Little Red Gem (30 page)

Audrey nodded. “I hope
so.”

Leo’s voice croaked. “It’s
just that I don’t know if I can do anything on my own anymore. How
will I go on without her? She was everything to me. But I never
told her. Not as often as I should have.”

When Leo rested his head
against the back of the couch and closed his eyes, Audrey stood up
and headed over to the dining table to grab the spell
book.

After she left, it was
just me and Leo in the cabin. I occupied the spot Audrey left
vacant and rested my head on his shoulder. It was a position we’d
spent many a night in, especially on the nights when Leo’s mood
could darken even the blackest night. I had loved sitting with him.
I had never realized that my presence was enough to cage the beast
that lived within him. I could only hope I’d made enough of an
impression on his heart that he was able to undertake the rest of
this journey alone.

While ever a heart beat
with the vitality of life it could not dine with the undead patrons
whose lack of senses left their meal tasteless or their arms
unblemished by chills or their nostrils asleep to the aroma of
flowers. The dead and the living should not coexist. I could see
that now.

***

We sat side by side on the
couch till night fell. We were sitting side by side on the couch
when morning broke. And when in the morning the bottle was still on
the coffee table unopened, Leo stood up and surveyed the room. His
eyes landed on mine and my stomach did a few cartwheels. I told
myself he saw me even though I knew this wasn’t
possible.

“
I love you Ruby. I always
have. I always will. One day we’ll be together again. But until
that time comes, I dunno.”

He left the sentence
unfinished, as if he’d realized that by saying something like,
“Until that time comes I’ll never love another”, or “Until that
time comes I’ll be a crushed, miserable man without a shred of hope
left for any sort of meaningful existence” that I might become
upset and therefore reluctant to leave this realm.

He’d once said that I was
the rock and that without me he was a drowning man. He had that bit
wrong. It seemed that
I
had clung to
him
.

Without a backward glance
Leo walked out the door and I let him go.

Chapter
Twelve

I couldn’t believe I’d let
him go.

At the last second I
changed my mind and rushed out the door, screaming at him to come
back, but I was too late. Leo backed his car down the dirt drive
without a glance at the cabin, where, if he had possessed the
ability to see ghosts he’d have seen me clutching the railing and
screaming at him.

“
We’re supposed to be soul
mates, and you can’t see my soul,” I sobbed.

When I could no longer see
his car, and when I could no longer avoid the truth that the best
way forward for me was to accept my fate, I turned around. Anne and
William stood on the porch. They looked different – still opaque,
but brighter than when I’d last seen them. Their eyes were free of
the haunted look and their cheeks glowed.

“
I’m so glad to see you,”
I cried and rushed to hold them both in my arms. But instead of
connecting, I swept through them.

“
We only have a few
seconds,” Anne said.

“
You only have a few
seconds and you came back to say goodbye to me?” I was
touched.

“
That’s not why we’re
here.” She turned to William and glared at him. “Tell her what you
told me.”

William looked a little
sheepish. He scratched his head. “I did not tell you the entire
story behind our curse. Yes, it was true that I stole the watch.
Yes, it was true that the witch came after me. But he didn’t curse
me outright. He said the watch contained a spell. He gave me the
chance to wish for anything as long as the wish related to time.
The engraving on the back ‘one wish at a time’, it is only part of
the spell. The entire incantation is ‘one wish at a time when you
need it most’. I was embarrassed about my error so I lied to Anne
and told her that the witch had become angered by my stealing his
watch, thus cursing us to spend eternity together yet apart.” He
bowed his head. “I am sorry and I am duly chastised.”

Duly chastised he may have
been, but from the firm set of Anne’s jaw he was probably going to
be paying for this mistake for another eternity.

“
What wish did you make?”
I asked.

He wrapped his arm around
Anne. “I wished for our love to last forever.”

I let out a shrill laugh.
“Some wish
that
turned out to be.”

“
The watch may still have
magic,” said Anne.

“
You don’t like magic,” I
reminded her.

Anne clutched tightly onto
William’s hand. “Sometimes you have to take that risk. Now that our
wish has expired, the magic should revert back to the
beginning.”

William sighed. “Magic is
not without its setbacks. Perhaps that is why it was outlawed and
then over the years its practice has become
questionable.”

“
I am not usually the one
to encourage this kind of behavior,” said Anne. “But what is the
alternative?”

The alternative was
spending a life watching Leo and not having him see me back. Lyrics
to the song I’d written to attract Leo’s attention sprang to
mind:

You walked a million miles
around me

Not noticing at
all…

Could I walk a million
miles around Leo and not be seen?

“
You’re right,” I said.
“There is no alternative. Who’s to say I won’t end up cursed like
you two? But if I wish for time to be reversed, at what point in
time will the spell take me back to?”

“
As for the first part of
your question, whether you end up cursed,” said William. “Well, you
said so yourself, you can’t be any
more
cursed can you? As for the
point in time, that will not be your choice to make. You will be
returned to whatever point in time is the most poignant. But
whatever happens, Ruby, don’t label the actions of your youth as a
mistake. You will eventually learn to accept and cherish those
moments as experiences.”

Their shimmering images
slowly merged into one, and then they glowed brighter and brighter
until a million tiny stars exploded in front of me. I lifted my arm
to shield my eyes and when I removed my arm they were gone. What’s
more, they’d left without telling me exactly how the watch was
supposed to set me free.

