Blade (Ch.25)

Blade (Ch.25)

25
On the floor, I noticed a book of some kind, lying as if she had dropped it and fell asleep last night. It had no title on the green cover, and so I assumed it must have been her diary though I didn’t even know she had one to begin with. Riley just didn’t strike me as someone who faithfully kept a log on every day of her life, or at least the important ones. I picked it up.

Curse me for reading her diary. That was something that violated the trust we built between each other. But I thought something vital to Riley’s emotional health could have been written down on the latest page; maybe if I knew why she tucked herself blankly away some days, I could secretly tell Richard and we could try to help her. Of course, it could be just nothing but hormones. Better safe than sorry.

7-27-08

Hey.
I still think about it. I still wonder just how reliable Jen’s dreams are. I wish Seth hadn’t told me. I’m really scared…mostly because I don’t know what it’s like to die. I don’t want to know what it’s like either, because what if I have to sit and watch my papa and my brothers and Jen cry for all eternity? What if there is no good place to go to? Just Hell and this black void where you watch the world go on without you?

I hope that day never comes. But for all I know, it could be tomorrow, or the next day…or the next, and I wouldn’t know it until I was dead…I want to be with my family forever in body, not just in mind. Maybe fate just didn’t have that planned for me, though. Not everybody’s lucky.

-Riley

Before Riley woke, I made sure to re-place the diary on the ground in the same position she dropped it in. I emerged from her room, torn, remembering the dream I had, too. Now I knew what bugged her on certain days. She wasn’t just emotional, she was scared and sad, hoping and praying that the reaper didn’t come for her. I hoped it didn’t, too.

“What’s up with you, my sweet?” Frederick called from the bathroom as he put his razor in the medicine cabinet. I went to him.

“Seth told Riley about that dream I had awhile back?” I inquired, to confirm what she had written.

“I warned him not to. Guess he did anyway. Why?” He hooked an arm lovingly around my waist, and we leaned against the doorframe together.

“She wrote in her diary that she was scared because of it,” I said, concerned. “He shouldn’t have told her; what would you feel like every day thinking that you might die sometime in the near future?”

“You read her diary?” he muttered.

I stamped my foot. “I was worried something was wrong that she wasn’t telling us. It’s for the better that I know things like that, and you guys, too, so hush.” He laughed half-heartedly.

“We don’t know that your dream will come to life; it’s been a long time since you’ve had it, so needless to say we haven’t been worrying about that. But we have been watching her, so don’t think we’ve completely let it slip. If anyone even so much as looks at her the wrong way, we’ll be there with three special-delivery knuckle sandwiches.”

“But what if that doesn’t cut it, Frederick? This could be serious…Riley could really be in some threatening, slowly developing peril!”

“We can’t do much more than protect her now, but I’ll tell Seth and Frederick she’s feeling afraid, and I’ll also tell them to keep that info on the down-low. We’ll all try our best to keep that out of her mind.”

“I’m worried for her…”

“As am I. All we can do is hope nothing’s putting her in danger. Let’s just come off that subject for now. Talking about something else will make us all feel better,” he suggested, buttoning the last three green buttons of his shirt before strolling with me down the hallway. We managed to catch Richard before he hurried out the door.

“Where’re you off to, Pops?” Frederick questioned. Richard took his white cowboy hat from the hook on the wall next to the door, and settled it atop his head.

“To the agency; Benny’s finally found something for me to do,” he answered hastily, rushing out the door promptly after responding.

“Should I make breakfast, then?” Frederick said to me. “Like toast and bacon or something?”

“I’ll make the toast, you make the bacon. You always leave it in the toaster at too high of a temperature.”

“Deal.”

So I made a loaf of toast, considering there were two ravenous demons in the house that could eat the world and still be ready for three boxes of doughnuts, and Frederick turned and watched the bacon in a pan. Seth came running, but Riley didn’t show for breakfast. When Frederick set the stack of bacon on the table, I shot him a concerned glance. He gave me one in return because Riley usually woke to the smell of a late breakfast, but not today.

“Seth, have you noticed Riley’s behavior on some days?” he said to his brother after he sat down. “Like today?”

“She hides in her room. It’s hard not to notice,” Seth replied, looking up at us both. He noticed our faces.

“Do you know why?” I added. He shook his head. “It’s because she’s frightful of the dream I had that you told her about.”

“I didn’t think she would make a big deal over it…it’s not like it’s set in stone or anything.”

“No, but did you take into consideration that she could very well be in danger, brother?” Frederick interrogated. “There’s about a fifty-fifty chance. And the fifty percent favoring the dream is freaking her out.”

