Tighter (12 page)

“What is?”

“Wanting to impress someone.”

“I’m flattered.” I really was. “But why me?”

“I don’t know. I like that you’re an exotic stranger instead of someone who’s shown up on this island like clockwork every single summer for the past fifteen years. I like how you bite your bottom lip when you listen. Mostly I liked watching you give Aidan McNabb the stone-cold shaft. He’s the crown prince of Bly, and he’s not used to the swift kick of rejection.”

“He’s met his match. I’m not into that guy, and I’m not afraid to kick.”

That was all he needed. Without another word, Sebastian leaned forward and kissed me.

My last kiss had been courtesy of Sean Ryan—only once, in the furtive winter dark, in his icy Mini Cooper. Sebastian’s mouth was different. Careful, the way he cupped his hands against either side of my face as if I were something divine and limited being offered to him. But confident, the way he shifted himself so that my hands found his shoulders, and then wrapped around them, as I sensed his entire mind and body focused on me and nothing else.

But the surprise of it, plus the scramble of the sleeping pill in my brain, also conspired in the worst way possible as my nervous laughter burbled from my throat and
ulp
ed into the air.

“What’s funny?” As he drew away, the question held his uncertain smile.

Now I couldn’t stop giggling. “Nothing. I’m drunk … maybe.”

“Nah, you’re not drunk. You had three sips of rum punch, and I happen to know that the bartender, Harry, who’s also my cousin, is watering the cocktails to criminal levels.”

I was silent.

“Not sure why I kissed you,” Sebastian admitted into the pause. “I was pulling for leading man, but I might have come off as an unintentionally comic sidekick.”

“No, I liked it. Really. It was bold.” But he still looked unsure.

I wanted to say the perfect thing so Sebastian would know how much I’d wanted him to kiss me, but without seeming too extreme about it. “It’s just that I’m not myself tonight,” I said thickly. Stupidly. My brain was going into Tilt-A-Whirl. I was losing ground, fast, on this situation.

“Copy that,” he answered softly.

“In fact, to be honest, I’m starting to feel awful.”

He stood. “Got it.” Offered a hand to help me up. “Let me take you back to Skylark.”

FIFTEEN

Sebastian drove a motorcycle. It looked like nothing I’d seen before.

“A Triumph Bonneville T120,” he explained. “Otherwise known as Bonnie. She’s about fifty years old.”

“Sweet.” It was a pretty bike, slender and compact. “So is this where your driving goggles come in?”

“You’re quick, detective.” He opened the seat and pulled them out, along with a couple of vintage leather helmets. He then carefully fit goggles and helmet onto my head, adjusting the eye and chin straps.

“I feel like Amelia Earhart. Or maybe Snoopy.” I yawned. “Snoopy, Dopey, and Sleepy.”

He peered at me. “Hold on tight, and I’ll get you home slow and safe.”

“Yessir.”

We left the club in a roar. The open breeze kind of woke me up and made me feel better. I tied my arms around Sebastian’s waist and leaned forward to press against his back. My jumbled mind hummed nursery rhymes, and my hands held a locked grip at his waist; I was terrified that my body would spontaneously go limp as the pill continued to sneak its way through my system.

We rounded the bend, off Bush Road, and then up the drive, the tires grinding sand as Sebastian downshifted. Midway, the bike sputtered, and I thought we’d lost traction. Quickly, Sebastian rose up and pushed his weight over the handlebars. The engine growled and the wheels spun and coughed like a tired beast, and then we shot up the hill in a jet of speed and noise that I figured would wake up everyone.

But the house stayed dark. Sebastian cut the engine and we got off. I pulled free of my heavy helmet and goggles. My head felt mushy as an overripe melon. I wished I could slice it open and let the sleeping pill ooze out like syrup. And I didn’t want to go inside the house.

“This has been such a strange experience,” I blurted.

“You mean Bonnie? She looks delicate, but she’s fairly durable. But I gotta admit, there’ve been past complaints about her parting gift of helmet hair.”

“No, I meant …” Sebastian was listening intently. I had a feeling he knew what I was going to say anyway, so I kept going. “I meant, being here. At Skylark. It’s like there’s this built-in connection, this way that people have forged me with Jessie Feathering. You must have noticed the way kids look at me but really see her. And considering what happened to her, it’s all kind of a lot for me to handle.”

