The Heart's Ashes
Page 85

I’ve got it! “Come on.” I grabbed her hand.
“Where are we going?”
“To remind Mike why he fell in love with you.”
As the evening sky darkened and the house grew quiet, Emily and I put our plan into action.
David, in his suit, stood by the hip-height wall in the music room, his hands clasped in front of him, waiting for Emily. He watched her glide across the room toward him, as effortlessly delicate as she was when she was human.
Ryan and Alana, who had received their formal invitation via text late this afternoon, gently circled the space where the couch had been shifted away to make room for a dance floor.
In my red dress, I sat by the piano, reciting the music from the masquerade last year, and looked away when Emily took David’s waiting hand. I knew he’d kiss her, softly brushing his lips across her knuckles, but I didn’t need to see that.
“Emily,” he said, “you are a picture of beauty.”
“Merci.” I imagined she even went as far as to curtsy.
“May I have this dance?”
“It would be my pleasure.”
And it would be my pleasure to throw up on your shoes. This plan better work, that’s all I can say.
“Sure you don’t want me to play, Ara?” Ryan asked; I smiled up at him.
“I’m fine. It’s been a while since I played. I think I could use the distraction.”
“Well, let me know.” He waltzed away with the beautiful Alana.
I watched them carefully. It was so good to see them again. Even though they’d come here to have drinks shortly after we moved in, it felt like months since I’d seen either of them.
My eyes strayed across the room to Emily and David, sashaying over the floor with the grace of a gentle breeze. He stood so tall, his shoulders straight and his head held so high I almost believed we’d gone back to the eighteen-hundreds, when his mother and father would have danced just like this, at a dinner party or some other gathering. And Emily looked so effortlessly lovely in his arms, like she belonged there; her hair being the colour of his mother’s, her slight frame so glamorous and so feminine against him. She glowed, and with the blood of the immortal flowing through her veins, she belonged in his life.
They were two petals from the same stem.
Each time they swept past the piano, the sweet scent of Emily’s rose perfume and the deliciously irresistible flavour of David followed, making it hard to play. I’d smelled her scent mixed with those I loved before, and thinking how it would be if it had been David I walked in on with her that night, I...
I looked up when he whispered something in her ear; whatever sweet nothing it was making her tilt her head back, laughing with the gentle ring of tiny bells on a summer breeze.
God, hurry up, Mike.
My fingers stiffened over the keys; I changed the tune to a more sombre melody.
“Now there’s a sound I haven’t heard for a while,” Mike noted, walking into the kitchen, his nose in a newspaper.
His sudden appearance turned all my fingers to thumbs, and my pinkie hit a low C, making everyone in the room look up at me.
“What are you guys doing?” Mike folded the paper, his face holding back a burst of obvious amusement.
“Dancing,” David said. “But we’re short a man. Care to take a hand so I can dance with Ara?”
Mike nodded his greeting to Ryan and Alana, trying to look past David to see the slender girl in the emerald green dress behind him. “Who...who’s that?”
David moved aside then, revealing Emily in all her loveliness. Mike’s mouth hung open, frozen, as if stuck on a vowel. He dropped the paper on the dining table and walked in a trance-like state to stand before her. “Emily?”
“Yes.” She looked down, pinching the fabric of her dress.
“No,” Mike whispered, shaking his head, his eyes washing slowly over every inch of her face. “You look exactly the same.”
“I am the same.” She stole a sideways glance at David, who sat beside me.
“No.” He reached out and carefully ran tapering fingers over her bare arm. “You’re dead.”
“I’m not dead, Mike.” She placed his hand on her face. “I’m still here—see?”
“But, I...I watched you die.”
“No, you watched me change.” Her eyes watered as it became clear that the battle we hoped to win was being lost to reality, all too soon.
Mike shook his head again, a gaze full of his thoughts brushing her brow, her cheeks, collarbones, then her lips, staying there, watching them, contemplating them before his own lips fell against them—his hands clasping her face as he breathed her in.
David took my hand, a hopeful squeeze warming my fingertips.
Slowly, and with what looked like consideration, Mike pulled away, running his tongue across the remains of the kiss. “You are the same.”
Emily nodded, touching her fingers to his hand, still on her face.
“Oh, Em,” Mike said, almost melting.
It worked. I knew he couldn’t resist her in green.
I smiled up at David as Mike pulled Emily in and whispered repeated words of apology to her.
Alana, standing behind them, lost in the sweetness of the moment, gave a silent little clap, winking at me; I bowed.
“I’ve been a dick,” Mike said as he stood back.
“Yes.” Emily smiled, looking up from him, wiping her face. “Yes, you have.”
“How can I ever make it up to you?”
She shook her head. “Just treat me like a human being.”
Mike nodded. “Consider it done.”
We ended the night after a few more hours dancing and laughing by candlelight, playing piano versions of songs we all enjoyed, and after saying goodbye to Ryan and Alana, David and I laid on my bed, still fully clothed, our eyes on the roof, absently running circles over each other’s palms. When David stopped humming the tunes of the night, I took over, offering a sweet song that popped into my head.
“Where did you hear that?” I couldn’t see his face, but the tone of his voice held utter confusion.
“In a dream, I think.”
“Do you know what that song is?”
“No. Do you?”
“Yes—it’s a vampire song. One written a long time ago.”
“Where did I hear it, then?”
“I don’t know,” David mused in a deliberately dull tone.