Little Red Gem (27 page)

“
I wrote that song for
you. I hoped that when you heard my voice you’d recognize
me.”

He blinked, confused. “But
I do recognize you.”

“
No, Leo, it’s me. I know
this is hard to believe but it’s me, Ruby.”

His honey-colored eyes
darkened. “Ruby’s dead.”

“
Yes, but I saw how sad
you were so I found a way to come back. I wanted to make sure you
were all right.”

“
Ruby is dead,” he said,
his voice a little tighter.

“
Leo, look inside your
heart. You know it’s me. Please tell me you know it’s me. I’m your
Little Red Gem.”

There was a mad look in
his eyes.
Why was there a mad look in his
eyes?

“
What sort of stunt are
you pulling?” he hissed. “I gave you that keychain as a memento of
your sister and you use it against me.”

“
This isn’t a stunt. I
swear it on my mother’s life. I’m Ruby. I found a way to come back
from the dead. Not like a zombie or a vampire, more like a magic
trick that involved borrowing Audrey’s body. And you and I got
close, closer than when I was alive. I knew a song was the only way
to get you to recognize me beneath this façade. Tell me you know
it’s me.”

His eyes probed me,
searching, searching. When they sparkled I detected an ember of
hope, but like on a cold night the flicker of light
died.

His fingers dug into my
arms. “Why are you doing this? I trusted you. I confided in you.
And you mock me. What sort of person does that?”

It was natural for Leo to
feel betrayed or deceived, largely due to the fact that I had both
betrayed and deceived him. But I wasn’t prepared for the loathing I
saw in his eyes and heard in his voice. He hated me. Totally the
opposite of what I’d expected.

“
I’ll prove it’s me,” I
said. “The night I died, you wore the green sweater I gave you on
our second date. It had a stain on the front. Simon spilled red
wine on it.”

Leo’s jaw clenched
tighter. “All that proves is that you eavesdropped on mine and
Ruby’s conversation.”

“
Okay. How about this for
proof? The day you and I drove to Prospect, the car skidded on the
road and we saw that cross covered in flowers. Well, we didn’t skid
because you hit an oily patch. We skidded because you were drunk.
The bottles were rattling around inside the damned car, Leo. Did
you think I didn’t hear them? And you were chewing on mints to
cover the scent. Did you think I didn’t notice? You’re becoming an
alcoholic, Leo Culver. You promised me you’d quit drinking and you
broke that promise.”

Anne had said I would
never be free until I could admit the truth. I’d kept the truth
well hidden for so long that I couldn’t control it from bursting
out any longer.

“
You wanna know why I went
to the cabin that night? I found out I was pregnant and I wanted to
see if you’d be the sort of guy who’d stick around or run away.
I’ve known you since I was six, but lately it was like I hardly
knew you at all. Every time you drank you drifted further and
further away from me. All I wanted was for you to come back to
me.”

“
You’re a deeply troubled
girl,” he said. And then he stormed off.

***

I ran all the way home. By
the time I arrived my wrist was a dull ache extending from the tips
of my fingers to the socket in my shoulder. Whoever had said that
getting a secret off their chest was liberating was a liar. A herd
of elephants dancing on my chest were less crushing. Right now I
was so pinned down with hopelessness that a million balloons could
not have lifted me one inch off the ground.

I’d blown it. Leo hated
me.

Logic told me that Leo had
every right to be pissed at me for the past few weeks of deception.
Had logic ever played a starring role in affairs of the heart?
Somehow I doubted it. And it didn’t matter that I didn’t care that
Leo ought to be pissed, I just wanted him not to be.

Dragging my feet up the
stairs, I fell into a heap onto Audrey’s bed. Then I rolled over
and stared up at the ceiling, telling myself I obviously wasn’t
right in the head. Leo was right to declare me deeply troubled.
Let’s face it, I hadn’t exactly been right in the head since a few
weeks before I’d died, even before that; since I’d found out I was
carrying his child.

My hand rested on my
stomach and traveled in a lazy circle. In life and in death, only
the tiniest of bumps had hinted that something grew inside of me.
But in Audrey’s body, nothing showed. Still, I couldn’t help but
wonder if my baby would have been a boy or a girl. The image of a
girl with pigtails and a pink dress brought a smile to my
face.

My joy was short-lived and
the crescendo of agony that swept through me erupted as a howl. I’d
let myself become so consumed by love that it had blinded me to the
real truth. I’d had a miracle growing inside me. Did any other love
compare?

In between sobs that made
me choke and splutter, I attempted to steady my breathing to
mediate myself into the astral plane. Trying to slow down my heart
rate so I could master the golden light breathing exercise proved
awkward; I couldn’t open my lips without taking huge gulps, yet
each huge gulp was like breathing in smoke. A taste of what I could
look forward to in an eternity in hell, perhaps.

Miraculously, I managed to
put myself into the trance. When I next blinked I was standing
halfway down the embankment. Audrey sat on a log in the hollow
where I’d left her. Sensing me, she looked up. I had expected her
face to bear the look of fury, and she didn’t
disappoint.

I slid down into the
hollow.

“
I’m so sorry, Audrey. I
didn’t mean to trap you here, but I had to be with Leo. I had to
know he truly loved me. The past few weeks have been
amazing—”

Audrey stared at me with
fierce dark eyes. My body. Her eyes. The effect pulled me up
short.

“
Come to your senses I
see,” Audrey growled.

“
I shouldn’t have trapped
you here if that’s what you mean. It was a shitty thing to do. I’ll
let you out of this and you can go home.”

