The Artisans (18 page)

Since my voice is silenced, my brain screams. I gasp and pant, pleading with the powers that be to stop my torment. Splinters puncture and slice my skin, tearing at the flesh until my hands are warm and slick with blood. There’s no reprieve from the agony, yet I work like a robot, a puppet at the mercy of whoever pulls my strings.

On and on, my hands scrape at the rough wood. Bones break through the ends of my shredded fingertips. Flesh, in the form of bloody pulp, still clings to the tendons. I yearn to faint, escape my torture, but I don’t. I work on and on and on. One last yank and the coffin lid jerks free. My lids won’t shut, nor can I look away. My heart hammers sharply against my ribs. Sweat trickles down my back as I peer inside.

A body in a white dress lies within, tucked into a straw bed. Her skin is smooth, undamaged, and blue. Desiree.

Her eyes open. She stares straight ahead until the socket stretches on the inside corner of one eye. The pupil dilates. Her gaze snaps to the side, focusing on me. Mucous membranes swell and rise into a thin bubble until the skin under the socket tears away, excrete a milky white substance. The dark, oval head of a worm pokes through. Fluid runs from her tear duct, following the dip beside her nose to her lip. Like a twisted birth, the larva writhes, chewing and clawing its way free of the flesh that incubated it.

Vomit climbs my throat. Fighting against the force that holds me is useless. The grub convulses and rolls free, but there are more. They push from her nostrils, the edge of her lip. A scream smothers in my mouth that won’t open. Desiree’s head twitches unnaturally, jerks to face me. Her hands grip my shoulders, nails penetrating deep into my skin.

Release me!

The glass in my hand shatters, cutting my fingers. I cry out and jump away from the splintering shards nearly plunging headfirst into the toilet.

“What the hell?” Maggie says. I whirl around. Desiree is gone, but Maggie appears in the doorframe. She glances to the tile floor and back to my face. “What happened in here?”

I’m breathing like I just ran a fifty-yard dash. My gaze darts all over the bathroom, but the specter is gone. “It slipped?” There’s no controlling the tremor in my voice, but I try. I’m not sure what I saw, but there’s no use frightening Maggie. Today is special. I’m not ruining our time together with talk of rotting bodies, or mausoleums inside my head.

She reaches for my hand. “Your fingers are bleeding. And here, too …” She points to my arm where bright red scratches mar the skin. “Geez, they’re deep. All this from one little glass?”

I doubt that but can’t exactly explain.

“Do you have any Band-Aids?”

Stepping out of the broken glass, I shake my head. “I-I don’t know. I don’t think so. Maybe in a drawer.”

“Calm down, Rae. Why are you shaking? It was an accident.” Maggie rummages through the cabinets without success. She grimaces as she peeks at me again. “Don’t worry, honey, it’s just a glass. No one’s going to be angry. I’m going to find Jenny. Stay here, okay?”

Where else would I go? “Okay.”

Maggie heads for the door. “Watch you don’t cut yourself more. Sit down. I’ll bring a broom.”

My knees tremble as I ease down on the toilet seat and wait. I’m not in pain. I’m freaked out. Was Desiree really here, trying to hurt me? Why would my mind make something like that up? Free her, she said. How and from what? I’d love to get rid of her. She’s like the echo of a cast member from
Rich Housewives of Atlanta,
only the nasty, dead kind. Drops of blood fall from my fingers to the white floor forming a puddle. There’s a thin trail from my elbow to wrist. I tear some toilet paper off the roll and wrap my throbbing fingers. The cuts aren’t too deep, but they bleed nonetheless.

Raven
…

Cole’s image wavers in the doorframe and solidifies. I jolt and half fall off the potty. “Geez will you
not
do that!” I right myself and attempt to slow my heartbeat. “What’s going on?”

He glides nearer until he’s a foot away and kneels before me. “She’s newer, stronger than the rest of us.”

“Who?”

“Desiree.”

“Oh.”

He glances over his shoulder. “She’s angry and dangerous. She wants you to release us.”

Yeah, I sort of got that. “What does that mean, release you?”

His mouth opens but nothing comes out. He shakes his dark head. “Go to the attic. The answer is in the attic.”

