I’m thrilled to announce Haunted is here!!! The third and final book in the Awakening Trilogy released today!!! I’m not allowed to post the entire book on my blog but here are the first three chapters. I hope you love it and keep reading! Be sure to order your copy this week, prices will go up next week 🙂 Here’s a link if you want to go ahead and order now. And as always you can also order from your favorite bookstore or direct from me (I’ll get that shop link up in a few days 🙂 or ask your library to carry it!
One
My ragged breath broke the stillness of the night. Across the room, golden embers crackled against the ashen bricks of the fireplace. Golden like the flecks in her green eyes.
My breathing was fast, too fast.
I inhaled, forcing the air deep into my lungs. I needed to calm down. I pushed my hair back—it was soaked … I was soaked.
Why did I keep having this dream? She was so close and yet so far … I couldn’t reach her … couldn’t get to her in time. He reached her first, every time. The man with the dark eyes that held only evil. His skin was white like mine, his hair black and straight. Her skin was as brown as Luca’s. And those eyes, the memory of her eyes … eyes just like mine and Luca’s.
Terror was all I felt … all she felt.
Footsteps echoed off the floor and my bedroom door swung open.
“Are you okay?” Luca said, his voice higher pitched from fear.
He crossed the space between the door and my bed in three long strides. He sat beside me, and I clung to him. He was my lifeline—the tether that kept me from losing my mind to the world of my dreams.
He asked, “Was it the same as before?”
I could feel his heart beating almost as fast as mine. “Wh-why do I keep dreaming of her … of him?” I shuddered, trying to force the girl’s ragged breaths from my memory.
“I don’t know,” Luca said. His arms wrapped protectively around me.
But he couldn’t protect me from my dreams, no one could. They came without permission, forcing their way into my consciousness, terrifying me when I slept and haunting me while I was awake.
It had been a week now and every night ended the same way: me shivering, Luca holding me, the little girl from my dreams …. I whimpered.
“You’re safe now,” Luca said.
“She’s not.” I gripped him. “She’s not safe. Whoever she is, he’s hunting her and she can’t escape.” My tears were soaking his shirt. “She can feel him,” I said, gasping for breath between the tears.
“What?” Luca asked, pushing back a little so he could see me.
“When he approaches, she knows he’s evil as soon as she sees him. Her face changes immediately. She’s terrified. She goes from a happy little girl to terrified prey in a moment. She can feel him … she has your gift.”
He was silent. What could he say? What could either of us say? A child who had our eyes, who had his gift … a child who looked like the perfect combination of Luca and me was being hunted and we weren’t there to protect her.
“We don’t know who that child is or what your dream means. You’re exhausted and so am I. We need to sleep so we can think more clearly.”
“I try to sleep, but then he’s there,” I said.
“You need to try again,” he said, kneeling beside my bed and helping me lie back. He pulled my quilt up and then one of the blankets my mom had made, on top of it. “I’ll stay here for a while. You’ll be okay.”
I pressed the back of my head into the pillow. “Luca, what if my dream isn’t wrong? What if she is who I think she is and she’s being hunted?”
He shook his head. “Shh, you need to rest.”
“But what if it’s real?” I asked.
He was kneeling beside me, tucking the corners of the blanket around my chin. His expression hardened. “If she is who you think she is, we will protect her,” he said, his voice strong and unafraid. “Our child will never be hunted.”
I got the sense that though he was speaking to me, his words were meant for someone else.
Two
“Aaahh,” I moaned, pulling my body away from my sister, whose freckled nose was practically touching mine. “What’re you doing in my room?” I asked, staring at Avi, my way too energetic nine-year-old baby sister.
Avi’s breath tickled my nose. “I was checking on you. When I saw Luca still sound asleep in his room, I figured you had another nightmare.”
“You went to Luca’s room?” My voice was hoarse from sleep.
