RoseBlood

by Howard, A. G.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.

  ISBN: 978-1-4197-1909-7

  eSBN: 978-1-61312-141-2

  Text copyright © 2017 A. G. Howard

  Cover and title page illustrations copyright © 2017 Nathália

  Suellen Book design by Maria T. Middleton

  Published in 2017 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  Amulet Books and Amulet Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

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  While writing this story, I was struck by how lonely and dark life would be for someone who had to make the journey without friendship. Roman philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero once said,

  “What sweetness is left in life, if you take away friendship? Robbing life of friendship is like robbing the world of the sun.”

  So, to my two dearest friends, Bethany Crandell and Jessica Nelson, thank you for being my sun—for warming me when the chill of personal tragedy strikes, and for illuminating my footsteps when I take a wrong turn and find myself in the shadows. I love and treasure you both. May we light one another’s paths for years to come.

  1

  OVERTURE

  “The opera ghost really existed . . .”

  Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera

  At home, I have a poster on my wall of a rose that’s bleeding. Its petals are white, and red liquid oozes from its heart, thick and glistening warm. Only, if you look very close, you can see the droplets are coming from above, where a little girl’s wrist—camouflaged by a cluster of leaves—has been pricked by thorns as she reached inside to catch a monarch.

  I used to wonder why she risked getting sliced up just to touch a butterfly. But now it makes sense: she wanted those wings so she could fly away, because the pain of trying to reach for them was more tolerable than the pain of staying grounded, wherever she was.

  Today, I embrace that child’s perfect wisdom. What I wouldn’t give for a set of wings . . .

  On the other side of the limo’s window, a gray sky looms above thickly woven trees lining the country road. The clouds heave like living, breathing creatures, and raindrops smack the glass.

  Not the ideal Sunday afternoon to be driven along the French countryside, unless I were here for a vacation. Which I’m not, no matter how anyone tries to spin it.

  “The opera house has a violent history. No one even knows how the fire started all those years ago. That doesn’t bother you?” I mumble the words beneath the hum of the motor so our driver won’t hear. They’re for Mom’s benefit—at the other end of the backseat.

  Mom bounces as the tires dip into a deep puddle while turning onto a dilapidated road of mismatched cobblestones and dirt. Mud splashes across the window.

  “Rune . . . you’re understandably predisposed to hate any building that has suffered a fire. But it’s a fear you need to outgrow. The eighteen hundreds were a long, long time ago. Pretty sure by now, all the bad ‘karma’ is gone.”

  I stare at the privacy screen separating us from the uniformed man at the steering wheel, watching the wipers slash through the brown muck on the windshield with a muffled screech as they clear a line of vision.

  Mom uses the term karma like it’s a four-letter word. I shouldn’t be surprised at her cynicism. She’s always had a different view on Dad’s heritage than I have. She thinks my anxiety stems from Grandma Liliana’s impact on our lives. That my grandmother’s actions and accusations compounded the gypsy superstitions my dad had already imprinted on me, and they’ve affected how I see the world. Mom’s partly right. It’s hard to escape something so deeply ingrained, especially when I’ve seen proof of otherworldly things, having been possessed most of my life.

  “Six weeks till the end of October,” I continue to bait. “And I’ll be spending it at a school haunted by a phantom. Things don’t get any more Halloween than that.”

  “A phantom?” A tiny wrinkle bridges Mom’s furrowed eyebrows. “Are we on that again? Your life isn’t a Broadway musical. This place isn’t anything like the one in the story. Leroux’s Opéra Populaire was fashioned after the Palais Garnier in the city. You should know that, considering you’ve read the book at least three times now.”

  I grip the door panel to brace myself against another dip in the road. If she thinks I’m going to just ignore what I found on the underground RoseBlood forums, she’s wrong. It’s the whole reason I checked out Gaston Leroux’s novel from the library a few weeks before we left in the first place. Although my reading the book so many times had more to do with the story itself—a mysterious composer using his unnatural gift of music to help a girl find the power in her voice.

  “You saw the discussion,” I say. “The blueprint for Garnier was inspired by a building once owned by an eccentric Parisian emperor in the eighteenth century. A private opera house set out in the country called Le Théâtre Liminaire. AKA: my new school. The Liminaire is rumored to be where the phantom legend first originated.” I scroll through my recent searches on my phone, then hold up the screen so Mom can see the text alongside a morbid and lovely illustration of a caped man in a half-mask holding up a bloody rose. “So you’re right. I’m not stepping into a musical. It’s a horror story. With a side of obsession and gore.”

  We hit two bumps in a row this time, nearly slamming our heads on the limo’s cushioned ceiling. An irritated puff of air escapes Mom’s lips, though I’m pretty sure it’s directed at me and not the driver. “I told you those forums are nothing more than wannabe students who were turned down by admissions. People say outrageous things when they feel slighted.” She opens the school’s pamphlet for the twentieth time. “According to the brochure, post-renovation, most of the opera house isn’t even the same anymore. Totally different place.”

