“What you been up to these days, Jamie?” Ursula says, casting a disdainful glance at the blue light. “Playing with other people’s toys?”
“I could say the same to you, couldn’t I?” James retracts the light and for several seconds there are nothing but shadows. My vision finally adjusts and I find James and Ursula staring at each other, communicating in silent riddles while I try to catch my breath and to accept the three of us are back together again.
That’s not quite right.
We’re back together again, but we’re not the same. James has this blue light and Ursula has tentacles and I’m the only one being left behind. It’s strangely comforting to know that all the fears and anxieties I’ve been having lately have amounted to something. Things are changing and now I have the evidence before me.
“Where have you been?” I say.
“Here, there, and everywhere,” she responds, grinning. “But now I’m going nowhere fast.”
I step toward her, but the severity of her glare stops me. It’s like she’s not even glad to see me. “Ursula, did you know everyone’s looking for you? Did you know your mom and Morgana are going out of their minds? I have been completely freaked out…. We both have! Even Smee and the boys have been looking for you everywhere. We thought you were dead or kidnapped or—”
“What happened to you?” James demands. “Where have you been?”
She looks at both of us coolly. “I’m glad to know I’ve been missed, and I suppose I can forgive you for dragging me out of my repose.”
“Reposing? That’s what you were doing? In Miracle Lake? How is that even possible?” What I really want to say is, Who are you? Where is my best friend? Because I’m screeching, but I can’t stop. Because Ursula is right in front of me. Except she’s not.
“A little old lake is no match for me,” Ursula says.
“It’s poison,” I bluster. “It…It kills people.”
“Exactly. It kills people.”
“Oh, so you’re not a person anymore?”
She shrugs. “Call it whatever you like. Miracle Lake is like sunlight on plant leaves for me. It’s feeding what needs to be fed.”
“Come home, Urs.” I’m trying to break through to the person I’ve always known, but it seems like there’s too little of her left to register my appeal.
“There’s no home for me anymore, not until the Scar is back to its old self. I have to go back and see this through.”
“Back? What are you talking about? Back where?”
I’m desperate, but James doesn’t seem surprised by anything she’s saying. He snorts lightly, a sign of disgust.
“You want me to pretend none of this ever happened? I can’t. That me doesn’t exist anymore.” Ursula flops an arm over my shoulder. “You want to help me, Mary? Make the city stop investigating. Make the kids at school stop looking for me, make everyone forget about me. Go back to normal and let me handle my business.”
“Go back to normal…without you?” This is an impossibility.
“I left a letter in Ma’s room and she hasn’t found it,” Ursula goes on as if she hasn’t heard me. “I wanted to give one to you, Mary, but there’s always someone awake at your apartment. So inconvenient. But now here you are! It’s perfection for my plan.”
“Plan?”
With a little flourish she produces a letter from the air, in an envelope, time-stamped from California. I take it. It’s real. Real paper, depressions of real ink on the envelope.
“Give this to the police. It will prove to them I’m alive and get them off my back.”
I try to read it but the dark makes it difficult to get the curling letters to make any sense.
“No need to read it,” she says. “It’s just me saying the Scar makes me sad and I made too many enemies and blah blah I ran away blah.”
“You…you’re not coming back?”
“Oh, sweetie, don’t worry, you’ll see me again soon. Just not yet. I have people to see, things to do. And I have to go back. I’m not done there yet.” She chucks me on the chin. “You need to trust I’m where I want to be and everything is amazing.”
“Amazing?” My heart feels like it’s cracking in half and I choke out the last syllable. James, who has been mostly silent, touches my elbow so I know he’s there. “Amazing? It hasn’t been amazing here. It’s been terrifying, worse than anything. I thought you were being tortured. I thought—”
“I was,” she says nonchalantly, but I hear pain in her voice, and she won’t meet my eyes. These are the first signs of the Ursula I know, the real Ursula that only comes out when she’s safe. “I went by choice and they did their experiments, and then they wouldn’t let me leave. It hurt to get these tentacles. And then they took my soul and it hurt so much more I thought I would die. Really I did. But in the end that’s when I became free. No more troubling thoughts and pesky emotions. No more worrying about anyone. You should try it, Mary.”
