“I mean, seriously, Em. Have you ever even been to a field party at Sadie’s Hollow?”
Zoe knew she hadn’t. “It’s not really a field,” Em shot back.
“You have to walk through a field to get there,” Zoe countered, removing a small flask from her backpack and taking a long pull. She held it out, but Em waved her off. “Come on, one little taste. I promise you’ll find Mr. Daniels to be quite the social lubricant.”
“Mr. Who?”
Zoe pulled two sleeping bags from the car. “Christ on a cracker, Em! Jack Daniels. It’s whiskey. Come on, Virgin Mary. Take a swig.”
“You know I hate it when people call me that.”
“Can I call you Wunderkind? That’s what the paper calls you, and I don’t see you getting all pissed off with them.”
Em rolled her eyes. Zoe could really be a pain in the butt sometimes.
A beat passed, and Zoe let out an audible breath. “Okay, okay. I take it back. But that outfit, Em…”
“What about my outfit?” she asked, fingering her pearl necklace while throwing a quick glance at her plaid skirt.
“It’s way more Great Aunt Ethel than it is naughty schoolgirl, Britney Spears, circa ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time.’ ”
“Zoe, you know I had a performance tonight. I’m lucky my dad let me go out at all.”
“I know. I know,” Zoe replied and placed the flask in Em’s hand. “That’s why you need to drink this. We’ve only got a few more weeks before everyone starts leaving for college. Tonight is about being stupid, having fun, and being stupid.”
“You said being stupid twice.”
“Yes, because we need to be double-double stupid tonight. And no writing in your little datebook. I don’t want to see drank alcohol in excess written in your quasi-obsessive-compulsive log.”
Em gave her a sideways glance. Zoe had always teased her about her many journals and datebooks.
She wasn’t going to acknowledge her friend’s little dig, so she changed the subject. “I know I’ve only done online high school, but I’m pretty sure the word you’re looking for is doubly.”
Em MacCaslin didn’t live the life of a typical teenager. Scratch that. Em MacCaslin’s entire existence had been quite different from most people’s. When she was four years old, her parents enrolled her in piano lessons. She was playing complicated pieces by Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and Beethoven before she turned five. At six, she had taken up the violin, and the results were the same. Newspaper articles from her hometown of Langley Park, Kansas, proclaimed her a “Wunderkind” and a “Child Musical Prodigy.” By twelve, she’d focused solely on playing the violin and was living out of a suitcase, traveling to study with master teachers all over the world and taking part in elite competitions.
Zoe put on her puppy dog eyes. “Please, Em. We get the whole night. Your dad thinks you’re spending the night at my place, right?”
Em never lied to her father, but Zoe had been begging her to go to Sadie’s Hollow all summer. She grabbed her backpack and met Zoe’s gaze. Her friend had added an exaggerated pouty lip to her puppy dog eyes.
Em glanced at the ground. “Do you think Michael’s going to be there?”
Zoe’s lips curved into a wry smile. She knew she had won. “I’ll answer that question after you take three pulls off my pretty little flask of Jackie D.”
Em glanced at the flask. “I mean, it doesn’t matter if he’s here. I just thought it would be nice to see him.”
“That’s it? You just thought it would be nice to see him? He is your next door neighbor, isn’t he? Are you telling me you haven’t seen him since you’ve been back?”
Zoe was right. Michael MacCarron was her next door neighbor. Just about every childhood memory she had included him. Born on the same day at the same hospital, Midwest Medical in Langley Park, Kansas, Michael Edward MacCarron and Mary Michelle MacCaslin came into this world looking like twins with their small tufts of auburn hair and fair complexions.
Em twisted her pearls. “I haven’t been around that much. You know that, Z.”
She had been traveling nonstop for the last three years. Two stints in Vienna and then zigzagging back and forth between London, New York, and Tokyo. It had been thrilling, but it didn’t leave any time to visit Langley Park.
