The Empath (The Above and Beyond Series Book 1) (16 page)
Read The Empath (The Above and Beyond Series Book 1) Online
Authors: Jody Klaire
I laughed, a helpless beaten laugh. What could I do? What could I say to that? No? I didn’t want to go hiding who I was, I didn’t want to play around with peoples’ lives, hoping that I was helping. What was the use? She’d probably seen our conversation before it happened anyhow. “I guess I was never going to be free, was I?”
My mother’s eyes flickered with guilt and pain. Sure, I was mad at her but I couldn’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing. What choice had either of us had?
Maybe I was just a sucker but I couldn’t sit there and make her feel worse. “Can I at least take Renee back to see her mother first. She needs a vacation.”
The light shone back into her eyes. “Of course.” She squeezed my knee through the blanket. “Sometimes the visions take months anyway.”
I touched my jaw. It was aching with more than just the operation now. It was aching with the responsibility I’d just heaped onto my shoulders. From one institution to another. At least I wouldn’t be in orange. “Then I guess it’s a deal.”
Chapter 81
ELI PAID THE cab driver and hobbled up his driveway. His head was so full his brain felt squashed in. He hadn’t been back since Jenny had been killed and the front door still had crime scene tape plastered across it. He ripped it off and opened up the door to the dark stain on the floor.
“Oh, hell.”
He threw the tape down and slumped onto the front step. He couldn’t bear to go in, he couldn’t even look at the place.
Jenny had been leaving him, she hated Aeron and he was sure she hated him but her death left his emotions in some kind of deep freeze. They’d parted on the worst terms. She’d gone against his advice to stay at her mother’s and the last thing he’d thought about her before the attack was “good riddance.”
That resentment hadn’t changed, and he hadn’t loved the girl. He rubbed his hand over his face. Why the hell had he married her? He should have seen what Casey was, he should have stopped him. Jenny’s death nagged at his conscience. His girls would grow up without their mother, just like Aeron had. Jenny had been a good mother. So why didn’t he feel a thing? He should be distraught, she was his wife, the mother of his children. Why didn’t it tear him apart? He rubbed the bridge of his nose. He felt odd. That was the only way to describe it. He felt out of touch with the world, with himself.
He knew what the reason was too. Stupidly and selfishly he felt it cleared the way for some hopeful reunion with Lilia. It always came back to that infernal woman. She was alive, she was out there, she owned his heart and he was pretty sure half of his being. It didn’t matter that she’d run out on him, that she was a betraying, deserting, heart-breaking vixen who probably hadn’t given him a thought. If she was in town, she hadn’t been to see him and if that wasn’t a clear message, he didn’t know what was.
Growling up at the sky, he tried not to think of her, to banish her from his thoughts but that little voice kept on talking. Lilia could come back, she was under the same sky that he was. The fact she’d gone and left him years ago didn’t seem to bother his foolish heart. There was a chance.
Eli put his head in his hands. What kind of man was he? His wife had just been murdered by Sam Casey, his girls were traumatized, Aeron was due out of hospital any day but his thoughts were on Lilia.
“An idiot,” he told himself. “A complete idiot.”
“Still talking to yourself, huh?”
Eli’s heart nearly leaped out of his mouth and hopped down the road. “Lilia?”
He didn’t trust himself to look up, his body shivered with his nerves. Oh hell, she was right there.
He felt her sit beside him, making him feel the way only she could, simply by being there. He stared at his hands and picked at the skin on his finger. She was there, she was really there.
“You passed on your habit. She does the same.”
Eli picked a little more, not sure he could trust his voice, not sure he could trust himself. He wasn’t a strong man, the last few months had confirmed it. He was a poor excuse for a father, husband, and he’d been the police chief in a town ripped to pieces by his own deputy.
Long, elegant fingers smoothed down over his hands and stopped him. “Don’t beat yourself up.”
Eli fought the tears in his eyes. He was not going to weep but the emotion pushed at him till he felt he was going to burst. He sucked in the air. He would not cry.
