The Haunted - Jessica Verday [64]
“An armoire that holds perfumes based on Ichabod Crane, Katrina Van Tassel, Brom Bones, and the Headless Horseman. With a scattering of fall leaves on the floor, and white baby pumpkins to decorate it. Nearby, I’ll have a tray that holds apple cider and warm pumpkin pie. Or caramel apples and roasted pumpkin seeds!” My mind was filling with pictures, and I could see it all. I pointed to our left. “I’d put an old-fashioned register there, with a big metal scale that holds Halloween candy. And, next to the register, three giant glass jars filled with bath salts, soap samples, and black licorice sticks.” I frowned then. “Hmm… I can’t have the candy so close to the bath stuff. It will pick up the scent.” I paced closer to the door. “Here,” I said. “I’ll have jars of candy set up here by the door on a row of wooden egg crates.”
“And what about the windows?” Caspian asked. “What will your grand display there be?”
“A cast-iron claw-foot bathtub filled with soaps,” I said, without hesitation. “All wrapped in bits of parchment paper and old string. Shades of robin’s-egg blue, soft dusky rose, coffee bean-brown, and aged yellow books.”
I turned to him and wanted to throw my arms around him. “Can you see it? Can you see all of it? I want this so badly, Caspian. Without Kristen I thought… I didn’t think I would want this anymore. I thought my dream would be empty and hollow. But now… it’s like, I don’t know, it all feels like I can do this suddenly. Like I can share it with someone new.”
“Did you feel like this when you were working at the tattoo place? Or when you were talking to your dad about his shop?”
Caspian slid down to the floor and patted the ground next to him. I took a seat and waited for his answer. “Yes, I did,” he said. “I felt that way too.”
“Do you think you could… ?” I looked down at my hands and tugged at a loose string on the bottom of my shirt. “Ever feel that way again? Maybe… about my shop?” He looked away, and I heard him sigh. The floor we sat on was warm, and tiny, almost invisible dust motes swirled around us in the rows of sunlight that slanted through the window.
What’s he thinking?
Time crawled by, and still he didn’t speak.
“I’m kind of putting myself out here,” I said eventually, “asking… well, I don’t know what I’m asking.…”
Caspian started tracing an outline on the floorboard next to him, a triangular pattern that he made over and over again. Finally, he turned to face me. “I’m not so great with the mixed-signals thing, am I?”
I shook my head no.
“I’m really sorry, Astrid,” he said. “Really, I am. I know I’m the one asking for more, but I just don’t know how to deal with any of this.” His face was serious. “I need you to know that I want to be with you every second of every day, Abbey. I want that. I crave it.” He made a fist and slowly unclenched his fingers one by one. “But I don’t know what’s right. Before, when I was pretending to be normal, I thought it would be okay. You were so real, and here, and I wanted it so much… and then I broke you. I thought the reason why you went away was to punish me.”
His eyes turned glassy and far away. “I spent those months in the dark. In my tomb. I hid away and went to sleep. I don’t think I dreamed, but I felt. Vast and endless and alone. Always alone.”
I nudged my knee closer to his, and passed through him. A dull hum of sensation rippled through me, and I knew he could feel it too. His eyes focused, and he came back to me.
“I just don’t want to hold you back from anything,” he said. “I don’t want you to forget, and speak to me in front of someone, make people think you’re crazy. I don’t want to forget, and freak someone out by helping you move boxes or something.” He laughed a dark, harsh laugh. “Although maybe that would be good for business, a haunted store and all that.”
“We won’t forget,” I insisted. “And you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. We don’t even have to make any decisions right now. There’s plenty of time.” He just looked at me, with heartache and hopelessness in his eyes, and a sense of determination