That’s pretty vague, and I’ve had enough of creepy dark spaces for one day. “Why? What’s up there?”

“We’re bound—” His body convulses and he can’t finish. “Trapped. Punished …”

“Punished?” I repeat.

He nods. “Maddox.” His body seizes. He grips his throat. “Enemies.”

“Okay, okay.” I reach out to console him, but my hand passes straight through his image. “That’s enough, I get it.” I don’t, but he acts like he’s suffocating. Can a ghost hurt? “Do you feel pain?”

“Not …” Cole chokes and falls to his hands and knees. A long pause follows before he lifts his head. He searches my face with his dark eyes, presses his lips to form a line. His head tilts and his eyes plead for understanding that I’m willing to give but can’t.

“What? What is it?” I can’t figure out what’s wrong with him. If certain words bring him pain, perhaps he’s searching for the ones that don’t.

He reaches for me, but I pull away. I hate the wounded look in his eyes, but I don’t know who to trust. “We feel through our memories, and through the life inside of you, though some of us grow weaker with time.”

“Rae?” Maggie calls to me from the bedroom.

Cole leans forward, speaking into my ear. “The attic. Don’t forget. And Raven, be careful.”

“I’m here.” My ghost fades and disappears. I shudder. Whenever he does that, it’s disconcerting to say the least.

“Goodness gracious,” Jenny says. “Had we an accident, my dear?” She’s carrying a broom in one hand and a dustpan in the other. Maggie is loaded down with a bottle of peroxide and enough gauze and tape to treat an army.

While Jenny gets to work on the broken glass, my best friend rests her bum opposite me on the narrow rim of my bathtub. She unwinds the blood-soaked toilet paper from my finger and tends my cuts. “Aw, it’s not so bad. Fingers and facial cuts always bleed like a mother but amount to nothing. Rae?” I raise my chin and meet her gaze. “You okay? You look weird.”

“I’m fine. Just a dumb accident is all.”

“Nothing embarrassing about that, dearie,” Jenny tuts.

I’m not embarrassed. Dazed, terrified, and curious as hell about what may be hiding upstairs, but they don’t need to hear that. With less than an hour before we leave for the airport, there’s no time to visit the attic. I’ll have to wait until we return from New York. Maggie lifts her eyebrows, giving me a doubtful expression that suggests she knows I’m holding out on her.

Ignoring her, I lean around my friend. “Thanks, Jenny. I could’ve cleaned up my own mess, though. You don’t have to wait on me.”

“Not a bit of it. What am I paid for then, to twiddle my thumbs all day, and see? It’s all done. There’s a good girl. Now you two finish up and get downstairs. Jamis is fit to be tied when he gets behind schedule.”

“You’re too good to us,” Maggie says as she stands.

“You are helping the master, and nothing is too good for that boy. Any friend of his is a friend of mine.”

Maggie glances at me. Her pleasant expression hiding whatever thoughts she’s having. “Absolutely,” she says. “I couldn’t agree more.”

***

Jamis drives us forty minutes to the airport in Hilton Head where we board a commercial flight to LaGuardia in New York City. Three and a half hours. In the air. With Gideon. That’s as much time as I’ve ever spent with the guy all at once, well consciously anyway. I’m grateful Maggie is here as a buffer.

The plane is full. I don’t know what I expected; maybe daydreaming with Maggie as we both crane our heads out the same little window for a peek at the distant earth. We’d whisper about school, gossip about boys, get caught up. I expected a lot of things, but being sandwiched between Mags and Gideon wasn’t one of them.

I squirm in my seat. Gideon bumps me with his knee. His thigh occasionally rubs mine, or his elbow brushes my sleeve. The curve of his tricep slides against my arm in an annoyingly provocative way. Every time he touches me, a tiny cluster of moths take flight in my stomach. When his hand meets mine on our shared armrest, I shift away. His lips curl in the slanted smile I’ve identified as mild amusement—usually directed at me. I swear he’s doing it on purpose to upset me. I glance up. Smooth yet defined, I follow the line of his cheekbone to his jaw with my eyes. I’m hyperaware of the fact that I’m hyperaware of
him
. Somebody slap me, please.