“But you escaped from wherever you were. You came here, right next to my apartment. People have seen you. There were tentacle marks all over the cars. That’s a cry for help.”
She lets out a loud belly laugh. “Is that what you think? A cry for help?” She laughs again, hanging on to the fence for support, then wipes at her eyes. “No, no,” she says. “I was just having a little fun, shaking things up.” She scowls, going deadly serious. “I’m coming for Monarch, and soon. I just wanted to let everyone have a little fun before I crush them.”
“What do you have planned?” James says. “Maybe me and the boys want in.”
Ursula considers this. “Maybe later. I’m not ready yet. I have to go back for more.”
“More what? Power? Strength?”
“More magic, baby,” she says. She changes from a human to an eel to a giant floating jellyfish and back to a human in a matter of seconds, so fast I could almost have missed it.
“Shape-shifter,” James says.
“Jealous? Not happy with your little baby-blue light?” Ursula retorts. “You want to know why I’m here? I needed to let them know if I came back it would be on my terms. They can’t keep me against my will. If they want me around they’re going to have to play my game my way.”
“Is that what this is?” James says. “A game? Seems like a game only crazy people would play.”
“Oh, Jamie,” she says. “It’s all a game.” She turns to me. “I’m sorry this upsets you. I really don’t want you to be upset. I know I had big feelings for you. I loved you.”
“Loved? Past tense?”
“Look out for Ma and Morgie and the cats until I can get back, will you? Make sure Ma gets to her appointments and Morgie eats, otherwise they’re both liable to die.” She says it like it’s nothing, like she would be okay if that’s what happened.
I stare at her, but the staring only makes it worse. She’s being serious.
I try one last time to reach her wherever she is. Her soul can’t really be gone. It can’t be separated from the body, can it? It has to be in there somewhere. “What happened to finishing high school, opening a real business online, making money, buying a house? And mostly helping to fix the Scar. Where are you going?”
She takes my hands in her clammy palms. Ursula, who has always run hot, has hands like cold, damp washcloths. “I am trying to fix the Scar. Stop looking for me. Stop looking for Mally. Just stop. You’ll end up dealing the Scar a death blow if you don’t.”
Ursula’s still so stunning, round and full as a peach, but she’s not my Ursula anymore.
“Don’t leave,” I plead.
“You don’t think you’re just leaving.” James pushes his way between us.
“Don’t go.” It feels like she’s already gone, like the ache of the last few days is going to grow into a chasm as bottomless as Miracle Lake.
“Ursula!” James shouts.
“See you on the flip side, Mary. I’ll be back for my mother, my sister, for you, and for the Scar.” Ursula launches herself gracefully into
the water, feet turned to tentacles. We hear a few splashes and then we’re left only with each other and the silence of Miracle Lake, its surface smooth as beach glass.
And just like that, I know Ursula’s password.
IT’S ALMOST A LETDOWN WHEN I FIND OUT I’M right about the password.
SCAR.
I had thought of birthdays and people, but it was just this simple. The Scar is the thing that means the most to her. What we find inside the phone makes me forget all about Ursula’s claims of not having a soul and of making things right for the Scar. It makes me forget that she loves a place above all the people in her life. When we begin to scroll through the messages it’s like the door to Ursula’s inner life is opened and black tar is pouring out all over everything.
There are so many text messages. It’s only eight o’clock on a Tuesday morning, and there’s no way I’m going to school today with everything going on. Bella and I have already spent a couple hours at my kitchen table drinking coffee, sifting through her messages, matching them up to the numbers and names in the phone.
From what we’ve gathered so far, it seems there were the smaller deals, like doing history papers for people and taking revenge on behalf of broken hearts. That’s what I witnessed her doing at school, at Wonderland, taking selfies and collecting promises. It seemed harmless enough, like something she had to do to keep her mother and Morgana safe.