“I wanted someone to play with and he’s always awake way before you and Lisieux,” Avi said as if it made perfect sense for her to go into Luca’s room first thing in the morning.
“Isn’t today Saturday?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t work on Saturday.”
“That’s the point,” she said, blinking her emerald-green eyes at me.
“You should let him sleep in on Saturdays.” I pushed myself up.
Her demeanor shifted. “Did you have that dream again?”
“Ugh,” I groaned, and fell back against the pillows.
“Was it just as awful?”
Her voice sounded oddly mature when she wanted it to be. I nodded, my hair making a rustling sound against the pillows.
I felt bad that Avi knew about the dream in the first place. I hadn’t meant to tell her, but she was the first one in my room the first night it happened. I was too panicked to think clearly, so I told her everything and she repeated it to everyone else when the rest of them arrived a few seconds later. Everyone except our dad, who could sleep through anything.
That was back when Luca also slept soundly … before he had to protect me every night from the boogeyman. Now he was in my room before I could even fully wake up. Some nights he was the one who woke me from the haunting dreams.
“It seems weird that you keep having the same awful dream,” she said, her forehead pulled into little wrinkles as she tried to understand.
“People have bad dreams sometimes,” I said, not wanting to discuss this with her, especially while still waking up.
She shook her head sorrowfully from side to side, saying in a solemn voice, “In a different family, it would be a simple bad dream. In our family—”
“Why do you talk like that?” I asked, sitting up.
“How should I talk?” she asked, tilting her head, her voice less ominous.
“Like the little girl you are.”
“You’re dreaming of a little girl being hunted. I don’t want to be a little girl,” she said flatly.
I stared at her. “It’s a good thing to be a little girl,” I said.
“Is it? It doesn’t seem like it,” she said, her clear green eyes staring back at me.
I felt my shoulders slump forward. “This is too much for so early in the morning.”
I took the sweatshirt from the end of the bed and slipped it over the T-shirt I wore. Avi followed me as we made our way down the stairs.
The kitchen was flooded with sunlight and the smell of fresh blueberry bread. Thank goodness for Jason and Sam living here. Ever since the fire destroyed their home, Luca and his aunt and uncle had been living with us. Almost as soon as they arrived, Jason took over as the primary cook. It wasn’t until the coldest part of winter—when we did our best not to leave the house—that he started showing off his baking skills.
Very soon after that, Jason’s Baked Goods was born. A welcome and unexpected career change for him, but one he had secretly dreamed of for many years. All it took was encouragement and a bit of seed money from Gigi to get him to embrace his God-given gifts … gifts each of us is enormously grateful for on a daily basis. His creations have been so sought after that he already hired two other guys to help him.
“Where is Jason?” I asked, cutting a piece of bread and turning on the stove to heat the water in the kettle.
“Him and Sam went down to check on their house. Gigi went with them. She’ll probably find something else the house absolutely must have, that will delay the move another few weeks. Like she did with the crown molding,” Avi said with a grin, shoving crumbled blueberry bread into her mouth.
Our copper-colored, furry mutt, Jackson, stretched from where he was snoozing in his bed and wandered over to lick up the crumbs Avi was dropping all over the floor.
Avi was right about Gigi; she was a master at delaying the completion of Sam and Jason’s house. When Mr. Jones was hired to rebuild the house that Thomas had burned down, the contractor said it would take four months max, even with winter weather delays. But we were now going on eight months.
Once Gigi learned how much Jason loved to bake, she had the kitchen redesigned to accommodate three ovens—something Sam and Jason were both opposed to, but Gigi assured them was a practical necessity. And since she was paying for it and it was on our property, she had the final say. After all, she was the one who built the original house because the shack Jason’s squatter parents constructed wasn’t fit for humans, especially humans with a young child trying to survive the Maine winter. Now that Jason’s parents were long gone, and Jason, Sam, and Luca were essentially part of the family, Gigi was spoiling them as much as she spoiled the rest of us. Which is why she insisted the footprint of the house needed to be at least a thousand square feet bigger than the original, in order to accommodate a separate bathroom for the master bedroom, a third bedroom, and the much larger kitchen.