When I lean once more toward Maggie’s seat, she blows. “I love you Rae, but you can’t get in my lap, all right?”

I straighten. “Sorry.”

“Are you scared?”

“No.”

“Sick?”

“No.”

“Nervous.”

“No! It’s nothing. I’m sorry.” I pantomime using two fingers, and outline the space around me. “I’ll stay within my designated area.” Next to me, Gideon’s chuckle unsettles the moths and they flutter again. I’m ridiculous.

“Freak,” Maggie whispers. Her gaze rests on me a little too long, then she shrugs and goes back to reading her fashionzine. Thirty minutes later, however, she puts the magazine down and curls into a ball, or as much of a ball as our cramped seating allows. Her head lolls onto my shoulder and she whimpers.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Car sick. Plane sick.” She wriggles adjusting her head. “Motion sick, I don’t know.” My poor friend’s skin is olive green and a light sheen of perspiration covers her forehead. “Oh no.” She bolts upright and crawls over Gideon and me to the aisle.

“You going to puke?”

“Mount Vesuvius.” She stumbles over Gideon’s feet, but he catches her. Helping her to a stand, he walks behind my friend, escorting her to the bathroom.

He hesitates at the door a few minutes before returning to his seat. “She won’t let me in.”

“No,” I say, surprised he’s willing to help her. “I imagine not.” There are people who share toilet moments and people who don’t. Maggie and I, we’re members of the hurl alone club. Sure, I’ve read in romance novels where the cute guy holds the pretty blonde’s hair back for her while she retches. Afterward, she’s so grateful, they end up making out. In real life, I think that’s bull. No guy wants to help a girl vomit, I don’t care how hot she is, and he sure as hell isn’t going to kiss her sewer mouth afterward.

After an uncomfortable amount of time, in which I imagined Maggie flushing herself out of the plane’s belly, she staggers back to her seat. She’s pasty-skinned and sweating. I pat her arm, but she says nothing. Once the plane lands, all I can think about is getting Mags to our hotel so she can wish she were dead in peace.

Gideon’s firm chest presses against my back as we exit the plane. His muscular leg pushes my much smaller one on the long taxi ride to our hotel. I glare at him, but he’s oblivious, or pretending to be. He smells clean and inviting, like fresh sheets and faint cologne, and I hate that, too. By the time Maggie and I reach our room, it’s ten o’clock at night. The show is twelve hours away, and I’m as tense as any tightrope walker hovering above the Grand Canyon. No big.

In our hotel, Maggie throws herself down on one of the two queen-sized beds and groans. I climb on the bed next to her and flop.

“What’s eating you?” Maggie mumbles into the bedspread. I can hardly hear her. She rolls to her side and yawns. “Nice undies, by the way. I love black.”

I smooth my skirt down in a half attempt at modesty. “Glad you’ve kept your sense of humor.” She grunts, and I can’t help my small smile. “Keyed up, I guess. First time out of the state, on a plane, to a fashion show … a lot of firsts today.”

“Mm hmm.”

“I’m worried about Ben, school, graduation. And Gideon annoyed the crap out of me all the way here.”

Maggie opens one eye. “Not shy, is he?”

“Not even—”

A knock has us both jolting. I force myself up, walk ten steps across the room, and open the door.

“Always ask who’s there before you open the door, Raven. We’re not in Kansas anymore.” Gideon hovers in a pair of dark jeans, distressed bomber jacket, and heavy boots. A chunky silver bracelet hangs at his wrist, the onyx ring on one finger. Towering over me is an audacious display of knee-weakening masculinity. He steals my breath and enough brain cells to render me speechless. “Get your coats, ladies. Let’s explore New York City.”

October in New York can be chilly, yet as I sip my coffee on my way to the eighty-sixth floor of the Empire State Building, I’m impervious to cooler temperatures. I am
that
girl. The green, wide-eyed tourist running from one viewpoint to another in awe of the epicness that is Manhattan.

A group of sightseers stand together in the elevator heading up. Gideon leans on his cane between a pretty redhead to his right and me. She’s wearing a cheaply made, ruby-colored cocktail dress, so tight I wonder how she breathes, so short she tempts hyperthermia. Another young couple waits behind us.