“Does that happen often?” Taylen looks furious.
“No.” I grin. “Not at all. Not in our neighborhood. But there were a few times when someone got in my space, and he made them back off fast. Just guys who were wanting to say hi, nothing too creepy.”
Taylen gives Jeffers an appreciative look as he starts gathering up bags and setting everything by the door, but then he pretends he didn’t do it.
I guess it doesn’t matter what time it is. Taylen is serious about leaving, going to see his granny, and breaking the curse.
I don’t want to be cursed because who in the world wants to be cursed? It’s very ominous and daunting, but at the same time, I almost feel strangely disappointed.
It’s probably the curse making me feel that way since it doesn’t want to be broken.
CHAPTER 8
Taylen
Granny isn’t an early riser, so by the time we’re back in NOLA, the windows in her sprawling house are still all dark and shuttered. Anyhow, I know what I have to do to start with, and it doesn’t involve Granny’s meddling.
Elodie is wearing ripped-up boyfriend-cut jeans that are baggy on her, but they still somehow seem to define her bottom and legs, which I’ve tried very hard not to think about. Also, there are many other things I can’t think about, like how amazing it felt to hold her, even if I was just dreaming, the scent of flowers in her hair, the silky strands splayed out over my bare skin, her soft breasts…breath. I mean breath!
Lord, the curse has to go.
She’s also wearing a fluffy black sweater, which is shapeless too, but it reveals her sweet, slender shoulders. Earlier, on the whole way back, she didn’t say a word.
“Where are we going?” she asks when she sees the determination on my face as I look up at the house. She clips the leash on Jeffers’ collar.
“To the backyard. To do some digging.”
She’s confused until we’re halfway back there, and then her face crinkles up. “No!” she whispers. “You’re not going to…”
I’m already there, grabbing a shovel out of the palatial-looking shed in the back. Granny only has gardening tools in here, but my god. It looks like someone can live in here.
The backyard is massive, and Granny’s house is definitely not small either. I wouldn’t call it a real mansion, not like what is seen in the movies, but it’s pretty obvious from the four stories and all the fancy stonework and landscaping that someone of means lives here. Granny loves gardening, so the backyard is filled with flowers. There’s even a small pool, even though she hates swimming. The object I’m looking for is buried somewhere between the pool, the outdoor barbeque and cooking pit, and the far-swirling flower garden that borders the stone fence.
“You’re really going to dig up the time capsule?” Elodie glares at me like I’m doing something sacrilegious. “Why? What would that have to do with the curse?”
“I don’t know. Nothing.” I walk the paces to where I think we buried the metal box when we were seven. I end up too close to the backyard cooking area, which has been improved over the years but not relocated, so I go back and count again. I get the same results, and I stand there, puzzled.
Jeffers whines at me while Elodie huffs. “You’re taking adult steps. Back then, it was kid steps. Twenty-five straight from the crooked brick there that looks like an old man frowning. When we were little, our steps were half the size, so I’d say twelve to fourteen adult steps would be a good measure.”
Good god, she’s right. I recount the steps, plunge my shovel into my grandmother’s immaculate green lawn, and start digging. When my spade hits something metallic a few minutes later, I let out a grunt. “You were right!”
Elodie sighs loudly, but she refrains from saying I told you so.
She’s still frowning when I produce the box. It’s so much smaller now than I remember it being. It’s one of those ancient metal cashier boxes with a lock, but we didn’t lock it since we couldn’t think of a way to keep the key safe. I set it down on the lawn, and Elodie eyes it like it might come alive and chomp down on her leg like in a weird horror movie.
I crack the lid. Inside are a few toy cars and one of those compact dolls with the teeny tiny little figures everyone probably loses five seconds after buying them. But it’s the letters I’m interested in. Back in the day, Elodie and I heard about soul contracts somewhere, so we decided to sell our souls to each other instead of the devil. We were only seven, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. I pull out two old pieces of paper. They’re shockingly not yellowed with time, but they do feel damp to the touch. When I unwrap the first one, I’m disappointed to see that the ink we used has bled all over the place. Nothing is legible any longer.