Page 4

CHAPTER 4

Color Me In

D irt, socks, diesel. Ireland .

Still screaming, I broke from the dream into sickening pastel greens. The oaks spun, the sky whirled, birds wailed at an ear-splitting volume, and somewhere far away, the horses we’d tied up nickered.

Rolling over, I crawled to the edge of the meadow, sucked in the largest mouthful of air I’d ever take, then emptied my entire breakfast of James’s raspberry pancakes onto a hawthorn tree.

I dug my fingers into waterlogged moss. Earth. Life. Not dead, not floating. No gears. No forest in the sky. Alive. I was alive.

“You’re alright, Roe. Deep breaths, now.”

Oh God—Tye.

Hot humiliation rolled in to replace the nausea. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t. But it was .

I’d fallen asleep with Tye kissing me, and he was now staring at my vomit. Willow would have laughed herself silly, except she wouldn’t, not ever again.

“I—I don’t know what happened,” I managed.

Tye bent and tugged my hands from my face. “Hun, don’t worry,” he said, pulling me against him in a fierce hug. At least he wasn’t staring at my burning face, or smelling my breath, or seeing what tasted like snot dripping over my lip. “You’re okay. You’re fine. But ya need to drink somethin’.” He peeled back far enough to reach for his bag and pulled out a canister, handing it to me.

I drank a throat-scorching gulp, choked. “This isn’t water.”

Tye grinned, and the simple sight of his dimple brought me some relief. “The Irish might disagree. Ya need somethin’ strong.” He grabbed the tree beside me, sliding down its faded pink bark until he rested on the ground with one knee bent.

“Tye, I’m—I’m sorry,” I said pathetically.

His lips tightened around a cigarette, released, and a breeze blew the puffs of gray haze away before they had time to settle between us. “No, Roe, I’m sorry,” he said softly. “But not about that. ’Bout what I’m about to tell ya.”

Tell me? God, what else had I done?

Tye peeled off his hat, rubbed at the indent it left on his forehead. A bit of sweat curled the hair that clung to his temples. “It’s the first time I’ve done this,” he admitted, draping his arms over his knees. “It’s normally James who takes people on up here and shows ’em the Gate.”

I glanced around. What gate?

“He wanted to wait for Bryn,” Tye continued in that same monotone. “I suppose I needed the time anyway, to find the right way to go about this so you’d believe me.”

My stomach jittered a little, at the tone more than the words. Gone was the drawl, the easy sway that warned you a joke would follow. “Believe you about what, Tye?”

He rose, pulling himself up with the polished branch of a birch before coming to stand at the edge of the mountain, a twig snapping under his boot. “Christ, darlin’, what’d ya just see?”

A teeny, tiny alarm bell started to go off inside my head before I smothered it. “See?”

He chucked his cigarette in the grass. “How ’bout that whole world? Ya know, the one with the gears in the sky? Ring any bells?”

A bird tweeted. I closed my gaping mouth. Didn’t realize it’d dried out entirely until my tongue wet it again. Had I hit my head when I passed out? I started to get up, swayed against the tree. Maybe. Must have.

“Look, honey, this is a bit harder than I thought,” Tye continued while my stomach bottomed out. “But, well, maybe hard and fast is better, huh?” His dimple winked. “Or maybe it ain’t the time for that joke.”

I started to feel my scalp for a lump. Then Tye was there, gripping my shoulders, turning me to face him, smelling of tobacco and firewood.

“I think I need to lie down.”

His thumbs brushed circles over my shoulders, his face a mass of consternation I could barely focus on.

“Roe, it ain’t no accident that we met in Canada,” he said. “James sent me to find ya.”

I was going to vomit again, like the dream had left some residue I couldn’t shake. I swallowed deeply, trying to focus on the bit of stubble on Tye’s neck, anything but the crimson-checkered shirt he wore that wouldn’t stop spinning.

“To find an electrician?”

“No, to find you .”

The beard blurred, shifting in and out of focus as my headache worsened. Me? “Did someone recommend me? My dad?” My heart lifted at the idea, but I didn’t think James knew him.

“No.” Tye let go, stepped back. “Smoke?”

It took me a moment, then I saw he was handing me a cigarette from his pack.

“I…sure,” I said, but my fingers trembled when I reached for it. “Who recommended me?”

Tye lit his second one, then mine, waving the match in the air until only a faint whiff of burning remained. “Ain’t no one recommended you. It’s not about that, okay? Ya see, what James and I do is, well, we find people like us, and we show ’em the Gate.”

