PART ONE

“the night,
she brushed her hand upon my flushed cheek...
i believe that i'll never find
another sweet little girl with sequined sea foam eyes...”
-- Jason Mraz, Tonight (Not Again)

His hand did not leave hers. For minutes, they walked warily through hallways blackened without the sun to light the way. They let the stranger stay several feet in front of them, holding a candle to silently lead them to the masquerade. His face also adorned a mask, one that seemed almost plastic and gave absolutely no shape to his facial features. It covered him from the neck up, hiding any trace of hair or skin color. His body was covered in cape; beyond this, neither Jack nor Jennifer could make out a single distinguishing attribute on the man.

Jack took these moments to try to pinpoint exactly where he was in the castle. He hated not knowing his exact location; the secrecy of this entire event seemed to throw him a bit off balance. No matter what kind of danger he had been in during the past, he always knew where he was and what his purpose was. But this time, there was no guarantee over anything.

The walls were all the same empty color of large silvery bricks, stacked and molded together hundreds of years ago. Each door was made of heavy wood, hanging like a shield over every threshold they walked past. Everything was similar in every possible way, nearly making Jack’s head spin as he tried to find in the very least one abnormal feature in the entire castle.

It was flawless, a maze of matching hallways that hid its secrets in the darkness.

Jennifer stared at the flickering candle that the faceless man held in front of her. The patterns jumped off of the cold walls, creating a mural of dancing shadows. Jennifer shuddered as she thought of the confusion that surrounded the entire night. She fought with Jack in the strangest way… all she wanted to do was talk about what happened in Ireland and hope that they could move on, but she was mad with him for protecting her. She closed her eyes for a short moment and tried to let the argument leave her mind… there were other more important things tonight, and she couldn’t let herself forget that her and Jack had to figure out what was going on and do it safely.

They could do anything as long as they were together, she figured. But they had never fought a battle while they were so far separated emotionally. Even during Nick Corelli’s murder investigation, they were apart, but not like this…

She sneaked a look up in his direction… the mask concealed his face from her, and she disappointingly looked back over to the candle. Even when she was at her maddest with him, she still couldn’t get enough of just looking at him face. She knew he was the same way too; she couldn’t keep track of how many night she woke up to find him looking down at her. Somehow, looking at his face could just make things feel like they could get back to normal.

A shiver ripped through her. She couldn’t figure out if Jack still loved her or not.

He looked down at her, and this time, she caught the white of his eyes peering down at her. He squeezed her hand, and for a moment, the castle and the mystery were no longer there. It was just the two of them. If Jack had the ability to turn being shipwrecked into a dream, then, she thought, maybe he could save this too.

The man in front of them stopped and suddenly the hallway went dark. Jennifer grabbed at Jack’s chest with her other hand and he swung his arm around her. They stood in the blackness and listened… a soft humming of music from somewhere nearby seemed to shake the walls around them. As soon as they noticed this, a bright light in front of them filled the hallway when two heavy doors were opened. Without a word, Jack and Jennifer stepped forward into the light.

Feet shuffled. Dresses swayed. The ballroom was filled from each wall with masked people. Music stung the guests with sharp high notes rippling from a classic orchestra. Jack wondered drolly if he had just wandered into a King Arthur novel.

It all seemed utterly picturesque. The sounds of the fabrics swishing against each other as ladies danced with their gentlemen, a booming orchestra playing heroic tunes to warm the hearts of the guests, and stunningly unique masks to raise the elegance of the ball.

Yet something was off.

The guests danced out of time with the Tchaikovsky piece. Not that the Andante was a piece one would particularly choose to dance to, Jack noted, however he couldn’t escape an air of fear that hung over the ballroom like a dark forecast. He saw hundreds of eyes searching the room with worry, trying to identify anyone they could, or trying to make the situation in the very least understandable.

