It was like a scene from a bad movie—the heroine, in her long gown, teetering on the side of the pool before falling in, all in slow motion.
Except Susanna didn’t stand up. She thrashed on all fours in the stream below my rock, screaming like a terrified animal caught in a trap.
“Help me!” she shrieked.
I knelt and grabbed her shoulders. “I’m here.”
Her flailing fists knocked my hands away.
“Susanna, stop fighting me.”
She didn’t appear to hear. As she struggled to her feet, she tripped on her skirt and went under again. I lay on the boulder and fished in the water for something to grasp. Cupping her face, I held it above the water.
She sputtered. “Help me, Mark.” Her thin fingers clutched my wrists.
“Calm down. I’ll get you out.” It killed me to see her like this. I locked an arm around her waist and hauled her onto the boulder. “You’re fine now. I have you.”
Her cries morphed into hiccups. She hunched over and buried her face in her hands.
I cradled her. “You’re fine,” I said. “Susanna, you’re fine.”
Her trembling faded, bit by bit. When it had stopped, I asked, “Do you think you can stand?”
She nodded.
“Slowly.” I stood and drew her up with me, my arms still securely around her. She was rigid, fists balled against her cheeks.
Beneath my hands, her body was warm and wet. Her tunic gaped open to reveal a transparent shirt clinging to the tops of her breasts. I hugged her tightly against me, blocking the view.
She sucked in a sobbing breath.
“Better?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Okay. I don’t know where that came from, but you really don’t need to fear the creek. It’s shallow enough to stand in.”
“My father drowned in Rocky Creek.”
Damn. No wonder. “I’m sorry, Susanna. How did it happen?”
A shudder racked her body. “There was a terrible storm one afternoon. It was raining hard. The creek was rising, threatening to spill over its banks. He came to see if it threatened our farm and fell in. The current bore him away.” Her voice was soft and childlike.
“How old were you?”
“Eight.” I could feel her smile against my chest. “My papa was a good man. Everyone admired him. He was the town tutor. He taught me everything he taught the boys.”
I could hardly believe what she’d told me. Her father had died in this creek, yet Susanna came down to the falls every free moment she could spare.
“Why do you spend so much time near the water if you fear it?”
“It’s the last place Mr. Pratt would think to look for me.”
Damn. She hid in a place that reminded her of a huge tragedy, just to have some time alone.
“You’re safe now. The creek barely comes up to your knees.”
“I know, but the falls are so strong.” Her voice squeaked.
“All you have to do is stand up and walk away.” I brushed wet hair from her face.
“Mark?”
“Yeah?”
Her brow creased anxiously. “The bowl smashed.”
“Not a problem.”
Her head tilted up. “Mark?”
“Yeah?”
“Am I in your world?”
“Yeah.”
The curtain of water flowed behind us, glittery and crystal clear. The falls were about as hard to understand as she was. Why had they picked now to let one of us through? Not that I was complaining or anything. I was really glad that we could be this close. I just didn’t understand what the gain was for the falls. We were already friends. What else did it want for us?
“You’re in twenty-first century Raleigh.”
She released a deep sigh. “I want to go home.”
I wasn’t going to encourage this decision. Holding her made me feel all sexy and heroic.
She wiggled free and turned her back to me.
I looked down at my empty arms. She’d needed me and I’d responded without thinking. It felt good. No, it felt great. Too bad it had ended so soon.
“Do you want me to see if the falls will let me jump over there and help you across?”
“Yes, thank you.” She stared at her toes.
I leapt to her rock and paused. It was quiet. No airplanes, traffic, or chainsaws. Just birds and insects and the rushing of water. It smelled weird. Earthy, like insane compost. And her world seemed absurdly bright for this late in the evening. How could they stand the daytime sunlight without wearing shades?
Damn, I was standing in 1796. The frickin’ eighteenth century. I looked over my shoulder and gave her a smile. “Whisper Falls has some serious attitude. It finally gave in about us.”
She watched me silently. Susanna had withdrawn into statue mode.
I offered my hand. “Come on. I won’t let you fall.”
She landed beside me on her rock and then shrank away—soaked, stiff, face averted.
What had I done?
Susanna confused me. How could a girl go from fine to ballistic to catatonic all in the space of five minutes?
“What just happened here?”
She started to walk past me. When I touched her arm, she hesitated.
“Susanna, say something. How did we go from friends to strangers so fast? I don’t understand what went wrong.”
“Nobody ever sees me upset. I do not permit it.” As soon as she spoke, she clapped a hand over her mouth and met my gaze, wide-eyed.
“Then it’s a good thing it happened in front of me.” How must it feel to never show emotions or voice opinions? To want peace so badly she fought her worst fear each day? It left me in awe.
She searched my face. I could almost hear her thinking, her brain clicking through all the angles. Then she smiled, slowly and sweetly.
Damn, her smiles were like crack.
“You are right. I am fortunate you were the one to witness that. Thank you.” She picked her way over to the cliff.
It was still light out. I wasn’t ready to let her go. I had to do something to hold her attention.
“Hey,” I called after her, “I learned something interesting about your town.”
“Yes?” She looked over her shoulder, a foot already poised on a ledge.
I knew how a cat felt when it had a dead mouse to present to its owner. Or maybe, on second thought, that wasn’t such a good analogy.
“Worthville disappeared from the census between 1800 and 1810.”
She blinked as if she thought I was joking. “Worthville disappears?”
Shit. Where was my brain? I couldn’t have eased that in a little nicer? “Yeah.”
She shook her head in denial, watching me with big, round eyes. A few seconds passed. She slumped to a boulder and laid shaking fingertips to her lips. “Merciful heavens,” she said in a horrified whisper.
Why did I constantly screw up with her?
History had never been my favorite subject, nothing more than dry facts to memorize. Distant tragedies were something my brain acknowledged as sad without penetrating any further. But this was her world.
“Sorry, Susanna. I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that.”
Her gaze flicked from place to place, as if seeking answers among the shadows. “When does my village vanish?” Her voice cracked on the last word.
“I don’t know, exactly.”
“How does it happen?”
Great show-off I was. Hadn’t even bothered to look up the details. What was wrong with me? Like some kind of selfish jerk, I’d told her horrible news just to keep her near me a minute longer.
“I don’t know how it happened, either.”
With a choked moan, she rocketed to her feet, climbed to the top of the bluff and paused, a dark silhouette against the night sky. “So you have learned nothing else?”
“Not yet.”
“Then look no more. I don’t wish to know.”