Mother of Crows: Daughters of Arkham - Book 2

by David Rodriguez

  She paused at the edge of the green. It was an open lawn, ringed by packed dirt paths and a few elm and maple trees. It had no official sidewalk to speak of, and every child of Arkham had been meticulously trained to walk on the dirt and stay there instead of veering into the streets.

  Despite herself, Abby lingered on the pavement. It felt like the green was hiding something. One more step, and the whole of it would be revealed. If she stayed where she was, nothing would change. Her stomach twinged again.

  She curiously scanned the scaffolding again. She remembered the shape in her hallway and thought that if she looked close enough, she would find that thing unweaving into this shadow as well. But that had been a shadowy form to begin with, more gloom than anything. This thing looked like it was made of solid wood. She could imagine knocking on it with her knuckles and hearing a satisfying thunk. It seemed as real as the trees shedding leaves into the sullen wind.

  A car horn blared. Abby flinched and jumped onto the green. The car moved past. She saw the driver shaking her head in annoyance, then her eyes went wide as she recognized Abby's unmistakable red hair. The car sped off. Abby frowned. Who had that been?

  Motion drew her eye to the scaffolding on the green. People were standing on it. She hadn't seen anyone there before. It was like they'd had materialized out of nowhere.

  Three of them shuffled up the stairs. As they reached the platform, they spread out evenly and faced outward. They seemed to be reacting to something that wasn't there. They lurched occasionally to the left or right as an unseen presence moved them, or twitched their heads slightly as they reacted to an absent speaker.

  Abby noticed that their hands were bound behind their backs.

  She moved, making a wide circle to see them from the front. Their clothing looked old. Not old as in worn (though it looked that way, too) but almost Colonial in style. She could make out the resolute and defiant features of the three men before bags covered their faces. They appeared out of nothingness-one moment they were not there, and then they were, as though they had been there forever. Mist steamed through the bags as the men began to breathe a little faster.

  Ropes went around all three necks. Nooses were tightened. The hands that performed these things were invisible. Abby saw that the hangman's ropes were looped over the top armature of what she now understood was a gallows.

  She reached out toward the men. A protest died on her lips as three trapdoors opened in unison. She turned away, unable to watch the three men twitch away their lives.

  When she turned back, the men, the ropes, and the gallows were gone. It was tempting to think they had never been there at all, but they had.

  As if to confirm their existence, a serpent of pain wound through her belly.

  30

  Meet Cute

  Bryce lay in his bed with his laptop open on his chest. There was frightening porn playing in one of his browser tabs, but he wasn't paying any attention to it. He didn't like it. He just wanted it in his browser history in case his mother ever decided to snoop. As far as he knew, she still hadn't. Or maybe she had, and she just didn't care.

  It was Friday, and he had no plans. Disturbing. He had seen everyone at his party the week before and at school since then, but something ineffable had changed. Laze was dating Abby's cute friend. Delilah and Hunter had gotten back together for the umpteenth time. (Bryce was already looking forward to Hunter's inevitable drunken call about the break up.) Couples didn't hang out, and Ben Knowles hadn't been any fun since he was hit in the head with that baseball in the 5th grade. There were the others, new kids at the school, but Bryce didn't bother with them. Last year, he would have picked one at random and gotten them to bike over so he could see how much hell he could convince them to raise with zero parental supervision.

  It bored him now.

  He wasn't content with just lying around, but there wasn't much else he could or would do. He thought he might go for a joyride, but even that felt pointless. The truth was that there was only one place he wanted to be, but he wasn't sure how he felt about how much he wanted to be there.

  His door opened. Harcourt, the family butler, poked his head inside. "Your mother would like to see you in the main dining room."

  Bryce cranked the volume on the porn, maintaining direct eye contact with the old man. Harcourt didn't blink. The man had impressive composure, probably learned at whatever barracks they used to train butlers. "And you didn't think to question such a strange order?" Bryce asked over the mechanical moans and grunting.

  "No, sir. Just that she was very clear on 'now.'"

