Everlasting Page 6

  That’s it. She just says, “Adelina. ” Then lowers her lids and bows ever so slightly, her palms held fast to the center of her chest, the movement directed at me as though she is the worshipper and I’m some kind of hal owed deity.

  “Um, see, the thing is,” I start, unsure how to respond to such an awkward gesture and eager to move past it, pretend it didn’t happen.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. My name is Ever and this is Damen—” Damen shoots me a look of absolute horror, unhappy at being pul ed into it. So I shoot him a frown, taking a moment to tack on an eye rol to go along with it, returning my focus to her when I add, “As you already know,” shooting Damen another quick look, reminding him that his identity is hardly a secret where she’s concerned. In fact, she seems to know al about him, or at least his ful name anyway. “And, I have no idea who this Adelina is, or what she could possibly have to do with me, so maybe you can fil me in, what do you think?”

  “I am Lotus,” she says, voice like a whisper as her gaze lights on mine.

  O- kay, not exactly what I asked, but stil progress. I guess.

  “Damen is the reason.” Her head turns toward him. “Your love is the symptom.” She glances back and forth between us. “But you, Adelina, are the cure. The key.” She settles on me.

  Oh boy.

  Just because I keep myself from sighing, doesn’t mean I keep myself from thinking: Here we go again—more cryptic ramblings that make absolutely no sense.

  “Listen, here’s the thing, like I just said, my name is Ever, not Adelina. In fact, I’ve never been Adelina. I’ve been Evaline, Abigail, Fleur, Chloe, and Emala but never Adelina. You got the wrong girl.”

  I sigh and turn away, annoyed by the game. Catching a glimpse of relief in Damen’s gaze—a glimpse that soon turns to rage—when the old woman steps forward and grabs ahold of my sleeve.

  “Hey—” Damen’s voice is sharp, but Lotus ignores him, her grip tightening on my arm as she peers at me intently.

  “Please. We’ve waited so long. Waited for you, Adelina. You must return. You must make the journey. You must find the truth. It’s the only way to release them. Release me.”

  “Where are Misa and Marco?” I ask, though I have no idea why. Maybe it’s because they’re the only things that feel tangible and real in this otherwise surreal scene.

  “There are many who await you. The journey is yours. Yours and only yours.”

  “What journey?” I ask, voice trembling like a sob. “I’m sorry but none of this makes any sense. If it’s so important for me to do this, even though I’m not Adelina, then maybe you can quit with the puzzles and explain it in a way that’l mean something to me.”

  “The journey back.” She bows her head again, leaving me with a view of silvery hair with no discernable part.

  “Back to where?” I plead, face flushing with the makings of hysteria—and knowing I need to dial it down a notch, or maybe two.

  “Back to the beginning. To the scene you’ve yet to see. Back to its very origin. You must see it. Learn it. Know it. Al of it. Though, you must be warned it is only the start. The journey is long, arduous, but the reward very great. The truth begets true happiness—but only the pure of heart may seize it.” Her gaze switching to Damen as she adds, “The journey is yours and yours alone, Adelina. Damen is not welcome there.”

  Damen cuts in, having heard more than enough. “Listen,” he says, “I don’t know what you’re trying to do here but—”

  His anger halted by the surprising sight of her palm rising, fol owed by the shock of it pressing to his cheek. It’s like, one minute he’s yel ing, a good two feet yawning between them, and the next, she’s practical y pressed up against him, her rheumy old gaze boring into his, transmitting something, some kind of message or memory meant only for him.

  I watch, fascinated, wondering just what it is that transpires between them. Knowing only one thing for sure, that whatever it is, it’s causing her to glow in a way that prompts a stream of light to radiate al around. The color spectrum so intense, it’s as though it originates from somewhere so deep, it can’t help but seep outward until the glimmer surrounds her.

  But while she glows, Damen does the opposite. His normal y tal , lean form appears to darken and shrink until he’s barely a shel of himself.

  “Damen Augustus Notte Esposito,” she says. “Why do you deny me?”

