I shake my head. This has to stop. I can’t go to pieces every time I see his face. I have to pull it together, be a good influence, make sure he commits to the love of his life and lives happily ever after.
“Hey, what’s up?” I ask, managing a semi-normal tone.
“Hey.” He stands up, fan brush in hand. “I came to help. If that’s cool?”
I nod, try to smile. “Sure. That’s great.” It is. This is the perfect chance to make sure he knows I’m on Team Ben and Gemma, and maybe find some way to help make things better between them.
“I couldn’t work art into my schedule, but the teacher said Ariel could probably use some help finishing the sets for the play. I figured that was you, so … yeah.…” He smiles. “You paint all these by yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re crazy good.”
I blush, even though most of the work isn’t mine. “Thanks. You like to paint?”
“I live to paint,” he says. “But I don’t want to mess anything up. If you don’t—”
“No, I can definitely use some help,” I say. “And Gemma will love that you’re here. She’s onstage right now, but—”
“Yeah. I know. I heard.” He turns, pulls another brush from the water and dries it on my towel. “That was cool of you to cover for her like that. I’d wet myself if I had to get up in front of a bunch of people.”
I shrug and crouch down beside him to grab my palette, watching him mix cadmium white and a hint of yellow on his. “It’s only for one night.”
“It’s still cool.” He lifts his brush but hesitates before touching it to the flat. “Do you mind if I do some highlights on this side?”
“No. I mean, yeah, that’s fine.” I eye the area in question. His instincts are dead on. The bricks need something to counter the dark shadows I added. My respect for his skill grows as he works, adding texture and depth with deft touches of his brush.
“So I have a favor to ask,” he says, visibly relaxing as he paints. I remember feeling like that, like the brush in your hand is a magic wand that banishes every care, leaches the worries from the day. “Come to dinner at my house tonight. My brother wants to meet you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. He was pissed when I came in late last night and he saw the broken window. He doesn’t believe I was rescuing a damsel in distress,” he says. “So I think you should come to dinner, show him your damselishness.”
“My damselishness?”
He grins his crooked grin. “You’ll like my family, and even if you hate them you’ll love dinner. My sister-in-law is making ribs.” He pauses, catching my eye. “You eat meat, right?”
“Yeah.” Just the thought of ribs makes my mouth water. I missed lunch, and I’ve been so hungry since entering Ariel’s body.
“So you have to come. Her ribs are crack for meat eaters.”
I shoot him a look. “Sounds dangerous.”
“Nah, I’ll help you get your fix if you get addicted. She makes them all the time. My brother loves them, and she says food is the secret to a happy marriage.”
“Food is the secret to a happy life.” My stomach growls in agreement, making Ben laugh.
“See, you should come.”
Ariel’s mom is working late, so it isn’t as if anyone’s waiting for me at home, and spending more time with Ben and Gemma is definitely a good idea. “Okay,” I say. “As long as Gemma doesn’t mind.”
Ben’s next stroke hits too hard, leaving a clump of paint. He reaches for his palette knife to scrape it off. “Um … Gemma’s not … I didn’t ask her.”
“Why not?” What is wrong with these two? Soul mates usually can’t get enough of each other. “Are you still fighting?”
“Not really. She’s just …” He trails off with a shrug.
“Just what?”
“She’s confusing,” he says, sounding frustrated. “I mean, like, I had no idea you two were best friends. Gemma and I have been hanging out for a month and she never said a thing about you.”
Ouch. That isn’t going to make Ariel happy. “Well, I guess I’m not the most interesting person,” I say, my joking tone falling flat.
“I think you’re interesting. Best friends are always interesting. Who your friends are can say a lot about a person.” Ben gives me a long look that makes my own brush feel awkward in my hand. “But you’re too skinny. You should come eat.”
“I … I’d love to.” I wish I could leave it at that, but my time will be better spent with Gemma. Whatever’s gone wrong with these two, it seems like she’s the cause. Besides, spending more time alone with Ben probably isn’t a good idea. “But I should go home and work on the understudy thing. I don’t want to embarrass myself to death tomorrow.”
