Eerie (10 page)

“Is it?”

“Yes,” she said, leaning away. “And frightening.”

“Then I won't kill him,” he said thoughtfully. He raised an incandescent hand to her cheek. “I didn't mean to frighten you,” he murmured, and a soothing flush of warmth spilled across her face.

She drew a breath to tell him . . .something . . .

What was it? What was he saying just now? Something about a boy . . .or lips . . .something . . .

Hailey looked up at him, her mind blank.

“I'm sorry, Asher, what were you saying?”

He smiled slightly.

“I'd like to see you on Earth again.”

“Oh.”

Hailey pulled her brow down, unable to shake the feeling she was forgetting something. Whatever it was—it was gone. She shook her head and looked up at Asher.

“Does that mean you're real? You don't just exist here . . .in my dreams . . .?”

His smile widened.

“I am real,” he said.

They stared together at the sparkling river in front of them.

“Hailey,” he said gently, “will you tell me what you're thinking?”

“I feel so forgetful here. And I can never remember these dreams.”

“Aether amnesia,” he said. “All humans forget.”

“Forget . . .” she repeated, and her lip twitched sadly.

Asher blinked in confusion.

“What is it?”

“I was just thinking about Holly,” she said as a tear dropped to her cheek. Asher raised an angelic hand to it. “I don't want to forget her like I forgot my mom and dad.” Another tear fell from her eye. “I miss her so much.”

She sniffled for a time and continued.

“We just got accepted to a college in Alaska. I'm gonna go, but she won't be there with me. I never thought I'd go anywhere without her.” She looked up at Asher. “Uncle Pix says I'll be safe there . . .in Alaska. He says there's an Envoy there that will protect me.”

She held his gaze, hoping he'd answer her unspoken question.

Asher closed his eyes and smiled again.

“I am the one, and you won't be alone.”

She smiled through her tears.

“Then I'll see you—I'll see you, Asher. I can meet you and shake your hand and have a conversation I'll actually remember—” Asher's wistful expression cut Hailey off. “What's wrong?” she asked.

“I'd like to hold you in my arms, Hailey. Ever since I left you on the balcony, it's all I think about.”

Hailey froze. That was exactly what she wanted—comfort. From the one creature powerful enough to protect her. Her heart beat in her ears, and she finally exhaled.

“Asher, why do you like me?”

He pondered this for so long, Hailey figured he wouldn't answer. Heavy silence forced her blurt. “I wouldn't—”

“I should kill you.”

Hailey's breath caught.

He fixed his mesmerizing eyes on her.

“But you will forget this conversation.”

Oh, I very seriously doubt that.

“I should kill you and go home,” he said, “but the thought of facing existence without you makes me feel . . .sad.”

He turned in time to see her hug herself.

“Does that frighten you?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, meeting his gaze. “But only a little.”

Chapter Thirteen

The Doppler Effect

“A lie which is a half truth is ever the blackest of lies.”

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

Fully rejuvenated, Hailey awoke strangely excited about leaving her home and everything she'd ever known to go to a college in The Middle of Nowhere. She stretched and stumbled into the bathroom, where she showered, dried and grabbed an elastic, fully intending to go “bun” for the day, but Tomas had another idea. He shot out of the mirror, scissors in hand.

“Ah!” she yelled, throwing her hands over her head and squishing herself against the wall.

Tomas was fast. Pulling her hands away, he snipped and fussed. When he was finished with the scissors, he pulled out of thin air an otherworldly hairdryer, bigger than the sink.

“Are yeh alright?” came Uncle Pix's voice from outside the door.

Tomas clicked the gigantic hairdryer on to answer him, brushing and drying and studying Hailey's head until he was finally satisfied and disappeared.

Standing up with her hands on her head, Hailey hesitated to look in the mirror, but when she did, she was happily surprised.

He'd given her bangs that swept to the side, leaving some longer tendrils, which perfectly framed her face. It looked both dainty and edgy.

“YOU'RE WELCOME,” came a word printed in frost on the glass.

“Why are you here?” she said.

“CURIOUS,” was the next word he made, and then it disappeared.

“What are you curious about?”

“HAILEY-KHU”

“Hailey-khu? What's that? What does khu mean?”

“SCHATZ,” it wrote.

Hailey opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by a loud crash coming from the kitchen, and she zipped down the hall to see what it was. Uncle Dale was on the floor gathering up pieces of a plate and sang out to her. “Morning, Hailey!”

