Chapter 23
BONFIRE AT THE QUARRY
On clear nights, the quarry looks like a black mirror framed by jagged cliffs and tall pines. In October, fog hovers over the water like a ghostly veil, making tonight’s challenge all the creepier.
I stand with Twig, Naomi, and Harper near the bonfire with my hands tucked into the front pocket of my hoodie.
Flames crackle and pop. Music pulses in the background, layered with laughter and the low buzz of multiple conversations unfolding at once.
My attention keeps sliding to the parking lot in the distance.
Naomi nudges me with her shoulder, her sleek black hair glowing in the firelight. “Who do you keep looking for, Selah?”
I roll my eyes.
But inside, my stomach has tied into a knot. Jude has been distant ever since I showed him my dreams. He left my room abruptly, and for the past two days, he’s been unusually busy with family obligations.
“Are you ever going to tell us what’s going on between you two?” Harper asks. “Twig, do you know? I feel like you have to know.”
I dagger him with a look.
He gets the hint and pleads the fifth.
But even if he didn’t, what would he say?
I don’t think he could explain what’s going on between Jude and me any better than I could, even if we have been brainstorming possibilities the same way we would for a podcast episode.
Exhaust all logical explanations, then dive into the supernatural ones.
But this time, we’re stumped. It’s one thing to sit in Maggie’s basement as third-party observers, commenting on a strange and uncanny mystery.
It’s quite another to find myself embroiled in the center of one.
The only thing we’ve confirmed is what we’ve always suspected—Rafe is definitely up to something. What that something has to do with the gemstones he chucked into the woods or the ruby necklace he nearly tore off Isabel’s neck, we haven’t the faintest clue.
Before Naomi and Harper can press any further, Brady Keller stumbles into our conversation. He drapes one arm over my shoulders, his other over Naomi’s, the smell of beer clinging to his breath. “Whadaya say, ladies? Are you gonna make tonight legendary?”
“I’m good keeping tonight ordinary, thanks,” Naomi replies.
Brady turns to me, his eyes unfocused.
“Sorry, Keller,” I say. “I’m staying dry.”
He looks at Harper, who gives her head an adamant shake.
He completely ignores Twig. I’m about to say something when Twig catches my eye and shakes his head, a nonverbal drop it.
Brady moves on to the group beside us and a burst of cheers erupts near the water’s edge.
Someone’s about to take the plunge. The crowd shifts to get a better look, but I turn back toward the parking lot.
And there he is.
Emerging from the fog like a dream, his hands tucked inside the pockets of his leather jacket—halfway zipped, collar popped, breeze ruffling his hair.
Harper squeezes my arm.
I shake her off as he joins our half circle, firelight casting flickering shadows along his jawline. He greets Twig, Harper, and Naomi. Then me.
“You came,” I say.
“Someone said it would be fun,” he says back, his autumn eyes sparkling.
More cheers erupt. This time, beneath a copse of Hawthorn trees.
Caleb Briggs has gotten down on one knee to ask his girlfriend, Brynn Alcott, to the Hunter’s Moon Masquerade Ball.
She replies with a playful maybe, then releases a delighted shriek as Caleb throws her over his shoulder and marches toward the water, like he’s going to toss her in.
Jude uses the moment to ask if I’d take a walk with him. We leave the warmth of the fire, away from the drunken laughter and the silly behavior, Naomi and Harper’s attention hot on my back.
We walk along the shoreline, fog drifting at our feet. Jude keeps his hands buried in his pockets. I do the same. But every now and then, our elbows brush, and each time, a current of heat zips up my arm.
“Sorry I’ve been MIA,” he finally says.
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“I feel like I do.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I just—I don’t know what to think about any of this, let alone what to say.”
Neither do I, honestly.
My thoughts drift to the portrait—what it means, how it came to be. We’re no closer to answering those questions than we ever were. Sometimes, I find myself wondering if its only purpose was this. Bringing me and Jude together.