“Cool. Some other time.” His tone is easy, but his shrug isn’t as loose. “But can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” I add more shadows to the bricks on my side while Ben follows with the white and yellow. We’re a good team. At this rate we’ll have the bricks finished today, and Ben will have time to work some more creative touches into the background tomorrow while I’m rehearsing.
“Did Gemma tell you anything about me? About … us or whatever?”
“Um … no.” I wish I could say something different. “She’s been private lately. We haven’t been talking as much. But I can tell she likes you.”
“Really?” he asks, keeping his attention on his work.
“Yeah. It’s obvious she cares about you.” At least, it is to me, but Ben can’t see Gemma’s aura. Still, she did kiss him this morning, before he pulled away. He has to know that—
Something dances at the edge of my sight, a blur of blue—there and gone again faster than light reflecting on the water. It’s the briefest flash, and I wouldn’t turn to look … if it weren’t for the smell that accompanies it. Rosemary and lavender, dust from a familiar field clinging to good satin, sunshine-warmed skin, and the impossible hint of sea salt, though Venice is a two day’s journey by horse.
It’s the smell of Verona, the smell of home, a scent that vibrates through my body, making my brush fall from my hand. Brown paint splatters across the floor, hitting my jeans and the bottom of the flat, leaving a mistake streaked across the bricks.
“What’s wrong?” Ben asks, but I barely hear him over the blood rushing in my ears.
I spin so fast I nearly slip and fall, hurrying after the phantom scent, chasing it farther backstage, pushing aside thick red curtains that smell of damp and dust. But not the dust of home. That smell is gone, snatched away by sour water sitting in yellowed buckets marked Processed Cheese and Thousand Island Dressing and—
Another flash in the dark, royal blue slipping into the women’s dressing room, the one Mr. Stark said was closed until they could patch the holes in the roof. It’s a girl. She’s moving slower now, slow enough for me to catch a glimpse of her fingers as they curl around the door, pulling it closed behind her. The smell comes again, mixed with honeyed bread and milk, triggering a pain in my stomach so strong it nearly makes me cry out. I remember licking that smell from my fingers, when I was small and Nurse would sneak a treat up to my room before supper. No other honey tastes like the honey from home, no other honey in the world.
I run to the door, pulse beating at my wrists and throat, and fling it open. What I see in the mirrors across the room makes my head spin, blurring the features of the girl in the reflection, twisting her open mouth into a bizarre half-moon.
But blurry vision or not, I can see the reddish-brown curls that fall nearly to the girl’s waist, the wide, dark eyes that peer back into mine, the olive skin with cheeks pink from too much time in the sun.
It is … me. Myself. The body I was born into, the one I haven’t seen in years but can never forget. No matter how hard I’ve tried.
“Love,” she says. “Now.”
The world spins faster as I stumble forward, scarcely able to walk a straight line but knowing I have to make it across the
room. I have to touch her, press my hands against the mirror and pull her through the glass. I have to—
“Ariel?” I hear Ben come through the door behind me, but I don’t stop. I can’t. I can’t lose sight of her, not for a second. No matter how dizzy I am. “Ariel, what are—” Ben breaks off as his arms wrap around my waist, holding me upright when my knees buckle. “What’s wrong?”
I fist my hands in his sweater, willing the world to steady, but it doesn’t. It reels like a child’s toy set to spin on the floor, whirling so fast I squeeze my eyes closed to shut out the blurring colors. But still my head feels wrong, my skin too small, my lips numb, my fingers cramped, cold.
Perhaps I’m dying. Perhaps that brief vision of my old self was a sign that death—real death—has come for me at last.
“Hey, you’ve gotta calm down. Just try to breathe slower,” Ben says, his voice soft in my ear. “I think you’re hyperventilating.”
Hyperventilating. The idea makes my chest hitch. I can’t be doing this to myself, having some fit of vapors like the ones my cousin Rossa had every time she was lifted onto a horse. I’m not that type of girl. I don’t lose control; I don’t faint in the face of fear or danger.