“I told Aeron why I left.” Her fingers lingered over his—long elegant fingers. “I told her and I’ll tell you.”
Eli stared at the hands he’d seen in his memory every single night, the beauty of the woman he’d tried and failed to forget. He’d loved her ghost as much as he’d loved the woman. It didn’t seem to matter that she was here, next to him, he still didn’t believe it. He was too scared to.
Lilia,
his
Lilia,
here
next to him, her hands linked with his, her voice in his ear, her smell. She smelled the same, she smelled like the summer blooms and lavender.
“Do you remember the Amtrak crash?”
Who didn’t? It had been big news. “That scientist was on it, talks about a guardian angel.”
“Eddie Carmichael, he was twenty one at the time.”
Eli wasn’t sure why they were talking about small things, when there was so much to say but any words, any moment with her, even if he looked up and she faded, he’d take it.
“I saw him, Eli.” Her hands drew gentle circles over his. Her voice so much like home that his heart hammered with it. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. “I saw the train.”
Eli closed his eyes, trying to force the tears not to fall, breathing as deep and slow as he could.
“I went to Dan. I had to leave when they knew. I couldn’t come home.”
Eli let out a choked breath, his throat raw. “You should have said—”
“I couldn’t. You know that Dan never even got to see his mother.”
His anger jarred at him. How could Dan do that? His own friend? He knew how Eli felt about her and he’d taken her away anyhow. Traitor. “The poor woman died of heartbreak.” His anger bubbled. “I know how she felt.”
The smell of summer wafted into his nostrils again as Lilia leaned on his shoulder, her silky hair fell over his forearm. He looked up to the sky, anything not to look into those eyes, into her face. Please, don’t cry. Keep it together.
“I watched over you. I mourned as you did.” She sighed and his heart ached worse than before Aeron had fixed it. “I had to go.”
Eli nodded. What could he say? To hell with the world and Doctor What’s-his-name, you should have been with me? He didn’t care about rules or the CIG. He had died the day that she left. What good would it do? What did it matter now?
He had managed to destroy everything he’d touched and there was no hope she would come back. This was goodbye. A parting torture to torment the rest of his days.
“You should see Aeron,” he managed, although his voice had a wobble a mile wide.
“She told me the same thing about you.” Lilia chuckled.
Oh hell, not the laugh. Anything but her laughter. Eli’s tears trickled down his cheeks as he stared up into the blue sky. He couldn’t take this. His heart couldn’t take it.
“She’s joining CIG.”
A sob fell from his mouth. He would lose them both now, lose them to secrets and silence. Heroes behind closed doors. Heroes he would never see again.
“She won’t have to stay away, Eli. She can come home.”
How could he watch them leave, how could he say goodbye all over again? “Why would she want to? After everything? She must be itching to get gone.”
Lilia pulled his face gently around to look at her. Amber eyes of warmth—lines where she’d laughed a million times and he wasn’t there to hear it. A line in her forehead, where she’d frowned a million times and he wasn’t there to soothe her. A wisp of gray in her hair, where she’d worried alone for long lonely years and he wasn’t there to hold her.
Lilia was so beautiful, her clothes so elegant, her skin tanned as always. It was torture, sweet, savage torture.
Helpless to stop himself, he touched her hair, still silk under his fingers, her cheek still soft under his touch. She turned a little, kissed his palm, her hand holding his to her.
He felt the wedding ring and saw it was the one he’d given her. She’d never taken it off by the look of it. It seemed as bonded to her hand as she was to his heart.
Eli pulled out the gold chain from round his neck, a chain he’d worn even when another woman’s ring was on his finger. A chain she’d given him when they were all of fourteen. Lilia’s eyes twinkled in the sunlight as the tears spilled down her cheeks. Eyes that had seen a lifetime without him.
“How long do you have?” he asked, not wanting to know but needing to.