Two weeks before, when the house was almost complete, she said it absolutely needed crown molding in every room. There was no doubt she was down there now, doing her best to think up something else to delay them from moving out of our home. But to be fair, none of her changes came close to causing the delay that the skating rink build-out had caused. When Dad pulled Mr. Jones and his team off the house and asked them to focus on the skating rink, it caused months of delay. None of us, including Sam or Jason, were upset about it.
The kettle whistled, and I poured its contents over the chai tea bag in my mug. I took it and the slice of blueberry bread to the table. I held the hot mug as the tea steeped. The daytime temperatures were warm, but the nights were always cold in Maine.
Avi took some more bread and bounced her way over to the table, Jackson following at her heels. “Will you play with me now?”
I groaned. “I’m barely moving.”
“Ugh, I’m so bored,” she said, flopping onto the bench opposite me. Her unbrushed red hair almost reached the floor.
“There are moments, like this one, when I actually miss the calm, mopey Avi,” I said.
“I do not!” she said.
“You have so much energy so early in the morning,” I said.
“Siena, it’s 9:00 a.m. I have been up for three hours, and it’s practically lunchtime. This is not a lot of energy for lunchtime,” Avi said, slapping the table with her hands.
I sipped my tea. I could drink espresso all day long and not be half as active as she was with no caffeine.
She leaned forward onto the table. “So, what do you think the dream means?”
She was staring at me with large, unblinking eyes. It was all I could do to not shiver at her expression.
“What’s the deal with the not blinking?” I asked, trying to sound unrattled by her expression though it was freaking me out.
She gave me a tiny smirk. “I’m working on my ‘intense stare.’ ”
“No need to practice, you’re already a master.” I sipped my tea.
She grinned. “Thank you, but don’t try to distract me. What do you think the dream means?”
“You had the dream again?” Lisieux asked from the stairwell.
I moaned and slid lower on the seat. “It’s just a silly dream.” I wished I’d never told Avi.
Sitting next to Avi, Lisieux yawned, her brown wavy hair sticking up in different directions. She didn’t resemble Avi and me, except for her green eyes and ghostly white skin, which we got from our mom.
“This is our family,” she said, “and it’s you. If Avi or I were having the dream, it might be silly and mean nothing, though probably not if we were having it every night for a week. But it’s definitely not nothing if you are having it.”
“What do you think it means?” Avi asked, now focused on Lisieux.
“It seems like there’s a connection to evil that hasn’t been broken,” Lisieux said thoughtfully as she took the rest of the blueberry bread from my plate.
“I was eating that,” I said.
“We broke Dad’s curse,” Avi said, with a sort of academic interest in the conversation with Lisieux.
Lisieux put the rest of the bread into her mouth. “Yes, the curse Dad made was broken, I think at least, but what about all the stuff before him?”
“The stuff before him?” Avi asked with great interest.
I cringed.
“It’s not like our great-great-grandparents were good people,” Lisieux said, pondering as she spoke. “Gigi’s grandmother was the one who did the curse with Dad, after all. It doesn’t seem like all of that would be washed away simply because the curse was.”
“That was five generations ago,” I said, no longer interested in the blueberry bread.
“Yeah, and our family isn’t like that anymore. We’re good now,” Avi said.
“True, we have the sacraments and sacramentals to help us, but there are still spiritual laws, same as there are physical ones,” Lisieux said while munching.
I said, “God created those laws to help us, not hurt us.”
Lisieux licked her fingers, saying, “Of course he created them to help us. Everything was done out of love for us, but laws are still laws. If you go against them, you can be hurt. It’s why farmers plant in sunlight, not in a forest. Crops need sunlight to grow. It’s a law. Nothing personal against tomato plants planted in full shade, but they’re going to fail.”
