by A. L. Tyler
After finishing a strange story about yellow wallpaper, I looked up to see Vince working through his problem set with determination. I tried to keep my book propped up just right so that he wouldn’t see me studying his expressions, but he must have sensed that something was different.
“What?” he asked without looking over.
“Are you planning to kill yourself?” I asked.
He took a deep breath, and then raised his eyebrows and shook his head as he marked another answer with his pencil. “Would I be doing math homework if I didn’t intend to turn it in?”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“Yes, I did. You just didn’t like my response.”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t. Are you thinking about it?”
“Right now I’m thinking about math.”
“Have you thought about it?”
He paused and gave me a sincere look. “Yes, I have.”
“And?”
“And, I’ve thought about it,” he said with finality. “I haven’t made any plans, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Will you tell me if I need to hide the knives?”
He raised an eyebrow. When he reached over and put a hand on my shoulder, I tried not to blush.
“If the time comes, I would appreciate that.” He stared at me without blinking. “I’m not there yet.”
I nodded. He nodded. We both went back to doing our homework.
When we were done, it was late, but we decided to unwind with a little television. He turned on a reality show and went to take the ice cream bowls back to the kitchen. When he came back, he sat down on the couch next to me instead of sitting at the opposite end.
He looked at me, and I could tell he was waiting for a reaction of some sort, but I tried to play it cool as I leaned back. He sat back, too, and we watched for a few minutes in silence.
“Thanks for offering to hide the knives,” he said.
I wasn’t sure what to say. “Sure. No problem.”
We watched a little longer. I didn’t want to get his hopes up, but I felt like I needed to end the discussion on a high note.
“Martha says she knows some people who might be able to help you,” I said.
Vince looked over, skeptical.
“You know,” I picked anxiously at a nail. “Just if you want it.”
“Do you really trust her?” he asked. “Charlie doesn’t trust her, and it seems like you usually trust him.”
That issue, combined with Stark’s accusation that Charlie was a perpetual liar, wasn’t going to rest in my mind until I had brought it to light.
“I trust her,” I said. “But like I said, it’s there if you want it.”
He turned back to the television, but didn’t skip a beat in the conversation. “Charlie said that you might care more than average if I killed myself.”
I opened my mouth to call Charlie a liar, but I couldn’t do it. “When did he say that?”
“When I picked up a knife to butter my toast this morning. He’s not exactly subtle.” Vince glanced over and smirked. “I said I didn’t think you would. We’ve been just friends for years.”
This time, he waited. And waited. I had to say something.
“Yup.”
“Annie…”
I looked over at him, and before I could stop myself, I leaned over to peck him on the cheek. I got up from the couch and walked briskly to the door, blushing like mad as I turned back to him to say goodnight.
He was still sitting on the couch, his somber expression a contradiction to the playfulness in his eyes.
“Why did you do that?” he asked. “Now it’s going to be ten times worse if I kill myself.”
“Goodnight, Vince.”
I turned and left, but there was too much residual adrenaline in my veins to go to bed. I went to the little library that Charlie had installed for me. I picked a book and settled onto the chaise, waiting for sleepiness to take over, but it didn’t.
My classes the next day didn’t start until late, and I wanted to drive out to the greenhouse to check on things for Lyssa, but I was won over by the thought that I could stay up late and sleep in.
I wandered out to the living room and found Charlie sitting alone on the couch, watching late night television with a glazed expression. He blinked his feline eyes and the channel changed.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked. “Gates was on the news today. She and her mom got two minutes on the seven o’clock broadcast. Everyone loves a happy ending.”
“Is Martha around?”
“Asleep,” Charlie said, flicking one ear. “And you really shouldn’t let strays follow you home. That could have ended badly today.”
I took a deep breath and sighed. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. Did you recognize Walter when we first met him?”
“I had never met Walter before,” Charlie replied. Then he looked over at me. “But that isn’t what you’re asking. Did Stark get to you?”
I considered how much I wanted to say, but I figured that lying wouldn’t do much good. If he wanted to read my thoughts, he would do it. “He said you’ve got a thing about werewolves.”
Charlie turned back to the television, but then shut it off. He faced me properly before answering. A table lamp turned on, and I blinked against the bright light.
“That’s true,” he said. “A pack killed my first bridge.”
“The old woman?” I asked. “Why?”
“She tried to help one of them who had been wounded. When she failed, the pack retaliated,” he said. “She died screaming. I was only a child, and it terrified me, and I didn’t know how to help her. And yes, I’m still more than convinced that keeping Vince around is a bad idea. Werewolves are known for being quick to rage, and I would rather not relive that experience. I will kill him if it comes down to that.”
“You’ve killed a lot of werewolves.” It wasn’t a question.
Charlie didn’t deny it. “I did a lot of things under Stark’s guidance that I’ve come to regret, Annie, and I take responsibility for all of them. I’ve killed hundreds of them, and not always to protect those who couldn’t defend themselves. I promise you that I will not kill Vince unless I see no other way.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
He blinked, and the light went off and the television came back on. “You should have gone for the lips. He would have kissed you back.”
