She stormed up the stairs and to her room, opening and slamming the door shut. She crawled under her quilt and lay there, her humming hands clutched against her chest to calm them down.
A few minutes later, Marion entered.
“I told them I wanted to check on you,” said Marion. “They’re making sandwiches. They said to take our time.”
Zoey snorted, which made her eyes sting. “How generous of them.”
“What can I do?”
“You know what I’m thinking?” Zoey wiped her face with the back of her hand. “I’m thinking that these monsters they’re hunting . . . They don’t work alone.”
Marion crossed her arms over her chest, frowning. “What are you saying?”
“You know exactly what I’m saying.” Zoey waved at Marion impatiently. “I’m saying the recent discovery of creepy old dude-cults doesn’t change the fact that I don’t trust Val Mortimer, or her mother, and I never have, and I never will. And the second—the second—I have any sort of actual evidence I can give weirdo Briggs down there, I’ll do it. I’ll sic the whole damn cult on them.”
Marion was quiet for a moment. “You think Val and her mother are helping this monster?”
“Don’t give me that You’re crazy, Zoey tone of voice, Marion.” Zoey glared up at the ceiling. “Not today.”
After a long beat of silence, Marion pulled off her boots and hoodie, then slipped under the quilt beside Zoey before pulling the soft patchwork fabric up to their chins.
Zoey shifted away a little, her ceiling-glare deepening and her mind racing. She didn’t think Marion had sent those texts about Thora, but what did she know? Really, she hardly knew the girl. And apparently, she hardly knew anything.
She closed her eyes, trying not to think about her father’s wounded expression. I wanted to protect you.
The clock on her nightstand ticked through the silence. Marion’s breathing came slow and steady.
It took a long time for Zoey to find her voice again, to ask the question that was bothering her more than any other—the question that neither her father nor Briggs had addressed, not in the kitchen and not in the video.
“Why do the monsters eat girls?” she asked at last. Her voice sounded small.
When Marion didn’t answer, Zoey turned on her side to face her. “Marion?”
“Because,” Marion answered, looking beyond Zoey to the sea, “when a predator hunts, it seeks out the vulnerable. The desperate.”
Zoey’s laugh was bitter. “Oh, and we poor delicate girls are vulnerable and desperate, is that what you’re saying?”
“What I’m saying,” Marion said, now looking right at Zoey, her gray eyes bright, “is that girls hunger. And we’re taught, from the moment our brains can take it, that there isn’t enough food for us all.”
Marion
The Crown
Charlotte had been missing for five days, and Marion didn’t want to think about it for at least a couple of hours. She didn’t want to think about monsters that ate girls, the men who hunted them, and a world pocked with obscurae.
She wanted, simply, to exist for a while in stillness.
She left Zoey’s house, picked up her mother from the police station, and drove home with her in silence. Only after Marion parked the car did her mother speak.
“What was all that about earlier?” she said quietly. “What were we running from?”
Marion sat with her hands on the steering wheel, staring up the drive at Kingshead, and feeling so suddenly, utterly tired that she couldn’t think of a good lie.
“Can I tell you about it later?” she said. “Can we just . . . have lunch instead?”
After a moment, her mother’s soft hand squeezed her own.
“All right, my little mountain,” her mother said quietly. “Don’t worry alone for too long, though, all right? You can tell me, whatever it is.”
Marion considered turning into her mom’s arms and burrowing there until the world repaired itself.
But if she hid herself away, who would hide her mother?
Marion blinked away her tears and stepped out into the afternoon light.
That evening, Marion warmed up a bowl of vegetable soup on the stove and made her way slowly into the living room, oven mitts on her hands.
At the sound of steps on the front porch, she froze. A knock rapped, soft and swift.
The creatures are clever and fast, and they take many forms.
Marion glanced at the kitchen, where a set of knives gleamed on the countertop. If she threw the bowl of steaming soup at whatever it was, that might give her time to grab the knives.
“Marion?” called Val, from outside. “I brought movies. I thought maybe you’d want some company?”
