Silver is for Secrets (3 page)

But instead my jaw shakes at the thought of the words—how they would sound in the air, just hanging over the two of us like hail-fil ed clouds. I mean, I don‟t even know this girl. How am I supposed to tell her that I have this gnawing feeling that she‟s going to die?

She turns to leave, and I can‟t hold myself back. “Are you okay?” I ask her.

Her face scrunches up. “Yeah, why?”

“I was just wondering.” A huge gulp gets stuck in my throat. “You‟re here with your parents, you said?”

Clara nods, her face twisted up in confusion.

“That‟s good,” I say, feeling somewhat reassured that she‟s not alone.

“Oh, yeah, right,” she giggles, “vacationing with Mom and Dad . . . let the party begin.”

“No, it
is
good.” I nod and focus hard on her, wondering if I should say more. But what if I do and she doesn‟t believe me? Or worse, what if she thinks I‟m crazy and never wants to speak to me again?

“Wel , I should get going,” she says, taking a step back like I‟ve total y weirded her out.

This time I let her go, fearful that saying any more at this point would just ruin everything. I know that I‟l have a better chance of sounding convincing if I have more to tel her, if I‟m able to reveal something from a nightmare—something that only she would know.

I need to get some sleep.

I change the bloodied sheets on my bed and open up all the windows in the room, hoping the balmy beach air and the salty smell of the ocean will help soothe me to sleep. I crawl between the fresh sheets and pull the amulet from around my neck.

It‟s a tiny emerald-green bottle made out of sea glass and threaded through a silver chain. My mother gave it to me for my birthday. She said it reminded her of me.

That really meant a lot. I
do
love it. And the fact that she recognizes my taste—not trying to force her tastes on me by buying me some perfume
she
adores—tells me that she respects who I am and what I believe.

I remove the cork from the bottle and spill a few droplets of the lavender oil onto the tip of my finger. The sweet herbal scent helps to center me a bit, helps prepare me for rest. I dab the oil at the pulse points on my neck, at my forehead, chin, and on both cheeks, and then I pull my dream box from my night table.

It‟s a smal ish wooden box I bought at a flea market at the beginning of the summer—smooth, golden pinewood with a chrome hinge and a matching clasp. I lie back in bed, concentrating on the distant sound of the tide going out—the waves pulling at the rocks, stroking them out to sea. Then I open up the dream box and set it right beside me so I can catch my dreams—so they won‟t escape my consciousness like they did last night.

I roll over so that my cheek rests against the powdery sand, and notice how the warm breeze seems to hover over me like a blanket. And yet I‟m freezing. I tuck myself up into the fetal position and concentrate on the sun beaming down right over me. But it doesn‟t seem to help. I rub my legs together and feel goosebumps sprouting from my skin.

“Stacey . . .” Someone whispers from behind me. A female voice, I think.

I try to open my eyes, to turn and look, but it‟s like my eyelids have been sewn shut, like I can‟t move. I listen harder, but I don‟t hear anything else—just the tinkling of wind chimes playing somewhere in the distance and the bubbling of the ocean as it tugs at the surf.

I take a deep breath to calm the beating in my chest, and picture the cold air rushing out of my lips in one long and puffy swirl.

“Don‟t tel anyone,” her voice continues.

“Clara?” I want to ask, but it‟s like I can‟t speak either. I can feel my lips moving, but nothing‟s coming out.

“If you tel , I‟l know.” She‟s closer now. I can feel her icy breath at the back of my neck.

“If you tel , I‟l make you pay.”

I go to swat behind me, but it‟s like I‟m literal y frozen in place. My teeth chatter, my jaw tremors, and my skin stings from the chill. I listen hard for something else and try to breathe my fear away, but it‟s almost as if my lungs have fil ed with ice droplets, making each breath harder, colder, shallower.

After a few seconds, I don‟t hear anything but the cold—like a long and piercing shriek that screams in my ears. I wonder if she‟s gone, if she‟s left me here to freeze to death.

“I‟m here, Stacey,” she whispers, as though reading my thoughts.

I feel myself start to warm a bit—my breath is less frigid, the shrillness in my ears is more like the tide pushing out. And just over it, over the sound of the waves and the chiming, I can hear her crying. It‟s coming from somewhere in front of me on the sand, like she‟s lying down, too. I go to reach out to her, my hand now free to move, and feel something soft, my fingers tugging at her hair, maybe.