  "That is troubling."

  Bryce almost dismissed it, but he was just interested enough to find out what his mother wanted. She never asked to see him. Sometimes he thought the reason that Coffin Manor underwent almost constant renovation was so his mother wouldn't accidentally run into him in the hallways. God forbid she experience the embarrassment of trying to remember his name.

  He stood up without pausing the porn, and went out into the hallway. Harcourt lingered, making certain that Bryce was on his way, and then closed the bedroom door behind them.

  Bryce knew what the old man meant by "main dining room," though a guest might not. It wasn't the biggest one-that was a vaulted feasting hall that looked like his mother's attempt to start a Viking trend amongst the wealthy. It wasn't the nicest one, either-that was in what had formerly been known as the east wing, but was now more accurately the northeast wing and never referred to by name. The main dining room was the one that had been in the house since Bryce was very little, and it hadn't seen an actual meal since then. He doubted that was what his mother was calling him down for now, since she ate her meals on the hidden terrace on the second floor or in her bedroom while she watched one of her mindless television shows.

  His mother's disinterest in his life was so dependable that the mystery of this summons was almost exhilarating. Bryce took the back stairs to a split-level section of the house and headed into the main dining room through the small kitchen that these days was used primarily for farming spiders.

  Marianne Coffin sat at the head of the table-even alone, her ego would allow her to sit nowhere else-next to a nearly-empty bottle of vodka, a mostly-full tumbler, and a crystal ashtray. Smoke spiraled up to the antique ceiling she'd had imported from a monastery in Spain. She gulped the last of the vodka in the tumbler, then killed the bottle. "Harcourt," she began, but the butler was already putting another bottle of Grey Goose on the table. It was still frosty from the freezer. He vanished back into the maze of the house.

  There were pictures of Bryce's mother scattered around the house. She had been, quite literally, a beauty queen. Though her clouds of blonde hair and large, gleaming teeth weren't in fashion anymore, she'd once been a living sex symbol. Thirty years later, age, cigarettes, alcohol, and pills had taken their toll. Marianne's hair was thinning. She teased it to mask how bad it was getting, but she was fighting a losing battle. Her formerly bright grey eyes had dulled to a shade of flat slate. Her skin was taut, with crêpe-like hollows around her eyes and cheeks.

  She turned her head as Bryce came into the room, forcing her eyes into focus. Despite her efforts, her gaze was empty and glassy. Bryce imagined she'd look at him this way when she died.

  "Imagine my surprise when your pet creep told me you wanted to see me," Bryce said. "I thought to myself, 'Does she need me to make a booze run?' No, those are for poor people. 'Does she need one of her prescriptions filled?' But you just have those delivered right to the house."

  "Bryce Quincy Coffin IV," she said, trying to summon some lost authority by using his full name but she just couldn't muster up enough passion. She was mixing her pills and her liquor again, or as he usually thought of it, the Mom parfait. He recognized it by her slurred consonants and lazy vowels. "That's no way to speak to your mother."

  "Sorry. Didn't recognize you. It's been a while."

  He expected some recrimination for that one, some kind of slow
ly formed rebuke that she'd forget halfway through. Instead, she nodded. "I know. I know. There's been so much to do. So much."

  He frowned, and for the first time noticed what she was wearing. It wasn't exactly night-at-the-opera wear, but she was dressed well and made-up. She was also wearing her Daughters of Arkham pin, which was stranger still. When she was having a parfait, she didn't bother with that sort of thing. This little meeting was becoming more curious by the second.

  Marianne gulped at her vodka. "The Coffin family is important to this town. To this country."

  "Absolutely. Without us, America would suffer a crippling alcohol surplus."

  His mother didn't seem to hear. "We're one of the leading lights of the economy. Do you know how many people we employ? Not just the family, but all of our companies and subsidiaries? I once asked Mr. Terrell for a figure. I had never seen so many zeroes."

  Davis Terrell was the family lawyer, a man who, in Bryce's estimation, had missed his calling as a scarecrow.

