Underneath

I met his eyes as he said, “I’ve… been down there.” He swallowed. “It doesn’t feel right, you know?”

  I registered his words. There was more to it than the usual “Man, that place gives me the creeps.” My breathing hitched, and I put my hand on his. I reached inside him, searching. I didn’t know what it was I could extend outward—my aura? My soul? Whatever part of me that gave me the power extended through my hand and into his. There it was, a spark of orange light deep within him.

  The man was an Empath, and he had no idea.

  *

  Thirteen. One year older than my daughter was now. That’s how old I was when I had my first experience as an Empath.

  Being an Empath wasn’t always uncomfortable. Sometimes, it was heartwarming or pleasurable. But my induction into the lifestyle left me wary and cynical.

  My cousin Naomi died. No one would tell me how. The grown-ups only spoke of it in hushed whispers, eyes downcast, and never around the kids.

  My mother held my hand and took me to the casket. “To say goodbye,” she told me, though that seemed so stupid. My cousin was no longer in that body. It was a useless shell, a piece of decaying meat. Even a thirteen-year-old knew that.

  Naomi looked… weird. There was thick make-up on her face and her hair was down. I got so angry about that. She hated wearing her hair down. My mother reached into the casket and placed a hand over where Naomi’s were crossed on her flat chest.

  “She’s in a better place,” my mother said. “You can touch her, honey. Say goodbye.”

  I thought about arguing. Saying no. What difference did one last touch of her hand make? But my mom wasn’t always reasonable—ornery to her last day, that woman. And instead of fighting, I reached inside and put a palm on Naomi’s arm.

  Dead or alive, it didn’t matter. Emotions were like imprints that stained a person’s body, remaining for years, through decades, and beyond the veil. Like abandoned prisons where jail cell doors still clanged, videos of past activity constantly rewinding and playing as if the place had never shut down.

  I witnessed Naomi’s last moments.

  Fear. Revulsion. On her back, legs spread, a strange man above her, shoving into her as he laughed. The terror and confusion was debilitating. It wasn’t fast or clean. And when he was done, he slit her throat. Sharp, hot. I gagged.

  Beside my cousin’s coffin, I screamed and jerked away from her violated body. I continued to scream, all the way out the front doors.

  My family thought it was the grief. That I’d witnessed death for the first time and couldn’t handle it.

  They had no idea.

  *

  Darren and I spoke no more of Garneria. The paperwork was quick and easy, the tour even more so because I’d spent so much of my childhood traversing the Ancient. When most little girls were playing with Barbies or climbing trees, I was attending history lectures and studying the local museums. I made no excuses for my dorkiness; I embraced it with open arms.

  “You understand you’re getting a promotion, correct?”

  My ears perked, the bone before me with meat still hanging on. “Excuse me?”

  Darren grinned and leaned forward on his elbows. “I understand your master’s degree—which Missy faxed me, by the way—is in museum studies with a concentration in exhibition development.”

  “Yes. And natural history.”

  “Well, natural history aside, it just so happens,” Darren continued, “I have an opening for an exhibit developer.”

  My heart did the Snoopy dance. “In what exhibit?”

  He cleared his throat and shifted in his chair. “Garneria.”

  Chapter 5

  Adara met me at the door, bouncing on her toes. Twenty degrees outside and she was in hoochie-butt shorts and a tank top. “Well? Well?”

  I dropped my purse on the table in the hall and peeled my leather gloves off one finger at a time before turning to her. “They want to put me in charge of the Garneria exhibit.”

  My daughter shrieked and threw herself at me, wrapping her skinny arms around my neck. She had her father’s height. “But, Mom, that’s great! Your own exhibit!”

  “It’s not saber-toothed tigers.” I sighed, plopping into the armchair just inside the living room door and rubbing at the tension line between my eyebrows. “For Frey’s sake, Adara, it’s roasting in here. Did you turn the heat up again?”

  “Maybe this is one of those times you can’t let your gift rule your life.” Ignoring my question, she kneeled before me and squeezed my knee.