Avi lifted her eyes to mine, her voice somber. “It’s like if you jump off a cliff, you die.”
I felt heat flush my face and my pale skin turned red as I tried and failed to force the memory of Thomas falling from the cliff out of my mind.
Lisieux said softly, “The point is, physical laws can hurt us too. And being unaware of them doesn’t mean they don’t affect you. A child can still be hurt by a hot stove.”
“Or a frozen pond,” Avi added intensely.
I shivered at the memory of almost drowning.
Lisieux continued, mildly oblivious to Avi and me. “Physical laws are like spiritual laws. Our family broke the law. If our family had been good for generations, it would offer some form of residual goodness, but it wasn’t. It was bad. So we have residual badness.”
Avi said, “Grandfather George wasn’t bad.”
“No, he was the good one, and from what Gigi has told us, his family was good,” Lisieux responded. “In truth, it’s his side, his and Mom’s that allows us to have any chance at all.”
“A chance at what?” I asked.
“Not being evil,” Avi said, her green eyes unblinking.
I shivered. “Why are you so creepy? You didn’t used to be this creepy.”
A broad grin formed across her face. “I’m trying out creepy. What do you think?”
“I think if you don’t want to seem evil, don’t be so creepy,” I said, leaning against the seat.
“Hmm, I’ll consider that.” She appeared to be taking my words seriously.
Luca’s footsteps were heavy on the stairs. “Good morning,” he said, running his hands through his curly hair, the same sort of curly hair as the girl from my dream.
I sipped my tea, concentrating on its warmth to avoid thinking of my dream.
“Good morning,” Avi called out cheerfully.
“You’re so weird,” I said to Avi. How she could flip from totally creepy to totally normal in half a second was beyond me.
Luca studied us for a moment and then went to the fresh blueberry bread. He cut a piece about half a loaf thick and came and sat beside me.
“Do I want to know what you three were talking about?” he asked.
“Probably not,” Avi said sincerely.
“I figured,” he said, taking a bite of the bread.
It was amazing how much his body had changed since living with us and being able to eat as much as he liked. Working with Mr. Jones wasn’t hurting him either. He worked hard every day with Mr. Jones’s team, on whatever project they were doing, which lately had been Sam and Jason’s house, as well as the skating rink build-out. The combination of food and manual labor meant that Luca had gone from gauntly thin, when I first met him, to gorgeously muscular.
Every time Luca and I went anywhere, I was reminded how attractive he was. All the girls smiled a little too much and stared a little too long. Luca never seemed to notice, but my sisters and I did. They were fiercely protective of him, and me, and us. In their minds he was already their brother and they would do anything to protect that. I loved them all the more for how they loved us.
Luca stuffed another giant bite of bread into his mouth and almost as quickly swallowed it. He said, “You three promised to take me skating today,” as he took another bite.
“It isn’t good to swallow food that quickly,” Lisieux said. “You need to chew it.”
He chewed for twice as long, swallowed, and then gave Lisieux a gorgeous smile that would melt anyone’s heart.
She glared at him sternly and said, “That was not enough chewing either.”
He used his fork to cut a smaller bite and said, “I promise to chew if you promise to go get ready.”
“It’s still early,” Lisieux said.
“I’m serious. I’ve never been skating before, and you three promised to take me today.”
“But the day just started,” Lisieux said, wrapped in her fuzzy robe.
“It’s going to get crowded and crowds aren’t my thing. Besides, by the time you get ready, the day will be half over,” he said, raising one eyebrow playfully.
Avi said, “I don’t take nearly as long as those two.”
“Aww, but you will,” he teased. “Give it time, young one, give it time.”
She giggled. “Come on.” She pulled Lisieux and me up. “We don’t want to keep our Prince Charming waiting.”
Three
Half an hour later I sat in the driver’s seat of my BMW, Luca sat beside me, and my sisters behind us.
“I love how green everything is starting to turn,” Luca said, eyeing the tiny buds popping out everywhere.