“She doesn’t want to die,” I told Seth. “She doesn’t want to feel death; nobody would. You two already have, so the both of you should know the fear she’s succumbing herself in.” Seth’s brows were drawn. He didn’t appear interested in food anymore. Anybody knew that when Riley needed someone to tell her things were going to be alright, Seth would drop whatever it was he was doing and go to her no questions asked, before any other member of the family could. And that’s exactly what he did.

He set his hand on his napkin, stood, and stormed out of sight into Riley’s room. About a half an hour later when Frederick and I were cleaning our plates up in the sink, I heard her crying over Seth’s deep voice. The sound befuddled me; Riley wasn’t one for crying unless the occasion called for it. This must have been the appropriate time for tears, then.

Frederick put both our plates in the cupboard, and I put my elbows on the sink and buried my face in my hands. “What if we can’t save her?”

“You think of too many ‘what ifs’. Let it be, honey, we’ll do our best to make sure nothing like that happens to her,” he whispered, holding me close to him.

Letting it be wasn’t as easy as he made it sound. Seth and Riley didn’t emerge from Riley’s room until dinner, and even then she cried, though very subtly. I hugged her after dinner was cleaned up, and she hugged me in return, savoring every minute of it. Seth whisked her away into the backyard, and it was obvious by Richard’s suspicious expression that we had some explaining to do. So Frederick and I explained it all again.

We were hesitant to head to bed that night until Richard told us to go and leave it in his and Seth’s hands. Frederick wanted to stay, but he didn’t want to leave me in our room alone, either, so the guarding party split two ways, leaving Frederick to look over me while Seth and Richard calmed Riley.

I fell asleep with one hand in Frederick’s and my head on his chest. Until I drifted off, he hummed a familiar song I couldn’t quite place my finger on, and stroked my hair with his free hand. It definitely coaxed me to sleep faster now, since he didn’t have to comb through any knots or tangles first.

I woke in the same fashion, surprised to see that he hadn’t slept all night. I knew it didn’t affect him whether he did or didn’t snooze, but it seemed so odd now that he couldn’t after all this time when he could with me there.

“You didn’t sleep?” I muttered groggily, looking up at him with still-tired eyes.

“I couldn’t; Riley was crying all night,” he answered.

“All night?”

“For the most part. It came and went consistently until it started tapering in the early morning hours. She isn’t now.”

“It’s at least noon, isn’t it?” He nodded. I knew I didn’t wake until noon now, which meant he didn’t either even if he hadn’t been asleep.

“What time were you born?” he asked off topic.

“Two in the A.M.”

“Happy birthday, then,” he congratulated lovingly, nuzzling me.

“It’s not very happy considering,” I said, worrying more for Riley rather than thinking of my birthday.

“I’ll make it happy, then,” he promised. “We’re going places today.”

I rolled over and groaned. “Why can’t we just stay home and do nothing?”

“Because I said so,” he told me, pushing me off the edge of the bed. What a wake-up call.

I got up from the floor and went to take a shower, after which, Frederick took his. While I waited for him, I walked into the living room to see how the commotion turned out in the end. I saw Riley and Seth from the bottom of the stairs first sleeping next to each other on the couch, and next my attention was drawn to Richard beside them, who held a guitar in his hands, from which flowed a luxurious, calming tune.

I sat by him to put my socks on. “I didn’t know you played guitar, Richard?” The tune stopped, and his fingers halted.

“I’ve never played it in your presence before, have I?” he mused.

I shook my head. “You’re very good. Is that what eventually got Riley to settle down?”

He smiled. “I used to play it for her when she was a baby. She remembered the tune, and out went her lights. Seth’s, too.”

I reached over to gently to pat their intertwined hands. “That’s good.”

“Happy twentieth, my dear,” Richard said in a homely way, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “Aren’t you going to go out somewhere?”

“Frederick told me we were, but I just want to stay home,” I whined.

“Just go and humor him,” he instructed, noticing my want to look over Riley. “You’ll have fun; we’ll watch Riley, don’t you fret.”

I sighed long; I wouldn’t have a say in it either way. I let Frederick help me into the truck reluctantly when he emerged from the upstairs hall, and off we went.

As a first event, we went to an IHOP for breakfast. He talked of things having to with the wedding, so I assumed part of today would have something to do with it. We both wondered how the turnout would be, and he even thought as far ahead as a honeymoon. He asked me where I wanted it to be, and gave me an annoyed look when I said ‘home’. I could pretty much guess that it wouldn’t be at home.

He drove us to the outlet mall a little ways away that I’d heard Riley talk about before, and it only figures that his first destination was a small jeweler’s place next to a couple other designer stores. I stopped when I took heed of his direction of travel.