“Don‟t tel ,” she pleads.

I open my eyes, but it takes me a moment to focus. I can see her now; her back faces me. She‟s lying on her side as wel , I think. But it‟s so white, almost too bright to see—like a veil that covers her. I strain my eyes and notice a trickling of red. It slides down her back and down the curve of her leg. Like blood.

My body shakes from the cold; it‟s crawling all over me again.

“Stacey,” a voice cal s.

I move my lips to answer, but again nothing comes out.

“Stacey—”

It takes me a moment to realize that the voice is different now, deeper.

“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty,” he says.

I move my lips once more to answer, but my words are blocked. Something‟s covering my mouth, cutting off my breath. I gasp and the feeling wakes me up. I open my eyes wide. I‟m stil in bed, stil in my room. And Jacob‟s hovering over me.

“Are you okay?” he asks, moving his head away. “Why are you so cold?” He pulls the covers over me.

But I can‟t respond right away. The images of my nightmare are stil floating around inside my head; I close the dream box up and flip the clasp shut so my dreams don‟t have time to escape.

“I didn‟t mean to startle you,” he continues, “but we definitely need to talk.” I nod and try to control my breath, concentrating a moment on the puffs as they exhale out my mouth—to see if they‟re visible from the cold. But they aren‟t, even though my body‟s stil shaking, stil frigid. “I had another nightmare.”

“About what?”

I clench my teeth to stop the chattering and, instead of answering, move over to the open window. The ocean is rolling away, stroking at the rocks, leaving a long stretch of beach. I look around, almost half expecting to see Clara out there somewhere. But she isn‟t—just a couple joggers, a group doing yoga, and a handful of power-walkers. I focus up toward the clouds, trying my best to picture something soothing in their globlike formation—the moon, the sun, a giant butterfly. Anything to try and shake this feeling—this darkness that sits so heavy in my heart. But instead I just see redness, blotches of color that swirl inside my head and funk me up even more.

“Can you tel me about it?” Jacob gets up from the bed and places his hands on my shoulders from behind.

I turn around to face him, just as a trickle of blood rolls off my lip.

Jacob pulls off his T-shirt and hands it to me as a tissue. “Thanks,” I say, pressing it against my nose, breathing in his familiar lemongrass scent.

“Can we talk about it?” he asks. “The nosebleeds . . . the nightmares.” I nod and take a deep breath, my fingers resting over the dream box.

“Are they in there?” he asks, gesturing toward the box.

“What?”

“Your dreams?”

I feel a slight smile curl up on my face as I remember how he‟s the one who taught me about dream boxes. I flip the box open. “It was a nightmare,” I say, “not a dream.”

“And what was it about?”

I turn around to face him, his bare chest now a deep caramel color from the sun.

His normal y tawny complexion is darker as wel , like even though we‟ve been vacationing together for the past three days, it‟s the first time I‟m noticing it.

Noticing how his lips look a little bit paler against his tan, smooth skin; how strands of his dark walnut-brown hair look almost golden from the sun; and how his slateblue eyes seem just a little bit brighter, almost silvery. “Clara,” I say, final y. “The girl who came over this morning. That‟s who I dreamt about.” I blot my nose with his Tshirt to make sure the bleeding has stopped.

“So what happened in the dream?”

“I saw her body, I think.”

“You think?”

“It was sort of blurred.” I close my eyes to try and picture it. “It was so white—

almost too white to see. But then everything turned red.”

“Red?”

I nod. “Like blood. Like she‟s bleeding.”

“Are you sure it was her?”

“ I
know
it was her. It was her voice. She told me not to tel .” I feel weird just saying the words, like the words themselves are a secret.

“She told you not to tell
what?”
Jacob asks.

I shake my head, remembering how she also told me that if I said anything she‟d make me pay. But pay how? “It was a premonition,” I say. “I know it was.

Something‟s going to happen to her.”

“And the nosebleeds are a clue?”

I nod and glance down at the bloodstained shirt, having to remind myself of how well Jacob knows me. I mean, it just never ceases to amaze me—how much we can sense about each other.