I pull in a deeper breath and let it out, forcing all the air from my lungs before I draw another. Slowly—breath by breath—the spinning sensation fades, the warmth returns to the fingers clawed in Ben’s sweater. Still, I leave them there as I glance at the mirror, knowing I’ll need something to cling to if I see myself again.
I don’t. There is only a tall, slim boy with dark hair holding an even slimmer girl with white hair and skin nearly as pale. The wide eyes that look back at me are still shocked, haunted. But they are blue eyes, not brown.
“Better?” Ben meets my eyes in the reflection, as if he knows it will be easier than talking face to face. I nod the slightest bit. Too much movement threatens to send the world spinning again.
“Do you want to go to the office? See if the school nurse is still here?” He shifts his arms, letting them drape about my waist in a way that’s surprisingly familiar. The feeling that I’ve touched him before rushes back, and the words of the girl in the mirror ring in my ears. Love now.
Love. As if I’m capable of loving anyone. Now or anytime in the future. I must be losing my mind, finally giving in to—
“Ariel?” Ben’s arms tighten around me. “I can come with you.”
“No. I’m okay.” I know I should step back, but I can’t seem to get my hands to release his sweater.
Was it really a hallucination? Or is this some new Ambassador magic? And if so, why would I see myself? There is no “me” anymore. I died so long ago my bones must have turned to dust by now.
“You don’t seem okay. Are you sure you don’t want to talk? About … anything?”
I shake my head again. “No.”
“Okay.” His eyes leave the mirror as he turns to me. “But if you ever want to … I know you don’t know me very well, but you can trust me. I can keep a secret.”
The words make me shiver. And step away. There is no one I can trust with my secrets. No one.
“Hey, you want to get out of here?” he asks. “We can clean up the paints and go get a coffee or something. We can text Gemma and see if she wants to meet us when rehearsal is over.”
A coffee is probably the last thing I need, but it sounds good. Safe. Warm. And Gemma will come join us, and maybe I can make something out of this mess of a day. I nod. “That sounds great. I …”
I forget what I’d planned to say, forget everything but the cold rush of fear. Romeo stands in the doorway, watching Ben and me with narrowed eyes. But it isn’t Romeo who makes my hand fly to my mouth, stifling the scream rising in my throat. It’s the thing behind him. A few feet beyond the rectangle of dressing-room light, crouched in the backstage darkness, is a monster, a creature from nightmares with a skeletal body, leathered skin, and two inhuman eyes drowning in creeping white. The curls that fall over its forehead are the same as the ones that earned Romeo strange looks in the halls today. Exactly the same.
It is Romeo. The real Romeo. But rotten. Wrong. A corpse come to life.
Before I can think of what to do, the thing vanishes, snapped away without a trace but for a whisper of decay that drifts through the air.
I swallow and fight to keep the panic from my voice. “Hi, Dylan,” I say.
Ben turns, and his expression grows hard, angry. “What do you want?”
Romeo meets Ben’s glare with a smile. “I wanted to apologize to you about your car window. I’ll pay for the damage, of course. I just wasn’t myself last night. Lo siento, hermano.”
“I’m not your brother, chiflado,” Ben says, his tone leaving no doubt that chiflado isn’t a friendly word.
Romeo laughs. “You’re right. Of course.” In the distance, I hear Hannah call Dylan’s name. He glances over his shoulder, before turning back to us with a sad face. “I suppose I’ve got to go. See you both later.”
“Not if we can help it,” Ben says to Romeo’s retreating back. He shifts his gaze to me, eyes softening once more. “He’s full of crap. I’ve got two classes with him, and he didn’t bother to apologize before. He only said that to look good in front of you.”
“He’ll never look good to me, no matter how many apologies he gives.” My voice still trembles.
“I just can’t believe his hand isn’t more messed up. He should have broken—”
“I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get home.” I have to try to contact Nurse again. Now.
