“Oh my God,” I said. Even as tired as I was, I knew. I knew immediately. “Tjuan.”
“Yes,” she said.
“And you just . . . stayed with him.”
“At first I didn’t know how to leave. And then I felt for the boy. I cast a spell to make him forget what he saw, not realizing that the spell trapped me here. That I wouldn’t get called back, when the other spirits were, because I was bound.”
“So what happened? When he got sick, was that you?”
“I . . . made an error in judgment. I’d come to care for him over the years. He was bright, and he found success, but there were people who resented his presence. I tried to use just a little influence on him, make him cautious, because he had such a run of good luck that he became too trusting. He didn’t see the contempt his coworkers had for him. Somehow, between the stress at work and my attempts to communicate with him, he started to sense me. He turned on me. It was . . . bad, for both of us.”
“That’s when he got committed.”
“They medicated him, but of course that didn’t do anything to me. Only the electricity they eventually channeled into his brain disrupted our link. But it also gave him back that terrible memory I’d kept from him.”
I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. The whole time I’d known him, he’d been carrying that around. “What happened to you?”
“I stayed trapped in that room, watching the doctors perform procedures on one person after another, until the next convergence, when the Bone Harp was played to draw me back to Arcadia. From that point on, I stopped watching this world.”
I sat for a moment, massaging my forehead, trying to take it all in. “And then Elliott came to Arcadia, telling stories of what happened in the fall.”
“I recognized a name in those stories.”
“Oh, Caveat. Does Tjuan know?”
“No.”
“Does Caryl? Does Elliott?”
“You’re the first person I’ve told.”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re the one with the plan. You’re his only hope. I came here because I wanted to make sure he was all right, to find some way to help him.”
“And now—”
“And now it’s my responsibility, more than any, to help save him. I’m the one who brought him to this place, who made him into a man who trusts and is trusted by no one.”
“I trust him. I’d trust him with my life.”
Caveat took the trouble to project a respectful inclination of her head. Her usual stillness made the gesture all the more striking. “And so for you,” she said, “and for him, I need to see this thing through, this plan you’ve made for the White Rose. Even if it means sharing another human’s mind. I’ll do whatever you want. Please, don’t give up.”
She brought her forelegs together in what looked like entreaty. Her eyes fixed on mine.
“I . . . kind of want to hug you,” I said.
“Not necessary,” said Caveat.
“I can see it now,” I said dryly. “The resemblance between you.”
“Sleep now.”
“Caveat?”
“Yes?”
“You need to tell him.”
Caveat was silent for a long time. Then she said, “If you manage to save him, I will.”
• • •
I did manage to sleep a little, but in just a couple of hours I heard an unfamiliar boop-boop-boop in the drawer of my nightstand. Instantly I knew that it was Alondra’s phone.
I rolled over at the speed of sound, pounced on the drawer, grabbed the phone, and hit the button to answer the call. I didn’t speak. I just sat there listening.
“Hello?” said a male voice on the other end.
I said nothing. I was still waking up, still trying to figure out what I should do. If this was Alondra’s boyfriend, I was going to feel like a heel.
“It’s Tracy,” the voice said. “You okay?”
A man named Tracy. The Eastern regional manager was a man named Tracy.
My mind raced. I tried to find something approaching Alondra’s high, breathy voice. “Was sleeping. What’s up?” It was crisper, more curt than she would have been, but I didn’t want to risk saying more.
“You haven’t been reporting in, and I was worried, that’s all.”
My skin went clammy. It took me a minute to find English sentences, much less my fake Alondra voice.
“Can’t talk right now,” I said.
“What’s wrong? Are you in danger?”
“No privacy. Let’s talk later.”
“Okay. Be sure to let me know if you feel threatened in any way.”
“Of course. Bye for now.”
I ended the call and stared at the phone. Then I picked up mine and used it to call Caryl.
“Millie,” she answered. There were tears in her voice, and my heart lurched despite everything.
“Yes, it’s me,” I said, pushing past it. “Someone named Tracy just called Alondra’s phone from New York and asked why she hadn’t been reporting in.”
There was a long silence. When she spoke again she sounded as though she were trying to squeeze the words out through as little air as possible.
“I’ll be there first thing in the morning,” she said.
27
I slept longer than I’d meant to. By the time I got my prosthetics and my clothes on and went down to the kitchen, Alondra was in there eating a cinnamon-raisin bagel. I wasn’t sure how long it would be until Caryl arrived, so I tried for small talk.
“How are you?” I asked her as I made coffee.
“The doctor didn’t find anything,” she said as though I could somehow possibly be aware of the context of this statement. “But I know my own body. I don’t know why nothing’s showing up in the tests.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.
“I’m living on borrowed time anyway,” she said. “If I hadn’t run away that night, if I hadn’t been mad at my mother? I’d be dead too. I should just be grateful.”
There was not enough coffee in the world for this conversation.
“My parents are dead too,” I said after an awkward silence. Trying for sympathy, but I guess it came out more like suck it up, join the club, to judge by the way she looked at me.
“How did yours die?” she said, obviously braced for some sort of angst competition.