“Come on, Freddie,” I begged. “You don’t have to do that.”

“It’s a must, and you’ll see why,” he insisted, taking my hand.

And it wasn’t that bad. He only wanted to pick out wedding rings that the both of us would wear to replace the engagement bands. Because I looked more for rings that cost less, he did most of the deciding. I was surprised to see that the last sets the clerk helped him choose did cost less than the others and both looked nice, too, but we both knew which one it was going to be.

The end result was a normal gold band with four diamonds along the front; two that were just in the slightest amount bigger than the others, and sat in the middle while one of the two littler sat on each side of the two bigger.

Richard had been in on all this; he supplied Frederick with his checkbook and credit card, even though Frederick had his own. I didn’t mind so much, though, when he bought a discounted set of rings for us. That would put a little ease on Richard’s giant bank account that swelled from the money he got for modeling in commercials and for ads in magazines.

“Anything you need from the actual mall here?” he asked me as we walked hand-in-hand out of the jeweler’s. I thought a moment.

“I need new socks,” I replied, which was true. Mine were accumulating holes quickly since Seth started doing the laundry in the almost-forgotten-because-it-was-hardly-there-at-all laundry-room. It looked like a closet, so I guess that was why I hardly ever thought about it. Seth couldn’t work a washing machine to save his soul, and somehow he managed to put all the dirty clothes in together at once with a few whites which we had to throw out, along with all my socks at the bottom that got chewed up because the machine couldn’t take it. “And Riley’s been nagging at me to buy some heels that would match my dress.”

“You can’t walk in heels, can you?” he laughed, guessing from my disgusted face.

“No, and Riley’s set on heels. She’ll kill me if I get flat shoes.”

“She wants stilettos? Or does it matter how big of a heel it is? Because you don’t have to get stick heels; you could get thicker, lower to the ground ones.”

“She wants stick heel stilettos, I can assure you.”

“I’ll help you get used to them,” he vowed. “It can’t be that hard.”

“Be prepared to catch me when I fall,” I joked. I did fall in stilettos if I didn’t roll my ankle first. And that could be a problem if I had to walk down the aisle in them. Richard would walk me since Tom couldn’t be there, and I doubted he would let me fall, but I still needed to practice.

We looked for socks first once inside the mall. I flipped through the gold, silver and white toed ones, looking for my size range which always collected in the back for some reason.

“You should get pink socks,” Frederick commented abruptly as I pulled out a bag of the white-toed that fit my size range. “Or maybe a light blue; like the color of your dress.”

“Why?” I asked first. “And you saw it?”

“Riley showed me; it’s beautiful, and it’ll look even better on you. And simply because you would look adorable in them.”

I rolled my eyes and grinned, throwing him the package of white socks. We migrated to the shoes section of the mall then, and searched for either white or light blue stilettos. Since you usually could only find odd colors online, we went with white. The ones I took to most were dainty around my delicate feet with a perfectly placed white bow in the toe, and two criss-crossing straps along the middle of the open part of my foot that kept the shoe from slipping off my heel.

“Those the ones?” he said as I took them off. “They sure do look nice on you.”

I nodded. “I’ll practice at home when we get back; how’s that sound?” He heartily agreed, and we paid for them and left the mall to wander in the open outlet. The rest of that outing consisted of that and sitting at a table, talking and eating frozen yogurt. I realized from talking with him just how much better I felt, even if it was talking about derogatory things like the economy and disastrous events in the paper. When we left at four, I bubbled with this fluorescent feel-good energy, and my mind was light for the drive back. He felt it too, and his eyes filled with the lush brown that told me he was in a good moment.

He didn’t stay that way long though. Close to home, his brows furrowed. When the house was in sight, he looked even more perturbed, and told me to wait in the car with the windows up and doors locked after he parked in the driveway and got out. I came to the edge of my seat, watching his hand motions and listening to muted shouts as he stood in the open doorway, sure he was using language that he didn’t want me to hear, arisen by whatever angered him that was in the house. It has to be a person, I thought, he wouldn’t sense Seth’s brotherly frustration from the road and become paranoid about it, which applied to Riley and Richard, too. Who else could it be but Dezeret?

“Stay in the car, Jenna!” he hollered when I popped the door open and slid out roughly. There were foot steps attached to the truck underneath the door, but even those didn’t help me jump down from the extreme height Frederick had it modified to. My feet pulsed against the soles of my shoes from landing so hard. I shook my heard defiantly and cautiously went to him. He grumbled and blockaded my entrance into the house.

