The Blackwood Curse, page 15
Wax stopped and stared at me like he was seeing me for the first time. My insides melted at the smouldering look he gave me. He was in front of me in a single stride and pulled me up into his arms. He kissed me for one overwhelming, combustible moment and then it was over. ‘Come on.’ He led me by the hand, back out to the hallway and down to the end to his uncle’s bedroom.
The room was old fashioned and dark. Black velvet curtains didn’t let in a single bit of the fast-approaching daylight. He swore and flicked on the light, firing a black crystal chandelier into life. He found a lamp by the bed and switched the overhead light off again. I’m not sure who would have seen, anyway. ‘Search everywhere, but be careful to leave it as you found it.’
I started to pull open the drawers of a tallboy chest. ‘What are we looking for, exactly?’ I asked.
‘Anything,’ he whispered back.
So we systematically went through the room. The huge black wardrobes, the many drawers in chests, the bedside tables, even under the muted blue and grey Persian rug. We worked as quickly and as quietly as we could, careful to return everything to the way it was before.
After twenty minutes we found nothing.
Wax shook his head as I looked at the bed. He’d already pulled up and looked under the mattress. It was a bit too obvious. Maybe not if it was his bedtime reading. I pulled back the quilt and looked under the pillows. At first I thought there was nothing there until my hand touched something in the pillow case. It was small, no bigger than a wallet. I tipped the pillow upside down and out fell a small leather-bound notebook. I held it up for Wax to see.
His eyes widened in amazement. I don’t think he expected to find anything at all. ‘Put the bed back,’ he said, grinning. ‘We’ll look at it in my room, just in case, and put it back later.’
Wax turned off the lamp and we rushed back to his room as fast as my leg would go. My heart was pumping hard, like I was being chased. When we got there, Wax closed the door and we rested with our backs against it and laughed. We were excited and out of breath as if we’d just got away with a robbery. I looked up into his eyes, alive and happy, looking down into mine. I wanted to kiss him, but he sprang off the door and went over to the bed, holding back the quilt. I smiled and accepted his invitation. I limped over and he helped me in and got in next to me. My body immediately came alive feeling his next to mine.
However, his mind was on the little notebook. He switched on the torch on his phone and cracked open the little leather book that looked like it was at least a hundred years old.
It was full of handwritten notations and numbers. Page after page of diagrams, equations and symbols. I had no clue what any of it meant. ‘What is it?’ I asked, disappointed. It seemed completely unreadable.
I checked out Wax’s profile while he concentrated, taking in every single thing. ‘I’m not sure, but I think it’s some kind of spell. And it was written down by Ainsley.’
‘Ainsley,’ I repeated flatly. We had so little information about him, it was as though he hadn’t existed when I started digging into all this. I just imagined him the poor wronged husband in the background. This was huge. ‘So was he some kind of magician?’ I asked?
Wax looked troubled. ‘Worse than that, I think. This is some serious shit right here,’ he said, lifting the book in his hands.
Unease was creeping up my spine as I said, ‘What’s it for?’
Wax was going through the pages again, muttering as he read. ‘I think this is the summoning spell my uncle is using in the basement … but something is missing.’ He stopped and pointed at a page. ‘You see here?’
I looked at the circular symbol with a straight line coming out of it. I had no idea what it meant.
‘Remember the circle with the pentagon inside it on the floor?’
I waited, frowning, still not able to see how it was connected to the symbol.
‘There was something missing at one of the points.’
I remembered, but it hadn’t registered much with me at the time.
‘It should be this,’ he said, jabbing the page with his finger. ‘A mirror.’
My mind instantly went back to the face of the woman in the bathroom mirror. Lila.
Wax nodded as if he’d read my mind. ‘I think my uncle is trying to bring Lila back.’
We stared at each other after he’d finished speaking, absorbing the enormity of what we’d just discovered. The moment was so heavy in the end that I had to swallow. ‘Why though?’ I said eventually, with barely any voice.
