Текст книги "Arise"
Автор книги: Tara Hudson
Соавторы: Tara Hudson
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Chapter
THIRTEEN
When I opened my eyes, I found myself standing in front of the only familiar town house in the Quarter. Although its gas lamps still shined brightly, the windows were dark and shuttered for the night. Obviously, the place didn’t look empty like the neighboring buildings. But it certainly didn’t look as warm and welcoming as it had earlier tonight.
Since I’d only been gone for an hour or two, I doubted that the younger Mayhews had made it back from the club yet. But the materialization had brought me here, which had to mean that at least Joshua had returned early.
“Only one way to find out,” I said aloud, and then cringed. Call it paranoia, but I suddenly felt like any noise I made might attract unwanted attention.
Tiptoeing gave me some foolish comfort, so I moved quickly and quietly to the left of the town house. There, in between the house and its neighbor, a heavy black gate lay open by several inches. I brushed past it, holding my breath as I crept down the narrow alley running alongside the house. Though the rational part of my mind knew I couldn’t rattle them—not without some effort anyway—I dodged a group of metal trash cans before stepping into what looked like the courtyard behind the town house.
As I’d suspected, the space was gorgeous. A twisted live oak tree hung heavy over the flagstone patio, where a marble fountain bubbled next to some expensive-looking teak chairs. The thing I noticed most about the chairs, however, wasn’t their quality; it was the fact that they were unoccupied.
Unoccupied, as in no Joshua.
Without thinking, I let out a loud, frustrated sigh and then clasped my hand to my mouth. For a second I waited for something creepy to swoop into the courtyard and demand that I go with it. When it didn’t, I released my hand as well as the breath I’d inadvertently held.
You’re being ridiculous, I told myself. No one’s tried to get you here.
Then my brain added a snarky little Yet.
I stifled a groan, walked over to one of the patio chairs, and dropped myself into it.
Why had the materialization brought me here when I’d willed myself to wherever Joshua was? For some reason, today’s materializations kept going awry, landing me in all the wrong places at the wrong times.
Discouraged, I tucked my hands beneath my chin and propped my elbows on my knees, preparing to wait until someone else arrived. Then I remembered that Jillian had stayed home tonight. It was a long shot, but perhaps I could call out just loudly enough to get her attention so she’d let me inside. I looked up at the house, trying to figure out which window was hers.
That’s when I noticed the back door.
In the darkness, I’d almost missed it. But now I could see that it stood ajar by nearly a foot, leading into the pitch-black of the house.
I stood and walked over to the door, again trying to move as quietly as possible. From the looks of it, as long as I could squeeze through the opening I could get inside and wait for Joshua in relative safety. It might be an equally lonely wait; but, if nothing else, I could make noise inside without fear of demonic abduction. Probably.
At this point “probably” was good enough for me. So I lifted one foot to take a step inside the town house.
Except … I didn’t.
Despite the attempted step, I found myself right where I started: standing in the courtyard, just outside the back entrance.
I tried again, pushing across the threshold with more effort. But like before, I met with the pressure of an invisible barrier. On impulse I looked down at the flagstones. There, just at the edge of my toes, was a familiar line of chalky gray powder sprinkled across the doorstep.
This time I didn’t try to hide my sigh of frustration.
Ruth.
She’d pulled this trick on me in Wilburton, barring me from Joshua’s house with some kind of magic Seer dust. Looking down at tonight’s handiwork, I snorted softly. For such a devoutly religious woman, Ruth sure did like her witchcraft.
Staring down at the dust, I tried to summon the power within me—something that would help me counteract Ruth’s spell. After all, if I could rend a bridge in two and make myself shine like a bonfire, couldn’t I move a little dirt? But no matter how hard I concentrated, no matter how strongly the breeze rushed through the courtyard at my whim, that stupid dust stayed put.
With a frustrated little growl, I raised my head. Then I shrieked in surprise.
There, smiling out at me from the darkness of the hallway, was another ghostly pale face. My muscles tensed, ready to sprint, but they relaxed when the owner of the face moved forward, bringing himself into better view.
“Long night, huh?”
Alex kept his voice low as he stepped easily over the gray dust and stopped just short of bumping into me. Instinctively, I took one step backward, putting a few more inches between us. Alex’s eyes caught the movement before they connected with mine.
