In Stone (15 page)

“It’s kind of cool.” I flip over to face him. “A little creepy, but mostly cool.” He cranes his neck back and smiles. It’s devastating. My skin pricks, and I hope -- wish, pray -- that he doesn’t notice how hard it is for me to swallow.

I’ve never been this close to naked with a boy before. Sure, Mark used to spend a huge amount of time with his hands stuck underneath my shirt in the back row of the multiplex, but I never took my clothes off in front of him. I couldn’t. But this right now, this is ridiculously easy.

Jack pulls away, just an inch, but it’s enough to let a wave of cold air creep in between us. His eyes shine silver. They pin me to the cave wall.

“You almost died today.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“And that doesn’t make you angry? That doesn’t worry you at all?” Two inches between us.

I’m just glad that Callum gets to go home. “I feel like whatever I say here is going to be wrong.”

“I want you to be angry with me for leaving you alone.”

Three inches.

“You didn’t leave me. I told you to go.”

Four inches. He’s shaking his head. It’s like I’m not here, or he can’t hear me. “Look at me, Jack. I’m fine.”

“Because you’re extraordinarily resilient…” Five inches between us. If this conversation keeps going he’s going to be sleeping outside.

“Because you pulled me out of the water in time. Now can you please come back over here? It’s freezing.” His jaw tightens, and he exhales a long breath out of his nose. The want to shield me from the elements wins out over his angst-ridden episode, and he wraps his body around me like a blanket.

“Jack?” I bite down on my bottom lip. The words are sticky, like toffee. They cling to my teeth. “I dropped the knife when Lisa took me.”

“I know.” His squeeze on me tightens.

“We should go and look for it. There’s every chance she didn’t find it.”

“We’re not going anywhere. You need time to heal; if you move now you might go into shock.” I don’t like the heaviness of his words. The sigh I can hear tumbling around in his chest.

“You’re not giving up, right?” He says nothing. “Jack. We’re not giving up, right?” He brushes a piece of hair back off my face and twists the curl around his fingers. My hair is shaggy, crispy and dry from my recent dip in the lake. If a stray spark from the fire lands anywhere near me I’ll go up like a bonfire. “This week, I took a shower in demon guts. I think I can get over a prolonged dip in a lake. I’m not a quitter,” I say, fixing my best stern stare on him. A grin grows on his lips.

“You’re not a quitter?”

“Damn straight.”

“Well I wouldn’t want to be responsible for turning you into a quitter now would I? But we are resting up.”

I smile, content. If it’s possible, I push my body closer to him, twisting our legs up tighter, pushing the frozen soles of my feet against his radiator calves.

“I guess I was wrong about the redhead.”

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“About her being your new BFF.” I smile at the memory.

“I don’t like to say I told you so,” he replies. I can taste the sickly-sweet flavor of smug in his tone.

“Liar,” I reply lightly. His chest rocks.

I close my eyes and listen to the soft sound of him breathing. It’s almost as soothing as the gentle hiss of the fires.

“Could you ever be friends with a demon?” I ask.

“No,” he replies, matter-of-factly. “It’s not in my nature.”

“What is your nature?”

“I don’t understand the question.”

“I mean, where do you come from?”

“London, originally,” he smirks. He’s trying to be funny again.

“Not where,
where
. Where like, Space, Atlantis, Mount Olympus? Where do your kind come from?” The smirk turns wicked, and I feel like someone just blew on the back of my neck.

“It might sound a little strange.”

“Strange is kind of standard lately.” I shrug.

“Touché. Have you ever heard of Purgatory?” I nod, confident that he’s talking about being trapped in some sort of hellish limbo and not the Iron Maiden song.

“That’s where we’re recruited.”

“I thought Purgatory was a bad place for bad people.”

“It is.”

“Oh.” How to make an awkward situation worse. Even the cave walls want to whistle their way through the suddenly stifling silence.