“But I thought coffee sounded great.”
“It did. It does. I just … I’ve got to go. I’m sorry.” I edge toward the door. “But you and Gemma should go. I know she’d love that. Tell her I’ll call her, okay?”
“Okay.” Ben sounds confused, and he has every right to be, but I don’t have time to explain, even if I could. Which I can’t. I have no idea what’s going on.
I grab my backpack from the floor and dash out the back of the theater into the downpour. I make it all the way to the student parking lot before I realize I don’t have a ride home.
I curse and spin in an angry circle, kicking one of the puddles at my feet.
Gemma drove me. How could I have forgotten?
I briefly entertain the thought of going back to play practice but decide against it. Ben already thinks I’m unstable, maybe even flat-out crazy. I don’t need to do anything to reinforce that opinion. I need him to trust me, to be a person he listens to and confides in. I have to find another way home. The bus, or my own two feet. It isn’t that far. Maybe two miles, three at the most.
I start walking. And walk. And walk. And walk. Through the town and into the country, down the highway in the mud at the side of the road with cars splashing my legs as they drive by. By the time I reach the turnoff for El Camino, it’s nearly dark and those three miles I’ve slogged through the rain feel like a hundred. There’s no denying it, I’m not in top form. I still haven’t achieved anything resembling supernatural strength.
Whether it’s my poor diet since I arrived or the stress of this shift or something else entirely, I don’t know, but I feel … wrong. I need Nurse, more than I have since my first days as an Ambassador. Surely she will come to me now. One of the mirrors in this house will work. It has to.
I let myself in the front door and drop my keys in the dish, shivering and exhausted and desperate to talk to someone who understands.
“Look who finally made it home. You look like a drowned rat.”
But not that desperate. Not desperate enough to talk to the boy waiting for me in the hallway outside my room. Romeo slumps casually against the doorframe, grinning as if he has every right to be there.
I freeze, wishing I’d taken Ben up on that cup of coffee. At least then I’d be properly caffeinated, which might help when it comes time to fight for my life.
TEN
I run, hoping to make it to the living room or kitchen before he reaches
me. The hallway is too cramped. There’ll be no room to defend myself. It will be the car all over again, and this time I might not come out whole on the other side.
“Wait! Juliet, wait!”
I don’t wait. I run faster, jumping over the red chair near the television and lunging for the front door. I have the knob in my hand when he grabs me from behind and spins me back into the room. I fall to my knees, groaning as the sharp corner of the coffee table jams into my stomach. Pain flashes through my midsection, but I’m back on my feet in seconds, bending my knees and lifting my fists, bracing myself for the inevitable attack.
“I didn’t come to fight,” Romeo shouts, raising his arms in a defensive position. “I want to talk. That’s all I’ve wanted all day.”
“Talk.”
“Yes, talk. Chat? Have … verbal intercourse?” He winks, and I fight the urge to show him what I think of him with my middle finger.
“I don’t want to talk.”
“Oh, but you will. I have secrets to share.”
“I don’t care.” I nod toward the door. “Get out. I’m not interested in your lies.”
“Lies? When have I lied?” His hands drift to his sides, but his wary look remains. If I attack him, he’ll be ready. I have to wait, to seize on a moment when his defenses are truly down. “I’ve never lied.”
“And we killed ourselves to prove our perfect, timeless love.” I spit the words with enough venom to poison a hundred young lovers, then curse myself for it. I shouldn’t let him know how that false history still gets to me. I shouldn’t give him such an easy victory.
His chin tilts down, but I can see the smile tugging at his lips. “Well, perhaps I did lie … just that once.”
“Get out,” I say through gritted teeth.
His eyes come back to mine. “But I honestly never dreamt Shakespeare’s work would be so enduring.” He wanders over to the table by the door and plucks a quarter from the key dish, tossing the coin in the air and catching it with an easy flick of his wrist. “I found his verse lovely, of course, but the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet itself is a rather immature work, more reminiscent of his comedies than—”