Sweet Unrest (16 page)

“It’s no charge, long as you promise to be safe.”

“I promise.” I tucked the small pouch into my bag with the figure. “Thanks. I really appreciate this.”

“You got a long way to go, child.” She considered me a moment. “But I think you gonna do okay in the end.”

I sighed. “One can only hope.”

She smiled warmly. “Hope only gonna take you so far. Just like fate, child. The rest of it’s gonna be up to you.”

Twenty
-
Five

The drive back to Le Ciel gave me time to think—about what Mama Legba had told me, about Alex, about the dreams and how they were linked to my present. About how they might be linked to my future. But all of those thoughts were forgotten when I saw the flashing lights of the ambulance as I pulled through the gate.

I parked the car haphazardly and jumped out just as Piers came out of our cottage.

“Is everything okay?” I knew by the look on his face that it wasn’t.

“I don’t know, Luce. I think your brother’s hurt.”

When I went into the house, the front parlor was empty but I heard voices coming from the rear. I shouted for my parents as I made my way back.

“Lucy?” My dad came around the corner and grabbed me in a fierce hug. “We tried to call but your phone must have been off. I was afraid we’d have to go to the hospital before you got here.” His voice was unsteady, and he didn’t let me go immediately.

Still nestled securely into the crook of his shoulder, I could feel the tension strumming through him. “Piers said something happened. Is T.J. okay?”

“We don’t know, honey.” My dad eased his embrace so he could look me in the eye. What I saw there made my stomach drop. “He collapsed a little while ago, and we can’t get him to wake up.”

“But he’s going to be okay?” I knew from the pain etched in his face that he didn’t have an answer. My dad always had the answer.

He gave me another fierce hug before going back into the room where my mom and brother were. I couldn’t do anything more than toss my bag on the floor and collapse into an armchair. After a while the paramedics wheeled T.J. out, my mom red-eyed beside him. I’m not sure what was worse—seeing my baby brother laid out on that giant gurney or seeing my mom looking lost and broken as she followed it, stroking his hair and pleading softly for him to wake up.

“Come on, Luce.” My dad’s arm was around me. “We’ll follow the ambulance in my car.”

We spent the rest of the afternoon in a too-white hospital room waiting to find out what was wrong. T.J. had been fine just that morning, my mom kept telling any doctor who would listen. We waited for hours as he was wheeled in and out of his room for test after test. None were conclusive.

By dinner, we were all exhausted and beyond frustrated. No test had revealed what was causing the coma-like state my brother was in. His vitals were fine, strong even. There were no signs of trauma or injury. No one could tell us what was wrong with him.

“Luce,” my dad said, his voice tired, “maybe you should head back and get some rest. There’s nothing else we can do here today, and we can’t all stay here tonight.”

“You don’t want me here?” I didn’t want to be anywhere else.

“Of course we want you here, Lucy, but we’re going to need someone to relieve us at some point tomorrow. We need you to be rested and ready for that. Do you think you’re okay to drive? Or I could call Mina to come pick you up?”

I told him I’d be fine driving, and he handed me his keys. They both hugged me tightly, and I could feel my mom’s body trembling as she tried to hold back a sob before she made herself let me go. “You be careful, sweetie. Call us here if you need anything.”

“We’ll see you in the morning,” my dad said.

“Call me if anything happens,” I told them sternly, but they’d already turned back to T.J.’s bed.

For the second time that day, I took the route that led from the city to the country and watched modernity level off to the landscape of the Old South. The darkness was beginning to overtake the brilliant pinks and oranges of twilight, and as I watched stars wink into sight and the colors fade into blackness, the landscape was a perfect mirror of my mood.

Twenty
-
Six

I’d spent a lot of time alone in my room since we’d arrived at the plantation, but I hadn’t actually ever been alone in the new house. That night was a first for me, and I wasn’t ready for it.

On my way to bed, I passed by T.J.’s room. It was decorated exactly like a seven-year-old boy’s room should be. Dirty cleats were tossed at random angles, competing for floor space with half-constructed Lego forts and an army of action figures. The sight of it looking so empty made my throat ache and eyes burn, so I shut the door softly and kept moving to my own room.

Despite the stillness, the house wasn’t completely quiet. I lay on my bed and listened to the way it creaked and groaned as the wind shifted. The light outside was all but gone now, and my room was cloaked in shadows. Even as it grew darker and darker, I couldn’t make myself get up to turn on the light.

I was listening to the house and thinking about my brother when I heard a sound outside my door that made me sit straight up in the darkness and reach for my bedside lamp.

“Lucy?” His voice was so soft that if I hadn’t been so quiet myself, I might have missed it.

“Alex?” I clutched a misshapen pillow to my chest. “Alex? Are you out there.”

“
Oui, ma chère
.”

I got up and walked to the door but didn’t open it. “What are you doing in my house?”

“I was worried about you.”

