‘Better stick to the books,’ Wyn said with a grin. ‘If you were my teacher I would never graduate.’
His smile was infectious. I lay back on the ground beside him and beamed up at the sky.
We stayed in the cemetery for what felt like hours, laughing and joking and sharing stories about our lives. Wyn talked about growing up in the Blue Ridge mountains and I told him stories about my life in Wales. He was easy to talk to and listening to him was even easier. His voice was deep and warm with an inviting, lilting accent, and every time I made him laugh, I felt like I’d won a prize.
Under the shade of the magnolia tree, even though the grass was dry, the earth was almost cold to the touch, damp and soft as I pressed my fingertips flat against it. Then I heard it again.
Emma Catherine Bell …
My name, myrealname, whispered like a rustling in the leaves.
Light hides the lies; truth lives in the dark.
‘Do you hear that?’ I asked, standing up too quickly and spinning in a dizzy circle. There was no one else in the cemetery but us.
‘Hear what?’ Wyn hopped up and held his hand above his eyes to scan the grounds. ‘Was it thunder? I heard it might storm today.’
I didn’t answer. The voices faded away again and the ground rushed towards me.
‘Emily!’
He caught me as my legs buckled and I fell to my knees with stars in front of my eyes.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked, holding my hand tightly.
‘Just tired, I think, or maybe it’s jetlag,’ I replied, echoing Catherine. My mind was a swirling mess of whispers and wolves and everything else that had happened in the last forty-eighthours. ‘I’m not usually this clumsy. I mean, I’m clumsy but not usually this bad, I swear.’
‘You did warn me falling over nothing was your special skill,’ he replied with a wry smile. ‘Maybe we should look into getting you some kneepads and a helmet.’
‘No way, I do not look good in hats,’ I said, managing to return his expression as the confusion faded. ‘I haven’t been sleeping super well and I was out with my grandmother last night and we were attacked by a—’
I looked up into his startled eyes and Catherine’s warning came back to me. Don’t tell anyone. Don’t be the girl who killed the wolf.
‘A dog,’ I lied quickly. ‘A small dog. Small but like, super loud. It came right for us.’
‘Oh yeah, the small, loud dogs are the ones you have to watch out for,’ he replied as I slowly rose back to my feet. ‘Em, you look really pale. I think I should take you home.’
As much as I didn’t want our afternoon to end, I didn’t protest when he led me out from under the magnolia tree and along the footpath. Things still weren’t quite right in my head. A stone statue of an eagle sat above the main gates of the cemetery, its majestic wings outspread, and as we passed underneath it, I thought I saw its feathers flutter.
We walked slowly and quietly down the street. Wyn kept throwing concerned looks my way, as though he was waiting for me to faint away like some corset-wearing Jane Austen character. I felt so foolish. What must he be thinking? Wasting his day with a blundering weirdo who couldn’t even stand up on her own two feet. I’d ruined everything.
‘This isn’t really how I was hoping the day would end,’ he said with a rueful glance. ‘Savannah has heaps of other cool things besides ice cream and cemeteries, I swear. You can say it, this was the worst tour ever.’
I looked past him at a row of beautiful old townhouses with their wooden shutters and Juliet balconies, manicured bushes loaded with vivid pink flowers out front, and the ever-present oak trees lined up along the footpath, their long, winding branches reaching out to create a canopy over the street. It was just about the prettiest street I’d ever seen. Jetlag and heat stroke aside, Savannah had already found a place in my heart. Besides, anywhere Wyn was, I wanted to be.
‘It was the best tour ever,’ I insisted. ‘Even if we’d only gone to Leopold’s, it would have been the greatest tour of all time. Everything else was icing on the cake. Ice cream on the cake, even.’
‘You’re only being polite,’ he smiled. ‘I do believe your southern manners are coming back, Miss Emily.’
When we reached the edge of Lafayette Square, Bell House just around the corner but thankfully still out of sight, I came to a reluctant stop.
‘I should probably walk myself the rest of the way,’ I said. ‘Unless you want to answer a lot of awkward questions from my grandmother.’
Not that Catherine could be upset with me or Wyn. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, no one had ever called this a date. He looked down, his unruly hair covering his perfect face.
‘OK,’ he replied, shifting from foot to foot and staring at the ground. Why didn’t he want to look at me? Unless … he was trying to work out how to let me down gently. My stomach dropped at the thought of never seeing him again, something that suddenly seemed all too possible.
‘This is the awkward part,’ he said after what felt like forever.
