LEMNISCATE (11 page)

“Isn’t your mom going to wonder why you didn’t take your car?” he asked as we started down the alley that would take us to the cul-de-sac of Whitman Street and the impeccable home of Dr. Nathaniel Dean. I couldn’t help sending up a silent prayer that Brynn had found her way to the party I tipped her off to instead of retreating back home.

“It’ll be a wonder if she realizes I’m even gone.”

Ryan shot me a quizzical look.

I lifted my hand and tilted an invisible bottle toward my open mouth.

All too quickly, Ryan got my point.

“Besides, she won’t hear a car when I finally do go home and hopefully by then, Mr. Boyfriend will have left for the night and she’ll be lost in sleepy land.”

“Sleepy land?” Again, another quizzical look was shot my way.

“Whatever. Let’s just do this.”

There was no moon as Ryan and I walked silently, concealed in the dark. This was definitely something I would never do alone, even if I had a guardian angel watching over me. At least, when I had one watching over me. Even now, despite Ryan’s company, I felt pretty alone.

I tried not to think of Hadrian’s warning about Lucifer or my vision of Garreth in pain. Yet I couldn’t help but wonder if either one was watching over me right now. Even if Garreth was still capable, would he be concerned for my safety?

I shook the unsettling thought from my head and tried to stay focused. I needed to find out if Brynn was up to something. Based on her history, my life might depend on it. And I needed to see the journal my mother told me about the other night. Ever since she let me in on Dr. Dean’s secret hobby, I hadn’t been able to get it out of my head. I needed to see what was written on those pages. Did he know about the secrets I was sworn to protect, the guardians, the markings? What if it was all there in black and white and the truth was beyond me now? Beyond the protective grasp of my tight little circle which included me, Garreth, Hadrian and Ryan.

Luckily, we lived in a small, tight-knit neighborhood, so the back door to Dr. Dean’s house had been left unlocked. Slipping through the kitchen, we were as silent as mice. I had been here a few times with my mom but the rooms and halls certainly looked different in the dark.

“It’s this way,” I motioned, and headed down a dimly lit hallway. I looked back at Ryan, who was lagging behind, looking all around.

“Come on.” I whispered loudly.

“This place is amazing. You sure this isn’t a hotel?” He had stopped to pick up a bronze sculpture. “And why are you whispering if they’re not home?”

His voice seemed to bounce off the walls, reminding me that we were up to no good.

“I don’t know if they have housekeepers! Do you really think Dr. Dean dusts? Now put that down!”

Ryan reluctantly set the statue back in its place. “Yeah, I’m sure Brynn gets on her hands and knees to scrub. I’d pay good money to see that.”

Rolling my eyes at him, I proceeded down the hallway to the door at the end of the hall, led by mere instinct that this was the way to the doctor’s private study. I pushed open the oversized walnut door to find a lush wood-paneled office on the other side. The sheer opulence of the study took my breath away. Leather chairs, Tiffany lamps, ballister bookcases . . . the room was larger than my living room and looked like the inspiration for an Ethan Allen catalog.

“Geez,” breathed Ryan. He did a complete 360, taking it all in. “If I could do my homework in here, I would definitely get all A’s.”

“Right, let’s just start looking, okay?”

“Hey, Teagan. If your mom marries the doc, you’ll be sitting pretty.”

“Please don’t go there. You know as well as I do this glam is not my style, and I would have to share it with you-know-who.”

My fingers felt for the thin pewter chain beneath the shade of the desk lamp. With a tug, the light glowed steadily, revealing an intricate reversed painting on the inside of the glass shade. Beautiful winged angels floated in a gray-blue sky, hovering over a dark lake full of hands reaching for the heavens. Why would a medical doctor have a lamp like this? I shivered and began searching the desk while Ryan headed for the bookcases. I felt so nervous, my forehead was beginning to feel damp. The sooner we found the journal, the better.

“Someone’s been here . . .” Ryan sniffed the air like a bloodhound.

I smelled it too, a soft lavender-vanilla scent was still faint within the room.

“Brynn?” Ryan asked.

“Maybe she stopped in here before coming to my house?”

