chapter seventeen
Silent now Violet stood still waist deep in the crashing waves as the water swayed her thin frame back and forth with the tide.
Her wide eyes lowered as the shock wore off and Daniel's body slipped from her freezing hands back into the blackness of stormy sea.
She remembered Tate's tale of the myth of the dragonflies, eyes, mouth sewn shut as punishment for evil souls.
Violet didn't know if it was the shock of seeing the nightmarish gore splayed out on her ex's dead body, or the pounding icy rain that continuously fell, but she felt oddly numb to it all.
Still reeling from her description of him and their love written down in words on her lap top, Tate carefully approached her knowing that he couldn't deny what he had done to Daniel.
It was then that she felt his hands brush lightly around his shoulders as Lydia's caustic laughter echoed behind him.
It was all becoming clear to him now, it was a trick, and all the girls were in on it, it wasn't Chelsea that beckoned him to come up stairs, it wasn't Chelsea that loomed in the darkness in the corner of the his room manipulating him into the basement.
They had all conspired to take away from him the one thing they could never have, it was one of many of life's gifts that he had ripped away from them, and they would be damned if he could taste such a sweet forbidden fruit.
Trying desperately to convince himself that what was written on Violet's lap top was all a coincidence, that there was no way she could know what he was he wrapped his arms around her.
"Let's go inside Violet, out of the rain, I'll explain everything, please give me a chance to make you understand that I had no choice."
As if in a haze Violet allowed him to lead to back up the stairs past a poorly disguised Lydia dressed as Chelsea to the living room inside.
Sitting down almost catatonic, Violet folded her hands on her lap as she stared blankly at the bare mantle over the fireplace directly in front of her.
Falling to his knees Tate wove a tale of a crazed man bent on revenge.
"Daniel came while you were in town, he ripped the front door from the hinges looking for you, he was mad with jealousy. Violet he came at me with a knife, I had no choice, I knew how upset it would make you and how hard this would be to explain to the police so I … "
Listening to Tate describe in detail what he had done to Daniel, how he killed him in self defense, she thought back to when she left for the day, how she saw his mustang abandoned in the tall sea grass by the cottage, and how it was still there when she returned.
Never once did she question this fact, and it made her wonder, it made her suspect something dark and sinister within herself.
Holding up her hand she signaled Tate to stop talking as she reached for the warm throw that was placed along the back of the couch to drape it across her wet shoulders.
Shivering as her damp hair caused tiny puddles to form on her soaked thighs she kept staring at the mantle.
"I saw his car."
Lost as to what she meant Tate began to rub her arms afraid she was suffering from hypothermia.
"You're in shock, you have to get out of those wet clothes Violet, wait here, I'll be right back."
Darting to the fireplace he quickly balled up some newspaper and lit the burnt logs before running up the stairs to get her some dry clothes.
Blocking the entrance of the stairway stood Lydia, scowling with hatred as the other girls hovered on each step glaring at him like shadows that had become part of the walls, quiet silhouettes born of pain that were determined to let themselves be known.
Ignoring them he rushed to his room urgently searching for a sweatshirt and her flannel pajama bottoms.
It was then that he heard the distant low groans of his mother in her weakened state demanding Violet's heart from someone who was whimpering softly.
Standing in the hallway he stared at his mother's door then back downstairs knowing he could protect Violet, that his mother wasn't the problem at hand, but he couldn't help wondering who she had imprisoned as she ranted on insisting she have what was due to her.
Stilling halfway down the steps he gazed back over his shoulder wondering briefly what girl would be gullible enough to be led into Constance's bedroom knowing that whoever it was had to have gone on her own free will, since his mother now lacked the power to demand anything.
Unable to concentrate on anything but Violet he ran back to her side and eased her clothes off carefully dressing her in her warm pj's.
"It's going to be alright, I promise Violet, I would never do anything to harm you, I will always protect you."
She stayed perfectly still as he covered her once again in the royal blue throw.
Rushing back to the kitchen to turn the coffee pot on he ignored the girls as they verbally taunted him, convinced that he would for sure lose her.
Sitting beside her he handed her a hot mug before pulling her towards him with a comforting arm holding her close to his chest.
Again she whispered softly still staring at the blank markings left in the dust on the mantle.
"I saw his car, when I left for town, I knew he was here, and I did nothing."
Caressing her back his knee jumped nervously as he did the only thing he could do, listen.
"Something strange happened while I was there, I went into a store to find a dress for tonight and this woman took me into a back room. It was covered from floor to ceiling with missing posters of young girls, thirty to be exact, they had all disappeared along this stretch of beach… The Moody - "
"Beach thirty." he finished her sentence knowing that he could no longer hide from the past, the lost tormented spirits that walked among them as they spoke, looking for vengeance, searching for closure that would never come.
Nodding she took his hand in hers.
"Tate… the woman said that something, ungodly happened here, please, tell me … I have to know. I have to understand."
Curling his fingers around hers he tried to ignore his mother's rage upstairs as she howled for a heart, Violet's heart.
