Girl of Nightmares

CHAPTER NINE

Thomas drops me off in my driveway, still grumbling about Morfran and Riika and the gingersnaps. I’m glad I don’t have to bear witness to that confrontation. Personally, I think that eating the cookies is a minor point compared to the part where Morfran sent his grandson to unknowingly visit a dead family member, but hey, everybody has their pet peeves. Apparently Thomas’s is dead peoples’ snack food.

In between mutterings and spitting out the window, Thomas told me he’d need at least a week to research the Lappish drum and the proper ritual to channel Anna through. I put on my most understanding expression and nodded, the whole time fighting the urge to find the nearest stick and start pounding out a solo on the drum in my lap. It’s stupid. Being careful and doing things right the first time is pretty much a requirement. I don’t know what’s going on in my head. When I get inside my house, I find that I can’t sit still. I don’t want to eat or watch TV. I don’t want to do anything but know more.

My mom comes through the door ten minutes after I do, a gigantic pizza box on her arm, and stops when she sees me pacing.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I say. “Had an interesting visit with Thomas’s dead aunt this afternoon. She gave us a way to communicate with Anna.”

Aside from a slight widening of her eyes, there’s a total nonreaction. She almost shrugs before trundling through the living room into the kitchen. A quick spark of anger tingles in my wrists. I expected more. I expected her to be excited, to be happy that I might get to talk to Anna again, to make sure she’s all right.

“You had a conversation with Thomas’s dead aunt,” she says, calmly opening the pizza box. “And I had a conversation with Gideon this afternoon.”

“What’s the matter with you? I didn’t just tell you that there’s a new blue plate special over at Gargoyles restaurant. I didn’t just tell you that I stubbed my toe, though I’m sure that would have gotten more attention.”

“He said you should leave it alone.”

“I don’t know what’s going on with everyone,” I say. “Telling me to let it go. To move on. Like it’s that easy. Like I can just keep on seeing her like this. I mean, hell! Carmel thinks I’m a psycho!”

“Cas,” she says. “Calm down. Gideon has his reasons. And I think he’s right. I can feel it, that something’s happening.”

“But you don’t know what, right? I mean, it’s something bad, but you don’t know exactly? And you think I should just let whatever is happening to Anna keep happening, because of what? Your woman’s intuition?”

“Hey,” she snaps, her voice deep.

“Sorry,” I snap right back.

“I’m not just your worrying mother, Theseus Cassio Lowood. I’m a witch. Intuition counts for a lot.” Her jaw is set in that particular way that she has when she’d rather chew through leather than say what she wants to say. “I know what you really want,” she says carefully. “You don’t just want to make sure she’s all right. You want to bring her back.”

I lower my eyes.

“And, my god, Cas, part of me wishes it were possible. She saved your life and avenged my husband’s murder. But you can’t walk down that road.”

“Why not?” I ask, and my voice sounds bitter.

“Because there are rules,” she replies. “That shouldn’t be broken.”

I raise my eyes and glare at her. “You didn’t say ‘can’t.’”

“Cas—”

Another minute of this and I’m going to flip out. So I put up my hands and head for my bedroom, closing my ears to everything she says as I go up the stairs, choking on a million words I want to yell into all of their faces. Thomas seems like the only person remotely interested in figuring out what’s going on.

Anna is waiting in my bedroom. Her head lolls as if on a broken neck; her eyes roll up to mine.

“It’s too much, right now,” I whisper, and she mouths something back. I don’t try to read her lips. Too much black blood spills through them. Slowly, she moves away, and I try to keep my eyes on the carpet but I can’t, not quite, so when she throws herself through my window, I see her dress flutter as she falls and hear the thump of her body when it hits the ground.

“God damn it,” I say in a voice caught somewhere between a growl and a moan. My fists hit the wall, my dresser; I knock the lamp off my bedside table. My mom’s words twitter through my ears, making it sound so easy. She talks like she thinks I’m a schoolboy with fantasies of heroes who get the girl and ride off into the sunset. What kind of world does she think I grew up in?

“It’s probably going to be blood,” Thomas says in a regretful tone that doesn’t match the devious excitement in his eyes. “It’s almost always blood.”

“Yeah? Well if it’s going to be more than a pint, let me know now, so I can bank it,” I reply, and he grins. We’re at his locker, talking about the ritual, which he still doesn’t have nailed down. But to be fair, it’s only been a day and a half. The blood he’s referring to is the conduit—the link to the other side—or the price. I’m not sure which. He’s talked about it both ways, like a bridge, and like a toll. Maybe it’s both, and the other side is basically a toll road. He’s a little bit nervous while we talk, I think because he senses my eagerness. He can probably tell I haven’t slept much either. I look like total shit.

Thomas straightens when Carmel walks up, looking ten times better than we do, as usual. Her hair is up in a clip, bouncing jauntily in a sweep of blond. The sparkle from her silver bracelets hurts my eyes.

“Hey, Thomas,” she says. “Hey, zombie-Cas.”

“Hey,” I say. “So I guess you heard what happened.”

“Yeah, Thomas told me. Pretty scary stuff.”

I shrug. “It wasn’t that bad. Riika was actually cool. You should’ve come.”

“Well. Maybe I would have if I hadn’t been kicked out of the club.” She lowers her eyes and Thomas goes immediately on the defensive, apologizing for Morfran, insisting he was out of line, and Carmel nods, keeping her eyes on the floor.

Something’s going on behind Carmel’s lowered lashes. She doesn’t think I’m watching, or maybe she thinks I’m too tired to notice, but even through the exhaustion I can see what it is, and the knowledge makes me hold my breath. Carmel was happy to be kicked out. Sometime in between rune carving and being tacked to a wall by a pitchfork, it all got to be too much. It’s there in her eyes; the way they linger regretfully on Thomas when he isn’t looking, and the way they blink and sparkle fake interest when he tells her about the ritual. And the whole time Thomas just keeps on smiling, oblivious to the fact that she is basically already gone. It feels like I’ve watched the last ten minutes of a movie first.

Spending the entire school year at the same school is something I haven’t done since eighth grade, and I have to say, it’s sort of obnoxious. It’s the Monday of the last week of the year, and if I have to sign one more yearbook I’m going to sign it in the owner’s blood. People I’ve never spoken to are walking up with a pen and a smile, hoping for something more personal than “have a neat summer” when such hopes are futile. And I can’t help but suspect that what they really want is for me to write something cryptic or crazy, some new clue they could use for the rumor mill. It’s been tempting, but so far I haven’t done it.

When there’s a tap on my shoulder and I turn around to see Cait Hecht, my botched date from two weeks ago, I almost back into my locker.

“Hey, Cas,” she smiles. “Sign my yearbook?”

“Absolutely,” I say, and take it, scrambling to think of something personal but all that goes through my brain is “have a neat summer.” I write her name and then a comma. What now? “Sorry about the brush-off, but you reminded me of a girl I killed”? Or maybe, “It never would have worked. The girl I love would disembowel you.”

“So, are you doing anything cool this summer?” she asks.

“Uh, I don’t know. Maybe travel around a bit more.”

“But you’ll be back here in the fall?” Her brows are raised politely, but it’s just small talk. Carmel says Cait started dating Quentin Davis two days after the coffee shop. I was relieved to hear it, and am relieved now that she doesn’t seem upset in the least.

“That is a very good question,” I say, before giving up and scribbling “have a great summer” into the corner of the page.