  I watch, startled to see him so flustered he’s unable to respond, unable to find his own voice, much less fight his way out of whatever it is that she shows him. Just about to intervene when he shakes his head, straightens his spine, and yanks himself right out of her spel , pul ing himself together enough to say, “You’re crazy. You’re wrong and you’re crazy. And while I have no idea what your deal is or what you’re trying to do here, I do know you better stay away from Ever. Far, far away, do you hear? Otherwise, I can’t be held responsible for what happens to you, regardless of how old you claim to be.”

  But if he expected her to back off or run away scared, wel , he must’ve been just as surprised as I was to see her smile instead. The two of us watching her face brighten, her cheeks widen, her lips spreading and lifting enough to display a startling array of teeth—

  startling in that a good deal of them are either graying, yel owing, or entirely missing.

  Her attention shifting as she moves from him to me, taking my hand in her soft papery dry one, her words confident and sure when she says, “His love is the key.”

  I look at her, release myself from her grip. “I thought you said Adelina was the key?”

  “It is one and the same.” She nods, as if that made any sense. “Please. Please consider the journey. It is the only way to release me.

  To release you as wel .”

  “The journey back—back to the beginning?” I say, sarcasm blooming. “And just where does this journey start? Where does it end?” I look at her, noticing how she stil appears lit from within.

  “The journey begins here.”

  She points down at our feet, or maybe the mud, I can’t be too sure. I’m more confused now than I was when this started. But when our eyes meet again, I know the instruction is literal—the journey begins in the very muck where we stand.

  “And it ends in the truth.”

  And before I can say another word, before I can beg for a little more clarification, Damen swings his arm around my waist and pul s me away.

  Hurling the words over his shoulder, not bothering to look back when he says, “No one’s going anywhere. Don’t bother us again.”

  nine

  “So what do you make of it?” Ava swings her wavy auburn locks over her shoulder and levels her brown eyes on me, lowering herself onto one of the old plastic fold-up chairs Jude dragged into his office in an attempt to accommodate us al in this impromptu meeting.

  “What do you think it al means?”

  I venture a glance toward Damen, who, having refused a chair, chooses to lean against the wal , arms crossed before him, face bearing a look that reads loud and clear: I thought we were through with this? I thought I warned her to stay away? I thought you said you were merely planning to swing by, pick up a book or two, and be on your way?

  Meeting it with one of my own that says: You promised me a week and I’m holding you to it—unless, of course, you want to tell me what the old woman showed you?

  He frowns, looks away, just as I figured he would, so I turn away from him in favor of Ava.

  “I have no idea what it means,” I admit, doing my best to pretend I didn’t just hear Damen sigh even though that was clearly his intent.

  Jude glances between us, his gaze cautious, correctly sensing there’s trouble in paradise and wanting nothing more than to steer clear of it. Stil , since he also promised to help, he takes his place behind his desk, tilts his chair way back, and pretends to be lost in deep thought as he stares into space, when real y, he’s just dreaming of being some other place. Summerland would be my best gue
ss.

  “So, she thinks you’re Adelina, or that you were Adelina, or … whatever…” Miles frowns, tapping his pen against the pages of the leather-bound journal I gave him before he left for Florence, busying himself with intense note taking, trying to make sense of it, while I busy myself with taking him in. Noting how his freshly cut hair makes him appear a lot more like the old Miles again, the one who so wil ingly befriended me on my first day of school, though the baby fat he shed when he went to acting camp in Italy is clearly gone for good, transforming him from comfortably cute to, wel , real y, real y cute.

  “Yeah.” I nod, stil not used to talking about this so openly, or at least not with him.

  Even though he’s al caught up to speed, pretty much informed of al the more sordid details of our lives thanks to both Roman’s interference and the fact that he was there the night I kil ed Haven. Caught in her snare, eyes about to pop right out of his head, as she went about the business of trying to choke him to death.

  By kil ing her, I saved him. And by doing so, I lost al hope of ever getting my hands on that antidote.

