Timeless (32 page)

We both fell silent, alone with our own
thoughts. I could imagine how sad my Aunt Jo must have felt, first
to lose a sister, then a brother, and finally a fiancé. Though I
knew what loss felt like, Aunt Jo had had more than her fair
share.

“I see the same determination in your eyes,
Emily. If you feel for Damien what Edwina did for Richard, then I
want you to be happy. I won’t stand in your way, even though I
think you’re too young to make this decision. If it’s what you
want, then I support you. You’re all I have, Emily. I don’t want to
lose you too,” she said, crying into her handkerchief.

I felt overwhelmed with the enormity of her
love. Except for Damien, she was all I had too.“Don’t worry, Aunt
Jo. You won’t ever lose me,” I promised, hugging her.

By this time, we were both in tears, and the
Duchess had crept back in, jumping into my lap and purring softly.
She might find us boring, but we were still her family.

“Enough!” Aunt Jo said. “This old woman has
to get some sleep. And you probably want to start planning your big
day, though I hope you’ll take my advice, Emily, and wait a little
while at least,” she said, sounding more like herself.

We both laughed, wiping our eyes. I assured
her I was in no rush.

“Will you make your dress, Emily?” she asked.
I knew she wanted to see me sewing again. It was something that had
once made me happy.

I thought for a moment. It would be a huge
undertaking. I hadn’t made even a simple dress since Mom had died.
And to make a wedding dress…it would be a time-consuming project.
But then I knew, suddenly, that that was exactly what I wanted. I
had the ivory dress from the mall, but I wanted to make the exact
gown I’d been wearing when I last saw Damien in my dreams, to
recreate our past life and relive it with a happier ending.

“Yes, Aunt Jo. I think I will,” I finally
said.

“Promise me one thing, dear,” she said,
looking more serious now.

“What’s that?”

“At least finish high school. And I don’t
want to see him whisk you off to New Zealand or England or wherever
his family lives, at least not yet.”

“Okay,” I agreed readily, happy to oblige.
“But you know,” I continued, “Damien doesn’t have anyone
either.”

Aunt Jo looked thoughtful at this.

“That may be, but he’s just become the
luckiest person I know,” she said.

I smiled at this, putting my arms around her.
I was grateful for her support. I was also glad that she hadn’t
mentioned Ben. I knew that she liked Damien, but I also knew that
she’d always prefer Ben. He’d been in my life too long for her to
change loyalties now.

Chapter Sixteen

"Following"

Whatever we inherit from the fortunate

We have taken from the defeated

What they had to leave us—a symbol:

A symbol perfected in death.

T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”

The red BMW convertible tore into the school
parking lot, nearly running over Angela Rossi—not that I could say
I would have complained much about that. The black-haired girl got
out of the car, looking neither to the right nor the left, and
passed by everyone as if she didn’t feel their eyes fixated on her.
She could have been a model. Damien and I exchanged looks, but I
shook my head, not feeling the strange tingling that would have
told me she was a witch. We were both relieved. It wasn’t Lamia,
though I didn’t know who she was.

Though she looked nothing like the stepmother
from my past life, with her long dark hair and strangely golden
eyes, I had the oddest feeling as she brushed past me—not the same
as I had for Ramona, though. I attributed it to apprehension;
lately, any stranger aroused my suspicions, and I’d had several
false alarms since I’d brought Damien from the past.

To Damien’s credit, he didn’t look twice at
her. He’d assured me on more than one occasion that other girls
held no appeal for him, and the car didn’t send him drooling as it
did most of the boys in school.

She’d been introduced to us in second period
by my English teacher as Kirsten Lowe, also a foreign student from
Quebec. I immediately became wary but ignored the feeling when she
smiled, sitting beside me and extending her hand. It was a very
formal gesture, but I was touched. The feelings of apprehension I’d
had dissipated, and I decided I was worrying too much. Besides,
wouldn’t Ramona have seen this and warned me of any danger?

It had been a long time since I’d brought
Damien over, and I thought we were likely safe by this time. Damien
had found me in a week. Surely Lamia would have located us by now,
weeks later, if she’d come through.

