We left at the crack of dawn, but I was up long before then. I switched some clothes from my bag for the ones from my closet, mostly pants instead of shorts and dresses, and added some warm sweaters. I snuck into the master bedroom to take one of Deanna’s scarves, then waited for the guys downstairs.
We walked along the boardwalk in the dark, with the sun coming up as we drove away. I had taken a pair of Sam’s sunglasses, so I matched the guys in that respect, although none of us needed them this early in the morning. It garnered me a smile from Embry, who turned on the radio and sang along. I wasn’t there yet, but I was trying.
They did their detours, which I will never understand, so it was late afternoon by the time we got to the plantation. We stopped by the meadow, where the burnt line of grass and trees greeted us.
“I guess no one’s been since I burnt it down?” We all stared through the windows, trying to assess the damage.
“I believe I was the one who threw the Molotov cocktails. You can claim the forest, but the plantation house is all me,” Embry took a shot at me and got a smile in return. I would never have imagined smiling over arson before, especially not burning down a house that had been in my family for generations.
Gabriel drove slowly over the lawn, stopping in front of the garage, where the crispy remnants of the grey box told me the security system was down. The house looked slightly damaged from the outside, where you could tell it caught fire, but most of it looked like a layer of reinforced steel stopped the flames.
“You were right about the tungsten,” Embry told Gabriel.
“It’s not steel?” I asked.
“A combination. It held up pretty good in some places,” he took a critical eye to the structure, assessing whether it was safe for us to go in. “Careful,” he cautioned.
“Do you guys have anything in mind for Rosie? Something she treasured?” I looked from one to the other. Gabriel still looked guilty over not returning her affections, but no matter how much Beth was Embry’s true love, there was no doubt in my mind that he had loved Rosalind, and still felt the sting of his unrequited feelings.
“I think her stuff is in the bunker,” Gabriel ventured.
“I thought the bunker was only for people and dangerous books?”
“It’s like Embry’s,” Gabriel shrugged.
“Understood,” I nodded. It was a room for things they didn’t want to lose.
“A lot of the paintings and original decor were hers, but there was a box with her jewelry and trinkets that we moved to the safe as soon as they put it in,” Embry shared.
We went down to the basement, which was the least affected part of the house. The guys watched while I tried at least four times to get into the bunker. It required my blood, the code, and turning the knob a bunch of different ways, even without the computer system.
Once we got in, Gabriel went straight for a small, wooden box with carvings of roses on the sides, and ‘My Darling Rosie’ etched on the top.
I judged our potential items based on how easy they would be to carry, but they were trying to find a balance between things that meant the world to Rosie and nothing to them. We didn’t know what would remain of the objects once the spell was done with them.
“How about this?” I asked of a brooch wrapped in a lace handkerchief with ‘R.G.’ stitched into the corner of the fabric.
“It was her husband, Roger’s. He gave her the brooch as well,” Embry told me, but there was a look to him.
“You see something better?” I asked. I wasn’t alive anywhere near the same time as her, so none of it meant anything to me, but I saw her wearing the brooch in a memory.
“One night when I was here, there was a fire. It was in the kitchen and we put it out quickly, but just to be safe, we evacuated everyone from the house. Molly took a picture of Roger with her, but the only keepsake Rosalind took was that,” Embry pointed to a piece of black fabric that felt like silk and held something heavy.
“A pebble?” Rock would have been my first guess, but it was much too smooth.
“I never knew Rosie to carry rocks,” Gabriel cocked his head to the side, as curious as I was.
I removed the silk and found a clear block of what looked like a dandelion floating in… plastic?
“A flower?” I turned to Gabriel to see if he shared my confusion, but he was holding the stiffest upper lip I’d ever seen, his eyes focused on the block until he turned to Embry. The look he shot him was reminiscent of the previous centuries when they hated each other. If it meant this much to the two of them, it was probably emotional gold for Rosalind.
I brought it close to Gabriel, half-offering it, half-asking if I could use it, before the rest of the world slipped away…
I was in the plantation’s foyer, but they set it up as a makeshift hospital for wounded soldiers of the war of independence, including Gabriel who was lying in a bed watching Rosalind. It was weird because I wasn’t inside anyone. I was intruding on the moment, like a fly on the wall.
Gabriel wasn’t observing Rosie as a stalker, or as someone infatuated with her would; he was trying to solve a mystery. He perked up and strained to see when she moved her hair to rub her neck, but he slumped down, disappointed, when she let it fall again. He was trying to see if she had the crescent moon birthmark, and she wasn’t making it easy.
I moved over to sit on the edge of his bed, taking advantage of my non-existence in this moment to take in every detail. His eyes were less dark than the Gabriel I knew, but every bit as intense. There was something hopeful about him, like he knew this wasn’t Annabelle, but maybe she could be.
