Betrayal Page 5

  He took a steadying breath. “Yes, I recognized you. The lady in the tapestry is legendary, Emma. And you not only share her ancestry, but her name.”

  I didn’t want to ask my next question, but I had to know. “Did the Knell tell you to pretend to be in love with me, so I’d do what they wanted? Is this all a lie?”

  “No.” He took my hands. “Emma, ever since I met you, I knew I shouldn’t care for you. But I did—even then. I couldn’t help how I felt. The last thing the Knell wants is for us to be in love. They think I’ve betrayed them. But I’m sorry, there are powers stronger than ghostkeeping.”

  I felt my heart loosen as I stared at our interlocked hands. “I just want to touch you.”

  “Me, too,” he said, his voice rough.

  I was suddenly aware of my nakedness under my robe. “Couldn’t we … just once?”

  He brought my hands to his lips. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “I want to be with you. I want to be who we really are, a girl and a boy who fell in love. For one night, can’t we pretend there are no wraiths and no deaths? I want to be a normal girl, who’s not worried about anything except if her boyfriend is going to kiss her everywhere she wants to be kissed.”

  He exhaled, and his warm breath caressed my fingers—then he pulled me into his lap. I felt his hands, rough and strong on my skin. He kissed my neck and my ear and whispered, “Yes.”

  I touched him, wanting to hold onto every inch of him, forever.

  “Just once.” He brushed his lips across my eyelids. “I love you.”

  And I closed my eyes, overcome by a wave of love and desire and the aching need to be everything for him.

  He lifted me into his arms and said, “Where else do you want to be kissed?”

  Later, as we lay entwined, he said, “It’s not that I don’t want to.” He ran a fingertip across my brow. “It’s just that once won’t be enough.”

  I looked into his bright blue eyes and cuddled closer. “This is perfect.”

  5

  Bennett was gone when I woke the next morning. We’d fallen asleep together, and for the first time since my parents’ disappearance, I’d felt safe. Now I snuggled with the empty space where he’d been, trying to recapture the feeling.

  He knocked at the door as I finished dressing, and I found him in the hallway holding two steaming cups. He handed me one, and I smelled a red-eye chai. I smiled and rose on tiptoes to kiss him, but he brushed past me into the room.

  “The train leaves in half an hour,” he said. “You ready?”

  My heart sank. The old Bennett was back, the cold, impenetrable Bennett who always tried to live up to his last name: Stern.

  “Everything’s changed,” I said. “Can we talk about what happened last night?”

  “There’s nothing to say.”

  “Well, what’re we going to do?” We couldn’t go back to not touching each other.

  “What is there to do? You said it yourself, you fell in love with a ghostkeeper. That’s what I am.” He looked me in the eye. “That’s what I’ll always be.”

  I felt like he’d slapped me. If he planned to stay a ghostkeeper, that meant he couldn’t be with me. That meant he didn’t want to be with me—even after last night.

  I couldn’t deal with it. I didn’t know how to talk to him without getting more hurt, so I turned my back and breathed until I was sure I wouldn’t start crying. Then I focused on packing my suitcase. Bennett waited in the hall as my gaze swept the room one last time. It looked so ordinary, even though everything was different—at least for me. I saw the rumpled bedsheets and blinked away tears of humiliation and disappointment. How could I have thought everything was perfect when Bennett didn’t feel the same? My red-eye chai sat untouched on the dresser as I shut the door, and left that room behind me forever.

  We walked to the train station. I didn’t see the buildings around me. I didn’t see the cars in the street. I was blind and numb and empty.

  But deep inside, I felt a flicker of hope. I knew he was scared, but he couldn’t give me the silent treatment for the whole train trip. We’d talk, we’d figure this out. Even if we couldn’t be together right now, we could go back to the way things were before. Not touching, but still happy with each other. Still in love.

  Except when we got to the platform, he pulled out the ticket. One ticket.

  “Where’s yours?” I said.

  “I’m not going back with you.”

  Blood rushed to my head. “What? Why not?”

