She got no answer, and she walked inside. The bed was neatly made and had an air of not being slept on at all last night.
Suddenly Elena wished that Stefan wasn’t the type of boyfriend to give her space. She wished that he was here with her. Come to think of it, if they were all grieving for the same person, why shouldn’t he be with her? Why had he run away instead of staying to support her?
Elena tried to think of an answer as she brought the heavy globe down. It was heavy because its surface was made of semiprecious jewels. The dark blue of the deep oceans was lapis lazuli. The continents were malachite and citrine, abalone, black opal, agate, jade, garnet, peridot, amethyst and carnelian. The shallows were blue topaz.
“How beautiful, my dear,” Mrs. Flowers said, beholding it.
“Those lovely stones won’t interfere with Bonnie’s dowsing at all. They may even enhance it.”
“Good,” Elena said.
Bonnie took a deep breath, with her eyes shut, clearly trying to compose herself for a second trial.
“Can you turn the globe so that different parts of it face upwards—so they’re at the top, I mean?” she asked when she opened her eyes.
The globe, fortunately, was one that allowed this, and Elena, out of wishful thinking undoubtedly, put the United States exactly at the top of the sphere.
And then Bonnie began to work.
She started with the United States, being careful with the quartz pendulum, holding it exactly one inch above whichever state was directly under the trembling crystal. Soon a sheen of perspiration formed on her brow, and several little strawberry curls stuck to her forehead.
Elena tried to be patient, waiting for Bonnie to finish—to be certain that she’d finished—with an area before moving the sphere a tiny fraction of an inch so that another state appeared below the pendulum.
Soon Elena was sweating, too. Eventually she wanted to scream. This was madness. They were sure to make a mistake, to miss some area. The world was just too big, and the globe was too small.
“Do you know, my dear, I believe I must have an old school geography book somewhere,” Mrs. Flowers said at last, just when Elena had sunk her teeth into her lower lip to keep an impatient shriek from exploding from her throat.
“Really? But—well, won’t it be a bit dated?” she asked, trying not to sound too eager to get up and stretch and use her legs and arms to some purpose.
“Yes, it will,” Mrs. Flowers replied composedly. “But it will be better than this globe. Why don’t you look in the storage room, and if it’s not there you might try the second floor bedroom closets. I don’t believe I ever gave it away, and I know I didn’t throw it away.”
“I’ll go and look for it,” Elena said. Then, as Bonnie glanced up and managed a tiny, preoccupied smile, she added: “Um—if it’s really okay. Is it okay?”
“It’s fine, if Mrs. Flowers doesn’t mind moving the globe for me,” Bonnie said valiantly.
“Not at all, dear, not at all.” Mrs. Flowers touched the great multicolored sphere very gently, moving it an infinitesimal amount to the right.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can. Call me if you find anything!” Elena had to shout as she hurried into the front hallway. “Don’t forget to try Italy—especially Florence. Maybe sometimes
lightning strikes twice!”
What Elena found in the storage room was . . . everything. Lamps, rugs, mirrors, baskets, candles, preserves, trays, empty boxes, full boxes, lawn furniture, throw pillows, old VHS tapes, a tangled forest of Christmas lights, dolls in costumes from around the world, vases of every shape and size, scarves, umbrellas, bells, coats, music boxes, silk flower arrangements, frying pans of assorted sizes, stationery, shoes—usually singletons rather than pairs—pewter goblets, doorstops, pieces of slate roofing, real cameos, outrageous costume jewelry, a feather boa, a container of assorted tools, a broken ceiling fan, frames for paintings (some with paintings in them; some without), a file cabinet full of very old papers, a first aid kit, a wedding dress carefully folded away in a square package that smelled of lavender and mothballs, a large statue of a rearing horse, and a small bust of Alexander the Great. There was more—a lot more, and all of it dusty and cobwebby—but Elena’s brain refused to catalogue it.
There were also many books, some hardbacks with no jackets and very dusty spines of the shape and size that meant they might be an old school geography text. But although Elena rubbed and blew away the dust on each candidate, no geography manifested itself.
At last, covered in dust, with scratches on her arms and one ankle, she got up and walked like a very old woman until she was outside the storage room. Then she could stretch her arms and legs and roll her head on her neck to relax it.
The August sun was hot on her face as she exhaled, knowing that sweat was running down the back of her neck and had collected in between her breasts, darkening her camisole and T-shirt.
She was glad that Damon wasn’t around to see her right this moment. No, she couldn’t be glad he was gone, but she could just imagine his expression . . . she surprised herself by bursting into laughter at the same time as tears welled up in her eyes. She fought hard to blink the tears away and make them go back to where they’d come from, but they trickled out and slid down her dusty cheeks. There was no point in smearing her face by trying to wipe them away with equally dusty hands.
Elena’s cellphone was silent in her cutoff jeans’ pocket. Bonnie hadn’t called. She hadn’t located . . . anything. Elena sighed, and then, forcing herself to concentrate, she deliberately took up an aikido stance that Meredith had taught her. She imagined an opponent coming toward her, reaching for her, and she seized its hand, twisting so that the phantom’s forearm turned the wrong way against its elbow. Then, with a sudden, vicious pressure, she did what Meredith had expressly told her never to do, and snapped both the radius and the ulna of her invisible attacker’s arm, tearing muscles and tendons. She finished by giving a savage kick with her right knee to the groin, a move that Meredith had not taught her, but was purely Elena’s invention.
Then she sagged. In her mind’s eye she could see Meredith sadly shaking her head over her student’s lack of restraint. The tall, dark-haired girl who’d been born a hunter-slayer of vampires, werewolves and other evil supernatural creatures had learned that discipline was everything. But right at this moment Elena felt no self-control at all.
Even as she thought this, Elena’s head jerked up. A footfall had sounded quite near her. For an instant she stared blindly and then she made a soft noise of pure longing. Stefan had just stepped out of the shadow of a clump of cherry trees and was standing in the sunlight.
She ran to him as if she hadn’t seen him in weeks. When he saw how she was moving he hurried to meet her. They came together and each clutched fiercely at the other. Elena was crying quietly and after a moment she realized that Stefan was, too.