“Do you believe in fate?” I ask him.
“No,” he replies.
“That’s a confident answer.”
“I’m not a fan of inevitability.”
“You want your choices to matter.”
“Don’t you?”
“Of course,” I say. Like discovering a mystery and pulling on the string. The portrait may have brought us together, but it didn’t have to keep us together. It was our choice to pick up the string, to follow its path, to be here now. Wasn’t it?
“Alright, Whitlock,” Jude says with a sigh. “Let me hear it.”
“Hear what?”
“Your theory. About these dreams.”
“For a while I was contemplating reincarnation. Like, what if every time I die, my memories are erased but I’m born again into the same body?
It would explain how Ezra painted the portrait.
My path crossed with his in a past life.
These dreams could be memories from past lives seeping into my current life.
But then I realized that can’t be true, because in that scenario, your great grandmother would be my doppelg?nger, too.
She’s not, though. I found a wedding picture in Maggie’s archives and there’s no resemblance. ”
“Selah.” Jude pulls me to a stop. “This is crazy.”
“I know.”
His eyes smolder with frustration. “Aren’t you bothered?”
I mull over the word.
I’m stumped.
Fixated.
Fascinated.
Enthralled.
Bothered, though?
“No,” I say.
He lifts his brow—and with it, a lock of errant hair—then repeats the words I said to him moments earlier. “That’s a confident answer.”
I smile. “Yes, well, in case you’ve forgotten, I co-host a podcast about really weird things. Weird is kind of my jam.”
A flicker of amusement pulls at the corner of his mouth.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I think eventually, we have to come to terms with the fact that not everything in life can be explained. And honestly, wouldn’t it be a pretty boring world if it could?”
Water laps against the rocky shore. Music thumps in the distance. And Jude Vandenberg stares at me like I’ve said something profound. Then, he bends over to pick up a stone. With a flick of his wrist, he sends it skimming across the water in perfect arcs before it disappears into the fog.
“Show-off,” I mutter.
He grins.
“Was this one of your extracurriculars at boarding school?”
“Oh, yeah. Rock skipping is a noble art.” He skips another just as gracefully as the one before it. “Very old world. Very elite.”
I laugh, then try it myself.
My rock hits the water with a pathetic kerplunk.
“That was tragic,” he says.
“Show me how it’s done then, Captain Skipper.”
His smile widens, bringing out a pair of dimples so deep they should be illegal. “The key is finding the right stone. You want one that’s smooth and flat.” He toes the ground, finds one worth inspecting, then hands it to me.
Our fingers brush, and I’m impossibly aware of the space between us. Or rather, lack of space between us. I peek up at him, and it’s as if the night itself has pulled tightly around us. The air is electric, a live wire about to snap. And I think this is it. He’s finally going to make a move.
Laughter douses the moment.
Lainey Sikes stumbles through the fog, held upright by Rafe. My already racing heart thuds all the more aggressively as I behold the pair of them—proof that he’s her college boy.
“Don’t stop on our account,” Rafe says, leading Lainey closer. “We love a good slow-burn romance, don’t we, Lain?”
My muscles tighten.
Lainey laughs some more, the sound cut short by an inebriated hiccup. “No slow burn for us, thank you. Have you seen this guy, Selah? Could there be a more gorgeous specimen? And he goes to Yale.”
Rafe smirks. “She really likes that I go to Yale.”
Can blood be evil?
The question echoes in my mind.
I want to tell Lainey to run. Far and fast away. Griffin Tate might be a bit of a tool, but he’s an absolute catch compared to Rafe Vandenberg.
Beside me, Jude has closed up shop, his shutters drawn. The only sign of life is the muscle ticking in his jaw … where a bruise once was.
I narrow my eyes at Rafe. “Is your grandfather named Frank?”
He cocks his head. “All that alone time the two of you have been spending in the family archives, and it turns out, you really are just doing research.”
“Did you know that Jude’s grandfather thought Frank and your father might have something to do with the disappearance of John, Maureen, and their children?”
