Eternal (31 page)

I cowered against the expected blow but she stopped just sort of bashing my skull in with the candle holder. “If you don’t go into the Light, I’ll hurt her!”

Her gaze locked on Jeremiah.

His eyes, though, remained connected with mine. He gave me a sad smile and then he simply faded.

Just like that.

He was gone.

There was no fanfare. No explosion of tiny particles of glitter and light. No grand exit.

He merely ceased to
be
.

A sob choked in my throat. I stared at the spot where he’d been, thinking I hadn’t made it in time. If only I’d gotten here sooner. If only…

My gaze swiveled to Briar who stood staring at where Jeremiah had been. “Good,” she said. “There’s one more demon we can add to our list.”

Violent anger lurched inside me and I lunged, grabbing her around the ankles to drag her to the floor with me.

She struggled but she was no match for my adrenaline powered madness. I climbed on top her and wrested the candle holder from her hand. Some sensible part of me knew if I didn’t throw the makeshift weapon down, I’d beat her to death with it. I pitched it, crashing into the pews. Giving in to animalistic furor, I slammed my balled fists into her face over and over, oblivious to her pleas for me to stop.

I cursed and hit and threatened. I swatted at the hands covering her face to deflect my punches. I was so livid, I didn’t hear the approaching sirens and when I felt two big hands on my shoulders, I fought to break their grip.

“Wren, it’s me,” the voice said. “Stop. You’re going to kill her.”

All the fight in me faded into heart-wrenching grief and I allowed the hands to drag me up, twisting me so that I was looking into Waylon’s worried face.

“He’s gone,” I uttered as I slumped against him. “Oh, God,Waylon. Jeremiah’s gone.”

Seventeen

Waylon beat the ambulance to the hospital and by the time they’d unloaded the stretcher on which they’d strapped me, Laura was there, too.

I’d been so hysterical in the ambulance, they’d already gouged some sort of tranquilizer into me. Now, I drifted, blissfully numb, as they shifted me from the gurney to an emergency room bed.

I stared, floating as if I wasn’t a part of my own body. Nurses rushed around me and I heard them telling one another that I was David’s stepdaughter. Waylon and Laura looked on worriedly.

One of the hospital employees had called my parents and they were on their way back. When they asked if I wanted to talk, I twisted my head away.

It didn’t matter to me that Briar and her two friends had been arrested for breaking into my house and then breaking into the church. Somehow, Waylon convinced the police my clobbering Briar had been in self-defense and they’d tagged her with an assault charge in addition to the other charges. Doubtless, she and her friends would end up doing a stint in juvy but that didn’t matter to me either.

I didn’t care when they bandaged my bruised and bloody knuckles, but I yelped when they tried to remove my ring. “No!”

The well-meaning nurse patted me on the arm. “Calm down, honey. I don’t see any reason to take it off.”

My gaze fixed on the shiny ruby as they stabbed an IV in my other hand and discussed treating me for shock. I didn’t say a word when they wheeled me to the X-ray room and took several views of my throbbing, swollen ankle or when they determined I’d only suffered a severe sprain and covered my foot and ankle in bone-chilling ice.

My thoughts fixed on one thing and one thing only.

Jeremiah was gone.

And even though I knew he was on the Other Side, looking down on me, I would never see or hear or feel him again. I would never know his ethereal embrace or the softness of his lips on mine. I would never again experience that all-encompassing sense of his spirit bonding with mine.

When the nurses finally made sure I was covered and turned down the lights, Laura sidled up to the bed. “Wren?”

My gaze swiveled to hers.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her blue eyes rimmed with tears.

Unable to speak, I merely nodded.

Her gaze dropped to my ring and the now ragged, dirty dress. I knew she wondered what happened but I didn’t have the heart to tell her. Not now.

I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to speak about it.

Memories of Jeremiah’s tender caresses, of his sweet, love-filled kisses, flooded me until renewed grief twisted in my heart like a dull knife. I tried to imagine that he was happy with his family now but instinct told me that being on the Other Side was not what Jeremiah wanted.

