The Eternity Key

by Bree Despain

  “What about the kiss?” Tobin says, looking at me. “That’s a pretty creeptastic demand.”

  “You’re not doing it,” Haden says, his face reddening. “He only said that to rouse my ire. I can make it clear that he won’t be doing it.…”

  “And what, risk a fight in the middle of town hall?” I say. “He’s not leaving here until he gets what he wants.”

  “You make it sound like you want to kiss him,” Haden says, glaring at me.

  “Who I kiss is none of your business,” I say. “But, no, I certainly don’t want to.” I take in a deep breath and glance out the closet window where Rowan stands, leaning against a white marble column near the exit. He stares at the phone in his hand, as if counting down the minutes until nine. I am impressed with how he is able to convey that aura of arrogance just in the way he stands.

  I guess I’m going to have to take one for the team.…

  “I’ll do it,” Lexie says. We all look at her in surprise. “What? He said he wanted a kiss. He didn’t specify that it had to be from Daphne. We could send Tobin over to kiss him, and he wouldn’t have the grounds to argue.”

  Tobin sputters. I don’t know if it’s over the thought of him kissing Rowan or Lexie volunteering to do it so nonchalantly that flusters him so much.

  “It’s not a problem,” Lexie says, with a shrug. “He’s tall, he’s blond, he’s hot, and he drives a Ducati. It won’t take much of a stretch of my imagination to act attracted to him.”

  “Excuse me?” Tobin says. “Are you forgetting he’s the enemy? Don’t sound so happy to march over there and start making out with him. It’s not like you can kiss a guy like it’s no big deal and walk away.…”

  “My life, my lips. You have a problem with that?”

  From Tobin’s expression and the chaotic tone coming off him, it seems he does, in fact, have a problem with that.

  I raise my eyebrows, questioning him, but he turns away.

  “So, let’s get this over with,” Lexie says, pushing her way out of the closet. Haden, Tobin, and I watch from the window as she approaches Rowan. When he sees her, he lowers his phone. He says something to her that I can’t make out, but whatever it is, it doesn’t deter her. She rocks up on her heels and reaches her hand behind his neck and pulls his head down toward hers—and kisses him with an intensity far beyond what I would have thought necessary. Tobin groans and turns away from the window.

  Lexie slips her hand down Rowan’s arm and wraps her fingers around his phone. He pulls away and tries to take it from her, but she holds up a finger and says something that makes him stop. She types something into it and then stretches way up on her heels again and whispers in his ear, while she slips his phone into his jacket’s breast pocket. Rowan smiles as if he were Prince Charming.

  Haden makes a noise like he’s trying not to gag.

  Lexie kisses Rowan one last time and then walks back toward us with an exaggerated sway in her hips.

  “See you soon, little brother,” Rowan shouts down the hall, then walks out the front doors with a satisfied swagger.

  “That seemed a little over the top, don’t you think?” I say as Lexie reaches us.

  “Perhaps,” she says, like she kisses random guys without regard all the time.

  Tobin groans again, and I let him be the first to leave the coat closet. I follow a few seconds later, and then Haden waits a full minute before exiting just as Dax comes dashing through the front doors.

  “I lost him,” Dax says with a pant.

  “Already?” Haden asks.

  “I don’t know how he did it so quickly, but he went around the corner of the building and was gone two seconds later.”

  “Kopros,” Haden says, shaking his head. “We need to know where he’s going.”

  “Well, I guess it’s a good thing I sent his number to my Friends with Benefits app, then,” Lexie says, pretending to blow dust off her fingernails.

  “You did what?” Tobin and Dax ask almost simultaneously.

  “I entered my phone number into his phone and told him to call me when he wants to make the exchange for the Compass. But while I had his phone, I sent his contact info to my Friends with Benefits app. It’s this app one of my sophomore Sopranos’ brother invented, where you can enter your … um … special friends’ … contact info into their database. And then any time that friend texts or calls you, it’ll ping you with their location. It’s for hookups, you know?”

  “Hookups?” Haden asks, clearly confused.

