Secret Worlds (53 page)

“Oh no,” I said certainly. “My mom wasn’t really possessed. Mrs. Franklin just thought she was.”

“Exorcisms are the best way to invite Morts into a home. She might not have been possessed when Mrs. Franklin brought her there, but it’s possible something happened once they began their endeavors.”

I swallowed around a lump in my throat. “Well, anyway, it doesn’t matter because that was a long time ago.”

“Sophia,” Charles said in a way that made me want cry, simply by overwhelming me with his compassion.

“What’s done is done. Can’t change the past,” I added as cheerfully as I could.

The smile on my face felt so unnatural I wasn’t sure how to sustain it nor how to let it fall naturally from my face. I turned away instead.

JANUARY CAME AND WENT. I would not be returning to work. Maybe I would eventually, but for now I needed to keep my distance. I spent all my newly freed-up time poring over books from Adrian, looking for more answers about my ancestor and how to tap into her gift. I needed to be able to protect myself. Charles couldn’t be there to protect me all the time.

Adrian’s books provided minimal support. The information on fire scrying—using fire to see visions—was useful, but the books addressing magic of the mind talked about telepathy and telekinesis and other things of little-to-no help.

Charles and I had been together for nearly six months, though the time felt more like a lifetime. I’d learned some important things from the experience.

One: I didn’t want anything to do with Charles’ world. Two: I wanted everything to do with him. And three: I couldn’t have it both ways.

As though my current stresses weren’t enough, the voices had amplified. I contemplated telling Charles. He’d need to know eventually; if not now, when? Was I ready to tell him these things, even at the risk of losing him?

Charles’ footsteps sounded in the hall outside our bedroom door—footsteps I’d memorized and loved for their reliability. The kind that echoed with a dull, non-threatening thud. His approach replaced my stress with joy, and I bit back a smile.

Somewhere along the way, we’d ended up sleeping in the same bed. I couldn’t think of any other man I would trust enough to do that with.

Charles placed a hand on each side of the doorjamb and leaned into the room. “I have a surprise for you.”

I arched my eyebrows in reply and followed as he led me to the spare room—the room I’d stayed in when I first moved in here. It’d been locked up for over a month now.

He swung open the door and stepped back, allowing me to enter first. The entire wall to my left had shelves, wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor, packed with books. Beneath the window, candles scattered across the surface of a small desk. I smoothed a hand over the arm of a microfiber love seat near the door.

“Charles.” I shook my head, smiling. “I can’t believe you did this!”

A smile tipped the corners of his mouth. “Adrian and my mother donated books to your collection.”

Charles stepped fully into the room. “Do you like it?”

“Like?” I asked, spinning back toward him. “Charles, I
love
it!” I wrapped my arms around him, locking my lips with his. He murmured against the kiss, and I pulled back. “What?”

“I forgot to tell you—my parents are stopping by tomorrow evening for dinner. They called right before you arrived. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind? Of course not. Should I make plans with Lauren?”

His eyebrows pulled together. “That’s why I was telling you.”

“To let me know not to be here?”

“No.” He chuckled. “What are you talking about? They’re looking forward to meeting you.”

“Oh,” I said. I sunk into the loveseat, and Charles sat beside me. “I’ve never met a boyfriend’s parents before.”

Actually, I’d never done anything more than date a guy for a few weeks here and there in high school, which had amounted to little more than hand-holding in the school hallways or kissing in the back corner booth at the local ice rink.

Charles wrapped his arm around me. “You have nothing to worry about.”

But I did. I had a lot to worry about. I was going to meet Charles’ parents—the people I would be stealing him from if he ever became a pure Strigoi and started aging with me.

Was it now, more than ever, important to tell Charles about the voices? Or was now the worst time to bring up my secrets? If I didn’t say something soon, should I never say anything at all?

***

I DECIDED TO TACKLE THE BASEMENT. It was huge and bare—the perfect place to hold rituals. The floor stretched out in an unwrinkled slab of concrete, only chipped in a few places along the walls.

Charles made a run to the hardware store to purchase some paint. When he returned, he set the two buckets on the bottom step. “You’re cute when you’re determined.”