It was either a while after he first arrived, or he died here and regenerated, because his wounds were non-existent as he crept to the windows. Molly, Rosalind’s daughter, was in the yard, picking flowers and placing them in a small wicker basket.
Gabriel was back in the bed before a doctor came in to check on him, but no one questioned him when he lied and said they changed his bandages this morning. He was an excellent liar, but something about the way he pressed his lips together told me it wasn’t the truth.
“I got them!” Molly rushed into the room, looking absolutely enthralled to be spending time with Gabriel, especially to be of use to him rather than an annoyance he tolerated.
“These are beautiful, Molly. Absolutely perfect,” he beamed at her and her entire face lit up. I could tell he had experience with children, probably from Margaret, but there was also something holding him back. Some apprehension he was trying to hide, that Molly did not pick up on, but I did. It was like he was afraid of her.
“How do you make them stay together?” Molly asked, trying to tie a knot between two flowers.
“Like this.” Gabriel demonstrated, folding the stems as I had only ever seen with palm leaves. He finished a necklace, then let Molly put it over his head.
“You can’t take it off now,” she warned.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he assured her. “Now you try.”
She made a solid attempt, Gabriel made an adjustment, then she quickly figured it out.
“You can start one for mama,” she suggested when he was just watching her.
“Excellent idea.” He worked slowly so Molly could help add the finishing touches once she was satisfied with her own.
“Can you tie mine?” She asked.
“It would be my pleasure.”
He finished tying the stems together like a clasp just as Rosalind came in to check on him, or more likely make sure her daughter wasn’t bothering him.
“Mama!” Molly ran over to show her mother the necklace she made.
“Wow, that’s beautiful sweetheart,” Rosie looked from her daughter to Gabriel, wondering what kind of man enjoyed making flower necklaces with a little girl. I could tell that she liked it. A lot.
“It was Gabriel’s idea. We made you one too.”
“This is for me?” Rosie asked, her hand pressed to her chest and her eyebrows raised. It was the way I overreacted to things for Clara, but I think she was genuinely touched.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t see any bugs in it,” Gabriel gave her a smile as she turned around and pulled her hair out of the way, letting him tie the necklace for her. His breath caught and I don’t think he could help himself as he traced the mark with his fingers. It was exactly like mine, like the dolls, down to the freckles in the crescent that looked like stars.
“Is something wrong?” Rosalind asked, snapping him out of his reverie and reminding him of his task. It would thoroughly creep me out if some guy caressed the back of my neck like that, but she looked like she was just as lost in the moment as he was.
“No, of course not,” he gave no explanation for touching her in what definitely looked like a sensual way, but she didn’t ask for one either...
“The flower it is,” I tried to get up and act like it was normal for me to pass out and wake up on the ground, which it kind of was lately.
“Where did you go?” Just like the bedroom in New Orleans, this time it was Gabriel’s turn to be nervous about how much I saw.
“When you gave them to her.”
“And she felt…” Gabriel tried to find the words to ask what he wanted to know, but it was mostly to torture himself for hurting her.
“I don’t know what she was feeling,” I admitted.
“You were in me?” His eyes widened in horror.
“No, it was weird. I was just in the room. Like I tapped into the moment rather than a memory.”
“You saw it all from above, or…” Embry was curious.
“No, I could walk around. It’s just weird in the ones when I can see myself instead of being myself,” I tried to explain.
“It happened before?” Gabriel asked. “You saw another moment?”
“The other one was a memory, I think.” I based my assumption on how this time it happened when I touched the flower block, whereas last time I was touching them. I wrapped the flower into Roger’s handkerchief instead of the silk, thus representing her husband, her daughter, and Gabriel; the three people she cared about most. The guys were looking at me expectantly, so I shared more. “It was of the two of you arguing. It happened when you were fighting and I tried to separate you, so I don’t know whose memory it was. Maybe both.”
“You get them at will then,” Embry concluded.
“No, I did not want to see what I saw,” I argued. “Is this all the spell books? We should grab them and get to the manor before dark,” I suggested when it looked like they were both going to ask for more details about their memory.
“I was thinking we should get something smaller than the dagger for Annabelle. Preferably something that never belonged to someone else,” Gabriel put his own curiosity aside for me.
“Like what?” The plantation was her family home once upon a time, so there were lots of family heirlooms and things that must have belonged to her, but it went through many renovations and I wasn’t aware of any secret jewelry boxes of hers. Then again, I never knew about Rosie’s.
“It is October,” he looked pointedly at me, then down to my neck.
“What do… the locket?” I clued in, bringing my hand to the moonstone necklace I was wearing instead of the locket my grandmother used to make me wear around Halloween.
“Evelyn didn’t tell you?” Embry read my confusion.
“She did not,” I agreed. A common theme for everyone and everything in my life these days.
“It was Annabelle’s. She had it with her when she died.”
