Daughters of Arkham

by Justin Robinson

  “What?” The disappointment on his sister’s face was nearly as bad as what he imagined on his own. It was almost funny.

  “Yeah, she got sick.”

  “Oh. I wanted to show her this costume.”

  Nate smirked inwardly. Abby had once mentioned liking The Hunger Games. Veronica had immediately devoured every last word in the series.

  His mom was working in the kitchen. Nate was already taller than she was, but that was no mean feat. She was a tiny woman that barely topped four feet eleven. She had thick black hair, usually swept back in a ponytail, and sharp cheekbones and almond eyes that showed her clear leaning to the Aztec side of her Mexican ancestry rather than the European. Working full-time and raising two children on a tight budget hadn’t taken the sheen off of Allana Marisol Veles-Baxter. She still turned heads wherever she went, much to Nate’s embarrassment, but that didn’t keep him from spending time with her. Outside of Abby, his mom was his favorite person in the world.

  “Did I hear that Abby is sick?” Lana asked.

  “Yeah, Mom. I think it’s a stomach bug or something.”

  “Heading over?”

  His cheeks burned. “Yeah, I was thinking about it.”

  “Well, you tell her I said feel better.”

  “Tell her I said that, too!” Veronica shouted. “And tell her about my costume.”

  “She’s Foxhead,” