Everneath (34 page)

My mouth opened a bit, and I looked at Jack. Even Mrs. Stone had taken an interest in the conversation. She sat in a desk behind Jack, listening.

“Akh ghosts are sort of a popular legend in anthropology circles.” He chuckled softly. “Some of my own colleagues believe Akh ghosts wander the face of the earth today. I think it adds to their zeal for our area of study…”

I stopped listening as Professor Spears told of the quirks of some of his colleagues. I only tuned in again when he said, “Where did you get the replica, by the way? Its likeness to the one stored at the Smithsonian is extraordinary. If possible, I’d love the chance to have a look at it.”

“Tourist knockoff,” Jack said.

“You’re in Park City, are you not? Why would a town focused on a tourist trade of American Indian artifacts have a bracelet with ancient Egyptian roots?”

“Because tourists don’t know the difference.”

“Maybe,” Professor Spears conceded. “But I’d still like to talk to the shop owner. Perhaps he received inspiration from something else in his possession, and maybe he doesn’t know what he has. Museum artifacts are found this way all the time. Someone buys a house and finds something in the attic, or buried in the backyard.” He paused, waiting for an answer.

I narrowed my eyes at Jack, and he raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

I answered. “I got the bracelet from a friend, so I’ll have to ask her.”

“One last question, if you have a moment…” Jack said.

“Shoot.”

“How do you kill an Akh ghost?”

There was a pause on the phone line. “Uh, are you serious?”

“It’s for a paper.” Jack sounded so convincing, even I believed him for a second. “Theoretically, how would it happen?”

“Joyce, what kind of assignments are you handing out these days?”

We both looked at Mrs. Stone. She leaned toward the phone as if it were a microphone. “It’s extra credit. Trust me, Jack needs it.” She winked at Jack.

“Well, as the image shows, the Akh ghost existence is based on a perfect balance, this exact configuration of the five elements. If one of them were to throw the others out of balance … if the Akh ghost no longer had access, say, to other people’s kas. Other people’s energy.”

I felt my shoulders sag. There was no way we could prevent Cole from Feeding off others.

Jack must’ve thought the same thing, because he asked, “What about the heart? Why is it separate but in the middle?”

“Because it’s not part of the being, but it’s nearby.”

“Can they live without it?”

I jerked my head at Jack, but he was staring intently at the phone.

The line crackled, as if Dr. Spears had breathed deeply into the receiver. “I guess not. But you must find out where the heart beats first. Hypothetically.”

We were all quiet for a moment. Mrs. Stone looked at Jack and he nodded. She leaned forward again and said, “Thank you again, professor.”

“Of course, Joyce. And, kids, if you find out where exactly the bracelet comes from, please do let me know.”

We hung up the phone. We were going after Cole’s heart.

Jack’s car. Thirty-six hours left.

W
e walked out of the school and straight to Jack’s car. He turned on the engine and the heat. I looked back at the school, aware that I probably wouldn’t set foot inside it again.

“What do you think, Becks?” Jack said.

I turned away from the building. “Cole always tells me he has a heart, but it’s not inside him. I’ve even listened to his chest. There’s nothing there.”

“If it’s not inside him, it’s gotta be near him. We just have to figure out where it is. Professor Spears was right about the life force stuff. We have to assume he’s right about the heart, too, which means it’s valuable to Cole. So valuable that he would protect it with everything he has.”

“Maybe it’s locked away in a vault or something? Like in an urn.” I could only imagine a shrunken actual heart, but perhaps I was being too literal.

“But the band moves around so much,” Jack countered. “I’d guess it would be in something portable. Not as fragile as an urn.”

“Wait,” I said. Something portable. Something valuable. Something he protects and keeps with him always. Something as important to him as my own hands were to me. “His guitar.” I got excited thinking about it.

“His guitar.” Jack repeated the words, as if trying them out.

“He takes it everywhere. And once, when I touched it, he freaked out.” I remembered the day in my bedroom when I’d clawed at the strings. “I should’ve seen it before. He uses music to stir the emotions and circulate the life force of the audience, just before he steals energy. It’s like an actual heart; the center of the circulatory system. Pumping the nourishment. I watched him do it. It’s his guitar…” I stopped talking. Jack was staring at my arm, his eyes wide.

“What?” I demanded.

“The fingers. I can see them moving.”

I looked down at the mark, which was visible beneath the thin cotton of my shirt. It was halfway between my elbow and my wrist. I didn’t see it at first, but as I stared, I saw the line creeping.

“Mary said it would speed up,” I said.

Jack was quiet for a moment, staring at it. Then his arms were around me and he crushed me into him. “I can’t lose you again, Becks.”

“You’re not going to.”

This time, though, I actually believed it might be possible.

Jack drove us to Grounds&Ink. His left leg never stopped bouncing. When we found a booth, he ordered two coffees.

“Make them decaf,” I said to the waitress.

Jack nodded. When the server left, he said, “We’ve got to figure out a way to separate Cole from his guitar.” The words spilled out of his mouth and ran together.

“Do you think it’s just a matter of getting it away from him?” I asked.

“We find it, steal it, and then smash it.”

I laughed a desperate sound. “So all we have to do is find Cole, get close enough to him that we can steal his guitar— without him knowing it—and then smash it. And we have twenty-four hours.” I tilted my head back and looked at the ceiling.

“I know how we can get close to him,” Jack said quietly.

“How?”

“We give him the one thing he wants.” He was staring at his hand as he flicked his ring finger with his thumb.

“Me.”

