The Gathering Darkness (24 page)

Remembering Maggie’s letter, I forced myself to speak again. “Wh-why would he get hurt?”

“Maggie will hurt him if you don’t leave him.” Her voice wavered slightly from its acid tone.

My eyebrows pulled together over my widened eyes. “Why will Maggie hurt him?”

For the first time during our conversation she lowered her gaze to the pendant. She reached for it. Curious, I let her. As her fingers grazed the cold metal, she shrieked and pulled away, just as Sammy had earlier. I grabbed it myself and wished her away. For a brief moment, she looked scared.

“Remember what I said.” She peeled her black eyes from the pendant and fled the room.

Megan might as well have thrust a dagger into my heart, for all of the emotional pain she’d just inflicted upon me. What if she was right? What if Marcus loved her? But Sammy had said they were never really together. Yet, he took her to a dance, and they made out.

“Oh God,” I said out loud. My head spun, and I felt physically sick. I grabbed the sink in front of me for support. “He loves her.” He’s never mean to her, even though she’s always mean to me. Also, there were circumstances surrounding their date that I didn’t know about.

Tears flowed down the face of my reflection. With a shaking hand, I pulled out a piece of paper towel from the defiled holder and pressed it to my eyes. The washroom door flew open and a couple sophomore girls walked in.

“Hey, are you alright?” One asked.

Without lifting my head from my hands, I nodded.

“You sure? Do you want me to get Sammy?” the other offered.

Panicked, I looked at them. “No! I just need a minute. I don’t feel very good.”

When I looked back into the mirror, I knew the girls weren’t fooled. They proceeded to fix their hair and struck up a conversation about boys. I had to get out. I flew past them and pushed through the door as another group of girls came through.

I didn’t look to the gym door, where I knew Marcus would be waiting for me. Instead, I bolted from the cafeteria. Once I was in the hallway, I ran to the stairs that led to the main floor. My heart stopped when I heard him call my name out.

I decided in that moment that even if Megan was lying, I still had to cut myself out of Marcus’ life for his own safety. Maggie had said so, and now Megan. I couldn’t exist if anything happened to him. If my fate was to live the rest of my miserable life in this cursed village and only glimpse Marcus from a distance, then I would be content knowing he was safe.

As I ran up the bottom half of the stairs, Evan was coming down from the top. I slammed into him on the landing. He grabbed my arms to keep me from falling backwards.

“Let go of me.” I tried to keep a steady voice, but the tears spilled anyway.

“What’s this now?” With a confused look that quickly changed to amusement, he let go and stepped back as if to assess me. “Trouble in paradise already?” I ignored his hurtful remark and pushed past him, but he grabbed my arm again.

“Let go. I have to go home.” I twisted out of his grip.

“And how do you plan to get there?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I wiped my face with the sleeve of my dress.

“I’ll take you,” he said after a pause.

Perhaps he had some ulterior motive, but the way I saw it, I had no choice but to take him up on his offer. I needed to get Marcus out of my life, and so I would use Evan to hurt Marcus, even though it would kill me inside.

“Okay, let’s go,” I said, unable to look directly at him.

We were heading up the second half of the stairs when I heard Marcus call out.

“Brooke. Where are you going?”

I didn’t stop.

“Brooke!” His voice was louder this time.

He’d caught up. I stopped and turned to face him. With an ache in my heart and a cracked voice, I said, “I have to go. Evan’s driving me home.”

“What just happened? Tell me?” he pleaded.

I closed my eyes trying to summon the strength I needed, but couldn’t find it. “I just have to go.”

“Then I’ll take you.”

“No. Evan’s taking me.” I could just imagine how much Evan was enjoying this. The dagger plunged deeper. “Please, just trust me,” I pleaded through my tears.

His face changed from shock to hurt. Marcus grabbed the front of Evan’s jacket. “What did you do to her?” he demanded.

Evan’s grin widened.

“Stop it!” I tried to pry Marcus’ hands off his brother. “He didn’t do anything. I ran into him on the stairs and asked him to drive me home. Now please let us go.”

Marcus’ hand touched my arm. He opened his mouth to speak but changed his mind. An invisible hand shoved the dagger in to the hilt and twisted it, wounding my heart beyond repair. My knees weakened. I swallowed, hurting my throat, and turned away from him. He didn’t follow.

I didn’t speak to Evan on the way home. The music was too loud anyway. I used up his entire stash of fast-food napkins from inside of the dash on my tears. When he pulled into the driveway, he reached over to put his arm on the backrest of my seat. I reached for the door. Evan grabbed my shoulder and held it forcibly.

“Leave him, Brooke.”

I felt the pendant grow cold again, and my hand froze to the door handle. Too afraid to look at him, I summoned the strength to get out of the car and, without a word, slammed the door shut and ran to the house.

I collapsed to the floor of my bedroom in a crumpled heap next to my bed, clasping Claire and Christian’s picture to my chest, and cried my heart out.

I tried to convince myself that I’d done the right thing, but I’d never felt such an ache in my chest in all my life. The ball of paper, all that was left of Maggie’s letter, lay on the floor nearby, where I’d thrown it earlier. I reached for it and smoothed out the wrinkles then read it again.

It was obvious to me now that Megan was part of whatever was happening to me, and for some reason I couldn’t comprehend, Maggie wanted me away from Marcus.

Nothing made sense.