  “I’m needed here.”

  “You’re needed there. We need you. I need you.”

  “Emma, I can’t—don’t you see?” he said desperately. “Everything has changed. I can’t go back to not touching you. I can’t look at you without wanting to …” He shook his head. “I can’t live with you in Echo Point and not sneak into your bedroom every night. I can’t watch you giggling with Natalie or playing marbles with Nicholas or sighing over one of Anatole’s croissants and not want to kiss you. I can’t.”

  “I won’t do those things. I’ll—”

  “I can’t even think—” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Just standing with you in a train station, looking like you want to cry, and I can’t think.”

  “We can make it work. I promise, we’ll—”

  “No, Emma. It’s impossible.”

  “Impossible? We slay ghosts, Bennett.”

  “That’s just it. I’m good; I’m one of the best dispellers there is. Whenever there was a truly nasty ghast, the Knell sent me out.”

  “I know how strong you are; I’ve seen you in action. You saved me from Neos once.”

  “That was before I let myself touch you. I’m losing my powers, Emma. I can feel it already. I woke up this morning and … it’s already happening, and we didn’t even— you’re too much. What happens if I’m with you, and I can’t hold myself back? I might lose my ability to dispel, and how would I explain that to my parents—I can’t find my sister’s killer because I’m in love? It’s over, Emma. I’m sorry, but I can’t do this.”

  The finality in his voice stole my words. I just stood there watching him through tear-blurred eyes. The train pulled in, and the screeching of the brakes echoed the weeping in my head.

  Bennett helped me board, lugging my suitcase into the compartment overhead. He was right; everything he said was true. I had no solution, I had no clue. I didn’t know anything except this: he loved me, and I loved him.

  Bennett said, “Stay safe.”

  I nodded, unable to handle looking at him.

  Then he was gone.

  The train pulled from the station, and I didn’t bother checking outside to see if he was watching. No romantic, lingering looks for us. No blown kisses, no promises to meet again. No nothing.

  I froze all the way back to Echo Point, shivering in my wool coat even though the train was heated, hating the gray November sky and barren New England landscape. Wishing I was back in California—before my parents disappeared, before my best friend, Abby, deserted me, before Bennett had walked back into my life, and before I’d ever heard the word ghostkeeping.

  But I didn’t cry. Not until the train pulled into Boston and I saw Natalie waiting for me at the station, concern etched into her face. Bennett had obviously called and prepared her. I stumbled from the train and fell into her arms, weeping.

  We took a taxi back to Echo Point. Natalie cradled me as I explained everything to her, not caring that the driver could overhear. “He hates me,” I said.

  “He doesn’t hate you, Emma. Just the opposite.”

  “It’s all my fault,” I said. “If I’d just let him go to his own room …”

  “Emma, stop blaming yourself. It was inevitable. There’s nothing you could’ve done differently.”

  I took a deep, shuddering breath. “Why doesn’t that help?”

  “Because it’s still a heartache. And nothing makes you want to die more than that.”

  Whe
n I woke on Wednesday, a sparky little fire was blazing in the fireplace in my bedroom, no doubt thanks to Nicholas. All my clothes were put away, and Celeste had hung my clean uniform on the wardrobe door. I glanced at the clock on the mantel, and buried my head under the covers.

  I’d taken two days off from school, and was going to take a third. I couldn’t face Harry and Sara and all the other kids who blamed me for Coby’s death. Not this week. Not after losing Bennett. This week was for wallowing in self-pity, eating junk food, and sleeping myself into oblivion.

  I lay in the overheated darkness until a knock sounded at my window. I peeked from under the covers and saw Coby hovering outside.

  When he saw me, he shimmered into existence beside my bed.

  You’re getting good at that, I said, sitting up in bed.

  I’ve got a lot of time on my hands, he said.

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I started chewing on my thumbnail.

  I’ve been to my parents’, he said. You didn’t tell me they wouldn’t be able to see me.

  I— It hadn’t occurred to me that you’d think they would. They’re not ghostkeepers.