“Protecting your world from demons is a penance for something I did in a past life.”

“What did you do?” I wasn’t going to ask, but it’s like wafting a bone in front of a starving dog and then whipping it away. I have to have the answer. I need to know.

“I killed a man.” Just like that. A dropped stone. A single step. A breath. A breeze. Just like that. I hear Leah spitting her one-in-six statistics at me. Hear Mom listing the contents of my rape/murder/assault prevention kit.

“Why?” I don’t mean to whisper. Maybe I do. If this conversation is quieter it’s closer to nonexistent. He smiles softly, but it’s not meant for me. It’s meant for a memory a million miles away.

“Because I was an idiot. Because I was upset.” I’ve picked the scab off an old wound. Suddenly, he’s peeling his body from mine and muttering about sleeping outside.

“You don’t have to go outside,” I say, snatching his arm and curling it back around my waist.

“It’s not what you think,” he says.

Then he waits, and waits and waits and waits, until I am almost asleep before he says,

“It was my life to take.”

I scratch away the surface of that sentence and find only one word. Suicide.

“I’m sorry,” I say. It’s lame. It’s beyond lame; it’s been shot and turned into glue already. But it’s all I have.

His fingers touchdown on my spine and start tracing lines back and forth across the small of my back. His nose hovers above my neck, and I wish I smelled like some of Mom’s expensive, French perfume and not stagnant water. I’m only aware that I sigh a second after it’s already slipped out. Fire engulfs my face. I don’t say anything else, just tuck my head back under his chin and wait for sleep to drag me under.

THE LONG, LINGERING HOWL
of a dog shakes me from sleep. I bolt upright. The first thing I see is Jack. He’s half-dressed and standing by the mouth of the cave, scrutinizing the world outside.

It’s only just light. The sky is a spectrum of pinks and blues. It makes me think of cotton candy, which in turn makes me salivate because it’s been hours since I last ate. Several more dogs start barking from somewhere in the distance.

“Are they wild?” I ask.

“I’m not sure.” Jack turns and snatches his sneakers off the rocks. “There are people with them.”

“Demon kind of people?”

“Possibly. Are you feeling strong enough to move?” he asks. His words are muffled, buried in the fabric of his sweater as he pulls it over his head.

“I’m feeling strong enough to run,” I reply, leaping to my feet. For a second or two the atmosphere undulates. The cave floor jumps up and slaps me square in the face. Jack is at my side, catching my arm before my legs give out. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.” I could definitely use a couple more hours rest, but we can’t just sit here and wait for an onslaught of demons, especially now that we’re knifeless.

“I will be. I just need to get moving.”

I get dressed at lightning speed into still damp clothes that smell like the sewers.

“Here put this on.” Jack hands me his jacket, which I’m more than happy to  wear instead of my own. He kicks some earth on top of the flames, and we start running. A chorus of barks and howls carry on the wind. I can hear men, or at least what I hope are just men, calling to one another.

Jack runs so fast I struggle to keep up, but I can’t slow and I can’t stop, not until the voices have faded out.

We run into a thick gathering of trees. The covering of pine needles above has proved too solid for any substantial snow to fall through. Instead, the ground is hidden beneath a  frothy morning mist. I brace myself every time my feet touchdown. Twigs snap, dry leaves crunch, and on the odd occasion, my foot catches a stone. But finally the noise of the dogs disappears, and we emerge into a bright white clearing onto a blanket of untouched snow. I want to roll in it, lie on my back and make a snow angel. But my heart is beating inside my skull, and my lungs feel like they’re going to explode. I’m not sure my body would survive another ice bath.

“Where are we?” Jack walks over to a sign and dusts the snow from off of the front of it.

The sign welcomes us to a place called North Slip.

“Have you been here before?” I ask. We’re walking again. Spoiling the clean sheet of snow with our footprints. Houses are coming into view.

“It wasn’t this big, but yes, I’ve been here before.”