My eyes flashed. “You told him I have a crush on him. Don’t talk about that stuff with him.”
“He asked.”
“Still.”
“Fine.”
I got up and went back to stand by my door, but something still nagged at my mind.
“Charlie…”
He looked over at me once more, the light from the television casting his eerie cat shadow onto the wall behind him.
“Why don’t you trust her?”
“She’s a necromancer.”
“And you’re a demon. What’s the real reason?”
“There’s no way that she could know those things unless Kendra told her,” Charlie sighed. “They must have known each other.”
“But?”
“But Kendra told me things that she had never told anyone else,” he said confidently. “She promised me a part of her soul to help me complete my spell to be human. We were close, and she never mentioned Martha. Not even just in passing, and not even once. I don’t see how that’s possible.”
It did seem weird that Kendra would share the details of her intimate moments with Charlie with anyone, unless that person was a very close friend. But I could see his point, because if Martha had been a close friend, then why hadn’t Kendra ever talked about her?
It was possible that Kendra had a reason, even if I couldn’t see it. It was also possible that Martha had found a way to trick us.
“Keep an eye on her,” I said uncertainly.
Charlie nodded, and I turned to go to bed.
“Thorn.”
I
looked back over my shoulder.
“Are you sure you don’t know her? You’ve never met her before?”
I searched my mind, and then furrowed my brow as I turned back to face him. “No. Why?”
“No reason,” he said. “Just trying to figure out how Martha could possibly know so much about Kendra.”
I shook my head and tried harder, but Martha was so flamboyant. I was sure I would remember her if we had met before, and it wasn’t just her hair and her clothes. Her personality was unforgettable. And even so, there was no way that she could have pulled those details from my mind. I had no knowledge of Charlie, from Kendra or anyone else, or his birthmarks, or his scars—and I had no desire for such knowledge.
I lay awake for a long time that night, feeling oddly lonely even with a full apartment. I didn’t even know where Charlie had stashed Martha’s room; the whole place was beginning to feel too large. I missed Lyssa and Gates, but I felt guilty wanting them to come back.
It was almost one in the morning, which was pushing it even when I didn’t have to get up early. When I finally caved and grabbed my phone, I flipped a coin to decide which one of them I would bother. I texted Gates.
It took her a moment to answer, and I was afraid that I had woken her, but she was relieved to hear from me. Charlie had given her no explanation when he left her a drenched cat earlier that day, and she had been awake and worried ever since. She knew that he wouldn’t have done it without good reason. She had been terrified of drawing attention to herself if something had happened, so she had decided not to call.
I told her everything was fine, and it had been a momentary scare that turned out to be nothing. I didn’t mention Martha, because I saw no reason to suck her back into my drama when she was supposed to be escaping it. I asked about her mother and brothers instead.
They were good. Her youngest brother was still in counseling over the whole ordeal surrounding her disappearance, and her father was taking time off from work to fly out and spend a few weeks with them. Her other brother was angry that she had done something so dumb, and her mother kept checking in on her at random to make sure she was still there.
Things weren’t the way that they had been before, but I hoped that they would mend with time. Years from now, this was going to be one of those stories that she would never live down, retold at every family gathering as a lesson to the next generation.
She asked about Vince. I said he was doing okay, and she responded with a single word.
Wisteria.
She had read it somewhere in Kendra’s books, split up across several entries. Wisteria was used for overcoming obstacles. Kendra had once seen it used in abundance by a man seeking to overcome lycanthropy, though the outcome had not been mentioned. I made a mental note to ask Charlie if it was a placebo.
We said goodnight around two. Finally exhausted, I drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 8
Charlie went on like nothing had changed that week, even if he was slightly more alert due to Martha’s presence. Martha came and went at will, continuing to work her shifts at the sandwich shop and bringing home a meal or two when she was able.
She was working hard to get in contact with the friends she had told me about, but they understandably liked to keep a low profile. In the meanwhile, Charlie told me that trying to help Vince with wisteria would be like trying to treat a shark attack victim with cotton swabs and a bottle of peroxide.
I decided to try regardless.
The greenhouse was well-stocked with a few varieties of wisteria, so I grabbed one of each, and worked with Charlie to create a flowerbed along one wall in the basement apartment. Vince wasn’t convinced, and he wasn’t excited about the prospect of living in a garden, either.
“How are they even going to grow down here?” he scoffed. “There’s no light.”
Charlie crossed his arms. “I can’t give you fake light because you’re immune. They’re not. They can enjoy all the fake light they want.”
We discussed the things that Vince had told us he thought would help, like grass and wind, and Charlie conceded that he could try to put down some natural turf for the animal. He refused to even attempt a mechanism to allow outside air in, because the potential for an escape attempt was just too great.
