Shades of Summer (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 1) Read online

  Shades

  of

  Summer

  Book One

  of

  The Haunting Ruby Series

  By Joy Elbel

  Acknowledgements

  While my name alone is on the cover of this book, it would not have been possible without the support of so many people. Some I have thanked repeatedly, but others may be unaware of the important contributions they have made. Now is the time to rectify that.

  Paula Elbel, my sister and editor. I promise not to wait until the very last second to get the rest of the books to you. A couple of days should be enough time, right? You can rest assured, though, that my hatred of semi-colons will never change.

  Sabrina Engle-Lukens, my photographic eye. You captured the essence of my story through your lens—something I could never do. I look forward to seeing what you create to represent Ruby’s next season. Wandering through graveyards was never so much fun.

  Amanda Rosman, my first critic. I will never forget how vulnerable I felt the day I handed you the first 70 pages for review. What I gave you that day truly was a piece of my soul—just how big a piece even I didn’t know. Thank you for guarding and nurturing it.

  Erica Arnold, the driving force that pushed me to analyze my own words and to read between the lines. Without your ability to see things much more clearly than I ever could, who knows where Ruby would be today. Thank you for your hilarious honesty.

  Wendi Luce, my biggest fan. You made me feel like a real author. Your addiction to what I created was intoxicating and fueled my fire. I promise to stay on schedule and never disappoint you again. Frankly, I’m afraid to.

  Jen Elbel-Hill, my niece, for paying me the biggest compliment of all. “It’s so good I forget you wrote it.” Thanks. I think. Ah, but that’s what family is for, right?

  All of those who read the roughest of rough drafts and provided input, you are too numerous to mention. I thank you all and assure you that I kept each of your opinions in mind while preparing the final draft.

  But most importantly, I want to thank my muse. Where would this story be without you? I laughed the many times you called me a medium, but you may have been right. Somehow, I wrote you before I met you. Words written long before we knew each other now suddenly had a voice other than mine. You helped me to add both depth and hilarity. I hope you find yourself over and over again in these pages—I know I did.

  Prologue

  Ask a hundred people what they think happens just before you die and 99 of them will say that your life flashes before your eyes. But that one person who didn’t will give you a completely different answer. The right answer. How do I know? Because that person is me.

  In those final seconds, something different happened to me, something I never expected. I was overcome by an instant spark of truth. I didn’t learn anything profound like the meaning of life or anything. No, it was way more personal than that. It was more like everything I ever knew—every scrap of knowledge I’d ever gathered—was right there laid out before me. Most of it was inconsequential, stuff I had forgotten for a reason. But scattered among the boring details, there were things I never realized I knew. These were the things that made what was about to come even harder to bear. It’s never easy to face your own mistakes, but it’s especially tough if you know you’ll never have a chance to make things right.

  As I straddled the line between life and death, thoughts raced through my mind. I thought about Dad and Shelly and how wrong I was about so many things. And just how right I was about Zach. But most importantly, now I knew what really happened the night Lee died. That realization alone changed everything. I knew exactly what I needed to do. But first, I needed to survive.

  1. Guilt and Goodbye

  I’d been to Scenery Hill Cemetery hundreds—maybe even thousands—of times throughout the years, but this time was different. Way different. I’d never been here alone, never been here to say goodbye.

  I knew the spot well—up the hill to the circular drive then through the grass to the right. My feet were already freezing as I left the asphalt and plunged into the dew swept lawn. Stupid flip-flops. I only realized that all of my shoes were packed once they were in the moving truck and heading down the highway. To me, the only logical solution was to stop at the mall on the way out of Trinity so I could pick up a new pair of ballet flats. After all I’d been through, I thought I deserved at least that much. When Shelly said I could borrow these ugly things, I decided I could stomach wearing them long enough to dodge into one of my favorite stores for a suitable replacement. My dad…had other ideas.

  "It's good to see my two girls bonding," he said as I begrudgingly slid my feet into those ugly pieces of plastic that Shelly called shoes. "Now we can skip the trip to the mall." Great. Clueless as ever, Dad. So my feet freeze and Shelly wins the “Stepmother of the Year” award. I absolutely despised flip flops and a good father would have known that about me. Like my day needed to be any worse.

  A funeral procession led by a silvery hearse began to wind its way up the drive, filling my ears with the sound of gravel crunching slowly beneath a multitude of tires. I stopped and watched as car after car inched its way up the hill, the solemn faces of the bereaved staring straight through me as though I weren’t even there. Who was in that hearse? Someone popular, someone well-loved judging by the number of cars still trying to cram their way between the gates. Was this how the cemetery looked the day Lee was buried? No, there would have only been one car. I was his only friend and he had no other family but that wretched woman he called his mother. Even my father thought so little of Lee that he refused to take my place as the casket was lowered. A single car would have followed Lee up that hill one last time just as one car—my father’s—would someday follow me. I knew that I would die young. I didn’t know why, I just knew that it was true. So inside the front cover of my journal one day, I elegantly inked my last and final request—to be buried as close to Lee as I possibly could be.

