Silver is for Secrets (7 page)

The extra fabric flares out behind her in the wind. And I can almost make out her hair, the dark henna-red color just visible in the moonlight. I call out to her but she ignores me and continues walking farther and farther away.

I go to stand up, but I can‟t. I can‟t get my legs to work right. Icy water drips down my forehead and over my lips. It drains into my mouth and collects on my tongue.

“Don‟t tel anyone,” whispers someone in my ear.

I turn to look, but I can‟t see anything. And it‟s dark al around me.

“If you tel , I‟l know,” she whispers. It‟s Clara‟s voice.

I look back out toward the water, but I don‟t see her anywhere. Instead I see the shadow of someone else—a guy, I think. The posture is stiffer, less languid, and it carries a certain darkness.

“If you tel , I‟l make you pay.” Her voice is coming from just above me now. I look up and a trickle of something drips down my face and onto my leg. I go to wipe it from my cheek. It‟s moist and dark between my fingers. Like blood.

“If you tel , I‟l make you bleed,” she whispers.

My heart throbs; tears stream down my face. The blood continues to trickle down the length of my thigh. I go to wipe it, noticing more blood running down my arm.

I look al around to find her, but there‟s only that other shadow, that guy, and he‟s coming right toward me. I scooch back in the sand to get away from him, still unable to stand. The rain has completely saturated the beach, making it hard to maneuver.

Still, now on hands and knees, I work my way through it, closer to the cottage, away from him.

After managing a few yards, I turn and look back. He‟s stil coming right toward me, a bouquet of some sort in his hands. Lilies, maybe.

The death flower.

I scramble forward as best I can, trying to get my legs to work right, but it‟s just no use. The rain continues to pelt my skin, turning the blood a slight pinkish color. I struggle to continue, the sand weighing me into the puddles now forming at my hands and feet.

“I‟ll make you bleed, Stacey,” her voice continues. “You‟l bleed until there‟s nothing left.”

I try to stand again, almost able to get myself up. But after a couple steps, I feel my legs collapse and my world start to spin. I just feel so weak. So tired, like I‟d give anything to sleep. I take two full breaths, noticing the tinkling of wind chimes in the distance.

“Just rest now, Stacey,” she whispers. “Rest wil make it al go away.” My cheek pressed flat against the rain-soaked sand, I force my eyes to open.

He‟s stil several yards away, but moving closer by the moment. I blink hard to try and focus on his face, but it‟s so blurry and dark, and my head won‟t stop spinning.

Using all the strength in my arms, I lift myself up, back on hands and knees, and make it up onto the back deck. I reach up for the door handle but end up falling backward, smacking hard against my shoulder and hip.

The wind chimes bong even louder, so piercing I almost want to cover my ears to block them out. I go to reach up for the knob again; this time I‟m able to wrap my hand around it. I open the door, crawl inside, and lock the door behind me.

“Amber?” I cal out. “Drea? Is anybody home?”

But there‟s only silence. I try standing again. My knees are wobbly and weak as I struggle to my feet. I flick on the light switch, the sudden blast nearly blinding me.

But when I‟m able to focus, it‟s like I don‟t know where I am. It‟s our cottage, but everything looks different—changed, like someone‟s rearranged al our things. I look to the coffee table. There‟s a knife sitting on it. I grab it for protection, noticing right away that it‟s real y a letter opener—the old-fashioned kind with a curly handle and a pointed blade. I grip the handle and stumble to the front door to make sure it‟s locked, but before I can even get there, the door blows open and makes a knocking sound against the wall.

And then all the lights go out.

I take a deep breath and do my best not to cry out. He‟s here. Inside. I can feel it.

Can feel him.

“Come on out,” he whispers. “I don‟t bite.”

The beating of my heart seems so loud, almost audible, like it could give me away at any second. I work my way slowly and quietly to a corner, away from the light of the windows, the moon casting in. Here, it‟s safe to look around. His figure moves in front of the bay window in the living room. It appears as though he just came out of Jacob‟s room. As though he‟s coming right toward me. I back up farther against the wal , but it‟s like I can‟t move—can‟t get away. Like I‟m trapped in place.

“Stacey,” he breathes. The wooden floor creaks with each step he makes toward me. “Can you hear me?”