Cute
. Not a word most women like to be called, but better than
crazy
.

Charles cut in the wall edges using the antique white paint, and I rolled out the rest. Within two hours, we’d completed the task, thanks to Charles’ incredible speed.

We headed to the kitchen for a break, leaving the cellar doors open with a rotating fan circulating the air to dry the paint. Charles served peach cobbler and lemonade, but while the cobbler was warm and sweet, the room was cold and heavy with silence.

My basement project was a foolish attempt for distraction. Painting over the imperfections did me no good: waiting for the paint to dry forced me back to my thoughts—forced me to think about Charles’ parents coming to visit and whether I needed to open up. There was one major problem with sharing secrets, though. Once the words left my mouth, I could never take them back.

Charles sipped at his lemonade in a way that seemed almost scripted. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” I said, poking at a slice of peach on my plate.

No, just a bunch of frenzied whispering voices assaulting my brain. As usual
.

Not only were they as non-distinct as ever, overlapping and running wild in my mind—
Sto. Are y. Bel. Didn’t see th. Shhh.
—but now they were accompanied by dread and anger and other emotions that didn’t line up with what I was supposed to feel.

When the paint finished drying, I returned to the basement and applied a stick-on decal to the wall—a brown tree with yellow and pear-green leaves and a bird cage hanging from an outstretched branch with an orange sparrow inside. In spite of all the brightness and openness of the room, I felt only like the caged bird. Trapped inside myself by the truth I refused to share.

Leaving the floor a deep, gray color, we moved the old upstairs couch—just a few shades too pale to be lemon—from under the basement stairs to the space along the wall where I’d applied the tree decal. I tossed a couple poppy red pillows on either side, and still I wasn’t happy.

As if decorating were a substitute for addressing my emotions. But even this realization didn’t stop me; it only made me hate myself more as I continued.

“Do you mind if I finish up alone?” I asked.

Charles placed a gentle kiss on my temple. “I’ll start dinner,” he said, and he left me in the drearily cheerful room.

In one corner of the basement, I set up two wooden chairs I’d painted daffodil yellow and a small table I’d painted avocado green. Beside the couch, I placed a cream-colored cabinet from my grandfather’s house, the only family heirloom I had in my possession. Using the cabinet as a side table, I filled a clear vase with crystal beads and tucked in several silk flowers, creating an arrangement of candy pink gerberas, bright blue hydrangeas, and lime-colored daisies. I spritzed the flowers with a spray that lived up to its promise of crisp rain and traces of fresh mint.

I stepped back. The bright, airy room radiated a warmth I couldn’t share. To say the room reflected me in any way would have been a lie. This room, this house, was merely a reflection of who I
wanted
to be. Not who I was.

I sank into the sofa, dissolving into tears. Guilt became a steady undercurrent to my emotions. Why was it so hard to tell him the truth? I’d told him about the spirit following me, and he’d been able to help with that. He hadn’t thought I was crazy. Even if he couldn’t help with this, there was no reason I shouldn’t be able to open up with him about it.

I took a deep breath, pulling the air all the way down to the bottom of my lungs, then headed upstairs. Charles was in the bedroom, flipping through his music collection. When I stopped in the doorway, he snapped the binder of CDs shut.

Despite all effort to remain calm, my breathing was unsteady. “I need to tell you something.”

His forehead creased. “Anything, Sophia.”

“I have this thing,” I said. The space from the bedroom door to the dresser where Charles stood extended a hopeless distance. “I hear things sometimes—thoughts that aren’t my own.”

Charles blinked but said nothing.

“It started as a hissing noise a few years ago but has gotten worse over the past six months.” Even my voice was shaky. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was too dry. I needed to say this. If he didn’t want to be with me because of this, then maybe we
shouldn’t
be together. “I’m sorry. I’ve been one disaster after the next. I’m complicating your life. If you want me to leave, I would understand.”

Charles crossed the room and grabbed me by the elbow. “You’re nuts if you think I would want you to leave. This is what’s been bothering you?”