“Yeah, sure. I hear that.” Sebastian walked me up the porch and dropped into the wicker love seat, pulling me down next to him, and when I swung my legs over so that they bridged his lap, it seemed effortless and natural, a perfect moonlight moment, despite the fact that I was barely awake enough to register it. “And I gotta confess, I listened to the gossip. The Jessie look-alike at Skylark for the summer,” he said. “Then when I saw you … yeah, I had that moment, too. Like everyone else.” He drew a breath. “And there’s a void here, with them gone. No doubt of that. There’s times it feels like yesterday when I biked to the edge of the bluff to watch the chopper and the rescue boats. Just praying it was all some incredibly bad joke.”

Hazily, I conjured it: the helicopter dipping and circling, its propeller rippling into the oppressive heat, the metal sheet of ocean. Sebastian astride his bike at the bluff, sweating and motionless, his eyes trained in disbelief on that same disembodied jut of wing I’d seen on the AP photo that I’d found when I’d looked up the accident online.

I let my hand pause a moment on his scarred forearm. “Sometimes I feel almost guilty about it, like I’ve unearthed all these bad memories for everyone.”

“Jeez, I hope that’s not true. ’Cause the reality is the exact opposite. You’re a breath of life for Isa. Right before you came into the club, Noogie was telling us all how great you deal with her, how you’re already more like a mother to Isa than anyone she’s ever had before.”

“That’s nice, I’m glad to hear that. But this house freaks me out.”
Shut up, Jamie
. “It’s not at all peaceful; it’s restless and angry. It scares me.” I clamped my back teeth against my tongue.
Shuttup shuttup
.

“Pete Quint was one of my oldest friends,” Sebastian said. “We went to school together from kindergarten. That kid wasn’t at peace or very restful when he was alive. I like to think he is now.”

I nodded, mute. My head felt like a balloon being jerked by a string.

“Funny thing about Pete, he was really attached to this place,” Sebastian continued. “He could have been like one of those Victorian groundskeepers and lived here forever, puttering around and mulching or whatever Victorian groundskeepers did. It was people who made things complicated for him.” He let go of this last sentence almost as an afterthought.

“Jessie included?”

“Mostly Jessie included. Or what she represented. A lifetime of lucky breaks. A future on cruise control. She thought Peter was fearless, confident, a winner-take-all type, like her. Which is what he liked her to think.”

“Because that’s what she wanted?”

“Yeah, and maybe he did, too. Pete’s whole family’s off-kilter. His old man’s basically a hermit. Hasn’t spoken twenty words in twenty years.”

“And his mom?”

“She ditched them when Pete was a kid,” said Sebastian. “She’s been living somewhere, I wanna say somewhere outside Boston, for as long as I can remember. Pete used to visit her, and then not so much, when he got older. She never came to Little Bly. She wasn’t even at the services last summer.”

“Are you kidding?” I snapped a bit more awake at that one. “What kind of mom doesn’t go to her son’s funeral service?”

“The kind that he had, I guess.” Sebastian couldn’t disguise that he looked uncomfortable. “Seems morbid, to hash through all this. Anyway.” He stretched and shifted, preparing to go. I dropped my legs and stood up with him—if I didn’t move in the next minute or so, I’d pass out right here. “You know, Jamie, you might just be coming down with a plain old vanilla summer cold. Try hot water with honey before you crash, and avoid citrus tomorrow. Thousand-year-old theater tricks, but they work.”

“Thanks.” I walked him down the porch, and back to his bike. Then stepped back as Sebastian turned over the engine.

“Sometimes,” I told him, on impulse, “I really do feel that Pete’s still here.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Instantly, I wanted to take it back. Sebastian was embarrassed for me. Which, in a way, was worse than Milo. Milo’s contempt made me get defensive. Sebastian’s politeness made me feel pathetic.

It was a stupid thing to say. Even if I believed it. Even if it was true. Worse, the one night I’d gotten out and met a guy—a bona fide hottie of a guy, who’d even kissed me, an amazing fireworks of a kiss—I’d ruined everything with my pillhead spooky talk.

Don’t say another word Jamie you are way too out of it tonight
.

I pressed my lips together, leaned my shoulder against the porch newel. My reserves were almost out.

