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  I negotiated with my mom for a limited—very limited—exemption from my grounding, a negotiation that required I pass my cell to Ruth for her confirmation that we would be making a quick stop for coffee and that she’d bring me directly home. On the car ride to the Daily Grind, we didn’t broach the rift between us. Instead, we talked about our classes and the heaping piles of homework. I waited until we sat side by side in our two favorite club chairs, with steaming coffees in our hands.

  “Ruth, I’m really sorry about ruining the dance for you and Jamie.”

  “It’s all right, Ellie. I was furious when it first happened. I mean, I knew that you hadn’t actually set up that Facebook page. I knew that Piper and Missy must have done that. But why on earth did you race up to that stage and take credit for such a hateful thing? It seemed so pointless and . . . out of character. And, of course, it totally ruined our night. But I’m not mad about it anymore. I haven’t been mad about that for a while.”

  I didn’t want to ask the logical next question, but I had no choice. “What have you been mad about?”

  “The way you’ve changed.”

  “What do you mean?” Again, the question had to be asked.

  “Since the night of the dance, you’ve become distant and cold. You’ve been walking around like you’re in a different world. I understand that you had to put up some kind of barrier to deal with the anger of the other kids, but with me? Especially when I tried so hard to break through to you.”

  Now that perplexed me. I knew that I hadn’t much cared about anyone but Michael, but I honestly didn’t recall any special efforts on Ruth’s part to break through my barrier. “I’m sorry, Ruth. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You really don’t remember me trying to talk to you after English? Or walking with you to the school assembly?” She sounded baffled.

  I shook my head; I had no recollection of such things. Then, for the first time since all the madness, I touched her hand. In a rush, I watched the past few weeks through Ruth’s eyes. I witnessed my rejection of her overtures, felt the sadness and loneliness that overcame her with each rebuffed approach, and experienced her nightly tears. I could tell that there was more, but Ruth quickly withdrew her hand.

  I started sobbing. “Ruth, I am so sorry. I—”

  She interrupted with a hug. “Ellie, I know you’re going through something difficult, something obviously I can’t understand. Let’s talk about it when you’ve calmed down, okay?”

  Squeezing me tighter, she said excitedly, “Can I tell you all about me and Jamie instead?”

  We spent the next half hour chatting like nothing bad had transpired between us. I heard all about her budding romance, and I loved watching the happiness in her face. It made me wish that I was normal, that Michael and I could hang out with my best friend and her new boyfriend like ordinary teenagers.

  Ruth glanced at her watch and jumped up. She’d made plans to meet Jamie at the library, but would drive me home first.

  “Ruth, I have a favor to ask, but I’m hesitant after everything I’ve put you through.”

  “Ellie, you are still my closest friend. I’ll always be happy to help you. You know that.”

  “It will require that you disobey my mom’s specific request to bring me home after coffee.”

  “All right,” she said hesitantly.

  “Would you mind dropping me at Ransom Beach when we leave? And not telling my parents if it ever comes up?”

  Chapter Thirty

  Ransom Beach looked more isolated and less welcoming than I remembered. The craggy cliffs seemed to drop more precipitously into the white-capped ocean, and there was not a soul in sight, it being late fall. From the inside of the car, Ruth and I could tell that the beach was colder and windier than town. We could even hear the loud cry of the seagulls through the closed car windows, and they sounded lonely, rather than the normal friendly harbinger of summer. The whole scenario made Ruth visibly uncomfortable.

  “What are you guys doing out here?” she asked skeptically.

  “We just like to walk along the beach,” I lied. I felt a little bad about it, but being with Michael was more important than not telling a white lie.

  “In this weather?” Ruth wasn’t buying it.

  Before answering, I hung my head down. I didn’t think I could tell her yet another lie while looking her in the face. “It’s the one place we can really be alone to talk.”

