by A. K. Morgen
I doubted telling him Dace could talk to me in my head would go over any better. I’d end up in a straightjacket, swallowing little cups of pills, and sleeping all the live-long day, and I found that possibility less appealing every time I considered it.
We ate in silence for another few minutes and then Dad cleared his throat.
I looked over at him.
“You didn’t … notice anything unusual about him?” he asked.
Was he kidding me? Everything about Dace was unusual, and gorgeous, and … . “Unusual?” I asked innocently. “What do you mean?”
“It’s … nothing.” He picked up his glass. The look on his face gave away the lie, but he might as well have been Fort Knox. I wouldn’t be getting anything out of him until he decided to spill on his own.
I considered asking outright if he’d ever heard Dace speaking when he hadn’t said anything, but I couldn’t do it. I kept envisioning awkward conversations about the effects of grief on mental health, and I wasn’t crazy.
Dad took another drink and then said, “Did he mention he’s been helping me with a book?”
He most certainly had not. “No.” I frowned. Was Dace intentionally infuriating or did it come naturally? “What kind of book?”
“Oh, the darker myths and superstitions. Shapeshifters and werewolves. Demons.” Dad waved his hand like the entire thing was no big deal. “I think he should be the one writing the book.” He paused thoughtfully. “He didn’t mention it?”
I shook my head. Dace hadn’t mentioned it. Not so much as a single word. Why did that not surprise me? “I don’t know him well,” I said. “Maybe he was waiting for me to bring it up. You know, being modest or whatever.”
I’d strangle him when I saw him. With both hands.
Dad shook his head. “I’m not sure I’d call it modesty. He’s … an old soul is the best way to describe him. A very old soul,” he amended, his tone just short of emphatic. “You didn’t pick up on it?”
Yes. No. I hadn’t thought about Dace that way, to be honest. But now that I did, I wasn’t sure I agreed. He had an air about him, like he saw more than most guys his age, but the old soul adage was too simplistic an explanation for him. The mystery surrounding him seemed more complex than that. A lot more. As usual, I just didn’t know what that meant.
I put down my fork, no longer hungry. “I didn’t pay much attention.”
“Oh, well.” Dad rose and gathered up his dishes. “Like I said, he’s a great guy.” He started to the sink and then stopped and looked back over his shoulder at me. “Be careful, Ari.”
Of what? I wanted to ask.
“Of course,” I said instead and gathered up my own dishes. My head spun.
I got the distinct impression Dad wanted to say something, that he knew something about Dace, and for whatever reason, didn’t think he had the right to tell me. But whatever he wasn’t saying had him worried, and that made me nervous.
Chapter Six
Not even in sleep could I escape thoughts of Dace. When I managed to shut off my mind long enough to sleep at all, I dreamed of him. I awoke every morning disoriented, afraid, and unsure what I’d even dreamed. All I remembered clearly were impressions and snatches of color. Blood red on pure white. Black. Fire. Fear.
I still wasn’t afraid of Dace though; I was afraid for him. Something . . . stalked him? Chased him? I didn’t know. But trouble lay around the corner for him, and for me too. I had no doubts about that fact.
By Friday, I felt like an emotional wreck all over again. I was jumpy, irritable, and I couldn’t focus on anything. I went to sleep early that night, and for the first time since meeting Dace, I didn’t dream. My head hit the pillow and I was out. No tossing. No turning. No thinking. Just instant peace.
I awoke at dawn the following morning and didn’t want to let the feeling go. I snuggled deeper beneath the blankets and lay there with my eyes closed for the longest time. When I heard Dad leave two hours later, I slipped regretfully from beneath the covers and dressed, taking my sweet time. I had no real plans for the day, nowhere I needed to be. Nothing pressing I needed to do.
The first thing I noticed when I finally left my room was the note propped up on the table at the bottom of the stairs. Dad had scrawled my name across the top in his unmistakable, nearly perfect hand. I noticed the shopping bag with Farmer’s Market written in neat block letters next. My stomach growled.
I grabbed the note then headed to the kitchen.
One of the things I loved about Dad was his fresh fruit obsession. He never did store-bought. Everything he chose came from one fruit stand or another, and tasted delicious. I set the note on the table then headed for the fridge, my stomach growling the entire time.
My appetite returned little by little, and my body quivered at the thought of food. I rummaged through the now stocked drawer, grabbed an apple, then made a glass of tea. Sitting down at the table, I bit into the apple, moaning as the juice flooded my mouth. I picked up the note to read:
Ari,
I didn’t want to wake you, but I’ll be at the Inn all day, helping with renovations. Beth Michaelson called the house before I left to invite you to some sort of party tonight. Her number is on the pad by the phone in the kitchen. I’ll leave the light on for you if you’re out when I head to bed.
Have fun.
Be careful,
Dad
P.S. I think you should go. It’ll be good for you.
I didn’t know if his outlook came from being a college professor or what, but he never stressed about parties. Before he and Mom divorced, if I wanted to go, I went. If I didn’t want to go, I didn’t. No fuss from Dad. No fuss from Mom. Life had been as simple as that.
Some things never changed. Dad was still dad, and his rules were still the same.
