Dark and Shallow Lies(29)

“It’s a hard way to go through life. Being different. Having power that doesn’t come with any instruction book.” Honey glances toward the picture frame on the wall. The one with the photo of my mom and me. “Too hard, sometimes. For some people.”

I want to ask her what she means. What it has to do with my mother. But I’m afraid she won’t tell me.

Or that she will.

“I’ve never had the gift before,” I say. “Why now?”

“Oh, you’ve always had it, Sugar Bee.” Honey gives me a little smile. “Everyone has some kind of psychic gift. It’s just that some people are able to unwrap their gifts more easily than others. It’s like singing. Everyone is born with the ability to sing, but not everyone joins the church choir.”

“So why is it coming out now?”

“Because now you need to know what happened to Elora. And sometimes, when everything else fails us, we have to rely on those gifts we’ve kept buried deep inside ourselves.” She squeezes my hand. “It doesn’t surprise me. You two have always been so connected.”

Hurt washes over me like the rain running off the roof outside the kitchen window.

“It wasn’t like that any more. The way it used to be. Between Elora and me.” I swallow the lump in my throat. “Something happened last summer.”

Honey shakes her head. “Twin-flame relationships are magnetic,” she says. “They’re pure white-hot energy. Push and pull. Attract and repel. They can be explosive. Dangerous, even.”

I’ve heard all this before, but I don’t have the will to interrupt. “Sometimes things get too intense for one of you to handle.

So one of you runs. Or pushes the other one away. But you can’t stay apart long. Twin flames will always feel that hard pull toward each other.” She gives my hand another squeeze. “It’s fate. You and Elora were meant to be together. You’re two halves of a whole. Two flames –”

“Lit from the same match,” I finish, and Honey nods.

There are hot tears on my cheeks, and I reach up to brush them away. I blink hard, but I can’t stop them falling.

“I don’t know how to be me without her.”

“She’s still with you, Grey.” Honey leans in closer. “Whether she’s dead or alive, Elora is part of you. Don’t give up on that.” When I don’t say anything, Honey offers to make me a bedtime snack. But I shake my head. “I just need to go to sleep.”

I stand up to leave, but she puts a hand on my arm. “Having great ability isn’t something to be afraid of, Sugar Bee. But it is something to be careful with.”

I’m not sure what she means at first, but then I remember Sera’s words.

Your mama had deep power.

I feel the pull of my mother’s haunted eyes. But I don’t let myself look in their direction.

“Don’t allow what you can do to change who you are,”

Honey warns me as she picks up our mugs and carries them to the sink. “That’s the most important thing to remember.”

In my room, I pause at the window to search the darkness.

But nobody stares back at me from the pouring rain.

Evie’s wind chimes sing out loud and clear in the storm. They clink and clank against each other with a ringing fury that carries over the wind and the water. Not even the constant rumble of thunder drowns out their strange music.

I take Case’s bloodstained medal out of my pocket and wrap it in a tissue. I know I should give it to someone. Turn it over to the sheriff or something. And I will.

Soon.

Because I figure Saint Sebastian is proof of what Hart has been saying all along. Case has to be the one that Elora is afraid of. He must be the one chasing her down through the rain in all those mixed-up flashes I’ve been having.

There’s no real way to deny that now.

Then, after he killed her, he took his medal back. The one she slipped into her pocket when we were only twelve years old. The summer of batting practice.

Baseballs.

And eyelashes.

He stole it from her while she lay there. Dead at his feet. Or maybe dying.

But then what?

How did Saint Sebastian end up lost in Honey’s shed?

If my power is so great, why don’t I know the answer to that question?

I slip the medal into my underwear drawer, and my fingers find the corner of Sera’s drawing. I unfold the paper and carry it over to my bed. I crawl up on top of the quilt to sit cross-legged and study the image.

That big black trunk.

The trunk that currently isn’t in the shed where it should be.

I think about how I used to hide inside it. And it hits me that it’s exactly the right size.

The right size to hold a body. The right size to make a girl disappear.

Like magic.

The room starts spinning. Suddenly I’m imagining Case folding Elora’s long legs into that black trunk and closing the lid. I get up and shove the drawing back into the drawer, then I run to the bathroom and drop to my knees in front of the toilet. My stomach heaves and heaves, but nothing comes up. I’m shaking all over, and my face is on fire, so I curl up on the bath mat and rest my cheek against the smooth tile.

And then I guess I fall asleep, because when I open my eyes again, it’s pitch black. No bedroom light. No bathroom light.