Avi asked, “Does it remind you of Florida?”
Luca laughed. “It reminds me of Florida three months ago. The seasons here are way different.”
“Do you miss it?” Lisieux asked.
He turned to face them. “Yeah, parts of it. I’m glad to be here with you all, but I miss it.”
“You mean you’re glad to be here with Siena.” Avi had said my name in a sing-songy way.
“No, I mean I’m glad to be here with all of you. I wouldn’t leave any of you, not for all the warm, sunny weather in the world.”
I took his hand in mine. I loved him for so many reasons and his love of my sisters was at the top of the list. I drove past the streets that led to our church and the center of town. His love for our shared faith was also at the top of the list.
As we neared the farthest boundary of our town, I turned down a street that took us away from the ocean. The trees were thick leading up to the newly paved parking lot. Everything about the skating rink, except for the outside of the building, was new; even the idea of it was only a few months old.
It was a few weeks after Christmas, when we were sitting with Jody and her husband, Dave, after Mass. We were watching Avi pretend to roller-skate with their two young kids, and Jody said how it had always been her dream to open a roller-skating rink. Dad, being Dad, jumped on the idea. He already had the building and the perfect general contractor, Mr. Jones. The added bonus was that when Dad pulled him off Jason and Sam’s house to work on the skating rink, it meant Luca and his aunt and uncle had to keep living with us a few extra months.
The extra added bonus was that when Jody and Dave mentioned they wanted to have a coffee shop and offer baked goods at the skating rink, Gigi knew exactly who they should partner with. Since they were completely renovating an old building, it was easy to add an industrial kitchen perfect for Jason’s Baked Goods. A fantastically yummy partnership was born.
The previous weekend marked the grand opening and it was a huge success. Luca, Sam, and I stayed away due to the crowds … and the demons that often go along with crowds, but the rest of the family said the whole town was there and everyone loved it. Jody and Dave wanted the rink to be a gathering place for people of all ages, especially young families like theirs. So it’s a bright, inviting space with a ton of natural light, lots of vibrant colors, an indoor play area for little kids, a mini ninja course for bigger kids, the café that sells the best bakery items in town, and of course a skating rink in the center.
“Isn’t it so pretty!” Avi exclaimed, admiring the taupe building with brightly colored pink, purple, and blue stripes angling across it.
“You did an excellent job helping to pick out the colors,” Luca said, putting his hand on Avi’s shoulder.
She leaned against him. “Thanks,” she said.
We pulled open the glass doors, and Jody waved to us. She was busy with barista duties, so we went straight to the skate counter.
“Good morning,” Dave said in his typical upbeat way. “Here you go.” He handed over skates to a mom with two little kids. “Have fun!”
“Oh, we will,” the mom said, carrying the skates as she scooted her kids along.
“Do you think Elle and Noah want to skate?” Avi asked. Dave and Jody’s kids were in the indoor play area.
“I’m sure they’d love to,” Dave answered.
“Good. I’ll go get them,” Avi said, skipping off to the play area.
“Do you want your skates?” Dave asked us.
“Yes, please,” I said, answering for Luca and Lisieux.
Dave reached behind the counter and handed us the roller skates Gigi had bought us. She’d said it didn’t matter how pretty a place was, her grandkids weren’t wearing other people’s shoes. Luca officially counted as one of her grandkids. In truth, she’d probably choose him over me if there was ever a fight between us. Everyone would.
Luca gazed apprehensively at the skates.
Lisieux said, “I promise, rollerblades are easier than the old-style skates.”
“I don’t believe you,” Luca said. “A square is going to be more stable than a straight line.”
“You might think that, but no,” Lisieux said, pulling him over to one of the seats.
“Then why does Siena have skates?” Luca countered as I followed them, giggling at his protests.
“Because they’re cuter,” I said, holding up my yellow lace-up skates with sparkly purple wheels.
