Выбрать главу

I finally looked up at Matthew, who was watching me with curiosity. “Where exactly do these stairs lead?” I asked, trying to mask the apprehension building inside me.

He looked me over, all the playfulness gone from his face. “It leads to the cellar where we age the wine,” he answered, frowning. I could tell he was trying to understand the sudden change in my demeanor.

“Oh, perfect.” My voice squeaked with relief.

“You sure you’re okay? You seem a little off.” There was a slight tension to his voice.

I laughed away his observation. “Can you blame a girl for being reluctant when a man she hardly knows drags her into a shack and opens up a creepy looking door in the floor?” I put on my best smile, hoping the joke would deter any further concern.

“I think I might actually be offended,” he said and smiled back before heading down the stairs.

I breathed a sigh of relief and followed close behind. “You are not.”

We descended the stairs, going deeper and deeper underground. Neither one of us spoke while we walked. I was too focused on putting one foot in front of the other while trying to stifle the memory of traversing a similar corridor with Robert. We reached the bottom of the stairs and entered a short tunnel that opened up into a fairly large room.

“This is my favorite place on the property,” Matthew explained.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, taking a look around.

My voice echoed against the crude, high ceiling. The walls didn’t look like they had been man-made either. The whole room resembled a cave, like someone had dug out all the dirt and rocks and left a big empty space behind. Our shadows danced in the thin light from bulbs spaced evenly apart, making the room glow with a soft, yellow aura. Each breath filled my lungs with the faint smell of wood and freshly-turned earth. Racks upon racks of bottled wine had been stacked against the walls and I shivered a moment with the noticeably cooler temperature.

My camera had been hanging around my neck so I reached down and turned it on. I adjusted the shutter speed, white balance, and ISO ratio so I could capture the cellar just as it was without a flash.

Matthew sat down on a large crate against the wall and started telling me all about the cellar and how it was built. Pride and affection laced his every word.

I roamed the room taking pictures of every nook and cranny. I let my hand graze over a few bottles of wine when suddenly everything shifted.

Matthew stood next to me placing bottles on a shelf. I waved my hand in front of his face but he didn’t see me. I walked around the shelf to where he’d been sitting just a moment ago, but the crate was empty. When I returned he was still stacking bottles and whistling to himself.

“Hey stranger,” a familiar voice said behind me.

Matthew looked up and a knowing smile spread across his face. “Fancy meeting you here,” he said walking past me.

I turned around to see who had caught Matthew’s attention.

“Brett?” I blurted, my eyes bulging out of my head.

Neither one of them acknowledged me as Matthew picked Brett up and kissed her.

“You’ll never guess what’s happened,” she said as he placed her back on her feet. “We found her, we found The Waker.”

Just like that, I was once more standing there with my hand frozen on a bottle of wine. Matthew continued chattering away about the cellar’s history. I walked toward him, where he was sitting on the crate again.

What the hell just happened? And was Matthew like Robert? Did he know something about this whole Waker business?

I looked back at the rack of bottles and then where Matthew and Brett had been standing just a moment ago.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Matthew asked, hopping off the crate and walking toward me.

“Nothing, I just thought…” I paused. What did I think? This wasn’t the first time I spaced and saw something strange; seemingly every time Robert touched me my imagination went into hyper drive. But this, this was different. It wasn’t a memory or a daydream, so what gives? What was happening to me?

“Violet?” Matthew asked, placing his hand on my shoulder.

“Yeah, I just thought I saw something,” I said, shaking off the image of him and Brett.

Matthew’s brow creased and he looked down at me with those big green eyes. His expression was serious but there was a calmness that radiated off of him. As I looked up at him, I heard Brett's words echo in my head, 'We found her, we found The Waker.' My lungs contracted and an overwhelming need for fresh air gripped me.

“I got everything I need down here. Why don’t we head back up,” I suggested, looking toward the exit.

“Right, let’s go on up then,” he replied, giving me a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

I didn’t say another word as I followed him back the way we’d come. I couldn’t shake off the image of him and Brett together. I wanted to ask if he knew the Maxwells but was too afraid of what his answer might be, and in turn what that would mean for me.

As we walked up the stairs, I studied Matthew in front of me. Was it possible he was like Robert? Nothing about him indicated he had any special abilities, but I hadn’t noticed anything different about Robert the first time we met either.

“Just crazy,” I said under my breath.

“What’s that?” Matthew asked as he extended his hand to help pull me up the last few steps.

“Nothing, just talking to myself,” I replied, shaking my head.

“Self-talker.” He chuckled. “Me too, keeps me from going crazy.”

A shaky laugh escaped my throat and I took a deep breath as the fresh air hit me, “I think all the talking to myself might actually be making me crazy.”

“You seem pretty normal to me,” he said, looking back at me with his playful grin firmly in place.

“Great, I must really be nuts then,” I laughed off the jitters and we hopped back in the Gator. If Matthew was like Robert and he did know something about The Waker, I sure as hell wasn't going to bring it up while I was alone with him. He may be close to Brett, but that didn't mean I could trust him.

“You’re too good looking to be crazy.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and a few strands of hair fell out of his ponytail and across his eyes.

We both laughed and joked around the rest of the way up the hill. Keep your friends close and enemies closer, I thought. Either way, I wasn't going to let on that I knew anything and really what did I know? It was late afternoon by the time we parked and a soft glow of light sat over the whole winery. I walked around the top of the hill, getting pictures at different angles. The fields looked like long, elegant fingers splayed across the grounds. The staggering size of the estate played out before us. Matthew had talked about how large this place was but seeing it from above was magnificent.

“Alright, I think I’ve got everything,” I declared, heading back toward Matthew, who waited patiently by the Gator. He looked so at ease, leaning back, sipping on a bottle of water, that I couldn’t help myself. I lifted my camera and took a quick picture. “Okay, now I have everything.”

“Hey, I wasn’t ready for my close up,” he said and spilled water down the front of his shirt as he sat up.

“You’ll never be more ready than you are when you’re unprepared.”

“That’s actually kinda deep,” he said, raising an eyebrow my direction.