He’d pledged himself to me. I could have sent him over at any time. He knew that and yet, he’d never asked me to do it.

I tried to draw a deep breath but my chest hurt so badly, I merely whimpered.

Laura’s hand covered mine. It was meant to be a comforting gesture but at that moment I would have given my soul to feel Jeremiah’s soft energy moving over my skin.

Whatever the nurse had put in my IV increasingly stole over my consciousness. Bliss-filled blackness washed in and out until I couldn’t tell my memories from reality. My lashes drifted opened and closed. My heavy lids fought sleep. I opened my eyes, trying to focus on something that seemed strangely familiar. A face.

His face.

Jeremiah.

I heard myself moan his name. My heavy hand reached for him but Laura caught my hand in hers. “It’s the medicine, Wren. There’s no one here.”

I blinked. She was right. I had only imagined him.

I had only imagined him…

And then, I slipped away.

* * * * *

I didn’t know where I was.

I realized I’d been dreaming and, before I opened my eyes, I tried to reach back and grasp the details of what had been a wonderful dream.

I’d been in a car. There’d been a tree. A Bradford Pear tree, its branches barren and stark against the gray winter sky.

And in its branches, there’d been a dozen or more bright red cardinals. The sight had been wonderfully remarkable, and when I realized why, last night’s events slammed me with sickening force.

Jeremiah was gone.

My eyes snapped open and I bolted upright in the hospital bed.

Instantly, Mom rushed to my side.

I had managed to hold it all together until I saw her worried face. And when she threw her arms around me, the dam burst and I began to sob. After endless tears, she sat on the bed beside me. “Why didn’t you tell me you were having some trouble with girls at school?”

“I wasn’t,” I said. “Not really.”

Mom gave me that look that told me she knew better. “What were you doing in the attic?”

“Just…trying on some of the old clothes.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. I thought back to how happy I’d been less than twenty-four hours ago. Jeremiah’s face had brightened with surprise and admiration when he’d seen me in the dress.

My heart felt like a jagged rock in my chest.

Mom swept my matted hair off my face. “Thank God you’re not hurt worse.”

I bit my bottom lip to keep from admitting that I was crushed. The man I loved, the man I considered my soul mate, my forever love, was gone. She would never understand and I resolved that she’d never know. I would never tell her about Jeremiah.

I couldn’t.

“I’m glad Ella wasn’t there,” she said.

“W…what happened to Briar?”

“I spoke with the Maury County Sheriff. They’re considering charging her as an adult since she already has a juvenile record.”

Briar deserved whatever she got but at the same time, I pitied her. Despite our other differences, she too had been in love with a ghost. Still, it didn’t justify what she’d done to me.

“I want to go home,” I told Mom.

“I’ll get David,” she said and then left the room.

“Wren…”

My head snapped around at the sound of my whispered name. But disappointment welled when I realized there was nothing.

No one.

God, I was hallucinating. I seized the hair at my temples in both fists. I couldn’t accept this. I would never get over this. Fresh tears flooded my eyes and when I heard Mom and David at my door, I quickly swiped my cheeks with the sheet.

David had already handled the paperwork. A nurse came in to remove my IV and after I was issued a pair of crutches to take home, a volunteer with a wheelchair came to roll me to the door.

Mom went ahead and pulled the car around and after David put me in the front seat, he closed the door and Mom pulled out into Columbia’s sparse mid-morning traffic.

“Why did you follow those girls to the church?” she asked.

After a moment of silence, I said, “I don’t know.”

“David and I talked on the way back from Atlanta,” she told me. “We’re going to get you back in counseling. He’s gotten a good recommendation from—”

“I don’t need counseling,” I snapped, cutting her off.

She exhaled sharply. “Wren, this is not up for debate.”

Just yesterday, I’d been mature enough, in my mind, to make the decision to commit myself to another soul for the rest of my life and then some. I was certainly capable of deciding whether I was troubled enough to need counseling.

Mom just didn’t understand.

And there was no way I could make her see without telling her about Jeremiah. But then, what would she think of me?

She’d think I was certifiably crazy.

Jeremiah.