I managed to peer around him and see Riley, on her feet, facing Richard who lounged on the couch in the same way he’d been when I left. In the corner of the living room I spotted a crimson-eyed Seth, his knife against Dezeret’s neck, threatening ever closer while he sat submissively pressed to the wall. In that instance, I pitied him.

“He can’t, Dad! How could you seriously invite him when he killed Mom and all of you, and tried to kidnap and kill Jenna multiple times?!” Riley raged to her father.

“Hush. He and his cohorts may have done us harm, but we killed him in return, so we’re on the same page here. As long as he’s well watched, which I’ll take care of, we’ve nothing to fear. This could be a turning point. Back down, Seth. You, too, Frederick,” Richard murmured lazily, warily eyeing the pentagram Riley held viciously tight in her hand.

“He could very well become a wedding crasher!” Riley persisted.

“I will watch him. That’s enough from you,” Richard told her forcefully. Riley stood silent grudgingly.

The wedding…they were discussing the wedding. “Did you invite him, Richard?” I piped up. Richard’s hard eyes turned soft and looked to me.

“I most certainly did. I didn’t think he would comply, but now here he is.”

“He can come if he wants,” I said hoarsely. Everybody except Richard let out a huge moan.

Richard motioned to me. “Thank you. Now, Dezeret, I expect you know the rules; I’ll be watching you closely.” Seth took his blade away from Dezeret’s neck, and went to stand by Riley defensively. Dezeret never nodded, but I guess it was a silent agreement, because it didn’t seem to give Richard any bitter suspicions. He took off like a bolt of lightning through the side slider, and Frederick pulled me inside. After he slammed the front door shut, I heard a car start out front, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen an unfamiliar one waiting for Dezeret’s return. Perhaps he had a friend that drove him?

Needless to say, Frederick was upset, as was Riley and Seth. So they sulked, and I spent the rest of the evening with Richard. He warmed up some left spaghetti from another night for both of us, and brought it to the couch.

“Am I in the wrong, Richard?” I mused regretfully, receiving my plate from him. He had another one for Riley, so he didn’t respond until he returned from her room.

“Not as long as you’re following what you believe in. Don’t let my son influence you away from what’s right,” he said wisely. “Dezeret may not be a good man in our minds now, but he could become something better.”

I twirled the spaghetti on my fork. “I hope he’s not mad at me again. I can be so…impulsive sometimes, I know. And that’s what gets us in fights…”

“Put on a little charm, talk with a lingering effect,” Richard suggested, “you’ll be fine.”

“Are you telling me to seduce him?” I gawked.

“You could call it that. You have nightgowns still, don’t you?”

“Some.”

“He likes the way you look in those.”

“He tells you everything, doesn’t he?” I laughed.

“Everything,” he said, nodding. “Everything.”

I would have to try putting on a little charm, mainly because our wedding was nearing, and I didn’t want him mad at me. I wouldn’t screw it up again.

“By the way,” Richard told me, “your friend called and told me what time their plane was landing tomorrow. It’s in the evening, but I can pick them up if you want. I’ll take Seth along and he can drive the HHR there. There are five of them, so we’ll need four in one and one in the other.”

“Right! They’re arriving tomorrow, huh? Where’ll they sleep for the night?”

“In here; I can get some on the couch, and I’ll have to have the others sleep on the floor in three of our sleeping bags.”

“And they’re leaving after the wedding, yeah?”

“Yep.”

We spent out time watching Encore Channel movies late into the night. After Dirty Dancing, I decided to retire to the bedroom, but I stopped by Riley’s room first.

“Hey,” I chimed, poking in. She looked up from a book.

“Hi, Jen.”

“You’re not totally mad at me, are you?” Peacemaking with her was important, too.

“No,” she said. “I trust you.” And she grinned genuinely. “Did you need something?”

“You have my green nightgown, don’t you? I remember you wearing it once.”

She jumped up from her hammock and started to rummage through her dresser. “This one?” She held up a sea green nightgown that I recognized, and I chose that one because I loved how soft the fabric was.

“That’s it.” I changed in her room while she read.

“So what’s this about? I thought you just slept in shirts,” she wondered as I pulled the little straps onto my shoulders.

“Fred’s mad at me,” I explained.

“So you’re trying to make nice?” she guessed. “Much luck with that. He’ll break easily, don’t worry.”

“Thanks,” I sighed, rolling my eyes to the ceiling. “This isn’t right, but here I go anyways.”

“Making nice doesn’t mean sex so much, just sexual appeal in some instances. If that’s not what you want, then just tell him so. You don’t have to dress like that, either, he’ll give either way.”

“I always slept better in these during the summer anyway.” She wished me luck again, and off I went to bed.