“Locate the source of the bleeding and apply pressure around it.” Alex’s voice was low and quick.
“I’m scared to touch him! What if I make it worse?”
“Trust me,” he said. “I trained for the military before becoming a painter and a disgrace to my family.”
“But…”
“Hurry! Before he suffers any more blood loss.”
“I need something to use as a bandage!” I cried out to the nearest person. Someone shoved a wad of clean napkins into my hand. I fought back a wave of dizziness as I bent closer to the grisly wound so that I could locate the exact spot the blood was spurting from. I covered it with the fabric and used the tips of my fingers to gently apply pressure, careful to avoid contact with the metal spike in case I pushed it in farther. Within seconds, blood covered my fingers. I wiped them hastily on my shirt, leaving a crimson handprint on the crisp white fabric. I discovered that blood had a distinct coppery smell.
The spectators watched on, clutching one another in silence. The only sound was the occasional choked sob. The greatest casualty of all was lying in front of us, and the knowledge that I had brought this fate on him was almost too much to bear. Why hadn’t I realized this would happen the moment I kissed Alex? Had I thought Isobel wouldn’t see? She saw everything. The truth was, I’d been too caught up in the moment to use common sense. And so had Alex. The worst part was that all this destruction had been intended for me and me alone. But Joe had stepped in at the last minute, sabotaging Isobel’s plan and taking the brunt of her wrath.
Joe’s eyelids fluttered and he momentarily regained consciousness. A soft moan escaped his lips.
“Joe!” I resisted the urge to hug him. “Can you hear me?”
He blinked and seemed to have difficulty focusing his eyes. “Chloe?” His voice was unchanged, despite everything that had happened. “Are you okay?”
His concern for me at such a time was almost my undoing. “I’m fine.” I refused to let my voice crack. I didn’t want him to see how afraid I was. If I could convince both of us that everything would be all right, then maybe it would be. Wasn’t that the idea behind positive thinking? “You’re going to be fine,” I said, willing myself to believe it. “Don’t try to move. Help is on the way.” I attempted a smile to show him there was no need to worry, although the sight of his broken body and the sticky blood between my fingers told a different story. “Does it hurt?”
“Actually, I can’t feel a thing,” he said. “But I’m glad you’re here.”
Before I could respond, his head lolled and he lapsed into unconsciousness again. I stayed by his side, eyes locked on the shallow rise and fall of his chest until I heard the sound of sirens screaming up the driveway. It was a relief to see the paramedics walk in and take charge, but I wished they’d move faster. They ushered everyone out of the way calmly. The chandelier was so heavy, it took both of them plus the assistance of several strong guys to shift it.
“Never seen anything like this,” one of them muttered as he bent over Joe, checking his vitals. “Blood pressure’s falling. Let’s get him out of here.”
Quickly but carefully they maneuvered Joe onto a stretcher. As they did, the silver chain slipped from inside his shirt. I caught it right before it hit the ground and turned the dog tag over in my hand. The inscription read: It Will Be Golden and Eternal. I didn’t know why, but the words brought a surge of emotion rushing forth. I gritted my teeth to fend off the tears. Now wasn’t the time to fall apart.
As they wheeled him outside, I saw a crowd gathered on the lawn. The incandescent fairy lights had fallen to the ground and were being trampled underfoot. The billowing canopy that had reminded me of a dream castle was now a ruin of shredded canvas. Overwrought parents were beginning to arrive in their prestigious cars. I caught sight of Mrs. Rochester surrounded by an angry mob, a barrage of questions and accusations flying like daggers. In those few minutes, I heard the words lawyers and lawsuit more times than I could count.
I glanced over my shoulder to see Rory standing in the doorway of the house, tucked under Grandma Fee’s arm. He looked so lost I felt my heart snap in two. Joe was like the big brother he’d never had. How much more loss could the poor kid handle? Grandma Fee was talking rapidly under her breath into the phone, but her eyes were fixed on Joe’s body. I knew how fond she was of him.