  Ghostkeepers, right. He sprawled on the chair. God, that’s so lame.

  Yeah.

  I saw Harry and Sara, he said.

  They hate me now.

  He didn’t seem to care. Harry’s drinking again.

  What?

  He starts first thing in the morning. It’s bad, Emma. Keeps a silver flask in his coat pocket.

  Damn, I said. What about Sara?

  An unreadable expression flicked across his narrow, pale face. Did you know she was in love with me?

  Yeah, I answered softly.

  You did?

  She made me promise not to hurt you, I said. Instead, I got you killed.

  How could she not tell me? If I’d known— He shook his head. It doesn’t matter. You have to help them.

  They won’t even speak to me. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

  Well, figure it out, or you’re going to have two more dead friends on your hands.

  With that parting shot, he dematerialized. Had he only come to make me feel guilty? If so, it had worked.

  I huddled under the covers again. I didn’t want to think about Harry and Sara or Coby’s parents. I didn’t want to think about anything except Bennett. I closed my eyes and returned to that moment when he was beside me, and everything had been perfect. I imagined his eyes and his hands and the little scar on his back that a ghast had left him. I remembered his voice and mouth and the things he said that made me thrill and blush at the same time.

  But he wasn’t there. He’d left me, just like everyone else. Maybe my mother was right, and I couldn’t trust him. I let the sadness wash over me and began to cry.

  And then I must’ve fallen back asleep, because I dreamed not of Bennett, but of a woman’s face. In her early twenties, she had short dark hair, wide-set eyes, and scarlet red lipstick. Her brown eyes were deep wells of warmth and comfort, and I fell into them, like a vat of hot chocolate. Her voice soothed me like a lullaby, or the refrain of a favorite song, sweet and familiar and rhythmic.

  “Who are you?” I asked in my dream.

  A sense of warmth and security spread through me as she continued to hum. I didn’t need ghostkeepers or my ring, or my powers. I didn’t need Bennett—

  I jerked in bed and woke, like being surprised by a dream of falling. That last part had startled my conscious mind, forcing me to wake. Because it wasn’t true. I needed him. And no crazy dream was going to change that. Now, if only I could trust him.

  I lay in bed until I heard footsteps in the hall, and Natalie burst into the room. “You’re not out of bed yet?”

  “Yes, I am,” I said, from under the comforter.

  “It’s time for school.”

  “I’m not going,” I mumbled.

  She stripped the covers from the bed. “Yes, you are.”

  “Natalie!” I tried to wrestle the covers back, but she pulled them out of reach.

  “Enough’s enough. Get in the shower. Right now, young lady.”

  I curled into a fetal position. “You’re mean.”

  “It’s for your own good,” she said, tossing me my bathrobe. “I know you’re upset, but you’re not a wallower, Em.”

  “What am I, then?” I seriously didn’t know sometimes.

  “Really? I need to go into how you’ve killed wraiths and fought off Neos, the most powerful ghost anyone has ever seen? Yeah, your heart is broken, but when you get hit, you’re the girl who gets back up again.”

  We were both silent a moment as I digested this. I grumbled at her, but took a quick shower and got dressed. Natalie helped me accessorize—a major art form at Thatcher—and we headed outside in record time to walk the three blocks to school.

  I bit into the toast with peanut butter that Anatole had handed me on the way out the door.

  “One hundred sixty calories,” Natalie said.

  “What? My toast?” I shook my head. “Don’t do that. You’re going to give me a complex.”

  “I can’t help it—I was a fat twelve-year-old. The Kingdomers frowned on gluttony, and I was a rebel.”

  The Kingdomers were a religious sect that Natalie’s parents belonged to. They hated ghostkeepers—her mother had been one—and basically tried to waterboard Natalie’s summoning abilities out of her. I hated to think what kind of diet they’d put her on.

  “Well, it’s safe to eat now,” I said, handing her half my toast. She could stand to gain a few pounds.

  She looked at me hesitantly, then bit into the toast. “Yummy,” she said, through a mouthful of peanut butter.

