Falling into Forever (14 page)

I am no longer even certain myself of what I saw. A barefoot girl in a tattered dress is preposterous, but she was indeed there in the woods in front of the Jeep. At sunset, she ran from behind a tree into my path. The Jeep bucked like a wild horse when I stood on the brakes, and she kept running farther into the thick woods. She ran toward the cave, the same dark hole that I'd found a day ago in the hillside.

I called to her when she ran inside, but I knew not to enter. She did not answer. I could see no one in the dark abyss. In my shoulder, my skin burned like a claw had ripped through my heavy jacket. And then, for only a moment, my eyes stared up at the gray sky before the darkness closed in upon me.

Is that how I shall explain to the captain why he had to risk the lives of men to search for me in the dark, cold woods-that his men were needlessly endangered by my incoherent visions?

She reread the entry again before she drifted into sleep. The words played through her mind as she rested against the fluffy down pillows behind her head. In her sleep, Alexandra saw once more the magnificent winged creature from her afternoon nap. His arms held her waist tightly, protecting her from a pelting rain, as her head rested on his bare chest. He smelled like fire and smoke, similar to the scent of a warm hearth on a cold night. She dared to lift her eyes and to look at his face. A gasp escaped her lips as his piercing, blue eyes stared back into her own.

“Why are you here?” she asked. He held her face gently between his hands, and his long, black hair fell around his face to his shoulders.

He did not speak. Rather, in response, his arms tightened around her. Alexandra laid her head back against him, her eyes clenched shut as she listened to his heartbeat.

Across town at the Woodward mansion, Taylor Woodward was not having a restful evening. She had skipped dinner and had locked herself in her pink-and-white bedroom. She sensed that her father was out having drinks at his club, avoiding coming home. Although he spent less time at home these days than at the club, Dr. Jim Woodward had spent a lot of money to buy the house— more money than his plastic surgery practice brought in. But his young second wife, Krystal, had been adamant that she had to have it. The gated, well-manicured enclave provided her with an appropriate address to please the society circles to which she ached to belong.

In the granite-and-steel kitchen, Mrs. Krystal Woodward uncorked the evening's second bottle of red wine. Taylor could hear the cork pop from her bedroom above the kitchen. Taylor dialed her father's cell phone number, only to hear his voice mail answer yet again.

“You have to come home, Daddy. Krystal is drunk and yelling at me,” she cried into the phone.

A fist pounded on her bedroom door.

“I hear you in there,” Krystal shouted. “Shut your mouth.”

Taylor slid a window open, unhooked the screen, and threw out an emergency rope ladder that her father had bought for her in case of a fire. “Thanks, Daddy,” she said, slipping down the rope. Rolling out of the driveway in her Mercedes, Taylor glanced up to her window and waved to Krystal as her drunken stepmother leaned out the window and pulled up the ladder.

11
Whirlwind

Wide awake in her bed, June shuffled right and left, never comfortable. Outside, the first bands of Hurricane Emily marched through the night outside the walls of Peyton Manor. The timber beams creaked in the howling gusts.

Fat raindrops pounded her bedroom windows. At the foot of June's bed, Dixie huddled under the quilt, quivering with fear in the howling storm.

“We are going to be just fine, Miss Dixie,” June told the shaking dog as she pulled back the blanket and scooped the poodle into her arms. “This house has survived more hurricanes than I could shake a stick at, so don't you worry.”

Rising from her bed, June tossed on her plush night robe and held Dixie against her chest as she stepped lightly into the dark hallway outside her bedroom. Dixie, burying her head inside soft folds of pink chenille, moaned low as June carried her slowly down the steep staircase to the main floor's study.

Nestling into a sturdy, high-backed leather chair, June switched on a table lamp and found the television's remote control. Stroking Dixie's head, she kept the volume low as she watched the weather reporter on Channel 2 scream into her microphone. The reporter's voice was fighting over the raging wind, yet the reporter still tried to update her audience live from the beach.

A wind chime rang furiously on the porch as June stared at the television screen. She stroked Dixie's thick, cotton-white fur. “Everyone around here gets so excited about a little storm,” she mumbled at Dixie lying in her lap.

“I declare, this town has survived far worse than Emily.”