He shrugged and sighed deeply. ‘Let’s list what we already know.’ He got out of bed and went over to his desk and grabbed a pad and pencil. Then he slid back in, making my mind wander to his long legs and whether he was tattooed under his jeans. ‘Think … everything,’ he said, completely oblivious to my one-track mind.
I looked around the room and tried to recall everything I’d learned since I got there. I was shocked at how long ago that felt. ‘The round house,’ I said. It had been the focus of it all right from the beginning. ‘I’m not sure why, but that’s important.’
‘OK,’ Wax said, scribbling it down. ‘It’s a start.’
‘No,’ I said, labouring my point. ‘It’s pivotal to something. I don’t know how I know, but I do.’
Wax searched my eyes for a long moment before he nodded.
‘You just have to trust me on this. There’s been roses left there for me to find, love letters left there for Lila from Jedediah. The one that changed tone completely. It wasn’t just a meeting place. Someone is calling someone now … in this time. Maybe your uncle … I don’t know. But whoever it was, it was enough to lure me. That’s how I came to look like this,’ I said with a wry smile and, remembering my scratched-up face, my hands came up.
He exhaled, nodded and wrote it down. ‘What else?’
‘The ghost that first called me a Shade was female. It led me to the secret room filled with Lila’s stuff.’
Wax scribbled that down. ‘Is that everything?’
I thought about it. That wasn’t all. There had been something else that night – a darker force. Angry. Trying to get me out of there. ‘No, there was definitely something male there. I felt him in the bathroom. He almost drowned me.’ As I said it, I still wondered guiltily whether I’d just fallen asleep and slipped under the waterline. However, something deep down told me it was the same presence who’d knocked me down in the secret room.
Wax wrote it all down. He read it all back and then added, ‘And there was the locket. We need to work out which of the brothers that was. Where the mine fits in. Nothing makes sense.’
He was right. My theory of a jealous husband-to-be killing Lila in a fit of rage and hiding her stuff and probably the body, wasn’t enough anymore.
I studied Wax, who was racking his brains too. ‘In the mirror, she seemed scared. Did she give you any clue why?’
He shook his head sadly and put the pad down with the pencil on the nightstand, then pulled me back with him to lie down. I felt strangely comfortable with my head on his shoulder and my hand in his on his chest. It was such an adult pose. One I’d never done before; only seen on the films.
His heart was beating against my hand and his body heat burned through his shirt. I still couldn’t believe we’d gone from boy and girl next door to this. Yesterday morning I was fit to punch out his lights for always being so cold. And now we were this. Strangely, my being dead didn’t come into it.
His other arm was behind his head and he was looking up at the ceiling. I wondered if he was thinking about me or the mystery of Lila. I hoped, but I wasn’t that confident it was me.
‘Whatever Ainsley was dabbling with, my uncle must have discovered it and is doing the same,’ Wax said, making my heart sink a little. ‘The question is why? What are they after?’
I threw off my melancholy and put it down to overtiredness. He wasn’t going to find a whiny, immature little girl attractive. ‘And why do they need Lila to do it?’ I added, trying to hide the slight wobble in my voice.
He turned his head to look directly into my eyes with real respect. I was right and he knew it. Ainsley wrote the spell to summon her back then and his uncle was carrying on his work now. ‘I think we need to find out what the Blackwood curse actually is,’ I said.
Wax didn’t answer, but turned onto his side to face me. I became acutely aware of just how tall he was in comparison to me. He seemed barely contained by the bed.
He seemed to sense my overwhelm and moved back a little, then picked up my hand and kissed it. I fell in love with him a little more right then.
‘I think you should go back to your aunt’s for your own safety,’ he said in a husky whisper. As if something had shifted in him too.
Suddenly, leaving him became a terrifying prospect that made no sense. I barely knew him twenty-four hours ago. My Aunt, Gerty and Bert were there, but they seemed so distant, so far away from me now. Wax had been the only person that had gotten through my guard since I arrived, and I couldn’t bear to leave that. ‘I don’t think it matters now, does it? Like you said before, I’m a Shade. I can do what I want.’
