Page 116 of Call Off the Dark

Isaac showed Helen his hand. The revolver rested in it.

“It’s my brother’s fault I left this world prematurely,” he said.

“It was an accident,” she said weakly.

“Doesn’t matter. He was mad and he was reckless. That makes it his fault,” Isaac said, and Helen couldn’t help but feel the slightest pang of sympathy for him. “I wasn’t ready to go. But you, you can choose.”

She felt a trembling in her core. Fear first. But temptation second, and the second wave crashed in stronger than the first. Delicately, she took the gun from him and stared down at it. It felt warm and inviting in her hand, like a piece of poetry. That wasn’t how a gun was supposed to feel.

She looked up at Isaac, just in time to see the shock of impact—crack!—as Wade slammed a shovel into his back.

Isaac stumbled forward to the edge of the grave, but it was as if a force field prevented him from falling in.

Wade swung again at Isaac, but the shovel made contact only with the force field and created a rush of energy that knocked the candle and the gun from Helen’s hands, sending them several feet away into the garden. The flame lit a vegetable bush on fire with an unnatural intensity that swiftly spread to other plants.

Isaac turned to Wade with a look of disgust. And suddenly, all around them, the land was filled with a thunderous roar. Helen recoiled and covered her ears. Isaac was simply staring down at Wade as he cowered in the dirt, but she knew Isaac had to be the one creating the sound. It was worse than any physical pain she’d ever felt. The powerful noise went on and on as the flames spread through the garden.

She spotted the gun lying at the garden’s edge. She grabbed it and jumped into the grave. The fall was farther than she anticipated, close to five feet down, and when her feet hit the soft dirt at the bottom, she fell forward onto her knees.

It was much quieter down there, peaceful almost. The sounds above were abnormally muted, as if the grave was her own safe and private chamber. The Edgar Allan Poe book was down there, and it lay open to “The Raven.” Next to it lay the dead raven that she’d tried to bury.

She sat down beside the book and contemplated the gun. It was time to finally go through with it. She had grown far too weary for this world.

“Helen?” The voice that said her name was heavenly.

She knew it was him before she even lifted her head and took in the sight. Tyler was sitting in the grave across from her.

This time, Helen knew Tyler wasn’t one of Isaac’s wicked distortions. She could feel it in the fabric of her soul. She’d never been more certain of anything. Tyler had finally answered her pleas.

Helen burst into tears.

Chapter Forty-Nine

Tyler smiled softly at her, and it was the most soothing feeling she’d ever felt in her entire life. He was a beautiful apparition, yet somehow still whole, exactly as he’d looked the last night she’d seen him, but there was no blood or injuries anywhere on him. His presence touched every part of her body, her heart, her mind, her soul. She could feel his goodness moving through her and all around her. It was the first time she’d felt safe since he’d died.

Helen set the gun in the dirt next to her and released a long-held breath. Two years of waiting were finally over. “Tyler, I’ve been trying to talk to you for so long.”

When he spoke, his words were made of love. “I hear you.”

She wiped at her wet cheeks and felt the longing in her chest swell. “But you never answer.”

“I answer you, but not with words.”

As Helen stared into Tyler’s eyes, the present fell away. She was truly herself again. Gone was the woman who had married a man she barely knew and maybe didn’t even like all that much. Gone was the woman who had slept with an entirely different man just to fill the emptiness. Gone were the rage and the regrets. Helen wasn’t perfect. She’d never been perfect. But she’d once been a good woman with a good man who’d stood behind her and believed in her. She’d been happy most of the time, and she’d been willing to fight the good fights and willing to try when the chips were down.

For a moment, she was that woman again.

“Tyler,” she said, “that night, there was something you wanted to tell me. What was it?”

He smiled softly again. “You already know, Helen.”

She nodded slowly. Believing there’d been a lost message from him was just one of the many ways she’d beaten herself up over the last two years.

“I love you,” Helen said, realizing she’d always had the answer.

Tyler nodded. Indeed, those were the words. It was that simple. All he’d wanted to say to her that night was the exact thing she already knew, the same sentiment she’d heard a million times.

“I love you,” he said.