Dixie pricked her ears and tensed in June's lap. The dog gave a low growl, focusing at the closed door of the study.

“What's wrong, girl?” June asked.

A footfall on the wooden staircase got June up from her seat. Stepping to the door, she peeked into the dark foyer and flipped a light switch on the wall. At her feet, Dixie bared her teeth and barked up at the empty steps.

“Is that you, Patrick?” she called out, though she knew he was spending the evening at his son's house.

Upstairs in the second floor hallway, a door hinge squeaked. Dixie jumped from her mistress's frail arms.

“No, girl!” June scolded her as the barking dog chased toward the noise up the staircase.

With her arthritis aching deep inside her left ankle, it was hard for her to move quickly. She gripped the stair's rail tightly and pulled herself up the steps one at a time. She was breathless when she reached the top of the staircase, and she glanced down the hallway toward the attic. A yellow beam of light shone from under the closed door.

“She is here! Not right,” June said softly, her heart pounding faster.

“Hush, Dixie,” she called to the dog, who was sniffing the bottom of the door. Dragging her throbbing left ankle behind her, June willed herself toward the attic.

Cradling the doorknob in her hand, she listened with her ear to the door as footsteps shuffled above her head across the attic floor. Dixie growled and stuck her nose

under the crack between the floor and the bottom of the door.

The squeaky door hinges echoed up the staircase as June's frail shoulder nudged the door open. “Hello?” she called out. Her foot landed on the first step of the steep staircase.

Pushing past her, Dixie lunged up the steps, eager to corral the trespasser. But when her paws hit the top step, a confused whimper escaped her muzzle. The dog sniffed the air and growled at the open window, its curtain flying about in the stiff wind from the storm raging outside.

“Calm down,” June said, patting Dixie's back and kneeling beside the open window. “There's no one here, girl,” she said, trying to calm the dog. June was tense with fear.

“'Cept me here,” said an elderly Gullah voice from the shadows behind them.

June turned, falling to the floor to sit, exhausted, as Dixie whimpered at her side. “What are you doing here, Jasmine?” June asked, clutching at her chest through her robe.

“Dat storm out dare is makin da spirits roun here restless. I caint get no peace,” the woman explained, stepping forward.

June was trembling on the floor.

“You know I told you not to come here anymore,” said June, her legs shaking as she raised herself to her feet by clutching the wall.

“Bruther Joe wan talk to you,” Jasmine said, smiling wide. “He tolt me so. He say dat girl wuz here took sumthin belong to him.”

“Alexandra?” June said her granddaughter's name in disbelief. “I don't know what you are talking about,

Jasmine. But you must leave now. You're not welcome here anymore.”

“Bruther Joe tolt me dat girl took his book!” Jasmine said, kneeling in front of Joseph Peyton's army chest.

“Look hare,” she said to prove it, throwing open the top of the box.

June kneeled beside Jasmine, her hands searching desperately for her brother's journal. “No!” she sighed when she could not find the book.

“Come wid me, June Bug,” Jasmine told her, holding out her soft, wrinkled hand to June's thin-skinned palm.

June put Dixie in her bedroom, slipped on her shoes, and then they left the house together with a flashlight, going to Jasmine's shack.

The beam of light from June's flashlight bounced back and forth from the trees to the ground as she followed Jasmine in the windy night. They slowly crept through the woods to the crumbling hovel deep inside the property.

The rain slackened as the first band of Hurricane Emily moved past the barrier island deeper up state, leaving Edisto Island shaken and wet. They both knew that the monster still churned in the Atlantic, its wrath poised to strike again in the long hours before dawn.

Jasmine stepped inside the shack first, lighting a candle as June followed on her heels. In the dim light, June mistakenly kicked a metal crab cage resting on the shack's floor, and she screamed aloud in pain as a scrape on her shin bled down her leg. Shining her flashlight on the cage, she saw a long, thick snake inside, coiled behind the metal wire.

“Dat dare is Honeysuckle,” said Jasmine. “You wantin to see your Joseph now?” she asked. “Him wantin to talk fore dat storm come.”

June nodded her head and held out her hand.

