Free Everlasting by Elizabeth Chandler Page B

knew she couldn’t have fallen asleep that fast. She crossed the room and sat on her bed across from her friend. Beth’s face was still, but not peaceful—a death mask. Tristan’s goodness, trapped in a body of a killer, and Gregory’s evil, wrapped in the body of the sweetest person Ivy knew—there were so many ways for a person to die, Ivy thought, so many ways to lose a person you love.
    The amethyst necklace Ivy and Will had given Beth for her eighteenth birthday lay sparkling next to the candle. Beth hadn’t worn it for several days, maybe a week. Ivy touched the stone with one finger, then leaned over to extinguish the votive flame.
    “What’re you doing?” Beth asked sharply.
    Ivy straightened up. “I was going to blow out your candle. It’s not safe to leave it burning while you sleep.”
    “It’s in a glass.”
    “Even so, if you turned in your sleep suddenly, you could knock it over. Or a sheet could blow on top of it and catch fire.”
    Beth’s only reaction was to shrug, then roll on her side, away from Ivy. The candlelight danced, making Beth a dark shadow huddled against the wall.
    “Beth, I have a question for you. I found glass in my shoe. How did that happen?”
    Beth kept her back to Ivy. “You put it there.”
    “ I put it there! That makes no sense. Why would I cut myself?”
    “To get attention,” Beth replied, and added in a singsong voice: “No more Will. No more Tristan. Poor Ivy needs everyone’s attention.”
    Ivy drew back. Was Gregory controlling Beth’s words? Or did Beth, her mind twisted by Gregory’s presence, actually believe what she was saying?
    “That’s a lie,” Ivy said.
    “That’s a lie,” Beth repeated back.
    “Beth, look at me!”
    Beth turned over suddenly, swinging her arm as she did, and knocked over the candle. It rolled across the night table.
    Ivy snatched it, singeing the tips of her fingers, then blew out the flame. “I don’t know how to get through to you, Beth. I don’t know how!”
    Beth met Ivy’s gaze, her eyes coldly glittering though there was no light in the room to reflect in them. Struggling to keep her hand steady, Ivy carried the votive down to the kitchen.
    She sat down shakily. A message had come back from Suzanne.
    IVY, THE GIRL BEING CHOKED WAS YOU.

Eleven
    TRISTAN LIFTED HIS HEAD, STILL HALF ASLEEP, NOT sure what time it was or why he was lying in somebody’s attic. He rolled over. High above him was a square of light— daylight , he thought—illuminating a ladder with flat wooden steps that led to the bright opening. He sat up. There was enough light to see support beams forming giant upright X s against the walls of the all-timber room. A thick piece of rope hung from the ceiling, its frayed tail ending about ten feet above the floor. He was in a bell tower in the church Ivy had told him about.
    Before Ivy had left the park the night before, she hadgiven him a clean blanket, flashlight, and spare bottle of water, items from her car’s emergency kit. Tristan had waited till the night sky began to lighten to hike to the church, arriving just before the sun rose, glad for the morning’s heavy mist. The house closest to the church, facing Route 6A, was small and hidden from the church by a screen of trees. The frame house across Wharf Lane, also shielded by trees, was large enough to be an inn, but dilapidated, with just one car in the rutted driveway. Directly across 6A, another old structure had been converted to a gallery, which, according to its sign, closed at six o’clock each evening. Still, Tristan had been cautious as he crept along the side of the church, trying each window till he found the one with the broken latch.
    With one side of the basement brightened by aboveground windows, the area had been light enough for him to find his way to a stairway without turning on his flashlight. The steps led to the altar end of the church’s main floor. At the opposite end he’d found the ladder to the trapdoor.