Timeless (2 page)

Thirty minutes later—the appropriate amount
of time for a young lady to entertain her boyfriend—and she joined
us in the kitchen.

“How was school today?” she asked us when we
sat around the table, eating the cookies she had ready. Aunt Jo
loved to bake, which was fortunate. Cooking wasn’t exactly my
strong suit.

I sighed deeply.

“I have to learn to swim,” I began,
“Otherwise…” I left my sentence unfinished.

Aunt Jo knew the “or else” part. We’d talked
it over a hundred times, and she’d already visited the school
principal. Going to see the guidance counselor was a last,
desperate step. I’d hoped for a pass for psychological reasons, but
since this actually involved seeing a doctor, that door was closed
too. I wasn’t quite ready to go there yet, not because I wasn’t
desperate enough—I was—but whatever fear I had, I wanted to leave
it undiscovered, if possible. Something inside of me didn’t want to
face it.

Aunt Jo stopped smiling then. She understood
my fear, and she never tried to push me.

“You don’t have to learn today, dear,” she
said sympathetically, patting my shoulder as she stood up to signal
that it was time to get down to business.

I smiled at her less-than-subtle hint. Aunt
Jo was my grandmother’s youngest sister and had helped to care for
me since I’d moved to Florida with my mother. We relocated from
Denver after my father died in a skiing accident when I was five.
Though most of my memories of him had eventually faded, I did
remember the overwhelming grief and longing I felt when he died.
His face and voice had merged with pictures and a few home videos,
as Mom had tried to keep his memory alive for me. She never got
over losing him.

When Aunt Jo offered her home, Mom decided
that we should leave Colorado for sunny Florida, a total change and
a new start for us. It was a welcome haven, and my mother, who
loved children, had made a place for herself as a kindergarten
teacher at the local elementary school near our house in DeLand. I
was happy she had some real happiness before meeting her own tragic
end a year ago. I still felt close to her in the house and yard,
filled with the now overgrown gardens she had once lovingly
tended.

Everything reminded me of her. I suspected
that Aunt Jo, who’d lived in this house all her life, wanted to
change the rooms to help me overcome my loss. I thought that Ben
suspected it too. He’d not been that surprised when Aunt Jo
announced that we’d started painting the house a few weeks ago. He
was eager to help.

Ben had looked after me almost from my first
day in DeLand, when he’d passed by the house on his bike. He’d seen
the U-Haul and stopped, waving and welcoming us to Florida with a
“Howdy, Ma’am” to Aunt Jo and a much shier “hello” to me. Two
cupcakes and several glasses of lemonade later, we’d become good
friends. By the end of the first week, we were inseparable.

I knew that no one else really understood why
Ben and I were always together. Even I didn’t really understand it.
Only my green eyes were remotely attractive, and according to Mom
and Aunt Jo, they didn’t come from anyone in my family. I didn’t
know any other red heads—and I do mean that carrot-top, orangey-red
color—in school except for Mrs. Colms, the Home Ec. teacher, and I
suspected hers came out of a bottle. Why anyone would actually
choose red hair was beyond me.

Ben had already gone upstairs to the guest
bedroom to change into some old clothes that Aunt Jo had found for
him. She’d bought me painter’s overalls when we started this
project several weeks ago.

The Duchess had positioned herself on top of
the overalls, which Aunt Jo had neatly laid out on my bed, a
four-poster canopy with an antique lace coverlet that had belonged,
like everything else in the room, to my grandmother. It took
several minutes for the Duchess to agree to let me have them. She
would not be moved. Once she became settled, that was usually
that.

“Please?” I asked her, exasperated.

She cocked her head at me, licked one paw,
and finally deigned to move over, stretching herself on her back. I
obligingly scratched her belly.

I picked the hairballs off the front of the
overalls and quickly dressed, cringing when I caught a glimpse of
myself in the mirror. Painter’s overalls aren’t exactly the most
flattering attire, not that I gave too much thought to what I wore
anyway. Carelessly throwing my long hair in a bun, I was ready to
go.

We decided to move the furniture out instead
of trying to cover it with plastic. We’d learned our lesson
painting the kitchen and living rooms, when we ended up bumping
into chairs and overturning tables.