A war broke out in Marion’s gut.
On one side: Bring Val inside, feed her soup, coax information from her. Keep your head. Keep your wits close. Dance around the subjects of monsters and hidden world-pockets, and watch Val’s face for secrets and lies.
On the other side: Bring Val inside, feed her soup, ask her about her mother, ask her about growing up rich and beautiful, ask her about what keeps her up at night, ask her, listen to her, tell her stories, touch her face, find another wall to press her against, ask her of what future she dreams, and what future she dreads.
Another knock, more hesitant: “Marion?”
Marion’s mother, tucked under a blanket on the couch with sitcom reruns flickering on the TV, called out, “Is someone at the door?”
“It’s Val.” Marion set down the bowl on the end table, her head quietly spinning, her cheeks flushed. “Hold on, I’ll be right back.”
It was, maybe, a little selfish and self-centered, and maybe even a little stupid, but Marion couldn’t stop smiling. Despite her grief, despite the monsters lurking in the near-dark, she smiled. She opened the door, and her mind screamed, What if Zoey’s right? What if she’s behind it all?
But still Marion beamed. It felt rebellious, to beam. It felt like sticking up her middle finger at the world and laughing.
“What’s wrong with being selfish?” Marion asked. A strange greeting, but oh well. If Val wanted to leave, she could.
But Val didn’t leave. She stood on the porch with an armful of movies, wearing sweatpants and a baggy Sawkill Day School T-shirt. Her hair was slung up into a high, messy ponytail. She wore no makeup whatsoever.
Marion hungered at the sight of her. Staring at Val was a revolt against the world, against logic, against Zoey.
Val arched an eyebrow. “‘What’s wrong with being selfish’?”
It was a test, Marion decided, her heartbeat tapping against her throat. If Val thought Marion was weird for asking such a question, for answering the door unlike other people answered doors, then Marion would turn her away. Claim a headache. Explain that she needed time alone with her mother.
She would, in other words, chicken out and come to her senses.
But Val just laughed, low and throaty. “Not a damn thing wrong with it, in my book.”
And Marion’s relieved smile welcomed her inside.
“You’re really good with her,” said Val, two hours later, tucked into a corner of the couch while Marion’s mother slept at the other corner and Marion herself tidied the living room.
As she moved toward the kitchen, Marion felt Val’s eyes on her back—and maybe, if she wasn’t imagining it, also sliding lower.
She applauded herself for choosing the polka-dot pajama shorts. They weren’t the sort of garment she’d usually wear in front of people who weren’t family; they hardly covered the things shorts were designed to cover.
The dishes put away, Marion returned to the living room, put a finger to her lips, and nodded at the stairs. Val smiled and gathered up the movies they hadn’t yet watched, ridiculous romantic comedies full of mush and meet-cutes that made her mother smile.
Once Marion had helped her mother to bed and left her dozing with a glass of fresh water, Marion and Val headed for
the stairs.
With every step, Marion felt this close to stumbling. After two hours of sitting beside Val, surreptitiously watching Val watch the movie, watching Val laugh, watching Val pick at her nails and twirl strands of hair around her fingers, Marion’s blood raced so hot and fast she feared she might erupt.
“I mean it,” said Val, trailing Marion up the stairs. “You’re a good daughter. You’re so gentle and patient with her.”
Marion tried not to wonder if Val was buttering her up for some nefarious purpose.
Marion tried not to think about her own ass, and Val’s face, and the proximity of the two.
Marion tried to remember to breathe.
“I do what any daughter would,” Marion managed. Miraculous, that she could form words. Well done, tongue and brain.
Val’s laugh was harsh. “Not really. If my mom ever needed me to take care of her, I’d give her both middle fingers on the way out the damn door.”
Marion’s bedroom. Oh, God, oh, God. She turned the handle and led the way inside.
“Why don’t you like her?” Marion switched on her desk lamp. “Your mom, I mean.”
