Carnival of Souls

CHAPTER 16

MALLORY’S BODY ACHED LIKE she’d been thrown into a pit of burning coals, swarmed by ants, and doused with ice water. She stared up at her ceiling, thinking about Kaleb in an attempt to distract herself from how absolutely wretched she felt. It didn’t improve how she actually felt, but it was a great way to fill the hour.

Despite her best intentions, she’d fallen asleep before Adam was home again. She’d heard him come in late at night to check on her, so she knew he was okay. She, however, felt far from okay. When she woke early that morning, she couldn’t get out of bed. She tried, but even the thought of standing seemed exhausting. She didn’t know anyone who got as sick as she did — at least, no one who got this sick but didn’t go to a hospital. Her father always fixed her, but he never explained why she got so ill. She’d told herself time and again that maybe these episodes weren’t weird, but the older she got, the more she knew that they were about as weird as women who exhaled birds — and beautiful guys talking about “belonging” after one kiss.

Even if she hadn’t felt horrible, she would have wanted to stay in bed thinking about Kaleb. He seemed so abnormal in her world. What was normal for the daughter of a witch who spent his life running from the daimons he’d robbed wasn’t exactly the kind of normal that she wanted. Kaleb is. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure how to have a relationship if she had to lie, and she was certain Adam wasn’t going to allow her to tell a human about witches and daimons, and after the daimon encounter, she wasn’t at all sure she’d be able to keep Kaleb safe even if she could reveal the secrets she knew.

The reality was that she did need to deal with her version of normal, though. She sat up and swung her feet to the floor, fighting the urge to simply yell for her father. She didn’t, but she didn’t get any farther either.

She wasn’t sure if it was a minute or an hour later, but he tapped on her door. “Mallory? Are you awake?”

“I am.” She sat on the edge of her bed with her quilt wrapped around her like a cloak. Even bundled up, she felt cold.

Her father opened the door and then paused, wearing a look of panic that made Mallory think that the worry lines around his eyes were deeper than they had once been. The plain oxford shirt and dark trousers he had on told her that he had been heading in to the new office early.

After a moment, he came to the bed and put a hand to her forehead, checking for fever. She felt the cold metal of the single ring he wore even after her mother had left.

Mallory had been through this enough times that she stayed still as he felt her ears and forehead with the back of his hand and then tilted her head to look into her eyes. She waited while he felt under her ears for swelling and then inevitably started asking questions. Her mind felt too fuzzy to try to figure out what to tell him.

“Are you dizzy? Sore throat? Nauseous?” He stepped back and watched her as he spoke.

“No.”

“You’re freezing.”

“I know.” She felt guilty even though she didn’t choose to be cold. “I need to talk to you.”

“Just a minute,” he said, and then muttering quiet curses, or possibly spells for her health, he walked out of the room. In only a few moments, he’d returned with an electric blanket. He wrapped it around her, plugged it in, and left again. In short order, he was back with a glass of hot water into which he’d stirred some herbal concoction made palatable with plenty of sugar and a touch of lemon.

“Drink.”

Obediently, Mallory emptied the glass. She couldn’t ask why she got so cold, never asked why he knew how to make it better. She’d thought about it, but every time she started to do so, the urge to ask vanished. Good daughters don’t question their fathers. Her father could always assess what was wrong within only a few moments, and he inevitably brewed some potion or other to make her better. Why ask, when he can fix it?

He went to the window, picked up the little sachet he’d refreshed every month in every house she could recall, and sniffed it. “No strangers came here, did they?” As he spoke, he checked the line of salt that edged every room in the house. Hers was unbroken. “Was someone at the door? In the house?”

“No.” Mallory shook her head.

Adam’s expression didn’t change. He didn’t muss his perfectly ordered hair; he didn’t scowl at her. He simply asked, “What happened?”

Mallory sighed. She didn’t want to, but she told him, “I had a date, sort of… with Kaleb. I ran into him and then we had dinner and… it wasn’t planned. I didn’t know I’d see him.”

