Endless (14 page)

Stepping into it was like stepping across the threshold to another world. Everything was quieter. Even the snow under her boots was muffled as she made her way deeper into the forest, looking for him, guided by his presence somewhere in the distance.

She continued, making her way farther into the woods until, when she looked back, she could no longer find the end of it. Could no longer see the light leaking in from the open field beyond. But she was somehow unafraid.

A couple of minutes later, she understood why.

He stood, hands in his coat pockets, near a tree up ahead and to the right. His ready posture and watchful eyes told her he had been waiting for her.

She crossed the ground between them, slowly at first and then faster. She knew him. He was the Nikolai from her dream, from the vision she’d shared with Ben. But he was more than that, too.

She had known him forever and ever. Had waited for him as he had waited for her.

She started walking faster, faster and faster until she was running toward him, flying across the snow-covered floor of the forest. As the distance shortened between them, he stepped forward, opening his arms. When she flew into them, he breathed only one word.

“Maria.”

It didn’t seem strange that he should call her by that name. Not here. She breathed in the scent of him, that crisp smell that was also the forest laced with something earthy and a little bitter. His face was in her hair. He was breathing her in just as she was breathing him.

It was a long moment before he lifted his head, pulling away and reaching into his pocket. When he looked up, she gazed into his eyes, as deeply green as the snow-covered boughs around them.

“I’ve waited,” he said, his voice gruff. “I’ve waited so long.”

He took her hand. She felt something cold touch her finger, and when she looked down, she was not even surprised to find that it was a ring. And not just any ring.

The same ring the monk had worn—in what seemed another lifetime—on the train.

A ring with stars around its band and a watchful moon at its center.

It came to a stop at her knuckle.

“You have to remember,” he said, his voice urgent. “Do you understand?”

And then she was tugged away, her hands grasping his, trying to hold on. But it was no use. She was yanked from his grasp, pulled back and back through the forest and then the fields.

She heard him call to her, not just across the landscape of her dreams but in her mind.

“Don’t worry. I’ve found you.”

She sat up in bed with a start, the words echoing through her mind.

I’ve found you.

And she had felt found during those few moments in her dream when she’d been with Nikolai. Had felt discovered, even though she hadn’t known she was lost.

More than that, the ring from her dream—the ring he had placed on her finger—teased her memory. She had seen it before, and not just on the monk, the car at the train station, or the retreat’s website.

She heard Nikolai’s voice on the wind of memory:
You have to remember.

She let herself drift back to the dream, seeing and feeling the ring on her finger, willing her mind to find the connection. A minute later, she thought she had it.

It made her think of her mother.

She jumped out of bed and padded on bare feet to the closet, reaching behind a bunch of stuff to the box on the top shelf. She hadn’t looked at the box in a long time—years, really—but she still felt a pang as it came into view. Careful not to let it swing open on the way down, she sat on the floor, bracing herself before lifting the hinged lid.

The first thing she saw was the photograph. She vaguely remembered it, though she didn’t know why she’d put it in the box instead of on display in her room like the other photo of her mother. The one on the bookshelf showed Jenny, just four years old, with her mother in a field of daisies. They were lying on a blanket, and Jenny had always wondered if they had been having a picnic. In the photograph, her mother gazed at Jenny with naked adoration. It was impossible to doubt that her mother had loved her deeply when looking at it.

The picture in the box was different.

It was just her mother, sitting alone in the wicker chair on the porch. She looked younger than she did in the other photograph. Jenny wondered if she’d even been born when the picture was taken. Her mother gazed out across the fields, a faraway look in her eyes, something sad and pensive in the set of her face and the way she held the blanket around her shoulders.

Jenny set the photo aside. Beneath it was an odd assortment of things. A couple of small rocks (did Jenny give them to her mother?), some stick figure drawings. Dried autumn leaves, brittle and crumbling with age, and a sloppy birthday card adorned with stiff glitter.

And underneath it all. A ring.

A silver ring. Identical to the one the monk wore but slightly tarnished. The stars trailing across the band were darker than they had been on the monk’s. But there was the moon, its eerie face staring back at her.

She shook her head at the empty room. It didn’t make sense. Why would her mother have a ring like the monk’s? A ring with the symbol of the retreat at its center?

She was still sitting there, trying to figure it out, when her cell phone chirped from the bedside table. It took her a couple of seconds to mobilize herself, but then she got up, still holding onto the ring.

A twist of nerves hit her stomach when she saw Ben’s name on the screen. She wished she’d had more time to process what she’d just discovered, but maybe Ben had news.

She hit the “Talk” button. “Hey.” Her voice was shakier than she would have liked.

“Hey,” he said on the other end of the line. “I decided to call. It would take five hundred texts to tell you everything.”

“Great,” she said, sitting down on the edge of the bed and looking at the ring in the palm of her hand. “I have stuff to tell you, too.”

“What did you find out?” His voice was different on the phone. Deeper and more mature.

“You first.” She wasn’t quite ready to explain what she’d discovered.

“Okay.”

She could almost see him nodding on the other side of the phone. “So I asked my mom about the house and everything? About the uncle who owned it?”

“Yeah,” Jenny prompted.

“It turns out my parents
are
Russian.” He sounded surprised, like he couldn’t quite believe it.