After we moved the large table out to the
porch and slid the chairs into the foyer, we began tackling the
walls, converting the stately beige to a bright, electric blue. The
entire downstairs had begun to look like a brochure for a Key West
hotel. Aunt Jo was nothing if not adventurous. It was one of the
features I loved best about her.

Three hours and two paint fights later, Ben
had covered half of my face, and I knew I probably looked like one
of those ancient Picts in one of my history textbooks, ready for
battle with my blue war paint. I’d managed to get in a few swipes
on the back of his neck, but the effect wasn’t nearly as savage or
as thorough.

We eventually put our paint brushes down,
lying together on the plastic covers we’d spread over the hardwood
floors. Staring at our handiwork, our paint-smudged hands behind
our heads, we both laughed at the same time.

“It’s really awful, isn’t it,” I said in a
whisper so Aunt Jo couldn’t hear in the adjoining room.

“Yeah,” he whispered loudly, “I didn’t want
to say anything. I thought you’d probably picked it out,” he
finished, a huge smile on his face.

I sat up and shoved him. He held up his hands
in defense.

“Hey, don’t blame me! I see the crazy stuff
you wear to school!” he protested, laughing more loudly.

I hit him a little harder, but he was right.
I did like bright colors—just not on the walls. Aunt Jo was
probably trying to follow what she thought was my taste.

“I started to get worried when we painted the
kitchen mango,” he said through the tears of laughter.

By that time, we were rolling on the floor,
forgetting we had to stay quiet.

“What’s so funny in here?” Aunt Jo asked,
poking her head in and wanting to share the joke.

“Oh, nothing,” we said together, trying to
keep from laughing again. Neither of us wanted to hurt her
feelings.

“I’m getting hungry,” I said to save us
both.

A little later, Aunt Jo ordered pizza, and we
sat around the kitchen table stuffing ourselves until Ben looked at
his watch. He gave me a quick kiss, thanked Aunt Jo for the pizza,
and drove home to shower and get ready for tonight.

I climbed the stairs, glad that Aunt Jo
didn’t follow me. I was still upset about my meeting with Mrs.
Anderson, and I wanted to take a nap before going out tonight.

I changed out of the overalls, now splattered
with blue paint to match the equally exotic shades of the kitchen
and living room.

I lay on the bed, thinking of my grandmother,
who’d grown up in this house. It was a lucky thing that I didn’t
have too many clothes, as I was still using her antique armoire
standing opposite to the bed. Houses built at the turn of the last
century didn’t include closets, and most of my friends still
couldn’t believe I could live without one.

I liked to feel in touch with the past, and
though my grandmother had passed away before I was born, it felt
right somehow that I was still connected to her, sleeping on the
same bed that she did as a girl and looking in the same mirror she
used above the dresser. Aunt Jo had even left me the antique wash
stand, with its porcelain wash bowl, beside the bed.

The house had been in the St. Clair family
since it was built by my great-great-grandfather in 1908. He’d been
killed in World War I, but his son had grown up here and raised my
grandmother, her younger brother, and her sisters. It was natural,
Aunt Jo said, for my mother and me to come home to live. Though my
mother, a native of Iowa, had no roots in Florida, she agreed with
Aunt Jo, knowing that I needed a place to belong. Aunt Jo always
treated Mom like a daughter, not ever having any of her own, and me
as a granddaughter. I think she was glad we’d come to Florida for
the company, and I knew she missed Mom terribly. Aunt Jo had some
close friends and a very active Bridge club, but it wasn’t the same
as family, she always said.

I didn’t know what I would do without Aunt Jo
now that Mom was gone. I looked at the wedding picture of my
parents on the dresser beside the one of Ben and me taken two
summers ago. My mother’s smile, the only physical trait I’d
inherited from her, made her still seem alive. The picture quickly
became blurry with the familiar sting of tears. Mom and Dad looked
so happy holding hands together on their wedding day. Dad had dark
waving hair neatly brushed back, a carefree smile on his face, and
Mom looked very young in a white lace dress that had belonged to
her mother, her dark brown curls pinned up with the ivory roses
she’d probably grown herself.