“Are you family?” I realized the paramedic was talking to me. Through all the commotion, I had somehow managed to stick by Joe’s side.
“Yes,” I lied without hesitation. I wasn’t going to abandon him now. “I’m his sister.”
He helped me into the back of the ambulance and slammed the doors behind us. Through the glass panel, I caught sight of a lone figure, standing at the edge of the fray. It was Alex, head bowed and shoulders slumped. I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking the exact same thing.
There was no fight left in us after tonight, no need for further strategies.
It was over. Isobel had won.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Joe was still unconscious when we got to the hospital. I clambered out of the ambulance to find his ashen-faced parents hovering outside emergency.
“Joe!” His mother stepped forward, both hands flying to her mouth when she saw him. I noticed his father had eyes the exact same shade of chartreuse green. He was battling to keep his emotions in check. The paramedics didn’t give them a second glance, wheeling Joe straight into the E.R. without time for explanations.
“Mr. and Mrs. Parrish?” I said tentatively. “You don’t know me, but my name is Chloe Kennedy and—”
“Of course we know you,” his father replied before I could finish. “Joe never stops talking about you.”
“Really?” I felt a pang in my chest and a surge of guilt that threatened to drag me under. Joe’s mother smiled through her tears.
“You must be very special.”
I sat with Joe’s parents in the waiting room for what seemed like hours. I couldn’t block the memories that crept up on me of the last time I’d been in a hospital. My world had crumpled around me then like it was made of paper. The same sense of impending doom engulfed me now, but I focused on emptying my mind of all negative thoughts. He’s going to be okay. He’s going to be okay. I repeated the mantra over and over in my head. I even tried praying to the man upstairs. I wasn’t sure he existed, but I wanted to cover all my bases.
Before long, the waiting room began to fill with parents and injured kids. There was a girl with a broken elbow, a boy with a nasty contusion across his face and a multitude of others with cut lips, sprains and fractures. In the stark surrounds of the hospital, the dresses that had looked dazzling only hours earlier were now dirty and bedraggled. The small county hospital with its meager night staff was not equipped to deal with the sudden influx of injuries. One of the fathers was pacing like a caged lion. He approached the nurses’ station.
“When is someone going to see to my daughter?” the man demanded, and a chorus of parents joined in to express their combined outrage. The overwhelmed nurse shrank back at her desk.
“We’re doing everything we can,” she said meekly.
When Joe’s doctor finally emerged, I was the first to leap to my feet.
“How is he?” Mrs. Parrish clasped her hands together like she was praying.
The doctor tucked his clipboard under one arm and straightened his tie. I realized I’d been nervously chewing the inside of my lip because it felt rough and ragged now. “Your son has a severed artery, several broken ribs and a punctured lung,” the doctor told us.
“What does that mean?” Mr. Parrish’s voice was wiped of all emotion.
“He’s going to need surgery,” the doctor replied. “But if all goes well, he should make a full recovery.”
Mrs. Parrish expressed her relief by letting o
ut a sound like a strangled bird and collapsing against her husband.
Even though I knew Joe was in good hands, I couldn’t bring myself to leave the hospital. They didn’t want to move him, so they called in a surgeon from a city hospital. It was a four-hour procedure to repair the damage. When they brought him back to the ward, I hovered outside, keeping vigil. We weren’t allowed to see him yet, not until his condition was stable enough. I used the hospital pay phone to call Gran and make sure she was okay. I’d never heard her sound more despondent. She said they were busy cleaning up and Harry would come to collect me in a few hours.
I didn’t feel right leaving my family unattended with Isobel on the loose, but at the same time, I couldn’t abandon Joe. I could see him through the little pane of glass in the door. He looked so vulnerable, hooked up to a plethora of tubes and monitors. For some reason, my thoughts kept returning to the horses at Grange Hall. Joe was the only one who worked in the stables and nobody could calm the horses the way he did. Who would tend to them with him gone?
