The Lies That Bind

22: The City That Never Sleeps

Calla was lying in a field of roses.

Roses and peonies.

"This is a dream," she said aloud, staring up at a lavender sky. Purple. Of course it was purple. Purple was always...

"My favorite color."

Calla closed her eyes. "Rachel."

"I've missed you."

Calla sighed. She so rarely dreamt. But when she did, she dreamt of days gone by and long buried. Buried. Dead and gone. Just like—

"Me," Rachel said, accusatory. "You were going to say 'dead and gone, just like Rachel', weren't you? You always were so melodramatic..."

"Seriously? I'm the melodramatic one?" Calla turned on her side, and there she was. Rachel. A piece of her, anyway—the piece that had been preserved in Calla's mind, forever sixteen. Lying on a bed of pale pink peonies without a care in the world. "You told me, and I quote, that you would die if Mike Richardson didn't take you to the eighth grade dance."

"In my defense, I did die," Rachel pointed out, grinning over at her. A secret, knowing grin. One they'd traded often.

Calla plucked a peony from the earth-that-was-not-earth, but dream-earth. Soft as cotton and without the familiar, woodsy scent of the land that hemmed in Greenwitch. "Those two things are entirely unrelated and you know it."

Petal by petal, she tore the peony to shreds. The exercise reminded her of a game they'd played as children. He loves me, he loves me not. Rachel had gone through dozens of flowers just like this when they were younger, frantic to discover if her latest crush returned her affections.

Calla's interests were of a different nature.

I'm going to live. One petal joined the next. I'm going to die.

Pluck.

I'm going to live.

Pluck.

I'm going to die.

She tore out the second to last petal, the refrain frozen on her tongue. I'm going to live.

Only one option remained, then. She tossed the flower aside.

"Oh, Calla." Rachel reached for her, but as her fingers brushed Calla's cheek, she felt nothing. As if Rachel were no more than a shadow. "I really have missed you." She paused, dark eyes searching. "Why did you take the job at the funeral home?"

"Mortuary," Calla said automatically. The question brought to mind her conversation with Cooper, eyes round and sincere as he asked her about an impossible future. Is that why you took the job at the funeral home?

Something like that. She jerked away, and Rachel's hand, still stretching, still reaching for her, blurred like smoke. "You know why."

"Of course I don't."

"You're a figment of my imagination!" Calla burst out, suddenly furious. With Rachel. With the blasted flowers. With Cooper and his questions. "You're not real. You know everything I know, and you know why I took that job."

Rachel only smiled at her, unbothered by her outburst. "So. You're still holding out hope, then."

"No," Calla said, the words bitter. "There is no hope."

"Not for you. But for him." Rachel's smile turned sad. "If that's really what you think, you should tell him. Cooper deserves the truth."