January 1866
Dear Sephi,
I hate to admit weakness, but you have completely taken over my mind. I swear on my soul that every inch of my desire belongs to you. Even if I tried to change it, to deny it, I cannot envision a future without you in it.
I understand that you are apprehensive, and with good reason. You have never been allowed happiness. You are feared in death more than you were feared in life. But I promise that I will always be the one to protect you. We just need to find where we belong. A large city may not be the most favorable. Perhaps a smaller one like Vorbild or Paradise.
Ev
Paradise. Where had Alex heard that before? Her brain began to shuffle through its filed memories, and finally an image remained. Her psychology classroom, but she hadn’t a clue why.
There was something about these letters that was completely consuming. They called to her like a siren song. Alex reasoned that it shouldn’t matter if she took them with her. Beyond doubt, the box wanted her to find it, and if everything she’d heard about visibility was true, some part of her must have been looking for the box if she could see it when no one else could.
She felt it no crime when she stood up and tucked the box securely under her arm and made her way back to the lights of the manor. Oddly enough, during the journey back through the trees, she felt an iambic pulse, as though the box had a heartbeat.
19
March 1866
Dear Sephi,
I will admit to only you how much I miss home. I vividly remember my father’s intense eyes and the warmth I felt when I was around him because I adored him so. His words had such eloquence that everything and everyone around him fell silent the moment he parted his lips to speak. I have memories of curiously peeking into our study, which was filled with the clinking of ice in liquor glasses. This was where my father typically presided over a meeting of the most esteemed gentlemen in a town he himself founded. He would smile at me over the misty swirl of cigar smoke.
I pray that I may always recall the pride with which my parents gazed upon me. I wish you could have known them. I can only hope the death of their only son did not destroy them.
Gideon brings me comfort. I know you are wary of his sense of humor, but he has been my companion since I can remember. His mother worked in our kitchen, and every opportunity I could muster was spent with him, scrounging some sort of a childhood among incessant lessons to become high society royalty. One day, I will go back to retrieve the only picture I had of us. We have shared so much, including the unfortunate illness that led us here together. I am thankful to have something about my past to hold on to. I think I need to be reminded of myself. Unfortunately he has befriended one of those obnoxious DeLyre brothers. Ben DeLyre is not quite so much of a nob as the others, but he seems to share Gideon’s immaturity and inclination to trickery and cabbaging. Regretfully, their alliance will make the Darwins less prone to assisting me in finding my ancestry because the Darwins and DeLyres continue to clash.
They must know something. I wouldn’t be able to do the things I can do if my family history was not extensive.
Yours,
Eviar
“Alex?”
She snapped back to reality.
“Are you all right?” Gabe asked.
“Oh. Yeah.”
“You’re really into that homework, aren’t you?”
She gave him a sheepish grin, stuffing the letter she’d been reading under her ABC textbook. It had become routine for Alex to spend her evenings outside at the ballparks. She would have been perfectly content to lounge all evening in the warm Brigitta vestibule, but the Lasalles preferred the fields, and she preferred to be wherever they were. She clutched to whatever pieces of Chase she could.
That night, something felt different. A good sort of different. Though she’d grown accustomed to her newly sharpened senses, Alex couldn’t quite trust the scent of hope gripping the coattails of the night.
“I’m sorry. What were you saying?” she asked, folding the letters.
He tilted his head towards the field in front of them. “I asked if you saw that play.”
“Oh,” Alex muttered. “No.”
There came a commotion at the foot of the stands, and Gabe ducked behind his book, cursing under his breath.
“What’s wrong?”
Gabe peered around the side of his book. “Romey’s coming. I missed front desk detention this morning because I was helping Jonas.”
“With what?”
Gabe shushed her and tried to crouch further behind his text. Like anyone would actually mistake his blonde curls for someone else’s.
Romey came to a stop beside them. “Hello, you two.”
Alex smiled. She liked Romey and the visible softness surrounding her, smoothing the roughness of the world wherever she went. “Is everything okay?”
“It would probably be better if I hadn’t been pulled from a directors’ meeting this morning to babysit an unattended desk that I’d already staffed weeks ago.”
“Sorry, Romey,” Gabe mumbled from behind his book-cover shield.
Romey didn’t seem to accept his apology. “You have double duty at front desk tomorrow night. Be there at 6:00 p.m. sharp.”
Gabe groaned.
“Like I said, double duty. And the next time you decide to blow off an obligation, give me a heads up or your punishment will be much more severe.” Romey ambled away, excusing herself because she was due to supervise the fields.
Right at that moment, Alex felt a marvelous jolt of anticipation. It was the kind of feeling one experiences on only a handful of occasions in a lifetime. Like a first kiss or a last dance. The kind that one wants to relive over and over, even if the memory is less satisfying than the real experience.
She knew Chase had arrived before she even saw him.
Each of the Lasalles was mesmerizing in his own way. People were always drawn to them, hypnotized by the melody of their movements. Chase happened to be the worst of them. All he had to do was turn his eyes on someone and they were smitten. And watching him walk out onto the field, Alex knew she had been wrong about the beauty of this world, the colors, the buildings— to rank them the way she had—because Chase himself was without a doubt the most beautiful thing her eyes had ever seen.
He must have felt her too, because he stopped midstep to scan the valley until he found her face. He stood dumbstruck, with one hand over his mouth in disbelief and the other hand clutching a bag that dangled closely to the ground.
He was even more stunning in death. Alex would never have imagined this could be possible. His blue eyes filled the air between them, the vibrancy of their color somehow more brilliant than any of the palettes she’d seen yet as a spirit. They flooded Alex’s sight, tinting her world a stunning hue until he blinked and lowered his hand. His lips parted and soundlessly mouthed her name.
Alex couldn’t catch her breath, not that she needed it anymore. She only noticed the discomfort because her chest began to heave and air ripped through her lungs in sharp gasps. As she said his name, it wasn’t accompanied with a taste of loss and suffering for the first time in so long. Instead, it contained the simplicity of recognition, of happiness. It tasted wonderful.
The moment was not lost on Gabe, who glanced from Alex to Chase and back to Alex, sighing loudly. Down on the field, Jonas crossed his arms and stared at his brother, who didn’t divert his eyes from Alex even when a ball clocked him right on the crown of his head.