“You okay?” he asked. “You left so soon tonight, I was worried.”
He sounded genuinely concerned, but I still hesitated in answering him. Finally, after an awkward pause, I gave him a slow nod.
“I’m … fine. I just got a little dizzy, that’s all.”
Alex lifted his hand as if to give me a reassuring touch, then thought better of it and dropped the arm to his side. With an embarrassed little cough, he tucked both hands into the pockets of his slacks. When he noticed me staring at his outfit—still the gray suit, although it had to be well past midnight—he gave me a sheepish grin.
“I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss you, so I waited to change.”
I frowned. Why on earth didn’t he want to miss me? The suggestion of familiarity made me inexplicably defensive, so I crossed my arms and smirked.
“What, are you saying you don’t have a two a.m. shareholders’ meeting?”
Alex laughed loudly and then snapped his mouth shut, looking back at the darkened windows behind him. After he made sure no one inside had heard him, he turned back to me. Still smiling, he whispered, “Hey, can I help it if I like to look stylish all hours of the night?”
My own smile twitched involuntarily. “I guess I really don’t have room to judge anyone else’s fashion sense, do I?”
We both laughed then; and, despite everything, I actually felt myself relax a little. Not much, but enough to continue the conversation without my arms folded protectively across my ribs.
“So,” I said, circling around him until I was the closest to the door. “I don’t suppose you know how to undo the mojo from Seer dirt?”
“Voodoo dust,” he corrected automatically.
I shook my head, blinking. “Voodoo dust? Honestly?”
Alex gave me that sheepish grin again. “Honestly. You can buy the fake stuff on practically every street in the Quarter. What you have right there, though, is the real deal. Classic banishing dust, good for warding off evil spirits.”
“Or just spirits in general,” I murmured, kicking ineffectually at the gray line. I turned back to Alex. “Did Ruth really think this was necessary?”
His grin shifted into a smirk. “What can I say? She’s a very religious woman.”
I snorted. “Yeah, except for the fact she practices magic and Voodoo in her spare time.”
“Voodoo is a religion, Amelia. A lot of people down here practice it. Besides, it’s a religion that doesn’t consider itself mutually exclusive with Christianity. The New Orleans Seers have been using it for centuries.”
“What about Ruth?” I asked.
“She grew up here, according to Annabel. So I guess she imported some of its tenets to Oklahoma. And then brought them back home with her, obviously.”
“Well,” I said with a small noise of discontent, “I guess I should feel lucky they don’t make Voodoo dolls of ghosts then, huh?”
Alex raised his eyebrows suggestively. “Oh, but they do.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “Fantastic. Just what I needed.”
“Don’t hate the magic,” he said, laughing softly. “Hate the magician.”
Then, abruptly, his expression grew serious. He walked back toward the door, hands still in his pockets, frowning thoughtfully. This time I didn’t edge away from him but held my ground, even when he stopped right next to me.
When Alex leaned close, my breath caught unexpectedly in my throat. Then, suddenly, he dropped into a crouch. He stared down at the dust and, with a quick flick of his wrist, swept half of it into the dirt of a nearby flower bed. He wiped that hand on one knee of his pants and then used it to push himself upright.
“There,” he said, smiling at me. “The house is all yours.”
“Just like that?” I marveled.
“Just like that.”
I stared wistfully at the cleared stones. “Is it weird that I’d give just about anything to touch dirt?”
“Dust,” he reminded me, chuckling. He stepped back over the threshold, turned around in the hallway so that he faced me, and then held his hand out to me palm up. Like an invitation.
“Coming in?” he asked.
Without thinking, I reached out to take his hand. But right before we touched, I paused. My arm hung in the air until, abruptly, I yanked it back to my side. Afterward, I simply stood there, awkward and stiff.
I couldn’t really explain why I’d so nearly taken his hand, just like I couldn’t really explain why I hadn’t. Maybe because I’d only been able to touch one living person since I died, and I didn’t want it to happen again with another living boy. Especially one with whom I’d just shared a surprisingly pleasant conversation. It felt wrong, the idea that I might experience something like that with someone other than Joshua.
Feeling strangely confused and guilty, I snuck a peek at Alex’s face. In the darkness, I couldn’t gauge his reaction clearly. I probably imagined what I saw shifting in his eyes: eagerness, frustration, anger … then back to that calm amusement he’d shown earlier.
