Mary Sullivan - Always Emily

No. She wouldn’t let him destroy her. People had tried in the past. She’d been too young to know how to fight back then, but now she did. With maturity came perspective and strength. Maybe not enough, though. This bloody malaria was killing her.

She, and only she, knew who the real culprit was. The question was, would they come after her? And who would they be? Her own government? Would they come here and search her father’s home?

No way was she going to wait to get caught. She’d done nothing wrong. She wouldn’t give Jean-Marc the satisfaction of seeing her hurt. But how could she protect herself? And her family?

Where could she go? What could she do? She shouldn’t have come here. She would only bring them pain.

Her panicked glance fell on Pearl’s sketchbook, on the exquisite drawing of the Cathedral. She wanted to be there, in that place that brought her peace.

She had to get there, but she couldn’t leave through the front or back doors. Too many people downstairs. They wouldn’t let her go. They would worry, and rightly so.

Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she worried, too. She looked like hell, her hair a mass of tangled curls. Pearl was right. In spite of her deathly pallor, two red spots rode her cheekbones like clown’s paint, the look unnatural. Unhealthy.

Even so, now that she’d thought of the Cathedral, she couldn’t, wouldn’t, stop herself.

She had rejected Jean-Marc’s ultimatum. Stay or I’ll ruin you. And she had accepted Salem’s. Don’t contact me. Leave me alone. That didn’t mean she couldn’t visit the Cathedral.

She took the prayer book out of the baggy and wrapped it tightly in plastic she found in the wastebasket. It looked as if it came from Pearl’s sketchbook. She put the wrapped artifact back into the baggy and made sure it was zipped firmly against moisture, and then tucked the whole thing into her bra.

Grabbing her jacket, she buttoned it to protect the book before opening the door to the tiny back balcony. She closed it behind her and peered over the railing. Her father had never trimmed the maple tree she used to climb down to sneak out during high school.

She slung a leg over the railing to reach the nearest limb. Dizziness swamped her. She hung over the gap, robbed of breath, the ground far below wavering in her vision. She gripped the slippery wood until the nausea passed. Heights. She hated heights. But she could do this.

When her head felt steady enough, and her pulse had calmed, she grasped the branch and pulled herself into the tree. She climbed down, branch by branch, a trip that should have taken five minutes taking ten in her weakened state.

Or maybe it was age. She felt old these days when she should feel young and vibrant. She worked hard on the digs. She was in good shape.

On the ground, she rummaged through the garden shed until she found what she needed. A trowel. She crept around the side of the house and out onto the road.

A brisk wind gusted. A Roman legion of rain clouds advanced on the horizon, heavy with menace.

Maybe a heavier jacket would have been a good idea.

Fifteen minutes later, she arrived at the Accord Golf and Cross-Country Ski Resort. Her father’s pride and joy.

The hotel, sleek in glass and wood and shining like a Christmas tree, held no interest for her. Through the windows, guests lounged around a huge stone fireplace. Looked as if the place was fully booked, even in May. Good for Dad. A drop of rain plopped onto her forehead.

As though wading through mud, she trudged to the clearing in the woods behind the resort, leaf mold and pine needles crunching underfoot and kicking up a damp, mossy scent that reminded her of childhood.

She plodded through the darkening woods, aware that there wasn’t a dry bone or sand dune in sight, nothing beige or desiccated here. Only vibrant, green life. Her spirits lifted, even if her body couldn’t. More drops of rain hit her face, anointing her spirit with hope, but also chilling her body.

The Cathedral stood in the middle of tall Rocky Mountain Douglas firs. When her father had wanted to build the resort twenty years ago, construction had been held up by Salem and his fellow band members. They’d staged a demonstration and had refused to move until her father had given in to their demands to research the land. Despite being so young, Salem had been chosen as their spokesperson. Emily remembered him being quiet, but articulate and passionate about the land and its history. Parts of these lands used to be migratory routes for their ancestors. A nomadic tribe, Utes had buried their dead where they fell, so Emily’s father couldn’t build without going through the proper channels first, even though his family had owned the land for a few generations.

With the help of local elders, and professors who taught and studied Native American affairs, they had determined that the routes ran through another portion of land, so the construction wasn’t likely to disturb any burial sites.

To appease the elders, and to thank them, her father had given Salem this piece of land and had paid to build the Native American Heritage Center, which had become a tourist attraction for the resort. Her father, recognizing Salem’s passion and uncommon maturity, had asked Salem to set up the exhibits and to care for the collections. It hadn’t taken long for her dad to stop supervising Salem and give him free rein. Salem had proven her father’s trust in him to be well deserved.

As curator, Salem had helped to design the building and had turned it into one of the best museums in the state, and as beautiful as Emily remembered.

A crystal in a sea of green, three stories of glass and brushed steel with a polished wooden column running up the center that housed the elevator and washrooms, it shone like an oasis in the desert of her life.

The hallowed beauty of both the woods and the building had given her peace over the years.

Small spotlights on the first floor highlighted the artwork on a full-size teepee in the foyer. The architect had created a twenty-foot ceiling to accommodate it. Her breath caught in her throat. Lord, the place was gorgeous, glowing from within.

Since it was Saturday and the museum was closed for the evening, the public areas were dark.

On the third floor, a single yellow light shone in Salem’s office. Why was he here on a Saturday night? He should be home with his family. Or maybe a better question was why he wasn’t at her father’s birthday party. He was a friend of the family. He and her father had buckets of respect for each other. She should have noticed that he wasn’t at the house when she’d arrived.

Salem is here. The hell with his order to stay away. She needed him.

So close and yet so far away. She needed Salem, his calming energy and his quiet efficiency. Salem could handle anything thrown at him, and Emily was running on empty. She needed a friend.

She had to get up there, to him, if only her shaky legs would cooperate. He might be upset with her, but could he really turn a sick person away? She planned to take advantage of his innate decency.

First, though, she had to hide the prayer book.

A good forty yards from the back door of the Heritage Center, she dug a hole at the edge of the woods then placed the plastic-wrapped relic reverently in its new burial site.

“Just for now,” she whispered as though it were alive. “Until I figure out what to do with you. I’ll get you home somehow.”

She covered the package with soil and leaves and branches, and lastly, a large rock she pushed and pulled into place until her arms burned. Glancing around, she tried to memorize her position so she would know where to dig when she came back to retrieve it, but the rain, dusk and her fever messed with her eyesight. What if she made a mistake and wasn’t able to find it again? She would never forgive herself. She hung the trowel from the remainder of a broken tree branch where it sat against the trunk of the tree, above the new grave to mark the spot. No one would notice it here.