All That Bleeds

by Kimberly Frost

  “I’m a muse. I help people. I don’t kill them.”

  “You are well aware that power can be used to inspire violence as easily as peace. Have a care for his safety, because where you are concerned, he clearly does not.” He didn’t look down as he rose into the night.

  With his departure, the cold engulfed her. She shivered as she thought about Lysander’s implication. What retribution would Merrick face for rescuing her from Cato Jacobi’s balcony? That worried her. Jacobi was clearly very dangerous. She didn’t want Merrick to be hurt because he’d helped her.

  Merrick can take care of himself. You know that. Everyone knows that.

  The thoughts reassured her as she left the woods for the lakeside path. The entire night had been so surreal. It was hard to drag her mind back to the Etherlin, to normal life, but with the dawn, the sun bathed the world in a tawny glow.

  The splendor of her neighborhood hit her all at once, reminding her of who she was and of the danger in standing around in daylight where someone might see her. She needed to cover her arms. She couldn’t let anyone see evidence of the bite or the subsequent transfusion.

  She looked upward again, her eyes traveling along the puffed clouds that dotted the sky toward the Varden and Merrick. She wished that, like Lysander, she had wings that would carry her through the night undiscovered. Then she could go wherever she wanted, could see Merrick whenever she liked—which she suspected would be often.

  She dragged her gaze back to Earth, to reality.

  You didn’t work so hard for so many years to throw it all away in one night. Forget about black-and-white penthouses and iron balconies. Forget about the Varden, Cato Jacobi, and Lysander. And especially, for your dad’s sake and for the sake of your future, forget about Merrick.

  You’re back where you belong. Be grateful for that.

  She turned from the path and strode to the front of the house, stopping halfway up the walk when she realized that on the doorstep was her former best friend and current Wreath rival, Cerise Xenakis.

  Chapter 7

  The wind tousled Cerise’s hair as she bent to set down a large document box.

  Egyptian princess meets girl gladiator, Alissa thought, noticing Cerise’s kohl eye makeup and her strappy boots. With Alissa’s feet bare and Cerise already five foot ten before the tall boots, she’d noticeably tower over Alissa, possibly raising questions about where Alissa’s shoes were. Alissa hung back, grateful that the gown’s skirt skimmed the ground, hiding her feet.

  “Hello,” Alissa said calmly, posing herself as elegantly as possible. The first rule of being a public figure was never appear rattled. Alissa laced her fingers together behind her back so that her arms were hidden, the hollows of her elbows shadowed and protected by the sides of her body.

  “You’re still in your dress. Where’s your coat?” Cerise asked, her gaze skimming Alissa from head to hem.

  “I fell asleep still dressed,” Alissa said with what she hoped sounded like an easy laugh. “I wanted to watch the sunrise, so I came out.”

  “No wrap? It’s chilly out here.”

  “It is. Colder than I first realized,” she said, inching slightly closer. “What did you bring?”

  “It’s an unfinished manuscript and some research materials of your dad’s that were at our house. Dorie said your dad’s writing again. I thought he might want them. I know the musicians I work with keep song notes for years. Sometimes something sparks an idea years after the original lyric was written.”

  “What was a manuscript of my dad’s doing at your house? How old is it?”

  “Old. My dad brought it home from the Dome. Your dad left it there a long time ago.”

  “At the Dome?” Alissa echoed. The Etherlin Council’s headquarters housed some important historical documents on-site, but there wasn’t a library for a writer to use. “When?”

  “A long time ago.” Cerise’s hooded expression made Alissa’s eyes narrow.

  “There’s no place to write there.”

  “My parents said he was using a conference room while he waited for your mother, who was there for a meeting.”

  Alissa looked at the box. It made sense that her father would have wanted to work near where her mother was, but why wouldn’t he simply have waited for her to get home from the meeting she was attending rather than lugging a manuscript and materials to the Dome?

