What had the curse done to the woods? To her friends?
Behind the lights, the audience’s cheers fell to murmured alarm as more and more floorboards cracked and burst as twisted roots pushed up through the stage.
I need to go back …
Emeline flipped her ukulele over her shoulder, letting it hang on its strap across her back. As the dying woods erupted around her, she reached for the neck of her guitar. Lifting it from its stand, she said, “Thank you, merci. This has been a dream.” Taking one last look at the theater beyond the lights, she lowered her voice to a whisper. “But there’s somewhere else I need to be. Bonne soirée.”
One day, she’d return to this stage—on her terms, singing her songs. She might need to rebuild her career from scratch, but so what? She’d faced down scarier things.
With that thought in her heart and the woods in danger, Emeline strode off the stage and didn’t look back.
FORTY
AS THE DOOR TOthe green room swung open and Emeline walked in, every member of The Perennials stopped laughing. Ashley—dressed in black skinny jeans and a red shirt stitched with a barbed-wire heart—sat up from where she sprawled across the couch, her bleached-blond ponytail swishing.
An electric energy pulsed through Emeline as she realized what she’d done. What she was still doing.Saying good-bye to my tour, and a record deal with Daybreak.
No. What she was saying good-bye to was spending three weeks with musicians who didn’t think she deserved to share a stage with them. She was saying good-bye to recording an album of songs that weren’t hers.
Emeline grabbed her bag, buckled her instruments into their cases, then shouldered the door to the green room open and stepped out into the hall.
When it swung shut behind her, Ashley’s muffled voice said, “Didn’t shejustgo out onstage?”
Emeline should have told them she was leaving. That she was sorry. That she’d find a replacement for tomorrow, even. But she remembered the ugly words they’d spewed about her and Chloe last night and kept walking.
Adieu, jerks.
In the hall, she started to run—past the merch table selling her EPs, past the fans in The Perennials tees loitering against the walls. She ran all the way to the entrance of the Nymph, where a line of rain-streaked cabs waited at the curb. The air was heavy and warm. The city shimmered like glass.
“Emeline!”
Joel’s voice.
She winced but didn’t turn as the rain came down, speckling her face and hair. Opening the back door of a cab, she tossed her guitar and ukulele cases inside, then ducked into the darkness of the back seat. “Rue Sainte-Catharine Est,” she told the driver above the thump of windshield wipers. “S’il vous plaît.”
She’d left Hawthorne’s ring at her apartment. Not only had she not wanted the reminder, but she never wore jewelry when she played—it only got in the way. Now that ring was her fastest way home.
A hand grabbed the door, stopping her from shutting it.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Emeline looked up to find Joel’s face contorted with anger. He gripped the door so hard, his knuckles were bone white.
“You walked offstage in the middle of your set!”
“I know,” she said, reaching for the door handle, thinking of the woods.We came to say good-bye.“There’s an emergency. I have to get home.”
He grabbed her wrist to stop her. “I kissed ass getting you this gig! And you’re just throwing it away?! What the hell is wrong with you!”
“I know. I …” Emeline tried to twist out of his tightening grip. “Stop it, Joel. You’re hurting me.”
From the front seat, the cabdriver turned and cussed him out in French.
Glancing to the driver, Joel hesitated. Emeline twisted free, but Joel still had the door in his grip. She couldn’t shut it without slamming his fingers.
“If you do this,” Joel said, nostrils flaring, “my dad will cut you loose. I can promise you that.”
Once, those words would have wrecked her. A few weeks ago, being dropped by her manager would have been one of the worst things that could happen. Now she simply nodded. “I know. Tell him I’m sorry. Really, I am.”