Kirsten also looked completely different,
though I knew that didn’t mean much. Lamia had had dark eyes and
was taller, I thought, than Kirsten. Damien hadn’t recognized her
either, and though she spoke with an accent, it was not similar to
Damien’s. Hers was definitely French, corresponding to her story
that she was from Quebec.

She attracted most of the boys in school. I
did think it was strange that she’d enrolled in school a couple of
months before summer, but then she’d explained that her school in
Quebec had been on a different system. She had cousins, she said,
who lived nearby. I didn’t know them, but then we’d had many new
families move into town over the past few years—overflow from the
developments building up around Daytona. So that didn’t mean much
either.

Kirsten was immediately popular, despite her
early aloofness in the parking lot on the first day. She gravitated
to me and Damien, but even that made sense since she and Damien
were the only two foreign students at school. I was glad for a
friend anyway. I almost never saw Annie, often with Zack and
therefore with Ben. We’d grown apart after the fight.

I was happy to have a girlfriend to chat with
again. Kirsten fully supported my relationship with Damien, which
had become the talk of the school.

When I’d come to school engaged, with
undeniable proof on my left hand, I caught everyone staring at
us—everyone but Ben, who continued to keep his distance and almost
never looked my way. We formed the subject of everyone’s lunchtime
gossip, but I didn’t care. I missed Annie, whose opinion I did care
about, but I knew she also felt that I’d shut her out. She was also
hugely loyal to Zack, and he was definitely on Ben’s side. The
fight had divided everyone. Most sympathized with him, blaming me
for causing everything. I was glad to have an ally, someone who
didn’t judge me.

For the most part, Kirsten’s class schedule
coincided with mine, and we quickly became inseparable. Damien and
I still spent all of our free time together, of course, but I
usually tried to include Kirsten on a least one outing that Damien
and I had during the week or on the weekend, especially if we went
to Daytona. I confess that I loved to feel the wind in my hair when
we took Kirsten’s convertible.

After getting Damien settled, I promised not
to use my power again except in cases of emergency. True to my
word, I hadn’t cast any spells, but there were definite downsides.
For one thing, the Saratoga constantly acted up—I forgot to fix it
before agreeing to give up my powers. But I didn’t have to drive
too much now. Damien took me most places, having eventually found
Dmitri another job when he no longer needed a driver. He’d been
driving on his own now for over a month.

Aunt Jo was also glad I’d made a new
girlfriend. Even though she wouldn’t pry, I knew she wanted me to
have friends outside of my relationship with Damien.

Damien tolerated Kirsten’s presence
reasonably well, though he often rolled his eyes when she wanted to
come with us to Sugar Hill, where he would’ve preferred that we
spend our time together alone. Since I was virtually Kirsten’s only
friend, I felt compelled to invite her over.

We spent the last months of the school year
like this. June approached, and everyone was happy to get out of
school for the summer. Most of us had summer jobs, and I’d applied
to work again at a local drugstore just a block from Aunt Jo’s.

Damien told me I didn’t have to work, arguing
that he had plenty for both of us, but I liked to earn my own
money. We weren’t married yet, and I knew Aunt Jo could use the
income too.

Damien still couldn’t believe that women
worked, but he’d been remarkably open-minded since arriving in
March. And I explained that I also enjoyed my job. I’d worked
together last summer with Ben, and I was looking forward to working
there part-time again. I would spend the rest of my time at Sugar
Hill with Damien when I wasn’t designing my wedding dress, which I
wanted to be a surprise for him. I needed the summer job because I
wanted to save up to order special Belgian lace for my veil.

Kirsten didn’t have to work, of course, and
we all expected that she’d travel to Europe for the summer. But she
didn’t, telling us that she loved sunny Florida and her new friends
too much to leave us. As a Canadian, she said she never got tired
of the warmth after living so long in the cold. I vaguely
remembered feeling the same way when I first moved from Colorado,
but that had been such a long time ago, I really couldn’t remember
much about it. DeLand had been my home for a long time now. I
already felt some nostalgia for it, knowing that I’d likely be
leaving it for good at some point after Damien and I got
married.