I shrugged one shoulder, as though that would hide my hurt. “I was afraid to tell anyone. Everyone else I’ve ever opened up with has turned away.”

“Sophia,” he said, touching my cheek. “I’m not going to turn away from the only person I’ve ever trusted to accept me. Not for anything. You belong to me. If for a moment, then for eternity.”

“Eternity?” I asked wearily.

“We’re going to find a way,” he promised. “This is one of many hurdles we will face, but we will overcome this—this and everything else standing in our way. Whatever it takes. We can fight for this, too.”

“I know, I know. Whatever you do, fight,” I droned. “But I’ve
been
fighting this for a while now. The voices aren’t going anywhere.”

“Perhaps they aren’t supposed to. Remember, you’re the descendant of a spirit elemental. If she was telepathic, you might be, too.”

Charles didn’t understand. I pressed my lips together and shook my head.

“Will you at least look into it?” he asked.

My breath rushed from my lungs. “I don’t think—”

“Good idea. Don’t think for a minute.”

All this time I’d worried that opening up to him would cause problems, but it was the secrets that kept us apart. The more open he’d been with me, the stronger our bond became. I needed to start opening up to him, too.

I sat on the edge of the bed, and Charles knelt in front of me. The cardboard box he pulled from beneath the bed ripped a little as he tugged. He sifted through the contents until he found a large, unmarked book.

“This is one of my mother’s old journals.” He leafed through the pages, fingers running over the lettering and lips moving rapidly until they reached a page headed ‘Telepathy’. “Do you try to tune out the voices or listen to them?”

“Block them,” I said. “Sometimes I can’t hear myself think because they’re so loud and they’re all clattering at once.”

He set the book on top of the box. “Perhaps you try so hard to block the voices that you block your own thoughts in the process.”

I spread my hands. “What am I supposed to do?”

Charles sat beside me on the bed, his hands resting in his lap. “My mother used to say, ‘much confusion can be lifted with an open mind.’ Try.”

I curled my legs beneath me. “Try
what
?”

“To stop fighting. Stop pushing the voices away.”

“If I focus, the voices get louder. Not clearer.”

“Don’t focus.
Open your mind
.”

Open my mind? How was I supposed to do that?

The closest I’d ever come to clarifying the voices was when I was relaxed, so I closed my eyes and slowed my breathing while Charles waited quietly. Several minutes passed. Just as my frustration threatened to take over, something sparked in my head.

…
help in some way.

“Is that you?” I asked.

“Is what me?”

“The voice.”

“No. Telepaths only hear their own kind.”
But it might help.

Now I was certain it was Charles’ voice echoing in my mind. “Help with what?”

Charles stared at me for a long moment, as though considering, then gave a silent nod. “That’s not telepathy.”

“I know.”

For a minute, hope fluttered in my stomach at the idea Charles might be able to help. But either way, at least I was no longer alone in this.

We spent the next thirty minutes testing my ability. Sometimes the thoughts of several elementals floated through my mind at once. At least I assumed they were elemental. Last I checked, humans weren’t very concerned with their fangs or the pain of shifting or whether their wings would be visible in sunlight. If I pinpointed Charles’ voice, the others fell away. I dropped the connection, and all the voices snapped back to a jumbled mess.

Charles pinched the bridge of his nose. “Other elementals wouldn’t like this, you in their thoughts. Perhaps this is why you were so easy for Cruor to influence at first but are now capable of blocking their attempts. We need to tell my parents.”

“Do we?” I asked. I didn’t want to tell anyone more than necessary.

“If you want answers.”

He stood and paced the room, not looking at me as he spoke. His fingers rested over his lips and his thumb rubbed the stubble on his cheek. My hands twisted in my lap, my stomach tightening each time he passed. Back and forth. His thoughts too rapid to focus on.

He lowered his hand to his side. “This might have something to do with your ancestry.”

“I thought so, too. The voices left for a while after I drank Adrian’s blood. Maybe that’s a cure.”

“You’re talking about getting rid of them?”

I stared at him blankly. Of
course
that was what I was talking about. “Did you have a better idea?”