Everlasting

  Ivy knew that the boys’ deep voices would carry up to the tower, but would they keep Beth from hurting herself or would they push her to action?

  She can’t be dead, Ivy thought. Somehow, I’d feel it, I’d know it. Angels, please.

  The ladder in the vestibule was gone. Beth must have pulled it up through the trapdoor. How did she have the strength? Ivy wondered, then remembered how strong Beth was when she tried to suffocate her. Gregory had made it possible. Perhaps, then, he hadn’t figured out his fate if Beth died.

  “Get on my shoulders, Will. Help him up, Luke,” Bryan directed.

  Tristan cupped his hands, giving Will a step up to Bryan, then Will pulled himself through the open square in the ceiling. Ivy followed, propelled by Bryan and Tristan through the trapdoor.

  It took a moment to regain her balance and see the scene before her. A shaft of light slanted downward from the open door beneath the bell, shining like a spotlight on Beth. Beth stood high on the ladder, one hand grasping it, the other fingering the coil of rope around her neck.

  “Beth, please,” Ivy begged, her voice shaking. “Please hold on.”

  Beth stared straight ahead, stroking the snake of rope.

  “Beth, look at me!”

  She didn’t react. Ivy’s fear mushroomed into panic. Beth was already dead to them—they’d never get her back—she was already part of Gregory’s world.

  Gregory. He was the one Ivy had to convince. “If she dies, Gregory, you die,” Ivy said, her voice low, quivering with fear and anger. “You’ll be gone from here forever. Leave Beth alone. Leave her now before she can do that to you.”

  The ladder creaked; Beth was shifting her weight. Ivy eyed the rope, which was connected to the bell wheel above. If Beth stepped off the ladder, she would drop several feet, but not far enough to touch the floor.

  “Don’t move, Beth!” Will shouted. “Keep both feet on the ladder.”

  He stepped on the first rung. “Listen to me,” he pleaded. “We’ll get through this together. We’re stronger than he is.”

  Will pulled himself up slowly as if fearing to upset Beth. Ivy watched and held her breath.

  “Our love is stronger than his hate, Beth,” Will said. “Don’t let go.” He was on the third rung . . . fourth rung. “I need you, Beth, more than you know. Please don’t let go.”

  Beth slowly moved her head, looking down on him and Ivy. “Take care of each other,” she said, then removed her hand from the ladder rung and stepped into the air.

  “No!” Ivy cried, her heart jerking with the rope.

  Will rushed upward.

  As Beth’s body dropped, pulling the rope, the bell in the tower clanged. Will grabbed Beth and yanked her body toward him. The return swing of the massive bell threatened to tighten the rope around Beth’s throat. Will struggled to hold Beth with one arm and anchor the rising rope with the other.

  Ivy hurried up the ladder behind him. She grabbed hold of the taut rope, pulling down on it hard. Will loosened the noose and pulled it off. The bell, swinging free, clanged loudly.

  Beth lay limp in Will’s arms. Tears streamed down his face. Ivy bent over her friend, cradling Beth’s head, crying.

  “Please live,” said Will.

  Feeling as if her hands were not her own but being guided by an angel, Ivy tilted back Beth’s head and lifted her chin. “She’s breathing!” Ivy reached for Beth’s wrist. “There’s a pulse. Weak, but it’s there.”

  Ivy remembered what she had learned in CPR. “We need to get her on the floor so we can—”

  Suddenly Beth’s chest heaved upward. Her mouth opened wide. A stroke of lightning flew up the rope and struck the bronze bell with a deafening blow, shaking the tower until it felt as if it would tumble down. For a moment they were bathed in jagged light. Then the knife of lightning blew out of the tower, leaving the bell to rock and clang madly.

  “What the hell?” Bryan exclaimed from below.

  “Ivy!” Tristan shouted.

  A clap of thunder sounded a short distance away.

  “We’re okay. Okay!”

  A siren wailed.

  “The tower was struck,” Bryan said.

  Ivy shakily climbed down the ladder then held it as Will descended with Beth in his arms. He laid her on the floor.

  A second siren sounded, its wail surging over the rise and fall of the first.

