Miss, please, we have to get to our next job in Raleigh.” His tone moved from gentle urging to pleading. I could never bear the thought of putting someone out, and the accident hadn’t changed that. I took a deep breath and straightened my back looking down at the couch. A flash of Justin, Grace, Dad, and me sitting cross-legged around the coffee table to play Monopoly made me want to fall into it once again.
“Your bag is by the door, and your taxi is still waiting,” the man insisted as I turned to face him. He lowered his eyes to the floor.
“I guess it’s just this room left?” I spoke just for the sake of saying something.
He nodded, his eyes briefly meeting mine as he pressed his fingertips together. I nodded and walked toward him, my eyes fell on the bookshelf, stopping at the spine of the blood-red leather-bound edition of Dante’s Inferno. I’ll take you with me. I pulled the heavy book off the shelf and hugged it close to me. It had been in the house as long as the couch. I lifted it and inhaled the pages. Home.
Chapter One
“Evelyn?” a woman’s voice broke through my thoughts.
I took a deep breath as I turned my head toward Kate, my knotted long black hair sticking to the car seat’s headrest. Dante’s Inferno was safely on my lap. I had loyally held it close during the cab ride to the Raleigh airport, the flight to Edinburgh, and had hugged it to my chest as I searched the crowds in arrivals for Kate, who immediately recognized me.
“Everything okay?” she asked, her porcelain skin hidden under a veil of auburn curls. I couldn’t bring myself to answer her. It would have been so easy for her to move to Raleigh for six months until I turned eighteen, but she had refused. Turns out even if you’re seventeen years and two hundred and ninety-eight days old, you really can’t make any decisions yourself. I wavered between anger and dismay toward my estranged aunt.
“Evelyn,” Kate’s voice rang out again.
I took a deep breath. “I’m okay.” I lied and turned my head to face the passenger window. I was always so soft spoken that Grace called me Jackie O, saying that even if my face was as dark as a thunderstorm, my voice would be so sweet, no one would ever be convinced that I was angry. What I felt now wasn’t anger anyway, it felt more like ___ defeat. The journey from Edinburgh had started off with unending rain and gray skies and awkward silence. Kate didn’t know what to say to me; I assumed it was guilt for forcing me to move to a town that didn’t even appear on any maps. I didn’t know what to say to her. Six months Evelyn, you can do this.
“Okay,” Kate whispered, either unable to start a conversation or unwilling to. At least we had that in common.
I turned back to face the road. Besides the bright fog lights shining on the thick white murkiness directly before us, everything else was bathed in darkness. A cramp clenched my knees and calves as I tried to stretch my legs.
“We’ll be there in a few minutes,” my aunt’s constricted voice broke the thick silence. Neither of us took our eyes off the road.
The moon’s cold blue light illuminated the bare tree branches and settled on the fog. Out of the passenger window, the same eerie white mist collapsed into the darkness of the night. There was something desperately unnerving about it, as if somehow, we were stuck in a glass bottle floating in nothingness. I suddenly thought back to Stephen King’s The Mist. Justin used to always rope me into his horror movie nights; we would sit on the gray couch, my fingernails digging into the soft suede and my eyes squeezed shut until the horror was over.
Justin. Justin. Justin. Justin. The sharp ache of being separated from the only three people who really knew me enclosed around my chest, and the familiar sick-sorrow made its way through my veins and into my heart.
“Oh thank God,” Kate muttered. “We’re about two minutes from home now.”
My grief was immediately replaced with the anxiety of arriving in Greyhaven. I tried to squint through the mist, and finally, my eyes met the outline of what seemed to be an old wooden bridge.
My teeth clenched, and I gripped the edge of the seat. The bridge looked extremely old; the darkness, fog, and cold moonlight made it look like a hunched skeleton waiting in agony for cars to heave themselves over its spine. Flashbacks of the car accident jolted through me as we arrived at the mouth of the b
ridge.
“Has anything ever happened to the bridge? I asked, trying to keep my tone level, as Kate carefully started navigating the car across. It was so narrow that the side of the car almost scraped the wooden struts. Even with the windows closed, it creaked and crackled as we reached the middle. I held my breath, certain that the bridge couldn’t carry the cars weight.