Lilia took his face in her hands, leaned in close, and whispered the words he’d dreamed of, prayed for, begged on his knees to hear fall from her lips. “The rest of our lives.”
Chapter 82
I LEFT THE hospital nearly a month after. The doctors needed to fix pretty much every part of me from my run-in with Sam. Normally, I would have been allowed home a lot quicker but the doctors weren’t happy that I was living in a tent.
Renee picked me up in her shiny new car. She’d already brought in more clothes. Clothes, which she told me my mother had paid for, and so I had my first pair of fitting jeans in well over a decade. I don’t much care for fashion or appearances but I had to say it felt good not to be walking around in work clothes. Neither of us had talked much about what had happened in the pump house. Renee had kept her silence and I’d kept mine. I thought she was letting me process it, then I guessed that she was probably doing the same thing.
The silence was pretty awkward as we drove down the highway. I could feel that she wanted to talk but for some reason didn’t. She drummed her fingers on the wheel as she glanced at me, and I guessed it was gonna have to be me who went first.
“So, what did you decide?” She didn’t know nothing about Lilia coming to see me but if Lilia had been right then Renee was CIG through and through.
I could see her worry, her sadness pouring off her. “I don’t know what else to do with my life, Aeron.”
The highway was pretty quiet, the sunlight bounced off the windshields of the cars that we passed. There was something cheery about the lush green on either side and I was relieved to see no signs of the cloud. It was just clear deep blue. It was kind of a shame to have Renee feeling so down when it was so beautiful outside. “Why do you have to do somethin’ else?”
Renee glanced at me, her scowl so deep that I tensed, making my jaw twinge. Next time, whatever Renee said, I was using the river. “I’ll be gone, from here, no contact, not even a phone call.”
I rubbed at my aching jaw, definitely the river. “Who you plannin’ on calling?”
“Don’t be a wiseass.” Her tone was nearly as icy as Frei’s. Her aura flamed with her words and I couldn’t help but smile. She’d been fighting my corner every step of the way.
I didn’t get what I’d done to deserve it but I weren’t gonna argue. “Would it help if I said my mother roped me in?”
Renee’s mouth fell open and she yanked the wheel. I clattered into the door as we swung across the lanes. We were headed straight for a tree as I reached across and pulled the wheel back to the middle, steadying us.
“Sorry,” she murmured, taking control back. “Lilia did . . . I mean . . . really . . . you joined CIG?”
I wouldn’t so much say joined as corralled but either way, that’s where I was. “She wants me to work out in the field, help you I’m guessin’.” I shrugged. “Well, more like you rescuin’ me.”
Renee’s grin matched the smile in her eyes. “You’re not kidding? You wouldn’t joke about that, would you?”
“Not unless I had a death wish.” I thumbed to the tree we’d nearly gotten acquainted with.
“Are you sure, Aeron?” Her gray eyes were so wide that I could see the flecks of darker blue around her pupils. “I mean, with the life.” She turned back to the road, thank Blackbear. “It’s not easy.” Her hands were tight on the wheel. “What about your freedom?”
“I never had it. An’ the only taste I got . . . Well, I was miserable.” Fussing with the hem of my new t-shirt, I felt dumb. “There is . . . well . . . another reason.”
“What’s that?”
I couldn’t look at Renee. She’d probably think that I needed re-committing. “I’d kinda . . . well . . . I guess . . .” I sighed. “I mean . . . I maybe . . .” I took a deep breath. “I’d miss you if you weren’t around.” I blurted it like I’d lost control of my mouth. She was staring at me again. I could feel it on my cheek. I cleared my throat. “I mean . . . how would I eat?”
She chuckled and I focused with intent on the sign for Oppidum. “We can’t have you go hungry now, could we?”
The joy from her felt like I’d been wrapped in a warm blanket.
Steeling myself, I turned to her. “I did give my mother one condition though.”
Renee raised an eyebrow. “Oh, what’s that?”
I gripped the wheel—just in case. “We get to have a road trip to the Rockies first.”
