36. Cary

36

Cary

I t was precisely what both of us needed. Two days with no interruptions, no pipes to fix, no customers to placate. Just Evan and me.

I showed him my favorite path through the woods along his property line, down to the public lands and the beach. I packed us a lunch, tossed it in the backpack I used when hiking, and we spent most of the day wandering along the river and beach.

At one point, I showed him a spot that sat away from the beach against one of the huge monoliths that hadn’t made it into the sea. Only the highest tides reached that far up the beach.

As a result, a mound of dirt had built up behind the great rock with soft grass, forming a natural wind break. We curled up on an old blanket too battered to be used for the bed any longer and ate our lunch.

“This is like being in a Hallmark movie,” Evan said after finishing the leftover chocolate tart I’d stolen from the kitchen one night after closing.

“Sorta is. You happy?” I asked. He smiled, pushed me onto my back and straddled me.

“I don’t think happy adequately describes how I feel.”

I smiled up at him. “That makes two of us,” I replied, letting my heart fall just a bit more for this man as he leaned down and kissed me before sliding in beside me. We must’ve fallen asleep because I began dreaming… or at least, I was in a different time.

Two young men played in the surf just down the beach from where I lay with Evan. They came together, falling into each other’s arms, then quickly looked around and rushed toward the rock.

It’d been different then. The land wasn’t high or flat enough that you could lie on it like me and Evan. Instead, there was a hidden alcove behind the rock where the two men embraced, kissing.

When one of the men’s hands slipped down the pants of the other, I blushed, feeling like a voyeur. I looked away and up the cliff, only to find someone else watching. It was the old man, and his face conveyed pure anger.

He turned away and stomped back up the path toward the manor.

I looked back to where the two men were about to make love, but they had vanished. Now, only one man sat alone at the base of the rock. “My father sent him away. Forced him to leave or he’d have him arrested. Said what the two of us had done was a crime.

“Doors locked. Always more doors to lock. I can’t stand a locked door any longer. It seems everything I ever wanted was on the other side of a locked door.”

Understanding filled me. Now I knew who kept unlocking all the manor’s doors. I sighed sadly, knowing I was speaking with Andre Cordelia. “Did you ever see him again?” I asked him.

Andre shook his head. “No, things went from bad to worse after that. My father wasn’t a good man. Never had been really, but him seeing us like that made him furious.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I’m sorry as well. We’ve done what we can to contain him, force him to leave you and yours alone. But he’s determined to destroy all semblance of happiness. He destroyed it with me, with Inez, and now he wants to destroy it with your Evan.”

“How can we stop him?” I asked.

Andre shook his head. “We grow stronger, we let ourselves love, we stop locking doors…”

I wanted to ask him more, but he was gone before I had the chance, and with his disappearance, a feeling of trepidation filled the air. The evil entity–Andre’s father–had plans, and they involved Evan. I needed to figure out some way, somehow, to protect him, if I could.