Covenant (16 page)

“
Shhh, it’s all right,
Lizzie. It’s just a nightmare.”

She tries to pull away, but
he refuses to release her. “A nightmare? That’s what you think I’m
having?” She forces herself away from him. “No, this is the
nightmare—being awake is the nightmare. I wish I never had to wake
up again!”

I sag against the dresser,
and when the mirror trembles slightly and the brush falls to the
floor and thumps against the floor, that’s when I realize I am not
blending nearly as well as I need to. I close my eyes and try
harder.

“
Don’t say that!” Jimmie
commands, his voice rough with anguish. “I don’t ever want to hear
anything like that come out of your mouth again! Do you hear me,
Lizzie?” He tries to make her look at him, but she is turned in my
direction, staring at the brush. No matter how much I want to be
with her, right at that moment, I’m praying my blending is right
because I don’t have a clue what I’m going to say if it isn’t,
especially if she is the only one who can see me.

“
What was that?” she asks,
trying harder to lean in my direction.

“
Are you even listening to
me?” Jimmie grips her arm harder and tries to shake her attention
loose so she will face him.

“
Didn’t you see the brush
fall to the floor?” She points at it.

“
It doesn’t matter!” he
snaps. “Look at me.” He slips his finger beneath her chip and
forces her to gaze into his anguished eyes. “Don’t you ever say
that again, Lizzie. Ever. Do you understand me?”

She averts her eyes, and I
know she’s getting ready to make a promise she doesn’t agree with
because it’s a lie. She knows even if she never blurs out something
like that again it won’t stop her from feeling that way, and that’s
what Jimmie really means to ask for.

She shakes her head. “I just
want this emptiness to go away, Jimmie, and I don’t think it’s ever
going to.”

He sets his hand on her
knee. “Everybody feels that way when they lose somebody they love,
Lizzie.” He looks around her room, still the same as it was when I
was with her. “How come you haven’t started packing?”

She shrugs. “Maybe I’m not
ready to leave.”

“
Staying here won’t bring
him back.” He nudges her meaningfully with his shoulder.

“
And leaving won’t make me
forget, Jimmie.” She looks around the room. “So why does it matter
if we move?”

He shrugs. “I know a lot of
people believe in ghosts, but I don’t. I don’t think places are
haunted so much as people, and when they stay the same place
something bad happens, all it does is remind them of what they’ve
been through. I don’t think you could ever imagine falling in love
again here, Lizzie, and even though I’m willing to bet it would
happen, I think you need some time and distance from all this hurt
to help you heal.”

I fold my arms across my
chest and feel the breaking inside, wishing for her sake I knew a
way to ease this pain.

She looks up at him, fresh
tears spilling down her cheeks. “I know you hope I’m going to fall
in love again, but I wouldn’t count on it, Jimmie. Maybe there are
people who are lucky enough to find someone like Lev more than once
in a lifetime, but I don’t think I’m one of them. He was the guy I
was supposed to be with, and I’d rather be alone than try to find
someone to replace him because that’s just not going to
happen.”

Jimmie nods, and I can tell
he’s worried by the frown tugging at his lips. Finally he just
nods. “All right. So maybe you should get out of bed and pack up
some of your stuff so we can leave Hauser’s Landing behind and
start over somewhere new.”

She silently nods and stares
ahead. While she manages to blink back the tears, the fact they
still keep coming tells me Jimmie’s little pep talk has done
nothing to comfort her. Yet I can understand that. Evan and Celia
have gone the same route with me and had much the same effect.
There are some things nothing blankets or calms.

Jimmie gives her shoulder a
slight squeeze and ambles to the door. I feel the chaos gathering
so strongly and swirling so fast it feels like it will sweep her
away, so I sink down on the bed beside her, knowing even if I can’t
reveal my presence, I can try to calm the chaos. I have
to.

Looking at her face, I slide
my hand over the top of hers and begin radiating calm, hoping doing
so will ultimately soothe her. More tears. I frown and wonder if
she can even feel what I’m offering. Or is her despair so great
nothing touches it?

“
Elizabeth,” I whisper,
knowing she can’t hear me. Perhaps my words are for myself, anyway.
“I know you are broken, and it’s my fault.”

More tears. She lifts her
hand from mine and draws it across her face. I’m stunned at how my
power seems not to affect her at all.

“
I will find a way to make
this right. I can’t bear to see you suffer so.”

Her blank stare continues,
and the chaos is as it ever was, swirling violently in the dark
waters of her heart.

Chapter Twelve

Unable to take the breaking
within Elizabeth anymore, I leave as fast as I can and head to the
only place that allows me peace so I can think in isolation. I fly
into the sky and just pause there. In darkness so thick I can lose
myself, I linger, waiting for the peace to find me. I try to accept
what has gone before and know it is for the best, but some part of
me does not believe that. Some part of me will never believe that.
Though Evan will tell me there is no mistake in how things work
out, I can’t see the pattern in this. I can’t understand it. It’s
never bothered me before because I’ve never had a weakness for
humans until Elizabeth. And now, having had feelings, I can’t just
wipe them away as though they never existed and hope this chaos
within us both will eventually pass. I don’t see that
happening.

Evan has no such qualms
about his faith. Evan is an unshakable rock, but he has not been
put in the position of learning to love then having that love
destroyed. How am I supposed to just walk away and go about life as
I always have? I can’t even go about my sojourning without thinking
of Elizabeth and dealing with the pain.

