Die for Me

My shaking calmed, and after a long while I let myself stretch out and put my head on a cushion, drawing my legs up off the floor. I shut my eyes, just for a second, and the effects of the stress and fear had their way with my brain. I was out like a light.

It must have been hours later when I awoke. I could see a night sky approaching dawn through the window, and for one delirious moment I thought I was back in my Brooklyn bedroom.

Then my eyes flicked upward to a large chandelier with arms ending in impossibly delicate glass flowers. The ceiling was painted to look like a cloudy sky edged with fat baby angels carrying armloads of ribbons and flowers.

For a second, I didn’t know where I was. Then, remembering, I sat up.

“You’re awake,” said a voice from across the room. I looked over to find its source. It was the girl from the café with the cropped blond hair, the one who had saved me from being crushed by the falling stone. What is she doing here? I thought.

She sat curled up in an armchair next to an ornate stone fireplace. Slowly and hesitantly she unfolded herself and walked carefully toward me.

The light from the chandelier shone through her hair, making it glow like burnished bronze. Her cheeks and lips were the color of the velvety pink roses in Mamie’s country garden. High cheekbones set off her beautiful eyes, their irises a bewitching green.

The girl stood next to me now, and timidly held out a hand to take my own. “Kate,” she said with a shy voice, squeezing my hand and letting it go. “I’m Charlotte.” I sat on the edge of the daybed, looking up at her in awe.

“You’re the one who saved my life,” I murmured.

Laughing, she pulled up a chair to sit in front of me. “That wasn’t really me.” She smiled. “I mean, it was me, but I’m not responsible for saving your life. It’s kind of complicated,” she said, crossing her legs impishly. Around her neck hung a leather cord with a silver teardrop-shaped pendant.

So this is the girl Vincent was so close to, I thought with dismay, my eyes traveling from the necklace back to her elegant face. She was around my age, but a bit younger. Vincent had said she was just a friend. I couldn’t help wondering how close they had been.

“Welcome to my room,” she said.

My heart fell. She lives in his house?

“It’s stu

“I like to surround myself with beauty,” she said, flashing me an embarrassed smile.

Her boyish haircut and long, thin figure, dressed in tight black jeans and faded striped T-shirt, couldn’t disguise her striking feminine beauty. Although it looked like she was attempting to do just that. She doesn’t even have to try, and she’s breathtaking, I thought, mentally surrendering as I realized I would never have been able to compete with Charlotte.

I couldn’t speak, my throat was closed so tightly with jealousy over the thought of this girl getting to see Vincent every day. Of her waking up in this beautiful room and knowing that Vincent was there, in the same house as her.

And then I remembered how he had looked in the bed downstairs, and I tried to shake myself out of my pettiness. Even though Jules said he wasn’t dead, he had sure seemed dead to me. I didn’t know what to think anymore. But being jealous of this girl wasn’t going to help anything.

“What happened to Vincent?” I asked.

“Ah. The million-euro question,” she said softly. “And the one I’ve been specifically requested not to answer. Apparently the boys don’t trust me. Discretion and tact are not among my strong points. However, they asked me to stay here with you, in case you freaked out and tried to run away once you woke up.” She hesitated, waiting. “So . . . are you going to freak and run?”

“No,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “I mean, I don’t think so.” And then, alarmed, I blurted, “My grandparents! They’ll be panicking! I’ve been gone all night!”

“No, they won’t,” she said, smiling. “We texted them from your phone that you were spending the night with a friend.”

My relief was replaced by a chilling thought. “So I can’t leave? Are you keeping me prisoner?”

“That makes it sound a bit melodramatic,” she said.

Her eyes looked as if they were used to taking much in, while giving little away. The eyes of an older woman reflecting the spirit of a little girl. “You saw things you shouldn’t have. Now we have to decide how to handle the situation. You know . . . like damage control. You’re the one who took the bite out of the apple, Kate. Although with a serpent that handsome, I can’t say I blame you.”

“You’re not going to hurt me?” I asked.

“You answer that question,” she said, and placed her fingertips on my arm. A warm rivulet of peace seemed to flow from her touch, and I was suffused with tranquillity.

“What are you doing?” I asked, looking at the spot where her skin touched mine. If I wasn’t feeling so relaxed, I’m sure I would have leaped to my feet in dismay at the weirdness of her gesture. She didn’t say a thing, but the corners of her mouth curved up slightly and she removed her hand.

I looked her steadily in the eye and asked, “No one else is going to hurt me either?”

“I’ll make sure they don’t.”

There was a knock at the door. Charlotte rose. “It’s time.”

She held out her arm for me to link mine through. I couldn’t help but glance at the pendant again, and hesitated.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, and touched the silver teardrop.

Something on my face must have told her, because her expression changed as she said, “Vincent told me you picked out my necklace. I’m glad he had you there—I never know what the boys are going to come up with.” She smiled and pressed my hand in a friendly gesture. “Vincent’s like my brother, Kate. There is absolutely nothing between us . . . except a long history of boring birthday presents. You broke my losing streak. It’s the first time in years he’s given me something besides his favorite recent CD.”

She laughed, and the jealousy that had been pricking me like needles eased a little. She certainly spoke of him like someone would a brother. I took her arm.

As we made our way to the door, I noticed that her walls were hung with the same jumble of photographs that I had seen in Vincent’s room. But this collection was set in pretty painted wood-and-enamel frames and attached to the wall with ribbons.

“Who are those people?” I asked.

Her eyes flicked casually in the direction I was looking, and leading me through the door, she said, “Them? Well, Kate, though I can’t take credit for saving your life, those are the people I did save.”

Chapter Twelve

CHARLOTTE LED ME DOWNSTAIRS AND THROUGH the servants’ passageway into Vincent’s room. She tapped on the door and, without waiting for a response, led me directly to Vincent’s bed. My steps faltered when I saw him sitting up, propped against pillows. He looked very weak and as pale as a sheet. But he was alive. My heart leaped in my chest—as much with excitement at seeing him alive as with fear. How was it possible?

“Vincent?” I asked cautiously. “Is that you?” Which sounded a bit stupid. It looked like him, but maybe he had been possessed by . . . I don’t know, some kind of alien being or something. At this point, things were strange enough for me to believe almost anything.

He smiled, and I knew it was really him.

“You’re not . . . but you were dead!” I had to force the irrational words out of my mouth.

“What if I told you I’m just a deep sleeper?” his low voice came, slow and with great effort.

“Vincent, you were dead. I saw you. I touched you. I know. . . .” My eyes filled with tears as I had a flashback to the Brooklyn morgue and my parents’ bodies laid out on stretchers. “I know what ‘dead’ looks like.”