Dark Companion (41 page)

“Thank you, sir.”

“I must be off. We’ll work out the details through your advocate here.” He gave Jack a long look. “I find it quite interesting that we haven’t met prior to this, Jacob, but I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.”

Jack arched one eyebrow. “My mother says I don’t take the ceremonies seriously.”

“There you have it. Your good mother has provided a perfectly reasonable explanation. I shall be in contact soon,” Mr. Ducharme said. “Jane, will you walk out with me?”

Mr. Ducharme offered his arm to me and we went outside. He paused in the shade of a pine. “I can trust in your silence?”

“There’s no reason for me to expose the Family. I might even feel sorry for them if they showed any sympathy for others.”

“That is very generous of you.”

“You’re making fun of me, Mr. Ducharme.”

“I must, because you’re such a solemn young woman. Don’t stay so serious or you’ll turn into someone like Hyacinth.”

“I’ll try to avoid that, sir. One of my friends here is on a mission to
funnify
me.”

“That’s excellent news!” He took my hand in his and despite his beautiful manners and elegance, I suspected he had done terrible things and I was glad that Claire had gotten away. I hoped she would never get caught.

“Jane, I hope that we will meet again under happier circumstances. I have a dear friend who would enjoy your company and I think you would enjoy her company, too. She’s a rather remarkable creature, although, like you, she insists that she’s an ordinary girl.”

“Maybe she is, Mr. Ducharme. You know, I’ve always hated those stories about princes and princesses with some extraordinary ability, special because they’re born special.”

“Like me?” He smiled wickedly, making me laugh a little.

“I didn’t see how those were happy stories, because life has given princes and princesses
enough
unearned advantages. I’d rather believe that anyone can accomplish remarkable things when she really tries. Maybe her accomplishments will never be recognized, but simply loving and caring for someone else, that’s miraculous to me.” And as I spoke, I remembered my mother taking my hand to help me cross the street.

“Let’s continue this discussion next time, Jane. Perhaps then you’ll tell me the secrets behind those brown eyes. I have something for you.” He opened the trunk of his car and took out a sapling. “This survived the fire in the chemistry laboratory. I believe it’s yours.”

“Thank you.” I took the branch and looked in wonder at the fragile new roots and leaves.

Then Ian Ducharme got in the Mercedes and drove away.

“You see me standing here beside you, and hear my voice; but I tell you that all these things—yes, from that star that has just shone out in the sky to the solid ground beneath our feet—I say that all these are but dreams and shadows; the shadows that hide the real world from our eyes. There is a real world, but it is beyond this glamour and this vision … beyond them all as beyond a veil…”

Arthur Machen,
The Great God Pan
(1890)

Chapter 37

Carrying the sapling carefully, I hobbled slowly around the house to the path through the grove. When I made it to the amphitheater, I sat on a marble bench to rest. I ran my finger along a gray vein in the pale stone.

What had Claire Mason and BB dreamed about when they came to Birch Grove and met the Family? What we all dream about: love and a haven from the cruel world.

I searched above me into the branches and saw a denser shadow there. It could have been the Lady of the Wood, or BB, or a trick of the light, but I wasn’t frightened this time. The darkness expanded, growing more diffuse and fainter, and then it faded away.

Jack found me at the amphitheater. He sat beside me. “You left without telling me.”

“I needed to spend some time here.” We were only an inch apart, but I didn’t touch him then because I needed to think over things.

Wind fluttered the autumn leaves, and a trio of deer came out of the trees toward us. They observed us for a few minutes before ambling off.

Jack said, “I’m glad you decided not to transform into a doe and leap away with your friends.”

“I thought about it, but I’m fanatical about being with you.”

“
Fanatical,
really?”

“A special word for a special person.” I picked up the branch and stood with my weight on my right foot. “Can we go to the cottage?”

“Should you be walking? I can carry you.”

“No, I want to do it on my own.”