Time seems to suspend itself
as I hang there and try to reason through all of this. And then it
comes to me, a possible answer to my problem. Theresa knew how to
obliterate the wall that Evan put up. Is it possible she knows some
other things that could help me? Some way to undo the past or
change things to make them more bearable? I’m not asking for
something to make all this better, just something I can handle,
something I can be at peace with. I do not think of this for
myself, but for Elizabeth. I will find a way to abide this pain,
but I can’t simply sit back and watch Elizabeth be so consumed with
a burden that should not be hers to bear.

As I shift directions and
begin flying back to Theresa’s house, I try to ignore the voices
that suddenly seem to rise and tell me to reconsider. I don’t
understand why I feel this way about that particular grouping of
angels, but something feels off. Part of me wonders if it is a
memory I do not have, yet Theresa restored my memory, so that
should not be it, and they are probably the only ones who can help
me with this. I do not believe that Evan would. He does not
question what he does not understand, and before this, I never
would have, either, but my emotions are so snarled that all I can
do is try to find a way to fix it.

When I get to the back yard
and enter, I find Sarah sitting in the living room on the
sectional. She is bent and sobbing, rocking back and forth. She has
wrapped her arms around her abdomen, as if that will keep
everything together, but I know it won’t. Still, it troubles me to
see her like this, even if we do not see eye to eye on most
things.

“
Sarah?” I say, stepping
toward her. “What’s wrong?”

At the sound of my voice,
her head jerks up, and I see her face is smeared with tears. Her
eyes are red. The pain on her face is almost palpable.

“
You….” She tries to speak
with a venomous tone, but the chaos swirling within her won’t let
the anger rule. There are too many emotions vying for control, and
it’s not clear which will win.

“
Are you all right?” I ask,
not sure what else to do given her reaction to my presence. Will
stepping nearer only infuriate her? What do I do?

“
As if you care.” She
savagely brushes her hand across her face and straightens. For
whatever reason, she finds offense in me, and since I have my
memory back and it does not contain traces of her, I am at a loss
for how to interpret this reaction.

“
While it’s imminently
clear you do not like me, I’m not sure why. I only mean to
help.”

“
Do you, now?” Her tone is
flat as she stands on unsteady legs. “That’s funny because this,”
she says, holding her tear-soaked hands toward me, “is your
fault—all your fault.”

She starts to walk away, but
I wrap my fingers around her arm and hold her in place. “I don’t
understand, Sarah. I don’t even remember you.”

She laughs, and the hard,
brittle sound reminds me of a dying bird’s last call. “Of course
you don’t, Lev. There are memories you may never get back. But you
remember the important thing, don’t you? You remember your precious
Elizabeth, and you’d do anything to save her. It’s the rest of us
who have to fend for ourselves.”

She jerks free and flies out
of the house, leaving me standing there with my mouth open,
wondering what I’m still missing. What harm did I do her, and why
can’t I remember?

Even though she’s fleeing
far from me, I can feel the chaos within her spinning violently,
worse than I feel, and I’m not sure what to make of it.

“
What happened with Sarah?”
Theresa asks, stepping into the room. She’s still looking over her
shoulder in the direction of Sarah’s flight. Her long, dark hair
spills down her back like strands of black silk.

I shake my head. “I have no
idea. She is angry with me, but I don’t remember why. She seems to
know something I don’t, as though not all my memories have
returned.”

“
Really?” She gestures to
the seat and heads toward the sectional where she sits.

“
Would you know something
about that?” I ask, following.

She shakes her head. “Not
that I’m aware of. I reversed Evan’s wall as best I could, but it’s
possible there are traces remaining, causing you to forget.” She
looks at the carpet in front of her. “It doesn’t really matter if
you have that memory or not. I know why she’s so upset.”

I lean back. “And that would
be….”

“
You were her mentor when
she learned how to sojourn, and something went terribly wrong
during that time.” Her gaze lifts and she focuses on my face. “And
she blames you, if you want the truth.”

I nod and try to think of
how to respond, but the chaos inside is building again. “What do
you mean?”

She leans back. “Remember
the last few times you tried to sojourn and the emotions got the
best of you?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“
Your shielding isn’t
working, and that leaves you completely open to all the chaos
swirling among the humans around you. You have no
defenses.”

“
All right.” I work hard to
keep my voice even. “So what does this have to do with Sarah? Why
does she blame me for something?”

“
Because you were her first
mentor. It was your responsibility to teach her how to shield so
she would not suffer from the chaos.”

I shut my eyes in shame.
“But I did not.”

“
No, you
didn’t.”

I try to remember some part
of teaching Sarah to sojourn. but I can’t even remember learning
myself. Just more proof that I do not remember everything, that
Theresa’s reversal has not been as successful as I’d first
believed.

“
How long has it been?” My
voice is tightly restrained, and it takes everything I have to keep
my emotions in check.

“
Centuries, Lev. It’s been
centuries.” Her tone is tired but patient.

“
I understand I made a
mistake—a big one—but surely by now she has learned how to shield.
If she has been doing this for so long, how could she not have?” I
rake my fingers through my hair, feeling the restlessness and chaos
growing worse.

Judging from Theresa’s
serious expression, I can tell she’s trying to come up with a way
to answer and still be diplomatic about my failings. I can see the
gears turning, and I can tell that whatever she finally does say,
I’m probably not going to like.

“
Well, for one thing, it’s
important to learn how to shield when you first start sojourning
because after that, it just gets harder and harder to master that
skill.”

“
In what way?” I ask. I
touch the fabric of the couch, trying to find something to distract
myself because it seems it’s not just Elizabeth I’ve let
down.

“
The longer you go without
learning how to shield, the more susceptible you are to sharing
human emotions with those around you until those emotions finally
consume you. Sarah hasn’t been able to build barriers to those
emotions, and I’m beginning to think she might never be able to
block them at all, considering how long she has been
exposed.”