  I nibble on the end of my braid. “It just doesn’t feel right. Why did it take over a hundred years for anyone to rebuild or inhabit that place again?”

  Mom presses the brochure to her thigh, signaling the end of our debate. “Just quit being so negative and focus on the positive. They’ve had a lot of rain here, so the leaves are changing early. Look out your window and enjoy the beginning of fall. That should remind you of home.”

  I glance at my lap and make a marked effort not to see the jeweled leaves: the browns and oranges, the yellows as bright as the dandelions that overtake my flowers every spring, until I make my way out with a bucket and spade to dig them up. I’d rather not be reminded of what I’m missing at home right now, or of what I’ll be missing in six months when warm weather settles in Harmony, Texas, and I’m not there to take care of Dad’s garden.

  Gardening is one of the two things that reminds me most of him. I inherited his green thumb but also his talent for music. Although I could never master the violin like he did. My instrument is something entirely different, and it masters me. Which is the real reason I’
m being sent away, although Mom won’t admit it.

  My braid drapes across my left shoulder, the end tapping the belt loops on my jeans in time with the car’s movement. I tug the silvery ribbons woven within, relieved I plaited the unruly waves this morning before our shopping spree. Otherwise, I’d have no control over them in this dampness. I pull my handmade knitted cap lower, wishing I could disappear inside.

  If I were going anywhere but a music conservatory, I’d be more cooperative. Something happened in Harmony recently . . . something I have reason to run from. Something Mom doesn’t even know about.

  But to send me to RoseBlood? She’s so desperate to fix me, she hasn’t stopped to consider the hell she’s sentencing me to.

  “They found a skeleton in the deepest basement, floating in the water. A skeleton, Mom. Do I really need another reason to be scared of water? This weather . . . it’s an omen.”

  “Right.” Mom scoffs. “Any minute you’ll start preaching about auras and visions.”

  Tension knots in my shoulders. My dad and my grandma spoke of auras a lot, as if they could see them. And since I see rainbows when I sing, I used to think that ability passed on to me. There was a time I was convinced—if I focused hard enough—I could see halos of color around other people’s bodies. I made the mistake of telling Mom once. She took me to the eye doctor, and I ended up recanting the claim in order to get out of wearing glasses I knew I didn’t need. Now, I’ve convinced myself to stop looking for them. It’s not worth the hassle or the confusion.

  “Consider this,” Mom continues, “every time you fall back into her way of thinking, you give her power over your life.” Mom’s voice falters on the obvious effort not to mention my grandma’s name. “I know she’s working to be a better person, so we’ll cut her a little slack. She talked your aunt into paying for your tuition. The least we can do is let her try to make amends since she’s dying. Just don’t let her get inside your head again.”

  I press my lips tight. Suffering from congestive heart failure has to be horrible and painful, and I should at least feel something for Grandma Lil. But I remember images of my black hair swirling in dark, deep water as I tried to escape the wooden crate keeping me submerged; I remember her wrinkled, weathered hands on the other side of the planks tightening their grip to hold me under. And because of that, any sympathy eludes me.

  I shudder. Yeah, Grandma’s got a lot to make amends for, no doubt.

  “After all of these years of no contact,” Mom continues, “for them to reach out like this because you’re having so many problems? It gives me hope we can be a family again. Your dad would’ve wanted that. It wasn’t easy for Lottie to get your transfer moved to the top of the list. She was afraid to show favoritism. But she’s doing it as a favor to us. Let’s make an effort to show our gratitude when we get there. Okay?”

  The famed Aunt Charlotte: retired sixty-something French prima donna and Dad’s older sister. I get the feeling this is more of a favor she’s doing for her incarcerated mom—so the old woman can save herself from continuing imprisonment postdeath, in purgatory.

  I run my palm across the seat, the leather plush and foreign to my hand. Like nearly every woman in Dad’s family, Charlotte was a ballerina in the Paris Opera company. As a result, she snagged herself an aristocratic husband. It was love at first sight when he saw her dance. Now that she’s a wealthy widow, her generous donations have earned our family a spot among the boarding school’s most elite beneficiaries. Which explains my acceptance as a student without the usual three-month consideration period.

  Nothing like nepotism to earn you a place in the hearts of your peers.

  Hopefully the other students won’t know my aunt sent this limo to pick us up at the hotel this morning and drive us around shopping all day; that she is paying my tuition for the year; and that she wired Mom nine hundred and fifty euros last week—the equivalent of a thousand dollars, give or take—to help buy my uniforms and dorm accessories at the posh boutiques here.

  I’ve never met her, other than through ten years of spotty, one-sided phone conversations with my mom. Charlotte’s never visited America, and I’d never been to Paris until now. According to Mom, she used to call once a month to talk to Dad. Until he got sick enough to land in hospice care; then she stopped. She didn’t even come to his funeral, so I can’t help but question her motives.