“This is big?” This village is so small I could fit the whole thing inside my bedroom.

There are a dozen little wooden chalets with grey felt roofs and smoking chimneys. With the snow and the light scattering of pine trees, we could be looking at a Christmas card.

“If memory serves me right there’s a train station not far from here. That would have been our original stop.”

I don’t hear ‘original stop’ as actual words. They run into a slur. Warped, sloppy sounds. My lungs are tightening. Every time I inhale it’s like I’m sucking back a spoonful of gravel.

“You need to rest,” Jack notes and starts scanning the houses. He jogs over to the only house with lights on and knocks on the door. I stumble after him.

A collection of garden gnomes are lined up like soldiers on the front step. Jack and I both straighten up when a wrinkly, white-haired woman, all wrapped up in a crochet shawl, opens the door. Her breath catches when she sees us, and a leather-look hand flutters to her chest. Jack doesn’t even give her chance to open her mouth before he starts gushing a whole lot of words that I don’t understand. A prune-faced man lingers in the shadows behind her. His stare is stern, his chin high. He’s boney, crypt keeper-ish. He doesn’t look very pleased to see us.

“English,” the women says when Jack’s done. “Come in, come in.” She steps to one side and practically pulls us through the door.

The smell of baked cookies and baby powder hits me in the face the second I step into the hall. It’s wonderful, makes my insides sigh. We follow the old lady through into the den. And wow, take a ride back in time to the 1960’s. Every surface is shrouded in either a lace tablecloth or knitted coaster. There are porcelain and wooden figurines, little vases of artificial flowers, and ornamental teapots on every surface.

“Sit down. I’ll get you both something hot to drink.” Music to my ears. The woman has an accent, but her English is perfect. She shuffles off into the kitchen. Jack takes a seat in a stiff wooden chair. I follow his lead and sit beside him in a chair that burps dust under my weight.

“What are we doing here?” I whisper.

“Getting out of the cold, catching our breath.” Jack’s eyes fall over my shoulder as Old Guy enters the room, dragging his feet and pulling himself along with a wooden walking stick. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but his cane seems to hit the floor with an exaggerated thump. His presence makes Jack’s cheeks flex and his head lower. Old guy flops down into a rocking chair and picks up a newspaper. He mumbles as he reads. A clock ticks monotonously as the silence expands.

“Here we are.” The little old lady waddles back into the room with a tray of tea.

“Thank you...” Jack hesitates. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know your name.”

“Iris and this is my husband Malcolm.” Malcolm doesn’t look up from his newspaper, so she gives it a whack with the back of her hand. Malcolm grumbles a greeting from behind the black and white pages.

“Iris. This is very kind of you. We’re very grateful,” Jack replies.

“Company is a rare thing around here.” She sighs, handing out china cups and matching saucers. That explains why we were let in so easily. It would have taken employee references and two forms of ID back in Plumbridge. “Besides, how could I say no to such a handsome face.” Iris smiles warmly and pinches the tip of Jack’s chin.

“You, young lady.” She points at me. I startle. Half of my tea jumps out of the cup and pools in the saucer. My nerves are shredded. “It’s no wonder you’re sick. Your clothes are damp, and it’s freezing out.” Her voice is crispy. Every time she talks I want to clear my throat. “I have a daughter who’s about your size.” Her words trail off as she leaves the front room. Malcolm mumbles under his breath from behind the newspaper. The rocking chair crunches against the floor as it sways. I stare at Jack from the rim of my teacup; he stares back.

“Here we are.” Iris smiles as she holds out a knitted, cream and red sweater. It’s thicker than my comforter at home. “Stand up and put this on.” I do as instructed, slip the sweater on over my head, but say, “I can’t take this.” But I can. The sweater is soft and snuggly, it doesn’t smell of frozen, old lake. It smells like a thousand different kinds of flower, and I just want to hug myself like they do in those cheesy detergent commercials.