  “Booty calls,” she says.

  He looks even more bewildered. She rolls her eyes. “The gist is that when he calls me to set up the exchange for the Compass, the app will tell me where he is. Since he had absolutely no other contacts on his phone, I’m betting there’s a good chance that location will be his house.”

  “That’s brilliant, Lexie!” I exclaim a little too loudly, bringing the attention of a few too many bystanders to our small group.

  “Tobin!” I hear a voice call over the crowd in the entryway.

  We all look up to see the mayor in the archway that leads to the rotunda. Her hands are on her hips, and she seems particularly perturbed as she approaches. Tobin’s hand goes to his jacket, like he’s checking to make sure the scroll is still safe.

  “You didn’t think you were going to get away with that, did you?” she asks.

  chapter thirty-three

  HADEN

  Tobin’s face goes ashen. He steps away from the group like he doesn’t want to incriminate the rest of us by association.

  “Get away with what?” he asks his mother.

  “You didn’t think you could leave before I had a chance to get a picture of you and your date, did you? I’ve been looking for you two all evening.”

  “No,” Tobin says, ducking his head in relief.

  “Come this way, where the light is better,” she says, leading Tobin and Lexie back to the rotunda. She doesn’t give me, Daphne, or Dax a second glance.

  “I guess we’re sticking around a little longer,” Daphne says, like she’s anxious to get home. From the rotunda, I hear Joe announce the last song of the night: “Shadow of a Star.” The crowd cheers in response. It’s the band’s most famous song, and the one Daphne had helped him write when she was a girl. “So grab that special someone before it’s too late,” Joe says in a deep, almost longing voice. “Don’t let your Valentine slip away.”

  As the song starts, Daphne drifts toward the archway as if the music is calling to her.

  Dax leans in close to me. “Tonight is a good night,” he says.

  “I suppose. Other than Rowan, things have gone according to plan.”

  “I mean, tonight is a good night for expressing one’s feelings, that is.” He nods toward Daphne. “Perfect occasion, if you ask me.”

  I sigh, shaking my head.

  “Come on, man. Don’t be a coward.”

  I scowl at him. “Why do you care so much anyway, if I tell her? You think you’re Cupid or something?”

  “I care, firstly because I want you to be happy, and secondly because I think Daphne is part of your destiny, and if that’s true, then it’s my job to help you along that path …” Dax trails off into silence. His eyes watch the dancers in the rotunda, and a strange sense of longing creeps into his face. That’s when I remember that Sarah the Oracle had tasked Dax with the quest of helping me find my true path—and that if he succeeded, he would be reunited with Abbie.

  A wave of guilt crashes over me, because I know that his happiness is dependent on me.

  Dax nudges me with his elbow. “Ask her to dance.”

  “What about the Skylords?”

  “I saw Terresa and Calix leaving when I was in the parking lot, and I can find Ethan if you want me to keep him busy.… So do it,” he says, and disappears into the crowd.

  I stand and watch Daphne as she sways to the music in the archway, her hands on her hips. I can’t believe how much more stunning she seems to get every tim
e I see her. I imagine asking her to dance and then clasping my own hands over those hips. I wouldn’t force her to follow my lead as Rowan had; I would hold her in my arms and sway with her to the rhythm of the song.

  I want to erase any thoughts of Rowan from her mind. I want to hold her and let her lean into me, her head resting on my shoulder. Maybe I could whisper it to her then. Whisper the words I want to say into her ear—get them off my chest—and maybe she wouldn’t be sure what she’d hear me say over the music.…

  But none of that will ever happen if I don’t make my move before the song is over. However, my feet seem to be stuck in one place.

  I feel absolutely paralyzed until I see one of the tenors from our music class approaching Daphne.

  Hades help me, I’m not letting someone else steal my perfect moment.

  Gathering my courage, I take a step in her direction.

  Only to be stopped by a hand on my shoulder.

  “Can I borrow a moment of your time?” Ethan says. I look around, expecting Dax to be nearby, but he isn’t.

