Falling into Forever (3 page)

“I thought you said we were going to Charleston,” said Taylor, hesitant to unplug the digital navigator.

“We're going to be about an hour south of Charleston,” Alexandra told her, “where there are not as many tourists.”

As Alexandra settled into the soft leather driver's seat, she kept her eyes on the road ahead. She was looking forward to the feeling of sand between her toes. Her grandmother had been begging her to visit all summer. Granny June's parents, her brother Joseph, and her husband Thomas Peyton had all passed on. So except for Patrick, the cook, Granny June lived alone in the rambling beachfront home. The estate had been built by the shipping fortune earned by Granny June's father, a business that had been continued by her husband. It was a grand home, lodged between forest and ocean in the hamlet of Edisto.

Alexandra was always welcome at Peyton Manor. June had the time and money to lavish on her only grandchild. But June could not give her the thing that Alexandra wanted most: the return of Alexandra's father, an archaeologist, who had gone missing. Although Alexandra's parents were divorced, she had spent a lot of time with her father, and they had formed a close-knit relationship. She desperately wanted her father to come home. But the FBI and Interpol had not contacted them in over a year with any new information about Jonathan Peyton's disappearance. He had joined an archaeological dig in southern Germany to unearth a possibly thousand-year-old village. What happened to him after that, no one knew.

In the two years since her father had vanished, Alexandra had visited her grandmother only once. The first Christmas after her father's disappearance, she'd come to see Granny June, but it had been a sad time. Framed pictures and postcards (Granny June's most treasured memories of her son Jonathan) hung on every wall; these pictures haunted Alexandra. To her, the house was a museum to her father's life, not a home waiting for his return.

Alexandra knew she had avoided a visit to her grandmother for too long; and as she drove, she thought of how badly she wanted to hug her Granny June and tell her that she loved her. As the passing miles of tall Georgia pines brought her closer to Peyton Manor, she swore to herself that she would take nothing for granted anymore. Her upcoming senior year, college applications, the prom—so much loomed on the horizon. She needed her dad, but she also needed to continue with her life.

Driving with the wind in her hair, Alexandra thought of the last time she saw him. After her freshman year at Collinsworth Academy, she had visited him at Granny June's house during summer vacation. The divorce had been finalized, and her father had just taken a sabbatical from his post as an archaeology professor at the University of Georgia.

Her father knew that she feared the water, but he convinced Alexandra to spend the afternoon with him on the sailboat that Granny June kept moored at the local marina. A blazing sun and a strong wind beat against the two of them as they sailed out of the marina's docks and into the harbor. Alexandra tried to keep up with her father's shouts to jab and hoist, until she finally realized that it would be safer to keep out of his way and soak up the sun at the rear of the boat.

When he anchored in the middle of the harbor, she listened to him tell her about his plans to travel to Europe for a research trip. A colleague and friend of his had stumbled upon the remains of a medieval castle and wanted him to assist with the excavation. As the boat rocked back and forth, Alexandra tried to concentrate on her father's words, but she did not tell him about the sour feeling in her gut. She felt thankful for the wind that whipped her hair across her face and hid the tears welling in her eyes.

Weeks after their sail through the harbor, while he was at the dig, her father sent her an email. He assured her that all was well with the excavation, but that he missed her terribly and wanted her to visit as soon as her Collinsworth schedule allowed. She never heard from him again.

The FBI and Interpol had sent June Peyton a few updates in the months that followed until finally admitting that they had no clues—no leads at all. Alexandra's father had simply vanished. As time passed with no verification of the missing man's status, the family was left in limbo and found it hard to move forward. Without knowing if he was alive or dead, their loss was ambiguous and their grief was unresolved. Granny June had plastered her house with memories of him. Alexandra's mother, Angela, although divorced from him, had the diamond from her wedding ring made into a small pendant necklace that she wore every day. As for Alexandra, she had not been able to listen to Taylor's consoling words. Alexandra was unable to say goodbye, and it was beginning to look like the family's uncertainty would last for years. Despite her persistent sorrow, she knew that she must move forward with her senior year, which was why she was making this trip.

