But why couldn’t I be more specific? I used intention in my Diviner gift all the time and it listened. I focused on future or past, on seeking details and seeing the clues. Why couldn’t I focus my Hangman ability in the same way, to use intention to hone its effect?
All the other wisps of ideas, the scattered pieces began to coalesce. Everything had a sort of heart, didn’t it? An essence? If I could focus on essences, get to the heart of something, what could I do?
I thought about the tree behind me, supporting my back with its wide, old trunk. The tree was so many things all working together. The roots, the branches that in the springtime would fill with leaves, the strong body holding it all together. In a way, each piece had its own heart, its own essence or little piece of life, didn’t it? Jill had proved I could do more than stop a literal heart.
Ever since the day I’d been sparked, I’d done two things: touched basically every object in Carter’s apartment to see if I could learn more about his father’s death and touched every living thing I came into contact with until I could feel its life, like I first had in Carter.
I stood and turned, looking up at the canopy of the great tree, its bare skeleton arms clacking together in the winter breeze. I took off my glove and rested my hand against it. The bark was rough under my skin, but when I opened my senses, I could feel the tingling pulse of life, warmer and more pleasant than the buzz from any object with a death story, but slower and bigger than the sense I’d get from a person. I stood there for a long time, trying to follow the connections, to trace the path from the roots to the branches with my mind. I wished it had leaves so I could try to feel those too.
I wondered how Thought would or could affect it. I’d hoped a sort of map would appear if I concentrated hard enough, but that would have been too easy. My visions were only for the dead. Life, I had to feel. And I could feel it, all connected, each little piece making up the whole.
Maybe all I really needed was intention. Mental focus and my own ability to visualize. Or maybe I was just crazy.
But somehow this felt like the right kind of crazy.
THAT’S HOW I began my new hobby of killing things. I added it to my other hobbies of antiquing, keeping secrets, and worrying.
I couldn’t bring myself to harm the oak tree. It was old and strong and beautiful. Also, I couldn’t easily observe it. I needed to try something smaller and closer to home, preferably with leaves. I’d once told myself I couldn’t practice my Hangman gift, but I was wrong. I wouldn’t practice it. I didn’t see a need to or even how. Now I did.
The spark had shown me I could feel the life in everything. Surely I could extinguish it, too. This was research, I told myself. Science. I had to do some things I didn’t necessarily want to in order to understand the scope of my gift. Plants would be my sacrifice.
My hypothesis wasn’t just that I could kill one, but that I could affect it in pieces. There was more to my theory, but this is where I would start. Could I kill a single off-shoot? A single leaf? I understood now, long after the fact, that when I’d tried to kill the rose on the day of my spark, I was too late. It was already dead. It looked alive, but it wasn’t, not really. It was just in the beginning process of fading.
While the simplest and least guilt-inducing thing to do would have been to buy a series of plants and experiment on them in an orderly way, I didn’t have that luxury. There was no way I could bring a bunch of plants to anywhere on campus without explaining myself to someone, and that was the thing I couldn’t do. How did you explain to people, even other Sententia, you were systematically practicing killing things? Dr. Stewart had basically forbidden me from ever using my Carnifex gift on campus, and who could blame her. So instead, I had to seek out plants of convenience.
At Marquise, on a small table between the entry and Ms. Kim’s door, was a poinsettia plant that was not fading at all. Since they were pretty and also essentially non-denominational, campus was covered with them at the holidays. The dorm attendants, the adults anyway, had a yearly contest to see who could keep theirs alive the longest. It was silly, since most of them died during winter break or sooner, but some of the staff took it seriously. Ms. Kim had won last year, and I was pretty sure she’d already won this year too. I hoped so, because I felt like shit for what I was about to do.
When I finally got back, without giving myself any more time to think about it, I closed the door behind me, swallowed my guilt, and touched the plant stem near the dirt. I felt the life-tingle as soon as I opened my senses and without further ado, I extinguished it.
