Book of Life

  I didn’t really care to hear it. The truth was, I knew she wasn’t sorry, and either was I. After all Emily and I had been through together, and after all I’d been through with Jane, I was prepared to leave the Taylor sisters behind. I didn’t mean that in a mean way, but rather from a point of knowing it was time to grow away from this.

  Emily backed away from me and into Jake’s arms. Seeing them like that was once something I dreaded, but actually living it I saw it to be something far more beautiful. Max had left us with a world of mysteries left to solve, but we had been granted the chance and time to solve them.

  I watched as they turned and walked away into the woods. Emily looked back only once, her pace slowing only briefly. Her auburn hair burned among the snowy trees, and for a long while, I watched as it faded into the distance. I hoped that somewhere in time I’d meet her again, but given the world of fleeting moments her and Jake were sure to find themselves a part of, I figured that hope to be slim.

  I turned to Avery then. She was watching them leave as I was. “What will you do?”

  Avery’s eyes were electric as she looked at me, then at Stella and Lacy. “I made a promise to Max. I promised him I’d help him find Jane. I won’t stop until I do. I won’t stop until I find the both of them.”

  I wanted to nod, I wanted to feel happy, but I didn’t. That was, until I caught Stella’s eye. She was watching me, her hands knotted before her. Her golden eyes hid behind her hood, snow caked on her knitted shoulders. The world around us melted away, and I found myself stepping toward her. I stopped as our toes nearly met.

  She smiled bashfully. “Are you going to stay?”

  My gaze scrolled along the freckles on her cheeks, leading like footsteps to her long lashes and limitless golden eyes. “Where else would I go?”

  I heard Lacy giggle from somewhere behind me, but I ignored it.

  Stella shrugged. “I just thought . . . you’ve been such a good friend. I wouldn’t want to lose you.”

  “Friend?” I challenged.

  She smiled and nodded.

  I nodded along with her. “I can start with friends . . .” I took her hand. “But, you never know.”

  . . . to be continued

  Eighteen years later . . . in another life

  JANE:

  We sat on the beach, my best friend and I, our towels blowing in the wind. I wasn’t sure why we had to go to Florida instead of Mexico for Spring Break, but she had insisted. All of our other friends had gone on the Cabo cruise, but, no, Florida was the place to be. Why she was so adamant about it, I was not sure. At least the weather didn’t suck too bad.

  “I wonder what everyone else is doing,” I said tartly, adjusting the sunglasses on my nose. “Probably having a lot more fun than this. I think you made the wrong pick coming here, Avery.” Glasses positioned, I wiped the sweat from my brow and inspected the way the sun was bleaching my already bleached blonde hair. “We’re all alone, there are zero guys, and it’s seriously lame. All I’m going to get is a sunburn.” I was in a particularly bitter mood today.

  Avery turned to face me, sliding her sunglasses from her nose. She had a way of doing this that made any man in the vicinity take notice. Basically, anything she did made them take notice. “Chill out, Jane.” She was naturally gorgeous, her skin perfect, her hair always just so. I hated her for it. Though my looks could mimic her on a good day, I was still nothing in comparison—It was like she never aged.

  Avery had moved to Charlotte last year. She arrived at our school out of the blue and rocked it like a sudden earthquake. She had sass, confidence, and a way with men that no man saw coming—as I was saying. We’d become instant best friends, so instant it frightened me, like she’d had her sights set on me before she’d even moved there, like she knew me already. She was a strange kind of girl, but so was I. It worked.

  “Come on, Jane. I’ve been waiting for this trip for eighteen years.”

  I laughed. “Eighteen years? You haven’t even been alive that long. You don’t turn eighteen until this summer. Stop being dramatic.” I shook my head, thinking she was horrible with Math. “You say that stuff all the time. I don’t get it.”

  She gave me a half smile, her bright blue eyes glittering in the sun, shaded by the mass of perfect platinum blonde hair atop her head. “Right, well, you know what I mean.”