“My mom got something rare when I was a baby, some kind of cancer. My dad killed himself several years ago.”
Alondra considered this. “At least mine didn’t suffer. Carbon monoxide from a generator after a big storm. I thought they were asleep at first.” She didn’t exactly seem lost in the memory; her eyes were defiant on mine. Beat that.
I looked at her for a moment, felt such a rush of hatred that my coffee almost came back up.
“I’m fine, by the way,” I said. “But Tjuan isn’t. He’s in jail.”
“What?”
“Tjuan and I got arrested yesterday,” I said. “We spent the entire day at the police station because of what Dame Belinda did to him, while you were racking up medical bills over nothing. He never came back last night. Thanks for noticing.”
As proof of a just and merciful universe, at that exact moment I heard the unmistakable (to me, at least) sound of Caryl’s key fumbling in the stubborn lock on the front door. I left my coffee sitting on the island and went to the front room.
When Caryl saw me, she made a beeline for me, eyes kindling with relief and a kind of desperation, but just as she reached my threshold she hesitated. My heart, like that poor crow, fell quietly into pieces.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “If they’d taken me—”
“I know,” I said.
“I—I tried to get Tjuan out—I explained everything to Naderi—she was willing to pay the bail—”
“It’s okay, Caryl. You did good.”
I knew if I held her I’d be doomed, but I couldn’t not hold her, not when she broke down into sobs ri
ght there in the living room. I wrapped my arms around her and let her rest her head on my shoulder, eyes turned in toward my neck. Her sobs slowly calmed, and I ached in every possible way, without Arcadia as an excuse. There was no one else in the room, so when I drew back, I kissed her: once, twice, firmly, as though sealing something inside her.
She reached up to lay a hand against the scarred side of my face, looked at me for a long moment with those dark chameleon eyes of hers. Then she drew away, seeming calmer. “Where is she?” she murmured. I didn’t have to ask who she meant.
“She’s in the kitchen,” I said, almost a whisper. “Caryl . . . she was here, the very first time I mentioned that I wanted to steal all the blood samples from the White Rose. Dame Belinda has to know by now. We almost walked right into a trap.”
Caryl frowned, looking uncertain. “Why would Barker let us leave the London office?” she whispered. “If she knew before we got there, why did she just let us walk out?”
“She wants to catch us in the act, I’ll bet. She’s known this whole time. God, what if Shock is spying for her too? And Winterglass?”
“Millie, don’t let yourself—”
“Caryl?” Alondra’s voice, from the dining room, where she stood watching us. She looked pale, afraid. “What’s going on?”
By way of answer, I reached into my pocket and held up her phone.
Her expression went very, very blank. “You found it,” she said, approaching me. Wary.
“I stole it,” I said bluntly, too pissed to bring up the fact that I’d been trying to be nice to start with. “I saw a New York number calling you, and I had an attack of what I thought was paranoia, but apparently wasn’t.”
Alondra stared at me, openmouthed. “What are you talking about?” she said. “I still have friends back in New York; I didn’t break off contact with every—”
“Like your friend Tracy?” I said. “Why don’t you give him a call back?” I tossed the phone at her.
She fumbled it, and it fell to the floor.
“He’s awfully worried about you,” I said, “and wonders why you haven’t been reporting in.”
Alondra sank to her knees like a grieving princess, grabbed at the fallen phone, and checked it for damage without looking at me.
“Alondra,” said Caryl quietly. “How much does Dame Belinda know about our plans?”
Alondra looked up, eyes wide and hurt. “No!” she said. “It isn’t like that at all!”
“Don’t you dare call me a liar!” I snapped at her. “You think you have Caryl wrapped around your little finger? She’ll never take your word over mine. Not that she has to. I could call Tracy back right now, pretend to be you, just like I did this morning.”
A spark of real anger lit Alondra’s eyes then, and she rose to her feet. Short, heavy, and yet her every movement was so perfectly balanced, so regal, it made me all too aware of how hard it was for me to just pass for having all my body parts.
“You must not have talked to him long,” Alondra said, “if you think I’d spy for that insane old bat.”
Her sudden confidence made me angrier, and a little panicky. The world seemed to tilt under my feet; I could no longer tell the difference between insight and paranoia.
Alondra smiled at my hesitation. She knew Caryl would flip to her side now; she’d played the innocent damsel too well.
This was what always happened. Someone noble and pretty always came in, made me look like the twisted mess I was, turned me inside out so everyone could see my sickness. Made sure that no one, not even my closest friends, would take my side.
Gloria trying to snipe my first case out from under me, pretending concern when it was really Teo she was trying to protect. From me.
Professor Scott, his feigned bewilderment. I knew she had formed a sort of attachment to me, but I never dreamed she would invent a story like this.
Seventh grade, chalk letters in the study hall saying MILLIE LIKES GIRLS. My seat filled by someone else at the lunch table, leaving me to go sit alone by the teachers.
Over and over, carefully making connections in a new place, only to put one foot wrong and watch them all turn their backs.
“Just listen to me!” I said to Caryl. “Just believe me for once!”