  “It’s not a gift, it’s a—”

  “Curse. Yeah, yeah, I know.” Adara rolled her eyes. “But this is what you’ve always wanted. Always. Your own exhibit.”

  “I know.”

  “And a brand new one!”

  “I know, Adara.”

  “What’s Darren like?” Evidence of my daughter’s short attention span.

  I felt the blush and was mortified by it. I couldn’t even open my mouth for fear I’d spill my grown-woman crush.

  Adara smiled knowingly. “A hottie, huh?”

  “Wipe that grin off your face, girl,” I growled, stomping away from her to start dinner. It was truly sad when your eleven-year-old’s maturity level was so much higher than your own.

  “Don’t run away from me.” Adara raced after me on bare feet, making more noise than any ninety-pound girl should. She followed me into the kitchen, where I started banging pots and pans to drown her out. She raised her voice. “I read your cards. It’s very auspicious for a new relationship!”

  “He’s the head curator, Adara. There’s no relationship to be had.” I put a pot of water on to cook spaghetti noodles.

  “Mom, you’ve got to move on some time.”

  “You need to brush your hair,” I told her, pushing unruly curls away from her freckles. When had she gotten taller than me? Looking into my daughter’s dark eyes, I felt like I was looking into Eli’s.

  “Mother. Listen to me. It’s been four years. That’s a long time to be alone, hanging on to a locket and picture.” She put her small, soft hands on my cheeks and rested her forehead against mine.

  I touched my locket out of habit, and then gripped her wrists and forced her to step back. “We are not having this conversation.” Moving away, I pulled open the pantry door and grabbed the tomato sauce.

  “You can delude yourself all you want,” she said behind me, grabbing a skillet from under the stove and setting it on the burner. “It’s high time you got a boyfriend.”

  “It’s high time you mind your own business.” I banged the box of spaghetti on the counter. “Go to your room. I’ll call you when supper is ready.”

  *

  I took my time making dinner, all the while trying to come to terms with my day.

  Maybe I was on edge. If Garneria had been less of a horror story and more of a peaceful, dead civilization, I probably wouldn’t have been so confused. My dream had been handed to me, the concoction of Missy and her hoity connections at the Ancient. I would have my own exhibit.

  Why did that exhibit have to fill me with dread?

  As I walked up the stairs to get my daughter for dinner, I reminded myself that Adara had the best of intentions. She’d been so young when Eli died she’d never really known him, and I wasn’t the best at hiding the dark days. The days when the loneliness became more than I could bear.

  But I didn’t know how to move on.

  There was a card hanging in the doorway when I opened it, connected to nails with chipped black polish. The card depicted a couple—she bright and glowing, he dark and mysterious—wrapped around one another with their lips barely touching.

  “The Lovers, Mom.”

  I batted the card away. “Dinner’s ready.”

  “I’ve run the spread three times and the Lovers pop up in the central position every time. Tell me again why you aren’t going to at least give it a chance?”

  “Adara,” I sighed, gripping the edge of her door. “Please, l
et’s just have a peaceful dinner.”

  She ate in sullen silence as I tried to get her to talk about school. In protest, the Lovers lay prominently in the middle of the kitchen table. We rinsed dishes in silence, punctuated with her occasional huffs.

  As I put our dinner plates in the dishwasher, Adara slapped a hand to the Tarot card and slid it across the surface of the table to pick it up. She looked so frustrated. Kinda like me, twenty years ago when my own mother used to drive me crazy.

  She loved the Tarot. For goodness sake, the girl lived and breathed what it told her every morning.

  I sighed. “I’ll keep the cards in mind.”

  Chapter 6

  Darren pulled into the lot of the Ancient at the same time as my old truck. He drove an older model Beetle, and that didn’t surprise me. It went well with the patches on his elbows.

  I hefted my satchel onto my shoulder, blushing as he waved and made his way over to me.

  “Slippery this morning,” he commented, his breath a white fog in the early air. As if to punctuate his words, I caught an icy patch on the sidewalk, my snow boots listing dangerously out from my body. He caught me with two strong hands and chuckled. “You didn’t have to prove it.”