  Stil , I’d do it again if I had to. He’s one of my very best friends, and he did absolutely nothing to deserve that from her.

  “I have no idea who she is.” I frown. “Al I know is that the old lady cal s herself Lotus, and is convinced I’m Adelina.” The words mumbled in a way that makes it sound as though I was talking to myself.

  Yanked from my mire of confusion when Romy and Rayne pipe up and say, “We need to start at the beginning.”

  I look at them, so perplexed by it al that I don’t even know where that is. But before I can respond, they spring forth from their chairs, rush down the hal , and into the store. Returning just a few moments later, they reclaim their seats and peer at the book they’ve propped open on Romy’s lap.

  Rayne’s voice piercing the silence when she leans over her twin sister, her huge brown eyes widening under her dark fringe of razor-slashed bangs as she says, “Okay, you said her name was Lotus, right?”

  I nod.

  “So, according to this, the lotus flower grows out of the mud, struggling through the muck to make its way toward the light. And, once it reaches that light, it blossoms and grows into something extraordinary, something very, very beautiful.”

  I suck in my breath, realizing we may have just made a little progress at last. Mud, muck, crazy old lady named Lotus—it all fits, but what does it mean?

  “It’s a symbol for awakening,” Ava says, interrupting Rayne, who was about to speak again. “Awakening to the spiritual side of life.”

  “But it also represents life in general,” Jude says, bringing his chair forward, settling his elbows onto his desk, and pushing his dreadlocks off his face as he gazes at us. “You know, overcoming the hardships and struggles life brings in order to blossom into your true self—the beautiful being you were destined to be.”

  He looks at me when he says it, and there’s nothing I can do to stop the flush from rising to my cheeks. I know al too wel about Jude’s hardships and struggles, having seen them firsthand the day I pretended to read his palm so I could prove my psychic prowess and secure a job in his store. I saw it unfold as clearly as though I was standing right there alongside him. Gifted with psychic abilities his parents worked hard to deny, he lost his mother at a young age, only to have his grieving father shove a gun in his mouth and soon fol ow. Abandoning Jude to a series of intolerable foster families until the cycle of abuse became so unbearable the street seemed like a much better option. His life saved the day Lina found him, saw the promise in him, and managed to convince him that he wasn’t a freak, but rather a unique and gifted soul. That the limited views of others should have no bearing on the person he already was, the man he’d become.

  And now Lina’s gone too.

  I press my lips together and look at him, wondering how he’s handling that, if it’s why he’s spending so much time in Summerland, or if that’s more due to me—his attempt to get over the choice that I made.

  His gaze meets mine, holding for only a moment, but stil long enough for me to wish I could love him. He deserves to be loved. But my heart belongs to Damen. Despite our current conflict, I’ve no doubt he and I are meant for each other. This is just a minor rough patch we’l get through in no time.

  “They also make for a pretty popular tattoo,” Jude continues. “People who’ve overcome hard times, struggled their way out of the muck so to speak, like to use them as a sort of marker of having survived the journey and come out the other side.”

  “Do you have a tattoo?” Rayne asks, eyes widening as she leans toward him, practical y fal ing out of her seat with excitement.

  “One or two.” He nods, face bearing the slightest hint of a smile.

  She gapes, hardly able to believe he plans to leave it at that, causing her to ask, “So, what are they?”

  “One’s an Ouroboros. It’s on the smal of my back.”

  And even though I can feel his gaze flit my way, I deflect the look entirely. I’ve seen the Ouroboros. Oh, yeah, that one did not go unnoticed.

  “An Ouroboros?” She squints, glancing at her identical sister, who mirrors her in every way except for the clothing. Romy favors pink, Rayne prefers black, and sometimes, when they’re not around, I refer to them as Good & Plenty because it makes Damen laugh. “I thought that was evil,” she adds.

