The Escape Collection: (The Escape Collection) (58 page)

“That’s not what I meant,” he said. “But be honest with yourself—you wanted to. I could feel it.”

“You’re an asshole.”

My body burned from rage, and the lingering effect of him.
 

He pulled himself to his feet, unfolding his body until he stood only inches away from me. His musky scent, the taste of him still on my lips, made it hard to focus on my anger.
 

“Becca, don’t be mad.”

“Leave.”

“Don’t,” he said.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t make me the bad guy.”
 

“Screw you.” I put my hands on my hips, hoping I looked stronger than I felt.
 

“It’s okay to let yourself feel, Becca,” he said. “Sometimes you have to let yourself go.”

“I think you should go.”

“Be angry if you need to, but it’s not me you should be upset with.” He put one finger on my chin, tipping it up to him. “I’ll go,” he said and then his lips met mine so quickly I didn’t have time to fend him off.
 

I wrenched away, my mouth still sizzling from his kiss. “Good. I hope to never see you again.”

I crossed my arms and held myself, willing my body not to move towards him the way it yearned to. I forced myself to be still, not to run to him and return his kiss with one of my own. I tried to focus on my anger as I watched him walk to his truck. He wasn’t in a hurry, as if he knew I might break and run to him at any moment.
 

It was only once he climbed into the cab and drove down the road that I allowed myself to move. My tongue slid across my lips and my body sang with the memory of his touch.
 

As the dust settled behind Jason’s truck, my body shook with the awareness that we both knew I’d just lied.
 

Jason’s absence had left the porch cold and empty. I moved inside and a flash of light on the kitchen counter caught my eye.

The key.
 

I crossed the room, picked it up and spun it slowly between my fingers.
 

Sheena said it was for me. Does that mean I should have known what to do with it?
 

"This is stupid,” I said. Anger flared through me; at Sheena; at Jason and mostly, at myself. I let the key drop to the counter. “How am I supposed to know what the hell it opens?” I yelled into the cabin. “Maybe everybody else in this weird valley has psychic powers or strange chi, or whatever, but I don’t.”

I looked down the empty road. “I don’t have anything,” I whispered into the silence.

Chapter 15

I woke with a start and sat straight up in bed. My brain barely registered the fact that I was still in my clothes, lying on top of the covers. I couldn't remember going to bed. I’d spent the afternoon walking through the field, replaying the kiss with Jason over and over in my head until I’d driven myself crazy with it. With a need to get out of my head, I’d decided on a nap. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept in the middle of the day and it must have been a good nap too, because judging by the darkness outside my window, I’d been asleep for a while.
 

I listened for the sounds that must have woken me. There were none. I sat in silence for a few moments, waiting for my heart rate to return to normal. Still no noise.
 

It was probably my dream that had woken me. Some people were lucky, and never remembered their dreams. I’d tried for years to ignore them, and if it had been possible, I would have stopped dreaming altogether. The thing was, I never had dreams I wanted to remember and relive; they always seemed to be filled with images I wished I couldn’t remember. There was a time that I used to share with Steph or Jon. I didn’t do that anymore, either.
 

Kayla had only been a few months old when Steph went through a dream interpreting phase. She’d taken a class at the community college, so she was the resident expert. She’d cornered me in my kitchen after a particularly long night with the baby.
 

“Come on, Becca,” she said. “Just tell me. I guarantee that I can tell you exactly what it means.”

“I doubt that very much,” I said, and cut an apple into slices for Jordan, who was coloring at the table.

“Try me,” she said. “I totally aced the class.”

“I didn’t think they gave out marks in those courses.” I gave Steph a look, but she just shrugged. I knew she wouldn’t give up until I told her something.
 

I also knew it was a bad idea to tell her my latest dream; it was too vivid. But I couldn’t think of anything else, and I was way too sleep-deprived to make anything up.
 

“Okay,” I said before I could stop myself. “Analyze this one, Steph.”