She had been back a few weeks to perform at several fundraisers for the Kansas City Symphony and had only caught glimpses of Michael. But from her brief glances, it was safe to say, he was no longer the lanky boy, all knobby knees and sharp elbows, shooting hoops while listening to Nine Inch Nails. Earlier that morning, she had peeked out her window and watched him mow the grass. She couldn’t take her eyes off the boy she used to share a plastic kiddie pool with when she was a toddler.
During her time away, he had transformed into an Adonis of a man with sculpted shoulders, long, strong legs, and a back that rippled with muscles.
Not that it mattered.
She had no time to worry about boys. Soon, life on the road was going to end. She had received a full-ride scholarship to attend The Juilliard School in New York City. In less than two weeks, she was going to be something she hadn’t been since grade school: an ordinary student.
Maybe ordinary wasn’t the right word to describe her.
She was as ordinary as someone who had played a private audience for the Queen of England. Em knew her reputation might intimidate some of the students; but she hoped as they studied and played together, they’d come to see her as a real person. A person who needed music to survive just as one needs air to breathe. A person who couldn’t imagine a day without Beethoven, Mendelssohn, or Tchaikovsky. Her life was always going to revolve around music, and now she was going to be surrounded by people her age with the same passion and drive.
Zoe gestured to the flask, her cocky smile still in place. “You give me something. I’ll give you something.”
Em brought the flask to her lips and swallowed the burning, bitter liquid. “This stuff tastes even worse than it smells.”
“Come on, Wunderkind. You’ve got two more sips to go.”
The alcohol from the last two pulls settled in her belly. “This stuff is terrible.”
“Aw, quit your complaining and take a sleeping bag. We need to get a move on.”
Em took the sleeping bag and looked around. “Where the heck are we?”
They had driven at least an hour south of Langley Park and were now squarely in what looked like the middle of nowhere.
“The tiny little town of Lyleville,” Zoe replied, leading Em into the darkness. “We just have to pass through this field and hang a left at the cemetery.”
“Cemetery?”
“I didn’t tell you?” Zoe asked, taking another long pull from the flask before handing it to Em. “That’s what’s so great about this place. Sadie’s Hollow is this little crater near the Lyleville Cemetery. Cops can’t see us if they drive past, and the townspeople—what’s left of them—don’t come here because of the legend.”
“Zoe, stop messing with me.”
“I’m not messing with you, Wunderkind. The legend goes, a long ass time ago, a girl named Sadie Wilson was supposed to meet her true love here. Her father, some wealthy merchant back when this place was a real city, had forbidden them to marry. So they decided to elope. Except, he never came. Sadie’s so-called true love ended up running off with another woman. The next morning, Sadie was found hanging dead in a tree. They never knew if she was murdered or if it was suicide.”
Em glanced over at the old headstones. A chill crept up her spine. Sadie Wilson’s headstone glowed eerily in the moonlight like a warning beacon. She swallowed hard and started down a set of limestone steps leading down into the hollow when she heard Zoe let out a shriek.
“Hey,” Zoe said, grabbing onto her backpack and pulling her off the steps. Her friend’s wry grin was replaced with a stern glare. “Don’t go on those steps. I’m serious.”
“Why not?”
“People say those a
re The Steps to Hell. They also say that when it’s a full moon, you can see Sadie sitting on them, calling out for the man who betrayed her.”
Em shook her head. This was crazy talk, but that didn’t stop another shiver from running down her spine.
“The whole ‘Sadie’s ghost thing’ is probably just some stupid campfire tale, but why tempt fate?” Zoe added, softening her tone.
Em nodded and followed her friend down the steep incline. The Jack Daniels was making her limbs feel lighter and her head a blissful kind of fuzzy as the overlapping sounds of various conversations permeated the humid night air.
They emerged from the trees and passed into a clearing. Em saw at least forty, maybe fifty kids standing in clusters. Small tents dotted the hollow while flashlights bobbed back and forth like fireflies, and teenagers moved from group to group, laughing and horsing around.
“I can see why you guys come here,” Em said, surveying the large oak and willow trees that enclosed the area. But Zoe wasn’t paying attention to her.
Zoe increased her pace. “I see Gabe. Let’s go say hi.”
