The Haunted - Jessica Verday [52]
Good Lord, he is gorgeous when he smiles.
I smiled shyly back at him and arranged the jacket around me before turning to put my head on the pillow. He was close enough to reach out and touch… and I bit my lip at the sudden sadness that overwhelmed me.
“Can you do shadow puppets?” I whispered to him, desperate to make the sad feeling go away.
He hooked his two thumbs together and flapped his fingers, angling his body so that the shape he was creating showed up on the wall. “Kee-yar, kee-yar,” he said softly.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s the sound a hawk makes. That’s what my shadow puppet was—a hawk.”
“I thought it was a bluebird,” I teased. “Do it again.” He made the shadow again, this time making it flap its wings fiercely. I giggled, and then he moved his fingers, casting some bizarre round-shaped thing on the wall. “Three guesses what this one is.”
I studied it carefully. “Bunny?”
“Nope.” He wiggled his hand to simulate movement.
“Puppy?”
He laughed. “Where did you see a puppy there?”
“I don’t know. Okay, last guess, um… a turtle?”
“Ehhhhhhh, wrong answer. It’s an armadillo.”
“An armadillo? How did you learn how to make an armadillo shadow puppet?” His face turned bashful. “Okay, you got me. I made that up. I didn’t know what that one was.”
I snuggled deeper under his jacket. My eyelids were starting to get heavy. Caspian arranged his fingers into an intricate pattern.
“There you go. I’ll make ’em, and then tell you what they are. No more guessing.” I fought back another yawn. “Okay.”
“First obligatory shadow puppet is… an incredibly self-conscious clown.” He wiggled his fingers. “Second one…”
My left eyelid drooped. Then my right. I blinked heavily, and the walls shifted around him.
“… Three-legged panda bear.”
My eyes stayed closed, and I felt myself sliding toward the edge of sleep.
“Scrambled eggs… bacon on the side.” His voice ebbed and flowed around me. “Are you falling asleep, Abbey?”
I fought to stay awake. “Noooo… ,” I heard myself saying. “Caspian, don’t leave, ’kay? I don’t want them to get me.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll stay with you.”
Everything was fuzzy now, but I tried to stay awake long enough to tell him one more thing. “Glad you… see… my colors, Caspian.”
“Me too, Abbey,” he said softly. “Sweet dreams.”
The Haunted
Chapter Twelve
OLD FRIENDS
The chief part of the stories, however, turned upon the favorite spectre of Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman, who had been heard several times of late… ; and, it was said, tethered his horse nightly among the graves in the churchyard.
—“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
Abbey… Abbey…”
My eyes opened slowly, and Caspian’s face came into view. “What are you doing here?” I asked, rubbing one eye. My hair was in my face, and I pushed it away.
“I’m here because this is my place, remember? You came to see me.” Right. I’d snuck out of the house. “Crap! I have to get back. What time is it? My parents are going to kill me!”
“It’s okay. You’ve only been asleep for an hour. You have plenty of time to get back before they wake up.”
I groaned and rolled my stiff neck from side to side. Already my brain was waking up and slamming into overdrive. Is my hair a mess? Do I have morning breath? What about drool… I hope I didn’t drool. Oh God, do I snore?
Not knowing what to say, I carefully folded up the jacket and then the shirt. Would “Thanks for letting me sleep in your crypt” work?
But what came out was, “Did you stay awake the whole time?” I wanted to kick myself as soon as I said those words. Why can’t I be witty? I was perpetually cursed with nonwittiness.
Caspian smiled at me. “Yeah, I stayed awake. I didn’t want to close my eyes and fall into the… darkness.” Then he blurted, “I didn’t, uh, sit here looking at you, or anything weird like that. I had a book.”
Well, that was oddly comforting and disappointing at the same time. “I hope I didn’t snore.”
“Nope.