  “Someone must have seen the strike and called it in,” Bryan hollered to them. “Cops’ll come. I’ve got to get Luke out of here.”

  “Yes, go!”

  “No, Ivy—” Tristan began to protest.

  “Now,” Ivy insisted, looking down from the tower at Tristan’s upturned face.

  “But—”

  “Luke, the police’ll recognize you,” Bryan argued. “If they find you here, it’s over.”

  “Go!” Ivy shouted. “Bryan, get him out of here. Call you later.”

  Then she knelt down by Will and Beth.

  “She’s going to die, Ivy.”

  Ivy felt Beth’s wrist. “She’s hanging in there. Her pulse is steadier now.”

  “I don’t know how to help her.”

  “Help’s on its way.”

  “What’s taking them so long?” Will’s voice was panicky.

  “They sound close,” Ivy said, trying to reassure him.

  “They’re taking forever.”

  Ivy watched Beth’s chest rhythmically rise and fall. “She’s holding her own. Help me move her into recovery position.”

  “Ivy, if I lose her, I can’t go on!”

  Ivy met his eyes, then rested her hand on his. “I know, Will. I know just how that feels.”

  BRYAN SWORE AND STEPPED BACK QUICKLY INTO the shadow of the church’s exterior wall. “Luke, wait! More cops.”

  “They’re not stopping,” Tristan observed as the second police car raced past the entrance to the church lot, heading down the narrow road that led to the bay.

  “Better for us,” Bryan replied.

  A third car—State Police—sped toward the beach.

  “But if Ivy and Will need help—”

  “They have phones,” Bryan reminded him. “We have to get you out of here.” He started across the lot, then stopped. “Where’d she come from?”

  “Who?”

  “The skinny girl with the purple hair.”

  Lacey stood in the tall grass of the church lawn. “Looks harmless,” Tristan said.

  “Yeah, until she takes down license plates numbers.”

  “Just keep going.” The last thing Tristan needed was a conversation with Lacey; if she acted like she knew him, things would get very complicated. “Walk to your car like we belong here.”

  Bryan glanced sideways at him. “I guess your survival skills are sharper than mine now.”

  They crossed the lot, Tristan following Bryan. As soon as Bryan was focused on his car, Tristan glanced back at Lacey, who was looking up at the sky, frowning. Was Gregory gone from Beth? Tristan wondered. He pointed toward the tower, trying to signal to Lacey that she was needed there.

  By the time Bryan opened his car door, Lacey had disappeared. Bryan turned quickly around, looking for her, then shrugged. “No one’s watching at the moment, but I hear more sirens. Get in the back, down between the seats, till we clear this place.”

  Tristan nodded and pulled open the back door. “Oh great.”

  “Sorry about the mess.”

  Tristan climbed into the pile of worn workout clothes, then Bryan covered him up.

  “Are you trying to asphyxiate me?”

  Bryan laughed. “Keep quiet, and I’ll open the windows.”

  “I don’t think that’ll help.”

  Bryan drove slowly to the edge of the lot. “Volunteer fire and an ambulance,” he said softly. “Hang on.”

  His tires spat stones as he spun out of the driveway onto the road.

  “Some smooth driving!” Tristan remarked from the back seat. More than ever he felt split in half, his
heart and soul back with Ivy, Will, and Beth, the superficial part of himself preoccupied with playing Luke. “Hungry, Bryan? There’s something back here that looks like part of a hotdog.”

  “I was wondering where that went.”

  “It’s got some fuzzy stuff on it,” Tristan continued.

  “Car lint or mold?”

  “Can’t tell.”

  “Shut up a minute—we’re stopping at an intersection.”

  The car slowed and idled, then made a sudden turn. A horn blared.

  “So how close did he come to hitting us?” Tristan called from the back seat.

  “A few inches,” Bryan replied, laughing. “You can come up for air now. But stay in the back seat, just in case.”

  “Yeah, that’ll look real normal, you chauffeuring me.”

  “Best we can do, buddy. We’re headed toward Harwich, my uncle’s rink. I got keys to the storerooms. You’ll be out of sight till things settle and we hear from Ivy.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You in love?”