Alexandra had not set foot on the sailboat since her last day with her father, but Granny June had refused to sell it. Her father loved the ocean and enjoyed the boat, which he had named the
Miss Alex
. He had always told Alexandra that she reminded him of the sea. “You're a force of nature, Alex,” he had said to her on their last day on the boat together. “You're beautiful—deep and bold, like the ocean. Neither of you can be told what to do by a mere man like me.”

As she remembered her decision to start to move on with her life, a gust of wind suddenly buffeted the open convertible and flipped her long hair into her face. She pried the auburn locks from her wet eyes. The Atlanta skyline lay miles behind the speeding Mercedes, and ahead stretched miles of open road.

“You're even quieter than usual over there,” poked Taylor as she slathered her thumbnail in glittery polish. “Do you like this color?” she asked, shoving her sparkling finger in Alexandra's face. “It's called
Pretty Princess Pink.
”

“Suits you,” muttered Alexandra, as she swatted her friend's hand away from her face.

“Stop it, Alex,” whined Taylor. “You smudged it,” she said as she applied another layer of polish.

“Arrivederci!”
said the Italian voice in the car's speakers.

“Arrivederci!”
repeated Alexandra as she hit the off button on the stereo.

“Why are you being such a grouch?” asked Taylor, puckering her lips and blowing her nails dry.

“Sorry, Taylor,” Alexandra grunted. “I was just thinking about the last time I was on my grandmother's sailboat.”

“Your grandmother has a sailboat?” shrieked Taylor excitedly. “You never told me that. Do you know how to drive it or whatever?”

“No, but my Dad did,” said Alexandra.

“Oh—um, okay,” Taylor stumbled over her words, realizing that Alexandra had been quiet because she had been thinking about her father.

Alexandra kept her eyes on the road. “Tomorrow I'll take you to the marina where the boat is docked. There should be lots of cute rich boys hanging around during the summer, just like at your dad's country club. You'll feel right at home.”

“I can always count on you to look out for me, Alex,” smiled Taylor as she twisted shut the top of the nail polish bottle. “Are we there yet?” she asked, yawning.

Alexandra pointed to a mileage sign as the convertible sped past it. “Charleston, one hundred miles,” she read aloud.

“Yuck,” moaned Taylor, as she reclined her seat. “You'll wake me if something exciting happens?”

“I promise,” said Alexandra, glancing up at the totally blue sky. “Do you hear that?” she asked Taylor suddenly.

“Hear what?” asked Taylor, her eyes closed. She snuggled against the soft, warm leather of the passenger seat.

“It sounds like thunder,” said Alexandra. She pushed her sunglasses on top of her head and squinted at the sun, unsure of where the noise had come from.

“No, I didn't hear anything,” Taylor whispered as she drifted into sleep.

“How do you put the top up on this thing?” asked Alexandra, but Taylor was already snoring beside her. “Never mind, I guess. A cold shower will do her good anyway,” Alexandra muttered to herself as she listened to her friend giggle and snort in her sleep.

She thought that she heard her dreaming friend say, “I told you they're real, Antonio. Let me show you.” Astonished, Alexandra veered into the lane next to her; but the sharp horn blast of a minivan focused her attention back to the road.

“Sorry,” she mouthed at the angry woman in the van and waved as she regained control of the steering wheel.

Slowing down, she carefully eased open the glove compartment. “What else did you bring for us to listen to, Taylor?” she asked, glancing at her snoozing friend. Alexandra tossed aside a wad of napkins to try to find any other CD besides Taylor's Italian lessons. “A pack of cigarettes and more nail polish,” Alexandra inventoried. Disappointed, she slammed closed the glove box.

She punched a button on the stereo, and it searched in vain for a clear station until a country twang echoed through the speakers. Alexandra turned up the volume to drown out Taylor's dreamy coos for Antonio. She passed the miles singing along to ballads of broken-down pickup trucks and dirty women.

