The Last Keeper (14 page)

I shot up, and came face to face with Ray’s mother. She was as shocked to see me as I was her. My only saving grace was the fact I was on top of the covers and wearing my summer dress.
 

“Morning, Mother.” Though Ray’s tone was sheepish and his voice quiet, a stray arm found its way around my waist, pulling me closer.
 

“Good morning, Son, Serenity. Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes.” She eyed my dress briefly before leaving.
 

Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I should have never accepted his invitation. I shouldn’t have stayed in his bed.
 

We were both silent as I berated myself repeatedly for my mistakes. Mistakes cost lives; I knew that better than anyone. Mistakes weren’t something I could tolerate, not where Ray was concerned.

The best scenario I could come up with was telling Liz everything. But Ray would be in enough danger as it was; dragging Liz into my world wasn’t an option.
 

“Serenity, I’m sor—”

“Stop. Please, don’t blame yourself. I should have been more careful.”

“No, I should never have asked you . . .”

“Ray, please. You couldn’t have known I would fall asleep. Even I didn’t know.” Yet, looking at him, sitting in his bed, smiling, it wasn’t so much of a surprise. I smiled back. “Perhaps I should go down, try to explain.”
 

“Let me,” he suggested. “I got us into this.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“Fine, how about we go down together?”
 

I nodded and offered to wait outside his room while he dressed.
 

Pacing the short space between his door and the opposite wall, I stewed over what had happened.

How could I have fallen asleep? More precisely, how had it happened so easily?
 

It was something I’d need to ask William about. He would have the answer. I also needed to ensure it never happened again. That was, if we managed to get through this incident unscathed.
 

Yet, even as I strengthened my resolve, I had to admit I liked the sensation of waking up with Ray. More than liked. It was something I could happily get used to. Waking up alone did not compare.
 

“Ready?” he asked once he was dressed.

Nodding, I took his hand. “For what it’s worth, I rather liked waking up in your arms.”

“As did I.”

We were apprehensive as we descended the stairs. I heard Liz humming in the kitchen.
Humming?
That couldn’t be right. Yet, as we came to a stop in the doorway, there she was, busily finishing the eggs.
 

She spotted us hovering and laughed. “Oh, stop looking so scared. I’m not about to shout at you.”

Taking our seats, we were silent, waiting. I wrung my hands anxiously. Surely what had happened went against almost everything that was expected of a young couple.
 

She placed our plates on the table then sat opposite us. “I’d like to tell you a story, and if you ever repeat this, I will deny it.”

Ray nodded, tucking into his breakfast.

“Before your father and I married, he used to sneak out of his house and over to mine. Every night, after our parents were asleep, he would creep in through the front door and not leave until morning. I would wait up for him, and we would talk for hours.” She smiled at the memory. “He continued making the trip to my house every night until we were married. It wasn’t until our wedding day that our parents took us to one side and said: ‘Now you don’t have to sneak into each other’s beds.’ I cannot tell you how mortified we were, but they weren’t angry. Apparently they had discussed telling us earlier, but they knew we were behaving ourselves. Unbeknownst to us, they had been checking up on us since they realised.”

Of all the things I was expecting to happen when we walked down the stairs, that was
not
one of them. Both of us had stopped eating, opting to stare open mouthed at Liz.
 

“I do have one request,” she said after a moment.

“Anything,” Ray agreed quickly.

“I assume that you,” she said, looking at me, “sneaked in the front door sometime after I went to bed and that you came on foot.”
 

When I nodded, she changed her focus to Ray before continuing, “Then I suggest that you, young man, act like the gentleman I raised you to be and not let Serenity roam the streets at night. I’m not going to forbid you from sharing each other’s beds. Lord knows, you’ll find a way to do it anyway if I did, but it is not safe.”

“I promise.”
 

That was something we would have to talk about. It was all well and good promising not to let me wander the streets, but there was no chance in hell I’d let Ray wander them alone. If he insisted on keeping his promise to his mother, then I would follow him on his way to my house and then all the way back to his again.
 

“Good, now eat up before it gets cold.”

She left us in the kitchen and headed out to the garden.
 

“That went well,” I said once we were alone. “Better than.”

Ray laughed. “I can’t believe my father used to do that.”
 

“I think I might be able to.”

“Why is that?”
 

“If you are like your father, and I think you are, then you must have gotten your disregard for the rules from somewhere.” I smirked, just for a moment, then went back to eating my breakfast.
 

I felt much better about the situation as I washed our dishes. There was still the niggling little voice in the back of my mind that told me I could never be so unaware of my surroundings again, but it was fading. Fast.
 

I kept sneaking glances at Ray as we washed. Every time I did, I saw him smiling brightly.
 

I was
home.
 

Ray was my home.
 

He was everything I could have wanted and more.

“Do you think you’ll be allowed to spend the day with me?” I didn’t want to upset his mother.
 

“I don’t see why not.”

“Perhaps we should ask first,” I suggested, “in light of this morning.”

“Perhaps we should. I should get you a shawl for our walk anyway.” He shuffled to the back door.

Liz was happy to see to her gardening and let Ray spend his time with me but insisted he be home for dinner. It was a condition I was quite willing to accept.
 

