Everafter (Kissed by an Angel) (17 page)

“Oh.”

When Will didn’t say anything else, Ivy asked, “How is he?”

“He says he’s okay,” Beth replied, “but I can tell from his voice that he isn’t. Will, I really think I should go over there this afternoon.”

Will picked up a chair and returned it to its place near the end of the porch.

“I think Chase needs someone to talk to right now.”

“You mean someone to listen to him,” Will countered. “That’s all he wants, an audience while he holds forth in all his brilliance.”

“I can help him,” Beth persisted.

Will raised an eyebrow. “You know a cure for an ego on steroids?”

Ivy smiled at the apt description.

“I’ve been through the same thing he has,” Beth explained. “I’m the only other person who knows what it’s like.”

“So, he’s admitting he was possessed,” Will said.

Beth shook her head. “Well, no, not exactly.”

“Didn’t think so.”

“Can’t we ride later? It’ll be cooler and prettier.”

“Sure,” Will replied. “Whenever.” Turning his back, he moved another chair, one that didn’t need to be repositioned.

Beth glanced up at Ivy, shrugged, then left. It was so tempting to assure Will he had nothing to worry about. Ivy felt as if she was bursting with the secret that each of them was keeping, but they needed to tell each other what was in their hearts, not have a friend fix things for them.

After work Ivy changed into cooler shorts and a hoodie, slipped her cell phone in her pocket, and headed toward the beach. When she reached the top of the long flight of steps to the dunes, she saw Will sitting on the landing halfway down. Ivy hesitated, then walked down slowly—noisily—giving him warning and trying to assess whether he wanted her company.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” he replied softly.

Ivy gazed out at the sea, following with her eyes its sweep around the end of Nauset Beach.

“So, did you tell Tristan about Kelsey?” he asked.

“I’m going to,” she said, patting the phone in her pocket.

Sitting on the steps above the landing, Ivy leaned back against the boards, watching the gulls perform their aerial act above the frothy net of the ocean. Will’s hands often betrayed his impatience with others, but they were still now. There was a chance he wanted to talk.

“Why does she still care?” Will blurted out.

“You mean why does Beth care about Chase?”

“It’s not like he’s been nice to her.”

Ivy shrugged. “Beth is kind to people whether or not they’ve been nice to her. You know that. It’s one of the reasons you and I love her.”

“It’s a girl thing,” Will said, his anger surfacing. “Girls like needy guys.”

“Whoa! Ex
cuse
me!” Ivy exclaimed, then laughed.

Will looked a bit sheepish. “Okay. But you have to admit, Beth has always been attracted to him.”

Now we’re getting somewhere,
Ivy thought.

“You remember how she was the night we met him at the ice-cream shop,” Will said. “She kept saying how ‘gorgeous’ he was, like he was the only guy who had ever grown a few inches taller, the only guy with a pair of shoulders. She said he was like one of her romance characters come to life.”

Ivy thought back to that moment, when she and Will were still a couple. Perhaps what she had interpreted as grouchiness on Will’s part was something more than either she or Will had realized at the time. Ivy began to smile.

“What?” Will asked, turning to look at her.

“I was just remembering how awful you were, when Chase was bragging about his skiing and you made up that story about your terrible accident and how your doctor warned that you might never walk again. For a moment poor Chase was speechless.”

“It was a very short moment,” Will replied, then laughed a little.

Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees, his face serious again. Ivy studied Will’s profile, his dark hair and dark lashes. She knew the depth in his soulful eyes.

“Will, everybody has a romantic dream of a lover, but when we meet the real one, and we feel love beyond anything we could ever imagine, that old dream person melts away.”

She saw him swallow hard.

“Do you love her?” she asked.

“I care about her deeply.”

“Good,” Ivy said, “but that’s not what I asked. Are you in love with Beth?”

He didn’t reply. She followed his eyes and watched two boats slip through the inlet, venturing out of the protected waters, looking small against the expanse of ocean.

“Why don’t you tell Beth how you feel?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You’re already in love—you can’t undo those feelings. What do you have to lose by telling her?”

“My best friend.”

“Because if her feelings aren’t the same, you think she’ll back away from you?”

He nodded.