Jasmine grasped June's shaking fingers, and they both shut their eyes. “Come, bruther Joe. Her is waitin for you to speak,” Jasmine intoned.

As June huddled in a corner and watched in the dim candlelight, the Gullah woman's body shook violently and collapsed to the dusty wooden floor. The old woman's lips quivered, and the shack shook. Slowly, Jasmine began to rock back and forth, and a spasm quaked through her limbs. Her arms and legs flailed maniacally through the air. June heard the woman call her name.

“June,” said Jasmine, rising to sit upright on the floor, her eyes wide. “Forgive me.”

“Forgive you for what, Joey?” June answered her brother and kneeled in front of Jasmine.

“She took my journal, June. No one can see what is in there. No one,” the voice beseeched, coming from Jasmine's lips.

“Who took it?” June asked. A tear ran down her cheek.

“Alexandra,” was Joseph Peyton's answer. “This woman, Jasmine, has conjured me from my rest,” Jasmine spat. “So she knows my secrets. Alexandra is in danger; and so are you, if it is not returned.”

“I don't understand, Joey,” June shouted over the howling wind.

Stroking June's bowed head, Jasmine said, “Help me, please, June. I am so tired.”

“Oh, Joey!” June choked and grabbed Jasmine's hand.

“Jasmine will do anything to get it back, June.”

“But why, Joey? Why?” June entreated.

“I met the devil once, June. It's in there, you see. What he looks like. What he sounds like.” The deep voice echoed from Jasmine's lips: “What he smells like.”

June stroked Jasmine's hand as the solemn voice of her long-dead brother echoed from the Gullah woman's dry, pursed lips.

“I saw him during the war when I stumbled on a cave deep in the German forest. He had the bluest eyes I have ever seen, gleaming and glassy like ice. He looked like a man, like me, but on his back sat a monstrous pair of wings. Not like those of a bird—or even an angel— but like a dragon. He told me that he was immortal, an abomination, a monster, and that he wanted to die if he could never be with her again—his bride—dead for a thousand years now.”

Calm and wide-eyed, Jasmine stared into June's pale face. “Go on, Joey,” June pleaded with Jasmine, the vessel of her brother's voice.

“He said his flesh, his blood—they would let me live forever like him. I needed only to taste them, to consume his spirit into mine, but I refused. He was so sad. I drew his picture, June, in my journal, so that I would never forget his face. His portrait is in my diary. And so is her face, his love, his auburn-haired princess. He described her to me—freckles and auburn ringlets, so beautiful, so innocent.”

June felt her throat constrict, her palms twitch. “Alex,”

she murmured.

“He would die a thousand times for her, should she require him to,” Joseph's voice lamented. “But his soul must move to another for his flesh to wither upon the bone.”

A streak of lightning lit the tiny room, and a crack of thunder echoed through the woods. Jasmine's body fell to the floor, writhing in the dirt. June watched from the shadows as Jasmine went still.

In the silence of the shack, a soft gurgling escaped

Jasmine's lips as she sat upright and stared wide-eyed at June.

Jasmine said finally, “Bruther Joey don't take no likin to dis storm.” The candle flickered against her face.

“I swear, if you hurt my granddaughter—” June warned, rising to her shaking feet.

“I not 'fraid of you, June Bug,” Jasmine said, laughing.

“I need dat book. Me gonna conjure dat devil. Me gonna taste him blood. Me gonna live forever. Dat book holt da truth. Dat devil gonna die to save dat Missy Alex. Me know dat, and me gonna see him die here, in dis place, so him soul be mine forever.”

“I'll get it back from her, Jasmine. I swear,” June pleaded.

“Oh, it too late for dat, June Bug. Dat book has magic.”

Jasmine rose to her feet, stared at June, and then revealed, “I dun sent my Cyrus.”

“No!” June gasped, tears running down her face. “He'll kill her, Jasmine. He's a monster.”

Firmly crossing her arms over her chest, Jasmine raised her head and cackled into the wind as it tore through the shack. “Dat storm is comin, June Bug! You best get back to dat there big house.”

“She didn't know,” June tried to explain as she stepped backward toward the open door and up onto the shack's narrow porch. “Please don't hurt my baby,” she cried and dove from the shack into the night.