Shuffle: A Novel Part 32

He smiled and drew me in, showering my forehead with kisses, enveloping me in his powerful aura of strength and warmth. "Thank you," he whispered. "Evi, thank you so much." I reached up and ran my fingers through his hair, brought them down to caress the angles of his face. Breathing in the rich scent of lavender and damp earth. He was almost too good to be true. My lips met his pale cheek and set off a cascade of golden joy that zipped up to my crown and down to my toes and galvanized my entire body. I was filled with shimmering, buoyant air.

Then I started and jerked away. I must not have known my own strength, because I nearly took Arbor off his feet.

"What about Callie?" I cried. "And the old woman, and the man who fell off the roof..." I scrambled over the lawn as the sky blushed a delicate dawn. The cards lay trampled in the gra.s.s. I fell to my knees, trying to sort through them. Three of clubs. Six of spades.

Arbor knelt beside me and gently placed his hands over mine. "Callie's fine," he said. "Her mind was released when Toby died, and since her body still lives..." I held my breath. "She should be coming out of her coma any second now."

I let out a deep sigh, limbs quaking with physical relief. "And the others?"

He shook his head. "I'm sorry. Toby had already consumed them."

I sat back in the gra.s.s and let the whole experience wash over me. I cried again and Arbor held me, shuddering sobs as I expelled some of the pain.

"Things will be better now," he said. But cold waters ran beneath his voice, and I could tell that he was thinking of the rebellion.

I calmed after a while and we sat together in silence, watching the morning sun rise and cloak the mountainside in a diaphanous veil. Letting the wind riffle our hair. Arbor's touch felt so good it almost hurt. No... That's not right. I think the hurt came from some place deep inside me. Some place I'd never felt before.

Some place that had just opened up.

"It's weird thinking that Mrs. Beasley is a part of me now," I said. "She murdered people. Ernest, Quentin. And my mother. She was a total psychopath."

"But she was right about one thing," Arbor mused.

"What's that?"

"I don't like my job."

I laughed and snuggled into the crook of his arm, awash in contentment. "She told me that you didn't really like me," I said. "That you were just using me for something or other... I can't remember what. Maybe she didn't say." I sighed happily. "Anyway, I think you've proven her wrong about that."

"Actually..." Arbor unwrapped my arms from around his waist and stood up.

"Hmm?"

I lifted myself easily to my feet and walked with him across the gra.s.s to the bluff behind our house, which overlooked the plains. A creeping fear began to spread from the pit of my stomach, but I tried to stifle it.

"She wasn't totally wrong," said Arbor.

I blinked rapidly. I was growing dizzy from the height, the shock. "What do you mean?"

He turned and gazed out across the fields, cars crawling on the freeway toward Denver like shiny beetles. "Do you remember the shoes?" he asked. "And the book?"

"You used them to find Ernest and Quentin's souls, and guide them... oh, wherever you guide people after they die."

"To a peaceful place," he replied. "Did she explain to you how that works? Why the items allowed me to locate their souls?"

The fear engulfed my stomach and made its way up to my throat so that my voice wavered when I answered. "I guess... The Aeneid and the shoes, they were like treasures. Things so beloved in life that Quentin and Ernest were drawn to them even in death."

"A lost soul is frightened. It can move in eight dimensions, jump through time and s.p.a.ce as you or I would cross a room. Like a neverending nightmare. It can barely communicate or comprehend what it sees."

I shrugged. "So?"

"Quentin orbited his book like a heavy planet. Ernest, more like a moth about a flame. Both were eventually spared the agony of wandering blind and ignorant through the cosmos. Evangeline..." He turned from the plains and looked at me through narrowed eyes. "Don't you want to know where your mother is?"

His gaze was out of focus. Just above my head and to the right.

I got chills down my spine. "Yes," I said. "Oh my G.o.d! We have to go figure out what it is she loved the most and..." I started tramping through the gra.s.s back up to the house, moving more quickly than I remembered being able to move before. Arbor caught my hand.

"Stop," he said. "Stop, Evi. It's you."

I froze.

"You and Callie both. That's why I sometimes look at you funny. I'm trying to see her. And I'll tell you this, she's stuck closer to you than I've ever seen a lost soul stick to anything."

I broke down again. Absolutely couldn't handle it. I melted to the ground and brought my knees up, clutched my arms around my legs and cried.

"She's been with you the whole time, Evi. Callie too. I tried over and over to get her to come with me, but she refused to leave you. Even though she was disoriented and in a lot of distress."

I tried to breathe, and Arbor held me. "I never got to say goodbye," I gasped. My face was hot, seething with grief. A confession finally bubbled up, one I'd been holding in too long. "I was p.i.s.sed that she had to work late that night. She was supposed to drive me to Ellen's house or something, but then she needed the car to go to work... The last thing I said to her was something bratty."

"Doesn't matter," said Arbor. "She has a depth of love for you that words can't move."

I cried even more. I remembered the good times. All the years of hot cocoa and long walks, and reading books together in bed. I concentrated, trying to feel her presence.

Something suddenly occurred to me. "The messages," I whispered. "The weird dreams, the blackouts! She pushed me out of the way of Halley K. Shumacher's car, found those birds and laid them on the lawn... All five of them." Arbor looked puzzled. I hurriedly explained to him what I was talking about, and when I was through he seemed genuinely surprised.

"You have an extraordinary family, Evi," he said. "You're extraordinary."

I laughed. "And the window. She always said I'd catch a cold sleeping with my window open. No wonder she kept shutting it for me. No wonder you were always there, trying to catch her."

"Like I said, extraordinary."

I nudged him, reproachful. "What do you know? Just using me..."