Lisieux plopped him into a chair. “Trust me,” she commanded as she unstrapped the Rollerblades and helped him put them on.
After she had strapped them up, she asked, “How does that feel?”
Luca moved his feet around. “Not totally awful.”
“See, I told you. Let me get you one thing,” Lisieux said, looking around and running to retrieve a neon-orange frame, a PVC walker on wheels.
“What’s this?” Luca asked.
“It’s how you learn. It’s like a regular walker, but for skating. See? Some of the kids have them,” Lisieux said, pointing to the little ones out on the rink slowly making their way around.
“Yes, but theirs are cute and little. This is like a barricade, and it’s even painted to match,” Luca said with a groan.
“Cute little kids get cute little walkers, big men get barricades,” Lisieux said. “Stand up.” She went behind him to help him stand.
Luca got up and his feet threatened to slide out from under him … but the PVC walker supported his weight.
“This is so embarrassing,” he said, his arm muscles bulging as he struggled to get his feet beneath him.
“At least you’re willing to try new things,” I said with a giggle.
“Ignore her,” Lisieux said. “She hasn’t skated in years, and she’s going to wish she had one of these too.”
I finished lacing up my skates and rose from the seat. I skated around on the carpet and then stepped onto the rink. It was like I’d never stopped skating—like my mom was right beside me and we were doing the hokey-pokey as we sped around the rink. I only thought of my mom for a moment because in the next moment Luca was edging out onto the rink and I was swerving to miss him. I spun around in a controlled circle.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“I think next time we come I’ll stick with Uncle Jace’s breakfast sandwiches,” he said, gripping the neon-orange barricade that surrounded his legs on three sides.
I laughed and said, “Take your time, go slow, one skate in front of the other.”
“That three-year-old just passed me,” he whined.
“That’s Noah. He’s been here every day for weeks, so he should be better than you. Besides, everything is easier when you’re that close to the ground.”
At that moment Noah tripped. Avi came up behind him and scooped him onto his feet.
“Did that make you feel better?” I asked Luca.
“Maybe a little,” he said grudgingly.
“Nice job,” Lisieux said as she glided past us. “See? Didn’t I tell you Rollerblades are better than skates?”
At that moment Luca stumbled and resumed his death grip on the frame.
“Yeah, way better,” he said sarcastically.
Despite Luca’s apprehension, he learned fast—or fast for someone who wasn’t a kid. After a few times around the rink he no longer needed his giant barricade, and after a few more rounds he even let go of the wall for a few seconds at a time.
“What do you think? A new Saturday staple?” I asked as the song “Walk Like an Egyptian” came over the speakers.
Luca grimaced. “I don’t think I can handle this much fun every Saturday,” he said, stumbling. His hands gripped the rail.
I stifled laughter. “Come on, I want a tea and you need a scone,” I said, taking his hand in mine and gently leading him through the middle of the rink.
He grasped my hand with a death grip. His face was tense and his legs were locked so I was pulling him along.
Avi twirled around us. “He needs a break.”
I smiled. “That’s where I’m taking him.”
“You want me to push?”
“No!” Luca sharply replied as she reached for his back.
I grinned at Avi. “I’ve got him.”
“Okay,” she said, giggling as she skated around us before leaving to find a friend.
We reached the opening in the rink. “There, we made it,” I said.
He clung to me as he lifted his feet onto the carpet. He was breathing hard. “I like … the carpet.”
“Yes, it is nice,” I said as if I was talking to a child.
I led him to a bench nearby. He moaned as he carefully sat down.
I kissed his lips lightly. “You can take off your skates. I’m done torturing you … for this morning, at least.”
“Thank goodness.” He slumped back.
I could sense him watching me as I glided off to get our shoes. When I returned, he had his Rollerblades off and was hunched over, exhausted.
From behind him Lisieux hopped gracefully from the rink onto the carpet and glided toward us with her twin best friends behind her.
“You look rough,” Lisieux said to Luca.