“Because she doesn’t love me,” Val answered at once. She sprawled across Marion’s bed, staring at the ceiling, one long leg swinging alongside the mattress like a pendulum.
Marion busied herself with starting one of the movies, for background noise. Ostensibly for watching, but right, like Marion would be able to pay attention even if all she and Val did was sit rigid, side by side, not touching.
Remember, you’re here to observe her, question her, lie to her, chided a voice in Marion’s head that sounded remarkably like Zoey’s.
“Because my mother manipulates people,” Val continued, “and taught me how to do the same thing. Because she chased away my father before I could even meet the man. Because she doesn’t love me, and yet had a kid anyway. Because she wants that same sorry life for me.”
Val paused, cheeks pink and indignant. She glared at the ceiling, and Marion, fists clenched, her inner Zoey-voice telling her to chill out, nevertheless imagined kissing the perfect straight line of Val’s nose.
“Because for a long time,” Val continued, “that’s the kind of life I wanted, too. All because she told me to want it. Because she taught me to be a girl who wants what other people want and ignores my own heart.”
Marion searched for something to say and came up with nothing.
“If my mom was the next one to disappear,” said Val, her voice tight and toneless, “I wouldn’t bother to look for her.”
And, without stopping to think, Marion marched over to Val, ready to slap the shit out of her.
Val sat up, looking suddenly mortified, and when Marion swung out her hand, Val caught her wrist and stopped her.
Val, unsurprisingly, was strong. Marion had felt that lean strength last night in the stables, dragging her fingers up and down Val’s body.
Now, she could hardly see Val’s face for her tears, and she wasn’t sure what she was most upset about—what Val had said, or the fact that she couldn’t seem to think straight with Val so near.
“That was an asshole thing to say,” Marion spat.
“God, I’m sorry.” Val tried to touch her cheek, but Marion jerked away.
“You can’t just say stuff like that and get away with it.” Marion turned, wiping her eyes. “Just because you’re rich and beautiful—”
“I know.”
Marion couldn’t contain a harsh sob. “Do you realize I’ve lost half my family?”
Marion moved away, stumbling a little, and leaned hard against her dresser. She was the most rotten person in the world. Her Zoey-voice screamed: Val could have killed Charlotte! But Marion didn’t believe that, did she? Agent Briggs and Chief Harlow, they hunted monsters. A monster had killed Charlotte.
A monster, not Val.
“Marion.” Val’s voice, very close. “I’m sorry.”
Marion glared back at her, not caring that she could already feel her skin splotching, her face swelling. She was such an ugly crier.
Val moved closer, her eyes shimmering. “I’m sorry. I am, I’m the worst.”
“Fuck you, Val,” Marion whispered.
Val leaned in, brushed her cheek against Marion’s cheek.
“I’m sorry,” Val breathed across Marion’s skin, making her shiver. “I’m an ass sometimes.”
“Most of the time,” Marion said, letting herself melt into Val’s touch. Her trembling legs wouldn’t hold her up for much longer.
“Most of the time,” Val agreed, laughing a little. When Val wiped a tear from her chin, Marion could no longer resist.
She cupped Val’s face in her hands and kissed her.
Val gasped against her mouth. Her hands flew to Marion’s waist, and then she smiled so broadly that Marion did, too. Their teeth clacked together, bumped lips, bumped tongues, and Val laughed again, tugging Marion back to the bed. With Val’s hands sliding up under her shirt and her own hands impatiently tugging off Val’s pants, Marion forgot that she’d never properly made out with anyone, that she wasn’t gorgeous and lithe like Val or tiny and elfin like Zoey.
As Val’s lips kissed up and down her neck, across her collarbones, and lower, skimming over her breasts, she forgot that she was Marion—the rock, the good, steady girl.
She forgot that her father was dead, and that Charlotte was almost surely dead, and that her mother might live forever in a fog.
She forgot that everyone on Sawkill was out hunting not just for one missing girl but two. That the woods outside her window had witnessed twenty-five girls vanish into the night.
