Dark and Shallow Lies(12)

She wore it all the time. Even after what happened between us at the end of last summer.

I need that to mean something.

I shake my head. “I don’t want this.”

“Come on,” he pleads. “Take it. Please, Greycie?” Hart puts a finger under my chin and tilts my face up toward his, so I can’t avoid his eyes. “For me?”

Jesus. How am I supposed to say no to that?

“It’s hers.” I feel tears creeping up on me, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to start sobbing. Not with all these stupid tourists milling around.

“She’d want you to have it. What you guys had – have – that connection . . .” Now it’s Hart’s turn to get choked up. “You two were –” He stops. Flustered. Looks down at his boots.

“Lit from the same match,” I finish, and Hart looks back up at me. “It’s something Honey used to say. About Elora and me. That we were two flames lit from the same match.” I’d reminded Elora of that when I gave her the ring and the necklace last summer. Our very own magic words.

Hart and I study each other for a few seconds. I let him fasten the chain around my neck, and he gives me the very beginnings of a grin before he turns to go. “Later, Shortcake,” is all he says. But his fingers brushing against my skin and the low, throaty sound of his voice are enough to remind me that I’ve been on the brink of falling in love with Hart for basically my entire life. And occasionally, I trip.

I watch him walk away. There’s the kiss of a breeze. The musical laughter of wind chimes. When I look toward the little house Evie shares with her mama and her uncle, Victor, I see the homemade chimes hanging right outside her bedroom window. Colorful bits of hand-strung glass and metal. A flash of white-blonde hair lets me know that Evie has been watching me from behind her pale blue curtains.

Watching us.

And it makes me sad for her.

If our little Evie has a crush on Hart, she’s really barking up the wrong tree. In that way, Hart is the most solitary person I’ve ever known. He’s never dated anyone, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t imagine him ever falling for a girl.

Not shy, nervous Evie.

And definitely not me.





Inside the Mystic Rose, Honey is showing two girls not much older than me a collection of carnelian stones that are supposed to enhance sensuality and boost passion.

“Now, this little beauty,” she says, holding up the darkest red one, “this one is guaranteed to get a fire going.” She winks at the taller of the two. “If you know what I mean.”

The girls are giggling quietly, heads close together as they examine the stones and make their selections. They communicate in the secret language of best friends. Nudges and raised eyebrows. Embarrassed smiles half-hidden behind hands. And watching them is like peeling off a scab.

I head back to my tiny bedroom off the kitchen and find Sweet-N-Low, Honey’s ancient wiener dog, asleep on my bed. I lie down next to him and scratch his belly. He’s deaf in one ear, mostly bald, and noxiously gassy. Honey says he reminds her of her third husband, Eldon – one of the dead but not entirely departed.

I look around the familiar room – everything just where I left it last August – but my eyes keep wandering back to a framed photograph that sits on my bedside table. Elora and me at our tenth birthday party. We’re holding hands, both of us sunburned and happy, leaning over a pink-frosted sheet cake. Cheeks puffed out and eyes closed tight. Caught in the very moment of making a wish.

Our birthday is just a few weeks away, and the idea of turning seventeen alone settles on my chest with a suffocating weight. I close my eyes and find the little blue pearl hanging around my neck, then I try with everything I have to pull up one of those images of Elora. One of those terrifying flashes. Maybe if I can conjure up some clue –

But there’s nothing. At least at first.

And then it’s there. Just for a split second.

Elora is running –

I’m running –

for my life.

Rain.

And howling wind.

Moonlight on dark hair.

My stomach lurches and I feel sick. I’m sure I’m going to throw up.

I suck in a breath and open my eyes, and Honey is standing in the doorway watching me. She comes to sit on the edge of my bed and smooth my hair.

“Not everyone is born into their gifts,” she tells me. “Some people have to develop them over time.”

“Just a dream,” I lie. “I fell asleep for a second. That’s all.”

But Honey doesn’t give up. “Your mother was still coming into herself . . . into her abilities . . . when she crossed over. And she was a lot older than you are.”

My mother killed herself. But Honey never says it like that.

I was eight years old when she did it, and after, I remember asking Honey if she could talk to my mother for me. If she could ask her why. But Honey says the dead are picky about who they talk to. They get to choose who they communicate with, if they choose to communicate at all. And my mother has never reached out to Honey from the other side.

She’s never reached out to me, either.

Since my mother died – or crossed over or whatever – I’ve spent the school years up in Arkansas with my dad and the summers down here with Honey.