  "We're a cornerstone of a vast fortune, going back generations. And that fortune started right here. Right in Arkham." Her skeletal finger stabbed the table. She finished off her cup and refilled it again before it hit the table. "You could say that as the Coffins go, so goes Arkham."

  "I'm sure that's not nearly as morbid as it sounds." Bryce muttered.

  "We have responsibilities," Marianne said, fixing her son with a glassy stare. Bryce shuddered. It was like his mother was dead and her eyelids had just flipped open. He fought the urge to take a step back, scolding himself. He'd seen his mother in this state since he was old enough to have memories, but he couldn't escape the impression that this time something was different.

  "Responsibilities," she slurred. Her head nodded a bit. Just like that, the power of the moment was gone. Bryce was once again looking at a woman who was barely skin and bones because she was often too drunk or high to remember to eat. "We do things we don't want to do because we have to. We have to." She repeated that once more, like an incantation.

  The doorbell chimed. In other parts of the house, he never would have heard it. It only sounded near the front and in the servants' quarters where Harcourt could deal with it. He entered the dining room and said, "Madam, your guests have arrived."

  "Send them in," she said.

  Harcourt made a quick gesture and one of the maids came in, removing the now empty vodka bottle. A moment later, Harcourt came into the room and announced, "Patience and Ophelia Thomas."

  Bryce's head snapped around. The Thomases were wealthy, although not in the same league as the Coffins, and he knew Ophelia. She was a curvy girl, teetering on chubby, pretty and full-faced. Her hair was her best feature, long, and glossy chestnut, setting off her hazel eyes. They were in the same grade and they'd gone to the same school since kindergarten but they weren't friends. They weren't even friendly. She was a bookworm, a band geek, a nerd. If there was some strange obsession, she had it. In elementary school, she had been all about sparkly vampires. She and her friends had put on white pancake makeup and dark eyeliner. Now it was something else, Bryce thought maybe police in England or someplace, since every item of clothing Ophelia owned had a blue police box on it.

  The only jewelry Ophelia wore today was the lapel pin that signified her membership in the Daughters. A matching pin graced the left side of her mother's ample bosom.

  Marianne Coffin got up from her chair and airily embraced Patience Thomas. Patience was a large woman who had succumbed to her genetics long ago. Her features had almost been completely devoured by fragrant, pillowy rolls of flesh. His Mother turned to him.

  "Bryce, won't you say hello to Ophelia?"

  "Yeah, hi. What's going on here?"

  "Hi Bryce," Ophelia said, glancing at him from under her eyelashes.

  "Offer the young lady a chair. Or something to drink," Marianne said.

  "We're out of vodka."

  "Bryce!"

  Bryce sighed. "Sit down. If you want anything to drink, we have a trained monkey around here somewhere."

  Ophelia giggled at "trained monkey" and sat down.

  Marianne took her place at the head of the table. Patience sat at her right hand. It reminded Bryce of some kind of WASP mafia meeting.

  "Sit down, Bryce," Marianne said. Her voice had sharpened up; she was hiding her slurring very well. It was possible Patience hadn't noticed. Then again, the Coffin fortune bought a whole lot of looking the other way.

  "Actually I was about to-"

  "Sit down!"

  The room went as cold and silent as a knife. Bryce picked a seat far away from them and slid into it.

  "Now," said Marianne, "I suppose we should acquaint these two."

  "Agreed," Patience said. "Let's see. Ophelia plays the French horn. Her favorite subject is math."

  "Algebra," Ophelia amended.

  "Bryce..." Marianne trailed off, trying to think of something to say.

  A huge grin split Bryce's face. He leaned back in his chair. "Go on, mother. Tell them all about me."

  Marianne offered him a brittle smile. "How about you do that?"

  "Sure thing. Well, I don't play any instruments, but I do play the victim from time to time. My favorite subject is myself, followed closely by women's studies. I really enjoy drinking but only alone and in my underpants. I also enjoy some good, old-fashioned, hardcore, German pornog-"

  "He has a sense of humor," Marianne said.