“Well, the river has flooded a couple of times, but luckily, everything we need is in town, so when it does happen, we’re all fine,” she explained, brushing away the anxiety in my question.
“Wait, is this the only way in and out?” I asked not masking my dismay.
“It has been since the town was founded over a thousand years ago, and we’re all still fine,” she replied, her tone level and laced with forced composure. I squeezed my eyes shut as the side mirror touched one of the wooden struts.
“See, just fine,” Kate announced cheerfully. I opened my eyes as the car pulled onto a cobbled stone street.
“There’s no fog here,” I whispered, looking around. “It’s a forest,” I added, captivated by the slightly unnerving scene outside.
The winter had stripped the trees bare and left them swaying in the wind, and cold blue moonlight.
“The town is somewhat hidden in a forest,” Kate replied, grinning. I was desperate to see what the town looked like, but as much as I squinted, the lack of any streetlights meant I couldn’t see a thing. My heart pounded with anxiety once again. I wanted nothing more than to scream and beg Kate to take me back home. Just three weeks ago I was with my family, and now I was here. How had this happened? Why had this happened to me?
We continued traveling down a spiraling road, passing snake-like tree branches hanging over us like a deformed canopy, Kate completely oblivious that I was screaming and crying on the inside. Finally, we arrived at a black cast-iron gate. The intricately carved designs were half hidden in dead ivy that was clearly not ready to let go of the cold iron.
The old gate started opening automatically, and we waited in silence as it took its time. I took a sharp breath, and my heart accelerated. I gripped Dante’s Inferno to stop my hands from shaking as we finally drove into the gate’s open mouth and down the driveway’s long winding throat.
“A few sections of the house are over five-hundred years old,” Kate said as we drove up a hill, around bends, through a thick forest, and finally, as we broke out over the neck of the hill, I saw the house for the first time.
“Oh,” I breathed and frowned as Kate stopped the car just in front of it.
“This is it,” she said, smiling. She opened her car door and jumped out of the driver’s seat so quickly I almost missed it. The cold air swept into the car, and a chill crept down my back. Please, please don’t let this be it.
I was frozen to my seat as Kate walked toward the trunk of the car. A flurry of clouds embraced the moon, sucking away most of its light, leaving the towers, turrets and bay windows shrouded by shadows that swayed with the wind in the same trance-like dance as the bare trees surrounding the manor.
“Evelyn?” Kate called from behind the car. A second later, the trunk sprang open, and I jumped as the cold breeze from outside hit the back of my neck. “Are you okay?” She sounded slightly concerned that I hadn’t tried to get out of the car.
I nodded at first and then realized she couldn’t see me, so I took off my seat belt with shaking, cold fingers and looked back at her while she dragged my massive suitcase out of the trunk. My luggage looked odd and out of place here, like a piece of modern art in a sixteenth-century manor house.
“I’m fine,” I called, my voice shaky. “I was taking it all in.” I mumbled the words in an attempt not to sound insulting as I turned back to look at the house. Please let this be a bad dream, please. Taking another deep breath, I opened the latch of the door. What seemed like an eternity later, I pushed the door open with my tired arm and slowly allowed my feet to sink into the layer of fog on the ground and onto the gravel driveway.
“Please don’t let this be my life, please wake up,” I whispered through clenched teeth as the icy wind tried it’s best to remind me that this wasn’t a dream, and I wasn’t going to wake up in my old bedroom in the morning.
This is the part in the horror movie where you run away instead of stepping into the house, Evelyn. I clenched my teeth, darting my eyes around the forest and the dark driveway. You have nowhere to run.
I clutched the black leather handbag tightly in one hand as I shut the passenger door. By the time I looked up at the house again, the clouds had released the moon, and its wispy light fell onto the scene uninterrupted.
“If I had realized how heavy your luggage was, I would have helped you with this in the airport instead of your handbag,” Kate seemingly to herself.
A shimmering stream of light shone on the house. Two aged oak trees stood guard, frozen and throwing skeletal shadows on the brick visible through ivy that gripped the manor like a parasite.
