Familiar Spirit

Chapter Sixteen

Sarah hurried across the West Mall, her arms full of books and her mind full of lists. The day was unseasonably warm and sunny, and someone had strung garish red and silver Christmas decorations on all the pathetic boxed trees that broke up the monotony of the paved mall, but Sarah scarcely registered any of it. It was the last week of school before Christmas, and she had far too many things to do before she could leave town. She planned to hole up in the library for as long as possible to avoid the temptations of phone calls, visits, parties, and the accusing list of presents still unbought.

“Sarah, for heaven’s sake, are you deaf?”

Beverly blocked her way.

Sarah smiled and shifted her books against her chest. “Sorry. I was just plotting the impossible course of my life the next few days.”

“I need to talk to you for a minute, okay?”

Sarah raised an eyebrow at the mystery in her friend’s voice and followed her to a bench in the nearby Union patio.

“Look, I don’t want to stir anything up, or make you unhappy,” Beverly said. “I’ve been put in the middle of this, though, and you should know about it. Brian called me this morning. He wanted your address. He said he knew you’d moved into our complex, but he didn’t know the apartment number. I told him he could call you, and that he could get your new phone number from information, because I wasn’t going to tell him.”

Sarah laughed affectionately, although she felt a pang. “My duenna,” she said. “Protecting my virtue.” She gave Beverly a quick hug. “Believe it or not, Brian thinks we are still friends. He probably wants to send me a Christmas card. He’s very big on that sort of thing. It’ll be signed by both of them—as if Melanie would want to send me a Christmas card, or I’d want to get one from her!”

“That’s not very likely,” Beverly said soberly. “The word is that Melanie has split.”

Sarah stared. “Brian told you that?”

Beverly shook her head. “You know that undergraduate course in Folklore I’ve been auditing? I just came from there. Melanie’s best friend is in that course, and I overheard her gossiping with her little clique about Melanie. It put a whole new light on Brian’s call, I’ll tell you.

“It seems that Melanie has left him and gone running back to her parents. She won’t tell her friends why, and they were clucking like a bunch of hens over that defection, saying how much she had changed, wondering whatever had happened to their sweet little Melanie, to make her change so.”

To make her change so.

The words caught Sarah like a lump of ice forced down her throat.

Beverly leaned forward and pressed her hand. “So you see why I’m worried. If he and Melanie have split, he’s probably feeling sorry for himself. And he may want to come crawling back to you for comfort. If he does, Sarah—kick him in the teeth. You don’t need that. Not after what he did to you. Don’t let him take advantage of you.”

Sarah nodded and managed a smile. “Don’t worry about me, Bev. I can take care of myself. I always could.” She rose. “I’ve got to run.”

She walked to the library out of habit, scarcely aware of where she was going or why. But it wasn’t Brian who occupied her mind. He faded away to insignificance compared to her sudden fear: that Jade had survived, after all, and had managed to possess Melanie.

Not my fault, she told herself, head down, walking rapidly. I did everything I could. I thought I’d won. No one could have done more.

In any case, she was overreacting, fixing on a piece of overheard gossip which could mean anything or nothing. Perhaps Melanie had simply gone home early for Christmas. What did it mean that some dim-witted sorority girls said she had “changed”? There was nothing sinister at all in the idea that Brian and Melanie had broken up. Perhaps the passion which had flared up so suddenly between them had been extinguished with equal suddenness. Perhaps Melanie had discovered she “needed” someone else, and left Brian for him.

She would call Brian, she decided, and ask him what had happened. Beverly would not approve, but Sarah didn’t believe her suspicions that Brian meant to plead with her to take him back. At most, he might want a shoulder to cry on—perhaps even advice on how to win Melanie back.

That thought made Sarah smile. How wounded he would be when she refused. How completely uncomprehending. But aren’t we friends—?

She had no intention of being hurt by him again. She would keep her distance.

In the library, Sarah was able to put it out of her mind and concentrate on her work. There were a few distracting moments, when vivid and unsettling images appeared. Valerie, her face contorted in madness, the shining knife slashing across her throat; meek little Melanie, her eyes blazing golden, possessed and transfigured. But the moments passed, the thoughts faded, and Sarah was able to lose herself in reading.