It felt like he knew. Like he saw everything I felt, because he leaned forward and kissed me gently. First rubbing the soft cushion of his lips against mine and then opening them with his tongue. ‘Not just that,’ he whispered against my lips. ‘I don’t trust what my uncle is up to and he’s dangerous,’ he said, averting his eyes.
I didn’t want to push him. My heart broke for him. I could just imagine what a bully his uncle could be to a young boy. I pulled his face round by the chin to look at me again. ‘He can’t do anything to me, I’m dead, remember?’ I said with a grin.
His smile transformed his face and he rolled on top of me, robbing me of breath with his weight. He kissed me again and suspended his weight to look into my eyes. ‘You might not be entirely safe with me,’ he said with a glint of mischief.
His words lit something deep in my belly and my heart literally fluttered out of my ribcage.
He laughed and rolled off as if he’d embarrassed himself. I hated that he felt that and immediately hugged him to me again. ‘Let’s get a few hours’ sleep, shall we?’ I whispered.
I felt him relax around me and nod. We said nothing after that. His breathing slowed until it was a soft, even breeze in my hair and I felt myself drifting off too. I felt the most warmth and love I’d felt in a very long while.
* * *
I was relaxing in a bath filled with bubbles right up to my chin. Wax was pacing, tall and brooding, next to me. ‘How could you?’ he said angrily. ‘Make up your damn mind! I can’t wait for you much longer. It’s me or him; do you understand?’
I was shocked and terrified that I’d made him so angry and held out my arms to him. He moved into them and then he was right there, kissing me deeply. His taste was such a familiar homecoming. Except he began to feel different. It wasn’t Wax. He felt thinner. Smaller. His clothes were wrong under my hands. They were rough and old fashioned and the tattoos weren’t there at his neck.
Then, in a moment of clarity, I knew it wasn’t me either. I was Lila and the room was the bathroom at my aunt’s. The pressure of the kiss pushed me below the surface. It went on and on, until I needed to breathe. But I couldn’t. He wouldn’t let me up for air.
I struggled, hit his back with my closed fist and scratched his face. I could feel the water seeping into my lungs. I tried to cough, but it was useless. Airless, I mouthed, Jed … Jed.
* * *
‘Becks … Becks.’
I was fighting, hot and sweaty. My whole body was shaking. When I finally blinked open my eyes, I saw Wax’s concerned face. He was holding my wrists when he pulled me into his arms in relief. ‘You OK?’ he said, holding me tightly. ‘You were having one hell of a nightmare.’
I was still gasping for air next to his neck. My mind was tumbling and confused and my heart was still thrashing with fright. His smell and the tattoos going right up to his hairline comforted me. ‘It was terrible,’ I said, eventually.
My heart gradually slowed and I pulled away to give him the bones of what happened. ‘It was exactly like the dream I had before. We were kissing, then I was under the water … I couldn’t breathe.’ I looked directly into Wax’s eyes. ‘Except somehow I just know it wasn’t me and it wasn’t you.’
He relaxed back and reached for a glass of water. Passing it to me, he said, ‘Here.’ Then he watched me drink. ‘Do you think, somehow, you’re dreaming her memories?’
I shrugged. I was still confused. ‘Yeah ... maybe.’ I definitely felt it was how Lila died. But it didn’t fit with what I thought I knew.
Wax searched my face, puzzled.
‘It was Jedediah, Wax. The guy that drowned Lila was Jed, not Ainsley.’
He sat still for a whole minute, absorbing my words, until a look of resolve came over him.
‘What?’ I had to say eventually, unease already creeping up my spine.
‘Tonight, we’re going back and getting Lila out ourselves.’
Chapter 16
It was a strange, bewildering day.
There were no worried phone calls to find out where I was, or why I hadn’t come home. No one to ask if I’d been mugged or murdered in a ditch somewhere. It gradually sank in that, to everyone in the regular world, I wasn’t there any more.
My parents had said their goodbyes and I was stuck in limbo-land; in bed with my hot, very red-blooded, boyfriend.