  “I’m not the most coordinated.” I grinned sheepishly, and we continued towards the front door where the janitor was already out with the salt. “It’s probably not a good idea to put me in charge of Garneria artifacts. I’m sure to destroy some of them.”

  “Ah, no, you’ll be fine.” He gave me a smile, all teeth and sexy dimples. How could a man so thin have dimples?

  “Good morning!” the receptionist greeted us brightly. A nail file zipped across her thumb at warp speed so that her loose blonde bun bounced at the nape of her neck.

  “Good morning, Lucy,” Darren answered with a wave.

  There was no physical change in Lucy. No lightening of the eyes or quickening of breath. But I got wind of her emotion as I passed: somebody had a crush on the boss. It rolled off of her in waves.

  Another emotion blindsided me, but it came from within: jealousy. I barely knew the guy, but the blonde bombshell behind the desk suddenly looked like competition.

  I blamed my daughter and her ridiculous cards.

  “Today, I figure you can get to know the Garneria pieces,” Darren said, pushing open the door to the employee offices. “An inventory has been made of what’s going to be a part of the exhibit, so you’ll have that to plan. But if you’re anything like me, you’ll want to get to know the artifacts before you place them, yeah?”

  I nodded and cleared my throat, hurrying to keep up with his long legs. “Where are the pieces being kept?”

  “In a special storage area adjacent to the cave room.”

  My heart thudded as if it had tripped over my lungs. “Oh.”

  His gray eyes flashed my way. He was silent, the sound of his key turning in the office door loud in the empty hallway. It was ice cold inside. “It’s not so bad,” he finally said, throwing his briefcase down on the black velvet claw-foot couch and stripping off his heavy overcoat. He was wearing a yellow polo over bright green corduroys; I dug it. “Once you go in, you don’t think about what’s underneath you.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I responded, taking the chair before his big mahogany desk. “I’m sure after a little while I’ll get used to…” I trailed off, unable to bring myself to confirm that I was crazy, like him. I clutched my bag. Security.

  He stared at me. There was knowledge in his pale gaze. “Why don’t I believe you?”

  *

  A pair of glass doors separated the old museum from the new addition, with handles so silver and shiny I was afraid to touch them lest I leave fingerprints. A dirty cloth, no longer white, hung before the glass, blocking curious passerby from seeing the treasures beyond.

  Darren opened one door, holding it while I pushed through into the darkness.

  I didn’t know what to expect. Agony, I suppose, but the only thing I sensed was peace and quiet.

  “The switch is behind this curtain,” Darren said, reaching behind a dark blue curtain on the wall. The overhead lights popped on. “Of course, it’s wired to add and remove lights as needed for whatever plan you come up with.”

  There was a whirlwind of items. Tables were scattered across the cavernous room, artifacts in various phases of restoration spread over them. Cabinets and other surfaces held boxes, statues, tools, and clothing. Oh gods, clothing?

  “How in the world?” I reached towards one small red dress. It was pristine, with a tiny waist and white trim. I stopped just short of touching it, feeling for its energy. Happiness. Childhood.

  “The archaeologists say that Garneria is a digger’s dream,” Darren told me, his voice so low I had to lean forward to hear him. Being in the presence of history could do that to a person. “The perfect climate—limestone all around, no moisture, a steady temperature. So many factors came together to preserve everything.”

  I studied the items stacked messily around us. The job ahead suddenly seemed even more daunting. I’d need a cocktail just to start work.

  As I moved to hover a hand over a square clay bowl, Darren reached to adjust it. Our hands met briefly before I leapt away. “Sorry,” I said quickly. There was still a spot of warmth where we’d touched.

  He smiled, and his gaze lingered on mine. “No worries.”

  I broke eye contact, afraid I would blurt out something idiotic like, “I love the quirky way you wear bowties, do you wanna go out?” My mouth was worse than my daughter’s.

  Another pair of glass doors, locked and dark, was set into the right wall. I pointed. “Extra room in the exhibit?”