  “The devil’s work always tastes delicious,” I said.

  As we approached the gates to Thatcher, my trepidation returned. There was Coby, sitting on the surrounding stone wall, staring morosely at the other kids as they passed by. Coby was the first person I’d met when I transferred here, and had quickly become the one friend I could always rely on. Whenever I needed him, he’d been there. We always met at these gates in the morning and walked in together. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get through school without him. Yeah, he was still here for me. But as a ghost. And no matter how much I wanted things to be the same, they weren’t.

  Natalie noticed him and smiled.

  How come she can see me? he asked.

  She’s a ghostkeeper.

  But he wasn’t paying attention. His eyes were on Sara, who was walking with Harry from the parking lot. Harry staggered on the flagstone path and Sara caught his arm. They both looked worn and tired, as though all the life had gone out of them.

  Look at Harry, Coby said. Drunk already. And Sara’s not much better. They need your help, Emma.

  “Let’s go,” I said to Natalie, ignoring Coby. I dragged her through the gates.

  “Did you talk to him?” she asked. She couldn’t hear me communicate with Coby. “Stop yanking me.”

  “Yes, I talked to him.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “Not much,” I answered.

  Emma, Coby scolded from behind me.

  They don’t want my help, I said. And I wasn’t ready to talk to them. I couldn’t be brave all the time. Hey, at least I’d shown up at school. I couldn’t confront Harry about his drinking or beg Sara for forgiveness—it was too soon; the wounds were still raw. So I turned my back to them and kept walking.

  I tried to avoid Harry, but he cornered me and Natalie in a crowd of other girls in the hallway outside of Latin.

  “Good morning, ladies,” he said, with a vulpine smile. Then added, “And Emma.”

  “Ha-ha,” Natalie said.

  “Oh, I’m extremely witty,” Harry said. “And quite the charmer.” His voice was low and measured, and not even slightly slurred—but somehow he still seemed drunk. “However, I seem to have misplaced my ability to give a crap. Perhaps you’ve seen it, Emma. I called it Coby.”

  “You�
��re not the only one who misses him,” Natalie said.

  “But Emma is the only one who misplaced him.” He tsked at me. “Very clumsy.”

  “I didn’t—” I felt my face redden. “I loved him, too, Harry. I wish—I wish none of this ever happened.”

  “If wishes were horses, Emma, you’d still be the bitch who killed my best friend.” He turned to Natalie. “So, are you going to sit with me, or with QBK?”

  “QBK?” Natalie said. “What’s that?”

  “Quarterback Killer. Catchy, don’t you think?”

  I swallowed. “It’s okay; you can sit with him. It doesn’t matter,” I mumbled. “Your life is going to be hell if you stick with me.”

  “At least you’ve got a life,” Harry said as he pushed past us, shoving me into the door.

  “Ow,” I said, rubbing my arm.

  “Suck it up, Em,” Natalie said, with false cheer. “The fun is only beginning.”

  “Thanks.” We took our seats. “Martha told me you’d be a true friend. I doubt she realized how much I’d need you.”

  The teacher closed the door and crossed to the front of the room, firing questions at us in Latin.

  “Ego requiro suus.”1 Natalie whispered.

  “Mihi quoque.”2

  After Latin, I shuffled off to my next class, staring at the ground, trying to avoid the accusatory glances and the “accidental” bumps.

  Trig was the hardest; I dreaded seeing Coby’s empty desk beside mine. But when I entered the classroom, I discovered him in his old seat.

  Really? I plopped down next to him. Trig’s the last place I’ll go when I’m dead.

  I didn’t come for the math.

  For what, then? My charming personality?

  He didn’t look amused. You talk to Harry yet?

  Yeah, he’s got a new nickname for me. QBK.

  Coby thought for a second, then snorted in his ghostly way. He’s a mean drunk. Always was. He called me Cheese for six months.

  Why Cheese?

  Because I hated it. He quieted for a minute, watching Mr. Sakolsky write a problem on the board. Emma, he needs you.