“And it didn’t work,” I conclude, knowing how her story ended.
Levi shrugs. “We’ll never know. It arrived the day after she died.”
My shoulders sag. I can’t imagine the crushing disappointment and cruel irony.
“Judeth, my point is,” he continues, “I’m open. I have the capacity to believe you. I know the world is full of things we don’t have easy explanations for. I just need you to help me understand.”
I inhale long and deep. I’ve dropped a grenade in his lap, but I’m not sure how to give him what Arla gave me, short ofsneaking him into her basement myself. Still, there is one thing I can show him. Something I’ve not shown anyone outside of my own mother and the Fathom in all my years. And it has the potential to cut both ways. It could give him the context he’s missing, making this as real for him as it is for me. Or it could push him over the edge and send him running, away from this room—from me and this relationship—never to look back. But I have to believe he can handle it.
Arla would be adamantly opposed, but I need an outside perspective to keep me sane. I need help figuring out where to go from here. I need a better grasp on what the Fathom is, where it came from, so I can figure out what to do. Arla’s plan is too dangerous. She’s playing with fire, and if anyone knows what that’s like and where it can lead, it’s me.
I lay a hand on Levi’s arm. “I’m going to show you something,” I tell him. “And I need you to stay calm.”
His Adam’s apple bobs against his throat, and he rubs absently at the scruff lining his chin. “Okay.”
It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything like this intentionally. At the Space Needle, it ripped a hole in me trying to get out. I don’t really want to repeat that scenario. The cemetery wasn’t much better. I close my eyes, trying to remember that feeling when I was a little girl, when magic slipped through me like blood, like wind and fire and light. When it was a secret self that I could trust in, an organ that pumped and buzzed and generated with little effort. When the voice and the power wereoneinside me, when they were of me and I was of them. Arla’s voice echoes in thefeeling—We belong to each other, the Fathom and me.
I open my eyes and look into Levi’s, letting the sense pool and gather in my fingertips and eyelashes, the Cupid’s bow of my top lip. Like a bead of sweat. It zips through me, racing and ready, responding so much faster than before. Is that the Fathom’s influence? Or is it simply returning to me what was always mine? I look up at the sconces and the lights in the room flicker, die down, then flash brilliant and strong until two of the bulbs pop.
“Holy shit,” Levi exclaims, jumping up and reaching to turn on one of the table lamps. He spins around, assessing the damage.
“Sorry,” I say with a wince. “I’m still getting used to using it.”
He stares down at me. “That was you?”
I nod and feel the energy in me build, order itself, seek an out. Fire ignites between us, a torch in midair. It hovers before slowly dying away. With no natural fuel, it’s hard to maintain it, draining. And I don’t want to burn any of his books. I shrug after it’s gone. “I’m not very practiced. I wasn’t trained. I wasn’t even sure I could do it anymore, but recently something changed.”
His eyebrows rise, curious.
“My mother spent my whole childhood warning me against it,” I tell him. “And then…”
Tentatively, he reaches out, taking my hand as he sits again. “And then?”
“She died,” I finish. “And it was my fault.” The last words come out as a whisper, a confession I’ve never told a soul. The second they are free I feel a space open up inside me, a release. I can’t help wanting to snatch the words back, pluck them like poisonous berries and swallow them whole. I’ve carried them for so long, sharing the burden is terrifying, the liberation inside me a thing I’ve feared almost as much as the rejection that will surely follow.
But Levi just squeezes my hand tighter and gives me a tender look. “Whatever happened, I’m sure that’s not true.”
“My real name is Cole.” My gaze doesn’t waver despite the terror I feel at speaking this truth. “Judeth Cole. But my grandfather was Macallister Bates. My family—”
It clicks behind his gaze, the knowing, the pieces fitting together. “Died in the fire in Oregon. I remember! That humongous old house that burned for hours. They never found the source. I was a sophomore at Washington State then, but it was all over the news for days.” A hand goes to his mouth, a new realization dawning. “I saw your picture. They plastered it on every news channel. The only survivor, heiress of the Bates fortune.”
I tug my hand from his and look away. It hurts to know my reputation precedes me, that my worst moment was fodder for the masses. “The first part is true, yes. But I’m not an heiress. I don’t have a fortune.” I don’t mention why, the attorney in my hospital room a memory I’d rather forget, that confounded painting, miraculously untouched.
“They said you died,” he carries on. “Temporarily. You were declared dead right after they found you but then…”
“I recovered,” I say quietly.
“How?” he questions.
“I don’t know.” I push my hair behind my ears. “I’ve spent the last seventeen years wondering why. I woke up in the hospital and everyone was gone. I shouldn’t have lived.”
He reaches for me again, the pads of his fingers soft as they graze mine. “I can’t imagine how frightening that was, but your recovery is a gift. Something to be grateful for.”
I shake my head, tears forming along my lash line like seed pearls. “You don’t understand. They never found the source of the fire because it was me.Iwas the source.”
“That’s impossible,” he whispers.
I gawk. “After what I just showed you?”