  I shook my head. “No. I don’t. But, that’s you, I guess.”

  She slid her glasses back over her eyes. “Trust me. We’ll meet some guys. Fate has something good in store for us.”

  “You and your infatuation with fate. I swear I don’t even know why I attempt to be friends with you anymore. You’re always knocking my pick of men and—”

  “Because they’re not right for you,” she cut me off.

  “How do you know they’re not right for me if you barely give me the chance to say hi to them?” I protested.

  “Because I know just the kind of man that is right for you and you haven’t found him yet.”

  I hated when she got this way. She was so stubborn, so matter-of-fact as though she knew it all. She was seventeen going on seventy. Personally, I thought she could use to relax a little.

  I flipped over and nestled my head into the towel. “Whatever.”

  She drew in a long, deep breath. “I have a feeling you’re going to meet him really soon.”

  I rolled my eyes. She’d been saying this for weeks, ever since we’d booked this dead end trip. “Have you seen any boys, because I haven’t. Maybe if we were in Cabo . . .” I let my remark trail on purpose.

  I could hear her sit up then. “Not soon enough.” She murmured.

  I rolled over again, the sun glaring down on me. “Not soon enough, what?”

  She popped to her feet. “Hey!” She yelled.

  What was she going on about now? I sat up, shielding the sun from my eyes as I tried to erase the bright spots it had left me with. I could see her silhouette running toward the water, the strings on her bikini dancing about.

  “Hey,” I heard her say again, this time in her saucy voice.

  I was still squinting, but able to see the two male silhouettes that had joined her side. Of course. Figured the only boys for miles would find their way to her. She was like a fly trap hanging on the wall. I laid back, not in the mood to watch as the boys inevitably fought over her, only taking me as the loser second prize. Her voice was drowned by the waves of the ocean—my mind drowned in it, too.

  I tried to let myself fall asleep before she came back, just in case she wanted to introduce me. Between the waves and her giggles, I hardly noticed his proximity until his shadow fell over my feet.

  “Excuse me.” His voice was gruff, smooth.

  I felt my jaw clench. What had she said to him to make him come over? What embarrassing story had she chosen? I opened my eyes and looked up at the figure standing a few paces from me. It appeared, despite the new set of bright spots, that he had a football in his hand.

  “That’s your friend there, right?” He pointed with the ball at Avery.

  I couldn’t help but find the way his hand wrapped around the ball to be sexy. It took effort to look away and down over my feet at Avery. She was chatting away with the other boy. “Unfortunately.”

  He laughed nervously. “She, uh, figured you’d want to come over. She wants to play football with us. I told her I’d be happy to get you.” His sexy hand was now tapping the ball against his sexy thigh.

  Of course she would. “Uh, yeah.” I sat up, brushing some sand off my arm before noticing the free, non-football hand he’d extended toward me.

  “Let me help you up.” I looked up at him, my eyes finally adjusting. He had dark hair, sharp features and a well tended body. “My name is Max, and that’s my brother Greg.”

  “Max . . .” I repeated it, but didn’t know why. “I’m Jane.” I took his hand and he easily hoisted me to my feet.

  “Jane . . .” He smiled. “I like that name.”

  He remo
ved his sunglasses, revealing an ocean of blue just like the one behind him, swimming in his eyes. I felt the words I’d so carefully selected choke in my throat. His hand remained around mine, lingering like old friends.

  Avery approached with the other boy. She was smiling wider than I’d ever seen, her eyes staring at our bound hands. “See, I told you.” She nudged me. “Soon.”

  “Told her what?” Max asked curiously.

  I gave Avery a sour look, wriggling my hand from Max’s.

  “I never break a promise.” Avery winked and drew in a deep breath, looking at the boy named Greg beside her. He had green eyes, green eyes she seemed to gobble up. “You know, perhaps Max was right.”

  “Right about what?” Greg seemed confused.