“Selah.” Jude says my name low, like a warning.
Rafe waves him off. “Let the lady speak, Jude. I’m fascinated to hear what she’s thinking. In fact, I’m fascinated to hear what the two of you have learned in all this research you’re doing.”
“Your lineage isn’t great,” I say.
“Ah, my lineage. The black sheep of the Vandenbergs. Every family needs a villain, don’t they? It’s so much easier than looking in a mirror.” He dusts a speck of lint off his coat sleeve, like he’s bored by the subject. “Tell me, have you learned anything more about the portrait?”
I glare at him.
“It’s odd, don’t you think? Painting someone over and over again, decade after decade. Surely he would have written about such an obsession. And yet, there’s nothing in his journals. One might think those particular volumes have been hidden.”
“Are you looking for them?” I ask.
“Are you hiding them?”
“Why would we hide them?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps you came across some valuable information and you want it for yourself.”
Lainey has been trying to follow the conversation, but her eyes can’t seem to focus. “I’m bored,” she whines. “And thirsty.”
Rafe snaps at a group of teens nearby.
One is Brady Keller, who staggers toward us.
“Lainey wants to swim,” Rafe tells him.
“No, she doesn’t,” I shoot back.
“Oh, but she does,” Rafe insists. “Don’t you Lainey?”
Lainey looks up at him like a drunken puppy eager to please. “You think I should?”
“Absolutely. I think you should show everyone how it’s done. Let them see what legends are made of.”
Lainey has begun bobbing her head enthusiastically. “Yeah,” she says, “I wanna do it.” She starts removing her shirt like she’s going to jump in right here, right now.
Rafe stops her with a grin and sends her away with Brady. I’m about to object, to go after them—Lainey Sikes is nowhere near sober enough to swim in the quarry. But Rafe takes my elbow. “Where are you off to, sweetheart?”
Jude takes an aggressive step forward. “Get your hands off her.”
“Oh, but she wants my hands on her. Don’t you, Selah? I make your blood boil, which is just another way of saying I make you hot. The beginning of a different sort of love story. Enemies to lovers, perhaps?”
Jude’s hand curls into a fist, but I grab his arm and step between them. “Don’t,” I say, gathering his attention. Getting him to look at me, not his awful cousin. And when he finally does, he looks every bit as dangerous as Rafe ever has. “Please. Let’s just go and stop Lainey.”
Some of the tension in his shoulders lets go.
I give his arm an encouraging tug.
With a terse exhale, he agrees and comes with me.
“You should let her do it,” Rafe says behind us. “If she makes it across, she wins. If she doesn’t … well, I guess that makes me the winner.”
I whirl on him.
Two quick steps, and I’m in his face. I want to claw out his eyes.
Scratch off his skin. Because what an awful, rotten thing to say.
Instead, I play his game. Blood might be pounding in my ears, but I act calm.
Unbothered. My head tilted, mouth curled in a smirk.
“What’s up with the ruby necklace, Rafe? ”
His blue eyes flash.
Finally, I’ve hit a nerve.
“Aw, is play time over? It’s not fun, anymore?” I draw my lips into a pout. “What were you hiding in the well? It sure made you grumpy.”
His nostrils flare. For a second, he looks terrifying. Like the young man from my dream, right before he turned into a werewolf. But I refuse to back down. I square my shoulders, lift my chin, and stare him in the face.
Jude takes my hand.
Noticing, Rafe gives his eyebrows a smug lift—one that reminds me of our Midnight Garden conversation. I don’t know if I’ll ever forget the feeling of his teeth on my earlobe.
“I’d be careful if I were you, Selah. You don’t want your boyfriend here paying the price for your rash words.
I’d have a fun time tormenting him, too.
Just like my father had fun, and my grandfather, and my great grandfather.
” He leans in. “You just poked the bear, sweetheart. I’d really think twice before doing it again. ”
With that, he turns and saunters away.