“Morning,” she answered with hesitation. “Everything alright out here?”

“Sure.” He dumped a handful of broken porcelain into the trash. “Just a bit of poltergeist shenanigans,” he said, as if it were as normal as a comment on the weather, so she went with it.

“There's an albino ghost living in our bathroom mirror,” she blurted, pointing to her hair.

“An albino?” he repeated, and Hailey realized how ridiculous that sounded. After all, weren't all ghosts albino? She shook her head and changed the subject.

“Do you know what a Luftzeug is?”

“Sure. Hopped on one to travel to Pittsburgh. Why do you ask?”

“I'm supposed to ride on one this fall when I go to college. What's it like?”

“It's interesting for sure,” he said, “and a little bumpy. You'll want to hold onto yer clothes,” he advised with his eyebrows seriously raised.

Only one month to go
, she kept telling herself that day, and a horrific day it was, with the latest gossip centered around her. She couldn't help but overhear it—that Tage Adams had asked her to prom as a sympathy gesture.

Mina was a loud whisperer and a cheerleader who used to date Tage. Even though he'd asked Hailey to prom, Mina fully expected him to snap out of his craziness and escort her to their senior dance. She hissed to her horrible friends the reason behind his sudden madness.

“His dad
made
him ask her to prom out of pity for her dead sister, but Tage knows Hailey won't go—she's so weird—and so he's planning to go with me.”

Great
, Hailey thought, trying to bury her attention in world history, but no matter how she tried, she hadn't been able to
not
hear the buzz, and Tage followed her off the bus that day, wanting an answer.

“So,” he said as soon as the bus pulled away, “are you going to let me take you to prom?”

“Oh, uh . . .” Hailey threw him a half smile then studied the sidewalk. “I'm not really up to it, but I am really flattered you asked me.”

“Look, Hailey, I know what they're saying at school.” He pulled her to a stop, and she instinctively looked up at him. “I didn't ask you to prom because I felt sorry for you or because my dad made me. I asked you because I like you.”

He tried to look her in the eyes, but Hailey avoided him.

“I just don't want to go,” she finally said, blinking back her tears. Tage wrapped his arms around her, backpack and all. Unsure what to make of this, she went rigid. Tage let her go.

“I don't really want to go to prom, either,” he said as they continued down the street. “Can I take you out to dinner on prom night?” he asked, smiling excitedly. “You'd be saving me from an evening of hell . . .”

Hailey scoffed, doubting very much that being crowned King of Prom could really be classified as “hell.”

“No, Tage. The cheerleaders of Pittsburgh would never forgive me if I stole you from their spring fling.” Unexpectedly, her eyes welled with tears. She bowed her head so Tage wouldn't see.

“No worries,” he said gently. Then he brightened. “Hey, I'll swing by the pub tonight for dinner to say hi.”

Hailey shook her head. “Dinner service is cancelled,” she said, and an image of Mrs. Lash resurfaced in her mind.

“Then I'll be by tonight at five to pick you up.”

Hailey snapped her misty eyes at him.

“What?”

“I'll take you out to dinner tonight,” he shrugged, and before Hailey could protest, he pecked her on the cheek and trotted off down Bridge Street.

How did that just happen?
she thought, standing slack-jawed in the middle of the intersection as she watched Tage disappear around the corner.

True to his word, Tage appeared at the pub a few minutes before five o'clock, red rose in hand.

Pix eyeballed him as soon as he stepped through the door.

“Who are yeh?” he grumbled, pushing past Hailey and winding up to “welcome” Tage, but Hailey stepped between them.

“Uncle Pix!” she yelled with her hands up. “This is Tage Adams. I go to school with him. He's here to pick me up for a dinner . . .uh . . .date.”

She turned to Tage, who held the rose out to her, looking absolutely terrified.

Hailey smiled as she accepted it, saying, “Tage, this is my uncle, Pix.”

The two shook hands, Pix grudgingly and Tage hesitantly, while Frog looked on with his arms crossed.

“Well,” said Hailey, quickly ushering Tage out the door. “Tage will bring me straight home after dinner,” she said, already guessing her uncle's orders.

Pix grunted as the door closed behind them.

“I'm sorry about that,” she said as Tage led her to his mother's car. He didn't open her door.