  I could tell Ruth didn’t believe me, but she wasn’t going to challenge me any further. Still, she refused to let me out of the car until Michael appeared. We spent several long minutes making small talk while she looked at the car clock—she didn’t want to keep Jamie waiting, I could tell—and I scanned the otherwise empty road for Michael’s car. When he finally arrived, we both let out a sigh of relief.

  She was reluctant to go. “Are you sure you’ll be all right, Ellie?”

  I smiled assuredly. “Of course, Ruth.”

  “It doesn’t seem particularly safe out here . . . ,” she said.

  “I’ll be with Michael.”

  “Okay. But don’t be afraid to call if you need me.” She paused, then added with a smile, “And please go home within the hour like we promised your mom. I don’t want her mad at me. She can be scary.”

  I gave her a hug—thankful for the ride and the bridge back toward friendship—and hopped out of the car. Immediately, I was grateful she hadn’t let me out sooner. The salty air was bracing and strong, practically slapping me in the face with its cold dampness. If I wasn’t so confident in my flying skills, I might have clung to the road instead of braving the cliffside path nearest to Michael’s car.

  Ruth was still waiting, so I raced over to his car. Waving good-bye, I opened the door and slid in. Straightaway, Michael pulled me toward him, and over the gearshift, he kissed me. I’d been feeling guilty about deceiving my parents and using Ruth to help me, but his lips and his hands wiped all that guilt away. I needed to be with him.

  “So where are we going? In an hour, I have to be home.”

  “Actually, I thought we might stay here, down in the cove.” He smiled. “It’s where we had one of our first dates, after all.”

  I laughed. “You’re calling that a date now?”

  He laughed too. “So are you game? Or is it too cold for you?”

  I could tell he was daring me. After all these weeks where I taunted him and pushed him, he was turning the tables back on me. I had to rise to the occasion. “It depends on how we’re getting down there,” I answered coquettishly.

  “I think it might be the right conditions for an afternoon flight.”

  We’d never flown in daylight before. It was too risky. But if ever a safe time and place existed for the gamble, Ransom Beach in late fall was it. “Let’s go,” I said.

  Checking to make sure Ruth was gone, we got out of the car and walked over to the edge of the cliff. For a moment, that first, terrifying experience of watching Michael jump from the very spot—not knowing that he could fly—revisited me. I felt a little dizzy at the intensity of the memory, and I stopped to steady myself.

  “You haven’t become afraid of heights overnight, have you?” Michael asked, teasing me again.

  I squared my shoulders and looked down the sixty-foot drop. “Of course not.” Just to prove my point, I grabbed his hand and dove.

  Flying during the day was different. All the shapes and sounds and smells we normally guessed at were clearly discernible. All the hidden dangers were made apparent. Daylight made the experience more exciting and more frightening—simultaneously. By the time we landed on the sand, I wanted more.

  But Michael declined my invitation for another flight. He wanted to stay in the cove. Its protective boulders made the temperature surprisingly warm, and Michael’s arms made it even warmer. So instead, we stood for a long minute in our sheltered spot, holding each other and staring out at the rough sea.

  “There’s something I want to tell you�
�need to tell you—about last night,” he whispered softly in my ear.

  He had mentioned this earlier. But, in the chaos of the day, I hadn’t given it much thought. Particularly since I had my own news that I’d decided to share with him.

  “There’s something I need to tell you, too,” I said.

  “I think I should go first,” he persisted.

  “All right.” I suddenly felt uneasy and sick, like he was about to confess that he’d hooked up with another girl last night.

  Michael took a deep breath and opened his lips to speak, when—over Michael’s shoulders—I saw another person amble down the beach in our direction. A man. He wore jeans and a fleece, but he was barefoot and had his shoes slung casually over his shoulder as if going for a beach stroll on a beautiful summer day. What was he doing out here?

  I placed my finger on Michael’s lips and said, “Wait. Someone’s coming.”

  He craned his neck to see who it was. Spinning back to face me, he clutched me tighter—as if he was worried I’d fly away—and said, “It’s okay, Ellie. He’s here to meet us. He is what I wanted to tell you about.”