We went to school, and Stark still lurked between my classes, but he didn’t talk to me anymore. I made it to the greenhouse a few days that week. It confused the new employees at first, but by my third visit they seemed to accept that I was something of a boss. I knew Charlie and I was related to Lyssa, and when I said something needed to be done, they did it.
The plants weren’t faring well in Lyssa’s absence, and I was forced to call her Friday night after disposing of another tray of dead begonias.
“It’s been dry lately,” she said simply. “You need to get out there more.”
“I kind of have my hands full,” I said, moving the phone to my other hand as I took off my gardening gloves. “And seriously, I don’t think that’s the problem. Charlie didn’t hire high school kids. He’s got college students majoring in horticulture out here. They know what they’re doing. Something else is going on.”
“Okay, well, what are you seeing?”
She was annoyed, and I couldn’t blame her. I had sent her away claiming that I could handle things, and I very clearly wasn’t.
Looking around, I picked up a small planter of hens and chicks, frowning. “Brown tips. On everything.”
“Is there anything that isn’t dying?” she asked. “The cactus?”
I wandered back into the greenhouse, looking over the shelf where we stored the succulents.
“Nope, the cactus too.”
Lyssa sighed in frustration, but then her voice took on a new determination. “What about the bulbs? Go check the latest shipment. If it’s in already, there should be some crop bulbs in there.”
I went and looked, cutting open the box that had just arrived earlier that day. Crop bulbs were one of our better sellers in the fall as people cut down their home gardens and prepared for early spring harvest.
I was aghast. The first box I checked had shallots in it. Even the plants that hadn’t been unpacked were affected, and each tiny tip of green growth coming up and out of the bulb was crowned with brown wilt.
“Annie?”
“They’re dying,” I said in frustration, reaching for another box and ripping it open. I breathed a sigh of relief, because these bulbs, small and white, looked perfect and healthy. “No, wait…”
I thought they might have been tiny onions from my hurried glance, but my heart nearly stopped when I read the box.
Garlic.
Everything was dying but the garlic. Charlie had called Martha a special kind of vampire, because necromancers fed on the life force of living things.
“Annie?”
“It was just the one box,” I said quickly. I couldn’t tell her that I had invited a necromancer into my life, especially after this. Martha must have stopped by to see Kendra’s place, leaving a very unfortunate side effect in her wake. “You’re right. It must be the weird weather lately. I’ll check back in a week.”
I went home late that night to find Charlie brooding in a corner while Martha and Vince sat talking at the kitchen counter.
“It’s not that easy to lift a warlock’s curse,” Charlie said, giving me a dark glance before he went back to glaring at her. “I’ve worked with them. You’re talking about it like it’s something you see every day.”
“I do see it every day.” She leaned over the counter, her low-cut shirt was even more revealing. She cocked an eyebrow. “You just need to get more creative with your problem solving.”
“Then what do you propose?” Charlie asked.
“Instead of breaking the curse, we could let it happen, and then we clean up what happens afterward.”
“Oh…” I raised a hand, and Vince finally turned away from Martha’s exposed assets to look at me. “We’re pretty sure Charlie di
es if we let this run its course. I don’t think there’s any way to clean that up. And side note, were you at the greenhouse this week?”
Martha stood up straight, her expression suddenly innocent. She had done her hair in two buns on top of her head, like mouse ears. “I might have been by.”
“Why?” Charlie asked her sharply.
His constant accusations were beginning to get to me, but Martha took it in stride.
“Because I hadn’t been before, and Kendra always wanted me to see it,” she said. She made a face. “Did the plants suffer? I’m so sorry if they did. I can’t control it sometimes.”
“It’s fine,” I said, casting a weary glance at Charlie. I wasn’t in the mood to referee any more disputes that night. “Just try to avoid it from now on. I don’t think any of the damage is permanent.”
Some of it was, but I was too polite to point it out. The plants that were left would recover.
Charlie seemed to gather that the debate was done, and he leapt down from the couch and went into the bedroom instead.
“He’s so moody,” Martha said, leaning back over the counter. I went and sat next to Vince. “But I see what Kendra saw in him. When he’s not a cat, I mean. I would hit that.”
“I would very much like to not think about it,” I said. “Have you heard back from your friends yet?”
Vince cleared his throat and crumpled up the paper mess from the sandwich Martha had brought home for him. He tossed it in the trash and opened the refrigerator, grabbing another sandwich and setting it down in front of me as he returned.
“No, I haven’t.” Martha looked genuinely apologetic. “We really need to hear from them soon. I know we’re working on a deadline here, and we’ve only got a little more than a week to the new moon. It’ll be downhill for everyone then.”
Vince didn’t say anything. I wasn’t quite able to contain myself.
“I really don’t want him spending another moon in the basement,” I said, feeling the anxiety rise in my chest.
Martha shrugged. “Have you considered just dropping him in the wild, then? You’ve already got a protection in place, so it’s not like Stark or Walter can go after him now.”