Boyfriend. I kept saying it over and over in my head to see how it sounded. And it sounded weird, like I wasn’t worthy, or didn’t qualify, or something. There was no doubt it was a tricky situation to navigate. Especially when Wax pulled me into his body heat or rolled almost on top of me several times during his sleep.
I couldn’t help watching him. He looked so relaxed with his face close to me on my pillow. Awake, he was always so intense. I wanted to trace the lines that always furrowed his brow.
His eyes moved under his eyelids and he blinked awake. ‘Hey,’ he said, croakily, smiling. ‘I slept.’
The words were said with such surprise that it made my heart ache and wonder if it was me being there that had helped him fall asleep? ‘You did,’ I said, smiling back.
He leaned in and kissed me gently on the mouth. I melted immediately into it. Everything he did was with such fluid, sexy ease, how could I not? It was all so new – and I didn’t just mean the dead thing.
He hovered over me and looked deeply into my eyes, as if he was looking for something there. ‘I know it’s weird, but we’ll work it out, OK?’
I smiled weakly and wondered how he managed to always know how I felt. ‘I’m scared,’ came out on a breath before I could stop myself. And I was. Of everything. Scared of being dead and being conscious. Of what it meant. Scared it was temporary. Scared that it wasn’t. But, more than all that, I was scared of the overwhelming, very physical emotion I was beginning to feel for Wax. And despite his obvious experience in this kind of stuff, he was fragile and damaged and very emotionally cut-off. It felt a very big responsibility for me to carry – someone who had no clue about anything.
I was also terrified of his uncle and what he’d do to Wax or any of us if we were caught. I was confused about Lila and whether she was up to something. Then there was the murderous ghost that still walked the corridors of my aunt’s house. Something wasn’t right; it wasn’t fitting together.
I was scared of it all and the only person in this world who could protect me was eroding my barriers little by little until I was completely at his mercy. That was what scared me the most of all.
‘I’ll look after you,’ Wax whispered, then brushed his lips against mine. It brought me out of my panic, grounding me with that one tantalising point where we connected. Maybe he read it in my eyes, or I was that obvious. Either way, it was sweet. ‘Like you do everyone,’ I said with a weak smile.
He frowned and lifted off me a little. ‘No. Not like everyone. You’re more than that to me.’
For a moment I felt stricken that I’d hurt his feelings, but he closed the distance and kissed me with the most powerful, heartfelt kiss of my life. It felt like an extension of everything in him pouring into me. My heart nearly burst out of my chest, it hurt so much. I think it was that exact moment that I fell for Wax. Completely. Totally. Utterly. I tumbled headlong into the abyss with him and there was no clawing my way back out.
When, at last, he pulled out of the kiss my eyes fluttered open and I hoped he felt the same. But all he said was, ‘It’s time.’ I would have followed him anywhere.
He lifted off me and I swung my bad leg over the side of the bed and dragged my fingers through my hair. ‘You sure you want to face him tonight?’ I said.
He pointed at his clock. 19.30. ‘I have to stick with routine. I’ll have dinner with him, then, when he goes to bed, we’ll get into that room and set Lila free.’
‘What if he gets up or we set off an alarm or something?’ My heart jumped in fear at just the thought of meeting him again. ‘What if he comes in here?’
Wax reached over and shook the bottle of pills next to his bed. ‘I’ll be putting these in his port … it’s not the first time,’ he said with a grin. ‘Don’t worry. He can’t see you and you’ll be with me.’
I looked into his face, filled with confidence, cute dimples and rosy cheeks and didn’t know whether to be hurt or happy about what he’d just said. I knew what he meant, but it made me feel kind of empty.
‘Shower?’ he said, simply.
He laughed at what must have been the terror on my face. Whatever it was, it worked because all sappy thoughts evaporated as I took in his huge grin. He was already pulling me to my feet and leading me towards the door. ‘It has to be quick. It’s better not to show up at all than be late with my uncle. He eats at eight.’
Wax seemed to enjoy teasing me – especially about sex. I guess he did always smooth it over afterwards, though. He led me by the hand out of his room, just as Ollie was leaving his.