  I start to form the words to refuse, but he looks me squarely in the eye and says, “You promised me the favor of hearing me out, or have you already forgotten?”

  “I haven’t.”

  “I’ve come to collect. I would like to request a meeting with you and your compatriots.”

  “Right now?” I glance in Daphne’s direction and see her take one of the tenor’s hands and walk with him onto the dance floor.

  My moment is gone.

  “Not here. You meet with your friends in the workshop room behind the stage before rehearsals, yes?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “You will allow me to join you on Monday,” he goes on, without answering my question. “Make sure all of your comrades are present, but do not tell them I am coming.”

  “What do you want?” I can’t help but imagine that letting Ethan join us is the same as letting a snake into our inner sanctum. We would all be sitting targets in that small room.

  “Only an audience. For you to hear me out, as I said before. I think you will find what I have to say … interesting.” He claps me on the shoulder and says in a much louder, more jovial voice, “I expect to see that essay rewrite on my desk Monday morning.”

  I am surprised by the shift in his demeanor until I notice Tobin and Lexie approaching us.

  “It’ll be there, Mr. Bowman,” I say.

  “Oh, looks like I need to start helping with cleanup,” he says, indicating that the last song is ending. “Good evening.” He nods and takes his leave.

  “What did he want?” Tobin asks me.

  “Just to talk about a homework assignment.”

  “Come on,” Tobin says. “Let’s get Daphne and get out of here. This scroll is burning a hole in my pocket.”

  “I’m here,” Daphne says as she approaches. I can’t help but notice she sounds a little out of breath. “I, for one, would like to find out what’s on the mayor’s precious scroll.”

  chapter thirty-four

  DAPHNE

  Haden, Lexie, and I huddle around Joe’s dining room table after the dance, waiting for Tobin to unroll the scroll. Maybe because it is his mother’s property, or maybe because he’d worked the hardest to get it, or maybe it’s just plain that no one else wants to take responsibility for possibly damaging such an old artifact, but we had all agreed to give Tobin the honor of being the one to handle the scroll.

  He wears a pair of latex gloves and unfurls it with great care, one millimeter at a time. I find myself holding my breath and willing our only lead not to disintegrate in Tobin’s hands. Once it’s unfurled, it’s about the size of a regular piece of printer paper. Tobin places it gingerly between two pieces of glass that I’ve stolen out of a couple of Joe’s picture frames. He holds it in the glass sandwich in front of him.

  “What is it? What does it say?” I ask, trying to see over his shoulder.

  “I have no idea,” he says, setting it on the table. “It all looks like ancient Greek pictographs or something just as archaic. It’s useless unless anyone here knows an archeologist or something, because I doubt we can plug this into a translator app and get an answer.”

  “This sucks,” Lexie says.

  The bubble of excitement that has been building in my chest starts to deflate.

  Haden clears his throat. “Or happens to know someone from an ancient Greek society. Archaic languages are kind of one of my specialties.”

  “Oh yeah, duh,” Tobin says, sliding the glass-encased scroll over to him.

  Haden studies it for a minute. “Do you have paper and a writing utensil?” he asks me.

  I grab my notebook and a pen from my purse and hand them to him. “Just call it a pen.”

  “Noted,” he says, and starts jotting a few lines in my notebook. He crosses something out and then keeps going. After about ten lines, he stops and reads it over.

  “Out loud,” I prompt. “Out loud.”

  Haden holds up the page and reads out loud. “ ‘Cupid and Psyche are made as one. Your true self they will become. Cupid is courage, in the face of fear. Psyche is strength, to deliver all. Let them go. Let them flow, unfurling like the wind. Cupid and Psyche. Cupid and Psyche. Grant them both, and your will be done.’ ”

  “What the crap does that mean?” Lexie says.

  I shake my head.

  “It appears to be nothing more than a poem about Cupid and Psyche,” Haden says, and I can hear the disappointed notes rolling off him. “Just something some ancient poet jotted down, from what I can tell.”

  “But what about the drawing with the symbols?” Tobin asks. “That has to mean something.”