I definitely heard the humor in his voice when he again asked, “So, Amelia: into the house, or not?”
I nodded, relieved that he hadn’t read too much into my hesitation. “Inside. Absolutely inside.”
He backed up against a wall, making room for me to enter. This time I didn’t hesitate. I stepped right through the doorway, leaving behind the broken line of Voodoo dust.
I walked by Alex, and, in the split second I passed him, I felt a strange itch of anticipation. For what, I don’t know. It made me vaguely uncomfortable, so I hurried on, moving farther down the dark hallway toward the foyer.
Other than the tick of a nearby clock and an occasional, muffled snore from upstairs, the house was silent. I crept through the foyer and up the first few steps of the staircase, moving with extreme care. Even if my feet couldn’t make the floorboards creak, something about being in a house full of sleeping, dormant Seers made me want to keep quiet.
Once I’d made it to the first landing I turned back to Alex, who still waited at the bottom of the stairs with one hand on the banister. I raised my eyebrows questioningly, and he shook his head. He pointed one finger toward the ground several times.
Waiting, he mouthed. He traced the outline of a rectangle in the air and then pointed up to the ceiling. Door open. Go on.
I nodded, pleased that I wouldn’t have to go through this routine again when I got to my own room. I’d just turned to continue up the stairs when I paused.
If Alex knew the door to the attic was open, then that meant he’d gone up there. To my room.
Suddenly suspicious, I looked over my shoulder to where Alex had just stood. But he must have slipped back out to the courtyard, because the foyer was now empty of everything but a Persian rug and the ticking grandfather clock. Again, I hadn’t heard a thing when he left.
That boy can disappear like a ghost.
Then, inexplicably, I shuddered. For some reason the sight of the empty foyer gave me the creeps. I turned back to the stairs and began to race up them, my fear about making noise momentarily forgotten.
Chapter
FOURTEEN
I only had to spend about twenty minutes in nervous silence, pacing the tiny floor space in our room, before Joshua came walking up the stairs to the attic bedroom.
“You’re here,” he said in a quiet, relieved voice. The room was so small, one stride brought him next to me. Without another word, he drew me close. I couldn’t help but melt into him, wrapping my arms around his waist in a numb but fierce hug.
“I swear,” I murmured into his shirt, “I shouldn’t miss you this much after only a couple hours.”
He laughed low and began running his fingers through the waves in my hair. “Actually, I wanted to come back here right away. But Annabel told me to quit being a stalker-boyfriend and give you some time alone.”
I bent my head back and looked into his dark eyes. “I’ve had plenty of time alone in the last decade.”
In my head, the snarky voice whispered, And you’ll have plenty more of it soon enough.
I sighed, so quietly I doubted Joshua heard, and lifted onto my toes to give him a small, sweet kiss. When the kiss ended, I lingered there for a moment, waiting for … something more. To feel the heat rising off his skin maybe, or smell a whiff of his cologne.
But nothing happened. It never did when I wished for it this much.
I sighed again and rocked back to my heels. “So,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment as I ran my hands over the lapels of his jacket without feeling them. “Did you like the club?”
“Hated it,” he said instantly, and we both laughed. Then his face grew serious. He tucked one strand of hair behind my ear, too quickly to set my skin tingling. “Are you ready to tell me what really happened back there? Because I don’t believe for a minute that you got claustrophobic.”
I shrugged, averting my eyes to the tiny bed against the wall. “Believe it, buddy. Just a case of way-too-crowded. Mystery solved.”
Joshua made a soft sound of derision. “You’re a terrible liar, you know that?”
“But you love that about me,” I teased, shying away from him with a playful, departing tug on his sleeve. If I kept it light enough, maybe he’d drop the conversation entirely.
I was so intent on keeping him distracted that he completely took me by surprise with what he said next.
“I love a lot of things about you, Amelia,” Joshua said, his voice rough and low.
Oh, God.
I gulped, and then experienced what felt an awful lot like a flush across my cheeks. I hadn’t expected his response, or its obvious meaning. I suddenly knew that if I acknowledged it, we’d finally share those confessions I’d so desperately craved.
And avoided.