  “Right about how delicious you are, my dear boy.” She winked at him, dragging him away toward the water where she conceded to splashing about the waves like a brainless floozy—though she was anything but.

  I looked sideways at Max.

  He shook his head. “I said no such thing to her,” he murmured.

  I laughed. “She does this all the time.”

  He laughed, too, but when the laughter faded, I couldn’t help but stare.

  “I feel like I’ve met you before.” Max bit his lip, brows wrinkled. “Where are you from?”

  “North Carolina,” I answered bleakly, simply lost in butterflies.

  He shook his head. “Never been there.”

  I shook my head. “I’ve never been here.”

  We both laughed again, nervous habit.

  “Well, perhaps we’ll have to make sure you come back more often.” He handed me the football in his hand. “Shall we, Beautiful?”

  I about fell over. No one had ever looked or talked to me the way he did, let alone in the presence of Avery. Only in my dreams had I imagined a man like him, and in my dreams I truly had. Something inside me remembered him as though from a place like that—a place we only hope to visit, and a life we only hope to live.

  . . .

  Ladybird, ladybird . . .

  By Abra Ebner

  PREFACE

  My name is Samantha, and I was born to a mother already dead. They say that it’s bad luck to be born under a full moon, that you’re cursed by the fires of Hell and the Devil himself, but

  I’ve never seen the Devil, unless the Devil is me.

  Father considers me as such, and I’ve never been able to convince him otherwise. He avoids me, and though avoidance to him comes across in angry bouts of confusion and hate, I know that at the root of it all, he’s just afraid to love me. He sees me as a murderer, the destroyer of the last thing that made him feel alive in this world—my mother. I don’t know what my father was like before, but there must have been a happy man in there, a smile.

  People pity me because I never met my mother but they shouldn’t. For nine months I was closer to her than any of them could ever be. We forged a connection that transcends death, and if you pay close attention, you’ll see she’s always there.

  I know because in her own way, she still talks to me.

  ONE

  Guns and Roses played softly in the background.

  “Yeah, headed off at the end of this summer.” He tried to act smug about it, but I easily noted the small shake of his tongue as he spoke. “I’m not too excited about the idea of conceding to some army general’s every command, but at the same time, it’s better than here . . . even if I can’t always see myself actually being that kind of person.”

  I laced my fingers through and around each other in the seat beside him, knowing that any second this moment could end. I needed to say something. I needed to make myself worth fighting for because that was what he was going to have to do. “Just hearing you say that makes my stomach sink. How can you handle that pressure?” I managed. It was forced—typical. I wasn’t gaining any ground.

  He shrugged. “Easy. It’s all I’ve ever been raised to do.” He puffed out his chest and dropped his voice an octave, presumably impersonating his father. “Fight for our country. Be a prideful man.” His voice returned to normal and his shoulders slumped. “Besides, it gets me out of here, like I was saying.” He looked out the window to the wheat field beside us. The crop was really wheat-to-be, so early in the spring, appearing to me no more than tall grass. “It’s either that or farm. I can’t farm.”

  I pressed my lips together and dropped my head. Out of here. Those words were sweet but depressing at the same time. Though I’d just met David, a part of me wanted to keep him. A part of me wanted to keep something. Though I still wasn’t sure to what degree I really liked David, we did have some similarities. There was the fact that I could sense pain in him, a pain that was similar to my own. I liked that his choice of music wasn’t mainstream. I was happy he was new to our school, having transferred from the next town over when his father’s farm was rezoned. He didn’t know the extent of the rumors about me, and in his mind they were just that, rumors. Bottom line was that I wanted to make him mine. I thought maybe for once I could, but as facts continued to trickle in, I feared otherwise.

  Even if I hooked him, even if he did decide to fight for me, there was now the actuality that, in three short months, he’d be gone on a mission for his country, and surely I could not follow. I’d be left alone. I was as certain of this as I was certain the wheat would be harvested in late summer. Three months wasn’t going to be enough for me, even if I were able to keep his existence from my father. And what if David didn’t like me as much as I sort of liked him? Why would he? I was just a farm girl with a fable attached to her back that may as well scream, “Stay away!”

