Edge of Shadows (Shadows #1) (35 page)

            A familiar cloud of sadness fell over her thoughts as she remembered that lost little girl. “When the service was over, I wanted to kick and scream and lash out. I wanted to push over those caskets because I convinced myself they were empty and it was some elaborate hoax. Any minute they would appear to take me home. But it wasn’t a hoax. My parents raised me to think that showing emotion in public wasn’t ladylike, so as desperately as I wanted to throw a tantrum, I knew they wouldn’t approve. I looked at the social worker and she had a glow of white tinged with yellow around her. Even though I didn’t know what it meant, the colors were soothing. I had to accept that I was left with nothing but this woman to take care of me. I was naive and automatically assumed that she was kind and that she’d be good to me.”

            “She wasn’t?”

            Ellie sighed. “After twenty-five years of reading auras, I know now that she was indifferent. She probably saw a dozen kids just like me every week. Her aura meant that she was at peace and even slightly happy, but it had nothing to do with me. I was part of her job, and while I was watching my parents be buried, she was probably thinking about getting a manicure or going home and having a glass of wine. Me, I had no home left.”

            “You went into foster care.”

            “Yes, and in foster care I stayed until I applied for emancipation when I was sixteen.” She remembered the day that the court approved her request. It had been bittersweet.

            “Your ability must have been advantageous in that kind of hostile environment.”

            “If you mean it helped keep me out of trouble, then probably it did. But I was always a good kid. I studied hard, got decent grades, and generally stayed out of everyone’s way.  I never gave my foster families any reason to really concern themselves with me. I wanted to be invisible. I was pretty good at it,” Ellie said. She had closed herself off from anyone who tried to reach her. It was a defense mechanism that worked well. Perhaps too well.

            “Until you met Veronica.”

            A face flashed in Ellie’s mind. A pretty blond with infectious laughter. Whereas her parents’ faces had faded over time, Roni’s was vivid and seemed so real that Ellie almost thought her friend was there with her in the darkness.

            “Roni just wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Ellie said. “She saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. And for some reason she wanted to be my friend. I owe her a lot.” It was strange talking about Veronica. Those memories were under strict lock and key for a reason.

            “Tell me more about Veronica.”

            “I met her when I was nineteen. I had been on my own for three years and things were hard. I was working three jobs trying to scrape enough money together to live in a decent place and stash some money away. Roni was in my accounting 101 class at the community college. She always had a yellow/gold aura. Until the end, Roni was always happy. She was an eternal optimist.”

            “Sounds like a good friend to have.”

            “She was my first real friend,” Ellie choked. “Roni was the one who convinced me that we should try to open up our own business. We wrote the business plan at this little coffee shop that was just off the U’s campus. I was always amazed that I met someone like her who actually liked me back because Roni was popular. I don’t think most people even knew I existed. But for some reason we just clicked.”

            “Tell me again what happened to Veronica.”

            Ellie hated the Voice then. Pick. Pick. Pick. Every scab of her past it went after and it was unrelenting. “If I didn’t pick up on the fact that life wasn’t fair when my parents died, I got the message loud and clear the night that I came home from work and found Roni.”

            “You feel responsible for that, don’t you?”

            Ellie squirmed under the question. She had gone through a good deal of therapy after Roni’s death trying to get her head around that very question. And since then, she had done an excellent job of forgetting that it had ever happened. “What good is having an ability like mine if you can’t tell that the people you care about are in trouble? I still don’t know how she managed to hide it from me, but I never guessed that Roni was having problems. Roni didn’t deserve to have her life end like that. Not to a bottle of pills. Not when her roommate was supposed to be home two hours earlier and maybe could have saved her.”

            “So you still blame yourself for what happened to her.”

            “Roni had everything to live for. I refuse to believe that she truly meant for that to happen. She knew I was supposed to be home at six p.m. But somebody was late for their shift and I was asked to stay. What kind of message does it send to somebody like me when somebody like Roni checks out? Her suicide made me angry for a long time. She should have said something. I would have helped her, just like she helped me.”

            “Would you say that your life changed after Roni’s death?”

