Chapter Eleven
Darcy
His shirt smells like cigarette smoke and whatever lemon-scented disinfectant they use at the bar.
I keep it draped over my lap while he rumbles us back into town, unwilling to part with it even though I’m back in my jeans, sweater, and coat.
My skin still feels tacky with the grime of the river, but I keep catching myself smiling in the reflection of the window.
Running down the old, swaying dock is the closest I’ve ever come to flying. A different sort of magic. I pushed off the edge with my bare feet and in that split second before my body crashed beneath the surface, I felt—
Untethered. Unburdened.
For the first time in a very long time, I felt like a person.
Gabriel hasn’t said much since we left the docks, and my happy high dwindles the closer we get to town.
Back to reality, and all the secrets I’m holding on to.
Gabriel turns down the alley behind the bar and slips his truck into a parking spot next to a garbage bin.
He is a series of efficient, practical movements.
I try to picture him existing in another time, but I can’t.
He feels uniquely crafted for this one. White T-shirt and denim jacket, knees tipped wide and lazy on the cracked leather seat of his Toyota.
I can’t picture him anywhere else but exactly right here.
He might have used his magic to reverse the effects of the lake, but dishevelment still clings to him.
His hair is all dark wild curls, the collar of his T-shirt bent beneath his collarbone.
He turns his body so he’s facing me in the wide bench seat, and I can see a touch of mud. Right on the side of his neck.
“Wet pavement,” I blurt.
His face pinches. “What?”
“In my vision,” I explain, “the pavement was wet. There was a storm passing through.”
Gabriel nods, considering. It’s a notable reversal from the bossy way he’s been demanding details since we first made this agreement. “How do they work?” he asks. “These visions.”
“I’m given pieces of the puzzle, but never the full picture. I think it’s because it’s constantly changing. You know—a butterfly flaps its wings somewhere and a tornado shows up in Texas.”
His mouth quirks up at the corners.
“What?” I ask.
“Are you the tornado or the butterfly?”
Both. Neither. I don’t know. I drag my fingers over a tear in the bench seat, tracing the ragged edge back and forth. “The final moment could be any variation on a specific set of details. Right now, all I have is wet pavement, cracked—” I pause and snap my mouth shut. “Never mind.”
Gabriel quirks a dark eyebrow and drapes his arm over the back of the bench seat, edging closer. His fingers catch in the ends of my hair. “What’s cracked?”
I know a manipulation when I see it. “Your skull, if you keep digging for answers that violate our deal.”
But the threat lacks heat, and Gabriel knows it. He grins at me from the other side of the truck, boyish and easy, his fingers still twisting in the ends of my hair. My magic rattles in my chest, and I push down hard against it. Now is not the time for unintentional shadow bursts.
“I should—”
I try the door handle, but it’s about as ancient as Gabriel is and it doesn’t budge. He watches me struggle in amusement, then leans his body across mine. The outside of his arm brushes against my collar-bone and I hold myself perfectly still.
“Doesn’t open unless you shimmy it,” he explains, his nose half an inch from mine. His eyes are so blue, I don’t understand how people don’t look at him and immediately know he’s something else.
He jerks the handle, and the door swings open.
I don’t move an inch. Neither does he.
“I’m going to need you to show me that list again, Darcy.”
“Okay.”
Another half smile. “I didn’t expect you to agree so easily.”
“Yes, well. Maybe I’ve had enough arguing for one day.
” I slip side-ways across the bench, putting space between us.
Any bravado I had when I stripped to my underwear and dove into the river is gone now.
I’m back to second-guessing my decision-making, hoarding secrets, and hoping for the best. “I can bring it to you tomorrow.”
He nods, absent-minded. “Why do you have a list like that, anyway?” he asks.
I frown in confusion.
“Cinnamon buns,” he explains. “Ice cream cones. Ill-advised cannonballs off the edge of defunct boat ramps.”
“Cinnamon buns weren’t on the list, and I didn’t do a cannonball.”
“You know what I mean.”
I take my time folding his shirt back into a neat square. “You mean, why is it full of seemingly inconsequential things?”
He nods.
“I was sick for a long time before I died.”
I smooth my hand over the placket of buttons, then extend the shirt across the space between us. Gabriel’s eyes flick down to the flannel, then drag back to mine. He doesn’t take it.
“I was in and out of the hospital almost constantly as a kid. And then, at the end, that small room was all I knew. I had a lot of time to think, and I told myself if I ever got out, I would do all the things that made me happy. All the things I took for granted.”