  “So . . .” He looked at me.

  I knew that look all too well. It was a look of pity. There were two looks people gave me: pity or hate. And I guess a few sad saps mixed interest with the pity—at least until they learned of the fire in me.

  “Yeah,” I said because it seemed like something needed to be said, even if it was a useless word.

  He continued to stare pathetically.

  People called me a witch, but as far as I was concerned, I’d never done anything to classify me as a textbook witch. I’m not green or tall. I don’t own any pointy hats, and I don’t possess any real magical talent—unless you count the flash fevers, which were hardly a talent, more of a curse. Still, even if I were to say, “Yes, I’m cursed,” I didn’t look like the type to be cursed. I’m blonde, love the color peach, and ride my horse, Axon, in the county fair. I have an average body with curves that attract all the right thoughts from a boy’s mind, such as: sweet, cute, and sometimes sexy, though my experience in that area was slim to none.

  Perhaps it’s my eyes that scare everyone so much: so blue that they’re a reflection of the full moon on a cold, spring night. As if those eyes weren’t rare enough around here, I hadn’t heard of anyone whose eyes burned umber when a person was angry or nervous. Not like mine did. That sort of thing was a clear sign of a monster lurking within. Luckily for me, the car was dark. The only light came from the few working bulbs in the truck’s dash.

  Bottom line is: I’m different. Most of the townspeople around here are bland, tired, and heavy featured. I was soft, pale, and what seemed this town’s epitome of frightening. They had loved my mother, and I was the one who had killed her.

  David touched my arm softly, as though imagining that touching me might burn him, as it had a hundred others. But my emotion had been subdued by my thinking. I was cool to the touch. “I’m glad I took you out tonight. You’re much more than . . .” His voice trailed off, and if the moon had been brighter, I was certain I would have seen him blush.

  “More than they say, right?”

  David grinned at me, his touch on my arm growing brave and firm.

  I shook my head and smiled, trying my best to keep my nerves at bay, though his grasp on me forced my heart to start beating just a little bit faster. “It’s amazing what a small town can do to your reputation,” I commented bitterly.


  He nodded slowly. “I don’t really buy into all that. That’s just one reason I can’t wait to get out of here. There’s no such thing as a curse. It’s all a bunch of hoopla and small-town bull.”

  Hearing him say that was like a dream. He was perfect for me, but then there was the can’t-wait-to-get-out-of-here part. “But then you’ll be gone along with my last hope of proving them all wrong. I’ll be stuck here for another year until I’m old enough to go to college, and even then there’s no guarantee I’ll have the money to go. I’ll end up the town legend and the old lady with a million cats one day. Just you wait. I’ll rival Mr. Buckhead on Chatterley Lane,” I finished in a rush.

  David laughed loudly. It echoed through the car. “No one could rival Mr. Buckhead or his kid.”

  I lifted my brow. “Just you wait, David Lane. One day I’ll prove you wrong. One day you’ll turn on me as though this whole conversation had never happened. I’ve seen it a million times.”

  He shook his head decisively. “We’ll see.” But as expected, his touch slipped from my arm and he recoiled. Maybe he didn’t have the bravery I’d hoped for after all.

  As though on cue, two large lights crested the hill in front of us. I shut my eyes to them. My already speedy heart rate peaked and my back steeled, body heat rising without a means to control it. I could never quell the way I felt toward such actions—the actions of my controlling father.

  David shielded his eyes. “What the . . . ?”

  A feverish hate overcame me, and the air in the car surged a couple more degrees. I clenched my jaw and held tight to my sanity. “It’s my father.” I opened my now fiery eyes to the light, seeing the horrified look on David’s face and feeling the dread in my stomach. I reached out to David in a foolish attempt to defuse his growing apprehensions. As my hand touched his skin, I did just as I expected: I burned him.