In my despair, I decided I would give Maggie what she wanted. I would give her the pendant and then, maybe, I could have some sort of normal life here. Perhaps I would even beg my parents to let me come home. Although I knew my heart would stay behind.

A half-hour later, as I sat on my bedroom floor, reduced to sobs, my cell phone rang. I looked at the display and clutched the phone to my chest. A new wave of tears spilled. I didn’t answer Marcus’ call. He called two more times, and when I didn’t answer the third, he texted me.

“I’m outside your bedroom window. If you don’t come down, I’m coming up.”

My spirit had weakened, all but one tiny fragment. It was that fragment that pushed me up off the floor and forced my legs to move, until I found myself standing at the window.

I looked down into the back yard and could barely see him in the darkness below. Something pinged off the window pane. I sighed, knowing he wouldn’t give up.

“I’m going outside,” I called into the living room to Aunt Rachel and Uncle Jim as I slipped my feet into my sneakers.

“Is everything okay, Brooke? You came home from the dance awfully early.”

Aunt Rachel turned her head away from the TV to look at me. I made sure not to look at her directly, for fear she’d see evidence on my face that things weren’t okay.

I tried unsuccessfully to lighten my voice. “Yeah, everything’s fine. I’ll be back soon.”

“Okay, remember it’s a school night.”

Apprehensively, I stepped out onto the unlit porch and stood there, numb. Marcus stood beside the truck, holding the passenger door open. His face was shrouded in darkness. I felt my chest tighten.

“Get in,” he said, his tone void of expression.

I obeyed.

M
arcus shut the door behind me and got in the driver’s side. I clutched Maggie’s crumpled letter in one hand, the picture in the other, and sat stiffly, staring straight ahead.

A barrier of silence hung between us as Marcus drove to the boathouse. Once there, he got out of the truck and walked inside. I followed, feeling as if I was in deep trouble.

The moment I closed the door, he turned and drew me to him, holding me like he was afraid to let go. “Tell me, Brooke. Tell me what happened at the dance tonight.”

I squeezed my swollen eyes shut. They hurt. From in between us, I loosened the hand that clutched the letter and held it up to him. When he took it from me, I walked to the front wall of windows.

The light at the end of the wharf shone dimly through the multi panes of glass. The lamp on the table behind me gave off a soft glow, enough to paste my gloomy reflection in the window in front of me.

“Where did you get this?” he asked after a few minutes of silence.

I stared at the whitecaps washing onto shore and answered softly, “It was in the envelope Beth had given to me from Maggie.”

“Why would Maggie give this to you?”

I couldn’t answer his question, but I had one for him. “Why didn’t you tell me about Megan?” I ended up sounding more jealous than hurt.

“What about her?”

Through the window, I watched him walk across the great room and stop behind me. His bewildered expression was mirrored in the glass beside mine.

“You love her. You were with her before I moved here. Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Love her? I don’t even like Megan,” he said, sounding both disgusted and confused.

I turned from his reflection and faced him.

“She told me tonight, in the washroom, that you loved her and that you two … .” I couldn’t finish the sentence. He could figure it out.

My shoulders dropped, surrendering to the emotional pain. I was too tired from all the crap that had just gone down to have this conversation.

Marcus brought his hand to the side of my face and held it there.

“She lied. How can I make you believe me?”

Like a flower turning toward the sun, I leaned into his touch, my gaze lifted to his.

“There’s something I want you to know.” He clenched his jaw and swallowed. “I was waiting for the right moment, but after tonight, I might not get another chance.” He hesitated. “I love you, Brooke.”

His declaration stunned me. I blinked and lowered my eyes to the point on his throat where his T-shirt began. For a few seconds I couldn’t move.

When I didn’t say anything, he continued. “I have since the first day I saw you. It might sound ridiculous, but it’s true. I never knew what it felt like to be in love before I met you. I swear.”

The softness of his hand sliding down my face and neck and coming to rest on my shoulder sent a cool tingle across my skin. In that moment I knew I loved him too. I had from the beginning. That’s why everything hurt more than it should.

“Megan lied. Whatever she told you was a lie.” He looked at me firmly, waiting for me to say something.

I thought back to the school washroom. “Megan’s eyes, they were black, and she was so strong.” I whispered for fear that she or Maggie might somehow hear me.

“Did she hurt you?”

“No, not physically. I think she’s possessed. Her eyes turned black, like Sammy’s had and … .” My mouth dropped open.

“What?”

“They looked the same as Maggie’s had, when she went psycho on me in the bedroom at the Inn on my first day at work. Sammy’s connected with them. Maybe the witch has put a spell on them.”

I rambled on, suddenly on the verge of becoming hysterical; all the while I held on to the thought that Marcus had just told me he loved me. Although my heart still bled, I felt the wound mending. A smile tried to dissolve my frown, but it wasn’t strong enough to lift the corners of my mouth. I couldn’t allow his heart to break any longer. I loved him too.

“Brooke, Megan lied, and I don’t care what’s written on this paper.” As he said it, he crumpled Maggie’s letter into a tight ball and threw it across the room. “It’s obvious that the three of them are in this together, or maybe it’s like you said, Maggie
has
put a spell on them. Please believe me, Brooke.”

“I think Evan is one of them, too.” I relayed to Marcus the last words Evan had spoken to me and told him how the pendant had turned cold.

Marcus ran his fingers through his hair. “I guess that doesn’t surprise me. He’s been acting strange lately.”