“It’s the eyes. I will say, Juliet was always kind to me, but whenever I spoke to her, I always felt like she was looking right through me. Such a pity for the poor children, to lose their mother so young.” Mrs. Tripplehorn clucks her tongue.
“So much sickness and death in that family, now that I think of it. It almost seems to follow them around.”
You’re wrong, I think. Mother always said how she was barely sick a day in her life as a child. “I saw her once,” Mrs. Tripplehorn continues, “with that strange boy. Do you remember?”
I hold my breath. A strange boy. They must mean Stefen.
“Oh, yes. The one in the wheelchair? I’d almost completely forgotten that. He was so gaunt, always something wrong with him. Such a poor, odd little thing, wasn’t he? I wonder whatever happened to him.”
“Aila, what are you doing crouching in the corner like that?” Mrs. Mackelroy says, a little too loudly. She sways, as if she can’t quite keep her balance. The women clam up at the sound of Mrs. Mackelroy’s voice and exchange knowing looks, then change the subject.
“Nothing,” I say, standing. “Just minding my own business.” I gather the folds of my dress and turn for the stairs. “You might try it sometime.”
“My, my,” Mrs. Mackelroy titters. “Lovely to see you, too, dear.” She drains the rest of her champagne flute. As I’m climbing the stairs, she asks no one in particular, “Now, where did that charming fellow go with all the cocktail shrimp?”
I climb the stairs and leave the bright, humming noise of the party for the darkened shadows of the hallway.
I’ve reached my door when I hear footsteps behind me. I whirl around at the touch of a hand on my arm.
Will.
Oh.
“Is everything all right?” I watch his lips form the words. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Of course not,” I say quickly.
“Then why are you avoiding me? I’ve hardly seen you in weeks, and just now I was almost yelling for you.”
I swallow. Mind clicking, and clicking. “I—”
There’s a flicker in him at the first hint of realization. His smile tilts up, briefly. “Are you—?you can’t . . .” his lips say, trailing off, his eyes wide and unsure. The air around me is humming. I take the deepest breath, fill my lungs with it. I can’t hide it anymore. So I shrug and tell him everything there ever was with the smallest shake of my head.
“Aila,” he says. Takes a step toward me. Hesitates. My heartbeat is a breaking wave, climbing, crashing.
Then he leans down and kisses me.
His mouth is warm and soft, and my heart leaps up to graze my breastbone, and everything inside of me begins to bloom and glow and hum, and I kiss him back, first softly and then more, more, bringing my hand up to touch that place on his neck the way I’ve always wanted to, for all the times I’ve wanted to draw him to me and all the words I’ve wanted to say, and I can feel his breath hitch, his heartbeat exploding between us.
We pull away and flush, push into my room, close the door silently behind us, my skin lighting and tingling as he touches my elbow, grazes the curve of my waist. He motions for a piece of paper and then writes, “I can’t hear you either.”
I read the words over and over, my heart bursting. “Since when???” I write.
He smiles and scrawls, “Awhile.”
“I’ve been hiding from you,” I write back.
We cover the pad with notes: “I found what you did at my mother’s house.” “What are we going to do? No one can know, my parents might send you back to Gardner.” We can hear the murmur of the party below us, Miles’s footsteps on the stairs, and Will folds his hand into mine.
“I have to go,” he mouths.
“You have to go,” I repeat, but instead he leans and whispers in my ear; secret words I’ll never know, that fall and melt, his breath light as snowflakes when it touches my skin. And I am happiness, and joy, and soaring, and heat. I run fingertips across the ridge of his cheekbones, the sharp curve of his jaw, and confess to the air, “I would do it all again to get to this moment with you.”
And then he is laughing, his eyes shining like they’ve been lit with fire, and he looks at me as though he can’t quite believe it when I bring my lips to his one more time.
Chapter Forty-Eight
An egg that’s been cracked is irreparably broken.
And it means the birth of something new.
Death is not quiet or peaceful, but filled with horrible sounds.
I’m summoned to Phineas’s room by a cough that doesn’t end. It just becomes wetter and thicker until he is choking on it. I call for the doctor to come. Phineas’s eyes grow wide and panicked, but he forces himself to calm and gather his breath.
His room is stark and gray, but he is surrounded by his books. His maps. And me.
I am glad that he is not alone. I am glad that I found him, and that he let me.
“Stefen,” he says. His eyes are focusing and unfocusing again, as if he’s not sure it’s me. “I gave my whole life for that one Stone.”
I know this story, at least the parts he’s told me before, and I’ve guessed the rest of it. But he’s delirious. Maybe he thinks this is his last confession. Maybe he’s seeking comfort.
So I will help him tell it. I want him to know that the ending will turn out all right.
“I heard rumors of it,” he says, his breath laboring. “A Stone, rumored to have power to heal. Protect”—?he wheezes—?“life.”
“Yes. It was coming from England. You went to meet the ship at port.”
“Most people thought it was . . . nonsense . . . But your mother was dying. I would have done anything.”
“So you borrowed the money,” I say, touching his hand, “to get it for my mother.”
“More than I could ever pay back in a lifetime.” His skin is as colorless as a Sterling door. “I should have realized how anxious the seller was to get rid of it. Should have walked away when he made his final terms.” He erupts in a coughing fit.
“The doctor is coming,” I say. “Soon.”
He shakes his head. “Everyone else dropped out when he brought out the second box. ‘Package deal,’ he said. ‘You take this with the Stone or you take nothing.’ At first I thought it was a hatbox.” He almost laughs. “But it was as heavy as lead.”
“No one else was willing to take it. But you didn’t back down,” I say. I bring a glass of water to his cracked lips.
“What did I care?” He swallows, choking the water down. “My hands were already dirty. It’s almost as if it was meant for me. I took the Stone. Took the box. The seller was so nervous. Made me swear I’d hide it well enough so no one would ever find it. So I scattered its contents on the way back. Buried them deep, in three different places. But when I got home . . .”
It was too late. My mother had died in childbirth.
“And then,”—?he rakes the handkerchief across his mouth—?“I got sloppy.” He closes his eyes wearily.
“I was young,” I say, keeping my voice even. “I don’t remember when the police came for you. I don’t remember going to live with Eleanor.”
“I left the Stone with Eleanor. In case you needed money.”
“And now you’ve left the maps,” I say.