Endless (10 page)

“Yeah, me, too,” he said.

She sat up. “What do you mean? You were supposed to be doing the … mesmerizing or hypnotizing or whatever.”

“I was, but then … ” He shook his head.

“Then what?”

“I don’t know,” he said, running his hands through his hair. “I think I fell asleep or something.”

“How could you fall asleep while you were hypnotizing me?”

“I’m not sure, but either I fell asleep and was dreaming or I was hypnotized, too.”

The tiny hairs on her arms rose with his words. “What do you mean?”

“It’s like I was here, reading the words on the piece of paper and waiting to see if it would work, and all of a sudden, everything changed. It got really quiet and then I was dreaming.”

She swallowed. “What were you dreaming about?”

He narrowed his eyes with a look of concentration. “It wasn’t a whole dream. It was more like … pieces.”

“Pieces?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Tell me what you remember.”

He took a deep breath, his hair falling forward over one eye. “I was in some kind of mansion or castle or something, at a party … or maybe it was a dance.” He shrugged. “Anyway, people were dressed up and everything. The next thing I knew, I was going through a bunch of different hallways, looking for someone.”

“Do you remember who you were looking for?”

He stood up, smacking at his jeans to get the attic dust off. “Some girl. I saw her in the hall, but she disappeared with another guy. Then I was playing the piano. The girl came in and we left together.”

An icy finger traced its way up Jenny’s spine. She could see it all. The man named Sergei looking for her, ducking into the room with the piano when she disappeared with Nikolai. She saw the guarded expression on his face when Sergei had turned to her, his fingers still moving over the keys, saying she shouldn’t wander the palace alone.

“I was there,” she said.

“What do you mean?” he said absently, still brushing himself off.

“Ben.”

He stopped moving. “What?”

“I was
there.
” She shook her head. “I don’t know how it happened, but I think we were in the same dream.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “Right. We were in the same dream.”

She jumped to her feet, crossing the attic until she was next to him. “Listen, I know it sounds crazy, but I think I was the girl you were looking for.”

His eyes didn’t leave hers. Then he picked up the piece of paper from the music box and thrust it at her.

“Except these are instructions for mesmerization, which you said is like hypnosis,” he said. “Not instructions for how to make someone dream or share dreams or whatever.”

“I know. I … I can’t explain it.” She faltered, trying to find words that wouldn’t make her sound like a total head case. “But I was in a palace, too. First, I was pulled away from a party by—” She faltered, stopping short of saying his name.
Nikolai.
“By some guy who said I was in danger. That my whole family was in danger. He begged me to leave with him, but I told him I couldn’t. There was a reason. I just can’t remember it now. Then I had to get back to the … It was a ball, I think. I had to get back alone. We weren’t allowed to be seen together. I think he was poor and I was rich,” she murmured, remembering. “On my way back to the ball, I heard music … ” She looked into Ben’s eyes. “
Moonlight Sonata
.”

“We’ve both been in this attic too long.” Ben laughed, moving restlessly across the attic floor, picking stuff up and setting it down again. “It’s making us stir-crazy. Let’s get out of here.”

“You were smoking a cigarette,” she said softly, an image of the man, smoke rising from the cigarette in his mouth, flashing in her mind. “You were playing piano and smoking at the same time. There were gold buttons on your coat. It was undone.”

She walked closer to him, lifting his right hand to her face. She breathed in the scent of tobacco and shivered.

“Smell your hand.”

“No. This is nuts.”

She put his hand under his nose. At first, she thought he would hold his breath on principle, but a moment later, she heard him inhale. He froze, his face so still that, for a minute, she wondered if he’d lapsed back into a dream state.

“This is … crazy. Stupid,” he finally said.

“Are you going to stand there and tell me that in your dream, you weren’t playing
Moonlight Sonata
? That you weren’t smoking a cigarette? That you can’t smell it on your hand right now?”

He didn’t say anything, and she felt a surge of victory even though she didn’t know why she even
wanted
him to believe her. He was right. It was crazy.

“Jenny.” Her dad’s voice sounded up from the bottom of the attic stairs, breaking the silence. “You up there, honey?”

“I’m helping Ben,” she called out, wondering if her dad could hear the tremble in her voice. “I’ll be right down.”

“Okay, I’ll meet you out front.” His footsteps retreated, and Jenny turned back to Ben.

“So … what?” he asked. “What are we supposed to do with this?”

She took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I need to think. Want to exchange numbers? That way we can talk later?”

He nodded, pulling his cell from his jeans. Opening her own phone, Jenny cleared a text notification and traded numbers with Ben before heading for the stairs.

She turned back. “Ben?”

“Yeah.”

She tipped her head at the music box on the floor, her pulse still racing from the dream they’d shared and the realization that the music box had opened the door to it. “You might want to keep that safe until we figure out what it is. And what, exactly, it does.”

*

They didn’t say much on the ride home. Jenny was still too freaked out to make small talk. Thankfully, her dad seemed distracted, too, and Jenny was relieved when they turned onto the familiar driveway and came to a stop in front of the garage.

“So … Ben,” her dad said as they stepped into the foyer.

“Yeah?” Jenny slipped her flip-flops off by the door, turning to look at him.

His arms were folded across his chest. “What’s he like? I haven’t even met him yet.”

She shrugged. “He’s … you know. Just a guy. Average, I guess.”

“Average?”

She nodded. “Pretty much.”

He raised his eyebrows. “But nice?”

“I guess.”

“You were up there in the attic awhile.”

