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“Oh, hello!” A twinkling voice broke through the stare-down. The same beautiful young woman from earlier walked into the kitchen.
Thank God, I thought.
“Oh, hi!” I smiled. “Anita, right?”
“Yes, and this is my son, Kane.” She points to the tall boy with glasses, standing ramrod straight.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Sara.” I waved.
Kane returned my introduction with a nod. Then his gaze slid back to his book and he settled on the stool.
Heat flushed across my neck as he ran a hand through his hair. A few stray locks lingered on his forehead.
There had to be something in the town’s water supply. Both Kane and Ash were dreamy.
Whereas Ash appeared to be outgoing and playful, Kane was the opposite—reserved and brooding.
“What can I help you with Sara?” Anita asked, breaking me from my thoughts. My gaze returned to her.
“I’m starving and my parents left for the evening, just looking for something to throw together.” I wandered over to the refrigerator and paused at the handle. It was awkward, this whole living arrangement. I don’t know what my parents were thinking. Well, they weren’t thinking.
“Well, for dinner tonight, I made steaks, mashed potatoes, and roasted asparagus. I figured something hearty for your first night here.” Her eyes sparkled with delight. “Come on, have a seat.” She pulled out the stool near her son, and I had no choice but to take it.
“That sounds amazing to me,” I replied with a grateful nod as Anita placed two steaming plates of food in front of me and her son.
The cold I was feeling from the house soon warmed and seeped into my muscles. “So Sara, will you be attending the school in town?” Anita asked as she slid into a seat across from us.
A blush threatened to creep its way onto my cheeks for the third time that day. “Yes, I’ll be starting at the high school after the summer. I just finished sophomore year.”
“Oh , Kane is a senior now at the high school, maybe you two can be friends!”
Friends? No, staring at him gave me the impression it would never be that.
SEVEN
September 17, 2010
“Lazarus House rose above the bay like a ruined cathedral, salt-stained windows and rooms that seemed to hold its breath when it’s truth pressed close, like a laugh poised for escape.”
— UNKNOWN
The slam of a harsh wind rattles the window and rouses me from slumber. I startle upright, breath snagging in my throat, unaware of my surroundings for a fleeting moment before memory drips back in slow, reluctant waves.
A cold room awaits me, its rotting windows overlooking that mocking, endless sea. I set the book aside and stretch the knots from my weary body, its story still lingering in my mind. Who was its writer? Did she hope to immortalize her life on these pages? Did she escape this place, or had she dissolved into it like everything else swallowed by these unforgiving waves?
The early morning chill weaves itself under the blankets. I tug the blanket to my chin and burrow deeper into its fleeting warmth and my mind drifts. What were my teenage years like? Did they belong to the clichés of summer? Bonfires like in the movies, cheap alcohol, or drunken nights hanging half out of a friend’s car window? Or was I quieter? Stranger? Someone else entirely? The temptation to keep reading is strong, but purpose claws at me. I need answers, names, and a history that belongs to me. Anything to mask the creeping panic that coils behind the empty chambers of my mind. The questions I keep asking will not help.
I glance around the room again. Daylight seeps timidly through the tall windows lining the opposite wall. A writer’s desk sits in the far corner, burdened by stacks of books and half-melted wax candles frozen mid-drip. On the wall, an empty rectangular shadow marks where a portrait or mirror once hung. Warm colors and antique objects wrap the space in a fragile coziness. Something about this room stirs a distant memory trapped under the deep-rooted darkness that has implanted itself. I can’t grasp it, but it brushes along my ribs like a faint dance of wind on a cool summer’s day. This was anything but summer. Winter seeps into every crevice.
A yawn escapes but I force myself upright, blanket bundled around my shoulders, and wander to the shelves lining the back wall. There are reference books, scratched covers belonging to romances, journals inked in that same elegant cursive as the one I read last night. Whoever lived here once, loved words. Stories captured with liveliness.
Who was she?
My bladder interrupts the moment. Turning my head, I glance back at the small hallway. I desperately needed a hot shower to burn away the phantom chill of the sea’s grip.
My chest constricts at the memory of the waves, but I start moving.
I find the bathroom down a narrow hallway. The cold white tile greets my bare feet with all the hospitality of a desolate crypt. The space feels intrusive, too open and ready for someone to materialize behind me at any moment.