  “When exactly was this?” she asked.

  Cerise hesitated. “A few days before your mom died, I guess.”

  Alissa shuddered.

  “The date and time are in the manuscript header from when he last saved. Or maybe from when he printed it out.”

  A few days before she died…

  Why would her dad have forgotten his manuscript at the Dome? If it had been after her mom had died, his misplacing his work was plausible. He hadn’t looked for anything but her then. But before? It didn’t make sense, and Alissa didn’t remember him ever going to that building to write.

  “I can put this inside for you.”

  Alissa was careful to keep her arms turned inward as she passed Cerise. She opened the door and held it. Inside, Cerise set the box on a console table. Alissa crossed her arms in front of her to keep her elbows safely bent, but Cerise’s gaze settled on her arms and stayed there.

  She couldn’t have seen the bite, Alissa thought nervously. Alissa forced herself not to move, not to change expression.

  “Is that a bruise on your wrist?” Cerise asked.

  She’d forgotten about the bruises.

  “Yes, a little bruise. I actually tripped and fell when I was walking home last night. Not exactly the picture of elegance,” Alissa said with a roll of her eyes. “I’m glad no one from the EC was there to see me.”

  Cerise smiled, but still looked thoughtful. “It’s really from falling? The outside of the wrist is a weird place to bruise in a fall.”

  Alissa shrugged.

  Cerise took a half step closer. “Your other wrist—”

  Alissa opened the front door. “Thanks for bringing that by.” When Cerise didn’t walk to the door, Alissa added, “I’m going upstairs to shower and change.”

  “Is your dad up?” Cerise asked, glancing over her shoulder toward the staircase.

  “No,” Alissa said with a forced smile. “He keeps late hours.”

  “A lot of artists drink and have violent tempers. I don’t remember your dad being like that, but he hasn’t been the same since your mom died, has he?”

  “He’s fine. He’s much better.”

  “Not violent?”

  Distracted by all the things she was trying to conceal, it took a moment for Alissa to realize what Cerise was asking. Cerise thought the bruises were from her father.

  “Oh, no,” Alissa said. “Of course not! Everything’s fine.”

  Cerise didn’t speak for several excruciating seconds. The urge to explain what had really taken place nearly overwhelmed Alissa. She couldn’t stand for Cerise to think her dad had hurt her. But Alissa knew she couldn’t possibly explain. That would cost her the Wreath.

  “If you say so,” Cerise said, still skeptical, finally moving toward the door.

  “Cerise, I don’t expect to hear rumors about my dad or any mention of these bruises.”

  Cerise’s concerned expression hardened, and Alissa immediately regretted her warning.

  “That’s not why I was asking,” Cerise said coldly. “But trust you to worry that smearing your image is my ulterior motive. Appearing picture-perfect for the council has always been your top priority.”

  Alissa opened her mouth to deny it, but stopped herself. It wasn’t in her best interest to prolong the conversation, though the accusation opened an old wound. Alissa closed her mouth, pursing her lips against the things she wanted to say and to stop herself from trying to restore the fragile connection that had existed a few moments before. Alissa had craved the restoration of her friendship with Cerise for so long, but she couldn’t pursue it after a
night in the Varden.

  With a curt nod, Cerise stalked out, leaving an icy emptiness in her wake.

  Alissa closed the door and locked it, then bent her head, trying to prevent the tears from coming.

  It wasn’t until Alissa was scrubbing her skin under the warm shower jets that she realized she’d been lied to. Not by Cerise, but long before. When Alissa had asked questions about her mother’s final weeks, she’d been told that her mom had been depressed and had managed to keep it from her family. Helene had supposedly stopped working, causing a sudden withdrawal of magic from her collection of aspiring authors, actors, and artists, many of whom then slipped into despair. The EC, alarmed by her erratic behavior and deep depression, tried repeatedly to help Helene, but she refused to meet with them. Those were their exact words. We tried to help her, but she refused to meet with us.