Around 2:00 a.m. I went to get a drink from the vending machine. An unearthly quiet hung over the corridors. The clink of the coins as I dropped them into the slot seemed exaggeratedly loud. In my peripheral vision, I caught sight of a figure sitting in the now-empty waiting room. I knew it was Alex by the way he held himself, stiff and upright with the straight fall of gold across his face. I glanced around, but there was nobody in sight except a lone nurse at the end of the hall, engrossed in a mountain of paperwork. I walked over and slid quietly into the seat next to him.
“Alex, how did you get here?”
“I had to see you.”
“But I thought you couldn’t leave Grange Hall.”
“I can only haunt the places I was connected to in life,” he replied, neglecting to elaborate further. “How’s your friend?”
“He’s not in great shape, but I think he’s going to be okay.”
Alex didn’t seem to take comfort from my words. “This could have been averted.”
“I know,” I said, fixing my eyes on the ground. “I didn’t think about the consequences.”
“I came to you, Chloe,” he replied. “I am the one to blame.”
“We shouldn’t beat ourselves up,” I said. “Isobel’s the crazy one here. We didn’t actually do anything wrong.”
I reached out to take his hand, but to my surprise, he rose from his seat, intentionally putting distance between us. The hurt I felt must have been obvious.
“Chloe, I came because I must speak with you.” I didn’t like the ominous ring in his voice. It sounded like the nineteenth-century version of we need to talk.
“I’m listening,” I said apprehensively.
“What happened tonight changes everything,” Alex said. “Surely you must know that.”
“Changes everything how?” I asked, but I knew what was coming.
“I have no choice, Chloe,” he said. “My presence has brought only grief to you and your loved ones.”
“None of this is your fault.”
“We will have to agree to disagree on that point,” he said. “But I know one thing…it is within my power to prevent more harm from occurring. It would be unbelievably selfish of me not to do so.”
“What are you saying?”
“I have to disappear from your life.” There was a resolution in his voice I’d never heard before. “You must not look for me or ask me to return. That will only make things harder for both of us.” He could see the heartbreak in my eyes, but he struggled on.
“Where will you go?”
“You need not concern yourself with that, Chloe. Just know that it’s the right thing to do. Perhaps this is my chance to redeem past mistakes.”
“But I thought we were…” I couldn’t find the words to finish. How could he walk away so easily?
“What?” He turned his eyes up to the ceiling and his tone became harsh. “What could we possibly be? Forget me, Chloe.”
“I can’t.” I heard my voice crack.
“It will get easier with time. You’ll see.”
“Why are you saying all this now?” I burst out. “I know things are bad, but why can’t we keep fighting? We don’t have to give up.” I’d considered doing the same thing myself on plenty of occasions, just throwing in the towel and walking away from it all. But now that the idea was about to become reality, I couldn’t go through with it.
“Listen.” Alex leaned forward and locked his fingers together. “When you touched me last night, something happened. For those brief moments, I felt alive again.”
I inched closer to him, challenging his decision. “And that’s bad because…”
“Because I’m not alive. Nothing can ever change that.”
By now I was feeling pretty strung out. Too much had happened in one night. I didn’t have the reserves to cope with any more stress and my patience was wearing thin.
“You know what I think?” I snapped. “I think you want to run away because deep down you prefer your twisted relationship with Isobel!”
Through the doors, I saw the nurse glance up, alerted by my raised voice. I dropped it a few octaves. “I think you never got over her. You don’t want to move on. You like your tortured existence.”
Alex fixed me with a solemn stare. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
“Then prove it!” I cried. “Don’t bail on me now. Stay so we can deal with this together.”
For a moment I thought I’d gotten through to him. He looked almost on the verge of changing his mind. But then he dropped his gaze and shook his head. I read the message loud and clear: he was walking away, and whatever bond I believed held us together had broken. After tonight, I would never see him again.