Jack took the slightest bit of comfort in the fact that the room was well lit, the walls adorned with hundreds upon hundreds of candles, providing a four-wall spectacle that surrounded the magnificent chandelier engulfing the ceiling. Though as bright as the room was, the candlelight was still insufficient, casting odd shadows from the guests about the dance floor.

Before going any further, Jack quickly noted and counted all of the exits from the massive room, then, removing his hand from Jennifer’s and instead slipping his arm through hers, they slowly made their way into the crowd. They had not been in the swamp of dancers for more than a minute before a man appeared in a tiny balcony in the upper corner of the room. Every guest turned and looked up at yet another disguised man draped in a cape.

Jennifer fanned herself absently with her gloved hand; the close quarters of the hundred guests, not to mention the candlelight and complete lack of any air ventilation, made her start to sweat within seconds of entering the room. The lengthy gloves and face-covering mask sewn with a thick fabric did not help matters any.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome!” the man moved his arms about in the air with Napoleonic importance. His accent was heavily English—not Irish—his voice was deep and each word that was formed in his mouth came out with perfect annunciation. “You have been specially chosen. If curiosity has moved you this far, then prepare yourselves for the adventure of a lifetime!”

The guests were stunningly silent. No one moved as the strange man spoke from above the crowd.

“Greed is an evil sin, but only in the game of life… NOT in the game of fortune!” the man placed his hands on the balcony’s railing and continued, “You have been drawn here to use your knowledge of history and your own motivation for success to win a game that my ancestors set up exactly two-hundred years ago. You, the uniquely impulsed citizens of Salem, are connected to this castle and the very prize you will compete for through a legacy that has been a part of your humble town for longer than any of you could imagine. This is a castle of the DiMera dynasty and you are all a part of it.”

A few gasps escaped the mouths of several people in the crowd. Jennifer turned and looked up at Jack, who simply shrugged his shoulders at her.

“This will be a competition of elimination. You will be given clues to follow for the express purpose of obtaining goals for each round. Those who do not meet the expectations set will be removed from the castle at once. By this week’s end, I expect that a winning team will be left standing alone to claim the prize that King DiMera intended to reward so many years ago.”

Jennifer moved to lean up to whisper in Jack’s ear, her body pressing closely to his so no one had the chance of overhearing her. Through the puffiness of her elegant dress, she could once again feel the metal object that was hidden down Jack’s pants. Her eyes widened and Jack immediately knew that she had discovered that he brought his secret with him across the ocean. She opened her mouth to speak, but he shook his head at her. The strange man’s words from above cut off their exchange; as he spoke, Jennifer stayed pressed against Jack.

“Your teams have been chosen with careful thought on my behalf. Each person here tonight is partnered with someone they must learn how to trust. Husbands and wives have been broken apart, brothers and sisters are separated, and no parent is with their child. Your partner will be one quest, a personal obstacle that you must explore and contain quickly before it ruins the game at hand. And be aware: there is nothing harder to conquer than the game of love.”

Jack noted that it was becoming difficult to breathe, not just because of the closeness of each person in the room, but because of one particular female clinging to his body. The tiniest part of him wanted to move away from her, but the majority of him was utterly pleased with the situation at hand, that neither of them could quite move and for the next few moments, he could get away with being so close to her without having to think about their past or their pain.

“Clues will be dispersed among the crowd. Each team will compete to obtain the goal of each quest and make it on to the next round. The ultimate prize will be awarded to the last team left standing. If you want to learn what this prize is, you will stay here, stay a part of this game and accept your clues and the challenge presented to you. I can feel the skepticism of some present here tonight, but that is why you have been invited. On this journey, you will see a new side to the DiMera name. Years and years of hatred may be solved with this masterful game.”

There was a long pause as more of the faceless guards entered the grand ballroom, each one taking a place in front of every possible exit.

“If you wish to leave before the game begins, you may do so, but at your own discretion. After you have received your clues, you are free to leave to begin the game. I will say this once: every pair’s goals must be discovered by this time tomorrow night. Those failing to obtain what is asked of them will be removed from the castle. Now…”

The orchestra, silently seated a hundred or so feet beneath the balcony from which these words were spoken, swiftly arched their bows and aligned their instruments, awaiting word from the mysterious man above them.