            Ellie realized that her voice had gotten screechy and she took a breath to calm down. She wanted to sink further down into her secret place in the darkness and be alone. “Even though I was mad at her, I felt like I owed it to Roni to become that person she always told me I could be. I had to do it for both of us. So I forced myself out there. I got more jobs and saved every dime so that I could bring that dream of owning that coffee shop into reality.”

            “Which in turn led you to Jake.”

            Ellie tried to focus in on those early days with Jake. She knew the more granular she got in this exploration, the better chance that the Voice would leave her alone soon. “My ability, that was really handy when I hit the dating scene. It seemed like guys always had ulterior motives, but they couldn’t hide what was there plain as day in their auras. It was hard for me, but I had reached the point in my life where I was tired of being alone. I remembered watching how happy my parents were, and I wanted that in my life.”

            “So you met Jake.”

            “I literally ran into him the day that I had a showing for the space that became my coffee shop. He was in Uptown meeting some buddies for happy hour and we collided as I was going around the corner while he was coming in the opposite direction. When he helped me up, I could tell that he was anxious about something. He surprised me by inviting me to go with him to meet his friends. It was easy to say yes, and I felt bold and excited. Jake was so handsome and a complete gentleman. That first night he was attentive and thoughtful. It wasn’t hard to fall for him.”

            “But Jake was keeping secrets.”

            “At some point you’d think I’d figure out that everyone keeps secrets,” Ellie replied. She wished that they could be done. She wanted to forget again. Why wouldn’t the Voice go away? “Jake’s secret was just a whole lot worse than I ever suspected. I always thought his anxiety and depression came from dealing with trying to stay sober. Who knew that drinking was how he dealt with the fact that he could see dead people?”

            “You were with Jake for eight years and you never suspected?”

            It was the million-dollar question. “Not that long ago I would have laughed out loud at anyone who suggested that such a thing as ghosts really existed.”

            “Even though you yourself possessed a gift that was...otherworldly?”

            “I have always thought of myself as a misfit for a multitude of reasons; my ability was just one of many,” Ellie said. She paused, searching her memories deeper. “Jake creeped me out at the end. His aura was dangerous and I knew to tread lightly. But the things that should have clued me in sooner were wiped from my memories, remember?”

            “Let’s move on then. You and Jake divorced. You went through your dark time.”

            “I was so upset with myself that I couldn’t seem to hold any kind of semblance of normalcy together. At some point, you have to take an introspective view and realize that things aren’t happening to you, they are happening because you
are you
. I mean, that’s why you’re talking to me, right? There’s something about me that you want to know and you can’t figure it out.”

            “So you think that all of these experiences in your life meant that you were destined to spend your life alone?”

            “Every time I let someone get close, they either died or changed so dramatically for the worst that they couldn’t be in my life. I don’t have to be a therapist to realize that I have trust issues, but they seem justified.”

            “So you believed until David appeared.”

            His face floated across her mind. She felt her anxiousness bleed away. “David was different. I felt safe around him. I could see the person there behind his eyes, and it was someone good and pure. He never did anything that led me to believe I couldn’t trust him. If anything, I betrayed him.”

            “By accepting The Third’s offer?”

            Ellie was still ashamed of the way it had happened. “I should have asked him. I should have found a way to ask him. But I thought it was the only way to keep him safe. To keep both of us safe.”

            “Do you think he sees it that way?”

            “I hope so,” Ellie said. The decision was made so quickly, and their time together afterwards had been so short. Then the darkness came. “I wish I could see him. I’d ask him.”

            “It is extraordinary that after everything you’ve told me, and how faulty your trusted ability has proved to be, that you would open up so quickly to someone you barely knew.”

            Ellie didn’t like the sound of that at all. Her mind started to flail. “Where am I again?” Ellie asked. She thought her eyes were open now, but there was only darkness around her. “I forgot how I got here.”

            “Ellie, I don’t think you are ready yet. But I have no choice. It’s time.”

            “Time for what?” She felt panicked.

            A warm hand pressed into her shoulder. It was the first time she had felt touch in the darkness and her breath caught. Then she felt her weightless body begin to vibrate.

            As the darkness began to ripple, she heard the Voice’s last words reach her ears. “Time for you to embrace your destiny.”