“It means time is always wasting. The time we spend arguing could be time you spend flying down the road.” He opened her door, standing over her, blocking out the sun. “Move on, or it’s going to get crowded on this side.”
She laughed and slid over behind the wheel, touching it hesitantly with her gloved hands. The engine rumbled ahead of her, sounding eager to move.
Barrett placed one of her hands on the wheel and the other on the long gear stick that jutted up from the floor. Though he knew of the demon plague within her, he seemed to have no fear of leaning his face close to hers, or touching her through her thin summer dress. Juliana found herself blushing a little, and her breaths grew shorter as he positioned her feet on the clutch and the brake pedal, explaining how to use them. His hands brushed her legs a few times, and once his hand happened to linger on her lower thigh as he explained when to shift gears. She wanted to slap him, but she wanted to do a few other things to him, too.
She was grateful that the plague took the choice out of her hands. If she were free to touch Barrett all she liked, she might have been in danger of betraying Sebastian. She could feel guilt on her face as she glanced back at him. Sebastian simply stared at her and said nothing, but he had an angry glint in his eyes.
“I think you’re ready to drive,” Barrett told her.
“I’m not sure...” Juliana said, but she moved the stick out of its parked setting and operated the pedals and wheel as he’d demonstrated, and the car lurched forward and began rolling.
“More gas,” he said, and she stepped hard on the pedal. The Cadillac surged forward, spraying dust behind it. Juliana couldn’t help crying out in excitement as she felt the power surging under her and the wind blowing back her hair. Her fear quickly turned to joy, and soon she drove as fast as the road would allow.
“I’m doing it!” Juliana shouted at Barrett, over the roar of the engine and the high wind that filled her ears. “I’m driving!”
Barrett grinned and patted her on the back. He let his arm linger at her shoulders a little too long, and it almost gave her goosebumps to think of him so near, so willing to risk death just to touch her. His hand was dangerously close to brushing against the bare flesh of her neck. He only withdrew the arm when Sebastian leaned up between them and kissed her on the cheek.
“Don’t kill us!” Sebastian suggested.
“I’ll do my best!” Juliana put on more speed. “I could drive all the way to Charleston, Mr. Barrett! Just tell me where to turn.”
“All you need to do is follow the telegraph line.” Barrett pointed to the cables strung alongside the road, held high above them by wooden poles with crossbars. She remembered a story she’d read in a musty library book when she was a child, about a slave uprising in ancient Rome. The slaves had lost, and thousands of them had been crucified on wooden crosses like these, all along the road to Rome.
For a moment, she could see the bodies crucified along the road. It wasn’t the blocky woodcut image from the old book, either, but real people nailed up and dripping gore, their faces contorted from long, painful deaths, as if she had been a witness to them, traveling along the stone road in the aftermath.
She gazed at Barrett beside her and felt something dark and ancient between them, as if they’d ridden side by side countless times, drawn by fast horses here and there across the world. Later, she would learn the term déjà vu and understand its meaning immediately, thinking of this moment.
Then the moment passed, and she was simply driving again, feeling the sun and the wind on her face. She looked forward to the next stretch of pavement, where she could press the accelerator all the way down and feel the car’s full speed.
Chapter Sixteen
Jenny and Seth slept late on Christmas. Jenny awoke first, made a pot of coffee and took a small, rich square of chocolate with her to the frosted front window. The short but brightly lit tree by the window filled the apartment with the golden scent of living pine. Outside, a thin, fresh frosting of snow had fallen, decorating the trees, ledges, and balconies with spotless icy fluff.
She thought of her father again, back home in Fallen Oak. Maybe he wasn’t even home at all, but over at June’s apartment. Jenny hoped they were still seeing each other. She hated imagining him at home, by himself, accompanied only by the dog and pictures of his lost wife and daughter. She wondered if he’d started drinking again.
Jenny busied herself by getting a start on Christmas dinner. She was attempting a few French dishes, including a bûche de Noël for dessert, a rolled-up cake with chocolate cream filling. The fun part would be carving the outer layer of icing with a fork to make it look like the bark of a Yule log.