He concluded his speech, “… All there is left to do is dance.” The orchestra cued immediately on his last word as he stepped backwards into the darkness and promptly disappeared from sight.

Music rang in the ballroom, strings of the violins resonating off the walls and high ceilings with the accompaniment of cellos, basses and violas. Soon trumpets and other brass instruments joined in, and the room was full with moving bodies, the heat rising with fearful anticipation and little space to share.

Jennifer began her dance at a reasonable distance from Jack, but as the song progressed and other guests backed into her constantly, she pulled Jack closer towards her until there was little room but to breathe in. Jack took a deep and awkward breath as Jennifer came as close to him as possible, his brain wracked with the fear that she could feel the key he had tucked inside of his pocket.

She knew too much already, he thought. She had come across the world and put herself in danger with her determination. He wanted to be mad at her, he wanted to not forgive her for their parting of ways in Ireland and for all of the mistakes made in between. He wanted a million other things but having her with him, discovering his secret clue in a dangerous place that he couldn’t control.

She leaned up on the tips of her toes and pressed her lips to his ear, still trying to move with the music as she whispered to him, “Jack…”

“Mm?”

The loudness of the music made it difficult for him to hear her, and their dancing made it even harder for her to keep her mouth near his ear. She gripped him tighter, folding her arms around him to try to stay as close to him as possible.

“What are you doing?” Jack whispered in her ear, holding her securely, his hands pressed against the flesh of her back that her dress so carefully exposed.

“No one is supposed to hear us…”

“Oh.”

“Jack…”

He suppressed a grin. She certainly liked to say his name, he thought. “What?”

“That man… in the balcony… I think he’s Tony DiMera…”

Jack continued to hold Jennifer as they carried each other across the dance floor to the four-four time of the orchestrated music. He had identified the man’s accent as being British, but it hadn’t quite crossed his mind that it could be Tony. After spending so many years living in Ireland, different accents no longer made him stop to ponder where that person could be from. Jack flipped back in his mind quickly, trying to recall the mysterious man’s way of speaking, but the odd echoing of the man’s voice made off of the grand room’s walls made it hard for him to distinguish that voice from any other British man’s.

“Jack?”

“Um…” Maybe those were all just excuses, he thought. Tony told him to come to the castle; he even bought The Spectator back as in incentive. Would he really be the one orchestrating the whole thing? “I doubt it,” he muttered, denying it rather than explaining his thoughts out to Jennifer.

He could feel her shake her head. “It’s him.”

He sighed. The room was getting hotter and hotter by the minute, no one had given them their clues yet, and the entire claustrophobic atmosphere started to cloud around Jack as he tried to think of a reply. “How should I know?”

Jennifer was breathing heavily by his face, overheated from the room and the weight of her dress. She dragged her hand up his arm and placed it on the tiny bit of bare skin on his neck. “I think you know more.”

“Jennif—”

She pressed her hand against his face and wrapped her other arm even tighter around his back. Without thinking about it, they stopped dancing. The stood still in the middle of the dance floor and just overwhelmed each other with their closeness. “And I’m going to find out what you know.” She released her pressure from him and slowly mover her head in front of his face.

His silk mask was more than just tied to his head; he had sweat through its fabric, causing it to stick to his face, making him feel the humidity of the room more than ever. He was out of breath from the whole experience, praying for it to end as soon as possible. He wanted to get those clues and just get out of that room, nothing more and nothing less.

Jennifer pressed her hands up on his chest and began to lean up to whisper to him again when one of the masked men came up next to them. He extended a gloved hand that held another crisp and fancy envelope, this one with no names scribed on the front. Jack carefully plucked it from the man, examining the envelope as he took it. When he looked back up, the man had disappeared into the depths of the crowd.