  Leading up to the end, Alissa remembered there being tension in the house, hushed conversations between her parents, but her mother hadn’t seemed depressed until two days before she killed herself. Alissa had come home from school on Friday afternoon to find that there’d been a sudden shift in her mom’s personality; so startling in fact, that at first Alissa had thought her mom was physically ill.

  Alissa knew her mom’s crying jags had lasted throughout Friday night because she’d heard the servants discussing it. They were as shocked as Alissa. No one had ever seen either of her parents break down before.

  The crying stopped sometime Saturday, giving rise to silence and a blank expression that lasted the rest of Saturday and the first part of Sunday. And then suddenly, about forty-eight hours after the melancholy first consumed her, Helene North was dead.

  So the question was, what had her mother’s meeting in the Dome been about? And why had it been kept secret from Alissa? Had it somehow caused what followed?

  Alissa went through the box Cerise had brought, looking for some clue as to why her mom and dad had been at the Dome, but there were only manuscript pages and research notes. All the papers were labeled and neatly clipped together. Very neatly. As though someone had been through them.

  She paced for almost thirty minutes before going to her dad’s room and nudging him awake.

  “Here you are,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “You got me out of there just in time.”

  “Out of where, Dad?”

  “Oh, no.” He grimaced. “You’re sweet for acting interested, but I wouldn’t…People who insist on telling their dreams are among the terrors of the breakfast table.”

  She laughed. “Who said that? Beerbohm?”

  “Perhaps. Can you tell me something?” he asked.

  “Of course, then maybe you can tell me something. I have questions for you.”

  He raised his head from the pillow and looked around as if someone might be hiding in the corner, eavesdropping. “Will there be real bacon today? Or only more bird meat in disguise?”

  “Probably turkey bacon,” she said, smiling. “I don’t know how you can even taste the difference. I can’t.”

  His head thumped down on the pillow. “I’ve failed you as a parent in so many ways.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Not true. You stayed. Even though it was hard.”

  He frowned. “She’s on the banks of the river. I hate to keep her waiting.”

  “She has nothing but time now. I’m the one who needs you. If you go, I’ll be all alone in the world.”

  He studied Alissa’s face for a moment. “Whoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.”

  “I’ll try to keep that in mind. I have to ask you something. Do you remember Mom having a meeting at the Dome just before she got sick?”

  “Meetings,” he said, his tone bitter. “They never left her alone.”

  “What was the one before she died about?”

  “Be not too hasty to trust the teachers of morality. They discourse like angels, but they live like men.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, but could you be more specific? Who are the teachers of morality? The Etherlin Council?”

  He sat up and climbed off the bed. “She was Wreath Muse. If she wanted to learn something—anything—about the history of the muses, that was her right, and it was none of their business. Their investigation pushed her.” He spun to stare at a dark corner. “It did. It did push you!” He scowled and then took a deep breath in and blew it out.

  He’s getting worse again, she thought. “Pushed her to what? To suicide?”

  He turned and, to Alissa, he said, “Someone stole the back brush from my shower. The one with the smooth wooden handle.”

  “That was a while ago,” she said. “Dad—”

  “How long?”

  She sighed impatiently. “About a year and a half. You swung it like a bat and shattered the bathroom mirror.”

  He paused for a moment as if trying to remember, then said, “Well, who wants to live in a wilderness of mirrors where no fact goes unchallenged? And what’s my back supposed to do without a brush? Wash itself?” He disappeared into the bathroom, and she stood next to the bed, shaking her head. His outbursts were erratic and violent, but the violence was never directed at people, only at defenseless objects. Still, she was afraid that ES would find out and become concerned for her safety. Would the EC force her to put her dad in an institution? She shuddered. He’d never survive there. He needed to be near her and near her mother’s things.

  Alissa wondered who she could ask about Helene’s meeting at the Dome. No one was very comfortable talking about her mother, and Alissa couldn’t really afford to remind people about her mother’s suicide when she was vying for the Wreath.