A smile curls one edge of his mouth. “Bumper cars?”
“My parents took me to Coney Island once,” I say. Sunburn on the back of my neck. Ice cream dripping over my knuckles. Cotton candy stuck to the corner of my mouth. That day feels so very far away now. Like an old picture, the colors smudged and blurred. “The Witching Waves was my favorite ride.”
The very next day, I woke up with a cough and I was back in the hospital. My mom blamed the trip, and they never took me again.
“Anyway, I never did get out of that hospital room. I’ve kept the list with me and made some additions over the years. Things I’ve seen the mortals do, mostly. Things that look like they might be … I don’t know, things that looked like fun. Then I died and—well, here we are.”
Here we are, like I haven’t been struggling every day since to hold on to that version of me.
The girl who wore ribbons in her hair and laughed at the Coney Island amusement park until her chest hurt.
The girl who was brave and confident and happy, not the shell of a woman shrunk down by decades of disappointment.
Gabriel thinks he’s the only one who has lost something to death. But it’s stolen from me, too.
So, so much.
“I should go,” I tell him. “Thank you for taking me to the boat ramp.”
“Sure,” he says, but he seems distracted.
“Come find me when you’re ready for the next thing.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll come find you.” He smiles, and his incisor flashes, catching at the corner of his lip. It makes me think of the way it caught at my bottom lip. When he kissed me like he was trying to prove a point.
I need to get out of this truck.
I place his borrowed shirt on the stretch of empty seat between us, then shift my legs, easing out. It’s colder without Gabriel’s car vents pointed directly at my face, and I fight the urge to shiver.
I shouldn’t feel the cold at all, but maybe my jump in the lake rattled something free.
Gabriel is watching me, still stretched obscenely across the cab of his truck, one arm propped on the open door. “You okay?”
I nod. “Going to see if I can find another pumpkin. Since you smashed my old one.”
“I didn’t—” He stops. Sighs. “Pumpkin carving wasn’t on your list.”
“It seems festive. I think I’d like to try my hand at a jack-o’-lantern. Maybe I’ll bring it over to the bar. You can put it in the window.”
Gabriel smiles at that. Reluctant and a little bewildered, like he’s doing his best not to.
“Gonna carve it to look like your face? Scare all my customers away?”
A laugh cracks out of me. “Yeah, maybe I will.”
I pick a smaller, lopsided pumpkin with a stem that’s curved like a handle on my walk home, carefully sidestepping any obstacles to avoid another catastrophe. It was the last pumpkin left at the grocery and I don’t think I can emotionally withstand losing it.
“There,” I say, smiling when I see Tater Tot’s head pop up in the window, interested. “We made it.”
“Why are you talking to a pumpkin?”
For the second time today, the pumpkin goes flying. I watch as it sails in a graceful arc through the air, before landing at the bottom step with a thunk. Seeds spill out of the brand-new crack at the top. I sigh.
Aelia materializes at my side, her blond hair pulled into a neat ponytail. “No need to throw things.” She laughs.
“Where did you even come from?”
Aelia peers up at the town house, studying it with an inquisitive little frown.
“Where do any of us come from?” Aelia answers, her voice airy.
Great. Not only is she here without explanation or warning, she’s in an introspective mood.
I guess I should be grateful she’s not wearing her robe. Just a very subtle, sequin-covered knee-length dress with rainbow socks pulled to her knees and bright blue mermaid shoes that light up every time she moves.
“How did you find me?” I ask.
“I followed your magic.” She finally stops looking at the house and turns to me instead. “You’re being sloppy.”
I decide to play dumb. “What do you mean?”
She scoffs. “And you’re a shit liar.” She reaches up and presses her thumb between my eyebrows. “This little line right here. Your face gives you away every time. You’ll need to fix that before anyone else comes to investigate.”
I slap her hand away. “Why are you here, Aelia?”
She studies me, then pointedly shifts her attention to the town house. Specifically, the window where Tater Tot is doing a poor job of hiding his hulking body. I can see his nose between the lace curtains.
“Did you steal a dog, Darcy?”
“No.”
Behind the window, Tater Tot barks. I wince. Aelia turns to look at me, one eyebrow arched.
“I found him in an alley,” I defend.
“And was he alive or dead when you found him?”
“Does it matter?” Judging by the look on her face, it very much matters. “What? I’m not allowed to adopt a dog?”