Hadn’t fumbling around
clueless caused me enough problems already?

The watch in question
still sat in the bowl that Audrey had used as her cauldron to break
Anne’s and William’s curse. It was a little blackened from the
flame, but otherwise intact. I’d never used a pocket watch before,
hadn’t even really seen one up close until now.

There was a lever on top
of the watch, but it spun too freely to be in working order. On the
back the inscription was still easy to read:

ONE WISH AT A
TIME.

I opened the intricately
designed front cover. The glass cover had survived unscathed for
centuries. It was a beautiful watch, such a shame to destroy it,
but I slammed the watch against the table until the glass cover
broke exposing the tiny hour and minute hands.

My wish had to relate to
time. That was easy. I’d wish to reverse it. But shouldn’t I think
about the point in time that I wanted to be transported back to?
The real question was when should I return? Should I wish for time
to reverse to before the argument with Leo? Was that far enough?
Should I wish for time to be reversed to the point before I became
pregnant? How far back should I go?

I held the watch in front
of me and said the chant that would unlock the spell. “One wish at
a time when you need it most.”

***

I was two when my father
left me and my mother, but I still saw him regularly when I went to
stay at Teri’s house. I was ten when he left for Japan, old enough
to realize that Japan was far away and I might never see him again.
So I’d turned back every clock in the house and sat on the front
porch waiting for whatever magic I’d seen on TV at the time to
work. In my mind, I pictured Dad bounding down the path as if
nothing had happened, he’d pick me up and we’d go over to Teri’s
house for the weekend.

Now, guided by the same
tears that had guided me as a child, I used the tip of my
fingernail to drive the minute and hour hands counter clockwise,
willing time to reverse.

Faster. Faster.

Turning.
Turning.

Spinning.
Spinning.

The air shifted around me,
picking up pace as though a tornado had erupted from out of
nowhere. The air moved so fast that the cabin became a blur.
Soundlessly, the air continued to fly yet I remained unmoving. In a
matter of seconds, night became day, and day became night. And
still I kept turning those hands of time backwards.

It shouldn’t have worked.
But it did. Time was reversing, until finally, when the hands
became stuck and wouldn’t budge, I noticed that everything around
me had also stopped.

The hairs on my neck
lifted. Darkness pressed around me.

***

I sat in the Jeep, unsure
of where I was but very sure that my mom would have a fit if she
found the car missing from the garage. I couldn’t remember why I’d
taken it.

As I got out, the wind
whipped around me and a hazy memory drifted to the surface.
I’ve borrowed Mom’s car to drive to Capers Cabin
because I need to speak with Leo. Urgently.

Up ahead, I saw the dim
glow of the log fire through the cabin window so I headed there.
Leo was inside that cabin. Leo, Simon, and Thomas had come here to
write songs for a demo. Thomas’ dad was loaning them the money to
record their CD, plus he owned the cabin and was letting them use
it to practice. They’d chosen the cabin because it didn’t have cell
reception.

No distractions, Leo had
said.

No distractions to write
songs or no distractions from a nagging girlfriend?

I got out of the Jeep.
Dried leaves and twigs snapped beneath my boots as I made my way to
the cabin. I stopped at the bottom step. As I gripped the railing I
realized that being here didn’t feel right. Something was telling
me I should get back in the car and go home. But I had to speak
with Leo.

Up one step. Something
crunched underneath my boot and it wasn’t twigs or dried
leaves.

Under the moonlight I saw
that I’d stepped on something the size and shape of a cookie. I
picked up the object and held it up to the moonlight. It was an old
fashioned timepiece, the kind of watch that was from the Victorian
era and was usually worn on a chain. Relics were sometimes found in
the woods though not usually this close to a cabin.

The glass front was
missing. Looking down, I didn’t see any broken glass. It had been
broken before I’d stepped on it.

Turning it over, I saw an
inscription.

“
One wish at a time,” I
whispered.

A jolt of something like
electricity shot out of the watch and into my fingers. Visions
flashed before my eyes.

The Jeep running off the
road.

Leo crying.

Ghosts in the
cabin.

A funeral.

Audrey trapped in the
woods.

An audience
cheering.

Leo’s pained
face.

At once I knew why I had
come to the cabin.

But it wasn’t for the
reasons I told myself.

I wasn’t here to test
Leo’s love for me. I was here to test mine for him.

Inside, I heard the boys
singing and laughing. They were probably drinking. I loved Leo with
all my heart, but for the first time I realized that if he chose a
path that led to darkness, I might not travel down that path with
him.

The watch sent more images
into my mind, and it was as if I was getting a glimpse of a future
that awaited me if I knocked on the door. An alternate reality, a
premonition, my actual future if I knocked on the door to the
cabin. Whatever these visions were I was left with the sense that I
could do crazy things in the name of love and along the way achieve
amazing things, too. But at what cost?

Throwing the watch to the
ground, I stomped my boot on it, crushing it into tiny pieces. I
had been foolish to turn up in the middle of the night with the
intention of finding out how much Leo loved me.

With this insight came the
knowledge that my mother’s advice over the years, which I had taken
to be bitter rants about men, would become the arsenal of swords
needed to build the fortification to help me thrive as a strong,
independent woman. I had a feeling I’d need armor and shields as
well, and these could be my friends. But no matter what defenses I
stockpiled, I would win this battle because I had the most
important thing on my side – Me.