“And yet, after all the grief that Chase has given her, obsessing over her and trying to control her, then running after Dhanya, she still cares enough to try to help him. Don’t
underestimate Beth’s strength. When it comes to relationships, Beth is the strongest person I’ve ever known.”

Will took a ragged breath. “I love her so much, I ache.”

Ivy looked to her left, to where the working and pleasure boats would return to moor for the night and the water that lapped the shore where Tristan was hiding. “Yeah. Tell me about it.”

AFTER A BEACH NAP AND WALK, IVY HEADED TO
St. Peter’s to practice piano, stopping for a takeout dinner on the way. Arriving at the church, she found the rectory closed up and a note taped to the door:
Fr. John will return at 6:30.
She decided to wait for the key and wandered around the building, to the priest’s garden.

Ivy had visited it the day she brought along “Guy,” as she had first called Tristan when she knew him simply as a hospital runaway. He had helped Father John dig a new bed for roses along the edge of his fenced-in vegetable patch. Now, inside the fence, tomatoes reddened on their leafy stems; purple eggplants hung from staked bushes like oversize Christmas ornaments; cucumbers and squash sprawled with their sunny flowers and waxy fruit. Against the white pickets the rose bushes, though still small, bore blooms that glowed with the colors of sunset. A folding chair had been placed next to them, and Ivy sat there to eat.

In the peace of the early evening, she forced aside her thoughts of Gregory and reviewed her list of piano assignments. Pulling out a book, she studied her newest piece of music, but she was unable to process the notes she read—she couldn’t hear them in her head or hum them aloud. Despite her afternoon nap, she felt exceptionally drowsy. The colors of the summer evening faded.

A May storm was brewing. Ivy was driving, and the first raindrops pelted her windshield as she searched for a certain street address. Lightning flashed and the storm broke. She left her car and ran up a flight of steps toward a house with a picture window. She tried to peer through it, but all she could see were the reflections of the clouds and thrashing trees.

A feeling of dread grew in the pit of Ivy’s stomach. She had done this before and knew that something in the house had the power to kill her. She turned away, but the need to see who or what was there drew her back. Peering through the window again, she saw a tall stone statue, an angel with an upraised arm and hand pointing to heaven. It tipped toward her. Glass exploded in Ivy’s face.

She screamed and screamed.

“Ivy! Ivy, wake up!”

She opened her eyes and saw the kind face of Father John peering down at her. Keys and a ball of green twine lay on the grass next to him. The breeze felt warm and dry
against her cheek, soft with the ginger and citrus smells of his roses.

“You were dreaming,” the priest said.

Ivy took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“A bad dream,” he added sympathetically.

She nodded and glanced about. “Did—did you see anyone here?”

“In my garden?” The priest sounded surprised.

“Or the parking lot?”

He shook his head, frowning. “No.”

It was her old nightmare, Ivy thought, but with a new twist. Last year it was the deer that crashed through glass, then the train.
Why an angel?
she wondered. The statue, while familiar, didn’t look like any that Ivy had owned.

“In your church,” Ivy said, “are there any depictions of angels with an arm raised and hand pointing upward?”

Father John looked at her curiously. “No. But that is a stance commonly found in cemetery statues.”

Ivy shut her eyes for a moment. Gregory had finally succeeded in breaking into her mind, she thought, seeding the old dream and adding an ominous detail to scare her.

“Is everything all right?” the priest asked, sounding concerned. “Ivy, are you in some kind of trouble? Is something or someone frightening you?”

“No. No, it was just a dream.”

He looked at her closely, the small vertical line
in his brow deepening, then said, “You’ve come to practice piano. But sit here and finish your sandwich while I do a little work. I like the company.”

She knew what Father John was doing—making sure she was all right, giving her time to talk if she wanted. She nibbled on her sandwich and watched as he carefully tied up his bounty of fruit and flowers.

“This is my favorite time of day in the garden,” he told her. “You know what they say: One’s nearer to God’s heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth.”

Ivy did her best to smile and nod. No garden, no corner of the earth, she thought, was safe from a serpent like Gregory.