“Chloe, you have a whole life to live. Mine is a half-life, lurking in shadows, trapped by the past. I have nothing but an illusion to offer. I won’t ruin the life of someone I love.”
Love. Had I heard right? Had Alex just admitted to loving me? Did it really matter either way? It was still going to be followed by a devastating blow.
“Goodbye, Chloe,” he said. “I hope you’ll think of me fondly from time to time.”
“Alex, wait! Please don’t go!” But he was already fragmenting before my eyes, leaving only the scent of rain in the woods and a slight shimmer on the plastic seat.
I couldn’t believe what had just happened. If I never saw Alexander Reade again, there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. I was entirely at his mercy. I stood up, blinded by tears, and kicked over a chair. The nurse from the station appeared in the doorway, frowning.
“Is everything okay in here?”
“Sorry.” I wiped my eyes on the back of my sleeve. “Just clumsy, I guess.”
“That’s okay.” She smiled sympathetically. “I know you kids have had a rough night. But on the upside, your brother is stable now. He’s going to be fine. You can see him if you like.”
I followed the nurse back to Joe’s room, where I found him staring blearily at the television blaring above his head.
“You’re awake!” I cried.
“Indoor voice, dear,” the nurse told me as she jotted notes on her clipboard. Joe turned his neck and for a split second he looked at me without recognition. I felt my stomach plummet. Then his cracked lips broke into a smile.
“Chloe…” His voice was uneven from the meds. “You came!”
“I never left,” I answered. “How do you feel?”
“Better, now that I’ve seen you.”
“Did you hear the good news?” I asked. “You’re going to be all right.” Joe tried to shake his head but immediately grimaced from the stiches in his neck. “Careful,” I warned. “That’s going to hurt for a while. You need to take care of yourself.”
“I just wish I knew
what happened. Feels like I got run over by a bus. Was I?”
“You don’t remember anything?” I couldn’t believe it. “Joe, a chandelier fell on you.”
“Really?” His eyes widened. “Cool.”
“No, not cool,” I replied. “You could have been killed.”
“But I’m still alive…which essentially makes me Batman.”
I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. “Pretty much.” I winked.
“So how did that happen?”
My smile froze on my face. How much should I tell him? He was still weak and hopped up on pain meds. Would he even remember this conversation tomorrow?
“Don’t worry about that,” I said. “You just focus on getting better.”
“Thanks for being here, Chloe.” Joe’s eyelids were already drooping.
I fished his necklace from my pocket, where I’d put it for safekeeping, and cupped his head in my hands, gingerly slipping it over the bandages. Then I leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. “Where else would I be?”
About an hour later, Harry came to take me back to Grange Hall. Snow had fallen overnight and my waitress outfit offered next to nothing in terms of warmth. I slid gratefully into the heated leather seat and watched the hospital recede through the tinted window.
“How’s Gran doing?”
“You know her,” Harry replied. “Nothing can knock that woman down.”
“Have they worked out what happened yet?” I asked tentatively.
“They’re saying it was some sort of freak wind.” He rolled his eyes.
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“Well, for a freak wind, it was pretty selective,” he replied. “It looks like a bomb went off in the ballroom, but the rest of the house escaped untouched. That doesn’t add up.”
“Weird,” I agreed flatly.
We pulled into the driveway of Grange Hall, and I saw that the cleanup operation was already under way. A group of volunteers was scattered across the lawn, picking up bits of broken crockery and sweeping paths that were littered with glass and plaster. A Dumpster had been delivered, and it was filling quickly with rubble and furniture broken beyond repair. I’d never seen my grandmother in jeans and a sweatshirt before. A scarf covered her hair as she crouched on the porch, holding a dustpan and brush. Rory appeared as I stepped out of the car. He was gnawing at a hangnail, and I sensed he couldn’t bring himself to ask the question on his mind.