Caryl looked bewildered. “Millie, I’ve never done anything but—”
“This woman is poison!” I said. “I knew it from the minute she showed up here, batting her lashes and playing the victim and making me look like a monster every time we were in the same room. Belinda sent her here specifically to discredit me.”
Caryl continued to stare at me, wide eyed. “Well, I’ll agree that you certainly do not appear at your best any time Alondra is in the room.”
“You can’t fall for this bullshit!” I said. “You can’t! Not you!” I could hear myself spiraling out of control, but I didn’t care anymore. It felt good, like that psycho Disney princess on the mountaintop burying her whole family in snow. “Stop treating me like I’m crazy!” I said crazily. “I wasn’t making up the wraiths, I figured out that Vivian was trying to build a Gate on stage 13—”
“And both times, I listened to you,” said Caryl sharply. “But just because you’re right some of the time—”
“All of the time! Alondra is Belinda’s puppet; she’s here to gaslight me—”
“Stop it!” Alondra interrupted in the firmest voice I’d yet heard from her. When I turned to her, I saw that her face was flushed, her lips unsteady. “You’re freaking out!” she said. “I’m not saying you aren’t brilliant. Maybe you are. But this time you’re wrong, and you are losing it. I know what losing it looks like, okay? You’re doing it.”
“Shut up,” I snarled.
“Millie,” said Caryl in a quelling tone. Then she turned to Alondra. “If she is wrong, then explain yourself.”
Alondra took a deep breath, made a steadying motion with both hands. “Tracy sent me and my friends to New Orleans on purpose, yes,” she said. “But because the three of us really believed in what you were doing! And he respected us! We were supposed to tell Tracy what we thought of the people there. Tell him if we thought you were legit, if it was better for New York to join with you than with her. Obviously we couldn’t let Dame Belinda suspect that we were waffling, right? So we had to make it look like Tracy cut us off.”
The world tilted the other way; all the blood drained from my face. “And what did you tell them?”
“I hadn’t made up my mind, last time we talked,” she said. “But I think I have now.”
“Alondra,” said Caryl firmly.
“No,” Alondra said. She breathed on the screen of her phone, dusted it off with her sleeve, a casual motion at odds with the tears brimming in her eyes. “You stole from me. You pretended to be me. All this after treating me like garbage since the very first day I got here. Looking for reasons to hate me. New York wanted to know who the villains are in this story. Well . . . if the shoe fits!”
“Alondra,” Caryl said again, more firmly.
“No.” Alondra stuffed her phone into her pocket. “I’ve had enough.” She flounced to the front door, opened it, slammed it behind her.
I felt as though I were screaming, standing there like that melty-faced guy in the painting, but the room was quiet.
“Go after her!” said Caryl, grabbing my arm. “Stop her! She has a key to Teo’s car! God knows where she’ll go!”
“Me?” I said. “You want me to go after her?”
“I am not the one who drove her away!”
We both heard the engine start in the driveway. “Well,” I said, “I’m not catching her now.” I turned back to Caryl, and what I saw in her eyes was not panic, but cold Unseelie fury. I did not have a number to assign to the thing I was looking at right now.
“We could have had New York,” she said.
My voice came out weak. “I’m sorry.”
“There is no way to measure how much this might have helped us.”
�
�I said I’m sorry! What do you want me to do, fall on a sword?” Horribly, for a flash of a second, I wanted her to say yes. I just wanted to be finished with it all: the pressure on me, my upcoming court date, the slow slide as I watched myself fail bigger and harder and messier.
“No,” Caryl said without the faintest hint of sympathy or tenderness. “I want you to fix this.”
28
Sometimes when dysphoria reaches a certain point there’s really nothing to do but shock yourself out of it. It’s why self-harm is such a common thing with Borderlines; the intensity of physical pain wipes out everything else. But there are ways to get that kind of sensation without damaging yourself. For example, filling a big bowl of ice cubes and water and sticking your face in it for thirty seconds.
All mammals have something called a “dive reflex,” a thing that activates your parasympathetic nervous system when icy water touches the skin under your eyes. It works especially well if you’re bent over. Your heart rate slows, and the shock of it pretty much reboots your brain. It’s best used as a last resort, though, because it sucks out loud. It’s better than dysphoria, but not better than a whole lot else.
I drew back from the bowl on the kitchen island and grabbed at the towel I’d placed nearby, mopping down my face as best I could. I had exactly the wrong haircut for this little exercise; the front layers were drenched. As soon as I’d addressed the worst of the dripping, I went back out to the living room to join Caryl on the couch, the one that faced the door rather than the stairs. I wanted to keep an eye on the windows, on the off chance Alondra came slinking back.
“Better?” Caryl said.
“I’m fine,” I said, raking back my hair. Rivulets of water had run down under the collar of my T-shirt, making dark splotches on my chest.
“I’ve spoken to Tracy,” Caryl said, lifting her eyes from my shirt with obvious effort. “Alondra got to him first, but he said that she is having a dysphoric episode and was making very little sense. He and I managed to have a reasonably productive conversation, and he says that her previous reports had begun to cast us in a decent light. Well, except for you.”
Impostor Syndrome Page 20