Juliet Immortal

her.”
    “Why not?” What is wrong with these two? Soul mates usually can’t get enough of each other. “Are you still fighting?”
    “Not really. She’s just …” He trails off with a shrug.
    “Just what?”
    “She’s confusing,” he says, sounding frustrated. “I mean, like, I had no idea you two were best friends. Gemma and I have been hanging out for a month and she never said a thing about you.”
    Ouch. That isn’t going to make Ariel happy. “Well, I guess I’m not the most interesting person,” I say, my joking tone falling flat.
    “I think you’re interesting. Best friends are always interesting. Who your friends are can say a lot about a person.” Ben gives me a long look that makes my own brush feel awkward in my hand. “But you’re too skinny. You should come eat.”
    “I … I’d love to.” I wish I could leave it at that, but my time will be better spent with Gemma. Whatever’s gone wrong with these two, it seems like she’s the cause. Besides, spending more time alone with Ben probably isn’t a good idea. “But I should go home and work on the understudy thing. I don’t want to embarrass myself to death tomorrow.”
    “Cool. Some other time.” His tone is easy, but his shrug isn’t as loose. “But can I ask you something?”
    “Sure.” I add more shadows to the bricks on my side while Ben follows with the white and yellow. We’re a good team. At this rate we’ll have the bricks finished today, and Ben will have time to work some more creative touches into the background tomorrow while I’m rehearsing.
    “Did Gemma tell you anything about me? About … us or whatever?”
    “Um … no.” I wish I could say something different. “She’s been private lately. We haven’t been talking as much. But I can tell she likes you.”
    “Really?” he asks, keeping his attention on his work.
    “Yeah. It’s obvious she cares about you.” At least, it is to me, but Ben can’t see Gemma’s aura. Still, she
did
kiss him this morning, before he pulled away. He has to know that—
    Something dances at the edge of my sight, a blur of blue—there and gone again faster than light reflecting on the water. It’s the briefest flash, and I wouldn’t turn to look … if it weren’t for the smell that accompanies it. Rosemary and lavender, dust from a familiar field clinging to good satin, sunshine-warmed skin, and the impossible hint of sea salt, though Venice is a two day’s journey by horse.
    It’s the smell of Verona, the smell of home, a scent that vibrates through my body, making my brush fall from my hand. Brown paint splatters across the floor, hitting my jeans and the bottom of the flat, leaving a mistake streaked across the bricks.
    “What’s wrong?” Ben asks, but I barely hear him over the blood rushing in my ears.
    I spin so fast I nearly slip and fall, hurrying after the phantom scent, chasing it farther backstage, pushing aside thick red curtains that smell of damp and dust. But not the dust of home. That smell is gone, snatched away by sour water sitting in yellowed buckets marked
Processed Cheese
and
Thousand Island Dressing
and—
    Another flash in the dark, royal blue slipping into the women’s dressing room, the one Mr. Stark said was closed until they could patch the holes in the roof. It’s a girl. She’s movingslower now, slow enough for me to catch a glimpse of her fingers as they curl around the door, pulling it closed behind her. The smell comes again, mixed with honeyed bread and milk, triggering a pain in my stomach so strong it nearly makes me cry out. I remember licking that smell from my fingers, when I was small and Nurse would sneak a treat up to my room before supper. No other honey tastes like the honey from home, no other honey in the world.
    I run to the door, pulse beating at my wrists and throat, and fling it open. What I see in the mirrors across the room makes my head spin, blurring the features of the girl in the reflection, twisting her open mouth into a bizarre half-moon.
    But blurry vision or not, I can see the reddish-brown curls that fall nearly to the girl’s waist, the wide, dark eyes that peer back into mine, the olive skin with cheeks pink from too much time in the sun.
    It is … me. Myself. The body I was born into, the one I haven’t seen in years but can never forget. No matter how hard I’ve tried.
    “Love,”
she says.
“Now.”
    The world spins faster as I stumble forward, scarcely able to walk a