She sat at the table with a note pad and pen, looking very official and somewhat comical.
 

“I dreamed that I was standing in Kayla’s room, right next to the crib.”

“Go on,” she said when I paused.

“I had my easel and paints with me.” I didn’t look at her when I said that, because it had been years since I’d mentioned painting or even drawing. “I was busy working,” I continued. “Mixing colors and attacking the canvas. I was totally focused on my work.”

“That’s great,” Steph said.
 

“There’s more.” I waited until she was listening before continuing. “When I turned to see what I was working on, it wasn’t there. I was painting Kayla.”

“Like drawing her?”

“No, like I was physically painting her.” I swallowed hard. “And not in a beautiful way. I was trying to camouflage her into the background of her room. I was trying to cover her. As if she wasn’t even there.”

It took a minute for Steph to absorb what I’d said. After a moment that went on forever, she let out her breath in a low whistle. “Holy shit, Becca.”

“Little ears,” I said, jabbing a finger towards Jordan, who hadn’t even flinched.

“You know what this means, right?”

I shook my head.

“Clearly your subconscious is trying to tell you that you resent the baby for taking time away from painting.”

I took a step back, as if she’d physically hit me. “That doesn’t make any sense.” I struggled to keep my breathing even.

“Sure it does,” she continued, completely oblivious to my distress. “Don’t you see? Ever since Kayla was born, you’ve been wrapped up in baby stuff again. You haven’t been able to focus on art.”

“I’ve barely sketched, let alone painted, since before Jordan was born,” I whispered.
 

“Maybe it’s your subconscious’ way of wishing for a time without children when you were free to paint.”

A flash went through me. Too close to home.
 

“What do you know?” I forced a laugh I didn’t feel and poured her another cup of coffee. “Your dreams consist of running the Boston Marathon, naked, with hot firemen.”

Steph laughed along with me, her analysis forgotten.
 

I hadn’t talked about my dreams since. Or made any effort to figure out what they might mean. But there was something about the dream that had woken me. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to make the memory go away.
 

Instead, the solid image of a silver key formed in my mind. I'd been dreaming about the key.
 

I reached over and fumbled for the lamp on the nightstand. With a flick, the room filled with a warm purple haze from the scarf draped over the shade. I pushed myself off the bed and retrieved the key from the kitchen. Squeezing it in my palm, the cool metal soothed my hot skin.
 

In my dream, I'd put the key into a lock. I turned around, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and looked around the living room.
 

No, it wasn't in here, I thought. It wasn’t right.

I tried to concentrate, struggling to remember the details, but all I could manage were fuzzy, hazy images. And colors.
 

I moved back to the bedroom and stopped short in the doorway.

Purple. Yes, it felt right.
 

I could feel each beat of my heart in my chest, and the room was at once unbearably warm, causing a bead of sweat to slip down between my breasts. I looked around the small space, trying to remember. The only image that came to me was the act of slipping the key into the lock and the pressing need to open it. But what lock?

I flung open the wardrobe and tossed the few skirts and blouses I'd hung up into a pile on the floor.
 

Nothing.
 

I felt around the back and sides, searching for a secret compartment.
 

Still nothing. I spun around and stared at the bed. Falling to my knees, I peered underneath.
 

Empty.
 

Out of ideas, I pulled myself up and leaned against the bed.

Where could it be?
 

I looked at the lamp with the purple scarf. The color was right. It felt like the dream.

Maybe that’s all it was—a dream.

I let my eyes drift down, coming to rest on the nightstand. But it wasn’t a nightstand. It was an antique trunk. The hinges were facing out towards the room, which meant the lock must be facing the wall. I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it before.
 

I forced myself to stay calm and move slowly. I lifted the lamp and lowered it to the floor, careful to leave the purple scarf in place. Grabbing one corner, I heaved and pulled the heavy trunk around until the lock was exposed. I slid the key into the hole.
 