At sunset, she pulled off the interstate and found her way down familiar Edisto Island streets to Black Hall Trail. She turned off the radio and slowed the convertible to a steady crawl. Crickets serenaded her as she made her way along the lazy twists and turns, while above her head a canopy of live oaks swayed in the light breeze blowing off the ocean.

The wind whipping inland from the sea carried the scent of saltwater and marsh, and Alexandra fully took in the air and smiled. Not a single car shared the road with the Mercedes as she slowed further to watch the sun set over the ocean, which was peeking from behind the trees.

She saw ahead in the twilight, on the right, a massive, ancient oak with a gaping, hollow hole. This hole scarred the center of the thick trunk. She knew that Black Hall Trail bent around the tree, and that Peyton Manor would be sitting on the other side.

As Alexandra approached the mighty, gaping oak, a single headlight suddenly loomed in the rearview mirror. It raced up fast behind the convertible and shot past Alexandra. She saw only a sleek, dark motorcycle and helmeted rider before it disappeared around the bend in the road just ahead. By the time she had passed the oak, only moments later, the motorcycle had disappeared into the night.

Alexandra squinted to see better in the darkness. A lightning bug flashed up against her eye. As she swatted it away, she decided to hunt for the Mercedes's high beams. Her fingers fumbled over the knobs and switches along the steering wheel. She turned on the brights. As the headlights flashed brighter on the road in front of the car, what she saw made her slam on the brakes and scream.

“Get out of the way!” she cried. The seat belt caught her body from flying into the steering wheel.

Taylor jolted awake as her body rose upright in the passenger seat. “What are you doing? Are you crazy?” she shouted to her friend.

Alexandra's heart pounded in her chest and her fingers dug into the steering wheel. “I saw something!” she gasped, trembling, and threw the car into park.

Taylor whipped the seat belt off her chest and threw open the door. Walking to the front of the car, she stood in the headlights and stared at the hood.

“What's wrong?” Alexandra asked.

“Come here,” she told her. “You've got to see this.”

Alexandra's fingers shook as she unlocked her seat belt and eased her door open. Walking around the front of the car, she braced herself for the sight of a mangled dog or deer; but nothing dead lay on the road. Instead, she merely saw Taylor standing there, grasping at the hood of the car.

“What did this to my car?” Taylor asked, incredulous. With her fingertips, she traced a set of deeply grooved scratches across the paint.

The Mercedes's engine purred in the darkness as Alexandra suspiciously scanned the tree line along the road. “Get back in the car,” she suddenly told Taylor and quickly pushed her toward the passenger seat. “We're almost there, and if whatever did it comes back, I don't want to be here.”

Pouting, Taylor slumped into the seat and fumed as the convertible sprinted the next hundred yards toward Peyton Manor. Turning off the asphalt, the Mercedes's tires crunched on gravel as Alexandra pulled up onto the driveway and rolled to an iron gate. Her fingers found the intercom button on a side post. “Hello! Is anyone home?” she asked, still a bit breathless from their experience, and waited. In front of her, the gate slowly creaked open.

“Well, welcome to Peyton Manor,” she sarcastically told Taylor. She drove forward up the winding, gravel-and dirt-packed driveway toward the hundred-year-old brick home at the tip of her grandmother's ten-acre estate. The Atlantic Ocean swelled up on the eastern border of the property, and a forest of magnolia trees and towering oak trees sprawled to the west.

She began to feel calm again. On seeing the house where her father had grown up, Alexandra felt his absence deeply. Her dad had told her that while he was growing up there, he had dug holes in the sandy earth all over the property, hoping to find bones, or buttons, or coins. He said that it thus came as no surprise to his parents when he announced that he wanted to be an archaeologist. After high school, he had accepted a scholarship to New York University. By twenty-five, he had a PhD and no aspirations to take over the family trading company. Luckily, his father, Thomas Peyton, did not need him. Wise investments in gold and stock had left the family secure. Alexandra had relished hearing her father's stories of teaching archaeology at Oxford in England, where he spent weekends peering through the peat bogs of Wales for old bones. He told her that when he touched the bones, they spoke to him. He explained that he could see the life worn upon them, and the death that took them to their graves.