Eternal

  She sat in the front seat, her mind spinning with different ways to ask her aunt questions. Questions about Natasha. Questions about her uncle and aunt who her father never told her about. Then she had to figure out a way to ask her aunt not to tell her dad that she’d been there.

  “Explain ‘sort of,’” Chase said, interrupting her thoughts.

  “Huh?”

  “How did the ghost ‘sort of’ tell you to go see your aunt?”

  When she didn’t answer right away, he spoke again. “Talk to me, Della.”

  “She called. The day we were in Natasha’s closet, she called.”

  “Your aunt called you?”

  “No, she called Natasha’s mom. Don’t you remember the music stopped and the loudspeaker announced a call from Miao Hon?”

  His eyes grew a little wider. “That was Chan’s last name. I didn’t put it together. Miao’s your aunt?”

  She nodded.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I forgot,” she lied, not caring that her heart echoed the mistruth.

  He stared at her with a frown. “What did your aunt want with Natasha’s mom?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what I think I’m supposed to find out.”

  “And why do you think that? Did something else happen?”

  She told him about rehearing the message that had played on the Owens’ sound speakers when she’d been talking to Burnett.

  “Then it must be important,” Chase said as he cut his eyes back to the road. After a few seconds, he stopped at a red light and looked back at her. “Why are you afraid of your aunt?”

  “I’m not afraid of my aunt,” she said.

  “Why didn’t you want to go ask her about Natasha’s picture in the beginning?”

  She hesitated to answer, but then she just said it. “She’ll tell my dad.”

  “Tell him what?” he asked.

  “That I went to see her.”

  “And that’s a bad thing, why?”

  She shook her head and stared straight ahead. “He’s Asian,” she said before she could stop herself.

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  Feeling uncomfortable, she exhaled and reached down to bring the back of the seat forward. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “I might, if you explained it,” he said.

  She got the back of the seat up, then searched beside the door to find the lever to move the entire seat forward. She found it and it squeaked when she shifted it forward.

  “What does your father being Asian have to do with you not seeing your aunt?” he prodded.

  With the seat adjusted, it still didn’t feel right. That’s when she had to accept it might be the conversation making her so uncomfortable.

  In her head, she heard her father’s voice. We don’t expose our dirty laundry.

  “He’s embarrassed,” she blurted out, admitting it cost her a big chunk of pride. And instantly she wanted that chunk back.

  “Embarrassed about what?”

  “Me,” she said, knowing she couldn’t take the comment back and wanting to get this conversation over with.

  “What? Why … I don’t get it.”

  She swallowed the hurt. “I’m … different now. Or … he thinks I am. Hell, I am different. Just not in the ways he thinks. Can we not talk about this anymore?”

  He frowned. “Not until you start making sense.”

  She exhaled. “I’m different since I was turned. He thinks I’m into drugs, or pregnant. And that I steal from them.”

  “But you aren’t, and I don’t see you stealing from them, either. So that doesn’t make sense.”

  She stared out the side window, suddenly not wanting to look at him. “I told you that you wouldn’t understand.” She closed her eyes a second, but for some stupid reason, she still wanted to explain it—wanted him to understand. “I was his pride and joy. And then…”

  “Then what?”

  She blinked, and when she opened her eyes she watched the trees zip past. Was he speeding? She glanced at the speedometer. He wasn’t breaking any laws.

  No, only she did that.

  Her father would have a fit if he knew. And thanks to Chase, he wouldn’t. She owed him for that. Not just the four hundred dollars, but for the trouble it would have caused.

  When she looked up, his expression told her he still waited for an answer.

  “It was like some law in their family that they shouldn’t marry out of their own race. So we had to show his family that we were just as good as regular Asians. I did better in school than all my other cousins and I never got in any trouble. But when I was turned, everything changed. My grades slipped a bit, I was … grumpy, and … he didn’t want his family to see me.”