But then, hidden from everyone, even James, even me, there was this phone. And this was where the real stuff was happening. Bigger business deals, brokering hard-core vengeance, blackmailing everyone she could get dirt on. The fact that I know Ursula’s alive at least alleviates some of my fears. She had her fingers in so many pies that if we had gotten into this phone without seeing her first, I couldn’t have been convinced she was anything but dead.
And now, the letter she gave me is burning through my pocket. I haven’t delivered it to Colman and Mahony and I don’t know if I will, but I feel like the fate of the Scar rests on my shoulders. James, my boyfriend, can conjure blue light. Ursula, my best friend, can shape-shift and is talking about saving the Scar. At what cost? That’s what keeps going through my head. How far does Legacy Loyalty go?
“You all right?” Bella asks.
“Yes.” This is the fourth time Bella has asked me this question in the last thirty minutes, as it was revealed through texts we found on the burner phone that the school board has been taking money from Narrows industrial types in exchange for promises to replace Legacy teachers and change the classes to eliminate any mention of magic. Only Ursula’s chokehold on three of the school board members has kept it from going through and permanently undoing Monarch High’s tradition of acknowledging and respecting the Scar’s past. Seeing what Ursula has been up to is hard to stomach, but it’s also better to know the truth, to swallow it like a dry pill. But I bet if people find out what a sixteen-year-old girl has been up to, and that this same girl has supposedly taken off to California, they wouldn’t let her go gently. She would have a lot to answer for. I’m juggling hot potatoes and have no idea where they’ll land.
“Because if you feel like it’s too much, and it would be too much for anyone—” Bella starts.
“It is not too much.” I try to focus on the here and now and what can be done with the information we have. Whom do we tell? Anyone? Or do we wrap the phone and the notebook in a towel and dump it in Miracle Lake before anyone can find it?
“Oh, boy,” Bella says as I’m running down a list from the notebook.
“What now?”
It’s been groans and squeals all morning, so I brace myself.
“Do you know the name Caleb Rothco?” she says.
I get a tremor of recognition but nothing I can hold on to. “No. Why?”
“Are you ready for this?” Bella says.
“Yes!” I lower my voice. If we aren’t careful we’re going to wake Gia, and I don’t want her in on any of this. She would probably lock me in the house and never let me leave again. “What?”
“Ursula was fighting with someone named Caleb.” She scrolls. “I mean worse than everyone else. Way worse. In this text thread, he threatened her if she didn’t back off, and she told him if he threatened her again she would reveal his darkest secret. Then there’s nothing.” Bella looks up at me and I feel guilty all over again. I haven’t told her about last night. James and I promised each other no one can know anything about Ursula being alive until we have more information. Not Smee. Not the boys. Not Gia. And definitely not Bella. “I have a feeling about this one. I think we should follow up.”
“Wait!” I say. “I have seen that name before.” I flip back a few pages in the notebook and tap the page with scrawls all over it. In one corner it says:
CALEB ROTHCO
CUBBY’S TATTOO
WONDER AND VINE
“I know that place,” I say. “It’s right by the Tea Party. James got one of his tattoos in there.”
Bella’s expression is hard to read. Maybe she senses I’m not telling her something.
“Bella, I know what we’re doing isn’t strictly aboveboard. It also isn’t about Mally Saint, and I know you’re disobeying direct orders from the chief. I’m selfish, but not so selfish I want you to get hurt.” I hesitate. “You’ve been really decent, and if this is the end of the line for you I can do this without you. I have James. I’ll be okay.”
“No,” Bella says. “I’m too invested to drop out now. I’m convinced there’s a connection between Mally and Ursula. I just need to be able to prove it. And if we hand all this off to those jackass detectives they’ll get all the glory…whatever glory is at the end of this disaster of a rainbow…and that is not going to happen. I’ve pretty much had it with the boys club over there. Even with a female chief they think they’re in charge, that I couldn’t possibly be capable of having anything real to contribute.” She folds one hand over the other and looks at me levelly. “No. I’m in.”