Jack tucked the piece into the jacket of his tux, then wordlessly grabbed Jennifer’s hand and pulled her through the other dancers to get to an exit. He pushed open one of the heavy wooden doors, then still pulling Jennifer behind him, began to run down the hallway away from the ballroom. He wasn’t sure if it was the need for fresh air, the need to get out of the room, or the need to get Jennifer alone to convince her to get the hell out of there before anything progressed that was making him move so quickly. He figured it was just a combination of the three as he heard Jennifer stumble in her high heels and puffy dress behind him, trying desperately to keep up with him as he dodged from hallway to hallway to distance them from the masquerade guests.

Between his gasps for air, he heard the loud chirping of crickets, and he bolted around the corner to get closer to the noise. He pushed through another door and found himself once again at the grandfather clock, table, broken mirror and frighteningly pale painting of the old man in the front entrance of the castle. He kept his grip on Jennifer’s hand as he panted and looked around the first room he had entered in the castle.

Jennifer put her free hand on her side and then tried to pull her other hand free from Jack, with no luck. “Why are we here?”

He tried to remember the directions he received in his first letter; once he figured he could remember the way back to their room, he pulled on Jennifer’s hand again and they ran out of the entrance room, up staircases and down more aimless hallways. They finally came to a stop when they hit what was possibly the twentieth hallway that looked the same as all of the other ones.

“Damn it!” Jack released Jennifer’s hand and walked away from her, angrily falling backwards against the stone walls to try to regain his breath. “We’re lost!”

“The room has to be around here somewhere, Jack…”

He slammed his fist against the wall, “Well it wouldn’t be so hard if we weren’t in the castle equivalent of the Stepford Wives!”

They fell silent, the only sound between them the ins and outs of their heavy breathing. Jennifer let her back fall into the wall across from Jack. She had just barely touched the wall before she shrieked at the sight of another masked man standing hundreds of feet down the hallway in the shadows. “Look!” she grabbed his arm and pulled him to her.

Jack moved in front of Jennifer, protecting her from whatever danger the man could hold. They stood in suspension, neither one of them speaking a word. The man down the hall did not budge an inch from where he stood. After what felt like a couple of minutes, Jack cleared his throat and yelled to the man, “We can’t find our room.”

The man walked towards them with a calculated march, each footstep he got closer to them causing Jennifer to pull at the fabrics of Jack’s tux with more force. The man walked past them, and without a word, Jack grabbed Jennifer’s hand and one again lead her down the hallway, this time on the heels of the silent servant.

They twisted down more shadowy hallways, Jennifer’s high heels booming like firecrackers off the stone walls that surrounded them. The man finally stopped in front of one of the doors that looked like all of the others; he opened the door, and Jack immediately recognized the belongings inside as being his and Jennifer’s. The man moved from the door and walked past Jack and Jennifer without any hesitation, taking himself down the hallway and out of their sight in under a minute’s time.

Jack blinked, then quickly pulled Jennifer into the room, slamming the door shut and thudding the bolt lock in place. He backed away from the door, his head feeling light from running around the castle. In one swift motion, he peeled the silky mask from his face and he turned to Jennifer, who was standing closely behind him.

Jennifer whipped off her feathered mask and for the first time that night, they stared at each other’s entire faces, each covered in sweat, their hair messed and their bodies sore from confusion, fear and the instability of the whole experience. Jack took in a deep breath, smelling an intense mixture of Jennifer’s perfume and the musty smell of the old dress she wore.

He backed away from her suddenly, taking off across the room, gathering each piece of her clothing as he ran about, collecting them all in his arms. Jennifer only watched him at first, her eyes following him as he rapidly moved about the room. “What is this?” she spoke rationally. “What are you doing?”

He didn’t even pause as he threw back at her, “I’m packing your things. You’re going home.”

Jennifer stood in place, preparing herself for another battle. “No, Jack. I’m not.”