  “Just because he broke his family’s law doesn’t mean you should have to pay for it. And so what if your grades slipped?”

  She shook her head and realized how big of a mistake it had been to try to explain. “Asians are very private people. They don’t want anyone to see their screwups. And I was…”

  “His screwup?” Chase asked and hit the steering wheel.

  “In a sense, yes, but not like—”

  “Oh, now I understand. You’re father’s an asshole!”

  “He’s not,” she snapped and looked at him. His eyes were brighter, as if he was angry. And she could feel hers tingling and lightening in defense of her father.

  “And the fact that you still care about him makes him an even bigger asshole.”

  Della shook her head. “Chase, it looked like I was a screwup. When I got turned, and before I came here, I got caught leaving at night to get blood. I wasn’t eating my mom’s cooking. I was tired during the day. I was hurting because I lost my boyfriend, I wouldn’t let anyone touch me because I was cold, and I wasn’t very pleasant.”

  “Most teens are like that all the time,” he said. “I was, and my sister could be a real pain in the ass. My parents would just shake their heads and say, ‘You’ll have to excuse them, they’re having a teentude.’”

  “My father was raised in a different culture.”

  “I know all about the Asian culture. They’re not pricks.”

  “My dad’s not a prick!” she said. “I could have tried harder to hide things, to pretend—”

  “You were friggin’ turned vampire, it wasn’t your fault.”

  “But he didn’t understand that. And I couldn’t tell him.”

  Chase ran a hand over his face and took in a deep breath. When he cut a glance at her, she saw his eyes were back to their normal light green. “I’m sorry. It just makes me so mad that…” He sighed. “Don’t worry. I’ll be nice when I meet him.”

  Della’s mouth fell open a bit. “What do you mean, when you meet him? We’re going to my aunt’s, not my dad’s. And you’re not even coming in.”

  He pulled the car over and Della realized they were there. Her heart started to race with nerves and her stomach knotted. She stared at the small rusty-colored brick home that had been etched in her memory. She and her sister, Marla, had spent a lot of weekends here, running around with Chan and Meiling, his younger sister. Hiding Easter eggs in those bushes, eating popsicles on that front porch, raking leaves into a pile and then diving into them.

  Chase reached over and put his hand on her shoulder as if he understood her emotions were on overdrive. “I didn’t expect you to ask me to come inside.” His voice sounded super calm, as if trying to offer her the emotion. “And I meant when I meet your dad later. It’s going to be okay.”

  She ignored the “okay” comment, because nothing felt okay, and she faced him. “Why would you meet my dad?”

  He looked at her as if she was the one who was confused. “Because we’re bonded.” His hand still rested on her shoulder. And as much as she wanted to deny it, it offered her some comfort. But realizing that added to her emotional havoc.

  She rolled her eyes at him in an over-the-top Miranda fashion. “You are bat-shit cra
zy. And I do not do well with bat-shit crazy!” She pointed a finger at him. “After I get out, pull the car down the street and don’t even think about snooping around.”

  Then, pushing the car door shut, and without a plan of how to approach any of this—not Chase, or the questions about the picture of Natasha—she walked to her aunt’s door.

  She recalled a piece of advice someone had given her once. Fake it until you make it.

  She waited until Chase’s blue Camaro pulled down the street to knock. And when she heard someone walking toward the door, she wanted to run like a scared puppy. It appeared even faking it took some amount of confidence. No doubt, her confidence account was empty.

  Just when she’d decided how bad of an idea this was, the door swung open.

  “Della? Oh, my God, Della Rose! You’ve come home.” Her aunt stepped out and embraced her before she could find a way out of it. “Oh, my. You’re freezing. Where’s the rest of the family?” she asked and looked over Della’s shoulder as if expecting to see her father, mother, and sister.

  “It’s just me.” Della forced herself to speak. And those words echoed inside her. It had been “just her” for a long time.

  “So, you’re still at that school?”