I leaned over and grabbed the pad and telephone before dialing the number he’d written down for me.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Beth?”
“That’d be me,” she quipped, her voice cheerful. “Arionna?”
“That’d be me,” I said, turning the apple around in my hand.
She laughed. “Please tell me you’re calling to say you’re coming tonight?”
“Um, I think so. What’s the deal?”
“There’s a rave of sorts at a converted warehouse right outside of Cabot. A bunch of kids from school are going to be there. It’s nothing major, but it’ll be a blast. They always are,” she said. “Are you in?”
A rave? Why not?
I had nothing else to do, and truthfully, somewhere over the last weeks, I’d resigned myself to seeing the next two years through. I needed to get out there and start making an effort to meet people.
“Where do I need to be and when?” I asked.
“The rave starts at nine, so we’ll pick you up at fifteen-after at your place.” Beth laughed. “We’re always late to these things. Do you have anything to wear?”
“Yeah, I think so.” I wasn’t very girly, but I did love to shop. “What’s the standard rave attire around here?”
“Cute, and warm. No dresses, and wear boots,” she said. “The parking lot is gravel. You need to borrow something?”
I made a quick, mental inventory of my closet. “I’ve got it covered, but thanks.”
“Sweet. We’ll see you tonight then!”
“Tonig—” I started to say, only to realize she’d already hung up. I clicked the phone off and sat looking at it for a minute.
A rave. Well, that was something new.
I spent the remainder of the day getting ready. I hadn’t taken much care with my appearance lately, and that bugged me. My hair had lost some of its usual luster and bounce. I missed looking in the mirror and seeing a sparkle in my hazel eyes. Hell, I missed me.
I painted, plucked, primped, ironed, and otherwise attempted to occupy myself with all the insane things girls do before a night out, relieved to have something mundane and ordinary to focus on for once.
A
t nine, a black Sante Fe pulled into the drive and honked. I gathered my purse, coat, keys, and phone, then headed out, locking the door behind me and silently blessing the girls for pulling in when they had.
My mind had inevitably turned to Dace. My thoughts were always with Dace these days. That fact irritated me. I wanted to yell at myself that I’d been a normal, rational person once upon a time. I hadn’t obsessed about anything, let alone about a guy I barely knew.
I double checked the lock on the front door then headed to the car. One of the triplets, which one I had no clue, sat behind the wheel in the otherwise empty SUV. She waved me around to the passenger side.
I climbed in, wondering where the others were. I didn’t have to wonder long.
“Beth and Dani are riding with Mandy, so it’s only you and me. I hope you don’t mind,” Chelle said, her shoulders hunched as if she were shy. “They like to stay until the very end of these things usually. It can be exhausting if you aren’t used to it.”
“I don’t mind,” I assured her, grateful that I’d have another way home if I didn’t feel up to staying the entire night. Besides, Dace hadn’t been the only one on my mind lately. Chelle and her friendship with him had come drifting up more than a few times.
I fastened my seat belt, contemplating whether or not to bring up the subject.
Chelle reached over and flipped on the stereo before turning the volume on low. Classic rock wafted from the speakers, low enough not to interfere with conversation, but loud enough to give us a little background noise.
“So, how are you?” she asked.
I looked over to find her studying me out of the corner of her eye in the passing shadows. I opened my mouth to give the stock answer then closed it without saying anything. For some reason, the stock answer didn’t seem right this time.
“I have no idea,” I said instead. I’d always heard that sitting side by side in the dark made it easier to talk. Maybe the adage held a grain of truth after all.
“It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it? Losing a parent, moving, starting at a new school …” She checked the rearview mirror and turned left, heading out of town. “I don’t envy you.”
“It is a lot,” I said, thinking she hit the nail on the head. Add Dace to the equation, and things were too complicated to process. Nothing felt like my life anymore. That overwhelmed me.
“If you don’t mind me asking, how did your mom die?”
“Um …” I didn’t mind as much as I thought I would. Chelle made talking easy, or maybe I was tired of not talking about the things constantly running through my head. Even so, a lump formed in my throat. “A car accident.” I swallowed hard. “It was raining out, and a semi headed the other way lost control. She got trapped between the truck and a rock wall.”
“I’m real sorry,” Chelle said, reaching over to squeeze my arm. “A drunk driver killed our mom when we were little. Beth and Dani don’t even remember her. I think I do, but sometimes I wonder if maybe I’m only imagining things.”
“I’m sorry.” I couldn’t imagine losing Mom before I ever had a chance to know her. Hearing Chelle’s story didn’t make accepting Mom’s death any easier, but it did lend a certain perspective I’d been lacking. At least I’d been lucky enough to have nineteen years with her; Chelle and her sisters couldn’t even remember their mom. “Did your dad ever remarry?”
“Yeah; he remarried six years ago. We couldn’t have asked for a better stepmom. She’s great.”
“That’s good.”
Chelle and I lapsed into silence for a little while, and the lump in my throat slowly shrank. I tried to figure out whether to ask her about Dace, or if I should leave him out of the conversation for now.
“You seem different than your sisters,” I said, unable to decide one way or another.
