44
Tristan
Demi collapses, and my world ends.
“Don’t let go of her hand, Tristan,” Kitty says.
As if I could. As if I would ever let her go.
When she starts to fall, I pull her close and turn her so she’s cradled in my arms, our bound hands resting together on her abdomen. I look down at my girl’s beautiful face, and a rush of panic moves through me. She’s too pale, too still.
“Fix this,” I plead to her aunts. “Help her.”
In my arms, she’s flickering, her body going back and forth from being a warm, tangible form to a figure of energy and mist. I wonder if this is what I looked like as a ghost, and the thought churns my gut.
She can’t become a ghost. I need to spend decades loving her, touching her, living ?with her. She can’t trade herself for me. I will not survive her disappearance.
“What can I do? What can I do?” I ask.
“There’s nothing you can do,” Mickey replies gently.
I don’t dare to look away from Demi, but in my peripheral vision, the aunts are lighting more candles, flipping the page in the spell book, dropping something new into the smoking cauldron.
“We’ll keep trying,” Kitty adds .
Nothing I can do? What do they mean ?there’s nothing I can do? The love of my life is in dying my arms, fading back and forth between this world and the next. Does she even know I’m here with her? That she’s not alone?
“Demi, stay with me, baby,” I say, my voice breaking. I grind my teeth so hard I might break them.
Her chest rises and falls in an uneven rhythm, but she’s still breathing.
And as long as she’s breathing, we have a chance.
I zero in on that movement of her chest, positioning our joined hands just under her ribs, watching the soft flutter of her eyelashes, focusing on every one of her movements to remind myself that she’s still with me.
I try to speak, but emotion clogs my vocal cords, so I clear my throat and take a deep breath. The worry, the fear in me is impossible to extinguish. It burns and burns.
“There’s so much I want to do with you, see with you,” I tell her.
“Tristan.” My name comes out of her mouth as a breath. She’s not conscious but hearing her speak makes me feel a hesitant hope.
Hope is a dangerous thing for a man like me.
“I’m here,” I tell her. “I’m right here.”
Maybe I’m imagining it, but I think she relaxes a little in my arms.
“Blue,” she whispers.
For a split second, I think I might hate Demi’s sister. She hasn’t answered a single call or text from Demi, abandoned her at a time when she needs her big sister the most. How could Blue do this to Demi?
“Keep talking to her, Tristan. Keep her grounded,” Mickey encourages .
Okay, I can do that.
“Do you remember the night you were playing a Fleetwood Mac record right here in the living room?” I ask, the memory coming back to me with a feeling of such deep love and longing that it takes effort to keep on speaking.
“‘Songbird’ was playing. I asked you to dance. It was one of the most romantic moments of my life.”
It was. I was still a ghost then, and we couldn’t touch, not really, but we made it work.
There were stars in her eyes when she looked at me that night.
The jasmine scent of her hair imprinted on my mind.
I could sense the sway of her hips, the subtle twist of the muscles in her back as we moved in slow, rhythmic circles to lyrics that made my heart break and come alive all at once.
In my arms, Demi fades in and out again. This time, she stays ghostly for longer. Long enough to make terror rise like bile in my throat that this might be it. But then her body goes solid, and relief is a short-lived feeling in my veins.
“That’s why you need to stay with me,” I continue. “I want to dance with you in the living room again. Make pancakes in the morning. Blow out the candles you leave lit at night. Read the books you bring home. Plant our pumpkin patch. There’s so much I want to do with you, Demi.”
“It’s not working,” Kitty mutters quietly, with more worry in her voice than I’ve ever heard.
Demi fades out again. I wait for her to become solid again.
I wait, and I wait.
“No,” I protest. To whom, I don’t know. My brain isn’t working .
I don’t know who I am without her; she’s transformed me completely. If she goes and I’m left behind, I don’t know what I’ll do. She brought me back to life. I don’t want to be here without her. I can’t be here without her.
“Demi?” I say her name, move my arm to shake her a little as if the movement could shift her back into her corporeal form. But my arms are absent of her warmth, her body a vapor of energy.
Mittens meows sadly and trots over, curling up against Demi’s side.
“Demi?” I’m begging now. Her name is a broken word in my throat, a prayer, a tragic hope.
Outside, a crack of thunder bears down and shakes the manor to its very foundation. If I lose Demi, I hope the earth opens up beneath me and swallows me whole.
I hear the front door open and slam shut. The wind must be wicked out there.
But then I hear footsteps, and my whole body goes rigid. Someone is here. Who could it be? They’ll disturb Kitty and Mickey’s spell, they’ll ruin everything—
The first thing I see in the doorway is a pair of muddy combat boots, then a flash of red hair dripping on a black leather jacket.
“Oh, my god,” I say.
Blue St. James stomps into the living room.
“You’re here,” Mickey says, in awe. Her face is wet with tears.
“Of course I’m here,” Blue says, serious but nonchalant. As if she hasn’t been completely M.I.A for days on end .
She has eyes only for her sister, never taking her gaze from Demi, and she peels off her soaked jacket and drops to her knees on the floor next to me.
“Thank you,” I tell her. I don’t know what else to do or say. I’m just so grateful that Demi’s sister has finally shown up for her.
Blue levels me with a look full of so much disdain that I almost recoil.
“I’m not here for you,” she says.
Noted.
“Tell me the words of the spell,” she tells her aunts, reaching down and touching Demi’s other hand.
Kitty and Mickey chant the incantation in unison. Complicated Latin that Blue seems to pick up quickly and without effort. She joins the aunts in reciting the words. Over and over again. And when she closes her eyes to focus, the energy in the room shifts.
In the hearth, the fire flickers then flares. The candle flames on the altar pulse rhythmically, in tempo with the cadence of the women’s words. The floor vibrates beneath me.
Inside me, the energy is changing, too. It feels like there’s a string floating in the center of my chest, and that string is reaching, reaching, reaching for something to tie on to.
Blue and the aunts’ voices grow louder, more commanding, melding into one voice. The sound of their incantation echoes along the living room walls, ringing like a bell up to the tall ceiling.
I can hear the rain outside, feel the storm moving overhead. Warm energy is radiating from Blue’s body next to mine, and I could swear she’s nearly glowing .
In my arms, Demi flickers. For a second, she becomes solid and fades. Then it happens again. And again.
The feeling inside me is like a magnet, that string seeking and seeking to find its match. It pulls me in a way that aches, and I know what it’s looking for. It’s looking for Demi.
Kitty and Mickey had called this spell a “soul enchainment”, and I understand it now because I can feel it. The spell is working. I know it is. There’s a rushing sound in my ears, and a burst of heat in my chest that almost knocks me back.
But I stay right where I am, rooted, grounded, because there’s gravity in my arms again—weight, form, warmth.
Blue and her aunts’ chant slows and quiets until the room is bathed in silence, nothing but the rain on the roof and the sound of the crackling fire.
I open my eyes and look down at the woman in my arms.