“Hey, Chris.”
My mom smiles as I walk through the door. I was already surprised to see my bike in the driveway. Somehow Staunch got it there without a problem. Now Mom is smiling at me as if it’s just any ordinary morning.
“Did you have breakfast?”
Yep, just finished some French toast with Wade. Oh, and your grandfather.
At first I shake my head, then I nod. My head doesn’t seem to know what to do with itself.
“Was that a yes or a no?”
“No—I’m fine—thanks.”
“Okay. Hey—I wanted to tell you the good news. I got a promotion yesterday. Actually just a pay increase, but still. It’s something.”
I nod, feign a smile, look around to see if anything else seems strange or if it’s just me.
Hey—wanted to tell you my good news too! I got shot, but somehow I survived. Thanks to good old great-grandpa, who I’m dying to meet. Get it, Mom? DYING??
“I’m busy—gotta run to Asheville before work. Want to come?”
I shake my head.
“How is Oli doing? You guys have fun?”
I feel something scraping against the scab on my stomach. Then I hear a laugh. And even though these things are only in my mind, it certainly feels and sounds like they’re happening.
“What do you mean?”
“Oli—the guy you spent the night with? Hello?”
I tighten my lips and nod. I raise my eyebrows and force a smile. “Good.”
“Bring him by sometime.”
I don’t think you want me to do that, Mom.
She continues to get ready as I try to unpack my brains on the sofa.
It just never stops.
That was a warning, Chris. Just like everything else. A warning. A little hocus-pocus shazam to show you.
I sit on the couch and close my eyes.
Sleep comes, but like everything else, it’s short-lived and not satisfying in the least.
Lily is hysterical when she calls.
All I get is “phone died” and “charged” and “thought you were going to die” and then some curses and a very loud and very distinct “What happened?”
She sounds like she’s outside walking, because she sounds out of breath and her connection is cutting in and out. I just keep asking where she is, so I can get on my bike and go see her, but then the call drops completely.
Yet when I hear the knock on the front door, along with the handle turning and the door swinging open, I see I don’t have to call Lily back.
She’s managed to get to me very quickly.
“I left the moment I got your message,” she says, rushing up beside me and then wrapping me up in her wonderful arms.
I’m buried in her soft and sweet-smelling hair and skin for some time. She just holds me, shaking, maybe crying, though I can’t see it and I don’t know. For the longest time she doesn’t say anything.
When she finally lets me go, I stand there feeling a bit light-headed from being so close to her.
“You okay?” she asks me, touching my stomach gently to see if there’s a hole or anything in it.
“I’d get shot again if I’ll get one of those every time.”
“Chris—seriously. What—you don’t even have bandages or anything?”
I shake my head.
“What happened—who were those men that took you?”
“Listen,” I say, “I don’t really know what happened.”
She lifts up my shirt and sees the scab. “That’s impossible.”
“I know.”
“Chris, I saw you get shot. I was there.”
“I don’t know what happened.”
She shouts my name and curses, as if I just vanished into thin air or something.
“What if it was all an illusion?” I ask, trying to come up with some explanation.
“I heard the gun go off.”
“What if it was a fake? A prop or something?”
“I saw blood. I saw you.”
Yeah, and I felt blood.
“What if—I don’t know—what if somehow he just shocked me to think I got shot—then everything else was acting? Like made up.”
“Chris!”
“What?”
“How can you—oh, I don’t—I just can’t—”
“I know,” I say again.
“You know what?”
“It’s this place. And the people here.”
“That’s some weird voodoo stuff going on here. First that card game, and now this.”
“What about the cards?”
“I didn’t tell you—Chris, nobody, and I mean nobody except one person in this whole world knows about that rose tattoo. Nobody has ever seen it except him. It’s not exactly in a place where people can see it.”
“A tattoo?”
“One that looks exactly like the card. That’s why—I just couldn’t believe it. I still don’t. But this—you’re walking around like it was a toy gun that went off.”
“Maybe it was.”
Lily curses in disbelief. “No. It’s something—something evil. Something wicked.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
She looks at my cabin, and I realize she’s never been here before. Not that I need to give her the grand tour or anything. I wonder how she got my address and then remember that she took me home from the party that night.
“Chris—”
“What?”
“What is going on here?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you’re not freaking out like you should be. I mean—feel this.”
She takes my hand and puts it against her soft blouse and even softer skin. I guess I’m supposed to feel her beating heart, but I’m a bit taken aback by having my hand thrust there.
“Come on—stop being a boy and start talking.”
“I can’t—Lily, no.”
“What?”
“I can’t just start talking. I don’t even know where I’d start.”
Then I think about this cabin and the tunnels underneath.
I think about the cell phone that doesn’t belong to me. That maybe lets someone else know just where I am.
“Come on, let’s leave and go somewhere,” I say.
“I’m driving.”
“You have a car?”
“Of course I have a car,” she says.
As I follow her outside, I leave the iPhone behind. Just in case.