I considered my options and finally decided to open the door. Alex was standing in the shadows on the other side, his eyes hooded with concern. He was wearing his usual outfit, but his shirt was loose around his neck and its sleeves were rolled up, exposing his strong forearms. Even with everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, even with what I knew him to be, he looked like just about the best thing I’d ever seen.

“May I enter, Lucy?”

“If I say no, do you have to stay out? Like a vampire or something?”

He smiled softly. “No, but I won’t intrude on you, if that is what you wish.”

I hesitated for a second and then swung the door wide. “Did I even really need to open this?”

He shook his head.

“You left me hanging earlier,” I said, still blocking the doorway as though it would do any good.

“I know. I am sorry about that.” He hesitated as though there was more he wanted to say. “Thank you for not giving the witch the charm.”

“You followed me there?”

“I go where the charm goes, Lucy.” He spoke carefully. “If it leaves, it seems I must follow. If it returns, so do I.”

The thought of him being dragged around by some invisible string made me cringe. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

Stepping back, I gestured for him to come in, then sat down carefully on my bed, crossed my legs, and replaced the pillow in my arms as I faced him. He remained standing.

“Are you okay?” His voice was gentle but unsure.

I willed myself to be okay, to deal with this new world that threatened to open up and swallow me whole. It had been easier, somehow, when I was getting the charm for him earlier. Then I’d something else to focus on. Now I had nothing to distract me. I’m not sure if it was the death-grip I had on my pillow or the tightness in my face, but Alex seemed to sense I wasn’t completely at ease with him.

“I will leave you if that is your wish,” he added.

I shook my head. “No, you can stay.” I had to deal with what he was, and I doubted it would ever get any easier. This moment was as good as the next. Even if I was alone, with my parents far across town where they couldn’t help me.

“I will not hurt you, Lucy. I could never harm you,” he said, seemingly reading my thoughts.

Of course he
couldn’t
hurt me. “You can’t even touch me,” I whispered under my breath, and in that moment, I really understood what that meant.

I thought about those long days and nights after Emaline’s murder. During that time, I had foolishly daydreamed about Alex falling for me—not for Armantine, for
me
. I knew now it would never happen. The breath of warmth where his hand should have been, the strange doll that Mama Legba said bound souls to this world—the evidence was too irrefutable to ignore. I’d fallen for a ghost. A dead man more than a century past his expiration date. A phantom who already loved someone else.

He moved slowly closer, like he was afraid to startle me. His eyes were tense, and there was a sadness deep within them I understood. I held perfectly still as he brought his hand up and with the tips of his fingers traced my cheek, my jaw. Across my lips. I felt the slightest brush of electricity. Even as his features relaxed at my willingness to be near him, the pain in his eyes nearly took my breath away.

“Who did this to you, Alex?” I wasn’t able to stop my voice from shaking as I asked.

“It is not important anymore,” he said, withdrawing his hand and turning away from me. “What is important now is that the charm be destroyed.”

“Then what?”

The question seemed to unsettle him, as though he hadn’t ever thought beyond the moment when the doll would be destroyed. “I suppose I will need to find myself. My body.”

“Your body?” I said, uneasy.

“I don’t think I’m quite dead,” he told me, frowning as he said it. “I’m not sure that I’m completely alive either, though.”

“I don’t understand.” My head was spinning. “Of course you’re dead, Alex. You’re a ghost.”

“I’m not sure that I am,
ma chère
.” He shook his head. “When I—” He paused as though unsure about how to continue. “When what happened to me … happened, I was not yet dead.”

“You weren’t dead?” I repeated. Mama Legba’s warning echoed through my brain—
that ain’t magic I’d want anything to do with
.

“No. I was still alive. I watched the old witch—Thisbe—I saw her do something, perform some rite to keep me here.” He stopped again and rubbed his hand over his face. I knew he was far away at that moment, reliving what had happened to him. “Somehow she separated a part of me from my body.”

He cringed like the memory was still fresh, and his eyes took on that far-off look that let me know he was still reliving it. “I knew my body was dying,” he said. “At first, I felt a pull to somewhere beyond, away from my body and this place. The pain of being apart from myself was so great that I was thankful for death—I prayed for it to come faster so I could follow that pull. But then it stopped.”

He looked up at me then, the confusion writ large on his face. “I don’t know how she did it, but she stopped that pull. She stopped my body from dying, and kept my soul bound to this patch of earth. I do not know how long I have been here—how many years have passed—trying to figure out what happened to me. Trying to figure out how to change it.”

“And you didn’t have anyone to help you,” I whispered.

“Until you, no one saw me.”

“Why me?” I didn’t understand my part in this at all.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Lucy.” His voice was soft, laden with the hope of more than a century of waiting.

“But why me?” I asked. My throat felt tight as I spoke. “Why do I have to be the one now? Why do I have to spend my nights dreaming about you and …
her
?”

“What are they like, your dreams? The ones that are not so horrible, that is.”