"Yes," he admitted, "I was using you. At first. I enrolled at Peaks High and made sure to be in a couple of your cla.s.ses, tried to flirt with you as well as I knew how. I cut school whenever her soul was with Callie. But Evi, I fell in love with you. And I never do that."

"Really?"

He sighed and turned his head away again, out to the plains. "I was born in Rome. I'm not sure of the exact date; we didn't really keep birth records back then. But within a year or two of 75 B.C.E. I was a slave. My life was hard. When I was about eighteen, something happened."

"What?"

"I woke up."

He turned back and fixed me with his black stare. "I don't know how else to describe it. I woke up."

"You became a reaper."

He nodded. "Tullia Ciceronis was the first soul I took. She was my mistress. It was a terrifying experience, and I've never forgotten it."

I grabbed his hand and squeezed it. "Then what?"

"I was a reaper in Rome for centuries. It was a populous city, and there were others like me. I knew many who preferred to be at the center of civic life."

"Like Toby."

"Yes," he said. "It's easy for us. People just... they're drawn to us. It helps them be calm when the time comes to cross over."

"But you were different."

He sighed. "I could never be much among the people... I was somewhat selfish. I refused to get close to anyone, preferred to protect myself from grief. I lived like a hermit. Through the Fall. The Dark Ages. The Renaissance."

"How did you come here, to Colorado?"

"Reapers tend to wear out quickly, after five hundred years or so. They can't take it any more, just fade away. I did not feel the grief I was supposed to feel, and so I became old. I believe I am the oldest living reaper."

I drew in a breath. "Wow."

"Eventually I began to develop a new skill. I was able to sense disturbances in the system. Lost souls, ghosts. So I left Rome. I have been traveling the world since the 18 century, trying to find them and guide them on their way, a specialist of sorts. I've been to America many times. Your mother has been the hardest, by far..."

I sniffed, and brushed another tear away.

"I felt an immediate attraction to you, Evi. I didn't want to. Didn't want to feel anything, wanted to remain cold and emotionless. My initial discomfort with this new state of affairs surfaced when I made that regrettable comment to George Farmer on the first day of school, which you overheard."

"Oh yeah," I grimaced. "That was bad."

He took my hands. "I didn't want to admit to myself that I was already falling for you."

I threw my arms around him. "It took a while for me to admit it, too." I chuckled. "Didn't help that I thought you were out to murder me."

"You what?"

I told him how I'd suspected him, about Ellen and the pepper spray, and all the ridiculous theories I'd spun. He laughed and held me close, rocking us back and forth. Then he pulled us apart, helped me to stand again. "I think it's time I lead your mother away to her place of rest," he said. "Now that she's saved both our lives."

I nodded. "May I watch?"

He smiled. "I don't see why not."

Arbor stepped away from me a few paces and turned to squint at the area above my head, where my mother's soul was hovering. Then he simply held out his hand.

He began to glow as the ceiling of the world sank in, and blue sky parted to reveal the infinite reaches of the universe. The solar system rushed down, brushed through my hair and patted me fondly on the head. When I was a kid, I always wanted to be an astronaut and go to outer s.p.a.ce. Now outer s.p.a.ce had come to me. Galaxies whirled in the branches of the oak tree, so close I could almost reach up and touch them.

I took a deep breath to steady myself. A gust of wind whipped my tattered clothing and tickled my neck, and I saw her.

She was exactly how she'd been. But her body was whole, and light, and pulsing with energy. I stared at her, not wanting to look away even for a second. She stepped onto the ground and walked slowly, serenely towards Arbor. She took his hand and turned to face me.

I waved.

She waved back, and blew me a kiss. I felt more hot tears blossom at the corners of my eyes. "I love you too," I whispered.

Then they both turned, the two glowing bodies, and rose up from the ground, stepping gracefully into the sky as they walked toward the endless horizon.

Well, that's the whole story.

I stood alone for a while on the bluff. The town woke up around me; I heard honking horns and the laughter of children as they waited on the corner for the school bus.

Right. It's Monday morning.

I tried to remember the first day of school, just a few short weeks ago. I mulled over every step, every decision that had led me to this place, and this time. And these feelings. I found it was almost too much to bear. I couldn't even imagine going back to Peaks High, walking through those doors. Back to the trivial grind of homework and hangouts.

At some point Arbor reappeared beside me and took my hand. We drove his car to the hospital, where you were sitting up in bed and joking with the nurses. We walked in, tired and dirty. You started crying, which set me off again. You were really worried about me. But we hugged each other, and all of that went away.

You even hugged Arbor.

I know it's hard for you to accept. Me leaving with him. You think I should get my high school diploma so I can apply to a good college and someday land a steady job with decent benefits. You're not wrong. But now that I've found out about the rebellion, I need to help.

There are others like Toby. They're out there, hurting people. Arbor and I are going to try to stop them.

And, you see, it's more than that. It's the world, sis. It's opened up in ways I could never have imagined a few months ago. There's more stuff to explore. More dreams to fill my head. And if you think I'm going to wait to graduate high school before I go and catch them, you're crazy.

We're staying with Bram Snepvangers. His apartment is kind of c.r.a.ppy, and his roommates are weird, but it's all right. Oh, before I forget, could you do me a favor? Please let Ellen read this, and then delete it. You two are the only ones who need to know the truth.

I love you so much. I'm thinking of you every day.

Hey, could you send me a couple pairs of my socks? And my pink tights? You know the ones. Address it:.

Evangeline Wild.

939 Ogden Street Apt. A.

Denver, CO 80218.

About The Author.

Avery Bell is an avid reader and writer of young adult fiction. You can e-mail her at or tweet her @authoraverybell!.

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