Chapter 83
OUTSIDE NAN’S CABIN, in the beautiful summer sun, Kay heard Bill cursing from around the corner. She gently lowered her sleeping cargo into the little blue box on the wall and shot a smile at Jim. They were nearly ready, nearly.
“You okay there, Bill?” Jim called out.
“Damn, if I ain’t hit my thumb once, I hit it every damn time.”
Kay rolled her eyes and kissed Jim on the cheek. Finding little moments to smile wasn’t easy. Every single second she thought about her little girl but doing something different, something with Jim, even if he was just shouting out instructions, was keeping them together.
She’d been told by the shrink that a lot of couples didn’t make it through losing a child, especially a wonderful, adored child like Chelsea. Kay was sure it was true because in the few days after, until the night Bill rounded them up to go help Aeron, until then, they could barely look at each other. Jim for the guilt he felt, he blamed himself for not watching her every single second. Kay blamed herself for being at work, for leaving her baby at home and heading to the station. Guilt had nearly ripped them apart
but
helping Aeron, helping to catch Sam Casey had done something for them both.
They’d helped Chelsea get justice, together, Jim holding down the fort at the station, keeping the mayor tied up, and Kay heading up Blackbear. Together they’d helped, just a little.
Kay didn’t think for a second that they were out of the woods. Neither did she pretend that she would ever get over losing her baby. What mother could? Doing something good instead of letting the grief suck her down was the best way. Chelsea, her little baby wouldn’t have wanted it any different.
“I can see a car!” one of the guys yelled.
Kay closed the lid on the box and flashed a smile at Jim. “Quick. Finish up. Down tools.”
Bill’s bellowing, “You heard the lady!” catapulted everyone into life. There was a manic scramble to tidy and wipe and hammer in the last of the nails before every member of the party hurried, chuckling and hollering to each other, and hid out of sight.
Kay looked at Bill who grabbed hold of Mary as she ducked round the corner.
“Stop screeching, woman. You’ll scare the damn squirrel.”
Everyone looked at the painted blue box and laughed as the squirrel stuck her head out in annoyance.
Chapter 84
ELI GOT INTO the car, not having a clue where Lilia was taking him. They’d been staying in one of the hotels that hadn’t been flattened in town since she’d come home to him. It would have to do for now. He didn’t want to go back to the house he’d shared with Jenny. Not now, not ever.
“For the last time, I am not telling you. You’re useless at surprises.” Lilia started the engine and checked her make-up in the mirror. She didn’t need to, she got more beautiful every time he looked at her.
She caught him staring and he smiled. “Some things never change.”
Lilia held his gaze and ran a polished nail over his cheek. He sat back and pulled the belt away from his neck.
Lilia frowned and squeezed his knee. “Is it sore?”
He stared out the window. He didn’t want to tell her that the belt itself was enough to make him feel faint. The repeated dreams of ropes, of his life wrung out of him, of Sam’s laughter, of watching as Aeron fought to save him, the girls, and herself.
“That agent of yours is quite the firecracker.” There was no need to talk about the scars now. It was a beautiful day. “Kneecapping Sam. That’s some skill.”
Lilia’s eyes warmed in the same way it did when she spoke of Aeron. Miss Renee Black was dear to her heart. “You should see her hand-to hand skills.” Her eyes turned mischievous. “One of the male agents went to take her on in self-defense once.” She winced.
He did too. “What did she do?”
Lilia laughed—that heart-warming, soul-lifting laugh that made his stomach wriggle like he was a teenager again. “Let’s just say his voice was higher for a few days.”
Eli covered himself up and sucked in his breath. Poor guy. “Sounds like Aeron.”
Lilia nodded. “One of the many reasons I am so fond of her.”
With a smile he looked out of the window. The town was really taking shape again. Builders and contractors from all over the county, and locals were rebuilding Main Street. “Guess you wanted to rebuild faster.”
Lilia hummed her agreement as she pulled her sunglasses from her head and slid them on. “We need to get ready for tourist season. At least if we can get the basics done, then people can still earn money.”