Once again I wanted to give in. I wanted to spill that four-letter word and have it mean something. Not I love your eyes or I love your laugh. But I love you. Just you.
Instead, I started to babble inanely.
“You know what I love? Christmas. I’ve loved Christmas ever since I was little. Well, I think I did, anyway, since I haven’t gotten those memories back yet. But it’s a safe bet that I loved it, right? The tree, the food, the presents—”
Joshua interrupted me by grabbing my arm, encircling my wrist with a ring of fire. The supernatural warmth of his touch, however, couldn’t match the very real fire in his eyes. He looked like a man about to say the most important words of his life, and I suddenly found myself silent, hypnotized. If I had a functioning heart, now would be the time it raced uncontrollably.
Joshua’s lips parted—either to kiss me or confess something to me, I was certain.
But to my surprise, he did neither. He paused for another long second as if deciding between several options and then gave me a crooked grin.
“Want to know what your Christmas present is, Amelia?” he asked.
“My … what?”
“Your Christmas present.”
I struggled to make sense of his words and then, finally, the pieces fell into place. I began to sputter in protest.
“That’s … that’s not fair, Joshua.”
He laughed quietly—obviously pleased with himself. “When did I tell you I’d be fair?” he joked.
I shook my head, undeterred. “Joshua, I can’t even make you a reindeer ornament out of pipe cleaners, for pete’s sake. How am I supposed to buy you a gift?”
“I didn’t buy you one, either,” he reassured me. “I didn’t even get the idea for this present until tonight. But now … well, I think it’s pretty awesome.”
“Oh, great,” I groaned, deflating. “Every time you make up your mind, it’s impossible to talk sense to you.”
His grin widened. “Yup. I become an immovable object.”
“Oh yeah?” I grumbled. “And did you ever think that maybe I’m the unstoppable force?”
His smile softened as he placed his fingers at the curve of my waist. “If anything in this life is unstoppable, it’s you, Amelia. Just ask Eli.”
I tried not to wince at the mention of Eli’s name. It provoked thoughts of other things. Things that I almost but not quite forgot each time I stared into Joshua’s eyes.
I suffered a near unbearable pinch of guilt when I thought about the Christmas present I’d planned for Joshua: abandonment.
Abandonment for his own protection, but abandonment still. Whether on my own or wandering with a pack of ghosts, I had no intention of staying.
“Amelia? Are you really mad about the Christmas thing? ’Cause if you are …”
Joshua’s voice called me back to the present, especially when he trailed off. The uncertainty in his tone reminded me to stay anchored in this moment. I had to maximize my time so that both he and I could remember our last minutes as happy ones—probably a disservice to him but a necessity for me, if I wanted to survive the rest of my eternity without him.
I mustered all my courage and flashed him my brightest smile. “I’m not mad at all. Not one bit. But I do have one requirement, okay?”
Joshua nodded. “Name it.”
I curved up one corner of my mouth and placed one hand on the front of his shirt.
“Let me give you your present tonight,” I said in a low purr.
Delight soon replaced the momentary surprise in Joshua’s eyes. “I wouldn’t dream of stopping you, Amelia.”
“Good,” I answered, almost roughly. Then, without further warning, I pressed my hand on Joshua’s chest. Hard.
The force of my shove knocked him off balance, and he flew back toward the tiny bed, taking me with him. In the fraction of the second that we fell together through the air, I stopped his surprised laughter with a fiery, blissful kiss.
We landed on the bed in a tangle, pulling each other into another kiss as quickly as we could. His fingers in my hair, my arms around his neck: everything felt warm and fantastic and right.
While we kissed, I mostly focused on Joshua. But that quiet, desperate part of my brain continued to pray for three things: that Joshua and I would never have to stop doing this; that when we inevitably did, I would find a way to leave him kindly and safely—at least, safely for him; and finally, that just for tonight I wouldn’t have to disappear from his side.
The next morning came too quickly. Though we hadn’t done much more than kiss, I wanted to spend the rest of the day luxuriating in our time together. But Joshua was all jittery excitement as he jumped out of bed and hurriedly threw on new jeans and a sweater. Too soon, he dragged me down the staircase and into the tiny dining room where most of the Mayhew clan had gathered for breakfast. Even then—surrounded by family, friends, and a mouthwatering feast of fruit, bacon, and breakfast gumbo—he bolted down his meal without taking the time to chat, much less breathe.