  Even though Michael’s words registered in my head and he intended them to be a comfort, I couldn’t stop staring warily at the man as he came closer and his face became more distinct. The blond hair, the blue eyes, the handsome, chiseled features—I knew I’d seen him before.

  He was the guy in the coffee shop several weeks ago, the one I’d bumped into. The one that Ruth couldn’t take her eyes off of. The guy who stood by Missy’s side at the Fall Dance, and the one I saw in shadows in flashes. He was Zeke.

  What on earth was he doing out here? Meeting us?

  The guy noticed my gaze, and smiled that creepy, disconcerting smile. And I got really, really scared.

  The urge to escape became irrepressible. I felt my shoulder blades start to lift and expand, just like they did before flying, though now the motion was involuntary. Michael must have sensed it, because his grip tightened. Trying to wrench out of his grasp, I dug my nails into his arms. “Michael, what’s going on?”

  “Ellie, his name is Ezekiel. And he’s going to tell us who we are.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  “Who are you?” I asked this “Ezekiel,” as I tried to shake off Michael. Why was Michael holding me in a vise grip so I could listen to this guy?

  “Ellspeth, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Ezekiel. It is a pleasure to finally meet you, although I apologize for the circumstances.” Zeke—or Ezekiel—said, as if we were being introduced over high tea at Bar Harbor’s finest hotel rather than on a deserted beach on a freezing cold evening while my boyfriend held me down. All the while, he kept that strange smile pasted on his face.

  “Where’s your friend, Missy?” I asked, as I struggled to free myself from Michael.

  “I am sorry for my unfortunate association with your classmate Missy. I entered into that relationship with the hopes it might provide me with an easy introduction to you and Michael. Sadly, that was not to be the case. But I stayed with her because I saw she could serve other purposes.” His language had a formal, almost antiquated, feel to it.

  Suddenly I understood why Missy had been so friendly to me at the beginning of school. It was an effort by this Ezekiel to get to us through her. And I thought I knew what he meant by the “other purposes” that Missy served.

  “Did you put Missy up to the Facebook stunt?” I asked, having seen him in those flashes. Not that he’d know about them, of course.

  “You showed yourself to be quite the savior in that incident, Ellspeth. And you showed me quite a lot about yourself in the process.”

  “You didn’t answer my question. Did you orchestrate that whole sickening thing?”

  He sighed, as if disappointed by the inquiry. “No, Ellspeth. I did not force Missy to perpetrate the Facebook stunt, as you have called it. Missy did not act outside her own nature and she did not act at my behest. I will admit to fostering her nature and her Facebook plan as the incident afforded me an important insight. . . . It allowed me to see how you would behave when faced with a truly soulless act. And I saw that, while you were willing to sacrifice yourself to protect the potential victims of Missy’s game, you were not immune to the lure of the darkness that emanated from it.” Ezekiel smiled, evidently pleased by his remote handiwork and my reaction to his test. “But you should know that I was no puppeteer of Missy, Ellspeth. You must have seen that she acted of her own accord—in your visions.”

  Like ice, my blood froze in my veins. “How did you know about those?”

  “I know what you are and what you can do. Therefore, I assume you saw how her plan unfolded, Ellspeth.”

  Michael finally spoke. “Ellie, listen to what Ezekiel just said. He knows what we are and what we can do. He can help us understand who we are.” Was this the reason that Michael was acting so deferentially toward this Ezekiel? Even if Michael believed that Ezekiel had the answers, it was no excuse for his iron grip, for his betrayal of me.

  Ezekiel interjected, his tone still becalming. “It is quite all right, Michael. I think you best release Ellspeth from your embrace.”

  As if obeying a command, Michael’s arms slackened. I faced Ezekiel alone, thoroughly exposed to his fear-someness.

