Lilah and Jace exchanged nervous glances.
“Um, Dad?” Lilah frowned, sniffing the air. “Something smells funny.”
“You’re damn right something smells funny! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! This whole thing smells funny!”
“No – I mean, something in the house smells funny. Is the stew still on the stove?”
Stanley let out a four-letter curse and ran into the kitchen, where more curses – as well as a cacophony of clanging and clattering – ensued. A few minutes later, he stood in the archway with a peevish expression, a stained towel slung across his slumped shoulders.
“Li – hand me that phonebook… Jace – hope you don’t mind pineapple on your pizza.”
Jace’s wide smile was a genuine one, as though no one had thought to offer him fruit-topped pizza in years. “That sounds great, Mr. Quinn.”
Chapter 16
Dried Roses
It was just past midnight and Lilah was lying awake in bed, staring at the icy branches of the elm tree swaying outside her window as a shrill gust of wind whistled against the shutters. Having finally abandoned the stack of depressing news articles to her nightstand, she clutched her lavender bedspread against her chin, waiting for sleep to find her. But sleep was elusive that night as a torrent of thoughts rushed through her mind instead – thoughts that thrilled her and sent her heart racing into her throat. Like the way Jace had looked in her eyes and said, “Maybe I can come by again tomorrow?” just before heading home for the night. Or the way he’d smelled when he pulled her in for an awkward goodbye hug on the front porch. A hug that, in her estimation, went on for a full Mississippi-and-a-half longer than what Seth would describe on his patented Squeeze-O-Meter as a “Standard Platonic Hug.” In fact, if he had been there to time it himself, he might have even labeled it as a “Quasi Crush-Zone Embrace.”
She’d almost called Seth to tell him the news – that Jace McKinnon had spent the entire evening at her house and even stayed for dinner – but there were two major problems with that: for one, it would involve having to confess her big secret to Seth, and, apart from Katie Price, he was the biggest gossip in school. Of course, the other, far more pressing issue, was that Seth still refused to talk to her, even though the concert fiasco had happened more than two weeks ago. Christmas had already come and gone, and for the first time in eight years, even their sacred annual Christmas Candy Cane Hunt had fallen to the wayside. She clutched her comforter tighter against her chest. Her father was never home on Christmas since he insisted on giving his volunteers the day off, and while Stanley and Lilah had always exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve, spending Christmas Day at Seth’s house had become an annual tradition – a tradition she looked forward to very much. But the messages she had left with Seth’s mother went ignored. Even the handmade, sparkly reindeer card that she placed on his front step had been snubbed; when she walked by his house more than a week later, she could see the soggy corner of it sticking out from beneath the juniper bushes.
Spending Christmas alone was hard, but not the worst of it; the thought of losing her best friend of nearly a decade gnawed at her insides. Combined with everything else she had learned that night, it made her stomach wrench into tight, anxious knots. But, as much as she tried to distract herself with thoughts of Jace and Seth, her attention always returned to the most difficult topic of all: her mother. A girl who had been no older than Lilah when she vanished sixteen years ago.
As she lay awake in bed contemplating that uncomfortable truth, the black and white eyes from Willow’s photograph replaced the disdainful brown-eyed memory of Seth, surveying Lilah from the darkness like a ghost. She gripped the comforter tighter against her chin, trying to avoid Willow’s sad gaze, but it was no use. She was everywhere Lilah looked.
Did she have seizures too? Why did she disappear? And where did she go? Did she make a new identity for herself to avoid being found? Is she safe? Happy? More than once that night, the most disconcerting thought of all surfaced above the rest, despite her efforts to quell it: Did I have something to do with their disappearance? Are they gone because of me? At that, Willow’s gray brow appeared to furrow, and Lilah could almost imagine her voice, soft and raspy and full of censure: You did this to me. This is your fault.
A soft knock on the door stirred Lilah from her frightened reverie.
“Li – are you awake?” Stanley whispered. He cracked the door open to poke his head inside.
“Hi, Dad,” she said, sitting up in bed. “I’m up.”
“Can I come in for a minute?”
“Yeah, sure.”
He flipped on the light and stepped into her bedroom, careful to avoid the piles of clothes scattered around the floor.
“So, uh… interesting night, huh? That Jace fellow, he seems nice. Nicer than I gave him credit for, at least… Mind if I sit?” he asked, pulling the chair from her desk beside the bed.
“Go ahead.”
Stanley rested his chin and arms over the back of the chair as he sat down. “I still think it was a bad idea to tell him everything. You hardly know him.”
Why did I feel so comfortable telling him everything? she wondered, marveling once more at the unexpected evening. Is it because he looked so nervous standing at the door? Because I felt terrible about what happened? Or is it just because I wanted him to notice me, to think I’m special?
Lilah chewed on the last vestiges of a haggard thumbnail. “I’ve known Jace since elementary school. We just…haven’t talked much lately.”
“Hmph.” Her father looked unconvinced.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I felt so bad about the concert. I didn’t want him wondering what had really happened for the rest of his life. I know what that’s like, having all these questions and hardly any answers.”
Her father sighed. “Yeah, I get that. And I gotta hand it to the kid, he seemed pretty cool and collected for someone who was just told that his new buddy has time-altering seizures.” He chuckled then, almost nervously, but Lilah didn’t reply. She was staring at the far wall, her hazel eyes distant.
Jace may act like a bad boy at school, but I remember him when he was young – how he would always pick the smallest kid in gym class to be on his team. How he stood up for Marcia Harris when the other kids made fun of her surgery scars. He made me want to be better, even back then.
“Hey – you with me?” her father asked, fear creeping into his voice.
“Yeah, sorry,” she said, finally meeting his gaze. “I was just thinking about something.”
“Good.” He breathed a sigh of relief. “Hey, I wanted to ask you, uh, about what you said earlier. About your mother. About Marie, I mean. Did you really…” he swallowed. “I mean, did she…” He scrubbed a hand through disheveled hair. “I guess what I’m trying to ask is, how exactly did you talk to her? Did she talk back? Did she know who you were?”
“I was sitting next to her ashes when she appeared. She asked about you.”
His eyes grew wide. “She did? What did she say? What did you say?”
“She asked if you were happy. I said that, apart from this week, you seem okay. I told her that you miss her… She said that it felt like she was just here. I think the version of Mom I saw was from sometime in the fall.”