Our stroll was pleasant. It was the first time I’d walked with Ray to either of our houses. Though he was competent enough with his cane, it was slow going.

And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

There was a chill in the air, and though I barely noticed it, I would have looked strange had I not borrowed a shawl. There were few people on the streets and we quite happily talked the entire way. Hand in hand.
 

It was how we spent the rest of the morning, and most of the afternoon.
 

When we got to my house, I apologised to Helen for not letting her know where I was. All was forgiven, however, once she heard what had happened. She would have a good laugh over that for quite some time.

My mistakes were so rare that they were well documented when they occurred. It would be like the broken toe incident all over again. Something I’d never live down.

And it was worth it.

Waking up in Ray’s arms had been heaven.
Why had I even considered fighting this?
 

We were sitting in the library, having had lunch in the garden. Ray was attempting to decipher the first of the stories I’d given him. It wasn’t going very well. He was still on the first page, and I hadn’t shown him the expansive records yet.
 

“Would you like some help?”
 

I’d been watching him, knowing exactly what he was struggling with. Three of the letters had the same symbol, and another two also had the same. Common letters that could change the entire word. The only way to tell them apart was minute, almost invisible differences in the characters.
 

“I think . . . am I seeing things or are some of these the same?” He frowned as he tapped his finger against the pages.

“Some of them are almost identical.” I bit back a laugh.

His frown deepened. “How do you tell the difference?”
 

“Do you see the tail of that character?” I pointed to what was supposed to be an
E.
 

“Yes, it’s the same as the others.”

“Not quite. Do you see how it’s longer, thinner?”

He squinted, leaning closer to the page. “Oh yes. Now I see it. It
is
longer.”

“That one is an
E.
” I pointed out the next one, which was almost identical. “The short, fat tail is the
A,
and the short, thin one is the
I.
”

“How do you ever remember the differences? How can you even see them?”

“My eyesight is sharper than yours, and I’ve been reading and writing that language since I was little.” It was a shame we’d stopped speaking it by the time I was born. “Why don’t you take a break? Tell me something about you.”

“What would you like to know?” He set the book aside, placing his reading glasses on top of them.

“Anything, something that no one else knows.” Despite our endless hours on the same subject there was still so much about him I had yet to discover.
 

“All right, I have something. You must promise not to laugh, though,” he said, with absolute seriousness.

“No laughing.”
 

“Before I was born, my mother did a lot of knitting. She was off her feet a lot with me, and she cannot abide needlepoint. Anyway, she knitted me this toy in the shape of a hedgehog. His name is Herbie, and I still have him,” he said, looking at his hands again.

“Why would I have laughed at that?” I thought it was quite sweet that he’d kept it.

“Most grown men don’t have their childhood toys hidden away in their rooms.”
 

“I happen to think it’s rather sweet.”

“He lives in a shoebox I turned into a bed when I was ten.”
 

“And? It’s something you’re sentimentally attached to. I’m sure that if I’d had anything of the sort, I’d still have it.”
 

“Tell me something about you?”
 

“What would you like to know?”
 

“Tell me a dream, something you’ve always wanted,” he asked, his eyes sparkling.

“There is one desire I once had.” More of a wish really. “But I need to explain some things before I tell you.”

There was something I’d always wanted, but it had been pushed to one side after my sister had passed. For a fairly simple dream it was a complicated story.
 

“There has been much that I’ve seen in my life, as you know. More than anyone could ever understand. Everyone I have ever loved has grown old and died. Yet, since I matured, I haven’t changed. My hair hasn’t grown, I haven’t gotten any taller, and I haven’t aged. I can remember a number of details from my life and have had everything I ever wanted—except a love of my own. I never had someone to love the way I love you.

“The only things I have ever dreamed of, ever wanted, are children of my own and someone to raise a family and grow old with. It was the one thing I could never have. The one thing I had to put on hold until the right time. Until I met you. Yet, now that I have, I’m torn. On the one hand I have everything I have ever wanted. And on the other, I have everything I cannot have.”
 

“Why?”

“Do you remember when I told you our descendants had stopped maturing?” I waited for him to nod before I continued. “Before that happened, it was a simple case of finding our partners, settling down, and raising the next generation. We retired, so to speak, when we found our partners. But then The Seats discovered how to kill us and everything changed. Now there are only two of us left. I cannot stop doing what I do, and yet, part of me tells me I have to. I have to protect you above all else.”

Ray sat beside me and spoke softly. “There’s more you aren’t telling me.”
 

“There is, but that’s for another day.” There was a lot more to the story, but I wasn’t ready to tell him. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready to tell him.
 

The story of my twin sister, Lona, was not one I enjoyed retelling. It was with her death that our children had stopped maturing. We still had no idea how to reverse the effects of her death. None of our records held any clues, and our psychic hadn’t thought to check so far into the future before her own passing. There hadn’t been a need to, not until it was too late.

“So, may I meet Herbie?” I asked, as I walked back to Ray’s house for dinner. Apparently the invitation had been extended to me, as well.

“As long as you promise not to laugh when you see his bed.” There was such concern shining in his eyes.

“I promise.”

I almost broke my promise the second the words were uttered. I’d never make fun of his sentimentality over his toy, but I came very close to laughing at the desperate tone of his voice and his expression. He was so adorable.