“She was wearing it when they burnt her?” I involuntarily recoiled. It was one thing to have Beth’s old ring in my bag, but I wore the necklace that touched her searing flesh for months over the years, if not more.
“It was untouched by the flames. We were told to give it to Margaret, and your ancestors have passed it down ever since.”
“Is it something Henry gave to her?” I asked, even though the answer might make my skin crawl.
“No, she had it the first day I met her. Minus the rope and hair,” Gabriel assured me.
“Is that why it smells so bad?” I understood that the rope and hair were inside the seal.
“You’re exaggerating. It’s a little musty, but hair and twine don’t smell like rotting flesh.”
“Did all the others wear it too?” I tried to remember if I wore it in any of the memories.
“We had more control over that when they were children. As in Margaret wore it and made her daughter wear it and so on. It would disappear for a generation or two, then Henry would resurface and it wasn’t just a silly superstition anymore.”
“So my mom never wore it,” I understood.
“Not that I saw, but Corinne wore it every single day until she passed it on to her daughter.”
“I’ll go get it,” I relented.
“I’ll pack up any books or things that might be useful,” Embry picked up one of the magic books we hid down here when we left. The things we were originally coming here for. Magic books were more useful when you had someone who could do magic, and we needed all the help we could get.
Gabriel followed me upstairs in case someone showed up or the building collapsed on me, but I also got the feeling he wanted to say something.
“It wasn’t the fight that made you guys ignore each other this summer,” I told him. Eric had filled me in that their fight was about feelings Gabriel might have for me, rather than Embry’s feelings for Annabelle, as I had assumed.
He looked at me, surprised I knew where his mind was. There was a flash of him wanting to find out what I knew about that fight, but I didn’t want to talk about that, and his face told me he didn’t either.
“Give me a decade. Or a century,” he teased. The smile implied he wasn’t so concerned, at least not now that he knew it wasn’t the one about me.
“1770s,” I shrugged, going through the hooks on the wall of my closet. I was a lot less good at wearing the locket consistently now that Grams and Mrs. Boyd weren’t reminding me. Sam would say something when he saw it, but he had an out of sight, out of mind mentality when it came to Grams’ eccentricities, so I kept it at the plantation instead of the manor.
“We fought all the time back then.”
“Are you afraid of all children, or just Molly?” I brought us back to my most recent memory, rather than the one where he tells Embry we only look like a woman we can never live up to.
“Afraid of her?” He raised an eyebrow, but played along.
“The entire time you were making necklaces with her, you were trying to bury your fear, or…”
“Pretend I didn’t care,” he understood. “Margaret was easy, I could just pretend she was mine. I’m sure Embry did the same, but I never wanted to get close to another child like that. I watched her grow up, but no matter how old she got, when she died, she was still… I didn’t want to go through that again. But Molly was… I pretended I couldn’t care less, that I was giving her projects to keep her out of my hair, but after generations without letting anyone in… she was curious and caring and innocent and everything I didn’t know I needed.”
I digested the information, of him sharing his vulnerability with me, and took a chance. “It’s caring that you’re afraid of?” I teased with a smile instead of dwelling on how lonely it must be to watch everyone you care about die, then have to keep going.
“Terrible things often happen when I do. People get hurt,” he agreed, choosing to keep it honest, rather than the out I gave him. “With Rosalind, I was so focused on pointing out how she wasn’t Annabelle that I didn’t notice the dozens of ways she was amazing in her own right. She was strong, selfless in caring for her patients, a devoted mother… she would light up a room no matter how dark it appeared to be...”
“Why are you telling me that?” His eyes were looking at me with that intensity that made my heart beat faster and my cheeks blush.
“Being afraid doesn’t stop me from caring. It stops me from letting the other person know, which ultimately causes more pain for everyone,” he found my eyes and his guilt told me he knew exactly what memory I saw.
It was just the two of us in the closet, and he was being vulnerable and looking at me in a way that made me want to move closer, but my heart was beating a mile a minute and I was terrified of what might happen if I was wrong.
Just as I moved my hand closer to his, the locket shifted, and I was pulled away…
My heart sank at being ripped from the moment, but I was definitely not expecting to be Annabelle, wrists tied to a post behind my back as the ground beneath me was burning. Inside I was screaming, but Annabelle stood tall and looked ahead, not letting it get to her, even as the flames licked her feet. Gabriel and Embry were in the crowd, with Gabriel holding a little girl in his arms, both of them taking it a lot harder than Annabelle was. It burned, and I wanted to struggle to get free, to use my magic to freeze the flames… anything. Instead I stood there, stoic and strong, the locket around my neck the only thing that wasn’t on fire…
“Was it the locket?” Gabriel asked, horrified.
There were a million memories the locket could hold, but he knew which one it would bring. I nodded and shivered, not because I was cold, but I needed to get the feeling of being burned alive, for a second time this week, out of my skin.
“Come on, let’s bring you home,” he wrapped an arm around me and led me back outside.