She chuckled. “I hear that a lot. Beth and Dani are more comfortable in groups than I am. I’m happier going my own way.”
“Are you all very close?”
”We are.” Chelle glanced at me, a soft smile on her face. “Beth and Dani have a tighter bond to one another, but I don’t mind. Their personalities make them need that connection, I think. Does that make sense?”
”Yeah, that makes sense.” Mom had been the same way. She’d thrived on social interaction, and had several good friends.
”What about you? Are you and your dad close?”
”We are,” I said. “He moved here permanently after he and my mom divorced. He still came to visit every weekend, but we’re like you in a way. We’re more content doing our own thing.”
”Ah. I had him for Classic Lit last term. He did kind of seem that way. He’s a great teacher, real patient.”
He was a great teacher. I smiled, glad she thought so.
”Were your parents separated long before they divorced?” she asked.
”I guess you could say that. They split up right before Dad started teaching here four years ago. When he’d come down on weekends, he’d stay at the house, but their marriage ended a long time ago. I’m not sure why they decided to make their divorce official when they did.” I thought about it for a minute. “They both seemed more relaxed once they made the decision, though.”
I kind of figured they’d stayed together so long for me, but the situation hadn’t been terrible by any means. There had never been any drama. They’d remained friends and cared about each other a great deal. They were different people, I guess.
”You never stayed with him before?”
”I stayed one night with him on my way back from a school trip up north, but otherwise staying here never came up.” I looked out the window at the blackened shape of the trees, feeling guilty. By the time he and Mom divorced, I was graduating high school and working. There had never been a great time to get away. For a million different reasons, I wished there had been, and none of which, surprisingly, had to do with my newfound fascination with a certain green-eyed hunk. I just couldn’t help but think that things might have been a little easier had I known the town a little. Maybe I wouldn’t feel like everything familiar had been taken away and I floundered in foreign territory.
Chelle changed the subject. “Are you ready for classes?”
”Ugh,” I groaned, not wanting to think about school. “I guess so.”
”It won’t be too bad,” she promised.
”I hope not. I … I don’t know. It feels weird to go back to school after everything.”
”Understandable,” Chelle said as the lights of Cabot appeared in the distance. “At least you’ll know a few faces when you start.”
”Mmm,” I responded noncommittally. I was grateful for that, but knowing other students wouldn’t make returning any easier. Mom had always been there for school things, and going without her was going to suck hard.
”Dace will be there,” Chelle said, glancing at me as we pulled to a stop at the first red light in town.
”Will he?” I made a pretense of looking out the window at the little outlet mall before turning back to her. “I wasn’t sure.”
Chelle nodded once as the light turned green, and then flipped on the blinker and pulled into the right lane. She made a quick turn at the first side street. “He’s assisting your dad with a class this semester, actually.”
I groaned, frustrated. Every little tidbit I learned about Dace made him so much more confusing. For every one answer, there were three more questions that no one even bothered to let me know I should ask. “Is there anything he doesn’t do?”
“What do you mean?”
What did I mean? I sighed. “I seem to bump into him or his name everywhere I go, and every time someone brings him up, it’s like peeling off another layer from an onion. There’s some new tidbit here, some new piece of information there.” I wasn’t an impatient person, but I’d so had enough of being out of the loop.
Chelle laughed. “He is kind of like that, isn’t he?”
”Yes, he is,” I said quietly.
”I can tell you a lit
tle bit about him, if you’d like?”
I hesitated. Now that the moment had come, did I really want to know more? I felt like I knew him, but I didn’t know about him. Everything was a riddle, a puzzle. If I heard more of the same from Chelle, I’d scream. “I guess so, but I have to warn you, I’m a little frustrated with evasions. They’re driving me insane.”
”No evasions,” she promised. “What would you like to know?”
I bit my lip, trying to put my thoughts in order. “When I met you the other day and Dace came up, you acted a little off. I got the impression that you knew something I didn’t.”
Chelle pulled the car into an empty lot then parked. I couldn’t tell what kind of place had been on the lot before, but there was nothing but a big, vacant building standing there now.
“I did know something you didn’t,” she said. “I ran into him after you saw him on campus during registration.”
”Oh.” I paused. “Did he say something about me?”
”In a way.” She twisted around in her seat until she was looking at me head on. “He seemed different than usual when I saw him. Distracted, I guess you could say. I asked him about it, and he told me he’d seen a girl, and that he was certain he’d never seen her – you – before, but he knew you.” She looked a little like she didn’t know what that meant, but wasn’t questioning it either. “Dace doesn’t say much unless it’s important.”
Well, knowing he felt the same connection comforted me a little, but it didn’t help much. He’d already more or less confirmed as much to me. I needed something more tangible. Something, I don’t know, some insight into why, I guess. Why him? Why me? Why now? I’d asked myself the same questions for days, and I still didn’t have an answer.
She frowned thoughtfully as I processed her answer. “My sisters and Mandy were partly right the other day,” she said. “Dace has never shown interest in anyone before. He’s … different than a lot of guys. I’ve always gotten the impression that it’d take something major to get his attention. When he brought you up, I knew it meant something. And then you brought him up, so I kind of put two and two together.”