  “It will be the tomb exhibit.” He shivered. “We’ve got more bodies than we know what to do with. Only a few are coming up. The rest will be laid out in Garneria.” He paused. “That door on the left is a staircase leading down to what will be an observatory into Garneria.”

  “Really?” I didn’t know what else to say. The thought of looking at that place, even through an inch of glass, filled me with panic.

  “That’s the entrance.” Darren inclined his head to the far wall.

  I didn’t want to look, but it had to happen some time. I was going to have to work beside the infamous portal on a daily basis; ignoring it was out of the question.

  The door was heavy steel with a number pad, like a bank vault. Taking a deep breath, I stuck my hand in my pocket and palmed Adara’s talisman, feeling her healthy, pink energy flow into me.

  On top of my sense of impending fear, I felt Darren’s worry. The dirty feel of Garneria made itself known as I walked past the halfway point of the room, and I was washed in boiling black. The pain hit first, then the anger, and then the terror, choking me so that I couldn’t move forward nor could I move backward to get out of it. I reached behind me and clasped Darren’s hand, barely registering the motion.

  Gods, oh Gods.

  “You feel it too,” Darren said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “What is it?”

  I clutched Adara’s talisman tighter and closed my eyes, my other hand sweaty in his. Reaching through the soles of my feet, pushing past the rubber in my boots, I stretched my awareness through the ground.

  “It’s energy,” I whispered, shuddering as I felt a sticky residue begin to coat my body, rising from my toes to my knees more quickly than I expected. “It’s evil.”

  “From Garneria?”

  I nodded, letting him tug me back towards the restorations, pulling me from the heavy atmosphere. When I could breathe again, I dropped his hand and wiped mine on my blue jeans. “I need to sit down,” I murmured, swaying as the usual post-empathy lightheadedness overtook me.

  Darren hurried across the room and snatched a metal chair from one corner. He unfolded it and helped me sit, his hands lingering on my arms. I closed my eyes momentarily, listening to the soft sound of his breathing as he hovered.

 
After a long silence, he asked, “Why is it like that?”

  I opened my eyes but kept them on the floor. “Everything is energy, Darren. As a scientist, you know that.” I raised my gaze to his.

  He nodded.

  “Emotions build, and they, I don’t know,” I struggled for the right words, “they become separate entities. Particularly strong emotions like hate, anger, fear. They, more often than not, completely overrun the good emotions like love and happiness.”

  “That seems a bit unfair.” His small smile did more than I wanted it to in easing my own emotions.

  “Tell me about it.” I stood, brushing my palms down my sweater, if only for the comfort of the sensation. “It’s something I learned to live with a long time ago. What about you?”

  “Never understood what it was,” he answered, shoving his hands in the pockets of his cords. “It’s not as strong, obviously, as yours. But it’s just a part of me, anyway. I cope.”

  I glanced again at the tomb door, a shiver creeping through me. “That,” I said, so softly he may not have heard me, “I could never learn to live with.”

  Chapter 7

  Work progressed rather well, considering. I had a killer team for the Garneria project: young, enthusiastic individuals ready to give the city the best damn exhibit in the museum. Okay, maybe two of them were continually sneaking off to make-out in the break room, and one woman always spoke to herself in a low voice, but no workplace was perfect.

  I learned to only touch the items that held the lighter emotions. The little red dress became one of my favorite pieces, as well as a stunning emerald and gold necklace and a doll made of sticks and animal hide. The innocence of all three moved me, surrounded as they were by the nastiness of Garneria itself.

  The weapons, I couldn’t even approach. They screamed.

  At the end of my first week, I was packing up my satchel in my small, yet comfy office, when Darren appeared in the doorway. He rapped with his knuckles even as I noticed him.

  “Hey!” With all that had happened since I began working at the museum, we’d had little time to speak. Smiling, I ran a nervous hand over my ponytail, hoping the curls hadn’t become too wild in the early morning rain.

  “Rebecca,” he nodded, leaning against the door frame in a charming, I’m-approachable way. His long fingers were hooked in his pockets, and I was reminded how pretty his hands were.

  I wondered what they would feel like on my waist. The very thought made me sway toward him imperceptibly.