Jack was patient as I limped slowly down the hill. “Halfling, it would be easier for you to put the branch down or use it as a cane.”

“It’s already supported me. It helped save me last night and I want to plant it.”

Once at the steps to the porch, I leaned against a column and set down the branch while Jack dashed ahead and opened the door. He raced back to swoop me up and carry me inside. When he set me on the sofa, I scanned the room. “Someone’s been here. Things are moved.”

“The Family’s security team probably came through last night.” He sat down, his strong thigh pressing against mine, sending blissful tingles throughout my body. “What now, Halfling?”

“I don’t know. Even though I’ve still got the scholarship, I thought about transferring to another school, one without the Family, but there are things keeping me here.”

“Such as?”

“Such as Mary Violet’s poetry and lunch at the Free Pop and the
Birch Grove Weekly
.”

“Those are awesome reasons to stay. Anything else?”

“Yes, I love the grove and I have friends here and there’s this guy … He’s incredibly aggravating. He teases me and tells me to leave. But he brings me pizza and makes me laugh. He’s amazingly sexy and talented. He’s gorgeous and funny and thoughtful. He’s really smart, too, but doesn’t have an attitude about it.”

“I’ll never be able to compete with such a paragon. Is that one of your SAT words?”

“Actually, it
is
one of my SAT words, but you have a chance because he’s
not
a paragon. Sometimes he’s a total jackass, in fact, and he’s so inconsistent that I’m never sure if he really cares for me.”

Jack put his arm lightly over my shoulders, and I nestled gingerly against him, conscious of my burns. “Maybe he’s conflicted because he thought you loved someone else and he was trying to get you to safety, even though he really wanted you to stay. He wanted you for his own, not to share with anyone else.”

“Does he want me to stay now?”

“Yes, because he’s in love with you. He’s never met a prettier, braver, smarter halfling, and all he wants, Jane, is to be with you.”

I pulled Jack to me and kissed him.

When our lips parted, Jack’s brows drew together. “You know this is going to be complicated.”

“Compared to what I’ve been through, it will be a cakewalk.”

“My beautiful elfkin is making jokes!”

“I have a fabulous sense of humor,” I said, which sent him laughing.

Then he kissed me again and again, his mouth tasting like the stream from the Other World, his arms as strong as the branches that had raised me up on the night of the storm, and his eyes the color of spring and life.

I slid my hand under his shirt, feeling the heat of his smooth skin. I kissed his neck, then swept back his dark curls and kissed his temple.

He unzipped my pink warm-up jacket. I was wearing the borrowed sports bra, and Jack frowned with concern as he saw the scratches and bandages. His fingertips coursed around the small injuries, and I trembled with desire. His voice was husky: “Does your ankle hurt?”

“Some.”

“I don’t want to hurt you. Ever. So I’m going to have to wait, even though it’s torturing me.” He leaned to me and his lips brushed my ear, and he murmured, “But I
could
be very careful, Jane…” His mouth was hot on my neck, but he held his hands away as if afraid to be rough. When he pressed his cheek against mine, we were both breathing hard. “Tell me what you want.”

I moved back so I could see his face. I ran my fingers across his marvelous lips, and he closed his eyes and groaned softly.

When he looked at me again, I said, “I want absolutely
everything,
Jack, but I need to explain something to you first.” I waited until I saw that he was listening. “Before I came to Birch Grove, I was trying to grow up as fast as possible because that was the only way to protect myself. I was afraid
all
the time. Most of the people I knew didn’t expect to live past eighteen, so they tried to experience everything while they could.”

He began to open his mouth and I put my forefinger across his lips. He nipped it and I smiled. “But now I don’t have to rush anymore. I can enjoy the things girls are supposed to enjoy. I can savor life. Besides, you only have your wisdom teeth taken out once.”

His thick brows knit together. “Okay, I’m completely confused. What does that mean?”