He was tired of the lies, of the pain that seemed to seep into everything around them, as if the walls themselves wept in agony pleading for release from the grief that bellowed from under its roof.
He thought back to her story, the tale of a ghost in love with a girl, a spirit that had taken all her pain away and loved her like no other could.
The time for secrets was over, with Daniel's body adrift in the ocean and his mother clawing the door to get to Violet, he had to be sure of what she knew.
"Violet, I saw your lap top, I read the last entry of your book, why did you write that story?"
Seemingly unfazed by his discovery, that she had been writing about them all along, she shrugged lost for words to explain.
After a long silence she took a deep breath that seemed to drain her completely leaving her with what little energy she had left to speak.
"I write ghost stories, it's what I did back in California, I guess I never felt as though I fit in the world around me, always a disappointment to my father, to my professors at school… to men like Daniel. So I created a realm of my own, a world outside the one that rejected me. There I could become anyone, I could be loved. I came here to write such a book, to get lost in the foggy marshes, and desolate sand dunes that were abandoned by summer crowds. I came here to write about a world that didn't exist except for inside my mind and the cold dark ocean that called out to me whispering words that fell effortlessly from my fingers to the keyboard."
Brushing his cool lips to her cheek he closed his eyes needing to hear the truth.
Echoing soft whispers whisked across her face like butterfly kisses.
"Violet, please tell me, I need to hear you say it. Tell me what I am."
Swallowing hard, her large sad eyes filled with tears, as she breathed out the word she could never fully admit to herself.
"Ghost."
His forehead fell to her chest as he shivered beside her blown away by her admission.
"H-How long… when did you … "
Unable to finish broken by her decision to keep this from him he moved away from her to cradle his head in his hands as he rocked back and forth in despair.
Standing she let the wool vibrant blue blanket fall from her slender shoulders as she made her way to the mantle that had never left her sight.
"I knew from the very beginning Tate, the black and white photographs, that first night I came they were gathered here."
Violet ran her fingers over the empty clean spaces surrounded by dust remembering how much she admired the beauty of the silver antique frames and the portraits of the people inside those frames.
She recalled one in particular, he was in all the photographs, ranging from a little boy of three to a young man in his early twenties.
He was tall, remarkably handsome, but that wasn't what caught her attention, it was his eyes, dark like a starless sky, filled with a sadness that made her want to cry, and a loneliness so deep that matched her own.
She wanted to know him, and in a way somehow felt as if she already had.
"I dreamed of you that night, it was the night you came and took the frames away, the night you covered me with the very same blanket as you did tonight."
Standing Tate was speechless, he felt everything falling away, rushing from him like the tide pulling back everything that gave him peace, that made him feel whole.
"You tried to hide who you really were from me, but I had already seen,"
Skimming the tip of her finger over the dust along the mahogany wood she stared off in the distance as if looking back into the past.
"I couldn't believe my eyes when I opened the door and saw you standing there, you looked almost angelic with vibrant streaks of lightning placing a beautiful halo around you. I tried to convince myself that you were a distant relative, a grandson blessed with the genes of the sad boy that looked straight into my soul in that picture, but… when you touched me, when you grazed my skin with your icy fingers charged with a force beyond anything I had ever felt, I knew I couldn't deny what was real, no matter how insane it all seemed."
Leaning against the wall Tate covered his eyes with his arm trying to hide the tears welling quickly, too fast to stop.
"So I guess you got what you needed, I bet it'll be a bestseller, they were right, you were never going to stay with me."
Breaking her far away gaze she pulled down his arm forcing him to look at her.
"They? Who is they?"
Her voice rose at an alarming rate as she backed him up against the wall, demanding to know the truth, hell bent that he understood hers.
"Tate, I couldn't help but pour my feelings for you in that story, but the rest, the part about the murders, about the nightmares, its made up, pieces of myths I've heard around this crazy town. But the parts about you, how I describe the way you make me feel, it's all true, every single word. I love you, I could never leave you. I was going to send it to my publisher, because I needed the money, but I was never going to leave you. I don't care what happened with Daniel, I know he was violent. It doesn't matter to me what you've done or why it is that you're still here. Nothing in my life has ever felt right, until you. I belong with you, wherever, whatever this is. My place is with you!"
Taking his hand she held it to her heart, "Don't you feel that, it belongs to you Tate, can't you see that? Don't you understand? Can you even comprehend the happiness you've given me. I could never leave you Tate."
Shaking, trembling viciously against the wall Tate breathlessly grabbed her pulling her flush to his body as he laced his fingers along her wet tangled hair, needing to feel the heat radiating off of her, the love he so desperately needed from her.
Closing his eyes he tried to block out Lydia, who was screaming in his left ear, and Karen who's maniacal cold lips continuously whispered into his right ear.
"She may not care about Daniel, Tate, but how will she feel when she knows of the other innocents that you lured here to their death?"
Tate cringed beneath Lydia's screeching voice as Karen whispered on a loop how soon Constance with be devouring his precious love's heart.
Soon it became more than just Lydia and Karen's voices as an unrelenting, deafening united scream vibrated throughout the house.
"You will lose her Tate! You will lose everything!"