The Eternal Ones (2 page)

Haven’s eyes glanced up at the action. A tan, handsome young man slid out of a black Mercedes as camera flashes sparkled in the car’s windshield. For a moment, he stared back at the paparazzi, his face dark and unreadable. Then, unexpectedly, a corner of his mouth curled into a grin.

“Ethan,” Haven whispered. A blaze ignited at the tips of her toes. As it began to burn its way upward, Haven felt her knees buckle beneath her.

 

A BARRAGE OF images faded as Haven woke. Her eyes were still closed, and one leg was twisted uncomfortably beneath her. She could hear her mother and grandmother whispering nearby.

“We can’t let your girl leave town,” her grandmother insisted.

“But it hasn’t happened in years.” Her mother sounded frightened.

“You weren’t here, Mae. You didn’t hear what she said. It’s starting all over again.”

The Snively house sat on a wide grassy shelf carved out of a mountainside. Two stories tall, with a fanciful turret that might have held a princess or two, it was the landmark every child searched for when driven into town. In the mornings, the house’s white walls glowed in the sunlight and the crimson azalea bushes that circled the first floor seemed to burn like a bed of live embers. By late afternoon, as the shadow of the mountains crept over the valley, the magic of the Snively house turned dark. Even in the gloaming, with lights blazing from its windows, it couldn’t have appeared less inviting.

Shortly after ten A.M., Haven lugged an Adirondack chair to the edge of the lawn. She adjusted her large, round sunglasses and loosened the sash of her kimono. The silk billowed in the late-morning breeze, almost exposing Haven’s naked backside. Sometimes on Sundays she preferred to go without clothes. As far as she was concerned, that was just as the Lord had intended it.

At the base of the hill, far below her grandmother’s grand house, lay all of Snope City. Two hundred years after Haven’s ancestors had founded it, the “city” remained little more than a short stretch of shops that sold nothing worth buying. But delusions of grandeur still ran in the family. For Imogene Snively, who refused to travel past the Tennessee line, Snope City was nothing less than the center of the universe. That and casual nudity were two of the many subjects on which she and her granddaughter would never see eye to eye.

With the church bells pealing in the valley, Haven plopped down in the chair and flipped open a large sketchbook. She gnawed on the tip of her pencil, trying to focus on the image propped against her knees—a headless, busty body in an emerald green dress. Prom season was the busiest time for the little business she’d started with Beau. There wasn’t a single decent dress to be scavenged for a hundred miles in any direction, and that meant for three months every year, Haven and Beau were the most sought-after duo at Blue Mountain High School. The rest of the time, the other students kept their distance. They were rarely unpleasant, but always wary.

Haven studied the sketch she’d drawn the day before. The green flapper dress appeared familiar. The dresses she designed always did. She wrestled with a sense of déjà vu, trying to recall where she might have seen the gown before. But when she closed her eyes and tried to concentrate, all she could see was the boy on TV. She couldn’t understand how, but she was certain she knew him. When he had looked into the camera, it felt as if he had been looking for
her
.

Haven’s stomach fluttered, and she slid a hand under her robe to steady it. She still had no idea how much trouble her collapse had caused. Afterward, she’d been too exhausted for excuses. Beau had carried her to bed, where she’d woken sixteen hours later, embarrassed that she’d lost control and frightened by the look she remembered seeing in her grandmother’s eyes. When she’d found the house empty, its other occupants already at church, she knew she should prepare herself for the worst.

“I guess they decided not to send you to the funny farm just yet.”

Haven pushed her glasses on top of her unruly thicket of black hair and squinted into the sunlight. Beau Decker was ambling across the yard. With his body still toned from football season, he moved with a grace uncommon in boys his size. He flashed the smile that made half the females in town curse fate. “Cover yourself up, girl. You can’t go around exposing yourself to every man who stops by for a visit.”

“Like
you
care.” Haven grinned and pulled her robe together. “And it’s not as if the rest of them are lining up to see what I got. Why aren’t you in church?”

Beau squatted down beside her chair and surveyed the town. “Decided to let them take a week off from trying to save me. D’you know there are camps out there that can turn kids like me around? Train us to be productive members of society?”