  Ezekiel spoke to Michael, but stared directly at me. “Ellspeth’s reaction is perfectly understandable. She does not know who I am. She does not even know who she is. Yet. But I am very much looking forward to sharing with her the uniqueness of her—”

  “I don’t need you to tell me who I am.” It was my turn to interject. Thanks to my parents, I had some understanding of my identity. Some.

  “Ellie, please,” Michael begged me—to listen and defer. I felt like I didn’t even know Michael. He seemed almost drugged by the very presence of this Ezekiel.

  I spun around toward him. Drugged or not, how dare he? “Why should I? You’ve dragged me to Ransom Beach under false pretenses—once again. I have no reason to trust you, or him.” I was so thankful that I hadn’t shared my parents’ secrets with him.

  Michael started to stammer out another objection, but Ezekiel interrupted. “Michael, of course Ellspeth is mistrustful. Once she learns everything that you have learned, she will undoubtedly relinquish her suspicions. She will come to understand—as you have—that I am only here to help you both.”

  Even though my instincts told me to flee, I knew I would stay. I wanted to hear Ezekiel’s explanation of my “uniqueness,” to compare it with the story my parents had told me. So I stood firm in the face of his devouring gaze, and waited. I would listen to what he had to say but I would not react. I would take the knowledge I’d garnered from him and return to my parents—with my new information in hand. And they would help me make sense of everything; they would tell me all the details they’d withheld last night. That was my plan, anyway.

  Ezekiel acknowledged my momentary acquiescence with a self-satisfied smile. It was the smile of one used to getting what he asked for.

  He began. “Last night, I came upon Michael. Alone. He was scared and full of queries, so I answered them. Much as a parent answers the pleas of his child. Because, in many ways, Michael is my child. As are you, Ellspeth.

  “You and Michael are born from the same source as me. You fly. You can read and influence the thoughts of others, through touch and blood. You know you are different from the others. Better. But what are you?

  “Michael tells me that you have resisted the label of vampire, though all the characteristics seem to fit. How right you were to resist this moniker. The name ‘vampire’ is given by humans to beings such as ourselves—out of ignorance. You can see, of course, from whence the vampire legend sprung. The flying, the blood, the sheer incomprehensibility of our powers, would give rise to the fairy tale of the vampire.

  “But you and Michael are not vampires. Nor am I. Ellspeth, we are select beings, born to lead mankind. And I will show you and Michael the way.”

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nbsp; Ezekiel paused dramatically. I guessed that he wanted me to swoon or gush excitedly over his speech. Maybe those were the reactions he usually received. But, in truth, it sounded like the story my parents had told me the night before. Minus the bit about leading mankind. Yet that bit was beginning to give me a good sense of who Ezekiel was. He was sounding more and more like an unrepentant fallen angel, and I was getting more and more frightened.

  As Ezekiel waited for my response, he stared into my eyes. “Your parents have told you a different tale about your origin,” he finally said. It wasn’t a question; it was a statement.

  “How did you know?” I asked.

  “It is certainly not as if they told me. It has been years since I’ve had contact with your parents, and they have no idea that I’ve been in Tillinghast. I know that they’ve told you a different tale about your origins because I have had centuries—no, millennia—of experience reading faces. I can see that you are not surprised by what I am sharing with you. Your parents are the only ones who could have told you part of this tale.”

  “Her parents?” Michael asked, as if jolting awake from his trance.

  Ezekiel turned to him. “Ellspeth hasn’t told you?”

  “No,” Michael said slowly.

  “I had planned on telling you, Michael. Before you sprung all this on me,” I said defensively. I didn’t know why I felt the need to justify myself to him, after the stunt he pulled.

  “Be wary of what Hananel and Daniel tell you, Ellspeth,” Ezekiel said. “After all, they are not your real parents.”

  Hananel. That was what Michael’s mother had called my mom. “Of course they’re my real parents.”

  “To be sure, they have raised you since your birth. From the looks of you, my dear, they have performed that role wonderfully. But Hananel and Daniel played no hand in conceiving you, carrying you, or birthing you.”