Eternal

“Sure,” I said, walking back to the bedroom. But when I saw the pen—more like a quill, really—there on the desk, well . . . I wasn’t going to give him that one. Instead, I went over to my purse and dug around, finding an old ballpoint on the bottom that probably didn’t even work. “Here,” I said, hurrying back and handing it to him.

I bent over him, watching in amazement as he pried loose a floorboard, then two more. When he’d exposed a hole in the floor about ten inches long by four inches wide, he reached inside and retrieved a rectangular wooden box.

“It’s still here,” he said, rising. “I can’t bloody well believe it.”

“Have you noticed that you slipped into full Viscount Brompton speech the moment we got here?” I asked. “I mean, I love your accent and all, but it’s kind of freaking me out.”

He ignored me, carefully lifting the lid and peering inside.

“Are you going to tell me what’s inside your little box?” I prodded.

He looked up at me and smiled. “My secrets.”

“Your secrets? Um, okay.”

He took out a folded piece of paper, yellowed with age. “It’s poetry, mostly, and dreadful, at that—chock-full of adolescent rage. I must have been fourteen, fifteen or so.”

“Oh my God! You wrote poetry? You’re going to let me read it, right?” I held out my hand. “C’mon, I’ll be really careful.”

“I’ve never shown them to anyone before. Not in all these years—more than a century.”

“Please?” I wheedled, dying of curiosity now. “Just one?”

“You’ve been warned,” he said after a pause. “It’s painfully bad.”

Gingerly, I took the fragile page from him. The first thing I noticed was that his handwriting was completely different—unrecognizable, really. Maybe it was his youth; maybe it was the old-fashioned pen he’d used, one that had to be dipped in ink. Whatever it was, it threw me for a loop. But not as much as the words I managed to decipher did.

We move as one

Together in union

Your breath cools my soul

Tenderness once forgotten

Leads to my explosive rebirth

Helpless, powerless

I give my heart to you

It lies crushed

Beneath the weight of your hatred

That was all I could make out, but it was enough for me to realize that it was about a girl.

“Wow,” I said at last. “That’s really beautiful. Here, let me see another one.”

One by one, he unfolded the slips of yellowed vellum. I couldn’t make out most of it, just a few lines here and there. Most were angry, I realized. Really angry.

“Whoever she was, I’d say it didn’t go very well,” I muttered.

He shook his head. “No, it didn’t. I was very young.”

“I just can’t believe you wrote these,” I said, carefully folding the last slip and handing it back to him. “You seem like a totally different person than you are now.”

“I was spoiled, careless. I got angry if I didn’t get exactly what I wanted.”

“Meaning her,” I suggested, and he just nodded. I didn’t want to know who she was, hoped he wasn’t going to tell me. I’d been impressed by his poems, but I was jealous, too. “Have you ever . . . you know . . . written a poem about me?”

“No. I haven’t written anything in a very long time. These poems . . . they were a way to work through my anger. Writing about my feelings was cathartic, a way to exorcise my demons. I have no need for poetry now.”

“Huh,” I said, a little hurt. Which was silly, of course, but whatever. “Well, it’s too bad you don’t play guitar or piano. You’d make a good lyricist.”

“Yeah, I could have pioneered the hard-core punk movement. You know, back in the 1890s. Given that Rachmaninoff a little competition.”

“What else have you got in there?” I asked, peering inside.

He pulled out the remaining treasures. A yellow velvet ribbon. A button. A small golden thimble. Something that looked vaguely like a wooden acorn.

“Okay, a thimble and an acorn?” I asked. “What, are you Peter Pan?”

“It’s funny,” he said, shaking his head. “I know that each of these had some special meaning to me, but I can’t quite remember what, not anymore. It’s like . . . the memories are inaccessible. Just out of reach.”

“I don’t even know what this is,” I said, holding up the acorn.

He rolled it around in his palm. “Just a trinket of some sort.”

“So, what are you going to do with it all? Keep it, or put it back?”

“I think it should stay with the house, don’t you?” He reached down to stroke my hair. “I’ll put it back tomorrow. You look exhausted.”

I nodded, leaning in to him. “I am pretty tired.”

He set the wooden box on the dressing table and then led me back to the bedroom. I went over to my suitcase and pulled out my pajamas, my heart racing now. I had no idea why I was so nervous—we’d shared a bed in Paris without incident.

But this bed . . . I eyed it once more, my heart racing now.

When I glanced back at Aidan, he’d already stripped off his shirt. Which, of course, only made my heart beat faster.

Crap. That stupid vision. Unlike my usual glimpses of the future, this particular one hadn’t shown anything terrible happening—nothing life-threatening, no maiming, no blood or broken bones. Still, I’d taken it as a warning, because they always were. But maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe there really was nothing more to it than what I’d seen.

And what, exactly, had I seen? The two of us in bed together. Been there, done that. We were making out, but what else was new? And yes, sometimes when we did, his eyes turned red and his canines came out. But if he were going to actually bite me—pierce the skin and suck my blood—then wouldn’t my vision have shown that, too?

I had to make a decision now, based on instinct alone. And my instinct was telling me that I was safe in this particular bed with Aidan.

That was good enough for me.

33 ~ Gone

The house seems so quiet,” I said, staring up at the ceiling above the bed. We’d left the curtains open, and the full moon cast a silvery light across our bodies. We lay there together, my head on Aidan’s shoulder, one arm thrown across his bare chest. “Do you think they’ve all gone to bed?”

“Probably so. It’s been a long day. I can’t believe you’re still awake.”

“Well, so are you,” I argued.

“Yes, but I don’t have to sleep. You do. What’s going on, Vi? You’re so tightly strung right now, I could play you like a violin.”

I let out a sigh. “Just thinking, I guess.”

“Are you going to let me in on it?”

“Mostly about school in the fall. It’s going to be so weird without everyone else.” I was also thinking about those poems of his, but I wasn’t going to mention that.

“It’s a new chapter in your life,” Aidan said philosophically. “One ends, another begins. You’ll have many more.”