To let Audrey out of her
bind I took her hands in mine and repeated the words, “I release
thee” three times.

No puff of smoke. No
tinkle of a bell to herald the use of magic. Nothing. Kind of a let
down, really. But at least there also wasn’t the gaping hole into
hell I’d nervously anticipated would be awaiting me upon my
return.

Audrey stepped out of the
binding circle and rubbed her wrist as though she was experiencing
real pain in her broken wrist. And then she slapped me across the
cheek.

“
How could you do this to
me?” she hissed.

“
I’m sorry. I don’t expect
you to understand.”

Audrey’s eyes widened.
“Oh, I understand all right. I helped you when you didn’t know you
were dead and you thanked me by binding me to the
underworld.”

The sentiment was too late
but I said it anyway. “If it’s any consolation, nothing worked out
the way I planned.”

“
No, that is not any kind
of consolation.”

She glared at me as
stepped out of the hollow. Through blurred vision I watched her
apparition shimmer. Right before she disappeared she shouted, “I
hope you rot in hell.”

I didn’t have to tell her
the horrible taste in my mouth indicated I probably already
was.

***

After Audrey’s damnation
of me to a bleak and very hot future, I closed my eyes. When I
reopened them I found I’d materialized inside the cabin. William
rushed up to the open doorway, and Anne jumped up from the
couch.

I’d stopped in the middle
of the room and they’d each stopped five feet away. Nobody moved.
Nobody said a word. It was like we’d all agreed we were cursed and
could take no joy in each other’s company.

“
I’m done interfering,” I
told them.

I flopped down onto the
couch and Anne joined me. We two sat in silence while outside
William paced noiselessly up and down on the veranda. After a while
Anne got up and matched his pacing on the inside of the cabin.
Night fell. A clock I’d never seen before ticked. Owls hooted. Mice
scurried. And still I sat on the couch incapable of speech,
consciousness, or crying.

“
We’re worried about you,”
Anne said pausing by the window. “You look like a defeated
woman.”

“
I am a defeated
woman.”

“
You must not give up
hope.” This from William.

“
Hope is all anyone has.”
This from Anne.

They continued pacing and
when the subtle change of light hinted that dawn had crept upon us,
I was no less disgusted with my behavior, so I got up and took
myself off to the small bedroom. There, I crawled under the
bed.

Anne followed. “What are
you doing?”

“
Go away,” I told
her.

“
Ruby—”

“
Please, Anne, I want to
be alone.”

I detected the faintest of
sighs, but at last she spun on her heels and floated out of the
room.

It was dark under the bed.
Dark and lonely. Exactly what I deserved.

Anne returned a while
later and demanded, yet again, to know what I was doing.

So I told her. “Monsters
live under beds.”

Suddenly her face
appeared. “Oh, sweetie, you’re not a monster. What you did, you did
for love.”

“
That’s no reason to
deceive the boy you love and trap your half-sister in the after
world.”

Anne reached for my hands.
Instinctively I tucked them up under my chin and curled my knees
into my chest.

“
Please come out from
there,” begged Anne.

“
No.”

“
Please.”

“
No.”

Anne’s soft features
shifted into an expression of determination. “Do you remember how I
told you when you first arrived that we have all the time in the
world to tell stories? Well, if you come out I shall tell you the
story behind mine and William’s fate.”

“
You were rich and he was
poor. You eloped. Obviously you died but somehow you were cursed
never to spend eternity in the same room.”

“
If you come out from
under the bed, I will tell you the true story behind our
curse.”

I’d thought before that
only selfish and disgraced people were rewarded with cursed
afterlives, and that if Anne and William were cursed then they must
have done something to justify it. I wanted to know what they had
done so I crawled out from under the bed and sat on the
couch.

Anne stood by the window
and William stood on the steps.

“
I lived in a large estate
on the banks of a great lake,” said Anne. “Not far from here but
worlds away at the same time. Daily I rode horses and practiced the
piano. I wore gowns and attended balls. Many hours were spent by
the window stitching embroidery or reading poetry.

“
As I told you on the day
we first met, my father was only ever interested in my happiness
yet my step-mother forbade any union of my choosing because she had
betrothed me to a wealthy man in a neighboring shire. I might have
fallen to her whimsies had I not met William one afternoon. It was
the first day of summer and I was out riding. The spring rains must
have forgotten that their time on the land was passed; they came
anyway and caught me by surprise. A grove of nearby trees offered
shelter and I took it. There, high in the branches was a dashing
man. His swinging through the branches had startled the horse so I
ordered him to come down. And he did.”

Anne stopped pacing. She
rested her head against the window.

“
And then what happened?”
I asked.

“
I fell in love with
him.”

“
And I with you,” a voice
said from outside.

The pain in their voice
was noticeable. Was that how I sounded?

“
William and I spent every
day that summer, talking of nothing else other than our future
together. Summer ended, and my step-mother invited the man she had
betrothed me to and his family to an extended stay at our estate.
Her plans were that we would marry in the autumn. This news sent
icicles into my heart.”

I couldn’t stop myself
from blabbing the obvious. “Didn’t you tell her you were in love
with someone else?”

Anne shrugged. “Children,
she called us. And as children we were not in custody of our
futures. I argued that if I was old enough to marry then I was old
enough to make my own decisions. She decided to give me a decision
to ponder. Marry the wealthy man and allow lands as far as the eye
could see to prosper through the union. Or marry William and be
banished forever.”

Ouch. That must have hurt.
“What about your father? Didn’t he have something to say about all
this?”