“It’s so hard to describe,” I said. “In them, I’m, well, I’m her. But I’m me, too. I know what she’s thinking and feeling, but I don’t have any power. It’s like I’m just an observer.” I took a deep breath. “And I’m really having this conversation, aren’t I?”

“Indeed,
ma chère
. Please, go on.” His voice was urgent.

“She loved you,” I told him. “But you terrified her.”

His voice was gentle. “Lucy—”

“Sometimes you terrify me,” I whispered.

“Lucy—” he said again, a plea.

“But I don’t know the whole story yet,” I interrupted. I looked up at him then. “Will you tell me what happened now? Please, I need to know.”

“I do not know the whole story either.”

“You’re still protecting her, aren’t you?” The realization dawned on me. “You still love her,” I whispered, finally saying it out loud.

“I always will,” he told me, his voice full of resolve. “It is a rare thing to find your other half.” His green eyes locked with mine and it was suddenly clear—I would always be second to Armantine for Alex. Whatever fantasies my dreams might have spun, I knew in that moment it would never be enough.

He seemed to sense my thoughts. “Do not think of it, Lucy. She is gone now. You are here. That is what matters most.”

I nodded numbly, not believing a word of it.

“Lucy, love. Now we must focus on what we
can
do.”

“The charm.” I took a deep breath and tried to ignore the ache in my chest.

“I need you to destroy it. Free me, Lucy. If I am not bound to this place, then I can find out what the witch did to my body.”

I dug through my bag and found the two small packages. “I guess there’s no reason to wait,” I told him, holding up both the charm and the Gris-Gris Mama Legba had made for me. “Come on. We can use the fireplace.”

It didn’t take long to set fire to the doll and the small bundle Mama Legba had given me. We sat together, watching as the Gris-Gris flamed up and ignited the charm. The figure burned slowly, with thick, black smoke pouring out. While it burned, the air in the house seemed to thrum. Outside, the wind howled through the trees, but as the flames died down, the almost-electric energy eased, leaving the air still and smelling faintly of ozone.

When the fires burned themselves out completely, I turned to Alex. I think I still believed he was just a ghost—I half-expected him to disappear the moment the embers finally died down. He didn’t disappear, though, and I knew then that he must be right. There was more to what had happened to him than either of us understood.

“Well? Do you feel any different? Did it work?” I asked.

“I’m not sure.” He held up his hand and looked at it like he expected it to be different or to magically transform right in front of him, but nothing happened. “Perhaps I should try to leave?”

I hated the idea of him leaving me alone in the house again, but we needed to know. “How far from the charm could you go before?”

“Not far—a few hundred meters from the mansion at most. The night I saw you in the garden took a great deal of effort.”

“Well, I guess you should take a walk,” I told him.

He nodded, and I could tell he was nervous. More than a hundred years had led up to this moment. I walked with him to the front door and we stepped out onto the porch. The night was calm now, without any trace of the wind that had whipped the trees so violently just moments before.

“Go on,” I said. “I’ll wait for you here.”

He hesitated, but finally went out into the night. I watched the dark gold of his hair as he followed the path leading away from our cottage, out to the massive iron gate and the road beyond. When I could no longer see him, I sat down on the steps to wait.

Clouds hung heavy in the sky, preventing any chance of wishing on a star. I wasn’t sure what I would even wish for—my brother’s safety? A way to help Alex? Or maybe I’d have made a truly selfish wish and asked the heavens to erase his past—to make him mine.

It wasn’t long before he reappeared at the gate. I stood as he walked up the path and went out to meet him. When he saw me coming toward him, relief flashed across his face.

“It worked?”

He laughed then, and his eyes lit with happiness as he came over to me. “You’ve done a great thing for me,
ma chère
.” The usual mask of polite amiability he wore so often to hide his feelings from me was gone, and in that moment, he did look truly free.

“Will you do something for me, then?” I asked.

“Anything.”

“Stay with me tonight?”

He frowned. “I’m not sure that’s the best idea … ”

He misunderstood. All those times I’d dreamt of him, wanted him—part of me was still jealous of what Armantine had been able to experience. Tonight, though, my request had nothing to do with desire.

“It’s just that I’ve never slept here alone. My parents are in the hospital with my brother.”

“He is not well?” Alex asked with genuine concern.

I shook my head. “They don’t know what’s wrong. He won’t wake up.” I swallowed back the tears that threatened. “I’d feel better if I knew someone was around.”

He nodded. “Then I will be.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, my voice trembling with the stress and emotion of the day.

He took a step toward me, but then stopped. “If I could only touch you now.” He traced my lips again, and I trembled at the whisper of electricity that brushed across them. “What I wouldn’t give to be able to comfort you.”

“If only,” I said softly to myself.

He smiled, but tucked his hands into his pockets as we walked back into the house. When I’d locked up and he’d finally settled himself on the couch, we said an awkward good night.

“Sleep well, Lucy,” he said with a sad sort of smile. “Dream of me.”

As if I had any choice.