While he threw down his napkin and gave his aunt Trish a mumbled thank you, I cast a final glance around the room. Ruth had once again failed to join her family. After last night’s little trick with the dust, I more than suspected that had something to do with my presence. All the more reason to follow Joshua on his mission today and get out of the house from which she’d tried to ban me last night.
Before we left, however, I noticed that another face was strangely missing from the breakfast table: Alex’s.
With the exception of their leader, the entire crew of young Seers had made it to breakfast. Annabel, Drew, and Hayley (who evidently had permission to stay over) all huddled together over steaming cups of chicory coffee, each looking the worse for wear after last night’s partying. Jillian also looked inexplicably tired as she glowered at her plate of fruit. She’d probably paced in her room all night, silently bemoaning her tragic social life.
But Alex must have chosen to stay in bed.
Odd, I thought. He didn’t strike me as the late-to-rise type. Then I reminded myself that I hardly knew most of these people.
And in two days I would no longer know them at all....
The warm grasp of Joshua’s hand in mine stirred me from that thought. After giving Annabel a knowing look (which I assumed meant she knew what my present was), Joshua pulled me gently from the dining room. I followed him through the foyer—a far less menacing place in the daylight—and out onto the sidewalk.
The French Quarter looked quite different in the sun, as well. No longer mysterious and shadowed, the streets were welcoming, their colorful shutters flung open to the day. Despite the bright winter air, green ferns cascaded over the balconies above us, some of their tendrils reaching up toward the sky. And although the Mayhews’ town house was in a somewhat residential area of the Quarter, the sidewalk bustled with camera-wielding tourists and harried residents carrying bags full of last-minute gifts.
Joshua gave my hand a quick squeeze before releasing it so that we could move less conspicuously down the street. From the corner of his mouth, he said, “Your present is a couple blocks away. That okay?”
I just nodded, too absorbed in the sights and sounds of the Quarter to answer. We rounded a corner and crossed onto what looked like a more commercial street. As we walked, I couldn’t help but gape into all the shop windows, which displayed everything from ornate, antique furniture to mannequins in outrageous clothing and wildly colored wigs.
When we crossed another street, I could see a motley group of street musicians about half a block away, setting up some makeshift seats next to an open guitar case on the ground. Only after Joshua and I walked out of view did I hear their music: lush, classical jazz … amazing, when I realized it came from their battered instruments. Listening to the music fade into the distance, I sighed wistfully.
To my surprise, my next breath brought with it a brief whiff of scent. Some sharp, delicious spice overlaying the briny smell of seafood. The sensation faded quickly, as my sensations always did, and I groaned softly. Once again I felt that all-too-familiar rush of satisfaction and frustration.
Hearing my groan, Joshua turned back to me with a concerned expression. I shook my head, indicating that I was fine.
Still, his steps slowed and he looked around the street … to make sure it wasn’t too crowded, apparently, because he reached back to take my hand. As he guided me into another alley, I held tight, letting the fire of our touch spread up the veins of my wrist.
I enjoyed the electric tingle so much, I almost didn’t notice that Joshua and I had left the busiest sector of the Quarter. When I started to pay better attention, I saw that our surroundings had shifted from flashy and eclectic to dusty and worn. Here, the shops looked grayer, shabbier. Nor did they boast crowds of onlookers and shoppers. In fact, only two other people were walking on this street. And judging by how they hurried along, they weren’t here on a leisurely stroll.
So I was more than a little surprised when Joshua stopped suddenly in front of a diner with a dirty, cracked front window. Inside, I could just make out the sputter of a neon light, sending off its death glow above several rows of empty tables. The place made me think of a few choice words, “sketchy” and “shady” being the forerunners.
Joshua pulled a slip of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and frowned down at a bunch of scribbles. He looked up at the diner—the Conjure Café, according to the chipped red paint on the window—then back at the paper.
“Um, Joshua?” I prompted. “What are we doing here?”
“I don’t want to tell you, but maybe I need to warn you in advance …?” he mused, more to himself than to me.
“Warn me about what?” I demanded warily.
He flashed me an anxious, close-lipped smile. Then he flicked his head in the direction of the diner.
“Well … your present—it’s kind of inside.”
I blanched. “In there? What are you trying to give me, the Plague?”