“Wait … Both of them?”

“Not first generation, but yeah. My dad’s family only immigrated here in the 1960s, but my mom’s came over earlier,” he explained. “Somewhere around 1920, she thought. Their families were friends. That’s how she met my dad.”

“And you never knew?” Jenny asked.

“We don’t talk about my dad much. We don’t talk about anything much anymore, to be honest.”

“I know the feeling,” Jenny said softly. “Well, that explains the music box.”

“Except, I didn’t ask her about it specifically.” She heard him sigh through the phone. “I don’t know why.”

Jenny flopped backwards onto her bed, the ring held tightly in her palm as she stared up at the ceiling. “It’s okay. I’m glad you didn’t. I know it sounds crazy, but I have this feeling we found the music box for a reason. Like we’re supposed to do something with it, or something.”

“It doesn’t sound crazy. I have the same feeling.” Silence sat comfortably between them before Ben spoke again. “What about you? What did you find out?”

“A few things. I just don’t know what any of it means yet.” She explained what she’d discovered about hypnosis and mesmerization.

“So you’re sort of awake when you’re hypnotized?” Ben asked when she’d finished.

“Basically.”

“I didn’t feel awake,” he said. “More like dead to the world. This one, at least.”

“I felt the same way. And I think it’s safe to assume the whole mesmerization/magnetism thing doesn’t apply either. I did find something interesting, though.”

“What?”

“I know you’re going to think it’s dumb, but I also looked up the retreat.”

“The one with the monks we saw yesterday?”

She felt stupid admitting it, especially after she’d gotten so freaked out leaving the train, but there was no going back now. “Yep.”

“I don’t see what this has to do with the music box, but go ahead.”

“Well, it’s just an empty website for the most part. I mean, there’s the name—Celestial Retreat Center—and the moon symbol I saw on the monk’s ring and on the car they were driving, but there’s nothing else. No explanation of what they do, no directions, no photos. Nothing but a … saying.”

“A saying?” She could tell from the sound of his voice that he was distracted.

“Or a tagline or something. It says, ‘Helping those out of time.’” A shiver ran up her spine as she said it.

“Helping those out of time?”

Now she had his attention.

“What do you think it means?”

“I have no idea, but it’s kind of weird.”

“I told you.”

“Which still doesn’t mean it has anything to do with the music box and the dream,” he said.

“I know.” She watched the crystal pendants from the small chandelier on her ceiling cast teardrop-shaped shadows on the walls. “Except there’s something else.”

“What is it?”

She took a deep breath, holding the ring up in front of her face. “That symbol on the monk’s ring has really been bothering me. I even dreamed about it last night. Someone was there, in my dream, and he gave me a ring just like the monk’s. It felt …
familiar
, and when I woke up, I was thinking about my mom, which is something … well, it’s something I just try not to do.” She paused, her throat filling with emotion.

“Jenny?” Ben said softly. “Are you okay?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “It’s just that … after I woke up, I went through some of her stuff. Stuff I haven’t looked at in a long time. And I found a ring, Ben. Just like the one the monk wore. A ring with the moon symbol in the pile of stuff my dad saved for me when my mom died.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone. “Are you sure it’s the exact same ring?” Ben finally asked.

“It’s the same. Exactly.” She turned the ring over in her hand, looking at it from all angles. “I’m positive.”

She sensed him thinking on the other end of the line. “Could she have bought it somewhere? Or gone to some kind of event at the retreat where they handed them out?”

“An event at a place that has no calendar of events?” she asked. “At a retreat that seems like it’s a total secret from the outside world?”

He was quiet again before speaking. “I admit that it’s strange. But I still don’t know what it has to do with the music box.”

“Me, either,” she said. “But I think it does. It’s just too coincidental. I mean, you move to town, we find the music box, and all of a sudden, weird stuff starts happening.”

Not all of a sudden
, she thought.
Get real. Weird stuff has been happening all your life
.

“I know what you mean.” Ben’s voice was low.

“So what do we do now?” Jenny asked.

Ben hesitated before answering. “Actually, there’s something else I need to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“Well, that guy from the city? Eben?”

“What about him?”

“He’s coming over later today.”

“Wait … He’s coming to your
house
?”

“Yeah.”

“Why? Did he find out something else about the music box?”

“Not exactly.” Ben had dropped his voice to just over a whisper. “He said he has a buyer and wants to increase his original offer.”

Jenny’s blood ran cold at the idea of Ben selling the music box. “You’re not going to sell it, are you?”

“I don’t think so,” Ben said. “But I want to hear what he has to say. I told him to come at five. My mom’s starting a job at the diner tonight and won’t be home.”

“So you’re meeting with him alone?”

“Actually,” he said, “I was kind of hoping you’d come over. I’m not worried about the guy or anything, but I thought you might want to be here if he has something new to tell us about the music box.”

Jenny breathed a sigh of relief. “I definitely do. I was planning to paint today but I could come over around four-thirty.”

“Cool,” he said. “That works.”

“Okay, see you then.” She hung up the phone and stared at the ceiling, thinking.

What could be so important that he’d drive all the way up from the city at a moment’s notice? And how could Eben have a buyer for the music box when Ben hadn’t asked him to sell it?