Page 122 of Haunting the Deep

Mrs. Meriwether walks to my bedroom door. “She’s awake!” she yells. “Come on up!”

Their feet are fast on the stairs and down the hall.

Mary is the first one in, with Alice and Susannah right behind her. Mary has traces of Meriwether crumbs on her face and starts crying immediately. “Sam, I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do. A cut appeared. And your body temperature started to drop. You wouldn’t stop bleeding. I just…You don’t know…I was so scared. I’m just so happy you’re okay.”

I look at Alice. “Matt?”

“Dead,” she says quietly.

“They found him in Salem Harbor with a broken back and crushed bones. The cause of death was drowning,” Susannah says. “They can’t figure out how it happened. It’s all over town.”

I shiver, remembering his knife and the look on his face when he dropped from my hand. I nod, pushing the image away.

“Redd?”

Susannah shakes her head, and everyone falls silent.

Jaxon appears in my doorway, and his face lights up when he sees me. “Sam.” He smiles, and it’s a real Jaxon smile.

“Okay, okay. Let’s not overwhelm Samantha,” Mrs. Meriwether says. “Do you want me to bring you food, honey?”

“Not yet.”

They all exit my room, all but Jaxon, who looks anything but comfortable. He sits down in the chair my dad was using.

“That spell,” I say.

“Yeah…Sam, I didn’t know who I was, what I was doing. I just—”

“Believe me, I know. It’s an awful, gross feeling.”

Jaxon nods. “A nightmare.”

We’re both quiet.

Jaxon breaks eye contact with me. “I just don’t even know how to begin to—”

“Jaxon, don’t. You don’t need to say anything.”

Jaxon studies his hands. “Yeah, well…How do you feel about opening your get-well gift?” He looks behind him.

I follow his line of sight to a box on my vanity. “I feel great about that.”

Jaxon reaches behind him and picks up a present wrapped in blue tissue paper. He places it on the bed next to me.

I pull back the paper, revealing a wooden box with a boat carved on the lid. The boat is a perfect replica of the one down by the wharf where we had our first real conversation. “TheFriendship?”

“I made it.”

I look up at Jaxon. “Stop. You did not.”

“I did. Take it as a peace offering. I should never have gotten mad at you that night after the restaurant. That was totally unfair. And, well, everything after that sucked, too. There are a lot of things I wish I could take back.”

I lift the lid, and inside the wood grain is smooth and beautiful. “Can we still have our trust arrangement?”

He smiles and it almost looks like his eyes glisten. “I’d really like that.”

“Jaxon!” Mrs. Meriwether calls from downstairs. “Sam needs rest.”