PLAYING THE PIANO DID LITTLE TO CALM IVY THAT
night. She left the church at eight fifteen and drove directly to Tristan’s. Standing outside the Steadmans’ house, she whistled a song from
Carousel
.

Tristan opened the door, then opened his arms. Ivy rushed into them. Leaving the door ajar, he held her tightly.

“Tristan.”

He kissed her, then laid her head against his shoulder, pressing his cheek against hers, as if he guessed she wanted comforting most of all.

When he released her, Ivy touched his forehead. “Hey! What happened to you?”

Tristan rubbed his temple ruefully, and she saw a cut on his knuckles.

“I ran into an unfriendly piece of furniture. You’d think I’d know my way around this house by now.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Only my pride,” he replied lightly. “Let’s go for a walk, okay?”

“It’s still early. A lot of people are out,” she said.

He took her hands in his. “Ivy, I feel less than human, creeping around like some nocturnal animal in the middle of the night. I need to be outside. I need to do the things normal people do.”

Wrapping her arms around him, Ivy could feel the tension in his muscles. “Okay.”

They walked the roads over to Town Cove, Ivy’s hand in Tristan’s, then returned to the narrow beach at the Steadmans’ house, where they sat. The night air was cool, but the sand held some of the day’s heat. Ivy burrowed her bare feet in the warm grains and leaned against Tristan. A single bird sang against the encroaching darkness.

“When you got here tonight, something was worrying you,” Tristan said.

She combed the sand with her fingers. “I feel better now.”

“Ivy. Tell me.”

“Promise me you won’t”—she hesitated—“overreact.” She felt Tristan shift his position and knew that he didn’t like her saying that. When she recounted her dream, he didn’t speak, but he gripped her hand so hard she had to rub the backs of his fingers to get him to loosen them.

“Stay with me tonight, Ivy! Stay with me every night from now on.”

“I can’t do that, Tristan, not without attracting attention. Where would I say I’m staying?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore! Ivy, he’s closing in on”—he caught himself—“on us.”

On you.
She knew that’s what Tristan had meant to say.

He held Ivy so tightly she could feel his heart pounding against her own ribs.

“With each dream that he seeds, his power is growing,” Tristan said. “If he can do it from ninety feet away, then soon—”

Ivy pulled back slightly, puzzled. “Ninety feet? What makes you say that?”

Tristan was silent for a moment. “I saw him.”

“Tonight?”

“Last night. In the woods outside the cottage.”

“You were there? Tristan!”

“I couldn’t just hide away and do nothing!”

Ivy shut her eyes. How far would Tristan go to stop Gregory? “Did he see you?”

Tristan didn’t answer.

Ivy touched his bruised temple, then reached for his hand with the battered knuckles. “Tristan, please . . . please!” she begged. “Don’t go near him again. Don’t touch him. Promise me!”

Tristan looked away.

With gentle fingers she turned his face back to her. “I want the same thing as you do, love. To be together. But you can’t destroy Gregory without destroying yourself.”

“So I should just let him hurt you? Kill you?!”

“There’s some other way,” Ivy said. “There must be.”

Tristan shook his head, then pulled her close and buried his face in her hair.

When Ivy’s cell phone rang, neither of them moved. It stopped, then started again. Finally, Tristan let her go.

“It’s Will’s ringtone,” Ivy said, slipping her phone from her pocket. “Hey there.”

“Ivy, where are you?” Will’s excited voice was loud enough for Tristan to hear. “I have something to show you.”

“To show—?” She realized what it was. “You’ve found something on the flash drive!”

“Hit the jackpot!”

“Can you bring your laptop here? I’m with Tristan.”

“If you tell me where
here
is.”

Fifteen minutes later Will called to say he had parked two roads away. They left the front door ajar for him. When
he stepped inside, he stopped, appearing uncomfortable, then shifted his laptop to his left hand. “Tristan.” He held out his other hand. “I owe you an apology.”

“I owe you more,” Tristan replied, shaking his hand, “more than I can ever pay back.”

Will turned to Ivy. “Wait till you see this! Where can I set up?”

They led him to the kitchen, and he opened his laptop on the island. With Ivy on one side and Tristan on the other, Will clicked on the directory tagged
CORINNE
and opened folders, then subfolders and files.