“Are you sure? Because you can go home and take a bubble bath or something and I can figure this out.”
She gives me a sideways half smile. She’s reached new heights of cuteness today in a pair of plaid overalls and a red T-shirt with her hair piled high on her head and a pair of red-framed glasses to match. It gives her a whole new level of fresh brightness. Almost makes me want to change out of my black jeans and T-shirt. I pull an old lip moisturizer out of my pocket and slather some across my mouth. Other than some mascara, that’s the best I can do today.
“I don’t want to take a bubble bath, Mary Elizabeth,” she says. “We have to get it together by Wednesday, remember? That’s our drop-dead date from the chief. If we don’t make some headway on Mally’s case we’re both headed back to filing, and even though that may be unavoidable, I’m going to do my best.”
“Monday is November first,” I remind her.
“Yes it is. The thirteenth anniversary of the Great Death, second anniversary of the Fall,” Bella says. “Maybe we’ll have found Mally and we can be part of the Acknowledgment along with everyone else.”
I know it’s the wrong time to ask, but when Bella’s eyes go glassy I say, “Who did you lose in the Fall? Dad? Grandma?”
For several seconds it looks like Bella might answer me, but then she plasters on a smile, grabs her satchel, and says, “I don’t know about you, but I could use another cup of coffee!”
“Which one do you think he is?” I say.
Cubby’s Tattoo has just opened and it’s littered with good-looking guys around our age, or at least they’re guys I think are good-looking. Judging by her discomfort, that may not be the case for Bella. Maybe tattoos on bald heads and covering whole backs is going a little too far for her.
“We’ll just have to go in and see.” Bella swings the door open.
We’re immediately greeted by the accusatory staccato of punk music and the smell of faded incense. A girl in the corner is getting her navel pierced, and on the other side a middle-aged woman is
getting a tattoo on her belly. There’s a steaming kettle and an assortment of teas on a dark antique wood table to the side, and a huge Legacy flag covers one wall. There’s also a sign that reads:
THIS IS A LEGACY ESTABLISHMENT. IF YOU ARE NOT LEGACY YOU WILL NOT BE SERVED. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.—CUBBY
It’s clean and orderly in here. The surfaces are filled with tattoo machines, ink, and needle sterilizers. There’s a decent green couch in one corner and a table filled with books. By my count of tables in the room, four tattoo artists and one piercer work at the same time, though it looks like two of them are just hanging out waiting for customers.
A blond guy comes over from the corner and checks our Legacy marks. “Books are on the table if you want anything by me or Caleb,” he says. “Joe’s designs are on the wall if you think that would be more your speed.”
I don’t answer, so he looks from me to Bella and back. “You’re here for a tat right? I’m sorry if I made assumptions. Is it you?” he asks Bella.
“No, we’re not here to get tattoos,” Bella says, putting down the book she’s picked up. “Though this is lovely work.”
The guy looks amused. “So what do you need? You selling some-thing? I’m not doing any more donations. Magicalists, Naturalists, Amagicalists. Too many groups to keep track of. I’m a realist, so let’s leave it at that.”
“Actually, we’re looking for Caleb Rothco.”
The guy is about to say something when a voice comes from the corner. “That’s me.” A shadow rises from the corner and steps into the light. He’s compact, with green eyes, no hair, and a goatee. He looks to be in his late twenties. The idea that this guy and Ursula were going head-to-head is discomfiting. He’s got the same look of determination she has, and the way he strides through the room like he owns it has shades of her, too. Seems like he might have been a worthy opponent for her. He might have really scared her. I examine him for signs that he might also be kidnapping people and keeping them in dungeons somewhere, doing “experiments” or whatever Ursula was talking about, but unfortunately there aren’t any blinking lights or signs revealing him as a criminal.
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