“Not falling is hard work,” he said, leaning on his legs. His head angled upward and a few curls fell in front of his eyes.
Lisieux’s friends giggled. Girls were always giggling at Luca. When you’re gorgeous, apparently even the least amusing statements become hilarious.
“Oh, come on,” Lisieux said as she shook her head in exasperation at her friends and went toward the bakery bar.
“That was funny,” Luca said, arguing with my unspoken thoughts. “I agree, it’s weird when they giggle and I’m not being funny. But that was funny.”
I gave him a placating smile. “Yes, it was a tiny bit funny.”
“More than a tiny bit,” he said, taking the shoes I handed to him.
When we both had our shoes on, I said, “Come on,” and helped him stand.
“That feels so weird.”
“What?”
“The ground.” He was moving slowly.
“Now, that’s funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
“That’s what makes it funny.” I kissed his cheek.
We slipped our skates behind the skating counter. Standing in the bakery line, we were a few people behind Lisieux and the twins. Her friends took turns glancing at Luca and whispering to one another. Lisieux jabbed them in irritation.
He whispered to me, “Why do they do that? Do I have something on my face?”
I took his hand and leaned against him. “They do it because they’re fifteen-year-old girls and you’re gorgeous.”
“So you say,” Luca said, not convinced.
“The fact that you don’t know it makes you all the more beautiful,” I said, wrapping my arms around him.
He leaned into me. “Shoot, they’re out of Uncle Jace’s breakfast sandwiches,” he said, releasing me.
I peered around the woman in front of us. He was right; there wasn’t much left. “I guess that’s a good thing,” I said.
He rubbed his stomach. “Not for me.”
“They’ve had a steady crowd here all morning,” I said.
“Have they? I didn’t notice. I was concentrating too hard on not falling,” Luca said.
I laughed.
“Who knew I was so hilarious,” Luca said, stepping forward to the front of the line.
I asked, “Want to share a scone?”
Luca raised an eyebrow.
“You’re right, that was silly of me to ask,” I said.
“Can we please have two blueberry scones and a chai tea?”
“And a cup of water, please,” Luca added.
“How did he do?” Jody called while she was steaming the milk for my tea.
“Great,” I said, grinning.
Luca groaned.
“You did do great for your first time ever skating,” I said.
“Maybe,” Luca said.
“You did,” I said gently, bumping my hip to his.
“If you say so,” he said.
Jody handed me my tea. “Enjoy,” she said before whirling around to work on the next order.
We sat at one of the tables in the center of the indoor eating area. Luca drank half his water and then started on his scone. I sipped the hot tea, enjoying the rich flavor and watched Avi twirling in the middle of the rink.
“This place got crowded,” Luca said between bites. “Looks like half the town is here.”
I nibbled a bit of my scone. “Are you feeling okay?”
Luca inhaled as if feeling the air. “Yeah, that’s the great thing about little kids. They bring such lightness to the air. The adults probably have stuff, but the kids outweigh it.”
“There are a ton of kids here,” I said.
I leaned back in my chair, holding the cup of tea in both hands. Children were everywhere. Most with parents, some skating in groups or playing together in the indoor play area, parents at tables nearby watching them, chatting with each other.
I sat up straighter, trying to understand what I was seeing.
He watched me with concern, saying, “What is it?”
“That girl.”
He swiveled in his seat. “What girl?”
I was standing now, staring at the girl with hair that matched Luca’s. She was alone; her green eyes with amber flecks gazed past me. I spun to see what she was looking at. Was the man here, hunting her in this place, this place with so many children? I started to shake. She began moving quickly toward the side doors. I went toward her, but she didn’t slow. She moved swiftly from the building—though the doors didn’t open. I could see her on the other side of the glass, in the outdoor seating area. I dodged young skaters and made it to the door.
She was still there, inside the fenced seating area. She peered back as if waiting for me. … As if she wanted me to follow her.