  Turning my back on the mourners, I pulled my hoodie closer as I walked and clung to it like a security blanket. I came here with Lee so many times after his father died that this place once felt like home to me. Today, it just felt full of death—kind of like how I'd felt inside for the last year. When I reached my destination, I stood for a moment with my eyes closed tightly and hoping that maybe when I opened them things would be different.

  I inhaled deeply, opened my eyes, and looked down. No, everything was still just as wrong as it could be.

  Seeley Aaron Lucas

  October 23, 1994—June 1, 2011

  It was a simple slab of granite hugged flat to the ground, a far cry from the marble headstone beside it. The memorial Lee's mom erected for his father put even the Washington Monument to shame.

  "In Loving Memory," it read, "of a wonderful husband and American hero." Lee's dad was killed in Afghanistan while on active duty for the military. Things between Lee and his mom were never the same after that. Lee never forgave her for neglecting to add the word ‘father’ to his stone. There wasn’t a single one of our many trips here that he didn’t mention it before we left. It was something he once said would haunt him for the rest of his life and he couldn’t have been more right. The day he said that was the day that he died.

  I squatted down beside his grave and brushed away the dead leaves clinging to it. Only a year had passed since Lee’s death but some days it felt like a hundred. Today was one of them. There was so much I wanted to say to him, so much I needed to explain. I didn’t really believe in life after death so my words were more for my peace of mind than anything else. Lee was gone and he was never coming back.
He would never know just how truly sorry I was.

  "Lee, it's me, Ruby,” I said aloud. “I know it was my fault. If it weren’t for me, you would still be alive!" There were so many things I should have said—would have said to him if only I could have spoken to him one last time. But saying them to a headstone felt hollow and insincere somehow and I just couldn’t go on. I thought I was ready to face what I did but clearly I was wrong. So instead, I sat motionless beside his grave for what felt like an eternity until I was ready to try it again. Fighting back the welling tears, I continued with the speech I rehearsed so perfectly in my head last night. Tears were not a part of that speech. I couldn't cry now, I couldn't let Dad and Shelly see me like that. I had a strict rule against crying in front of anyone. And rules weren’t made to be broken.

  But gravity soon won as the first bead of water tumbled from my eye and down onto my cheek. So much for rules. Technically, this was the first time that I ever even cried in front of Lee. I bit my trembling lip and continued. "I'm sorry I didn't make it to your funeral. I was in the hospital for a few days and when I got out…." I could feel the salty sting as each drop spilled out over eyelids raw from days of crying. I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my hoodie and kept going. "Your mom thought it would be best to get everything over with as fast as possible." I hated his mother for so many reasons and not letting me say goodbye the right way was currently number one on my list.

  My nose was starting to run now and I dabbed at it with a tissue from the pocket of my jeans. When you cry in secret every day, you learn to be prepared at all times, prepared to hide how you’re really feeling from the rest of the world. Sometimes, I even managed to hide it from myself. At least for a little while anyway.

  "I'm sorry I didn’t visit you sooner. I wanted to come but coming here would have made it all too real. There are things I’m still not ready to face even now but today’s my last day in Trinity. My dad is moving us to Charlotte's Grove, the town where he grew up. So I just want you to know that I still love you and I always will but this is probably the last time I'll be here.”

  Silence. It wasn’t like I expected him to answer me or anything, but the stillness gave me an uneasy feeling for some reason. I began to fiddle with my bracelet nervously, twisting it gradually around my wrist, letting each charm plop slowly down as I went. Each charm was the same—a silver heart encrusted with ruby red stones. All except for one of them. I stopped when I got to that one.

  “The key to my heart,” Lee said when he gave it to me and I could almost hear his voice as I held it tightly in my palm. Although I treasured it dearly, I never wore this bracelet for fear of losing it the same way I lost him. But there was no way I was going to trust it in the hands of the movers, so today it dangled delicately from my wrist for the first time in exactly a year. It was practically all that I had left of him and I wasn’t going to let it out of my sight until we were in our new house.

  By now, the waterfall was in full force. It's a good thing I didn’t wear mascara because I would have looked like something out of a horror movie if I did. I stood up and looked off in the distance, trying to find something to focus on so that I could shut off the emotion, something I’d gotten quite good at. Making myself numb was the only way I’d survived for the past year. Feeling nothing was better than feeling everything.

  Off to the right, I spotted a large crow on a headstone several feet ahead, one of the biggest birds I’d ever seen. It cocked its head toward me with an air of intelligence—like it could feelme watching it. It was eerie yet comforting in an odd sort of way. Crows were Lee's favorite bird. He used to say they were misunderstood just like he was. Lee was…well, unique. And as everyone knows, being different is hard when you’re a teenager and all you want to do is fit in. But what made everyone else laugh and point fingers were the qualities that I loved most about him. As I looked on, the crow threw back its head and released a shrill "Ca-caw" then spread its coal black wings and flew away.

  "Goodbye, Lee," I whispered into the wind. "Love you." I tugged my hood up over my head and walked slowly back to the car. There was so much more that needed to be said but I just couldn't find the courage to say it. So I left Lee, left Trinity. But they stayed with me in ways that I never knew were possible. Ways that changed me…forever.