“Do you have a thing for Gabe Sinclair?”
“No way, nothing like that,” Zoe said and took a long pull from the flask.
But before Em could ask another question, Zoe was hauling it down into the hollow.
“Hey! Look who’s back in town.”
He handed Em and Zoe cups containing a blue liquid.
Em sniffed the cup. “What is this?”
Gabe took a sip from his own cup. “It’s called Blue Dinosaur. It’s Everclear and Blue Raspberry Kool-Aid.”
“Just drink it, Em,” Zoe said, scanning the crowd, then focused on Gabe. “Is your brother going to stop by?”
“Yeah, Sam will be by. He said he would drop off some beer.”
“How is Sam?” Em asked, surprised at how easily the blue dinosaur punch went down compared to the burn of Zoe’s whiskey.
Gabe smiled. “He’s good. He still thinks he can tell me what to do, classic older brother complex, but he’s been a lot more chill since he met Kara.”
“Who?” Zoe asked, the dyed pink tips of her bob flying across her face as she turned her attention to Gabe.
“Kara’s his new girlfriend,” Gabe answered, looking over Zoe’s shoulder. “I think that’s them now.”
Em and Zoe turned to see the outline of two people walking hand in hand, the larger of the two carrying a case of beer.
Zoe stiffened and turned her attention to a tall guy walking by wearing a Portishead T-shirt.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the psychedelic pharmacy is open. If you want it, I’ve got everything you need to forget about your troubles. Anybody want to take a trip to Mary Jane Land?” he asked, shaking a baggie. “Flights are departing.”
“Me!” Zoe said. She dropped her sleeping bag and backpack on the ground then turned to Em. “Can you just drop our stuff in front of an empty tent? Michael always sets one up for me. I’ll find you in a little bit, okay?”
Before Em could even respond, Zoe was halfway inside a tent surrounded by clouds of hazy smoke.
Gabe gestured toward Zoe’s pack and sleeping bag. “Do you want any help with that?”
“No thanks, Gabe. I’m good,” Em answered.
She drank the last few sips of the dinosaur punch and blinked her eyes. The light from the electric lanterns hanging from the tent posts blurred into the night. She blinked again, trying to focus her gaze.
“Zoe’s tent is the blue one at the end of the row.” Gabe put a steadying hand on her elbow. “And, Em, go easy on the punch. When that Everclear kicks in, it hits like a motherfucker.”
That made her laugh. She giggled as she set off for their tent and threw the packs and sleeping bags inside. Someone handed her another cup of punch, and she downed the tasty liquid in seconds.
She surveyed the hollow and smiled. These were ordinary kids partying at Sadie’s Hollow before they went off to college—and tonight, she was too.
She walked the perimeter of the hollow and searched the teenagers’ faces as they passed by in fuzzy blurs of shrieks and laughter. Even though she had left Langley Park when she was twelve to study abroad, she recognized many of the kids from grade school. Their once rounded, rosy cheeks were leaner now, but she could see reminders of the children she remembered.
It was as if she had hopped into a time machine and fast-forwarded into the future.
“I’m Dr. Who, time traveler extraordinaire,” she giggled.
She stretched her arms toward the sky, tried to focus on the full moon, and twirled with her head thrown back, watching the moonlight dance on her fingertips.
Magic fingers.
That’s what her first violin teacher, Tom Lancaster, had called them. She smiled and made a mental note to stop by and see him before she left for New York. But just as she was about to tuck the thought of Mr. Lancaster away, her foot hit a rock, and she pitched forward. Just as she was about to fall flat on her face, two strong hands gripped her around her waist.
“I didn’t think you would be able to stay upright for much longer, Miss Time Traveler Extraordinaire.”
A solid body pressed into her back. She turned, wanting to learn the identity of her rescuer, but drew a blank when she gazed into the eyes of a young man with sandy blond hair.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
Em shook her head and tried to clear the alcohol buzz. “Wait. I do. You’re Kyle, Kyle Benson. I’m Em MacCaslin.”