“Productive as in knocking up some Snope City girl and pushing out pups till the day you keel over?” Haven asked, making Beau snort with laugher. “Yeah, well, don’t stick around too long. Imogene’s probably gonna drag Dr. Tidmore up here after the service is over. What do you say I give him an eyeful? That ought to teach her.”

Somehow Beau always knew when to stop laughing. “You think she’ll bring the preacher back here? Things that bad?”

Haven nodded gravely. “They haven’t let me skip church since I had pneumonia in the eighth grade. God knows what must have happened while I was out cold yesterday.”

“What did you see this time? Do you remember?”

Haven let her body fall back in the chair. “I couldn’t forget if I tried. I was sitting in a room, waiting for Ethan. Then he got there, and . . . oh God, I hope I didn’t say anything I shouldn’t have in front of Imogene.”

Beau reached up and squeezed Haven’s hand. “I thought you figured out how to keep from fainting years ago. How long has it been since something like this happened?”

“Since Tuesday?” Haven offered weakly.

“What? Jesus, Haven! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t say anything because I was trying to get it under control. I’ve been seeing the same thing off and on for a few weeks now. I can’t seem to stop the visions anymore. And to be perfectly honest, I’m not even sure that I want to.” She paused as the memory of the kiss passed through her mind, followed by a wave of anxiety. “It felt
real
, Beau. Like I was
there
. I really think I might be losing it this time.”

“You’re not losing it,” Beau insisted, like a doctor comforting a hysterical patient. “Let’s try to think this through. Do you have any idea what brings on the visions? What were you doing yesterday when you passed out?”

“Nothing much. There was some gossip show on TV. They were talking about a rich guy in New York whose father just died. He must have reminded me of Ethan.”

“Let me guess. Dark and brooding. So good-looking it makes your eyes ache?”

“How’d you know?” Haven sputtered.

Beau’s smile was anything but wholesome. “After all these years of showing no interest in the male species, who’d have thought your taste would turn out so wild? Your mystery boy’s name is Iain Morrow.”

“How
do
you know?”

“The Internet’s only good for two things, Haven. Gossip’s one of them. The person you’re talking about’s been all over the tabloids for the past few months.”

Haven dropped the stack of celebrity magazines on the coffee table. Beau picked one off the top of the pile and began to thumb through it.

“You mean to say that your mother keeps treasure like this hidden under her bed and you’ve never bothered to plunder it?” he asked.

“And risk Imogene’s wrath?” Haven scoffed. “She says those magazines are Satan’s newsletters. Even my mom won’t read them in front of her. If Imogene caught
me
with a copy of the
National Enquirer
, none of us would ever hear the end of it.”

“Well, Miss Moore, you have
no
idea what you’ve been missing. Here we go.” Beau turned his magazine around to face Haven. “Let’s see if this does the trick.”

“Is this really necessary?” Haven groaned, refusing to let her eyes drop toward the page. As much pleasure as the visions could bring her, it wasn’t worth the embarrassment of fainting for an audience.

“We’re trying to make a diagnosis here,” Beau intoned with mock seriousness. “Either you have hormone poisoning or you’re hopelessly insane. Don’t you want to know which it is?”

“You know what Imogene’s going to say about it.” As much as Haven hated to bring up her grandmother’s theory about the visions, they couldn’t afford to avoid the topic forever.

Beau wouldn’t entertain the suggestion. “I’ve already diagnosed your grandmother. I’m afraid she’s got a terminal case of evil old bitch disease. Now look at the damn picture!” He shook the magazine at her.

Haven leaned in to study the photo. Iain Morrow had the sort of face that is usually discovered sculpted in marble, staring back at explorers from ancient ruins or shipwrecks. Straight nose, square jaw, wavy brown hair, and lips set in a permanent pout. It might have been a little too perfect if not for the green eyes that glared back at the photographer. Haven realized she had seen Iain Morrow before. His face was on all the magazines at the supermarket that week.

“What do you think?” Beau asked eagerly.

“He’s gorgeous.”