“Yeah,” she said. “He was going through a bunch of junk for his mom. I stayed to help.”

Her dad smiled. “Well, I’m glad you made a new friend. It’ll make the Daulton project a little more interesting, huh?”

The Daulton project. It sounded like a bad movie. In all the weirdness, she’d totally forgotten about the renovation.

“I guess. Anyway,” she turned, heading for the stairs. “I’m beat. Night, Dad.”

“Good night, sweetie. See you in the morning.”

Remembering the unread text, she pulled her phone from her pocket on the way up the stairs. The text was from Tiffany.

Hey! What’s up?

Talk about a loaded question. Jenny stepped into her room and closed the door. She thought about the attic, the music box, Ben, and their shared dream or vision or whatever it was.

Not exactly text conversation.

Not much
, Jenny texted back.
What’s up with you? Did you work today?

She changed into oversize boxers and a too-small T-shirt while she waited for the reply, waiting to check her phone until after she’d brushed her teeth.

Yeah, I covered for Joe. It was slow so no big deal. When do you work again?

Jenny thought about the week’s schedule, taped to the wall of the break room at the back of the store.
Wednesday. You?

Me, too.
came the reply.
Want to hang out before then?

Sure. Talk tomorrow?
Jenny kept her answer vague on purpose. Any other time, she would have jumped at the chance to make plans. Now, everything felt unsettled. Uncertain.

Yep. Night.

Night, Tiff.

She set her cell on the nightstand and climbed into bed. A bone-deep tiredness weighed at her body, but she was still too amped to sleep. Her mind wasn’t ready to let go of everything that had happened in Ben’s attic. She tapped her fingers on top of the comforter as her gaze swept the room, settling on the canvas propped against the easel.

Throwing back the covers, she got out of bed. She padded across the floor to the painting of the train station she’d brought home from the art show.

Leaning in, she brought her face within inches of the canvas. Her eyes were pulled to the dark smudge at the edge of the platform. The figure was too far away to clearly make out the face, but even without any detail, Jenny knew.

He was the same guy from the dream she’d had in Ben’s attic.

Not the guy playing piano. The other one. The one who was worried about her. The one who looked at her with love in his green eyes.

She remembered how his warm hand had enveloped hers. How he’d smelled of evergreen and leather. He’d asked her to run away with him. Not her—Jenny of Stony Creek, Connecticut—but someone else. Someone named Maria.

And then, like a whisper on the wind, she heard something else from the dream.

I am talking about ensuring their legacy through the survival of at least one Romanov.

The man named Nikolai had been warning her—Maria—in the dream. Talking about revolution and the Tsar and an escape from possible death. Talking about the Romanovs.

Jenny didn’t know much about the last ruling family of Russia, only what she’d learned in AP European History the year before. But she did know the whole family had been executed.

Even the Tsar’s little son and his daughters.

But what did that have to do with her? And why, in her dream, had she been called Maria?

She stared at the painting, willing the pieces of the puzzle to coalesce—the dreams, the guy in the painting, and the one who had appeared the night of the art show.

Because the longer she stared at the shadowy figure standing at the edge of the train platform, the more sure she became that he was not only Nikolai from her dream.

He was also the guy at the gallery, the one who had called her Maria before correcting himself.

She heard his voice in her mind.
I think you know.

“What’s happening?” she whispered aloud.

She woke suddenly the next morning, startled and not sure why. The room was warm, filled with golden light that could only mean it was past nine.

A minute later, something hit her window. She sat up.

She knew it was ridiculous, but she couldn’t help feeling spooked. There was too much going on that she couldn’t explain. The Ouija board night, everything that had happened in Ben’s attic, the guy appearing out of nowhere here, there, and everywhere.

The knocking came again.

It was just a bird, she told herself. Not another message from beyond. Besides, her room was on the second floor, which meant the only way someone could be knocking was if they were really tall. Or able to fly.

At the sound of the third ping she threw back the covers, disgusted with herself. She stepped out of bed and crossed to the window to pull back the gauzy curtains.

There was no one there. Surprise, surprise. She was just about to chalk the noise up to her imagination when something flew toward her. Even though the window was shut, she jumped back, heart racing.

Enough!
she thought.
Get it together, for God’s sake.

She opened the window and peered downward. It took a second for her to realize who was looking up at her. Not because she didn’t recognize him, but because Ben showing up at her house was so improbable.

“Are you crazy?” she shouted down. “What do you think you’re doing? You could have broken my window!”

He scowled. “I tried the doorbell.”

“You did?”

“Yeah.”

She stood there trying to figure out this new piece of information.

He peered up at her. “I found something. About the music box. But forget it.”

He turned to go.

“Wait!” She called. “I’m coming down.”

The house was quiet as she flew down the stairs. Her dad was probably checking on the Van Kueren job. She didn’t think about the fact that she hadn’t brushed her teeth until she had her hand on the knob of the front door. Plus, she was still in boxers and a T-shirt with no bra.

Great.

But it was too late now. Whatever Ben had found out, if it was about the music box, she wanted to know what it was.

She pulled open the door. “What are you doing?”

“Waiting?” He looked at her like she was crazy. “Because you said you were coming down?”

“Right, right.” She crossed her arms over her chest, hoping the shirt wasn’t see-through, and stepped back. “Come in.”

“Wow,” he said as he looked up at the high ceilings, the curving staircase. “Nice place.”

“It was my dad’s first big project.”

He nodded, his eyes still taking it all in.