“Fight?
Why
would we be fighting?
Who
would we be fighting?”
I searched my mind for reasons, for explanations, for understanding, but I found none. There was nothing more than a blank where the answers should’ve been.
“I don’t know.”
Brady snorted derisively and rolled his eyes.
“You’re terrible at pranks. Always have been.”
“This is not a prank, Brady! How is this funny? Any of it? And how does me playing a joke explain what happened between you and Trace tonight?”
“It doesn’t. Him pawing all over you does, though.”
I could see Brady’s temper start to rise again by the flash of anger in his blue eyes.
“And that doesn’t strike you as odd? That all of a sudden, he’d take an interest in me? Why? Why now? Why after all this time?”
“I don’t know, but it’s gonna stop,” he spat through his firmly gritted teeth.
Having been listening quietly up to that point, Trace finally spoke up. “Look, man, I already told you there’s nothing you can do to stop me. I
will be
with your sister if she’ll have me. I hope we can still be friends, but if not, it’ll be your choice. I’ve already made mine.” Trace broke his eye contact with Brady and glanced at me. His eyes burned into mine as he declared softly, “It’s her. It will always be her.”
My heart jumped in my chest and I felt my face flush with pleasure. His feelings for me were so surreal, so much to get used to that my brain thought I must be dreaming. But another part of me, something soul deep and certain, knew what he was experiencing and that it was real. I felt it, too. There was something important and intense between us. And there always would be. Whether we were together or apart, it would never go away. I also knew that, together or apart, it would very nearly kill us and that we’d never be the same.
“Brady, something has happened to us. You have to believe me.”
I searched desperately through the new information in my mind for something, anything that I could use to help him believe, to make him believe. But there was nothing. I closed my eyes, concentrating even harder, when hazy images began to flit through my head, creatures of varieties I’d never seen or heard tell of, not even in the movies. Their visages were diverse, some hideous and some beautiful. But something about each was terrifying, as if there was a darkness inside them that was rising to the surface to take over all that which was good and light.
As I struggled to wrap my mind around what I was seeing, a raspy, feminine voice whispered in my ear, “See,” and then it was gone. And so was the light. And sound. And consciousness.
CHAPTER FOUR
Sundays were church days. Although Julia had never made Brady and me attend church, we’d decided long ago that it was something we needed to do, so we did. Simple as that. When I woke, as memories from the night before began to rush back into my mind, the need to get myself onto holy ground was nearly overwhelming.
I was lying in bed pondering the increasing urgency of that need when Brady burst into my room.
“Get up, sleepy head! We’ve got to clean the house before the party,” he said, walking to the bed to fling back the covers just as he’d done the day before. He took me by one wrist and one ankle and hauled me from the bed to deposit me in the floor where he left me while he began stripping the sheets off my mattress. “I’ll do laundry if you’ll clean the bathrooms.”
Stunned and confused, I sat in the floor watching my brother ball up my sheets and head toward the door with them. It was exactly what he’d said and done the day before. Saturday, the morning of our party.
Yesterday.
“The party?” I asked, struggling to understand what was happening.
Brady stopped in the doorway and turned to look at me as though I was a small, silly child. “I know that, despite your ridiculous ability to tune things out, there is no possible way you could’ve forgotten that we are having one monster blowout birthday bash tonight. Not possible.”
His words claimed it wasn’t possible, but his expression showed an exasperation that said he was pretty sure it was entirely possible. I really did have a tendency to not pay attention sometimes.
“The party was last night. Remember?”
“What are you babbling about, woman? The party’s tonight. And it’s gonna be epic!”
“Brady, stop screwing around. I’m not in the mood.”
Brady frowned at me for several seconds before his face broke into a smile. “Oh, I see. You’re still trying to punk me. How many times do I have to tell you that you’ll never get me? I’m too good, P. Give it up.”
“But Brady, I’m not—”
“Not gonna happen. And if this is your way of getting out of cleaning the bathrooms, nice try. Now get moving!”
With that, Brady turned and left my bedroom, my pale yellow sheets tucked up under his arm.
Pale yellow?
I thought back through my memories of the previous morning and realized that my sheets had been pale yellow when Brady had carried them from my room the first time. And, if memory served, he would come back in a few minutes and replace them with my favorite light green ones, saying that it was my turn to use them.
Still more than a little confused, I sat in the floor, exactly where he’d left me, and I watched the door and waited for Brady to return. Sure enough, he burst through the door about four minutes later carrying the neatly folded mint green sheets that I expected. Cold chills spread down my arms when he spoke.
“It’s your turn for the green sheets. I know what a baby you are about having the softest ones to sleep on,” he teased.
I was speechless. Had it all been a dream? Was it possible for nothing more than a dream to feel so vivid, so real, so true? Considering the upsetting things I’d seen, I hoped with all my soul that it had, in fact, only taken place inside my head.
But something told me that it hadn’t, that it wasn’t just a dream.