It was quick, the sensation of the Thought rushing up and then dissipating. What replaced it was interesting. I expected maybe there’d be nothing, no feeling, no more vibrations of any kind. But instead, there was a new buzzing, the kind that told me the plant had a death story to tell. I supposed, in a way, it was my signature.
Out of a sense of duty, as well as curiosity, I watched it. Given the opportunity, I imagined any other Grim Diviner could see it too. I was glad there were no others on campus. I couldn’t use any of my gifts on myself, but the plant, even though it was my victim, gave up its vision easily. I felt strangely detached from the image of myself gripping the stem. It looked like nothing, a girl touching a plant for a few scant seconds, though I knew it was more than that; even if I hadn’t just done the deed, my gift told me otherwise. The girl had done it—she was the killer.
I ran up the stairs, trying hard not to cry from the shame, reminding myself it had already had a much longer life than average. The knowledge did not comfort me. I knew it was only a plant, and I probably hadn’t ruined Ms. Kim’s contest, but I still hated myself for harming it. Intentionally harming it. Maybe the problem was I hated myself for being able to harm things.
But I had to know. I had to know what I could do and the extent of my powers, because they were the best defenses I’d ever have and right now I needed to feel like I had any defenses at all. Plus, if my theories proved true, maybe someday I could use my gifts in a way even I could accept.
What awaited me in my room was a mess of another nature.
Chapter Eighteen
Amy got caught.
That’s what I gathered when I found her pacing in the middle of our room with eyes red from crying. She stopped and looked at me when I opened the door, meeting my eyes for just a second before looking down and starting to pace again. I didn’t say anything right away. On my desk was a large coffee from Anderson’s which I was, frankly, more happy to see than my roommate right then.
After I picked it up and took a long sip—she’d gotten pretty good at my preferred level of cream and sugar—I stated the obvious. “You got caught.”
She stopped again and looked back at me, nodding. She looked like crap, tired and worried, with bedraggled curls and unevenly removed eyeliner smudged even worse from crying. I knew before getting caught had ruined everything, she’d probably looked post-dance-bliss cute in a rumpled way. She hadn’t brushed her hair on purpose.
Her eyes told how upset she was, pleading with me for something, I didn’t know what. To help, to make the problem go away, to not be mad at her. Except I was. I was mad at her. I was sweaty and exhausted, physically and mentally, and had bigger problems fighting for space on an already too-full plate of them. I’d just killed a freaking defenseless poinsettia plant, for God’s sake.
I sighed, took another sip of my coffee. Looked at her for another few seconds. “I told you,” I said. It was a shitty thing to say, but the truth.
Amy swallowed, and the look on her face made clear how bitter that was going down. “No shit, Lane. I should have listened. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” I snapped back. I could tell Mount St. Amy was brewing, her temper always quick to boil and erupt, but for once, I didn’t feel like stopping it. She could get as pissed at me as she wanted, because this was a problem all her own. What I really wanted to do was take a shower at least as long as yesterday’s, but I drank my coffee and listened i
nstead. “Tell me what happened. And thank you, for this,” I added, shaking my cup. We were both angry, but I shouldn’t be rude.
She flopped on my bed, because she’d haphazardly unpacked half her bag on hers, and picked at threads unraveling from the hem of her sweatshirt. Actually, Caleb’s sweatshirt. It was gray, with UMASS across the chest in a kind of funny script. The first time I’d seen it, I’d thought it said WASS, and couldn’t figure out what that meant. Everyone had laughed at me and now whenever I was being daft, Amy’d say, “You’re such a wass, Lane.” Thinking about that made me a tiny bit less angry.
“It was perfect,” she said, softly. “Wasn’t it? The dance.” From my nightstand, she picked up my crown and tilted it a few times, watching the sparkles.
“Yeah, it was.”
“I told you,” she said, shaking the crown in my direction.
“I guess we were both right.”
