Mother of Crows: Daughters of Arkham - Book 2

by David Rodriguez

  He wheeled his bike onto the porch-a privilege that was only permitted in weather like this-and knocked. Bertram answered the door and invited him inside. There was no warmth to the old servant, no matter how many times Nate tried to bond with him via their mutual station.

  Nate went into the parlor and found Abby there, showered and dressed, looking radiant in her simple clothes. Her face broke into a wide smile at the sight of him. "Nate! I didn't think you were going to make it!"

  "Please. Do you really think a little bit of snow is going to be able to hold back all this?" He gestured at his slender frame as if presenting himself, then patted his chest. "I got the mad flex on my bike, yo."

  "You are a dork." Abby giggled and slapped the couch next to her. Nate grinned. As he joined her, she bounced up again, unable to contain her excitement. She conjured a beautifully-wrapped package from under the tree and gazed seriously at him. Her eyes were full and glossy, and she put her smile away for a moment.

  "Merry Christmas, Nathan."

  Nate felt a tightness in his chest. Whether she said it out loud or not, they were both aware that this was the last Christmas of this sort, ever. He would never again be able to pedal to her house on Christmas morning to sit with her alone on this couch and sip cocoa and exchange gifts. Their world was in an uproar. And he only thing he could be certain of was that one more part of their childhood was being set aside this morning.

  He held up his gift to her and found his voice. "Merry Christmas, Abigail."

  Her smile returned like sunrise. Nate smiled back as they settled back down on the couch together. He waited to unwrap his present, wanting this moment to last. He also wanted to see what she thought of his gift before he got an idea of how much she spent on him. As guilty as he sometimes felt about that, he also knew that whatever Abby had got for him was going to be incredible. She'd never failed, not once.

  She opened the package that he had so painstakingly wrapped. He'd heard that using more than three pieces of tape meant you were wrapping a present wrong. He hadn't managed to bring his tape use down from six pieces, and there would be no ribbon until further advances in technology.

  Abby opened it up, revealing a book cover. It was old. Nate had found it in The Inkwell, Arkham's local second hand bookstore. It had been pretty cheap too, which was good because Nate had yanked all the guts from it. The cover said, FLORA AND FAUNA OF NEW ENGLAND. It looked like a textbook from the '60s. Abby opened it, revealing the true gift inside.

  Every page contained notes from Nate's jagged hand, and included pictures he had taken, drawn, or found online. Some pictures and sections were mostly unaltered. Other parts had been printed out from articles online; still others were cannibalized from different sources. It was exactly what the cover said, a guide to the plants and animals of their home, but Nate had compiled it himself. He'd even organized the book by season. There was a big section on foxes, and another on asters, two of Abby's favorites. Nate had spent hours carefully rendering the purple blooms in detail.

  "Oh my God, Nate. It's just... incredible," Abby paged through the work as if it were priceless artifact in a museum.

  "I'm glad you like it."

  "No. I love it." She looked up and Nate had never seen that kind of joy on her face. It was like watching spring bloom in a single corner of Arkham. "You just..." Her voice caught and a flicker of dew danced across her eyes before she hugged him tight.

  Nate held her close for a moment as she whispered another 'thank you' into his hair. She gave him one more long squeeze before pulling away.

  "Okay! Now open yours!"

  "Are you sure? Mine was pretty awesome. I don't want to ruin your Christmas."

  She punched him in the arm and shoved the present at him. He grinned as he took the wrapping paper off the package. Unlike his own job, this was art. Abby was like that. She approached every task, no matter how small or menial, with pride and care. He took the lid off the box and found a shiny, new tablet. He had been wanting one, even remarking to Abby on more than one occasion that he was saving to get one. His eyes felt like there were about to bug right out of his head. "Are you kidding me, Abby? A freaking tablet? This is crazy!"

  "Psh, like I only got you a tablet." She tapped the screen and made a few swipes. "You read too fast for me to buy you any books, so I loaded it up with some credits. Don't spend it all on card packs!" She looked at him and then laughed in delight. "I wish you could see the look on your face."