  That school. Della nodded and wondered what her aunt had been told. If, like Della’s father, she thought Shadow Falls was a camp for troubled teens, or if he’d told her something else.

  “Well, come in out of the cold.”

  Della stepped inside. She hadn’t even realized that the day had turned cold until the heat in the house surrounded her. The air felt thick.

  The gold-and-red décor of the home was exactly as it had been a year ago. It had always reminded Della of a Chinese restaurant, but a nice one. There was even a huge aquarium of saltwater fish in the entryway.

  Della watched a big yellow fish swim the length of his tank, and then inhaled hoping to calm her nerves. The breath smelled, and almost tasted, like soy sauce. Like her own home, when her dad took over the kitchen or when her mom cooked to please him.

  “Look at you,” her aunt Miao said, her gaze shifting up and down Della. “All grown up. What’s it been, a year, since I saw you?”

  “I think so,” Della said.

  Her aunt grinned, even though it didn’t show in her eyes. Della remembered when her smiles always made it to her dark eyes and they regularly came with a light laugh. That was before Chan’s death—the one he faked.

  For some strange reason, Della recalled her aunt at the funeral saying she couldn’t believe it, that Chan didn’t feel dead, and a mother would know.

  Did she feel it now? Did she sense that Chan was really gone? Della felt the air shutter in her lungs.

  Just like that, Della felt guilty again. She’d lived and Chan had died. And the guy who made that choice was waiting in the car. She’d stopped blaming Chase, but perhaps she hadn’t completely gotten over the guilt.

  “You finally got some boobs, young lady,” her aunt said.

  “It’s a padded bra.” Della tried to tease back, but the humor fell short when she realized how much she’d missed her aunt. How much she missed her old life.

  “It can’t all be padding,” her aunt said. And then her smile faded. “Is something wrong? Everyone is okay, right?”

  “Yes. I just…” She had to think fast. “I was … my class went to the Funeral Museum. You know, that crazy museum about caskets, embalming people, and all that crap.”

  “Oh, my, that would make for a cheery afternoon,” she said. “For what class?”

  “Science.” She really should have come up with a better lie, but it was the only museum Della could remember around here.

  “I wish Meiling was here to see you. She’s at the library studying with her friends.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” Della said, but she wasn’t. She needed to talk to her aunt alone. “I realized how close we were to your house and I had one of my friends, who was driving, stop off so I could say hi.”

  “Well, bring her in.”

  Him. Then Della decided it was best to let her assume. “Uh, nah. She’s totally attached at the hip to her phone. Facebook and stuff.”

  “Kids are like that nowadays. I refuse to allow Meiling to bring hers to the dinner table. Families need to talk.” A touch of sadness filled her expression. Della knew she was thinking about Chan.

  “Yes,” Della agreed, but talking about things had been hard in this family—especially if it had anything to do with the past. She tried to figure out how to bring up the subject of Natasha.

  “Let me fix you some tea,” her aunt said.

  I don’t have time for tea. “I can’t stay but for a few minutes.” They moved deeper into the house.

  “Just one cup.” All of a sudden, her aunt looked up at the heating vent in the ceiling. “I swear my heater is on its last leg. Let me turn it up.”

  Della felt it then. The balminess in the room had vanished, an iciness filled the air, but it wasn’t a normal kind of cold.

  A dead cold. Don’t make it snow. Don’t make it snow!

  Miao left to go adjust the heat. Della muttered under her breath, “So, you are my aunt, Bao Yu?” Saying her name made it somehow feel real.

  No answer came. And that’s when she saw it. Like a smear on a glass, something flickered a few feet in front of her. Slowly, the shimmer became visible and the ghost appeared. While she stood with her back to Della, staring in the direction Miao had gone, Della stared at her.

  There was something familiar about the way the spirit’s black hair rested on the shoulder. The shape of her head. The curve of her neck.

  An emotional current shot through Della’s veins.