Haven looked up from the page and was startled to catch sight of her own reflection in the mirror across the room. For a moment, she almost failed to recognize the face, with its pug nose, dark gray eyes, and smattering of freckles. She wasn’t stunning, but she was pretty enough. An acquired taste, Beau liked to say, and there were already a few boys who’d acquired it. Haven might have been pleased with her looks if it hadn’t been for her curly black hair, which seemed to sprout in every direction.

“Okay,” said Beau, rolling his eyes. “Why don’t we move beyond the obvious? You feel anything when you look at the picture?”

“No,” Haven admitted with a mixture of relief and disappointment. “Not a thing.”

“Really? Boy, you
are
a cold fish. That photo’s got me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. All right, then. Let’s see what I can tell you about Mr. Morrow. Just let me refresh my memory.”

Beau scanned the article, tracing the text with a work-calloused fingertip. He cleared his throat. “Okay. Says here his father was heir to some kind of toothpaste fortune. Iain got all of it when his dad died a little while ago. Nobody knows how much. His parents were separated, and his mother lives in Italy. They don’t get along. From what I can tell, Iain was a bit of a bad seed. Got kicked out of a bunch of schools.”

“You’re getting all of this from a gossip magazine?” Haven felt as if she had parachuted right into a stranger’s life. She already knew far more about Iain Morrow than she knew about anyone outside of Snope City.

“Yeah, it’s
terrible
, isn’t it? So hold on, this is where it starts to get weird—remember a few months back when that musician disappeared?”

“What musician?” Haven asked. “I just told you I don’t read all that gossip crap.”

Beau glanced up from his magazine, amused by Haven’s self-righteousness. He was well acquainted with each of Haven’s faults, and he knew gossip would have been the least of them. “It was in the
newspaper
, Haven. Don’t be so judgmental. Anyway, this is the musician guy. His name was Jeremy Johns.” He handed Haven a picture of a skinny kid with stringy brown hair and a lost expression. His forearm bore a tattoo that resembled a serpent consuming its own tail. “He was a singer. Supposed to be pretty good. He disappeared right after a concert in Los Angeles. That was a few months ago. No one’s seen him since.”

“What does that have to do with Iain Morrow?”

“He was the last person spotted with Jeremy.”

“So?”

“So nothing,” Beau said. “But the thing is, Iain and Jeremy weren’t all that friendly. And Iain’s known to be something of a ladies’ man. There were rumors that he and Jeremy had been fighting over the same girl. People started to wonder why they were seen together the night Jeremy disappeared.”

“They think this Iain guy murdered Jeremy Johns?”

“Naw. Nobody really believes that. It’s just a coincidence. But it makes a great story for the gossip columnists.” Beau paused. “Is
any
of this doing anything for you?”

Haven flipped past dozens of pictures, each showing Iain Morrow with a different girl. There was nothing familiar about the boy’s beautiful face or his strange story. Yet every time she recalled the way he had smiled on TV, her heart seemed to stumble.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Beau opened his mouth as if to speak, but all that emerged was a weary sigh. As much as he tried to make light of it, both he and Haven knew just how dangerous the situation had become. Imogene Snively would be back from church soon, and she’d had plenty of time to draw her own conclusions.

Haven and Beau had been trawling the gossip pages for over an hour when her grandmother’s car rolled into the driveway. Magazines still littered the living room floor, and as the Cadillac’s engine died, Haven scrambled to return them to her mother’s room.

Two car doors slammed, and they heard the clicking of high heels on asphalt.

“Why’s
he
always here?” When Imogene Snively didn’t bother to whisper, Haven knew the pastor had stayed behind at the church. Certain less admirable sides of her grandmother’s personality were reserved for those closest to her.

“
Please
!” Haven’s mother tried to keep her voice low. “He’ll
hear
you.”

“We’re on
my
property, Mae,” Imogene pointed out at top volume. “I’ll say what I like.”

“Don’t go just yet,” Haven pleaded with Beau, who’d started to gather his things. “We haven’t done any work, and we’ve got Morgan’s fitting tomorrow.”