  2. Zapped!

  I spent the four hour ride to Charlotte’s Grove under a blanket in the back seat of my dad’s SUV and pretended to be asleep. I would have done anything to drown out the chatter of conversation coming from my dad and Shelly in the front seat—playing dead wasn’t even out of the question. All I wanted was to be alone. Well, almost alone. My cat Mimi rattled the door to her carrier so violently that I had to let her out shortly after our stop at Scenery Hill. Now she was curled contently in the small space between my knees and the seat. My dad adopted Mimi from the animal shelter about nine months ago when she was just a tiny kitten because he thought maybe the gray and white tabby would help me through my grief after Lee died. I wouldn’t admit it to him if you paid me to, but for once my dad was right. Mimi was my best friend—my only friend—and I knew I could always trust her with my secrets. Just like I once trusted Lee.

  “Wake up, Birthday Girl!!!” Dad practically shouted over his shoulder, “We’re almost there. We don’t meet the realtor until noon so we have time to stop for breakfast first. You didn’t eat before we left and barely had any dinner last night. You must be starving.”

  “No, not really,” I lied, intentionally ignoring the birthday comment. My stomach started growling at least two hours ago but I refused to ‘wake up’ every time we stopped for gas or bathroom breaks. Speaking of which, if bladders made noises too, mine would be screaming right about now.

  “That won’t matter. You’re about to have the best breakfast Charlotte’s Grove has to offer. I guarantee you’ll be hungry the second you walk in the door. The place smells heavenly in the morning—the sweet smell of cinnamon sugar will bring your appetite back instantly. I ate breakfast there every morning the week I was here. And I have this to prove it.” Dad patted his belly with the palm of his hand. “I put on five pounds that week!”

  My father drove to Charlotte’s Grove to interview for the chief-of-staff position at Baker Regional Medical Center a month earlier. And didn’t come back for a week. They told him he had the job on the spot so he stayed to look for a house which left Shelly and I to fend for ourselves for one very awkward week alone together. I didn’t like her even when my dad was around, so being alone with her only magnified the discomfort. The week basically consisted of three things—Shelly talking to me, me sidestepping her barrage of dumb questions, Shelly not getting the hint that I didn’t want to talk to her. Ever.

  “Mm mm…I can’t wait! Belgian waffles with blueberries for me,” Shelly said in that ultra-cheerful voice of hers. No one was that happy all the time—she needed to drop the fake niceness because it made my brain squeak. Yes, squeak. Forget about nails on a chalkboard, what I really hated was the sound of a wet sponge being dragged across a smooth surface until it made that wretched squeaking noise. Her voice had the same effect on me. “What about you, Ruby?” Why couldn’t she ever leave me alone? For some reason she felt the need to torture me by including me in every boring conversation she had with my dad. “Having your usual scrambled eggs and bacon?”

  Realizing that my peaceful time of flying under the radar conversation wise was over, I sat up and folded my legs beneath me. I picked up Mimi, placed her in my lap, and wrapped the blanket around us both. “Sure,” I mumbled. I got a reprieve when some old hair metal song came on the radio. My dad’s singing voice wasn’t horrible but Shelly’s was every karaoke lover’s nightmare. Every dog in a three county radius had to be howling with every high note she tried to hit. It was horrible. Someone needed to tell her that she couldn’t carry a tune even with a designer bag to put it in. Someday, that person would be me. But today wasn’t the day—I just wasn’t up for the conflict.

  Bemoan
ing my lack of earplugs, I looked out the window for the first time since we left Trinity. Trees. Everywhere. An occasional field with a few cows chewing and staring up at you with those big brown cow eyes. A farmhouse with a barn. More trees. I knew my dad felt that getting out of the city would be good for us—for me—but really, was he trying to turn us into pioneers? Milking cows was not an FDA approved cure for depression. Seriously, what was he thinking? People here probably still churned their own butter. I wasn’t a spoiled brat or anything but hard labor was something I didn’t wish to get acquainted with.

  Up ahead I could see a large billboard proclaiming “Welcome to Charlotte’s Grove—Home of the Red Ravens”. There was a large photo of what had to be the high school football team. At the center was the quarterback, Number 7, arm drawn back in a pass. It was like any other billboard except for the graffiti scribbled around just this one player. Someone called him every name in the book, including the suggestion that he did inappropriate things with his very own mother. Only the best players could incite that kind of anger from their rivals so I assumed he was probably pretty talented. And popular, and conceited, and a complete jackass like all jocks. But jackass or not, I definitely admired the way Number 7 filled out those tight pants.

  Just past the billboard, the road sloped sharply downhill and from the crest I could see the entire town of Charlotte’s Grove. What there was of it. Unlike Trinity, everything seemed tired and depressed here. Kind of like me. Maybe I would fit in here. At least I knew that things here couldn’t possibly be any worse than what I endured over the past year. I would rather be known as the new kid in school than the creepy girl with the dead boyfriend. No one here knew about the accident and no one would ever need to know. Everyone is someone else’s secret. Lee would forever be mine.