A perfect fit.
 

The key was cool and smooth in my sweaty, nervous hand. I stopped.
 

“Becca, you're being stupid,” I chastised myself. “It's just a trunk.”

I turned my hand. The key moved easily, a soft clicking as the lock disengaged. With shaking hands, I lifted the lid.

At first glance, the contents didn’t look very exciting. I wasn’t sure if I expected gold and jewels, but it certainly wasn't the scarves and books that I found. Even if the contents weren't glamorous, they were still a mystery, so I dug in, removing the tissue-thin material. Much like the rest of the cloths scattered around the cabin, they were made of what I assumed was hand-dyed, raw silk. The ones in the trunk were definitely more beautiful than the others. Strange that they were the ones hidden away. Carefully folding the silk, I set them to the side and pulled out a large coil-bound book that looked too large to be a notebook. On the cover, in small penciled letters, was the name: Vicki.
 

My mother.

I opened the cover and saw it was a sketchbook, much like the ones I used to have. Or more correctly, still had boxed up in the basement at home. Some of the drawings were in pencil, some in charcoal, but most were done in watercolors. The muted colors, blending and bleeding together, filled each page.
 

The pictures were beautiful. I had no idea my mom had been an artist until Sheena had mentioned it. And she was right—my mother had been very talented. The ideas on the pages were fully conceived and thought out with an artist’s skill.
 

“How come Dad never told me?” I whispered into the silence. I closed the book and stared at the cover for a moment before clutching it to my chest. I sat like that for some time, feeling a connection with my dead mother. One I'd never had.
 

I’m not sure how much time passed before I set the book aside, ready to see what else the trunk held. I pulled out a small manila envelope full of photos that I dumped on the floor in front of me.
 

My father's smiling face looked up at me from a picture. Much younger, his hair was down to his shoulders and he sported a mustache and thick side burns. There was a little girl perched on his shoulders. Me. I must've been about two years old. We were standing on the porch of the cabin. Dylan stood next to us, a gangly boy on the edge of a growth spurt. We’d been to the cabin before. As a family. The evidence was in my hand.
 

My mind whirled, but I continued to go through the images. There weren't many pictures, and most of them were of Dylan as a child, or me as a baby. Some had Dad in them, but there were none of my mother. Dad always said that she hated having her picture taken and the few they had weren’t very clear. Looking at the found photos—not one of them a shot of her—it struck me for the first time that I’d never really seen my mother's face. Not that I could remember.
 

I flipped through the pictures a little faster until I stopped on one of a young woman in the field out in front of the cabin. It was Vicki. It had to be. Her face was turned up to the sun, her arms stretched out to encompass the wildflowers she was surrounded by; her long chestnut brown hair fluttered around her head, as if she'd been caught in the middle of spinning. The photographer had caught an expression of complete bliss on her face. I stared at the picture for a long time, before tucking it into the sketchbook.

At the bottom of the trunk was a mixture of art supplies. A pouch of brushes—all good quality—a packet of charcoal, a few pencils, and a long wooden box. I lifted the box and unhinged the small clasp. I was pretty sure of what I’d find and I wasn’t disappointed. Inside were half a dozen tubes of paint. Watercolors. And they were expensive. The inside of the lid was inscribed, the wood burnt with the words: Love Survives.
 

 
The tubes looked as if they’d never been touched, let alone used. Something inside me sparked. The familiar itch I used to feel in my fingers when I wanted to create or draw started in my right hand. It had been so long. Too long.
 

I closed the lid and placed it on the floor next to the trunk. The only other items left were a box of colored pencils and an empty sketchpad.
 

I stared for a long time at the pile of discoveries. I scooped up the small pile of photos and put them back in the envelope. I felt like there should be something else. Something more.
 

After a while, exhaustion took over and I dragged myself back into bed, snapped off the lamp and laid on top of the covers. I slept fitfully, my dreams vivid and haunting.