  “Facts are daggers.”

  Alissa jerked her head to find that her dad had come back into the room. “Are they, Dad? In what way?”

  He waved a hand vaguely. “Experience has to teach that lesson. But if you’re going to pursue the truth like it’s got a price on its head, you should look for what she was looking for. Just don’t tell anyone. You mustn’t let them find out.”

  “What was she looking for?

  “She made notes in her private journals. I hid some in the library. Behind Chekhov, Carroll, Palahniuk, and Poe.”

  He disappeared again into the bathroom, and this time she heard running water. She hurried to the library. She knew her mom’s cabinets had been emptied of all her important papers, but Alissa realized that the things that had been relinquished to the Muse Antiquities Society for preservation had been work related. The community didn’t have a right to a Wreath Muse’s personal diaries as long as she kept a separate set of muse journals. Since Alissa had never seen any private diaries, she’d assumed that her mother hadn’t kept any.

  Several times, Alissa had requested access to her mother’s Wreath Muse journals but she had never been given clearance to read them. She’d been told that the EC thought it would be too upsetting for her. As if Alissa needed to read journals to encounter painful reminders of her mother’s death. Her mom’s memory was everywhere in their house, and her father mentioned Helene every day.

  Alissa removed books by the four authors her dad had indicated, and she found a collection of journals hidden behind them. She thumbed open the first leather-bound book. The handwriting was beautiful, a really elegant script that she remembered as her mother’s. Glancing at the dates, Alissa flipped the journal closed and pulled others from the shelves. They spanned fifteen years. Unfortunately, the final one that should’ve included 1998 to 1999 was missing. Alissa went through each book again to check the dates, then she checked the shelves again. Soon, she was systematically removing all the books to check behind them.

  Hours passed, but she didn’t find it. Her mother’s final journal, which might have contained some shred of information about what had led to her unexpected depression and death, wasn’t there. Had her dad hidden it somewhere else? Or destroyed it? The house was huge, and he couldn’t be relied upon to answer questions coherently or with any sort of timeliness. She might
never find out what had happened to the final diary.

  Alissa rested her head in her palms. Her father had implied that her mother had done something controversial at the end of her life, causing the EC to question and investigate her. What could it have been? Dimitri and the other council members obviously never intended for Alissa to find out the truth, despite the fact that, as a muse and a daughter, Alissa had a right to know.

  Chapter 8

  Of all the letters Alissa had sent him, the one written on her twenty-fifth birthday was Merrick’s favorite. It rested against his thigh as he sat in the chair next to the bed where she’d lain. Her scent lingered on the air, and he wasn’t ready to leave it. Though he would have to go to his own room soon with dawn’s heavy fist about to come down.

  He ran his thumb over the letter’s top page. Three drops of wine marked the upper right corner. When he’d first opened it, he’d catalogued the information. Alissa liked dry red wine, and she must have been a little buzzed when she wrote the letter because a few drops had sloshed out of her glass and rained down on the paper. Also, the handwriting stretched the words out and was much less careful than usual. She’d included the time. 3:31 a.m. When he’d gotten the letter, he’d wondered what he’d been doing while she was writing it and what she’d thought of the birthday present he’d sent: a one-of-a-kind 1920s bracelet. He hadn’t wondered long. He’d seen it on her wrist in plenty of photographs afterward. The days where she claimed to give away the gifts he sent were over.

  Merrick glanced at the letter. The wine had melted the ice-princess façade and underneath was the real girl. She talked about her disdain for the emphasis placed on her looks, though she also called them “her protection.” She confided that she missed her former best friend and envied the other girl’s eclectic style and natural athleticism. Magazines and designers almost always chose Alissa to model for them over Cerise, which Alissa thought showed a lack of imagination. She claimed that pictures of her friend were often more compelling than the ones of her.