  “It’s not evil,” Damen says, deciding to contribute since he has virtual y no choice but to be here ’til it’s over. “It’s an ancient alchemical symbol of life, death, rebirth—immortality.” He lifts his shoulders, gazing around the room but settling on no one in particular. “A whole slew of theologies have adopted it again and again throughout history, al of them attributing their own meanings to it, but it’s not evil.

  Although Roman and his rogues adopted it and made it seem that way, on its own, it bears no il wil .” He nods, meets the wal again, his speech halted, or at least for now anyway.

  “O- kay…” Rayne smirks. “If I ever have to write a term paper on it, I’l go straight to you, but for now, back to the tattoos.” She shakes her head, fal ing just shy of rol ing her eyes. Her complete and total adoration of Damen is the only thing that spares him from that.

  “What’s the other one?” she asks, turning back to Jude.

  “The other is the Japanese symbol for the lotus blossom. I thought an actual flower seemed … wel … a little girly.”

  She peers at him, brow arched high.

  “I was younger, less evolved, what can I say?” He lifts his shoulders and swipes a hand over his hair.

  “And—so—where’s that one?” she ventures, but Jude just flashes his palm and shakes his head, terminating that particular topic right then and there.

  Rayne turns to Ava, shooting her a dark, angry glare, her eyes narrowing even further when Ava just laughs in reply. And from what I can hear of the thoughts swirling between them, Rayne’s been begging for a tattoo for the past several weeks, and can’t understand why she’s forced to wait another five years until she’s eighteen. Having been around for three centuries already, the majority of which was spent in Summerland living as a refugee from the Salem Witch Trials, she doesn’t see why her time served there can’t be recognized here.

  But it’s hardly my argument, so I tune out just as quickly as I tuned in, more than a little eager to get back on track.

  “So anyway, what about the song?” Miles asks. “How did it go again? Something about rising from the mud toward the sky, or the dreamy sky, or … or something?”

  “From the mud it shall rise, lifting upward toward vast dreamy skies, just as you—you—you shall rise too, ” I sing, my voice echoing the same tune Lotus used.

  “So obviously she thinks you’re like the lotus flower,” Romy adds, while her twin, stil miffed about the tattoo, and never having been a fan of mine despite the recent bear hug she gave me in Summerland after seeing I’d survived Haven’s attack, slumps down in her sea
t and levels her steely gaze right on me. Clearly doubting the truth of such a thing, and choosing then and there to side with Damen, thinking for sure the old lady has got to be crazy to see that kind of promise in me.

  “And the rest, how did it go?” Miles prompts.

  “From the deep and dark depths it struggles toward the light…”

  “Again, lotus flower.” Romy nods, tapping the page of the book with her pink painted nail, seemingly pleased with herself.

  “Desiring only one thing—the truth! The truth of its being. ”

  “Your destiny.” Ava nods. Dashing any hope that she just might know what that is when she adds, “Whatever that may turn out to be.”

  “Okay, and…” Miles’s head bobs as his pen races across the page, writing it al down.

  “ Um, okay…” I stal , trying to remember where I left off, where it goes from there. “Oh yeah, then it goes: But will you let it? Will you let it rise and blossom and grow? Or will you damn it to the depths? Will you banish its worn and weary soul? ”

  “So basical y you’re the lotus blossom, or, at least the keeper of the lotus blossoms, and you’re either gonna let them fulfil their destiny and bloom, or, more likely, you’re gonna screw it al up and damn them to the depths.”

  “Rayne!” Ava scolds.

  But Rayne just shrugs, claiming, “What? It’s not like I said ‘damn’, the song did. I was merely repeating.”

  “That is not what I meant and you know it. Your intent far outweighs your words.” Ava’s face darkens.

  “Sorry,” Rayne mumbles, and though she looks at me when she says it, it was clearly for Ava’s benefit.

  “You know what this reminds me of?” Damen says, prompting us al to turn, surprised to hear him speak up again. “It reminds me of 1968 when the Beatles released the White Album after their stay in India. Everyone was trying to interpret the lyrics, searching for some kind of deeper meaning, and, as it turned out, most of them were wrong—some of which ended in tragic results.”