  "Was it anything like yours? Because that was priceless."

  She reached across the boxes on their laps and hugged him again. "Merry Christmas, Nate."

  "Back at you."

  When they parted, their each went back to looking at their gifts. They both wondered how they could have gotten so lucky. They were united, for a moment, in the two best gifts they would receive until next Christmas.

  Constance Thorndike entered the room, and Nate could swear she was preparing for a party. Then again, Constance always looked like she was getting ready to go to a party to which you were specifically not invited.

  "Merry Christmas, Nathan," she said, producing an envelope out of thin air. "Please give this to your father. It's his usual Christmas bonus. Be sure to thank him for me."

  Nate nodded, and accepted the envelope with a muttered, "Thank you." There was no malice in Constance's words. He knew it had not been her intention to remind him that his family scraped by on the good graces of people like her, but she had torn Nate out of the moment he was sharing with Abby. The quiet, magic spell of their Christmas morning, their last Christmas morning, had been broken. No amount of hugs could bridge the gap between his family and hers. In that moment, he hated the tablet that Abby had given him. For the same amount of money, Nate's mother could have fed their whole family for two months. He didn't belong here.

  He stood up. "Actually. I should go do that right now."

  "No, Nate, stick around. I'm not doing anything right now," Abby said. "We could shop for books."

  "Maybe another time, Abby."

  Nate tucked his gift into his jacket and headed for the front door.

  48

  Making It Work

  sindy wasn't planning to go anywhere special on New Year's Eve. She had no boyfriend, so she was trying to avoid parties. Standing alone with some stupid party favor while all the couples kissed at midnight would just depress her. A month ago, she would have thought that staying in on New Year's was just as (if not more) depressing, but something about it seemed very comforting now. She was planning to go over to Abby's house and ring in the new year with snacks and trashy movies.

  A night together, just the two of them, might help their friendship. Even after she'd apologized about Halloween and Abby had told her that the town was crawling with these monsters, their friendship was still... off.

  She looked for the men Abby claimed were croatan, but she lacked whatever ability Abby had to see through their disguise. If she kept staring at normal-looking men on the street, people were going to think she was crazy. Still, Sindy didn't doubt Abby in the slightest. The memory of Eleazar transforming into that thing was enough for her to believe just about anything.

  Then, there was Hester. First, she'd told her how to make a cake that revealed Eleazar's false face. Second, Hester had intimated that she was being groomed for leadership in the Daughters, not Abby. It made her wonder whether Hester was testing her, trying to see how far she could push her. The scary part was that Sindy didn't know where that line was.

  To make it worse, Sindy couldn't bring herself to mention it to Abby. She wasn't even sure she wanted to. It was one more wedge between them, and she found herself wondering if that was also something Hester wanted.

  Sindy was waiting for Abelard to drive her over to Harwich Hall. She had all of her things ready to go, and she was beginning to get antsy when she got a knock at her door.

  "Miss Endicott," Abelard said, "you have a visitor."

  "A visitor?" Maybe the wire
s had gotten crossed and Abby was coming over here.

  Sindy shrugged and headed downstairs. Eleazar Grant was standing in the foyer looking up at her.

  Her blood went cold. She froze halfway down the staircase. He looked like he had before, handsome and melancholy, but now there was a more tangible sadness in his eyes. His skin was pale, his cheeks and nose red from the cold outside. Good disguise, creeper, she thought.

  "Sindy," he said. There was a plaintive note in his voice that made her uncomfortable.

  "What do you want?"

  "You don't return my texts. You don't talk to me..."

  "That's called a hint. Take it."

  "Sindy, what's wrong? We were doing fine and then-"

  "And then I saw what you are," she hissed. She stalked a few steps closer to him, anger overriding her fear.

  He flinched. "What I am? Presbyterian?"

  "You're a monster, Eleazar, and you know it. A dirty, scaly Crow."