He nodded, still not looking at me. “And then I think I know someone who would love to smash a guitar.”

We left the coffee shop and Jack drove me to my house. We had decided to wait until the next morning to go to Cole’s place. It was my idea, in case we failed. I couldn’t stand the thought of waiting those last few hours for the Tunnels. If our plan didn’t work, I wanted the Tunnels to get me that very instant.

Jack pulled over in front of my house. My dad’s car was in the driveway. He and Tommy were home from the Silver Lodge.

“Um … where will you…” I bit my lip.

“I’ll be in your room. Don’t lock the window.” He touched his lips and then touched my hand.

I nodded and got out of the car. My father, Tommy, and I ate a simple dinner that night. French toast. Breakfast for dinner. Just what the mayor needed after a tiring campaign. When I first got to the Everneath, I sometimes pictured what I would say to my dad and Tommy if I had the chance. But imagining the scene was very different from living it.

Tonight I had nothing to say. No wisdom to impart. No tearful good-byes. I had once had the words, but now they fell through me, as if I were a defunct sieve. Just one more ordinary dinner, in our ordinary kitchen, under ordinary circumstances. As if nothing were different.

I realized then that my Return had been painful. More painful than I ever could have imagined, with birthdays of Tommy’s that I’d never get to see, and the inauguration of my dad that I wouldn’t be able to attend, and good-byes I’d never be able to say.

But it’d been beautiful, too. The moments I could cling to, like the touch of Tommy’s golden hair beneath my fingers, and the sound of my dad’s voice as he talked to my mom when he thought no one else was listening.

When we were done, I hurried and did the dishes, and then I hugged Tommy and said good night.

“You never hug,” Tommy said.

I kissed the top of his head, scruffed up his hair. If this worked, I would do everything I could to make life normal for my little brother. I headed down the hall to my room, opened the door, and shut it behind me.

Jack was lying on his back on my bed, his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Without a word, I laid down next to him, facing him. He turned to look at me.

We were quiet for a moment. I studied his face—the bend of his cheekbones, the curve of his lips. Softly, I touched the post in his eyebrow.

His eyes crinkled in response.

“When did you get it?” I asked.

“A month after you left,” he said, “my mom told me to forget you. That you were gone, and you were never coming back, and that I was better off without you.” His lip quirked up in a half smile. “I knew she would hate it.”

I smiled, then leaned in and kissed his eyebrow.

His eyes flicked to my arm. The mark crept along, unstoppable, and as I watched it, the weight of all the things I couldn’t change came crashing down on me. This was the last night. Our last night. The last time I would feel his calloused hands on my skin. I looked at his beautiful face, and I couldn’t bear it.

Every breath I took meant another grain of sand in my hourglass disappeared, and I only had a few left. I tried not breathing. I was losing it, and I turned away.

Jack put his arm around my waist and pulled me tight against him, so my back was cradled against his chest. He knew exactly what I was feeling. He breathed slowly, deliberately near my ear, willing my own breathing to mirror his.

“Do you want to know the first time I ever saw you?” he said with his lips at my ear.

I knew the story, but I nodded anyway, frantically.

“Your family had just moved in. You were … how old were you, Becks?”

I shrugged, and he ran his fingers over my head, calming me. He knew the answer.

“You were eleven,” he said. “I was twelve. I remember Joey Velasquez talking about the pretty new girl in the neighborhood. Actually his exact words were ‘the hot chick.’ But I didn’t think a thing about it until I saw you at the baseball field. We were having practice at the park and your family showed up for a picnic. You had so much dark hair, and it was hiding your face. Remember?”

I nodded. “I know what you’re trying to do.”

He ignored me. “I had to see if Joey was right, about the
hot chick
part, and I kept trying to get a good look at your face, but you never looked over our way. I hit home run after home run trying to get your attention, but you couldn’t be bothered with my record-shattering, superhuman performance.”

I smiled, and breathed in slowly. I’d heard this story so many times before. The familiarity of it enveloped me with warmth. “So what did you do?” I asked, fully aware of the answer.

“I did the only thing I could think of. I went up to bat, lined my feet up in the direction of your head, and swung away.”

“Hitting the foulest foul ball anyone had ever seen,” I continued the story.

I felt him chuckle next to me. “Yep. I figured in order to return the ball, you’d have to get really close to me, because…” He waited for me to fill in the blank.

“Because someone made the mistake of assuming I would throw like a girl,” I said softly.

He pressed his lips against my head before he went on. “Which, of course, was stupid of me to think. You stood right where you were and chucked the ball farther than I’d ever seen a girl, or even any guy, chuck it.”

“It was all those years of Bonnet Ball my parents forced on me.”

“The entire team went nuts. You gave a little tiny shrug, like it was no big deal, and sat back down with your family. Completely ignoring me again. So my plan totally backfired. Not only did you get the attention of every boy on the field— which was
not
my intention—but I got reamed by the coach, who couldn’t understand why I suddenly decided to stand perpendicular to home plate.”

It’d worked. My breathing was slow again. I turned against his body, so I was facing him, and wrapped my arms around his back and tangled my legs up with his.

I’d spent a hundred years with Cole, in a similar position, but this was nothing like it. There were no outside forces keeping us together. No otherworldly powers interfering with this simple act.

No. Jack wanted me close because he wanted
me.
Separating from him now would be worse than anything I’d felt before. Separating from him now would make me bleed, and I would never stop.

I didn’t tell him this. I didn’t have to.

We stayed like that for hours—my head on his stomach— trying so hard not to fall asleep. As if we could stop time.