I remembered then her last days, the slow,
long drips of the morphine, the meaningful looks between the
doctors. No one wanted to tell me that the end had come, but I knew
when it was time. I’d watched my mother battle too long not to
recognize when I had to let her go. As much as I loved her, I
didn’t want to see her live in pain. People think that letting go
is the hardest part of death, but it isn’t. It’s seeing the person
you love the most suffer.

That didn’t mean that I didn’t miss hearing
Mom’s voice throughout the house. No one had prepared me for the
emptiness her passing would create. The worst part was the silence,
as though she just didn’t exist anymore.

I choked back the tears and concentrated
instead on the more immediate problem at hand. How was I going to
overcome my fear of drowning? There was no other high school in
town, and it looked like they weren’t going to budge on the rules.
That must have been some sizeable donation, I thought sleepily,
curling up on the bed.

I drifted off to sleep, still not having come
up with a plan and knowing that I couldn’t keep putting it off
forever.

I awoke on the floor sometime later, covered
in a cold sweat. I had dreamed that I was frantically running
through the woods, trying to escape someone or something. Someone
strong, tall, and dark—a figure I knew better, even, than
myself—pulled me along, but we could not move quickly, hampered by
my long skirts and the low tree branches that continuously pelted
my face. Danger followed, gaining on us every minute. My long hair
caught on one of the low hanging branches, halting our progress. He
turned to face me, a perfect study of strength and beauty, and I
was struck by the deep, penetrating force of his gaze and the
urgency written on his face. Despite my fear, I felt mesmerized by
his dark eyes, which locked with mine, sending an unspoken message
of love mingled with courage and despair. He untangled my hair,
loosening it from the clutching branches, and we ducked into the
abandoned ruins of a small church just beyond a clearing, a place
we knew by heart.

We heard the loud clang of their approach,
their chanting growing louder as they closed in. Knowing we could
not escape, he bestowed a burning kiss, fired by the intensity of
his love. It could not last. We broke off, and he drew forth his
sword, sweeping me behind him.

“This is it,” I whispered to him, waiting for
them to descend upon us.

They drew closer, their swords drawn against
us. Though strong, he could not defeat so many, and I knew he would
die trying. They made a ring around us, their faces like snarling
wolves.

“Burn the witch!” they demanded, over and
over again.

It took me a moment to understand they meant
me. I screamed furiously, fearing for our lives.

Then I saw her, her hideously beautiful face
twisted into a wicked smile, and my fear trebled, becoming almost a
palpable thing.

My breathing became more ragged as she
approached. I frantically looked for a way to escape, but they had
us trapped from all sides.

I felt myself fall hard on the ground below
and abruptly woke up, a silent scream on my lips. I must have
rolled off the bed, I thought, disoriented. I shakily stood up and
sat on the edge of the bed, now soaked with the effects of my
feverish dreaming.

The Duchess, who’d been licking her paws in
the corner, looked at me curiously. She jumped on the bed, rubbing
herself beneath my hand—a rare event that signaled her alarm. I
stroked her for awhile, taking comfort in her soothing purrs.

Several minutes later, Aunt Jo knocked on the
door and poked her head around.

“Everything okay in here?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I whispered, still unsure if I could
find my voice. “I just had a bad dream,” I croaked.

“Well, you have about fifteen minutes before
Ben comes to pick you up,” she reminded me.

It was initially difficult to move off the
bed. I felt paralyzed by fear, even knowing that my dream had only
been a nightmare.

I slowly got up, took a sip of the water I
kept by the bed, and headed for the shower, though I could feel the
old fear assault me. I shuddered as I approached the tub. I didn’t
want to go near it.

We only had one old-fashioned bathroom, which
I shared it with Aunt Jo. I had to let the water run for awhile and
then latch the shower head to a hook above the tub. Normally, it
was no problem—inconvenient, but also quaint. Today, however, I
just couldn’t bring myself to turn on the tap, let alone get
in.

Snap out of it, I muttered to myself, knowing
I was already running behind. I forced myself to approach the tub.
At this rate, I wouldn’t have time to wash and dry my hair, a task
that often took at least thirty minutes. I’d have to pin it up. Ben
liked my hair curly anyway, so perhaps it was for the best. I
smiled, trying to concentrate on Ben instead of the dark-eyed
protector in my dream, unquestionably a powerful knight who had
shielded me from danger.