  “It said in the brochure they coordinate their calendars with public schools in the states. That means it’s already one month in here.” I wind my hands together, an attempt to quell the pain in my heart at the thought of Dad’s absence—the wound that never heals, even after a decade. “Do you know how hard it is to make friends so close to the end of the first six weeks?” Not that I plan to try . . . but true intentions take a backseat when it comes to guilting Mom.

  “It’s not unheard of,” Mom rebuts. “Lots of people are scrambling to send their kids, even late. Doesn’t that say something to the credit of the school? Only two years in, and there’s already a wait list. There were at least twenty names in front of yours.” Mom looks out her window where the wet trees have thickened to multicolored knots, like an afghan gilded with glitter.

  “My point exactly.” I tap my fingers to some endless rhythm turning inside of me . . . an operatic aria I heard in an elevator earlier. It’s reawakened, and that’s not a good sign. The melody will writhe like a snake on fire and burn holes behind my closed eyelids in the shape of musical notes until I sing it out. It’s physical torture, like a constant spark in my skull that scorches my spine—vertebra by vertebra. “I’ll be winning friends left and right once they hear I jumped the list via my bloodline.”

  Mom clucks her tongue. “Well, according to you, there’s still the phantom. I’m sure he’s not too picky about who he hangs out with.”

  My jaw tightens as I suppress a snort. Touché.

  I trace the window now curtained by mud, imagining the glass cracking and bursting; imagining myself sprouting wings to fly away through the opening—back to America and my two friends who were tolerant of my strange quirks.

  Aching for another glimpse of the sky, I trigger the automatic window to swipe the pane clean, allowing a fresh, cold wind to usher in a spray of mud and rain. I smile as the moisture dots my face and neck, easing the sting of the song in my head. Mom yelps and I send the window up again.

  “Rune, please.” She tightens her plump, red-tinted lips to a frown. Working her fingers through the dirty droplets in her cropped hair, she digs a Kleenex from her purse.

  “Sorry,” I whisper, actually meaning it. Using my velvet scarf, I blot my cheeks then sponge the leather seat.

  Mom’s scrubbing shifts to the taupe crepe jacket and pencil skirt, which hang like tissue paper on her small frame. With each movement, her signature fragrance wafts over me: Lemon Pledge. She cleans other people’s houses for a living, and can never seem to shake off the stench of dust solvent and Pine-Sol.

  With her delicate bone structure and striking features, she missed her true calling. She did some print modeling back when Dad was alive, but she wasn’t tall enough to be on the catwalk. Once he got sick, she needed “job security” to help pay bills. Housekeeping filled that niche, but I know a part of her has always regretted switching professions. And now she’s determined to see that I don’t lose my shot at something better, something she thinks I was born to do.

  Gray light and purple shadows take turns gliding along her high cheekbones as we pass through the trees. People say we could pass for sisters. We share her ivory complexion, the tiny freckles spattered across the bridge of her nose, the wide green eyes inside a framework of thick lashes, and her hair—black as a raven’s wings. The only difference is, I inherited my curls from a father whose laughter I still hear when I dance in rain puddles. Whose face I still see in the water’s reflections, as if he’s beside me.

  Without being at home, close to our garden, my only remaining connections to him are the music he loved and his fa
mily, each inseparably intertwined with the other. Since Mom’s parents passed away before I was even born, she had no one to lean on once Dad got sick. So, Grandma Liliana came from France to live with us in Harmony. She was a lot of help in the beginning, but a few months after Dad died, she left our lives in a blaze of horror, literally. The last time I saw her she showed up at my second-grade Valentine’s Day party and purposely started a fire that almost wiped out an entire class of eight-year-olds.

  She was carted back to France and has been locked away in the city of Versailles ever since, at a prison for the criminally insane. Ironic, considering that was her second attempt at killing me. Although I often wonder if I imagined the first . . . if the details got mixed up in my seven-year-old brain because I was fighting so hard for my life. According to what Grandma told Mom, it had all been an accident.

  I shiver and rub the scar on my left knee that peeks through the rip in my jeans, a reminder imprinted on my skin. A reminder of the splintering wood I kicked my way through . . . a reminder that, accident or not, I didn’t imagine it.

  “You have a gift.” Mom’s statement rakes across the intrusive memory, ripping through the cobwebs and dangling dead hopes in my heart that have settled where a loving and sane grandmother should’ve been. “This place will help you realize your potential. Be grateful for the opportunity.”

  Mom doesn’t get that I want to be grateful. I miss how singing once made me feel: free, unique, complete.

  But what if Grandma was right about me . . . about everything?

  The aria I heard earlier in the elevator bumps against my ribs once more, making my breath shallow. From the time they started dating, Dad taught Mom French. He’d done the same for me since birth, and she continued his tutelage after we lost him. Because of that, I know enough to be comfortable here. But the opera piping through the speakers had sounded Russian. I have no idea what the name of it is or what it’s about. I don’t have to know. Now that the notes are woven within me, the words are imprinted alongside them. Whether or not I can translate what I’m singing, I’ll still remember how to form each syllable on my tongue when the time comes to release the song.