He shook his head, snickering nervously. “We’re not hanging out in the diner, Amelia. We’re going to the back. In the kitchen, I think.”
“Joshua, honey, I appreciate the effort, but I don’t really think I need to see the Conjure Café’s culinary masterpieces in the making.”
“I promise this isn’t about the food,” he insisted. “We’re supposed to meet someone in there is all.”
“Who?” I gasped, trying not to imagine someone holding my present in one hand and a meat cleaver in the other.
Joshua hesitated, about to say something. Then he shook his head again, obviously reversing course. “Please, Amelia. Just trust me.”
I pulled my eyes from his and peered into the dim interior of the diner. When I turned back to Joshua, I practically had to rip my bottom lip from my teeth to answer him.
“Against my better judgment, I trust you. But if I see Sweeney Todd back there, so help me God I’m running in the opposite direction, and you can fend for yourself.”
“Deal,” Joshua said, letting out a strangled laugh that made me wonder what made him more nervous: my possible reaction to his gift, or the fact that he’d have to go inside this place to get it.
Before I had the chance to ask him, he crossed in front of me and walked up the two crumbling steps to the front door of the Conjure Café. He pushed on the door, holding it wide-open for me since we didn’t have much of an audience. I took a little gulp for courage, sent up a silent request that I wouldn’t regain my sense of smell when we were inside, and followed Joshua into the diner.
The bell above the entrance gave a weak chime as the door shut behind us. I glanced up quickly, worried that a patron might notice Joshua holding the door open for thin air. But no one occupied the tables scattered haphazardly near the windows.
As Joshua and I moved cautiously toward the back of the dining area, I studied the place further. Besides the fact that this had to be the least-populated restaurant in New Orleans, something about the café felt … off.
The few tables held none of the “extras” you saw in normal diners: no napkin holders, no bin of sugar packets, no salt and pepper shakers. In fact, there didn’t seem to be enough chairs to serve a small dinner crowd. I couldn’t see a cash register anywhere, either. Not even on the long counter in the back, where a bored attendant stood flipping through a tattered magazine.
Something told me that, if people patronized this café at all, it certainly wasn’t for food. My suspicion only grew stronger when Joshua and I approached the back counter.
The attendant, an acne-scarred man who looked well past fifty, hardly stirred when Joshua leaned against the counter directly in front of him. Finally, after being ignored for longer than reasonable, Joshua cleared his throat.
“Um, excuse me?” he said, checking the slip of paper one more time. “I’m looking for … Marie?”
Still silent, the attendant raised one arm and pointed to a curtained doorway at the very back of the restaurant.
“Can we … I mean, can I just go on in?” Joshua asked.
The attendant merely nodded without looking up from his magazine. Joshua caught my gaze and shrugged. I could see my own discomfort reflected in his eyes, but I could also see his determination to follow through with this project. Gnawing wildly on my lip, I nodded reluctantly.
We walked toward the curtain together, and my misgivings intensified with each step.
“Will you just give me a little hint about what we’re doing here?” I murmured, grateful that the attendant completely ignored us.
My question must have made Joshua uncomfortable, because he paused with his hand only inches from drawing aside the curtain. In the softest whisper he could manage, he said, “I’ll tell you if you promise not to be mad.”
“I could never be mad at you,” I whispered back. “But you have this uncanny ability to seriously freak me out.”
Joshua bit his bottom lip—a bad habit he’d obviously picked up from me—and his gaze shifted to the closed curtain. He was silent for so long, I became impatient.
“Could you at least tell me where we are? I mean, where we really are?”
His hand lingered beside the curtain a moment longer, and then as if to answer me, he tugged back the fabric.
For nearly a full minute I had no idea what I was seeing. Instead of a sterile, brightly lit kitchen, this café had some kind of cavelike storage room in the back. At least that’s what it looked like at first.
The room had low ceilings and narrow walls painted dark brown and lined with endless rows of shelves, which were stocked with jars and books and little statues. Roughly hewn candelabra flickered through the dark haze of smoke pouring out of several incense burners.
I peered closer at the strange powders and liquids swimming in the jars, and at the skeletal-faced statues surrounding them. Then I recoiled.
“Oh my God,” I whispered through clenched teeth. “You brought me to a Voodoo shop.”