“It's alright,” he said, settling behind the wheel before he unlocked the passenger door. “Did I look scared? Cause I was. Your uncle's sort of a pugilist legend.”

“He's harmless,” Hailey laughed as she scooted inside, relieved to find a hard plastic console separating them . . .and surprised Tage knew the word “pugilist.” “So, where we going?”

“Station Square. I booked us a dinner on board one of the clippers.”

“A river cruise?”

The night suddenly got longer as Tage drove at a snail's pace to the north.

“You're not afraid of the water, are you?”

“No.”
It's not the water that scares me
, she thought as she looked out the window, wondering what she should say next.

“I didn't know if you'd let me take you out again, so I wanted to do something special,” he said quietly. He sounded nervous, though she didn't understand why. Every teenage girl in the area wanted to date him.

Every girl except Hailey. She didn't want to be at the center of anyone's attention—not without her dance shoes, not without Holly. She certainly didn't want to be associated with the most talked-about boy at school. She could already hear the next day's gossip.

As the car crept north, her belly flip-flopped, and after an uncomfortably long pause, she tried to strike up a chat. She drew in a breath to speak but then snapped her mouth shut.

Don't say that, that's stupid—he can't be nervous.

“Why are you nervous?” she asked, saying it anyway as they pulled up to the docks.

“I'm not . . .do I seem . . .I guess I am a little nervous. You're just different from anyone I've ever dated—”

We're not dating.

“—and I guess I just really want you to have a good time tonight,” he said shrugging as he got out of the car.

Hailey put her rose on the dashboard and followed him.

“Otherwise, you won't let me take you out again.”

When they got to the ramp, he finally offered his hand, and Hailey took it, glad to see him remember at least some of his manners as they boarded the triple-decker ship.

He led her to a table on the top deck near the rail and pulled her chair out for her. Breathing in the river air, Hailey closed her eyes, enjoying the moment as music from the live band on deck filled her ears.

Maybe this won't be so bad after all,
she thought.

Then Tage's phone beeped, and he actually pulled it out of his pocket at the dinner table—without excusing himself. He then read a message, half-smiled, typed one in response, and staged his phone face-up next to his plate.

Hailey bit her lips together, resisting the urge to toss his phone overboard.

“What were you saying?” he asked, and she opened her mouth to answer but was cut off by another beep.

Taking his phone with both hands, Tage sat back in his chair, fully engrossed in whatever message was flashing across his screen. He didn't even notice when Hailey got up with her arms crossed and strolled along the railing as the boat pushed away from the dock.

Watching the river as it gushed against the hull of the ship, ducking instinctively when a bridge flew overhead, Hailey was having a great time without Tage. In the background, a local band played a lively tune, and, to Hailey's delight, when they finished their version of a popular rock song, they switched to all Irish music.

Still holding onto the rail, Hailey turned to see them and caught a quick spark of violet, rather like a camera flash, coming from the shadows underneath the canopy.

She glanced at Tage, who was still busy with his phone and not missing her at all.
I'll just take a quick stroll across the bow and check it out
, she decided. She made it halfway across the deck, before a booming voice stopped her dead in her tracks.

“Hailey!” Tage shouted it as if he were calling a play on the field. Several couples turned and stared. “Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry—that was my recruiter blowing up my phone.”

“Your recruiter?” Hailey said grudgingly. She was curious but not wanting to excuse his rudeness whatsoever.

“Yeah,” he said brightly. “I'm going to West Point. I'll be studying physics—and playing football,” he added with a wink as he led her back to the table. “Look,” he said, and he ceremoniously turned his phone off and tucked it away, just as the appetizers appeared. “I got a scholarship from DOPPLER to—”

“What did you say?” She cut him off more harshly than she'd meant but recovered quickly. “I . . .I mean... What was that about DOPPLER?” In all her grief, she'd completely forgotten the confidential folder.

“DOPPLER? It's a research group. They're sponsoring my scholarship, so I'll go work for them, as an Army officer after I graduate.”

“What do they research?” she asked, trying not to sound as interested as she actually was.

“Weapons. Some psychological warfare, I think.” His face twisted in confusion as he picked up a piece of bread. “Actually, I'm not really sure. My dad said they do a lot of sleep studies. They didn't give me a lot of information, and what they did say was pretty cryptic. They only work with the military, so it's all secret-squirrel, hush-hush.”

He took a massive bite, and Hailey nodded politely while he chewed.