That meant she was either still looking for the journal, or worse, she could have it on her right now. I headed for the filing cabinets behind the wet bar. Just walking past the crystal glasses made my head spin and I began to wonder if my mother was in over her head.

“No, I mean . . . something just doesn’t feel right,” he paused. “Don’t you feel it?”

“Let’s just look for the journal and get out. I think the whole we’re-not-supposed-to-be-here thing is creeping you out.”

But I could feel it too, something a little off, as if something other-worldly had tainted the very air we were breathing. I didn’t want to admit to Ryan that the whole house felt strange, nothing like the last time I had been here. I shrugged it off, knowing the reason might simply be that the last time I had been invited. That certainly wasn’t the case tonight.

I looked up at Ryan, meeting his unsure eyes.

“It’s just guilt, okay?” I tried to smile reassuringly.

I pushed the hair out of my eyes and glanced at my watch.

“I don’t see anything that looks like a journal,” I sputtered disappointedly. I looked up at Ryan. He was looking around uneasily, rubbing his palms up and down his arms. Then I noticed my breath filling the air before my eyes. Ryan was shivering and I could see his breath too, as if we were standing outside in the chill. The temperature had plummeted a good ten degrees in a matter of seconds and a gray pallor had tinged the lamp-glow in the office.

The cold I was now feeling was nothing like before. It was nothing like when a guardian was corrupted and taken from its human charge. This was deeper. I was internally cold, as if something were creeping its way inside my skin. Invading me.

“Let’s call it a night, alright? I can’t stand being here any longer,” I admitted and began walking toward the door. My sneaker crunched lightly beneath me, stopping me in my tracks. Kneeling down, I traced my finger over the glossy hardwood floor and rubbed it against my thumb. Black grit coarsely scraped my skin.

Ryan crossed the room to where I sat kneeling. “Guess the housekeeper missed a spot.”

“It’s sand.”

At that very moment, the chill went deeper. Something felt horribly wrong. It was as if the walls had eyes and they were all focused on me and Ryan.

As we opened the door to the hallway, Ryan came to a screeching halt. “Someone’s in the house,” he whispered.

I stood staring down the long, narrow hallway, knowing it was our only way out, but my feet wouldn’t budge. I was frozen with fear.

“In here!” Ryan tugged at my arm, pulling me into a coat closet, and quickly shut the door. “We’ll wait it out in here, then we’ll leave.”

I could feel the darkness closing in around me like a living, breathing organism, filling the air with an unnatural pulsating thickness.

Ryan’s boyish face was inches from my own and I looked at him now, wondering if he was going as crazy as I was. This tiny closet we had ourselves crammed into was playing tricks on my mind. But we couldn’t move. Not yet.

“Do you think it’s the housekeeper?” I asked quietly.

“I dunno. Why would she be cleaning this time of night?”

I had an awful feeling. “What if it’s Brynn?”

Ryan just looked at me without answering. We both knew it wasn’t Brynn. Something strange was happening in this house. Something . . . unnatural.

Ryan’s face was illuminated by the flashlight I was holding in my unsteady hand and the light wobbled in various directions like a strobe light. The sensation of feeling seasick washed over me. A glimpse of jeans. My coat pocket. His knee. The wall. At last the light settled on his face. His skin looked pale and sickly in the yellow light. It reminded me of the night Claire took me to the rave.

Oh God, what an awful impression I had of Ryan then.

We listened to the silence, which is really a strange thought. If there’s silence, then what exactly are you listening to? I suppose it was more a question of what we were listening
for
.

Ryan broke the hush, his voice gravelly, croaking like a wheeze. “Before my mom died, she told me heaven wasn’t really a place. It’s in our minds. We make our own happiness.”

Garreth had told me the same thing. I wondered why Ryan’s mom would tell him something like that. Maybe it was her escape from an abusive relationship?

 “What if . . . what if hell was there too? What if it was all in our heads?”

We sat thinking.

Ryan rubbed his hands together. I imagined a tiny spark igniting between his palms. I imagined warmth and safety, but it seemed so far away right now. It was so cold here, but we had to stay. Just stay and wait. Wait for this terrifying feeling we were both experiencing to subside, or wait for Dr. Nathaniel Dean to return home to his strange, cold house. Neither one sounded like a good option.