“I wish you weren’t so freaking noble all the time and had voted for yourself.”
“I don’t. It worked out perfectly.”
She grimaced. “You had to share. With her.”
“I didn’t mind,” I said, shrugging. “And…I didn’t hate it. Being queen.” Maybe a piece of me had even loved it, and the look Amy gave me told me she knew just how much I didn’t hate it.
“It was perfect,” Amy repeated. “Why did Stewart have to be wandering around campus this morning, huh? I mean, where does she even live? Does she sleep in her office? I swear she just haunts this place twenty-four seven.”
Ouch. And of all the people to catch her. The headmaster lived in a house on the bookstore side of Main Street, close enough to walk to campus, but outside the bounds of where students could go without permission. Everyone knew that, including Amy. But it really did seem like she was always somewhere on campus. I also wanted to point out that it was afternoon now, but that wouldn’t make things any better.
“It should have been fine,” Amy continued. “I had the car drop me off by Anderson’s and if anyone saw me I could just say I came to get coffee. The cups would be proof when I came back through the gates.”
“You look like you haven’t been home.”
“That’s what Dr. Stewart said.” She sat up, hugging her knees to her chest.
“And you were carrying your bag.”
“I can carry a bag whenever I want!” Her temper was rising again. “It’s not like I was still wearing my dress or something. Besides, I thought she was joking with me. It sounded like she was trying to be funny.”
Uh oh. “What did you say? No, what did she say?”
“She said, ‘Just getting back, Ms. Moretti?’ but I swear she sounded like she was joking.”
For real uh oh. “Seriously? When is she ever joking? What did you say?”
“I said, ‘Of course not!’ and I laughed, because…I thought…” The extent of her error was starting to become apparent.
“You lied to her?! Amy! You know better!”
She spun on the bed to look at me. “What the hell was I supposed to say? It was just being funny. Except then she didn’t laugh back.” I groaned. “You can’t lie to her.”
“I wasn’t lying!”
“Yeah, you were.”
“I didn’t mean to! I was, like, joking.” Amy got up and started pacing again, face a little pink from her frustration. “How does she even know? I bet she kills at poker. Who can bluff her?”
She had no idea. I held my tongue from saying that and asked, “So now what?” Amy shook her head. “Just a warning maybe? I mean, it was the Winter Ball.” Infractions were practically expected. Plus Amy was good, never in any trouble. She was the freaking Valedictorian, or would be soon enough. When she didn’t answer right away, just shrugged and looked down, I knew something more was wrong.
“Ame?”
“Maybe I already had my warning,” she said to her feet.
I sat up straighter in my desk chair and set down my nearly empty coffee. “Sorry, what?”
She cleared her throat and looked at me, meeting my eyes for about a millisecond before glancing away. “I already had a warning.”
“You already had a warning.” That was news to me.
“Two warnings,” she basically whispered before she dropped back onto my bed and buried her face in my pillow.
Two warnings. Two strikes and I didn’t know about either of them. I stared at her in silence until she lifted her head to look at me. “You’ve gotten two warnings, which you didn’t tell me about.” Now I was pissed. Maybe it was a little irrational, because I kept a lot of secrets, but whatever. She had two warnings and had just lied to Dr. Stewart. This was Honor Board territory. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“You don’t have to curse,” she said and I cursed again. I swore all the time, just never at her, and she flinched.
“Sorry, but this is cursing serious. Of which you are perfectly aware.” She made a face but I persisted. Like so many times, I was the mom between the two of us. Usually it was something we laughed at, but like her run-in with the headmaster, this was no joke. “What were the first two?”
She sighed and sat up, letting her feet dangle over the side. My already messy bed was even more of a mess from her. “I cut final hour too many times and then someone saw me on the way back from Caleb’s a week or two ago.”
The only thing I could do was curse again.
“I know, okay, I know.”
