“Oh — if only I knew what was going to happen,” she said quickly, closing the diary. “I mean, if I knew we were going to break up eventually, I suppose I’d just want to get it over with. And if I knew it was going to turn out all right in the end, I wouldn’t mind anything that happens now. But just going day after day without being sure is awful.”
Bonnie bit her lip, then sat up, eyes sparkling. “I can show you a way to find out, Elena,” she said. “My grandmother told me the way to find out who you’re going to marry. It’s called a dumb supper.”
“Let me guess, an old druid trick,” said Meredith.
“I don’t know how old it is,” said Bonnie. “My grandmother says there have always been dumb suppers. Anyway, it works. My mother saw my father’s image when she tried it, and a month later they were married. It’s easy, Elena; and what have you got to lose?”
Elena looked from Bonnie to Meredith. “I don’t know,” she said. “But, look, you don’t really believe…”
Bonnie drew herself up with affronted dignity. “Are you calling my mother a liar? Oh, come on, Elena, there’s no harm in trying. Why not?”
“What would I have to do?” said Elena doubtfully. She felt strangely intrigued, but at the same time rather frightened.
“It’s simple. We have to get everything ready before the stroke of midnight…”
Five minutes before midnight, Elena stood in the McCulloughs’ dining room, feeling more foolish than anything else. From the backyard, she could hear Yangtze’s frantic barking, but inside the house there was no sound except the unhurried tick of the grandfather clock. Following Bonnie’s instructions, she had set the big black walnut table with one plate, one glass, and one set of silverware, all the time not saying a word. Then she had lit a single candle in a candleholder in the center of the table, and positioned herself behind the chair with the place setting.
According to Bonnie, on the stroke of midnight she was supposed to pull the chair back and invite her future husband in. At that point, the candle would blow out and she would see a ghostly figure in the chair.
Earlier, she’d been a little uneasy about this, uncertain that she wanted to see any ghostly figures, even of her husband-to-be. But just now the whole thing seemed silly and harmless. As the clock began to chime, she straightened up and got a better grip on the chair back. Bonnie had told her not to let go until the ceremony was over.
Oh, this was silly. Maybe she wouldn’t say the words… but when the clock started to toll out the hour, she heard herself speaking.
“Come in,” she said self-consciously to the empty room, drawing out the chair. “Come in, come in…”
The candle went out.
Elena started in the sudden darkness. She’d felt the wind, a cold gust that had blown out the candle. It came from the French doors behind her, and she turned quickly, one hand still on the chair. She would have sworn those doors were shut.
Something moved in the darkness.
Terror washed through Elena, sweeping away her self-consciousness and any trace of amusement. Oh, God, what had she done, what had she brought on herself? Her heart contracted and she felt as if she had been plunged, without warning, into her most dreadful nightmare. It was not only dark but utterly silent; there was nothing to see and nothing to hear, and she was falling…
“Allow me,” said a voice, and a bright flame sputtered in the darkness.
For a terrible, sickening instant she thought it was Tyler, remembering his lighter in the ruined church on the hill. But as the candle on the table sprang to life, she saw the pale, long-fingered hand that held it. Not Tyler’s beefy red fist. She thought for an instant it was Stefan’s, and then her eyes lifted to the face.
“You!” she said, astounded. “What do you think you’re doing here?” She looked from him to the French doors, which were indeed open, showing the side lawn. “Do you always just walk into other people’s houses uninvited?”
“But you asked me to come in.” His voice was as she remembered it, quiet, ironical and amused. She remembered the smile, too. “Thank you,” he added, and gracefully sat down in the chair she had drawn out.
She snatched her hand off the back. “I wasn’t inviting you,” she said helplessly, caught between indignation and embarrassment. “What were you doing hanging around outside Bonnie’s house?”
He smiled. In the candlelight, his black hair shone almost like liquid, too soft and fine for human hair. His face was very pale, but at the same time utterly compelling. And his eyes caught her own and held them.
“‘Helen, thy beauty is to me/Like those Nicean barks of yore/That gently, over a perfumed sea…’ ”
“I think you’d better leave now.” She didn’t want him to talk anymore. His voice did strange things to her, made her feel oddly weak, started a melting in her stomach. “You shouldn’t be here. Please.” She reached for the candle, meaning to take it and leave him, fighting off the dizziness that threatened to overcome her.
But before she could grasp it, he did something extraordinary. He caught her reaching hand, not roughly but gently, and held it in his cool slender fingers. Then he turned her hand over, bent his dark head, and kissed her palm.
“Don’t…” whispered Elena, stunned.
“Come with me,” he said, and looked up into her eyes.
“Please don’t…” she whispered again, the world swimming around her. He was mad; what was he talking about? Come with him where? But she felt so dizzy, so faint.
He was standing, supporting her. She leaned against him, felt those cool fingers on the first button of the shirt at her throat, “Please, no…”
“It’s all right. You’ll see.” He pulled the shirt away from her neck, his other hand behind her head.
“No.” Suddenly, strength returned to her, and she jerked away from him, stumbling against the chair. “I told you to leave, and I meant it. Get out — now!”
For an instant, pure fury surged in his eyes, a dark wave of menace. Then they went calm and cold and he smiled, a swift, brilliant smile that he turned off again instantly.
“I’ll leave,” he said. “For the moment.”
She shook her head and watched him go out the French doors without speaking. When they had shut behind him, she stood in the silence, trying to get her breath.
The silence… but it shouldn’t be silent. She turned toward the grandfather clock in bewilderment and saw that it had stopped. But before she could examine it closely, she heard Meredith’s and Bonnie’s raised voices.
She hurried out into the hall, feeling the unaccustomed weakness in her legs, pulling her shirt back up and buttoning it. The back door was open, and she could see two figures outside, stooping over something on the lawn.
“Bonnie? Meredith? What’s wrong?”
Bonnie looked up as Elena reached them. Her eyes were filled with tears. “Oh, Elena, he’s dead.”
With a chill of horror, Elena stared down at the little bundle at Bonnie’s feet. It was the Pekingese, lying very stiffly on his side, eyes open. “Oh, Bonnie,” she said.
“He was old,” said Bonnie, “but I never expected him to go this quickly. Just a little while ago, he was barking.”
“I think we’d better go inside,” said Meredith, and Elena looked up at her and nodded. Tonight was not a night to be out in the dark. It was not a night to invite things inside, either. She knew that now, although she still didn’t understand what had happened.
It was when they got back in the living room that she found her diary was missing.
Stefan lifted his head from the velvet-soft neck of the doe. The woods were filled with night noises, and he couldn’t be sure which had disturbed him.