  “Natasha?” Della said. Tears formed in her eyes and her knees weakened. Holiday was right. Natasha was dead.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  “Did you say something?” her aunt said, walking back, never glancing at the spirit, and with good reason. She obviously couldn’t see her.

  The spirit turned and looked at Della. The sharp edge of Della’s panic faded when she saw her face. Della grabbed the edge of an overstuffed chair to steady herself. It wasn’t Natasha.

  It was her aunt. The face was the same one she’s seen in her father’s yearbook. The same face she’d seen in the vision covered in blood. But the similarities between her and Natasha were too strong to be a coincidence.

  Right then, Della knew the lie Natasha had mentioned in her diary. She’d been adopted. And she also knew the tie between the ghost and Natasha. They were mother and daughter.

  Natasha was her cousin.

  But how could that be? Her aunt would have barely been a teen when the child would have been born. Della quickly did the math, guessing ages, and realized her aunt could have been fifteen or sixteen.

  Show her. The ghost’s words seemed to echo in the house, but Della figured only she could hear them.

  Show her what? Then Della suddenly knew. She reached into her pocket for the photo. “I … Chan gave this to me.” It was a lie, but what else could she say? The truth certainly wouldn’t suffice.

  Her aunt’s hand shook as she took the picture. Her breathing came quicker. When she looked up, her eyes shimmered with tears. “I have searched for this picture.” She blinked several times and then swallowed.

  “She’s my cousin, isn’t she?” Della asked.

  Her aunt nodded then looked back down at the photo. Slowly, she ran her finger over the image of Chan and then Natasha. “Yes. I…” She blinked and a few tears slipped from her short black lashes. “She showed up on my doorstep, and I knew before she even spoke to me that she was my niece. She is so much like her mother.” Her voice shook a little. “I had to tell her. Tell her the truth. She cried and I cried with her.”

  Bao Yu moved closer. What truth? Ask her for the truth.

  “What did you tell her, Aunt Miao? What is the truth?”

  “That her mother … is gone. But Bao Yu loved her. She only gave her away be
cause our parents couldn’t accept it. They were old-school. And the father’s parents would not even accept it was his child. She didn’t have a choice. She had to give her away. She was told that the child would go to a family with some Asian heritage. That they would love her.”

  I wanted to keep her. The ghost’s voice rang out in desperation. I cried so hard when they took her away from me. She was my baby. Mine!

  Another question sat on the tip of Della’s tongue. She needed to ask, needed to know. “How? How did Bao Yu die?”

  Her aunt closed her eyes. “She was killed. And now Natasha is gone, too. Like Chan. Why does life give us something so precious and then take it away?”

  Natasha’s not dead, Della told herself, and fought to believe it.

  “How? How did she die?”

  “I’m told it was a car accident. It was only a month ago.”

  “No, not Natasha. How did Bao Yu die?” The temperature in the room grew colder. Even Della’s skin prickled with goose bumps. Her aunt Miao folded her arms from the chill and, if her expression was any indication, from the memory.

  Looking over her aunt’s shoulder, Della saw Bao Yu standing so close and listening. Almost as if she needed the answer as much as Della.

  “I don’t know,” Miao said.

  But Della heard her heart reveal the words as a lie.

  “I think you do,” Della said. “Tell me. Please.”

  “No. It doesn’t need to be repeated. There are some things that are just best forgotten.” She looked at Della as if pleading for her to accept it.

  Della recalled the pregnancy tests her parents had insisted she take. Had her father been thinking of his sister then? “That sounds like my dad, and I think he’s wrong. Because you haven’t really forgotten, and neither has he.”

  “Oh, my!” Her aunt pressed her fingers to her trembling lips. “Your father will be so angry at me for telling you any of this.”

  Della wanted to insist she hadn’t told her nearly enough, but her gut said it would only upset her aunt and wouldn’t lead to any information. “My father doesn’t need to know,” she said. “I won’t even tell him I came here. It will be our secret.”