  Tristan hesitated for a moment, wondering if Luke would admit it, then grinned. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am.”

  “She’s awfully smart, you know.” It sounded like a warning rather than a compliment.

  “I can handle her,” Tristan replied, glad Ivy wasn’t there to hear him playing macho.

  “You’re going to have to finish high school. She’s the kind to want a college guy.”

  “I guess.” Tristan shrugged. “I’m not thinking that far ahead. Hey, there’s a warm can of Coke back here. Can I have it?”

  “If you open it outside the window. I don’t want you to mess up my clean car.”

  Tristan laughed, opened the can, and watched the foam blow off the top.

  “How’s the drinking?” Bryan asked.

  Tristan was about to answer “warm and stale,” then realized Bryan was referring to Luke’s alcoholism. “I’ve stayed away from it.”

  “Completely?” Bryan sounded as if he wanted to believe it but couldn’t.

  “Yeah, well, when you wake up finding yourself beaten to a pulp and have no memory of how you got that way, you don’t have that much desire to keep drowning yourself in alcohol.”

  “Then maybe it was worth it,” Bryan replied. “Was Ivy telling the truth or just trying to make you look good to Will? Did you really find out something about Corinne’s murderer?”

  Tristan quickly weighed the pros and cons of revealing what they knew. “She exaggerated a little, but it seems kind of obvious that someone was being blackmailed by Corinne and decided to put an end to it. Considering what I heard about her yesterday, I should have figured it out back before my memory was wiped clean.”

  “The police should have figured it out!” Bryan answered quickly. “But you made yourself such an easy target, Luke.”

  “Looks that way. Things are going to be different from now on.”

  “Not a moment too soon,” said Bryan.

  IT SMELLED AS IF IT HAD RAINED JUST ENOUGH TO dampen the church’s stone lot and make the leaves of nearby trees glisten. The freshness of the evening air seemed to help Beth: She opened her eyes for several seconds, gazed at Will, who was carrying her, then rested her head against his shoulder. Ivy opened his car door, and he laid Beth gently in the back seat.

  As he did, the amethyst necklace slipped out of her pocket.

  “Ivy,” Will said, surprised. “Beth knew what she was doing! She had the amethyst with her so she could fight him. Beth was in control, not Gregory. She wanted to die.”

  “No,” Ivy replied, and recounted what she and Beth had learned from Lacey about expelling demons from the world. “Beth was doing it to save me and anyone else Gregory might hurt through her.”

  “Is he gone?”

  Beth’s mouth moved as if she were trying to speak. Ivy leaned close. “Beth, open your eyes.”

  She did, and Ivy gazed into irises that were a full, clear, luminous blue, eyes that made a perfect sky seem pale. “He’s gone.”

  Beth nodded and smiled a little, still weak. “Gone.”

  The police and ambulances had bypassed them for whatever was going on at the end of Wharf Lane. Ivy moved her car to another lot, then was picked up by Will. Beth had shut her eyes again, but the color had returned to her face and she seemed to be sleeping peacefully in the backseat.

  “I think she’s going to be okay,” Ivy said.

  “Even so,” Will replied, heading west on 6A, “I don’t think we should go back to the inn right away. There’s going to be a lot of questions.”

  After discussing the simplest and most believable story, Ivy called Bryan, who agreed it was best to keep the truth quiet and not call attention to Luke’s hiding place at the church; he offered to keep Luke hidden at the rink until Ivy could pick him up. Then she called the others, informing them that they had found Beth in “Hyannis Port” and that she needed some time away from the inn. “Sorry, what’s that, Chase? I can’t understand you—you’re breaking up, Chase. Talk soon,” Ivy said, and clicked off her phone.

  Will smiled. “I know a nice place this time of day.”

  By the time they reached the beach in Yarmouth Port, Beth was sitting up. With Will on one side of her and Ivy on the other, they linked arms and walked toward the bay. Like the beach near Alicia’s, the sand, now gold with the slanting sun, gave way to the salt marsh: tiny islands of brilliant green sea grass, set like puzzle pieces in the deepening blue of the bay. A long boardwalk stretched over the marshes. They strolled along the pathway, stopping from time to time to lean over the wood rails and point out the fiddler crabs and schools of tiny fish.