I pictured a flame in Ryan’s hands.

Hell.

Garreth once told me of a living hell, but that had been Hadrian’s warped idea. Things were different now.

But still . . .

Lucifer’s hell.

A personal hell created in each person’s mind.

All it would take is just one tiny spark.

If heaven and hell were what each one of us envisioned, could the two co-exist? There would have to be a constant struggle between what was right and what was wrong. We all struggled with that every day; over what was good and what was . . .
evil.

I looked at Ryan rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, shivering.

He had a point.

And if that were true, then how could we ever escape it?

With bated breath we waited out minutes that seemed to stretch forever. Sitting crouched in a closet in still silence was pure torture. Finally, Ryan gave me a look that more or less signaled now or never and we made a quick and, hopefully quiet, break for the kitchen door.

Once we were out of the house, we ran without stopping to the corner of Claymont and Church. By the time we had reached the end of the cul-de-sac my lungs were burning.

“Holy crap,” Ryan breathed heavily into the cold night. “I never thought we would get out of there.”

My own heart was beating against the inside of my chest as I drew long breaths of air into my lungs. I was still cold, but not like before. Now I was shaky from feeling so afraid. It was a horrible after-effect. My house was a few yards down from where we stood and I was anxious to get home, to the quiet safety of my room.

I looked at Ryan. He was looking back at me.

“Should we try and guess what just happened back there?” he finally said out loud.

I shook my head. “No, I need some time to think about it.”

And then in silence, he walked me home.

T
he entire weekend passed by like a bad dream. I sequestered myself to my room, catching up on calculus homework and only coming out into the light of day to fill up on Skittles and frozen waffles. My excursion with Ryan on Friday had left me shaky and unsure about a million things and the best way to deal with it all was to be alone.

When Monday arrived, I was fully prepared to face the week as a strong, stable individual.

I should have stayed in my room.

“Sweetie,” my mom said breathlessly as she tore through the kitchen before work. She looked frantic, flushed . . . so not my mom.

“I realize this is last minute, but Nate has taken a few personal days and wants to take me to his cabin up north. He’s picking me up from the library. There’s food here and I’ll leave you money for take-out, but promise you and Brynn won’t order out every night.”

“You say that like she and I will be spending time together.”

“Well, we’re not going to leave you two alone. Besides, this is a perfect opportunity for you two to learn how to get along.”

My mouth hung open, yet she continued to race around the kitchen as if the house were on fire. Then, just as quickly, she stopped.

“You’ll be fine. It’s only two days.”

I responded with a blank stare.

“Teagan, please, I don’t have time for this. I’m running late as it is already.”

“Fine. Go,” I murmured.

“That’s my girl,” and she patted my shoulder like a puppy.

“Just don’t expect me to be alive when you come back.” I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. A part of me wanted her to feel bad for leaving me here.

“Teagan, don’t be ridiculous. Now, I have to go. Promise you’ll keep an eye on things and that you’ll try to get along? For me?”

Everything inside me shouted
No
! but I nodded, knowing it was what she wanted me to give her. She kissed my cheek, then grabbed her purse and a small suitcase and suddenly I was alone.

I thought about what she had just said, about not being ridiculous. “My life is ridiculous,” I said out loud as I grabbed my backpack and locked the door behind me.

The plan was that I would follow Brynn home after school. Sitting in my car, I watched the other kids crossing the parking lot, making their way to their cars. Brynn was late, as usual, which was fine by me. I was in no hurry to see her, speak to her or step foot inside her house again.

Especially after Friday night.

I told Ryan about my mother’s last minute plans at lunch, just so someone would know my whereabouts, should something foul happen. He stared at me sort of zombie-like, then said, “whoa, good luck.” But today was definitely not lucky. Garreth had finally returned to school and the few times our paths crossed were wordless and uncomfortable. It seemed he was purposely avoiding me since the football field incident, choosing not to speak to me. At all. Maybe he was embarrassed? He certainly had lost his grip on his emotional control that afternoon. I saw him from a distance a few times during the course of the day, but that was the extent of it.