I gazed into Jack’s eyes. “It means that I want to go on a date with you, Jacob Radcliffe, our very first date, and I want to remember it forever. And then I want to go on
more
dates with you. I want to experience it all, and I don’t want to skip ahead to the last page in the book. Is that okay?”

He nodded. “I can do that. I shouldn’t have even asked now after what you’ve been through.”

“That’s okay. I like that you want me.”

“So much that it drives me crazy. When you came into my bedroom that time, I thought, well, I thought you’d come to see me and tell me, I don’t know, that you wanted me, too.”

“I think I probably did want you, but you confused me because you made my emotions go haywire. You still do. I better get back to the Holidays’.”

He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Do we have to go
right
away?”

“No, not
right
away.”

Jack nuzzled, kissed, and stroked me as the early evening breeze brushed branches across the cottage,
shush, shush, shush
. Then Jack’s rough fingers went to my scar, and it pulsed, responding to him as it had the first day we’d met. “What’s this from?”

“My stepfather shot my mother and then shot me, and I climbed into a tree to escape,” I said. “No, what really happened is that he shot me and the tree carried me up thirty feet into her branches and saved me. The paramedics had already declared me dead when I finally started breathing again. After surgery, they put me in an induced coma so I could recover. When I woke up three months later, I’d forgotten my whole life. I’d forgotten my mother.”

“The scar is shaped exactly like a leaf.”

“I think the Lady of the Wood gave it to me as a gift, a memento.”

“So I was right, and you are magic.”

“Not me. The Lady of the Wood.” I listened to the branches sweeping against the cottage. “She watches over me. She watches over us all, but we forgot her. I stepped into that world when I died.”

I thought about the gentle, maternal spirit. “I thought that my anger kept me alive, but it was love, I think, that sustained me. Even though I wasn’t conscious of my mother’s love, the memories were here.” I placed my hand over my heart.

“You are like that, Halfling, a bit clueless about people who love you.”

“I’m going to find the door to the Other World to visit.” I ran my fingers over his eyebrows and down his nose, letting them rest on his lips.

He kissed my fingertips. “I think you already have. The day we met, I saw you magically appear on the path.”

“I thought you were teasing.”

“I thought I was
dreaming
.” He held my hands. “The old stories say that magical creatures lived here hundreds of years ago. I think you’re one, Halfling.”

“I think what we call magic are really gateways to parallel universes with different laws of physics. Or maybe not parallel, but skewed universes that intersect.”

“It really turns me on when you talk geek.” His fingers traced my tattoo. “What does this
H
mean?”

I told him about Hosea. “He loved science and he loved God, and he was cross-referencing the Bible with his physics book. He wanted me to stop my incessant cussing, do my schoolwork, be nice, and
try
. He thought I should try to be a better person and I should try to figure out things.”

“He sounds like he loved you.”

I nodded. “I loved him, too.”

“He also sounds like someone who wanted you to be happy.
H
is for happy and for hope, and…” Jack thought for a moment. “And for honey, which is both an endearment and nice with peanut butter in a sandwich.”

“
H
is for hilarious, which you think you are.”

“
H
is for Halfling, and I love Halfling,” he said. “Jane, what happened to your stepfather?”

“He was hit by lightning in a storm.”

“What are the chances of that?” Jack was silent for a long time. “We’re dealing with a lot of improbabilities lately.”

“You mean like how much you resemble Ian Ducharme?”

“That’s one of them, but my mother says it’s a coincidence and she may be telling the truth this time. Tobias Radcliffe is the only father I want and he needs me now. Besides, I don’t heal up the way the Family does, and I do have kind of a common face.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, you’re a terrible judge of these things. Anytime I tried to tell you how I felt, you thought I was talking about Hattie.”

“It’s because you were so elliptical.”

“Okay, I’ll be direct.” Then he spoke slowly and carefully:

“sic erit; haeserunt tenues in corde sagittae,