  "Boys will be boys," Patience agreed.

  Ophelia continued to stare at him. She only looked away when he looked right at her and widened his eyes, as if to demand, What?

  "Tell me more about Ophelia," Marianne said, and Patience started rattling off her daughter's accomplishments like she was reading a resume. Honors classes, Dean's list, awards and the like. Bryce completely zoned out until he heard a very chilling phrase.

  "And the last name?" Marianne asked.

  "Oh, of course. We're not attached."

  Bryce blinked. Last name? His mind chased the whole event from beginning to end. A fix up. This was a fix up! From his mother? He looked at all three women in turn. Ophelia averted her gaze. This was exactly what he thought it was.

  Marianne and Patience continued to talk. Ophelia continued to steal looks at Bryce.

  A plan crystallized in his head.

  "I have a question," he said.

  They looked at him in confusion. He wasn't supposed to talk. That wasn't his role in this little affair. "Question?" Patience said, testing the word as though she didn't understand what it was supposed to mean in this context.

  "Yes, Mrs. Thomas. A question. If you are going to marry me off to your daughter here, I feel I'm entitled to know a few things." Bryce leaned forward, steepling his fingers with great seriousness. "I'm just wondering if you're poor, blind, or just plain lazy."

  Ophelia and Patience gasped.

  "Because I can't think of any good reason why an affluent woman with fully functional eyes would allow herself to get so... Uh, is 'grandiose' an okay word? I'm trying to be tactful here."

  "Bryce." Marianne's voice was a warning.

  "Come on, Mom. Even you have to admit that there's no excuse for rich people to be fat. There's surgery, dieticians, personal chefs... Hell, she can afford to hire someone to follow her around all day and slap the fork right out of her hand. If I'm going to join this family in holy fatrimony, I want to know what kind of battles I'll be fighting."

  "Bryce, you cut it out this instant," Marianne said.

  Bryce couldn't have stopped if he tried. He felt the insults welling up inside of him, and they were too therapeutic not to spit in the faces of the three women at the table. He didn't look at Ophelia or his mother. He focused on Patience. She was the one who could make all of this go away. How much humiliation was she willing to endure for a chance at the Coffin fortune?

  "How could you?"

  "So which is it? I like to know what my money is buying. I need to know if my girl here is going to mai
ntain this buxom, curvy thing she's got going on, or if she's going to follow in your footsteps and pull a full-on marshmallow."

  Patience Thomas rose from her seat, and Bryce realized he'd said too much, too soon. He could have dragged this out for a while and had some real fun with it.

  "I'm sorry to have troubled you, Marianne," Patience said. "We'll return at a later time."

  "Don't go. He's like this sometimes."

  "Mother dear is just throwing out guesses. This is the longest we've been in the same room together since, what, birth?"

  "I'm sure he is, but I have another engagement. Ophelia?"

  Ophelia got up to join her mother. She was crying. For a moment, Bryce felt badly about that, but she was in on this thing, too.

  "Mrs. Thomas!" he said, standing from his seat as though he intended to escort them to the door. "If we need to get ahold of you, did you leave a phone number, or should we just light the "hot" sign in our window?"

  The Thomases went out. Marianne followed them, wringing her hands. Bryce smirked and left the room. Chances were that his mother would want to see him later to chew him out. Two visits in one day! He had to hit Google, make sure there wasn't an eclipse tonight, or any other sign of the impending apocalypse.

  No sweat, though. He could easily avoid her. By the time he saw her again, she would have drowned this memory along with all her others.

  31

  The Dreaded Conversation

  The internet said she would be showing between twelve and sixteen weeks. Abby assumed those estimates were intended for grown women, so she mentally shaved a couple weeks off. She was still too slender and lanky to hide much of anything on her body, much less a baby.

  Soon, she had to make a choice.

  She didn't know what she was going to do. She barely understood her options. Her mother would know, though. Constance was always certain.