“Yes. Yes you are, Jennifer. You’re going to go home. You’re going to move your things into that new house your father bought for you. You’re going to take care of our daughter.”

She bit down on her lip, “Yes, Jack, I am eventually going to do all of those things! But I am not going anywhere until I figure out what is going on here and how you’re involved!”

“I…” he had still not regained his composure from the masquerade ball, causing him to pant as he spoke to her, “I am not… NOT… going to be responsible for… for you getting hurt…”

“Jack, I am not—”

“No!” he turned to her suddenly, a pile of her clothes and travel items overflowing from his arms. “You’ll… you’ll get hurt! You… you don’t need to be with me here. I can do things on my own. I can take care of this myself.”

She blinked, not responding immediately. He was pushing her away, and this was going to be the last time he did it, she decided.

“This isn’t about me being in danger,” she said matter-of-factly.

He only looked at her, unprepared for her directness. He tried to cover, “Of course it is!”

“This is about our time here… in Ireland.”

He rocked back and forth on his feet, unsteadied and still too overwhelmed to talk about everything that had been rushing through his mind non-stop since she took their daughter and left him alone.

“I want to talk about Ireland, Jack.”

“Well, I don’t.” He moved across the room, this time with more composure, and started stuffing her items into the suitcase that was sprawled across the only bed in the room.

Jennifer took a deep breath, standing firm where she was. She nervously ran her hands across the old dress she wore, and with carefully measured words, began an attempt to color in all of the gray areas. “No,” she was louder this time, bolder. “I refuse to believe that this is the end for us. That we’ll argue and harbor all of this anger, that we’ll just let it tear us up inside. I refuse to let us do that.”

Jack stayed silently, moving the items he had piled on the bed into her suitcase with a decreasing pace. She knew he was listening, she could tell she was getting through.

Or at least she was praying that she was getting through.

“You’re angry with me,” she declared. “You’re angry that I ended things the way I did, for taking Abby away from you for so long.” Her words were slow and precise. He still did not respond. “Jack, we have to talk about this.”

“Why?” he uttered.

She threw her arms up, “Because this isn’t the way we should be living!”

He looked over his shoulder at her, then turned and stepped towards her, raising his voice, “How should I be living? Huh? Living in a house I purchased for our family… by myself… living that life we all planned to live together?”

Jennifer took in a deep breath, her petite hands intensely gripping the overwhelming fabric of her dress. She felt her face flush against her will, so she bit hard at her lip in an attempt to keep her from crying. “You have to understand—”

Jack shrugged, “Understand what? What could I possibly not already understand? Explain to me loneliness and guilt, missing the sight of my daughter, craving the life that I had just a slice of before I lost it. What is there left for me to understand?”

“That I’m sorry!” Jennifer tried to step towards him, but he moved back at her advance. Her eyes searched the room frantically, anything to keep her sights off of him for a moment long enough for her to calm herself. He stared at her for a further explanation. “That… that I want to fix these mistakes. That I want to live on and get over the pain. That I want your forgiveness, Jack…”

“For what?” he was dripping in bitterness, knowing that doing so would keep his emotions from taking over him. “So you can live guilt free?”

She was frantic inside, but covering for it well. “No—so we can rebuild.”

“Jennifer…” He whispered her name in a sigh of exasperation. “That is going to take some time.”

“How long?” Her eyes were rimmed with redness, teetering on the edge of spilling her emotions.

“I can’t say.” Jack paused for a good long time before completing his thought, his mind running over every time they had fought in a similar way over their long and bumpy road together. “You’ve played this doghouse game with me countless times. You should know more than anyone that these things don’t just happen overnight.”

She reached up absently and wiped at the moisture around her eyes. “What can I do to help?”

He sighed. He hated seeing her upset; no matter how much pain he had carried inside of himself since she left him, he still couldn’t help but feel heartbroken whenever he saw her cry. His body ached to run across the room and hold her in his arms, but his mind directed him differently. He finally replied, “Go home.”