What was with this gate ? “Tye, I think I’d better head home. Maybe you can tell me about this later.”

When I started to turn, he grabbed me. “Roe, I need ya to believe what I showed ya, okay?” he said quickly. “That memory ya saw, it’s real, or it was, but it’s why I brought ya here, what I’m tryin’ to tell ya. I need ya to take a breather now. Don’t need ya keelin’ over on my first ever recruitin’ job or James’ll fry my hide.”

How often did he recruit electricians? Why was he telling me all this now ? “I—I’m going to find James.”

“I wouldn’t do that, not when you’re still recoverin’ from the Gate.”

I lurched toward the path, horses forgotten. I’d walk home without them, use the time to get rid of this pounding ache between my temples. When my stomach seized, I braced a hand on a mossy trunk and sucked in cold, damp air through my nostrils.

“Ain’t ya been wonderin’ what that ceremony is? Why we ain’t got no guests? Why Bryn was comin’ back?” Yes, yes, yes . “Why I had James make up this job for ya?”

My heart gave two painful thumps. “Why are you saying you…” I trailed off at the look on his face, the one I’d seen so many times before—the no-nonsense tight line of his lips, the furrowed brow.

The chiming warning bell in my head grew louder, and I stumbled, the overgrown brambles tugging at my hair.

Tye stopped feet from me. “Ya know why ya came here, Roe? It ain’t ’cause ya had a little crush on me. It’s ’cause ya couldn’t stomach who ya were without Willow. I know the feelin’ of not likin’ who ya are, to find that deep down”—he touched a hand to his chest—“there ain’t nothin’ there. So I gave ya this chance, Roe, so ya could be more than just a reminder to your parents of what was left.”

Confused, tears threatening, I shoved away from the brambles. He didn’t stop me when I scrambled over a moss-ridden log that crumpled under my boot, or when my feet finally found that muddy path.

He kept talking, kept speaking so quietly about that chance—but he didn’t stop me.

So I ran.

B y the time I crossed the river, breath was wheezing out my lungs. It’d been too long since I’d run like this, too long since my sister died, and my veins strained for the oxygen that my heart couldn’t pump fast enough.

I chased the overgrown bank as dew soaked my jeans, my footsteps echoing a disjointed tempo, crunching what should have been left undisturbed. But I was fast—I’d spent every summer running through Canada’s rough forests with my sister, and even in this freakishly green land, I dodged rotted logs and shaky rocks with the muscle memory of years.

When my feet slapped a hard trail, I crossed the back lawn, trampling the foxgloves, and careened through Naruka’s tack room and into the kitchen.

Bang .

I slapped the door closed, then stood there, shuddering with my back against it. Clocks ticked in unison around me, watching, waiting. My breaths panted out in a painful, stuttering rhythm.

Outside, the winds tested themselves against the kitchen’s bay window. Wood groaned, glass protested. But the kitchen looked normal with its bright yellow tea towels, the bench covered in sheepskin rugs, that damn naked priest calendar revealing it was now July.

I peeled my sticky back from the door. Maybe I’d hallucinated. Not just the gears in the sky, but the whole thing. Maybe I’d picked up something, some Irish bug, or—

“ James. ”

He stepped into the kitchen, his glasses smeared with flour, his hair gray with it. His zigzag wool sweater belonged in a 1930s circus, but the sight of it caused the sharp edge of my panic to subside.

“Roe?” His eyes searched mine. “Where’s Tye?”

I dragged a hand down my sweaty face. “He’s still—still in the woods,” I stuttered, “with the horses.”

James moistened his lower lip. “Is he so?”

I nodded, my throat parched, every breath like knives in my chest.

He stepped into the warmer light. “Ye know, Roe, ’tis not the first time I’ve seen that look in someone’s eyes.”

My pulse ratcheted up. “What?”

“The look of someone who’s seen our memories for the first time.”

Tick. Tick-tock.

Something was wrong with him, with Naruka, something that put a wild look on James’s face as he stepped closer. The same look I’d seen in the eyes of a photo in guest room three. “Ye’ve gone through the ceremony,” he said quietly. “Won’t ye let me answer yer questions?”

I fumbled behind me. “James, I…”

“Yes, Roe?”

My fingers curled around the keys at last. “I’m going for a drive.”

“Are ye so? In me own bloody car?”

I sucked in a breath, and threw open the door.