  “Or it could have just been a doodle,” I say halfheartedly.

  “That’s it?” Lexie says. “A poem and a doodle? You mean I had to kiss Tobin so we could liberate some ancient person’s purse trash?”

  I look at Tobin. “You kissed Lexie?”

  Tobin crosses his arms. “Only so we didn’t get hauled off by security. Besides, she’s the one who instigated it.”

  “Whatever,” she says.

  “Well, I’m pretty sure you enjoyed it, thank you very much,” he says, tipping his fedora to her and winking like Frank Sinatra.

  “You. Wish.” For someone who had kissed a practical stranger with barely a second thought, I can’t help but think this protestation seems a little strange.

  I turn my attention back to the scroll. “You’re sure that’s what it says?” I ask Haden.

  “It’s a slightly different dialect than I’ve seen before, but I think the translation is as close as it’s going to get.”

  I sit with my head buried in my hands, my bubble of excitement completely burst. I know it was totally silly and far too optimistic for me to have hoped, but in my fantasies of how this night was supposed to play out, I thought I’d be sitting here with an instruction book on how to use the Compass without sacrificing myself—and instead all I got was this crappy poem.

  I’m glad when the others leave shortly after the revelation that our entire evening had been a waste of time—save for striking a deal with Rowan, that is. The energy I’d had at the dance is completely zapped, and the despair over having fewer answers now makes me feel as useless as an out-of-tune piano.

  I can hear Joe and a couple of his bandmates pulling into the driveway, so I take the scroll and my notebook up to my room before they see me. I don’t have the energy right now to try to carry on a conversation with Bobby Rox or Chris Trip. It really was pretty epic of them to agree to play at a high school dance, and I might burst into tears of frustration if they ask me if I had a good night.

  I set the scroll on my desk and change into my pajamas, ready to go to bed and sleep off my disappointment when I find a red envelope on my bed. At first, I think it’s from Joe or even, for a half a second, that Haden might have found his way up here before leaving with the others, but then I see the Ellis Fields return address and know
it’s from Jonathan. The man loves holidays—from themed costumes at Halloween, elf hats and caroling at Christmas, to his New Year’s Eve matchmaking—but there is no holiday he revels in more than Valentine’s Day. Being a florist and all, it is like his own personal Super Bowl.

  I tear open the envelope, ready to see what monstrosity of a card he picked out this year, and find a picture of a chubby teddy bear dressed like Cupid with a big heart-shaped arrow pointed at me. Grin and bear it, it’s Valentine’s Day! the front of the card says. It is just like Jonathan to know that grinning and bearing it is how I face almost every Valentine’s Day. I open the card and a puff of red, glittering confetti falls on my bed. Inside the card is a handwritten note from Jonathan.

  All kidding aside, I hope one of these Valentine’s Days you’ll find everything your heart and soul desire.

  Miss you, sweetie!

  Jonathan

  P.S. I was going to send chocolates, but they somehow disappeared.

  I smile and shake my head, knowing exactly where my chocolates ended up. I place the card, standing up on my desk, next to the scroll—and then something from Jonathan’s message pops into my head. Everything your heart and soul desire. Heart and soul. Heart and Soul.

  Hadn’t Ethan said something about Cupid’s and Psyche’s names meaning the same thing as heart and soul? The two mythological characters represent the two halves of what made a person who they are—their heart and their soul? I open my notebook to Haden’s translation of the poem. Taking a total shot in the dark, I cross out everywhere Haden has written Cupid and replace it with Heart and then Psyche with Soul. I read the entire poem with my edits:

  Heart and Soul are made as one. Your true self they will become. Heart is courage, in the face of fear. Soul is strength, to deliver all. Let them go. Let them flow, unfurling like the wind. Heart and soul. Heart and soul. Grant them both, and your will be done.

  I read the words over and over again, and as I do, they seem to sound more and more like, not just a poem, but a song. Though I imagine it’s a much more beautiful-sounding one in its intended language. I speak the first few lines out loud in a singsong voice, not sure of the melody, and feel a surge of power with each word.