“No,” she shook her head with absoluteness. “That is the one thing I will not do. We make a perfect team, Jack. You’ve said it yourself. No one can get to the bottom of things like you and I can. We’ve solved crimes and mysteries… there is something going on here, and you and I are the team to solve it. Besides, you can’t stay here alone. You heard that man: you need a partner.”

Jack brushed his fingers through the thickness of his hair, sweaty from a night of tense confusion. He had a list of things in his head that he needed to solve, and he knew he would accomplish nothing with her in the room. She always had a way of making his brain just stop when it should be going full-speed. With her not ten feet from him, he would never determine just how hard it would be for him to deal with everything he was feeling, with everything he had bottled up.

There were so many levels to it all now. It wasn’t just about the two of them anymore; there was a beautiful little girl waiting back in Salem for them. And past that, there was now an ever-growing forest of secrets, including the key in his pocket and the pages in the book he had discovered at Victor’s. He felt an increasing urge to tell Jennifer about the things he had found, to have her thoughts on what they could mean or be a part of, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that getting her involved was wrong. She had been hurt on so many other adventures, everything from leg injuries to the unimaginable…

He cupped his hand around the back of his neck and rubbed the base of his hairline, a nervous gesture he made without any thought. He slowly raised his eye sight to meet her; she stood like she was hovering over the edge of a cliff. She was obviously awaiting some sort of response from him, but he could think of nothing to say. His mind was somewhere between figuring out all of the answers and trying to ignore how absolutely beautiful she looked in the dress that complimented her in every possible way.

“Jack…” she spoke almost too softly for him to hear her.

He paused for a moment, then said, “I’ll give it a thought.” He watched her body relax at his reaction, the whiteness in her hands that so fiercely gripped her dress finally getting some color back. “Until then, I’m going to the…” he pointed with his thumb behind him, “… the royal bathroom for a royal bathing.” He turned and left her alone in the bedroom.

Jennifer ambled across the length of the room to the tall mirror that stood on a dark wooden frame just outside of the bathroom door. Worn with time, the mirror cast a dull reflection of Jennifer as she examined herself. The dress was really an oddity; her first mysterious letter instructed her to pick a dress from the wardrobe for the ball. Of all the elegant options before her, what she couldn’t believe the most was that they all seemed to fit her. Lined with expensive jewels and delicate fabrics, each dress was a piece of art in Jennifer’s eyes.

She greedily allowed herself to wonder if all of the effort she had put into her looks for the evening had made any impact on Jack at all. She could remember countless times of dressing up and living the high life, as he liked to call it. He would wear a tux and she would wear a new dress especially bought for the occasion, and Jack would wine and dine her like a perfect gentleman. Though those times became mostly a memory after they lost their money, Jack still always found reasons for the two of them to dress up and celebrate. Even in Africa, where a tuxedo could hardly be appropriate for the hot weather, he would still surprise her with beautiful dresses or a stunning piece of jewelry bought on a whim, always with his love at heart.

She sighed, stepping away from the mirror. Nothing had changed. She had somehow fooled herself into believing that being there with him would help them conquer all of their problems, that they could fall back into the things she had so missed about him, the routines that she lived for. There was no better feeling in the world than waking up in his arms and knowing that everything she had ever done had lead her to that very moment, to that very perfect small slice of how wonderful life had turned out to be.

She woke up alone these days, often in the middle of the night while reaching across an empty bed. She still only slept on one side of the bed; even after the twenty-some years she spent before her marriage sleeping alone, sprawled across the middle of it, she couldn’t bring herself to falling back into that routine. Being married to Jack had changed her life, even down to the smallest detail. She didn’t want to return to the things that reminded her of life without him.

Pacing around the room aimlessly, she tried to let her mind loosen up just the smallest bit. The mystery… yes, she should focus on why she was there at all. There was a bigger picture here than just her and Jack, and it appeared that if they wanted to get at the bottom of it, not only would they have to be smart, but they’d have to be quick enough to beat all of the other couples. Jennifer squished her face in confusion; there was already so much to comprehend that she had to spread it out in her mind to make some sense of it.