Eli looked at Casey’s Mart and felt a twinge for Mrs. Casey. She’d suffered for so many years in silence at the hands of her husband, only to see her son kill his brother and then turn on her.
“What are you going to do with the shop?”
“Toughtons,” she said.
Eli smiled. “You’re a good woman.”
Lilia laughed again. Eli’s heart skipped again.
Lilia pulled past the city hall and their oak tree. The streets faded into country roads and Mrs. O’Reilly’s farm sat on the hill in the horizon.
“We going to the cabin?” he asked.
Lilia tutted but did turn down the dirt track, the golden field swayed and danced in the sun.
“Aeron isn’t back till later.” Why were they were heading there now?
She peered over her sunglasses at him. “Renee picked her up. She’ll be a couple of minutes behind us. It’ll give us time.”
“Time?” Eli looked at Lilia, the mischief in her eyes glinted like jewels. He turned back to the road. “Great Blackbear in a box!”
The cabin looked immaculate. Its odd jutting roof tiled perfectly and uniformly, no sign of the patchwork that Aeron had started. The walls were painted cream, the windows blue trimmed, the sills white and gleaming in the sun’s rays. The doorway was painted blue, the flowerbeds trimmed and planted up with pinks, purples, and whites.
Lilia stopped the car.
Eli got out and walked to the cabin, lost for words. Even the water wheel was churning.
Lilia took his hand and led him around the back.
Behind the corn store, Bill, Kay, the Toughtons, Skip, well, most of the town were setting up tables and tents. They turned and waved at him.
Lilia handed him a party hat.
He stared down at it. “You remembered?”
With a chuckle she tapped him on the tip of the nose. “It’s not something a mother ever forgets.”
Eli smiled and dipped his head for her to tie the band to hold it on. “I’m not sure if she will remember though.”
Lilia kissed him and placed her own hat on. “Then maybe it’s time we showed her the famous Lorelei tradition?”
Chapter 85
I GOT RENEE to pull over as we reached the end of the road at the turn off to the cabin. I didn’t know why, but after the last time—being in the river with my father, the place burned out—I wasn’t sure if I could go back. Renee sat on the hood as I walked to the pole that had been replaced—the memories of Renee in the river, the knowledge that Sam had tried to kill her and so nearly had were still strong.
“I’m still here,” Renee said from her perch.
I touched the pole and smelled the scent of new wood varnish. The ache of what
could
have happened swamped my mind with guilt. “I think it’s best if I go.” I couldn’t deal with it. “Can we just go, now?”
I turned around.
“Let me just get the camping stuff.” She nodded toward the cabin. “Plus, don’t you want to check on Mrs. Squirrel?”
I looked down the road. The field I’d sewn was blocked out by the gold of Mrs. O’Reilly’s crop. “Can I wait here?”
Renee got off the hood and walked up to me. “What is it?”
I didn’t know how to explain. “I’ve felt so much pain, so much fear. I don’t think. . . I just want to run. Can we do that?”
Renee’s eyes filled with concern. “Running won’t stop the past finding you.”
“Then how can I forget? How am I supposed to just carry on when everyone died because of me?”
She rubbed my arm. “You? Aeron this isn’t your fault, none of this is your fault.”
I hugged myself. That familiar numbness of loss settled over me. The tears that had flowed so freely for a time, now trapped in my stone heart. “He killed them, because of me.” I looked at the river. “He rammed you off the road because of me.”
“He rammed me off the road . . .” Renee pulled me into her arms and held me tightly. “Because he was damaged. Sam Casey could have flipped at any time.”
I wasn’t so sure. “He waited for me to come back, bided his time, all those years just waitin’.” I closed my eyes, trying to fight the guilt that gnawed at me. It was unbearable.
In the hospital I’d kinda been in limbo, been removed from the devastation left in Sam’s wake. Now, I was back here, it battered me, gripped me like a giant fist, squeezed the breath from my body.
