The Return: Shadow Souls

saying, no? You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. In his case, he said, you could lead a snarling black panther — her normal mental iconic image of Damon — to water, if you had electric cattle prods and elephant ankusha, but that afterward you’d be a fool to turn your back on it. Elena had laughed until she, too, cried, but had still pledged that if he wanted her blood, a reasonable share was his.

Now she simply felt glad to have him around. Her heart was too full already, with Stefan, Damon — and even Matt, despite his apparent desertion — for her to be in danger of falling for another vampire, no matter how terminally fit they were. She appreciated Sage as a friend and protector.

Elena was surprised at how much she came to rely on Lakshmi as each day passed. Lakshmi had begun as a sort of gopher, doing the running around that no one else wanted to, but more and more, she had become Lady Ulma’s maid-in-waiting and Elena’s source of information about this world. Lady Ulma was still officially bedridden, and having Lakshmi ready at any time of the day or night, to send messages, was wonderfully convenient. Too, she was someone that Elena could ask questions of that otherwise would get her eyed as if she were crazy. Did they need to buy plates or was food served on a large hunk of dried bread, which acted as a napkin for greasy fingers as well? (Plates had been recently introduced, along with forks, which were all the rage now.) How much were the men and woman of the household entitled to in wages (which had to be calculated from scratch, since no other household paid its slaves a geld, merely clothing them from a community uniform cache, and allowing them one or two “feast days” a year)? Young as she was, Lakshmi was both honest and bold and Elena was grooming her to become Lady Ulma’s right hand, after Lady Ulma had become well enough to be the lady of the house.

24

Dear Diary,

It’s the night before the night of our first party — or rather gala. But I don’t feel very gala. I miss Stefan too much.

I’ve been brooding about Matt, too. How he walked away, so angry at me, not even looking back. He didn’t understand how I could…care for…Damon, and yet still love Stefan so much that it felt as if my heart was breaking.

Elena put down the pen and stared at her diary dully. The heartbreak manifested itself in actual physical pains in her chest that would have frightened her if she hadn’t been sure of what it really was. She missed Stefan so desperately that she could hardly eat, could barely sleep. He was like a part of her mind that was constantly on fire, like a phantom limb that would never go away.

Not even writing in her diary would help tonight. All she could write about were painfully tantalizing memories of the good times she and Stefan had shared together. How good it had been when she could just turn her head and know that she would see him — what a privilege that had been! And now it was gone, and in its place was racking confusion, guilt, and anxiety. What was happening to him, right now, when she no longer had the privilege of turning her head and seeing him? Were they…hurting him?

Oh, God, if only…

If only I had made him lock all the windows to his room at the boardinghouse…

If only I had been more suspicious of Damon…

If only I had guessed he had something on his mind that last night…

If only…if only…

It became a pounding refrain in time to her heart. She found herself breathing in sobs, her eyes tightly shut, clutching the rhythm to her and clenching her fists.

If I keep feeling this way — if I let it crush me enough — I’ll become an infinitesimal point in space. I’ll be crushed into nothingness — and even that will be better than needing him so much.

Elena lifted up her head…and stared down at her head, resting on her diary.

She gasped.

Once more her first reaction was to imagine death. And then, slowly, because she was stupefied by so many tears, she realized that she’d done it again.

She was out of her body.

This time she wasn’t even aware of a conscious decision about where to go. She was flying, so fast that she couldn’t tell which way she was going. It was as if she were being pulled, as if she were the tail of a comet that was rapidly shooting downward.

At one point she realized with familiar horror that she was passing through things, and then she was veering as if she were the end of the whip in a game of Crack the Whip and then she was catapulted into Stefan’s cell.

She was still sobbing as she landed in the cell, unsure of whether she had solid form or gravity, and uncaring for the moment. The only thing she had time to see was Stefan, very thin but smiling in his sleep and then she was dumped onto him, into him, and still crying as she bounced, as lightly as a feather, and Stefan woke.

“Oh, can’t you let me sleep for a few minutes in peace?” Stefan snapped, and added a couple of Italian words that Elena had never had reason to hear before.

Elena had an immediate fit of the Bonnies, sobbing so hard that she couldn’t listen to — couldn’t even hear—any comfort that was on offer. They were doing horrible things to him, and they were using her image, Elena’s, to do them. It was all too awful. They were conditioning Stefan to hate her. She hated herself. Everyone in the whole world hated her—

“Elena! Elena, don’t cry, love!”

Dully, Elena lifted herself up, getting a brief anatomical view of

Stefan’s chest before she was sobbing again, trying to wipe her nose on Stefan’s prison uniform, which looked as if it could only be improved by anything she might do to it.

She couldn’t, of course; just as she couldn’t feel the arm that was trying to encircle her gently. She hadn’t brought her body with her.

But she had, somehow, brought her tears, and a cold, cable-wire-tough voice inside herself said, Don’t waste them, idiot! Use those tears. If you’re going to sob, sob over his face or his hands. And, by the way, everyone hates you.

Even Matt hates you, and Matt likes everybody, the tiny cruel, productive voice went on and Elena gave way to a fresh gale of sobbing, absently noting the effect of each teardrop. Each drop turned the white skin under it pink and the color spread in ripples outward, as if Stefan were a pool, and she was resting on him, water on water.

Except that her tears were falling so fast that it looked like a rainstorm on Wickery Pond. And that only made her think about the time that Matt had fallen into the pond, trying to rescue a little girl who had fallen through the ice, and how Matt hated her now.

“Don’t, oh don’t; don’t, lovely love,” Stefan begged, so sincerely that anyone would have believed he meant it. But how could he? Elena knew what she must look like, face swollen and blotched by tears: no “lovely love” here! And he’d have to be mad to want her to stop crying: the teardrops were giving him new life wherever they touched his skin — and perhaps the storm inside him had done best, because his telepathic voice was strong and sure.

Elena, forgive me — oh, God, just give me one moment with her! Just a single moment! I can bear anything then, even the true death. Just one moment to touch her!

And perhaps God did look down for a moment in pity. Elena’s lips were hovering over, quivering over, Stefan’s, as if she could somehow steal a kiss like this as she used to when he was still asleep. But for just an instant it seemed to Elena that she felt warm flesh below hers and the flick of Stefan’s lashes against her eyelids as his eyes flew open in surprise.

Instantly they both froze, eyes wide open, neither of them foolish enough to move in the slightest. But Elena couldn’t help herself, as the flush of warmth from Stefan’s lips sent a flush of warmth through her entire body. She melted into the kiss, and, while keeping her body carefully in the same position, felt her gaze go unfocused and her eyelids close.

As her lashes swept against something with substance, the moment swept quietly to an end. Elena had two choices: she could shriek and rail telepathically at Il Signore for only giving them what Stefan had asked for, or she could gather her courage and smile and maybe comfort Stefan.

Her better nature won out and when Stefan opened his eyes, she was leaning over