  She caught the glimmer of recognition in his eyes. She flagged a weakness in his disguise. In this form, she could read his mood. His eyes gave away his emotions, unlike the awful, piscine eyes of the thing beneath the boyfriend-mask.

  "Sindy, please, you're acting crazy."

  "Am I? Maybe. But I know what you are, and if you think I would ever want to touch something like you, you're the one who's crazy."

  "I don't-"

  "You don't have anything to say to me. Go away, Eleazar. You lied to me, you... touched me-" Here she shuddered in revulsion. "Just go. Never, ever talk to me again."

  Eleazar hung his head. Maybe he recognized what he'd done was wrong, or maybe it was just an inhuman pantomime designed to elicit sympathy. Sindy didn't care to know. She wanted him out the door.

  He slunk out into the cold, and Sindy shut the door behind him.

  Abelard appeared from the darkness of the house. "Are you ready to go to Harwich Hall, Miss Endicott?"

  Sindy nodded. Her heart was still pounding. "Yes, please."

  "I'll bring the car around."

  49

  Back to School

  Abby was starting to show. There was no way around it. While she could ignore the steady rounding of her face as nothing more alarming than the usual Christmas weight gain (Sindy called it "the festive five"), she could no longer ignore her belly. It was still only mildly distended, but it was obvious that she was either pregnant, or she had just developed a six-beer-a-day habit over break.

  She was grateful that January was just as cold as December. It gave her an excuse to wear her heaviest, baggiest sweaters paired with skirts and tights to draw attention to her legs. No changes there. Just a normal teenage girl's legs, thank you very much.

  With the secret out in the Thorndike household, she expected more recrimination, or at least the sort of passive aggressive barbs that Hester and Constance had elevated to a martial art. They hadn't mentioned the pregnancy at all aside from a few remarks about the changes in Abby's body. Nothing complimentary, of course

  They hadn't made any decision that she was aware of. Abortion was off the table after the disaster at the clinic, and Abby's thoughts were never too far from Duncan Koons, even if she hadn't yet been able to prove his innocence. She imagined her mother and grandmother would decide on adoption, though she wondered if their fierce pride in their lineage would force them to opt for another choice. It rankled Abby that she wasn't being consulted at all, but she could imagine her mother's words: You're still a girl, Abby. A girl who did something foolish, and now needs her mother to clean up after her.

  Abby returned to school, clutching books in front of her like Nate sometimes did after classes. She felt like everyone could see right through her, with eyes like ultrasounds. How the mighty have fallen, they would say. A Thorndike turning into trailer-trash. She hadn't heard any rumors, but that didn't mean they weren't there. Who was going to tell her? Sindy? She and Abby were thick as thieves since New Year's; no one was going to gossip in her direction.

  Nate? No one told him anything.

  Bryce?

  She deflated. Things had started off so well and then she'd barely seen him. They hadn't talked over break apart from a few perfunctory texts. She wondered if she had done something wrong. Or worse, maybe he already knew she was pregnant, and he was disgusted with her for lying to him and for becoming a fat cautionary tale.

  She went to biology and sat through Mr. Harris' lecture, grateful that she didn't have to think about her own problems. Had the lesson been on mammalian birth, she might have lost her cool, but the elegant structure of cells was soothing.

  When the class let out, Mr. Harris said, "Miss Thorndike, may I have a moment?"

  She was positive the class would catcall and jeer, but that kind of behavior was too coarse for the aristocrats of Arkham Academy. The other students filed out. When it was just them, she went up to the front of the room.

  "Thank you, Abigail." He glanced at the door. Satisfied there were no other students lingering there, he went on, lowering his voice, "I tested your iron supplement."

  "Oh?" she said. She had almost forgotten she'd given him the pill.

  "Yes. I don't know how to tell you this, but it's not a supplement at all. It's birth control."

  "Birth control!" she blurted. Her gaze shot over to the door. She was positive she would see a gathering of girls stifling giggles. Other than a few students walking by on the way to lunch, there was no one.