I felt Kate by my side, but I still couldn’t take my eyes off the house. She touched my arm, nudging me forward.
I took a few steps. The stained glass panels were barely visible, but their motif seemed to be telling some sort of story. I could make out some people and weapons just before dark clouds covered the moon once again and the wind howled, cutting through my clothes with ease.
“Welcome home, Evelyn,” my aunt whispered as she took a step toward the looming house.
Of course, if I had known that I was going to die in Greyhaven, I would have run.
Chapter Two
My body shuddered as I lost Kate to the darkness with every step she took toward the house. The click of a key in the door and a creak in the frosty night made me step back rather than forward. A few seconds later, a sharp light flickered on from inside. I squinted as my eyes adjusted to it and felt my arms fall to my sides as if they no longer belonged to me. The light, which created deep shadows around the house and the trees encircling it, shone through the red-stained windows, and an orange hue spilled out through the open door, giving it a demonic appearance.
“This can’t be it,” I mumbled. If the house was a reflection of my new life, I didn’t want any of it.
Maybe this is your punishment.
“Evelyn?” Kate’s distant voice called through the house, the icy wind sweeping it away immediately.
I wrapped my limp arms around my chest, tracking Kate’s movements around the house from the lights she was turning on throughout the ground floor. She was clearly oblivious to the fact that I was struggling to make my way inside. I threw a glance at the car.
Where would you go? You have nowhere.
“Evelyn?”
Come on, Ev, you can’t stand out here forever.
Maybe just another minute though. I tapped my foot down on the gravel nervously. Come on.
Just before I summoned the courage to step forward, my phone vibrated, and I pulled it out of my handbag, relieved for one more excuse. A photo of Serena with her fire-red hair and green eyes flashed in the dark.
“Hi,” I croaked and cleared my throat.
“How bad is it?” she asked. At the sound of her Southern accent, calm washed over me.
“This is the part in the horror movie where the audience screams run just before the girl goes into the house,” I replied.
“Ah, good then?”
“Kate is strange,” I whispered.
“Strange how?”
“Just strange,” I replied, not having the energy to explain the past few hours.
“It’s only until you finish school. Another six months and you’re free.”
My shoulders and neck tensed at her words, and for the first time, I felt a brief bolt of anger toward her. It wasn’t just the six months I would be trapped in Greyhaven; this new life without my family was forever. I could escape Greyhaven easily enough, but I w
ould never be free.
“Evelyn, you’ve got to keep yourself together,” Serena continued when she realized I wasn’t going to reply.
Considering my family died, and I lost my entire home and all my friends, I think I’m holding myself together just fine. Don’t start a fight with Serena, she’s the only person you have left in the world.
“Mmm,” I replied, trying to keep the strain out of my voice.
“Where are you? It sounds like the wind is howling.”
“Standing outside.”
“Seriously? In the cold?”
“I can’t walk into this house, I just—I just keep thinking I’m going to wake up and none of this will be real,” I replied.
“Just go in—”
“Serena?” I whispered, “Hello?” I checked the home screen and met with the Call Failed message. No signal. Great.
I stared at the screensaver of my family until the screen went blank. I hated the pain and guilt that wrapped their sharp, cold fingers around my soul whenever I looked at their faces. That’s what guilt does to you, and you deserve it. You deserve it for what you did that night.
I bit the inside of my cheek and raised my tired eyes to the illuminated house. There was nothing for it, I had to go in. I took a deep breath and just as I was about to exhale, a loud cracking sounded directly behind me. My muscles contracted as I whipped around. A flash of red hair disappeared into the black forest. I narrowed my eyes.
“Evelyn?” Kate called again from inside the house. “Is everything okay?” She stepped onto the gravel with a crunch.
I turned to look at her for a split-second. “I thought I saw something in the woods,” I mumbled.
“Probably a deer or a fox. We also have a lot of squirrels here,” Kate replied as she reached where I was standing and examined the forest line. “I take it you don’t want to stay out here?” She grinned as she placed her hand on my shoulder. The intense heat of her hand alerted me to how cold my body was standing out here.
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