“I know who you are, Em. Everybody knows who you are.”
“You took violin lessons with me when we were little, right? See I do remember!” Em added. Her tongue tingled and felt heavier than usual when she spoke.
Kyle let out a laugh, his hands still wrapped around her slim waist. “That’s right, but you were always the best.”
“You were pretty good,” Em replied. “Do you still play?”
“Nah, I quit a few years ago. I was good enough to compete in some state and local competitions, but nothing close to your level.”
“Now it’s photography, right, Benson?” came a voice from the darkness.
Em’s heart skipped a beat. She would have recognized that voice anywhere.
2
“Michael!” Em exclaimed and clasped his hand.
Michael tightened his grip. “I can take it from here, Benson.”
Kyle deflated a notch and stepped back.
“Here,” Michael said, pressing a camera into Kyle’s chest. “You must have set this on the ground. I’m sure you don’t want anything to happen to it.”
“Thanks, MacCarron,” Kyle replied, his tone void of even a shred of gratitude. “I was just making sure Em was okay.”
“She’ll be fine. I’m here.”
Michael met Kyle’s gaze, and a testosterone charge rippled between them. An age-old game of chicken. The only question was who would duck out first?
Kyle broke the standoff. “It was good to see you, Em.” Conceding defeat, he turned and walked toward a clump of teens standing around a keg.
“What are you doing, Em?” Michael asked. His first impulse was to continue holding her hand, but he let go when an uneasiness settled in the pit of his stomach.
Em smiled up at him. “I was spinning. Zoe’s gone to Mary Jane Land, and I’ve mostly been walking around with blue dinosaurs.”
His lips quirked into an amused smirk.
“What I mean is, I’ve been walking around drinking Blue Dinosaurs.”
Michael chuckled. “I see you’ve tried the punch. How much have you had?”
Em held out her hand. She raised her index finger, then slowly added her middle finger. Her eyes narrowed as if muscle control required a supernatural level of concentration.
Michael shook his head. “Em, you can’t even weigh a hundred pounds. I think you’ve had enough.”
“I’ve missed you, Michael,” she said, her gaze abandoning her fingers and meeting his.
He
felt the urge to touch her. He wanted to brush his fingers over each tiny freckle that dusted her cheeks.
Knock that shit off, MacCarron. This isn’t one of your groupie cheerleaders vying for attention. This is Em.
“Let’s sit down on the rocks,” he said.
He stuffed his hands into his pockets and led her over to a cluster of large boulders. They settled on one, and Em leaned into him. The alcohol was loosening her inhibitions, and he liked it—he liked it more than he wanted to admit.
He couldn’t stop throwing glances her way. Had she always been this pretty? The last time he saw her was three years ago when she had returned to Langley Park to spend Christmas with her father. Em’s parents divorced when she was young, and she used to split her time between Langley Park with her father and Sydney, Australia, with her mother. But once she began traveling to study violin all over the world, he had seen her less and less.
Em smoothed out the pleats of her skirt, and he bit back a chuckle. While most of the girls at the party were wearing cut-off jean shorts and tank tops, leaving little to the imagination, Em had on a plaid skirt, a short-sleeved cardigan, and a string of pearls.
Fucking pearls.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, attempting to look incredulous.
“You wore pearls to a Sadie’s Hollow party,” he answered. He’d never thought pearls and plaid were sexy before tonight.
“I’ll have you know,” she raised her index finger, “that tonight I helped raise quite a bit of money for the Kansas City Symphony. Like big-time dollars.”
Jesus, she was an adorable drunk. “You did, did you?”
“I most certainly did,” Em replied, coming to her feet and pretending to play an air violin.
“What did you play?” he asked, unable to hold back a grin.
She closed her eyes and began to bow with her right hand. “Just Paganini. Nel cor più non mi sento.”
“Oh, yeah, just Niccolò Paganini’s most difficult composition, and arguably one of the most technically challenging pieces ever written?”
She opened her eyes and met his gaze. “Just that.”
The Complete Langley Park Series (Books 1-5) Page 26