I sighed.

Grief washed over me, shriveling my insides.

Maybe she was right. Maybe a counselor could help me because I knew there was nothing left for me in this life without him. I was nearly eighteen years old and my life was already over with years and years of a zombie-like existence looming out there in front of me.

Sinking back in the seat, I turned my head to watch the everyday world whiz past the car window. All the people whose lives hadn’t been ripped apart. All the people who went along just as happily as they’d gone the day before. I found it ironic that any one of them could be crushed, blindsided, by a cruel twist of Fate, just as I had been. Pain, far worse than the dull aching of my sprained ankle, devastated me.

The strip malls and convenience stores faded from view as we neared the stretch of road leading to Ransom’s Run. How could I ever face going back there without his presence in the house?

I shut my eyes, trying to keep from crying but every time I closed my eyes, I saw Jeremiah’s face. Sighing, I opened my eyes again.

I gaped in awe.

The very tree I’d seen in my dream grew at the edge of the road—and it was dotted with bright red cardinals.

As our car neared it, the flock of birds took flight.

I stared, not daring to hope I’d been given a sign from Jeremiah. But at the same time, I was filled with an innate understanding that dozens of cardinals didn’t flock together that way.

“I’ve never seen so many redbirds in one place.” Mom said, unwittingly confirming my own thoughts. “Did you see them?”

I twisted and looked back as we passed. “Yes.”

Mom glanced in the rearview. “It was almost like…a bouquet of roses.”

Roses.

The one thing I regretted not having at my little wedding ceremony had been a bouquet.

Joy and grief mingled so that I couldn’t tell where one emotion began and the other ended.

Mom turned into our driveway and the thrill of seeing the cardinals faded as our house drew nearer.

How could I go into my room and sleep in my bed—the very bed where
he
took his last human breath? How could I turn over and look at the sepia-toned image of him, knowing that his real beauty was something far more wonderful than any photographer could ever capture?

Mom stopped the car as close to the front steps as she could. I opened the door and managed to get out along with my crutches. My ankle throbbed but the pain was overshadowed by the horrible, awful aching in my heart.

It took me a solid five minutes to get all the way up the stairs. Mom offered to help me into my bedroom but I assured her I could handle it.

“Would you like something to eat?” she asked.

“Not right now. I’m really tired. I just want to lie down.”

She nodded and gave my arm a little squeeze before she slipped back down the stairs.

Every aspect of my being filled to overflowing with dread as I hobbled into my bedroom. Fatigue weighed heavily on my legs and arms and back. I couldn’t wait to get out of this dress and under the covers. I moved slowly toward the bed, trying not to think about how I’d carefully changed my sheets the morning before in anticipation of my wedding night. Now, still clad in an antique dress as if it was some sort of costume, I just felt like an idiot.

I tried to lean the crutches on the side of the bed but they tumbled to the floor and, too frustrated and weary to go after them, I sank onto the mattress and stared up at the spot where the green fabric gathered into a rosette on the canopy.

How many nights had I lain here in Jeremiah’s arms, staring up at that very spot while we talked?

“Jeremiah…” I sighed his name.

“Wren?” the ghost of a voice whispered in response.

I shot up on my elbows, frantically scanning my room. And just when I was about to chide myself for wanting him so badly I was hearing voices that weren’t there, something began to shift and form at the side of the bed.

I blinked disbelievingly but there he stood. Joy heartened me. I stared until a broad smile stretched across his handsome face.

“Jeremiah?” I asked, afraid to believe my eyes. Tears had already begun to stream down my face. I didn’t bother swiping them away as I tried to scoot toward the edge of the bed.

He held up his hand, stopping me. “I can’t stay visible long,” he said.

I watched him, aching to touch him, to throw myself into his arms.

“Lie down and rest,” he whispered as he started to fade.

Panic surged. “No!”

“I’ll come back,” he promised and reached toward my face as he completely disappeared.

I swallowed and forced myself to breathe. I blinked hard, trying to figure out if I’d been hallucinating. What kind of drugs had they given me in the hospital? I couldn’t remember.