She forgot all about the Hand of Light and monsters, and Zoey being pissed as hell once she found out about this.
Marion forgot everything but Val—her touch, her warmth and softness, the sounds she made when Marion kissed the tender skin behind her ear. Val’s hands skimmed down her bare torso, and Marion arched into her touch.
“You make me forget everything I hate,” Val murmured against Marion’s belly. “And I hate a lot of things. You make me forget,” she said, punctuating the words with a kiss to Marion’s trembling skin, “who I was born to be.”
“Val?” Marion gripped the sheets hard, body twisting. She needed to be closer to Val, needed Val against her breasts, her belly, between her thighs.
“Hmmm?” Val murmured, wrapping her limbs around Marion, pulling her close, twining her legs with hers.
“Shut up for a while?”
And Val laughed again, soft like the drop of starlight. She kissed Marion’s mouth right as her fingers slid down Marion’s shorts, between her legs, kissing her to muffle her soft, high cries, kissing her until she could hardly breathe. A fall of golden hair draped around Marion, dragging lightly across her skin. Val’s ponytail had come loose, surrounding Marion in Val’s scent, Val’s warmth, Val’s voice.
When Val finally broke away, she pressed her panting mouth against Marion’s neck, and whispered things to Marion that she honestly couldn’t decipher, because Val’s fingers were drawing Marion higher and higher, and Marion clamped her thighs around Val’s hand, and moved against it, circling, and she couldn’t stop moving, not even for a second. If she stopped, she would die.
“Please,” Marion begged, clutching Val to her, sliding her hand down Val’s bare back, under her shirt and then into her pants, palming her supple skin. “Please, God.”
Val smiled against Marion’s breasts and acquiesced, pressing her thumb right where Marion wanted her to until she came apart on the tangled damp sheets, her world a pulsing haze of warm red and black and gold.
“Marion?”
Soft lips, brushing against her own.
“Helloo-oo-o, Marion.”
Teeth, lightly nibbling on her jawline.
Hours later, years later, still blinking herself back to reality, Marion opened her eyes.
She saw Val smiling down at her, and then, behind Val, a cloud of the tiny black-eyed mo
ths fluttered down from the ceiling. They alighted on exquisite, oblivious Val, coming to rest on her shoulders and at the ends of her hair. They encircled her scalp, a delicate fluttering crown.
“Hey,” Marion breathed, a shaky smile on her face. She closed her eyes, blushing, and turned her face into her pillow, and laughed.
Her, whispered the moths, laughing along with her, their joy unfettered. Her.
Val.
Val grinned, and flopped down on the mattress beside Marion, sending thousands of white wings fluttering up around her like tossed snow.
Marion gazed over at her. In that moment, she was not a rock but a girl. Not a fatherless, sisterless daughter, but a living, breathing, selfish creature who wanted. Who craved.
The rest? It could wait until tomorrow.
She pressed Val gently into the mattress and whispered, “Your turn.”
Val
The Red Room
The next morning, Val crept home at dawn to find her mother standing in the foyer, already fully dressed, sipping a cup of tea.
Val froze. “Mom! You’re up early.”
“Good morning, Valerie,” said her mother. “I just received an interesting phone call from the police.”
As Val watched, a lock of hair slipped loose from her mother’s chignon. Val’s insides shrank away from her skin. She resisted the urge to run; running would only make things worse.
“They found Charlotte Althouse’s severed hand in our woods.” Val’s mother walked to the hall table, set down her tea. “It was clutching a necklace, a chain with a starfish charm.”
“Oh, God,” Val whispered. She placed a hand on her stomach, where only a few minutes ago, Marion had pressed a hot, openmouthed kiss. “They don’t know yet. I should go tell Marion—”
“There’s no need for that.” Her mother’s voice shook, barely containing itself. “Chief Harlow assured me he was on his way.”
As if on cue, a car door slammed, then another.
Val hurried to one of the windows flanking the door. She watched as Chief Harlow and a white man she didn’t recognize walked up the Althouses’ front steps and knocked on the door.
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