Tears stream down my face. I hear myself whimper, my breath choking up inside my throat. I tighten my grip around the letter opener, readying myself to fight.

“Stacey . . . are you al right?” He tugs at my arm, jiggles me back and forth.

Until I wake up.

“Jacob,” I say, al out of breath.

“Yeah,” he says, stil lying beside me in bed. “You were crying.” I look by the side of the bed at the candle stump. We didn‟t end up fal ing asleep until after the candle had burned down through the knots, until after Jacob had extinguished the flame with a snuffer. I shake my head, disappointed that I didn‟t sleep longer, that I don‟t remember any secrets being revealed.

“I‟m sorry,” he says, leaning over to kiss me. “Did I screw up a premonition? It‟s just that you were whimpering a lot. I got scared.”

“It‟s okay,” I say, noticing how his lips taste like the sea. “I probably would have done the same.”

“So do you remember anything?”

I nod, remembering pretty much
everything
—the shadows at the shoreline, not being able to stand, the cold, the words, being chased, the lilies.

“Death,” I whisper. “The death flower. I dreamt about it.”

“What death flower?”

“My grandmother taught me that lilies mean death. The guy in my nightmare was holding a whole bouquet of them, just like in the premonitions I was having about Drea a couple years ago.”

“What do you mean?”

“In the nightmares I was having about Drea, there was this faceless guy and he was carrying a bouquet of lilies. It turned out to be Donovan. Maybe the guy in my dream was supposed to be him.” The thought of him sends a shiver down my spine.

After everything that happened, Donovan was sent to a juvenile detention center until his twenty-first birthday, still three years away. When he told the jury that he was in love with Drea, that his stalking—as most dubbed it—was the result of his confusing their friendship for loveship à la temporary insanity, I think they felt bad for him.
So
bad that it almost didn‟t even matter that someone else got kil ed in his path—an accident, he called it. And everyone believed him.

“Yeah, but why?” Jacob says. “That doesn‟t make sense. He‟s locked up.”

“As far as I know.”

“Did you see the guy‟s face in your dream?”

“No.”

“So maybe it was someone else.”

I shake my head, getting more confused by the second. And then it occurs to me.

I look at Jacob, at the murky aura that surrounds him. “Did
you
dream about anything?”

He looks away, obviously not wanting to tell me.

“Is that a yes?”

“I told you I can handle it.”

“Are your nightmares the reason why you‟ve been acting al quiet lately?”

“What are you talking about?” he asks. “I haven‟t been quiet.”

“Last night at Cape Chowdah you barely said a word. And then when we came back to the house and played Pictionary with everyone, you were still kind of mute.

Plus, yesterday morning when Clara came over . . . you sort of clammed up, and then when I looked back you were gone. It‟s like you haven‟t quite been yourself lately.”

“I have a lot on my mind, Stacey.” He sinks back into the pil ow and chews his bottom lip, his aura all hazy and gray.

“I know, so we should talk about it. Is it that you don‟t trust
me
?”

“How can you ask that?” He reaches out to my forearm.

“Then what?”

“Then nothing.”

“Fine.” I clench my teeth. “Maybe I need some air.”

“Stacey—wait.”

I go to get up and a trickle of blood rolls down my lip.

Jacob grabs a wad of tissues and applies it to my nose.

“Thanks,” I say, pul ing back a bit.

“Don‟t be mad at me. I‟m doing this for us.”

For us? Is he serious? The idea that he expects me to believe that only infuriates me more. “Keeping secrets doesn‟t bring people together; it only pul s them apart.”

“Is that real y how you feel?”

I look at him, into his grayish-blue eyes, the color of steel—and yet they look like they could break at any second. “How do
you
feel?”

“I love you,” he says.

I nod and look away, swallowing down the moment of awkwardness.

“Say something.” He takes my hand, forcing me to look at him.

My chin shakes. Part of me wants to yell at him for keeping secrets from me. The other part wants to tel him how much I care. I slip into Amber‟s pair of frog slippers and press the wad of tissues firmly over my nose. “I‟m gonna get a glass of water.”

“That‟s it?” His voice rises.

But I don‟t know what else to say, and I don‟t want him to see me get teary over this. I stumble my way out the door and into the hallway, maneuvering the corners of the tissue to blot my eyes so I can see. But I almost can‟t believe
what
I‟m seeing.