She made mental list of things she knew: There was a game afoot, and their ability to stay in the castle to solve the mystery depended on how quickly they could solve the clues they would soon receive.

That, and Jack has something hidden in his pants.

Jennifer’s eyes lit up with a rush of curiosity. What was in his pants? She would have to find out.

She crept towards the washroom, holding the fabric of her dress from the ground to keep it from swooshing too loudly, and she pressed her ear to the door. She could hear the faint noise of Jack talking to himself. Remembering the set up of the room, Jennifer was content that she could sneak in, remove his discarded pants, and retrieve anything inside of it with Jack being none-the-wiser. She took a deep breath, not wasting another moment to think it all through, and she moved into the room.

The washroom was poorly lit, much like the rest of their quarters, with only a few candles burning off a dancing yellow about the walls. Of all odd things, the room had running water, connected to a large basin in the corner of the room that was hidden behind a fold out privacy wall. It was behind that wall Jennifer assumed Jack was bathing, clearly away from the sight of her.

She found the clothes rack where he had neatly arranged the pants from his tux, creased perfectly over the wooden bar so as not to wrinkle them. She slid the trousers off the bar, curled them around her arms and began to escape from the room.

“Jennifer!”

She spun swiftly, the sight of Jack not where she thought he would be, but instead behind a different changing wall. He stood before her in his boxers and an undershirt, wearing, most notably, a look of utter shock. They locked eyes for the slightest moment before she darted from where she stood, leaping out of the room with Jack hot on her trail.

“Come back with my pants! Jennifer!”

Jennifer slammed the door behind her, and then ran across the bedroom. Jack flung the door open with little effort and ran after her. The length of her dress made it easy for him to catch up; he jumped forward, his foot pressing down on the train of her dress and ripping off the fabric with a loud tear.

Jennifer gasped, twisting as the bottom of her dress tore, and she fell flatly to the floor, Jack’s pants bunched in her arm like some sort of finder’s prize. He kneeled down and grabbed at the green shards on the floor. “Please…” he stated with little hint of his emotion in his voice. “Give me my pants back.”

“You’re hiding something from me!” Jennifer responded, holding the pants closer to her. “And I’m going to find out what it is!” She started pushing her hands into the different pockets; expecting Jack to respond to this action, she waited for his voice of protest. When she heard nothing, she looked up to find him kneeling at the base of her dress, seemingly running his hands over the torn pieces of green fabric.

Silence clung to the air for an awkward moment. Jennifer couldn’t understand… why wasn’t he fighting her to contain this secret of his?

“Jack?” she said his name, her voice loud in the still air.

He shook his head in a bit of disbelief; he reached his hand forward under her dress. Jennifer sat up straight, watching him with sheer bewilderment.

“What are you—”

“This…” he pulled his hand back with what appeared to be a folded piece of paper held firmly between his first two fingers. He moved the paper close to his face, examining it closely, almost as if it would come to life.

Jennifer barely contained her shock as she scooted towards him on the floor. “What on Earth is that? Did that come from my dress?”

“Yes,” was all Jack could reply. He ran his hand over the face of the paper with an air of familiarity.

Jennifer watched this closely, curiosity overwhelming her. “Jack… what is it?”

“It’s… it’s a letter. And…” he suddenly rose from the floor, darting across the room to where his tuxedo jacket hung. He reached into the inside pocket where he had kept the items he wanted to stay safe with him all evening long. He pulled a similar piece of folded paper from the lining of the jacket.

Jennifer stayed in her place on the floor, the lengths of her dress sprawled across the carpeting like a forgotten child’s toy. Her eyes followed Jack’s every move as he came towards her, standing tall above her. He held these papers in each hand, looking back and forth between them, and then finally down at her.

“I found one just like this.”





END OF PART SIX...