"She couldn't be positive, but it must have been sometime around then. We found her not long after. Why?"
Stefan said nothing. Elena could feel the gulf between them widening. "Stefan," she whispered. Then, aloud, she said desperately, "Stefan, what is it?"
He shook his head. Don't shut me out, she thought, but he wouldn't even look at her. "Will she live?" he asked abruptly.
"The doctor said there was nothing much wrong with her," Matt said. "Nobody's even suggested she might die."
Stefan's nod was abrupt; then he turned to Elena. "I've got to go," he said. "You're safe now."
She caught his hand as he turned away. "Of course I'm safe," she said. "Because of you."
"Yes," he said. But there was no response in his eyes. They were shielded, dull.
"Call me tomorrow." She squeezed his hand, trying to convey what she felt under the scrutiny of all those watching eyes. She willed him to understand.
He looked down at their hands with no expression at all, then, slowly, back up at her. And then, at last, he returned the pressure of her fingers. "Yes, Elena," he whispered, his eyes clinging to hers. The next minute he was gone.
She took a deep breath and turned back to the crowded room. Aunt Judith was still hovering, her gaze fixed on what could be seen of Elena's torn dress underneath the cloak.
"Elena," she said, "whathappened ?" And her eyes went to the door through which Stefan had just left.
A sort of hysterical laughter surged up in Elena's throat, and she choked it back. "Stefan didn't do it," she said. "Stefan saved me." She felt her face harden, and she looked at the police officer behind Aunt Judith. "It was Tyler, Tyler Smallwood..."
She was not the reincarnation of Katherine.
Driving back to the boarding house in the faint lavender hush before dawn, Stefan thought about that.
He'd said as much to her, and it was true, but he was only now realizing how long he'd been working toward that conclusion. He'd been aware of Elena's every breath and move for weeks, and he'd catalogued every difference.
Her hair was a shade or two paler than Katherine's, and her eyebrows and lashes were darker. Katherine's had been almost silvery. And she was taller than Katherine by a good handspan. She moved with greater freedom, too; the girls of this age were more comfortable with their bodies.
Even her eyes, those eyes that had transfixed him with the shock of recognition that first day, were not really the same. Katherine's eyes had usually been wide with childlike wonder, or else cast down as was proper for a young girl of the late fifteenth century. But Elena's eyes met you straight on, looked at you steadily and without flinching. And sometimes they narrowed with determination or challenge in a way Katherine's never had.
In grace and beauty and sheer fascination, they were alike. But where Katherine had been a white kitten, Elena was a snow-white tigress.
As he drove past the silhouettes of maple trees, Stefan cringed from the memory that sprang up suddenly. He would not think about that, he would not let himself... but the images were already unreeling before him. It was as if the journal had fallen open and he could do no more than stare helplessly at the page while the story played itself out in his mind.
White, Katherine had been wearing white that day. A new white gown of Venetian silk with slashed sleeves to show the fine linen chemise underneath. She had a necklace of gold and pearls about her neck and tiny pearl drop earrings in her ears.
She had been so delighted with the new dress her father had commissioned especially for her.
She had pirouetted in front of Stefan, lifting the full, floor-length skirt in one small hand to show the yellow brocaded underskirt beneath...
"You see, it is even embroidered with my initials. Papa had that done. Mein lieber Papa ..." Her voice trailed off, and she stopped twirling, one hand slowly settling to her side. "But what is wrong, Stefan? You are not smiling."
He could not even try. The sight of her there, white and gold like some ethereal vision, was a physical pain to him. If he lost her, he did not know how he could live.
His fingers closed convulsively around the cool engraved metal. "Katherine, how can I smile, how can I be happy when..."
"When?"
"When I see how you look at Damon." There, it was said. He continued, painfully. "Before he came home, you and I were together every day. My father and yours were pleased, and spoke of marriage plans. But now the days grow shorter, summer is almost gone-and you spend as much time with Damon as you do with me. The only reason Father allows him to stay here is that you asked it. Butwhy did you ask it, Katherine? I thought you cared for me."
Her blue eyes were dismayed. "I do care for you, Stefan. Oh, you know I do!"
"Then why intercede for Damon with my father? If not for you, he'd have thrown Damon out into the street..."
"Which I'm sure would have pleasedyou , little brother." The voice at the door was smooth and arrogant, but when Stefan turned he saw that Damon's eyes were smoldering.