  They spoke only of what was around them—imagining the bubble secrets of tiny bay creatures, enjoying the earthy smell of the marsh, gazing at the far shore, where a red hull glided past a shimmer of sand. They lived only in the present moment—not halfway between heaven and earth, Ivy thought, but halfway between land and sea—which was joy enough, because they were together again.

  Twenty-seven

  BEING WITH IVY BACK IN STONEHILL HAD MADE IT even harder to be away from her now, which meant Tristan cared much less about his safety than Bryan did.

  Bryan had unlocked for him a storeroom as far away from the rink as possible, then returned with a steak sub and fries twenty minutes later. “Look what I found in the back of my car. And it’s not even fuzzy.”

  As they shared the food on a carton top, Bryan talked about life in River Gardens. “Does any of this sound familiar?”

  “It sounds like somebody else’s life,” Tristan replied. Sometimes it was ridiculously easy to be honest.

  “Luke, why don’t you let me help Ivy with the detective work? Gran will protect you, but Hank Tynan will blab—by now it’s probably all over the Gardens that you came back. And if you can’t remember people, you won’t know who you’re dealing with. Whoever wants to get you will be one step ahead. I think you should lay low.”

  “It’s too late for that.”

  Bryan shook his head. “You’re so freakin’ pigheaded! You should have lost your thick skull rather than the memories inside.”

  Tristan laughed. “I wonder if I can still skate.”

  “Don’t try it here. My uncle is lousy at faces, but he never forgets the skating style of a great player.”

  Ivy called Bryan an hour later. When she picked up Tristan, Bryan handed him a care package, tossing it in the car after him, telling Ivy to “Gun it, babe,” at which she laughed and pulled carefully out of the rink’s driveway.

  “So what’s the plan?” Tristan asked.

  “We’re meeting Will and Beth in Yarmouth Port, then you and I will drive Beth back to Stonehill tonight and home tomorrow.”

  “How is she doing?” Tristan asked.

  “When I left, she looked much better—tired, but like the real Beth.”

  Tristan could hear the relief in Ivy’s voice. “Did Lacey know what happened—whether Gregory has slipped into someone els
e’s mind?”

  “Lacey? I haven’t seen her.”

  “She was in the parking lot when Bryan and I left. I couldn’t talk to her, but I pointed to the tower. I thought she’d help you.”

  “Maybe she saw we were doing okay, and moved on.”

  Tristan nodded, but still looked puzzled.

  “What’s in the bag?” Ivy asked.

  Tristan reached in the back seat, rummaged through Bryan’s care package, and laughed. “Enough caffeine for an army, sports bars, fudge, chips—oh, geez—a bankroll.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll pay him back.”

  It was twilight by the time they reached the small café where Beth and Will had eaten. They were sitting on a bench outside, talking, their faces lit softly by a ship’s lantern hanging from the café’s sign. For the moment they looked normal and happy, Tristan thought. Why couldn’t Beth, Will, Ivy, and he have normal lives? Did people living everyday lives have any idea how lucky they were and how fragile it all was? Two years ago, he didn’t.

  But Will knew, at least now he did. Tristan could see it in Will’s face and in his hands—the way he held onto Ivy and Beth before they got into the car, the way his eyes lingered on Beth as if he feared he might never see her again.

  She’ll come back safe, I promise you, Tristan wanted to tell him, but now more than ever he knew he couldn’t make such rash promises.

  They arrived at Ivy’s home a little after midnight. Beth had fallen asleep early in the trip, and Ivy and Tristan helped her upstairs to Ivy’s bed. Ivy wanted to stay close by, in case Beth had nightmares. Carrying blankets and pillows, Tristan and Ivy tiptoed up the stairs from her bedroom to camp out in the music room.

  The crescent moon, rising early, had dropped low enough in the sky to look like a Christmas ornament hanging in the dormer window. Tristan watched Ivy’s hair catch the light as she laid down the bedding. She was humming a song from Carousel. He hummed with her.

  Ivy glanced up at him, her eyes bright, looking as if she were trying to hold back laughter.