  Harris nodded. "I'm afraid so. How long have you been taking it?"

  "Since ever, I don't know. It's supposed to be preventative-the iron deficiency doesn't start... until puberty..." Abby's voice trailed off as she repeated Constance's explanation and finally saw through it. "It's birth control? You're sure?" Wasn't birth control supposed to be tiny? Her pills were huge.

  "Completely sure. Your mother gives you this?"

  "And my grandmother, yes."

  "I'm sorry, Abby."

  "I was taking this when I got pregnant, though. How is that possible?"

  "No birth control is one hundred percent." His voice softened. "If you include messiahs in the equation, even abstinence isn't a guarantee."

  Abby didn't have the energy to muster a laugh. "Will continuing to take it hurt the baby?" She half-hoped he might say yes. Nate had told her that an abortion could be performed chemically, and this might be her only chance. Still, she wasn't certain she even wanted that.

  "No. It's harmless. Unless you were to take an overdose, and in that case, it's just as dangerous for you."

  "Oh."

  "I wish I had better news for you. I just thought you should know."

  "Thank you, Mr. Harris." His monstrous face was every bit as horrible as before. As much as Abby wanted to find kinship and sympathy in it, she could not. He was being a true friend and she couldn't see past the creature that he was inside. She offered a weak smile, but could not look into his horrid, circular maw.

  50

  Small Town History

  No matter what the rest of the school, or even the town, thought, Nate Baxter did not make a habit of spending his Saturdays in the library. He was there because he had already exhausted the resources of Arkham Academy's much smaller collection. It didn't surprise him that the Academy didn't have very much on the town itself. It was a generalized collection geared toward educating students from all over the country and, in a few cases, the world.

  Arkham Public Library was far more impressive than its name suggested thanks to generous private donations. In Arkham, the wealthy competed with each other to fund public works, as long as they were somewhat glamorous and had a spot for a nameplate. Giving money to a library, funding a bridge, or putting a wing onto a public building made for excellent party chatter; refurbishing the sewer did not. No one wanted to be known as the Sewer Queen of Arkham.

  The library was a former church, a connection not lost on Nate. A small plaque denoted the building's place in town history, along with the name of one of its largest benefacto
rs: THE COFFIN FAMILY. As Nate went up the stairs, he mused that Bryce had probably never set foot inside this building.

  The library wasn't large enough to house its impressive collection. The old altar had become the head librarian's desk. Beside it were the carts for refiling books. A small elevator had been installed behind the desk so that the librarians-all small, gnomish ladies shriveling into identical raisins-could get the books around without throwing their backs out. The rest of the space, where the pews would have been, had become a museum. Town artifacts were protected behind archival glass, including a musket fired by town hero Amadeus Thorndike, the flag captured from the local fort, and the family Bible of the Hanshaw family. A staircase, hidden in the back past the touristy items, led downstairs.

  That was where the true library began. The initial cellar had been dug when the church was first built, though it had served as a hiding place for patriots during the war. After the war, the building was a church for another decade or two before the town grew enough that a larger place of worship had to be constructed at the end of Rosewater Road. When that happened, the building was turned first into a schoolhouse, and then finally a library.

  True to town form, the plaques continued inside, marking every hallway and every shelf. Thorndike, Endicott, Thomas, Cutter... No plaque would ever carry the name Baxter, at least not until Nate went into the world to make his mark.

  He was deep in the Duckworth Wing, going through digital records of old town newspapers. In the old days, there had been two: the Post, still clinging to existence to this day, and the Patriot, which had folded in the late '70s. Most records of this kind would have been on microfiche, but thanks to the generous actions of the Knowles Family (clearly marked on a plaque by the bank of computers), all the surviving newspapers and microfiche records had been scanned into the computer.

  Nate spent some time helping with that very task two summers ago, when he wasn't helping his father with the lawn care business. It was good work, and it paid very well. His parents had let him keep enough money to buy his bike.