Damien had not pressured me to set a date in
the near future after my conversation with Aunt Jo. I wore his ring
on my hand and had begun making definite plans, so he knew I was
really serious about going ahead with the wedding.

We’d discussed several ideas, including
having the ceremony at Sugar Hill. But I think we both knew that
our hearts belonged in the chapel in England where we’d first
pledged our love. It was fortunate that it had been rebuilt, a
perfect site for us to wed next summer. Even though I’d originally
wanted to wait until after college, we’d compromised by agreeing to
postpone the wedding for one year only. Then we’d apply and go to a
university together. Neither of us really wanted to delay too long
anyway. We’d already waited a lifetime.

I felt sad that none of my old
friends—however estranged— would attend the wedding. Though a
perfect spot for us, England was too far for everyone but Aunt Jo.
Damien had offered to fly anyone I wanted, but I declined. Somehow,
it felt like our private place, and I’d grown apart from the
friends I’d had before him. My past life had overtaken my present
one, and while I missed some of my former friends, especially
Annie, Zack, and even Ben, I couldn’t say I really regretted
anything. I would do everything over again given the chance.

I began work for the summer a week after
school ended. On my first day, I wondered if Ben would return to
work at the drugstore with me, but I doubted it, given everything
that had happened over the last year. He never showed, so I figured
he’d taken another job somewhere. I finally heard that he was a
lifeguard at the local Y. It was a perfect job for him, and I hoped
he was happy.

I didn’t hear from Kirsten for several weeks
and thought perhaps she’d decided to travel for the summer after
all. It was strange that she wouldn’t tell me given how close we’d
grown over the last weeks of school, but I didn’t give it too much
thought. Friends often grew apart during the summer break.

I settled into a routine at the drugstore,
spending most of my mornings and part of my afternoons there before
driving out to Sugar Hill to see Damien. In the evenings, I’d go
back home to have dinner with Aunt Jo. Damien often came with me,
but I always made him leave soon afterwards. I had begun the
pattern for my dress, and I didn’t want him to see it.

One morning, I busily stocked the shelves
when I felt a strange sensation. A chill ran down my spine, and I
turned around before I heard her voice.

“Hello, Emmeline,” Kirsten said as she
approached me. This in itself was strange—only Damien called me
Emmeline. It struck a disturbing chord in me, and I felt almost
panicked.

Get a grip, I thought. It must be the heat.
She’d probably been so used to hearing Damien call me Emmeline that
she’d fallen into the habit herself. I was just overreacting.

“Hello, Kirsten,” I replied, forcing a note
of cheerfulness in my voice.

An awkward silence ensued.

“I haven’t seen you in awhile,” I continued
nervously, unable to keep the tremor from my voice. My hands shook,
and I broke out in a cold sweat.

“Yeah, I’ve been a little busy,” she finally
answered.

Was it me, or was her voice a little strange,
her accent a little different from the one I’d remembered before?
And yet, at the same time, it sounded so familiar.

She didn’t wait for me to respond.

“I’ve mainly been at the Y,” she said, still
in that eerie voice I suddenly remembered. It sounded as if it came
through a tunnel from long ago.

“Oh, yeah?” I said, looking for an escape.
She was blocking me in front, and the cosmetics section had me
trapped from behind.

“Mm-hm,” she said, coming closer. She smiled,
lowering her lashes. I felt paralyzed with fear. An intense light
seemed to surround Kirsten, whose skin glowed and lips appeared
painted the deepest shade of red, as though she’d applied layers of
a lip stain. I shook my head, trying to clear it.

“Emmeline, I hope you don’t mind…I know you
and Ben dated before. But he’s asked me out, and I’ve said yes,”
she finished in a silky voice, coming still closer.

I had been rolling beach towels, getting
ready for the tourists that came through on their way to Daytona,
but when she said this, my arms dropped everything.

My first impression was intense relief—so she
only wanted to deliver some bad news. She wasn’t Lamia, my evil
stepmother from the past. I shook my head again to clear it. What
was wrong with me?