“Do you? Really?” She was upset, yeah, but also…defiant. Maybe that meant she was really upset, but at the same time, she’d broken curfew for the Ball knowing she had two warnings. And she hadn’t just broken curfew; she’d meandered back onto campus after freaking noon. I was pushing her, but she needed it. Or I wanted to do it. Either way, it forced the eruption.
“Yeah, Lane, I do!” She launched herself off the bed and kicked one of the lounge pillows in the middle of the rug. “But it’s my senior year and everything’s fucked up. You almost died, but you’re always with your boyfriend or, like, wrapped up in yourself or some other world, and I’m trying not to lose my boyfriend, so I’m just whatever. Having fun or trying to keep all my shit together, with basically no help from you. Thanks St. Elaine, for taking a few seconds from shining your halo to give me your super helpful commentary.”
I gaped at her back as she angrily dumped the rest of her things out of her bag and put them away with unnecessary force. She made sure not to look at me as she moved around her half of the room. In a way, she was right. I wasn’t being helpful. I was hurt. Maybe I wasn’t a perfect friend, but neither was she. If I was the angel she was implying, I would have done something helpful. I probably should have, apologized or I didn’t know what.
But I wasn’t an angel, no matter what she said, so I didn’t do any of those things. “See you at the Honor Board hearing,” is what I said, right before I slammed the door to the bathroom behind me.
AS USUAL WHENEVER I didn’t know what to do, I ran to Carter. Amy was gone when I came out of the shower. It felt strange and terrible not to have a text or a note on our board telling me where to come find her. Not that I would have.
I went into the bookstore first, instead of going straight upstairs, thinking I might actually talk to Melinda before I found her nephew. She was so good at listening and girl problems, but she was nowhere to be seen. Instead, even though he wasn’t supposed to be working, Carter was there. He sat behind the counter on his stool, a newspaper in front of him even on his day off. It must have been obvious something wasn’t right, because as soon as he saw me, he flipped the newspaper closed and opened the counter hatch to come through.
“Hey. What’s wrong?” In only a few strides, Carter had enveloped me in his strong arms.
I’d come to talk to Melinda, but I’d take this in exchange. I never felt safer or more comfortable than I did with him. Loving Carter was the one thing that scared me in a good way. It had thrilled me long before the vision and after and, no matter what happened, I suspected it
always would. So I held him there in the middle of the bookstore, soaking up the sense of safety and belonging that was like breathing in and out. A lounge full of underclassmen watched us, but I didn’t care.
“Hey,” he repeated, pulling back to search my face with his eyes. “What’s up?”
“I had a fight with Amy.” It was only one of my problems, but it was the only one I felt ready to tell him.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really,” I admitted. “It was stupid.”
“Stupid enough to make you cry?”
“I’m not crying!” I was upset about it though. I looked up at him. “She just, she said some things…and maybe they weren’t all wrong.” He hugged me again but didn’t press for more details. I decided to change the subject. “What are you even doing down here? You’re supposed to be off.”
Carter pulled back and smiled, grabbing my hand to lead me over to the counter. “I wasn’t really working. Either job,” he added softly, after I made a face and eyed the newspaper he’d been reading. I didn’t really believe him until I got close enough to see the paper’s front page.
“Real Estate? What’s this?” Besides a good distraction.
“Just…looking,” he said and I examined the paper more closely.
“This is from the D.C. area.”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “But there are more.” He moved it aside and underneath was one covering Boston/Cambridge and one for Southern Connecticut. “I thought…maybe you’d look at them with me? Tonight, if you want.”
“You’re buying a house?!”
“Probably just a condo, but yeah.”
We’d never talked about this before. In fact, since the dinners and tours his uncle had arranged for us in the fall, we’d barely talked about college or next year at all. For a while, he’d been too worried about the vision and, regardless, I insisted on waiting for my acceptances until I made any serious decisions. Those acceptances were now tucked in my desk drawer. I wondered if Carter had a stack in his drawer as well.
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