“I felt it, too,” I say. “When I shook her hand earlier, I sensed right away that she was danger.”

“So we‟l deal with it. We‟l figure it out.”

“It‟s starting again,” I whisper.

Jacob squeezes my hand, his silvery-blue eyes zooming right into me, turning my insides to mush, making my heart do that pitter-patter thing you read about in one of those glossy pink romance books. I look away to keep focused.

“We‟l deal with it,” he repeats.

“I know. It‟s just—I thought this was going to be a relaxing summer.” He pulls something from the pocket of his shorts and places it into my palm.

Right away I know what it is. I can tell from the weight, the smooth, rounded edges, and the sheer familiarity of it. My insides start to mush again, my heart swelling up inside my chest. I open my hand to look. The chunky rocklike crystal fits just perfectly in my palm.

“You left it in my room the other night,” he says. “I sensed you might need it right about now.”

“Sensed?”

Jacob nods and looks away. That‟s when it hits me, when I sense it too—he‟s obviously having nightmares as well. I wait for him to tell me about them, but he just keeps silent.

“How did you know I might need the crystal?” I ask.

“Easy,” he says. “Because I know you.”

“You‟re having them too, aren‟t you?”

“What?”

“Nightmares.”

He wipes away the stray strand of dark hair that has fallen over his eye. “No,” he says, looking away.

But I know he isn‟t tel ing the truth. Jacob and I have a connection that‟s stronger than anything I‟ve ever experienced. In fact, we couldn‟t be more alike. We‟ve both been brought up with folk magic, and we both experience premonitions. They‟re actually what brought us together.

Last year, Jacob was having nightmares that someone was going to kill me. Only he didn‟t even know who I was. He just knew he was having premonitions about some girl who was going to die. After doing some research and honing in on his senses, he ended up transferring schools to find me, practically three thousand miles away. The next thing I knew, here was this guy, this
stranger
, trying to save my life. Except he never quite felt like a stranger. Sometimes I feel like I can look at him and know exactly what he‟s thinking. Like right now.

“I don‟t know why you‟re not being honest with me,” I say.

“It‟s not what you‟re thinking,” he says.

“You‟re
not
having nightmares?”

“Not about Clara.”

“Then what?” I ask.
“Tel me.”

“Not now,” he says. “Right now, we should focus on
your
nightmares. Mine are nothing I can‟t handle.” He takes my hand and sandwiches it between his palms.

“Trust me.”

“I do.”

“Good.” He kisses my cheek and brings his lips up to my ear. “I love you,” he whispers.

I smile and look away, wanting to tel him that I love him too. But I can‟t. I just can‟t seem to get those three little words out, even though I feel them in my heart. And I don‟t know why. I mean, I
have
said it before—to friends, to family—just not to him.

With him it‟s different; it‟s true love—the real thing, the till-death-do-us-part kind.

And for some reason, even though I try to show him I love him all the time, the actual words get stuck in my throat.

“Say something,” he says.

“Like what?”

“Like what you‟re thinking.”

“The same thing you are,” I say coyly.

Jacob smiles and bites his lower lip, staring down at my mouth, making my cheeks feel al warm and flushed. I know he must notice that I don‟t say it.

“Maybe we should talk about something else,” I say.

“Right,” he says, straightening up. “We should talk about your nightmares more.”

“No,” I say. “I mean, let‟s talk about something else entirely.”

“Why?”

“Because,” I say, scrunching my knees in toward my chest, “maybe for five measly minutes I‟d just like to be normal.”

Jacob leaves so I can try and get some sleep, so I can dream and have another nightmare. But as much as I try, even after breaking out brand-new bottles of patchouli and lavender oils, after stuffing a vanilla-bean dream bag under my pillow, it just doesn‟t work. I‟m so completely awake it‟s pathetic.

Instead of sulking over my lack of sleep, I spend some time meditating on Clara

—on her name, her butterscotch scent, and the way my hand felt when she touched it. The rest of my day is spent at the beach with the gang, playing volleyball and eating clam chowder from bread bowls. Every so often I remind myself of Clara. I even cap my night off by inking a giant capital
C
on my hand to encourage Clara-specific dreams. All of this makes me think that when I wake up in the morning I‟l have enough insightful info so she‟l simply
have
to believe me.