I’d experienced déjà vu before—that vague sensation that I’d seen or heard or done something already—but never had it felt like I was literally reliving something—word for word, action for action—a second time. It was as troubling as it was disconcerting.
I was still sitting in the floor, stupefied, when Brady turned to me as he pushed my pillow into a green pillow case.
“Are you gonna make me come down there? Snap out of it, lazy! This party’s gonna be stellar, but those bathrooms aren’t gonna clean themselves for it.”
I felt the frown crease my brow, as Brady hadn’t said that in my strangely fresh recollection. Of course, I hadn’t still been sitting in the floor reliving the entire scenario the day before either. I’d already gotten up. This particular part was only happening for the first time.
Feeling as though I was chasing my tail, I shook my head to clear the sensation then pushed myself to my feet to go and start on the main bathroom. Minutes later, as I squirted toilet bowl cleaner around the rim of the commode, I heard the phone ring. Without even needing to see the caller ID, I knew who it was.
I paused, toilet brush in hand, and waited for Brady to yell out and inform me that my best friend was on the phone.
And then he did. Right on cue.
“Peyton, it’s Lacey!”
********
Reliving the same day with an entirely new and quite expansive knowledge data base inside my head turned out to be an enlightening experience. Nearly everything that happened took on a new significance. I quickly began thinking of what I was seeing in terms of “day before” and “day after.” My day-after eyes were able to observe and identify myriad things that my day-before eyes had never even noticed. There were innumerable differences and inconsistencies within the people all around me, things I didn’t take note of the day before. Then again, I hadn’t known that strange creatures lurked beneath seemingly normal surfaces the day before either. Turns out that was the case with Lacey, too.
I was just finishing up cleaning the main bathroom when she arrived, just as she had the day before. She would use any excuse for a chance to spend a little time close to Brady, even if that excuse was to help me clean before the party. And it was simply an excuse, because she spent her time chatting, playing with her gloves and keeping an eye on Brady rather than scrubbing anything. It was during Brady’s first interaction with Lacey that I really started to see with my day-after eyes.
He’d come to the bathroom door to tell me that Trace was going to come over to help him move furniture. That’s when I first saw the changes in Lacey.
We were in the second bathroom, a much smaller room that barely accommodated Lacey and me, much less my larger brother. Lacey was leaning up against the door jamb fiddling with a roll of paper towels when he appeared. She straightened.
“Hey, Trace is gonna—” Brady began, stopping abruptly.
I was in the middle of cleaning the sink when his pause caused me to stop and look up to find his reflection in the mirror. What I saw startled me.
Brady had stopped mid-sentence and was staring at Lacey as if he’d never seen her before. Lacey, as always, was smiling broadly, very obviously thrilled with Brady’s attention. But as I watched, her smile faded and an odd trance-like look dropped down over her face and eyes as if a mask were falling into place.
And then I saw her change.
It was as though Lacey sprouted plumage like a peacock. Dozens of nearly-translucent feather-like appendages arose from her shoulders, stretching out to either side and high above her head. They twitched and fluttered, bending lazily toward Brady and waving their delicate tips hypnotically in his direction.
I wondered if maybe that was why Brady was looking at her so oddly. But when I saw him take a step closer to Lacey, I realized that he was merely seeing Lacey, as if for the first time. Although in a way I think he was dazzled by it, I was convinced that Lacey’s bizarre plumage was invisible to him.
Taking yet another step toward Lacey, I heard Brady inhale sharply and then I began to see a hazy fog-like substance emerge from the pores of his skin. It drifted through the air just above the surface of his body, rising toward his head, to collect around his face and mouth. It hovered there for an instant before it shot out in a dense stream to bridge the short distance between his body and Lacey’s. It exploded into a fine mist that surrounded Lacey’s upper body. The plethora of pastel feathers at her back danced and writhed as they seemed to absorb the substance that Brady was donating.
The longer they stood that way, the heavier and thicker the material that was emanating from my brother became. Within seconds, his skin began to turn pale and waxy. As I watched the two of them, I noticed a direct correlation in the deterioration of my brother’s condition and the increase in vibrancy of Lacey’s feathers. Slowly, he very visibly waned as the soft swirling pastels of Lacey’s plumage brightened to beautiful jewel tones that appeared to pulse with life and vitality.
It was then that I realized what was going on, that I listened to the knowledge that had been given to me. My best friend was a creature, too, just not a vampire or a werewolf. She was a succubus.
The longer I stood watching, the more involved I became in what was transpiring. My heart pounded heavily in my chest and I could feel a strange and intensely pleasurable energy invade my body. My breath began to come in short, shallow pants and I felt my eyes drift closed as I was temporarily overcome by the exchange. It was when I heard Lacey’s respirations change that I realized we were breathing with the same rhythm. It was as though I could feel what she was feeling
as she was feeling it
. I couldn’t help but wonder if delightful yet deadly feathers waved behind my head as well.