“Go on … I’ll watch you in,” said Sebastian. “And, Jamie? Don’t be scared of the house. I promise, nobody’s out to hurt—or even haunt—you.” With a small smile. A charity smile?

“Right. G’night,” I mumbled, then turned and skimmed up the stairs and through the unlocked door.

I was tired, but not in the right way. Bypassing a toothbrush and a pajama change, I hit into the pillow like an ostrich into sand.

Smoke. Swimming up to consciousness, I knew that it was later. By how much? One hour? Two? My eyes cracked open. The room was black. Silence hung in the air like a spell. My breath tasted rank and my neck hurt, crimped into an unnatural position.

Where was it coming from? Was the house on fire? Fear froze me as Uncle Jim’s presence took hold. He was sitting, knees up and crossed like a daddy longlegs, at the foot of my bed. Hank, in the shadows, was in his place, too.

I had to get out and I couldn’t.
I don’t want to see you anymore I don’t want to be you go away leave me alone
. As my body stayed heavy, immobile, I couldn’t find my breath, but I needed to move, to leave the room
now now now
.

I snapped back the sheet and jumped like a runner off the block
wee Willie Winkie runs through the town
, down the hall, my breath in thin slices, chasing the steps
upstairs downstairs in his nightgown
to the third floor. The smoke was dense up here. My bare feet pounded as fast as my heart. I ran nearly blind down the hall to the spare room, where
rapping at the windows calling through the locks
I slammed through the door to find a fire blazing, a crackling violence of singeing heat, orange flames bursting up the chimney.

It took another moment to realize they were here, too. On their stomachs, propped by elbows, one leg each hooked at the knee, faces watching the fire
are all the children in their beds for now
as soon as I had opened the door, he turned his head. Through the darkness and the blanket of smoke, his empty stare locked on me,
all the children all the children
and held me tight.

I blinked away to my own reflection on the opposite wall, my shadow rising up like a witch. I jumped and it jumped. I’d gone wet with cold sweat. My eyes caught my shadow and refused to look at him again
because you aren’t here, you’re in my head and nowhere else
.

“You’re not real,” I said out loud, much as it petrified me. My voice wasn’t mine, but rather a disembodied sound from all around the room. I began backing out the door, my trembling hands like stop signs in front of me; at the last minute, I made the mistake of lifting my gaze to meet his eyes, which were dark and empty as pits.

“You’re nothing …” my whisper catching sound as we absorbed each other with full knowledge of who the other was, but this wasn’t really happening because I was sleepwalking and all I needed to do to end the nightmare was to wake up,
wakeupwakeup Jamie
. Backing out, stumbling, my mind urging me
wakeupwakeup
, as the edges of my conscious mind went curling, burning up in the fire, and then everything went black.

SIXTEEN

“Jamie.”

I opened my eyes. Bright, blue and gold day. Hard shark eyes and hair like frizzed gray rope. Connie was peering down on me. My head throbbed. My neck, my back, ouch. Where was I?

“Look at the time. Look!” She tapped her wristwatch. I blinked. Almost eleven. “I thought you were lollygagging in your room. Then Itha went to check up on you. Thee thaw your bed made up. But I’d heard thome type of motorthycle in the drive latht night. The Brookth boy, I figured.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I looked around the box butheth and hydrangea, in the drive, under the portth … thecking if you might not have made it all the way in. But the cat dragged you all the way up here, it theemth. Get up, now. The party ith over. Itha went off with her friend Hannah for the day. Hannah’th mother left you a note. It’th downthtairth.”

The slow roll of my livening mind began piecing together that I was on the third floor. Connie must have thought I’d passed out drunk here.

I rolled up, blinking, into a thin patch of sun. I was still in my sundress. Last night flooded back. My eyes darted to the empty hearth, the bed. Which was stacked with blankets and quilts.

Dear Lord. Was
that
what I’d seen? A pile of blankets?

Connie followed my glance. “I’m thorting the winter clothet,” she said. “Little project I began yethterday.
Get up
.”

Faltering onto my feet, crossing the room, I held the wall briefly as the floor swayed and tipped. Connie
tsk
ed. But I had to know. I reached the fireplace and put my hand flat to the hearth. It was cold. “There’s fresh ashes in the fireplace.”

Connie looked annoyed. “No. I thwept them all when I took out the thquirrel.”