“He is ill, Aeron.” Renee put her hand on my arm. “You didn’t make him ill.”
I hadn’t told a soul what I’d seen in the pump house. “There was nothing wrong with him.”
“What?”
It wasn’t something I wanted to let out. It felt so hard to explain. What had Sam been? “You remember I told you—back in the institution—that I could see when folks had things goin’ wrong in their head?”
Renee nodded. “When you realized Aimee was lying.”
“Yeah, well . . .” How did I explain? “There was no leechin’ cloud over his head like Lori, no flickers of someone talkin’ to him, no dead areas like the psychos.” I shrugged. “There was
nothing
wrong.”
Her warm hand on my arm gave me the strength to continue. She knew me, she believed in me. “Sam was plain evil, Renee. That was it, no rhyme or reason, just evil as hell.”
Renee took away her hand and I opened my eyes.
She tucked her hands in her pockets for a moment and paced. “Didn’t you see a cloud?”
I nodded.
She glanced at me. “So that cloud didn’t control him?”
I shook my head.
She stopped pacing and frowned. “Then, what was it?”
I looked up into the big old blue canvas above me, that nasty parasite long gone. “Fear. I realized that there’s a big fight goin’ on that’s way over our heads.” It sounded so unreal, so strange to say out loud. “Seems like fear doesn’t much like hope. Fear likes to feed off folks till they got nothing left to give.”
Renee’s eyes veiled much in the same way they always did when I freaked her the hell out. “Fear and doubt?”
I nodded. “Yeah, doubt too. I got it figured that somethin’ sure don’t want folks to succeed in life.” I smiled. “And then somethin’ else does.”
“Now you sound like you’re talking about good and evil.”
Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, it was way too complicated. Even thinking about it tied my mind up in knots. “I got no iota of what it is . . . but I know I just pretty much stuck a target on my back.”
“Why?”
I felt a chill wash over my shoulders, which seeming as it was eighty-five degrees, felt a little odd. “All my life, it’s like I was being hidden, kept safe, that by being in the institution, I was kinda under the radar.”
Renee paced the blacktop again. “And now?”
I looked up at the sky. “Whatever’s out there knows, and it ain’t happy.”
Renee walked to me, chin out, defiant. “Well, that cloud couldn’t hurt you. Sam tried to, but I was there. When Mother Nature tried to suck you up, your father was there. Whatever the bad things are out there, there’s a hell of a lot more good.”
I cocked my head. “That your medical opinion, Doc?”
Renee narrowed her eyes. “Damn straight it is.”
I felt like another of Renee’s carefully built-up barriers dropped, which forced me to drop one in return.
“I knew what he went through at home,” I said, burying my head in her shoulder. “I saw the bruises, I saw Jake’s. But I didn’t know what to do.”
Renee squeezed me tightly. “You were a child, what could you have done?” She rubbed soothing circles over my back. “Honestly, Aeron? After all I have seen of this place, who could you confide in?”
I didn’t know. Back then my father wouldn’t have listened, would he? Mayor Casey was in control of everything back then too. Even if my father had believed me, he wouldn’t have been able to prove a thing. “I should have tried.”
Renee pulled back to look at me. “Even if you had, you think Sam would have been any different?”
Would he? Would Sam have been a good husband or father? Even if I’d seen it was him on the track that day, even if I’d been able to prove it, would it have stopped him? The killing would have started when he was released, wouldn’t it? Was he always destined to be evil? Were some folks just born that way?
“I guess we’ll never know.”
Renee led me back to the car. “All you can do is deal with what did happen. It’s not going to go away today or tomorrow. Scars take time to heal and sometimes even then, they still show.”
I got into the passenger seat. “My mother said you had scars.”
Renee’s knuckles turned white as she gripped the wheel. I wanted to say sorry, that I hadn’t meant nothing by it but she took a few breaths and nodded. “Can I just say that I know what you’re going through and I’m going to be there every step of the way?”