It‟s Clara. She‟s sitting on the living room sofa with PJ. He‟s consoling her—

wiping her red and weepy eyes, cuddling her with an arm, and bringing a freezerchilled glass of lemonade up to her lips.

“Stacey,” she says, almost surprised to see me.

PJ lets out a sigh as though my sudden presence has infringed upon his attempts at seduction.

“Are you al right?” I ask her.

She shakes her head and wipes her runny eyes. “We real y need to talk.”
twelve

I ask Clara if she wants to take a walk somewhere so we can be alone to chat, but she declines. “Let‟s just talk here,” she says. “I don‟t have anything to hide.” She peers over at PJ, still sitting on the sofa, which perks him right up from slouch mode.

“What‟s going on?” Jacob emerges from my room, his hair al disheveled from our nap, his eyes a bit red.

“You remember Clara,” I say.

He nods, taking a moment to glance at her, but then he focuses back on me, probably feeling as much as I do that we have some unfinished business to attend to.

But first I have some business with Clara.

While Jacob goes off to his room, Clara and I take a seat at the kitchen table.

“So,” Clara begins, her lips al grimaced. “Something‟s going on.” PJ joins us at the table, his posture completely turned toward Clara like he‟s genuinely concerned, even though I know he‟s just trying to score himself a date.

He plucks at his hair spikes, checking for proper alignment, maybe, and props his elbow on the table to listen.

“Someone was in my room,” she says, her hands al fluttery from nerves.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, after our conversation at the Clam Stripper, I went back to my cottage, went into my room to change, and noticed it right away.”

“Noticed what?” PJ leans in farther, practical y sitting in her lap now.

“My stuff was moved around.”

“What stuff?” I ask.

“Random stuff—like my diary. I usually keep it under my bed, but instead it was just lying there on my corner chair. And my bathrobe. Normally I just drape it at the foot of my bed, you know, so I can just grab it easily, but someone hung it on the door hook.”

PJ‟s shaking his head emphatical y, like this is the worst turn of events he‟s ever heard, but all I can think is how it sounds pretty typical. How if it wasn‟t for my kicking skills, maneuvering through the gobs of laundry Amber, Drea, and I manage to deposit on the floor of our room, I probably wouldn‟t be able to find a thing.

“Is that it?” I ask, sensing the bitchiness of my words. “I mean, was anything else moved?”

“Oh yeah,” she says. “My hairbrush. It was on the left side of my vanity table. Not the right.”

“Maybe your mom came in and did some rearranging while you were out.” Clara shakes her head. “My parents are visiting some friends of theirs this week.

It‟s just me.”

“Al
alone?” PJ asks, horns sprouting up on his head. He gets up from the table to fetch a container of mayonnaise and a jar of sour pickles from the fridge. He opens both and sets them in front of Clara as an offering. “Comfort food, my little damsel-in-a-dress.” He glances down to admire her sarong, or more accurately, the juicy thigh that peeks out through the slit. “Trust me,” he says, “a few of these and the world wil seem like a much happier place.” Clara cocks her head at him, like she doesn‟t quite get it. PJ responds by extracting a fat and bumpy pickle from the jar, dunking it into the mayo, and taking a big and crunchy bite. He closes his eyes in sheer delight, like it‟s the best thing since the plate of Mallomars Jacob fixed for me.

I‟m just about to tel PJ that Clara and I could definitely use some alone time when I see her follow his lead. To my complete and utter shock, she takes out a big green mother of a pickle, dips the
entire
thing in the mayo, and crunches down.

“This is actual y pretty good,” she says, smiling for the first time since we‟ve sat down. She double-dunks her pickle and takes another bite, making yummy-good groans the whole time. PJ follows suit—for him the ultimate test of love, I‟m sure—

sharing the mayo jar.

“We should real y talk about your room,” I say, forcing the look of horror off my face.

More groans.

“Um, Clara?” I repeat in an effort to interrupt the little food-love thing they‟ve got going between them. Clara is looking up at PJ, her runny eyes a little bit calmer than just minutes ago. She smiles at him between crunches, a globule of mayo stuck to the corner of her mouth.

“Oh yeah,” she says, as though forgetting I was even here. “Sorry.”