It was late when she left the library, and full dark when she finally reached her apartment.

Brian was waiting for her.

Because she had left in the morning, she had not thought to turn on the porch light. Brian was standing in the well of darkness before her door, his features obscured, but she would have recognized him anywhere, in any light or darkness, merely by the way he stood.

Despite her intentions, her heart began to race at the sight of him. She felt foolishly glad to see him.

Watch out, she told herself. Remember what Bev said. Kick him in the teeth. Don’t let him hurt you again. It’s his turn to suffer. But, oh, what if he really missed her? What if he really wanted her back? How could she refuse him what she most wanted herself? She felt herself becoming warm and soft, ready to melt at the least encouragement from him.

“Hello, Sarah,” he said.

She had always loved his voice. It was soft and warm, the light coating of a latterly acquired Texas drawl taking off the harsher edges of a Boston childhood. Early in their courtship he would call her in the evenings and woo her over the phone while she lay in bed. She loved, especially, to hear him say her name.

“Hello, Brian,” she said. It didn’t come out briskly, as she had intended. It didn’t sound challenging at all. “I heard you were hassling Bev for my address.”

“I was afraid that if I called, you might hang up on me. And I really need to talk to you, Sarah. I wouldn’t blame you if you sent me away, but I hope you’ll listen to me.”

“So you can whine about how much you miss Melanie?” She shifted her books from hand to hand and dug into her jeans for the apartment key.

“Melanie was a mistake from start to finish,” he said. “I realized finally that it wasn’t working out and I asked her to leave.”

Ridiculously, shamefully, her heart leapt. She kept her face down, hidden, in case Brian could see better in the dark than she could. She didn’t want to give anything away just yet.

“I should never have broken up with you,” he said. “I was an idiot to let you go. I think I was scared, and looking for something less demanding, simpler. I didn’t realize that what you and I had was the real thing.” He drew a deep breath. “I want to talk to you, Sarah. Really talk. Can we go inside? I still love you. I’m asking for a second chance.”

His words were balm. She had been starving for months and he was feeding her again. She remembered her plans to hurt him, but she couldn’t do it. She would hurt herself twice as badly as she would hurt him. She couldn’t send him away. She couldn’t say no to the man she wanted.

“You may as well come in,” she said.

She had to move very close to him to put the key in the door. She could feel the warmth of him, and it was all she could do to hold on, to keep herself from falling against him. Her hands shook as she turned the key. She wondered if she was affecting him in the same way, and prayed it was true. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right that he should move her so profoundly and remain unmoved himself.

“Sarah,” he said, when they were both inside and the door was closed. “Sarah, I’ve waited so long for this . . .”

His strong, familiar, capable hands had her by the arms, and Sarah no longer wanted to resist. She could no longer resist. She turned and half fell into his embrace, praying that this was not another dream she would wake from alone.

After a moment she pulled away slightly, raising her face, wanting to see him. The room was largely in darkness, but there was light spilling in from the kitchen.

He crushed her to him again and kissed her searchingly. Her eyes closed, but not before she had seen something different about him. Something wrong.

She pulled away again, opening her eyes.

His eyes. It was his eyes that were different.

They weren’t dark brown anymore. They were yellow, almost golden. And something about them—some power —made them seem to glow as if they reflected flames.

As he looked back at her, calm and smiling, his eyes burned into hers and she felt their searing heat.

Then his mouth came down hard on hers, swallowing her scream. Eyes opened, mouths together, they stared at each other, closer than they had ever been before, closer even than when he had been inside her mind.

And suddenly she was no longer afraid.

Sarah felt desire moving through her, stronger than any she had ever known before, more potent and all-­encompassing than mere sexual passion. And she knew that she was feeling not only her own desire, but his as well. They were like twins, in a way—evenly matched, equally strong. She knew what she wanted and she knew what he wanted, and it was one and the same thing. She felt drunk, giddy, powerful. With his kiss he seemed to suck the very soul out of her and send it back, recharged.

When at last they broke apart, she was laughing. A moment later, an echo, he was laughing, too.

“Ah, my darling,” one of them said. “I’ve got you at last.”