I hated how much the past had hurt her. I hated that someone or something had wounded her so bad. “It’s probably the best thing you could say.”
Renee started the car, and I closed my eyes as we headed down the dirt track. I guessed one last time to look at the place, even in such a state, was best. I did worry about Mrs. Squirrel too. She kind of liked living indoors and popping in and out.
Hell, Nan must be raging at me for trashing generations of hard work.
Renee stopped the car, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to open my eyes. I didn’t know how to feel. I felt so unstable, like a weather vane in a tornado, swinging around in circles from one emotion to the next until I was numb from the exhaustion.
Renee squeezed my knee. “Come on, help me. It’ll be quicker.”
I took a deep breath and opened my eyes.
Now, I don’t cuss much but a long line of them fell from my lips as I looked at the cabin.
“Nice,” Renee shot at me. “Very ladylike.”
“How?” I got out of the car, my jaw although wired up, felt like it was dragging on the ground. “When . . . How?”
Renee took my hand and walked me to the door. She opened it and we walked inside. I blinked around in astonishment. It was as modern and done out as a model home, like the ones I’d seen in magazines.
“Look at that!” I walked to the range cooker in the middle, the set out so different yet so homey and . . . well, fancy.
I ran up the stairs and wandered around in shock. The floors were divided up, partitioned out in some places, the paint smell lingered in my nostrils, the shock, the awe flooded my veins. I found where my old bed had been. Now it was a large room, new windows, big windows looking out across the fields at the back.
At the foot of the biggest bed I’ve ever seen was Nan’s trunk. It had been spruced up same as the rest of the place.
“I . . . How?”
Renee led me out of the cabin and I stopped to look at the wheel, working just fine, the creaking sucked me back into my childhood. No wonder Nan had loved it so much. It reminded me of her, it reminded me of how much I missed her.
“Thanks, Nan,” I whispered, getting a gentle breeze tickle my arms in reply.
A scuffling drew my attention and I went to the blue box and picked up the lid. Mrs. Squirrel peered up at me. If I didn’t know any better I’d say she’d been worried. I got a lengthy sniff and a swish of her tail.
“Hey there. How’s the home?”
Mrs. Squirrel dug about a little and I noticed a round hole in the wall. “What’s that?”
“Tunnel, into a box in the house—for the winter,” Renee said behind me.
Mrs. Squirrel looked up as if to affirm Renee’s words. I smiled when I saw some furry things wriggling in the corner.
“I’ll leave you in peace,” I whispered, closing the lid.
“Come on, round the back,” Renee said.
I frowned. Huh? “Of the cabin?”
She rolled her eyes. “Where else,
Dimwit
?”
I followed her around the corn store . . . “Sweet Blackbear in a box!”
The tears erupted from me. I cried so hard that my breath shuddered, my shoulders juddered. I couldn’t control it.
Renee took my arm. “Hey, it’s okay. You want to leave?”
I bent and waved off the concerned looks from all the people sitting in party hats. I
couldn’t
cry twenty minutes ago. Now I couldn’t stop.
“I’ll be fine . . . I just . . . I’d forgotten.”
Renee rubbed my back in soothing circles. “Happy birthday, Aeron.”
I was crying so hard. Why the hell was I crying? That’s it, I was losing it. I must have looked completely crazy. Picturing myself hunched over and wailing, I started laughing at myself. Heck, if people hadn’t thought I was crazy before, they sure must think it now.
“Just take deep breaths . . . Slow, deep breaths.”
I did as Renee told me, feeling some kind of sense return to me.
I glanced up at her. “I’ve never had a party.”
My mother and father waved at me, they looked so happy, like liquid joy was spraying out from them in all directions.
Oh, heck, they looked so sweet. My eyes blurred with more tears. They were gonna take me back to Serenity, I knew it.
Two familiar girls ducked into my view in party dresses, holding gifts.
“Happy birthday,” the taller girl said and nudged the younger one who nodded. “Happy birthday, Ire-yon.”