“Katia’s dead,” I said as I walked past their needy eyes and grasping hands straight into the lake, hoping it would wash me of my sins. I let the warm water envelop me, and all I could think of was the time Dane carried me into the water, washing the blood from my skin. I pressed my palm against my mouth, longing to feel the delicate weight of Dane’s last kiss, but I only felt my own clammy, murderous flesh. I’d done the unthinkable. I killed my own mother. She gave up her life to save mine, and here I stood, all alone. Unable to live. Unable to die.
I looked down at the milky water, watching it turn the softest shade of pink from my mother’s blood. My guilt felt unfathomable, a wild endless thing.
Without a word or a sympathetic glance, Beth waded into the lake next to me and took my hand.
As we both stared straight ahead, I wept.
? ? ?
We stayed like that—side by side, waist deep in the water until dark—until the community retreated to the meeting house, probably trying to figure out what to do with the rest of their mortal lives.
The sky had turned the deepest, blackest blue I’d ever seen. Even the moon and stars didn’t dare show their faces tonight.
“You should go home, say your good-byes.” I took a deep breath. “We’re leaving in the morning.”
“You’re taking me with you?” She squeezed my hand in excitement.
I attempted a smile for Beth’s benefit. “Do I even have a choice?”
“No. No you don’t.” She hugged me tight. “I’ll come at first light. I have a surprise for you.”
I listened to her footsteps as they disappeared into the corn—the opposite direction of the Grimsby lodge.
Beth was full of surprises.
? ? ?
A surge of adrenaline rushed through me as I neared the Mendoza lodge. Feeling a need to expose every secret, I let myself in, descending two flights of stairs, to the wood-paneled wall at the end of the hall. I pressed the panels until I heard the familiar sickening pop. The door swung open. The scents of eucalyptus and blood washed over me. The blood from the chalice had belonged to Coronado. The truth was right in front of me all that time and I didn’t see it. I was so focused on Dane that I missed everything.
I wondered what made Spencer want to strike an alliance with Coronado in the first place. Was it pure greed, or revenge? What did Coronado promise him in return?
I thought about crossing the threshold, trashing Spencer’s sick sanctuary, but I stopped myself. I wanted the world to see who he really was.
On my way back upstairs, I walked by Dane’s door. I rested my hand against the cool wood grain. I needed one last look. As I opened the door, his scent hit me dead on. It was like walking into a cement wall.
I pulled the hollowed-out book from the shelf. The stationery, the red wax, and the seal were missing, but his secret stash remained. I took out the sunglasses—the map—the Backstreet Boys CD and put them in my shorts pocket, but when I started to close the book, I noticed the chart printed on the inside of the front cover. It was a list of all the different gemstones and their corresponding meanings.
I looked up at his desk, trying to identify the stones when I saw that one was missing. I went down the list, trying to figure out which one it was. It was rose quartz. And according to the chart, rose quartz meant promise. Dane talked to me about the significance of rose quartz when he brought my ribbon back to me after the games. It was the same stone Marie left under Heartbreak Tree. And then I remembered something odd.
The first time Dane took me to Heartbreak Tree, I asked him if he’d ever written a note. He said, “If I had, I promise you’d know.”
Promise.
The missing stationery. The missing gemstone. Was it possible that Dane had left something for me under Heartbreak Tree?
50
NO STONE UNTURNED
I HIKED THROUGH the pines until I came to the clearing, the silhouette of the weeping willow barely visible against the indigo sky.
With my lantern low to the ground, I stumbled around, trying not to disturb people’s hopes and dreams. I didn’t need any more bad luck.
I stepped inside the swaying branches of the willow, but I couldn’t find any sign of the rose quartz. I sank against the gnarled gray trunk.
I could still smell us here. Our blood. Our sweat. It made me sick, but I wanted to roll in the dirt and wallow in our last memory before it disappeared forever. I remembered Dane explaining the significance of the tree. He said love was stronger than death and that true love would always find a way.
The faintest whisper rose to my ears—the same sound I’d heard on the night Dane came to the Larkin lodge to return my ribbon. This time, the sound was coming from the split in the trunk. I reached in; my eyes welled with tears when I felt the familiar shock of silk wrapped around a stone with a letter attached. Carefully, I pulled it out of the crevice.
“Ashlyn” was written upon the envelope in thick black India ink. I ran my fingertips across the indentations from pen against paper and my heart fluttered.
The envelope had been sealed with dark red wax. In place of the coat of arms I’d seen on other Mendoza correspondence, Dane used his thumbprint instead. I pressed my thumb against it, swearing I could feel his touch there. I slid my finger under the seal, breaking it in two, and removed the heavy piece of stationery, feeling the weight of his good-bye.
Ashlyn,