The ways in which I wanted Noah to consume me didn’t feel very chaste.
I stayed and listened to the choir practice for the next hour before quietly slipping out of the church and walking home. It was almost dark by the time I reached the house. A lamp was on in the living room, but I didn’t check to see who was in there. Instead I crept upstairs and shut myself in my room. I peeled off my damp clothes, my skin gritty with sand. I needed to wash it off, so I went to take a bath.
Even though the house was quiet, Ard na Mara was never truly silent. There was always the creak of a floorboard, or the groan of a pipe. The lost echoes of lives long past. The building was alive in a way that often felt foreboding.
I tried to relax in the warm bath, but every time I closed my eyes I relived Noah’s kiss, the feel of his mouth on mine and my hand trailing across his stomach. The scent of salty seawater in my nose. The way he held down my wrists and took control. I shuddered then, a swarm of desire flooding me at the memory of our first kiss in the field.
“Remember this.”
“Why?”
“Because if you make this fucked up choice then it might have to last you a lifetime.”
Noah was right. If I went through with becoming a nun, my memories of him would have to last a long, long time. I’d be old and grey and still thinking of the fresh, invigorating smell of the sea and the pulse of electricity when our bodies collided. The sheer alchemy of my soul joining with his.
I climbed out of the bath, dried myself and fell into bed. When I finally slept, it was fitful. I woke in the middle of the night, sensing a presence in the room. I expected the sleep paralysis, or the ghost of Victor, but none of those came. I could move my body fine. No phantom voice spoke to me, but a presence lingered. My skin tingled with it.
The room was dark, and there was a shadow in the far corner. As my eyes adjusted, the shadow took a form. Noah crouched on his haunches in the chair, looking like a winged chimera on the roof of Notre Dame. He was shirtless and bare foot, wearing only his black jeans.
“Noah,” I whispered. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer, and for second, fear gripped me. I hallucinated horns rising out of his skull, bony wings elongating from his shoulder blades, but it was just my mind and the late hour playing tricks.
“Say something. You’re freaking me out.” He remained silent. I sat upright and tugged the blanket to my chest. “You look like a gargoyle sitting hunched over there.”
“Good,” he finally spoke. “Maybe I’ll scare off some evil.”
My stomach twisted. “What evil?”
His eyes wandered up to the ceiling. “Can’t you feel it? It stains every inch of this house.”
My skin pimpled at the haunting quality of his voice. “Is that why you went to prison?” I was finally ready to know the truth even though it might scare me. “Tell me what happened,” I urged. Half his face was in shadow, but I could still feel his inner torture, so heavy it hung in the air like a sharpened blade ready to drop.
“I killed my father,” he confessed.
Everything inside of me seized. I wished I’d misheard him, but I knew I hadn’t.
“I thought Victor died from heart failure.”
“He did.”
“Then how …”
“He attacked me. I was just a kid, but I was stronger than he gave me credit for. When I fought back, his heart gave out.”
“If he attacked you first that’s self-defence. You didn’t kill him on purpose.”
“That’s not how Sylvia painted it,” he said, his mouth curling with disdain.
Frost iced my veins. “Sylvia had you put away for killing Victor? Did she know it was an accident?” What with her past profession, Sylvia would’ve been well-versed in the law. And since Noah was just fifteen it would be easy to keep things quiet. Nobody in town knew how Victor really died. More things fell into place, and I finally truly understood Vee and Noah’s disregard for their ailing mother.
“She knew,” Noah affirmed. I thought of something Vee said to me weeks ago, about abandoning Noah when he needed her most. Did she just stand by and allow him to be sent to prison?
“Did Vee know?” I whispered.
A conflicted look passed over him. “Vee wasn’t in the right state of mind to help.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“No, it isn’t, but I forgave her. She was just as much a victim as I was.”
“Why did Victor attack you?” I asked, stunned by what he was telling me. Maybe it was easier to speak the truth under the veil of night.