Her father swallowed visibly. “Did this Kaleb do something to you? Did he touch you? Did he hurt you? Tell me, Mallory.”

It felt like words were being pulled from her lips. They tumbled out too fast. “No! We kissed, but I wanted him to kiss me. It was after dinner… and there was a strange woman. She threw Kaleb aside and”—she looked directly at her father—“she released birds from her mouth. I think she was a daimon. I couldn’t kill her. I couldn’t hurt her, and then she blew ashes into my face.”

“Ashes?”

“One of the birds disintegrated, and I inhaled it,” Mallory said.

The bed dipped as he sat on the foot of it. “Is there more?”

For a moment, Mallory almost told him about how strange Kaleb made her feel, how right the world felt when he was near her, but she kept her lips firmly shut and shook her head. Her hand curled around the still-warm glass, she stared at her father and concentrated on the daimon, not Kaleb. “She breathed birds.”

He took the glass from her hand. “Let me get you another drink.”

She nodded. After he left, she reached under her pillow. Her hand closed around the carved stone pendant she usually wore. Her mother had believed that it would protect her. From what, no one would tell her. Mallory had questions about that too, but her mother had said that she wouldn’t answer those questions until Mallory turned seventeen. Three days ago.

Last night, Mallory had tucked the pendant under her pillow, but that apparently wasn’t close enough since she still had the shakes. She got out of bed and rummaged in a drawer until she found a ribbon. She slid the pendant onto it and tied it around her throat and immediately felt better. A rock shouldn’t make that much of a difference, and even when she wore it, there were still times she was struck by illnesses unlike anything that ever hit any of her friends in any of the cities where they’d lived — but she felt better with it on.

Before her father returned, she was back in bed.

He came in and sat on the edge of the bed again. He brushed her hair away from her eyes. “You know you were just as frustrated by being sick when you were little. The first time you got better after one of these episodes, you tried to get me to give you a ‘never sick again’ potion. I would if I could. I’d protect you from every moment of anything that hurts.”

“Being sick reminds me that I’m human, right?”

“It certainly proves I’m not as omnipotent as I wish I could be.” Adam squeezed her hand. “I can stay home today.”

“No.” She tried to smile back as if she didn’t feel as wretched as she did. “I’m seventeen, not seven, Daddy. I’ll sleep, and if I feel worse, I’ll call you. I know the routine.”

Her father kissed her forehead. “If there was a ‘never sick again’ potion, I’d give it to you. All I want is to protect you, Mallory.”

“I know,” she assured him.

For a moment he said nothing, and then he brought up the detail that they hadn’t discussed. “Once you’re well, I’ll expect to meet this Kaleb before you go anywhere with him again, and before you let him in the house. Do you understand?”

She half laughed, half groaned. “I doubt that he’ll be back. He has probably rationalized it all away, but he did see me fall to the ground like a klutz. That he’ll remember. It’s probably not safe for him anyhow, right? If we could tell him…” She let the sentence linger, but her father didn’t offer to let her reveal secrets.

Instead, he asked, “Did you invite him into the old house?”

Her father’s voice was so calm that if she didn’t know him, she’d think nothing of it, but she did know him. Adam was decidedly not at ease.

“Once,” she admitted. Her eyes started to drift shut. Some of his potions did that, but she hated the helplessness of it. She blinked, fighting to keep her eyes open.

“Has he asked you to go anywhere? Give him anything?” He stopped her as she tried to sit.

She frowned, but stayed reclining. It wouldn’t matter soon. The need to sleep was winning. “No.”

Adam tucked the covers closer around her. “I need to meet him, Mallory. You are too precious to me, and—”

“I like him,” Mallory finally admitted drowsily. “I need him. I can’t explain, but I think I really need him.”

Her father didn’t reply to what she’d said. Instead, he instructed, “Promise me you won’t go anywhere with him or let him in the house. Say it.”

“I promise,” she agreed reluctantly, and then she gave in to sleep.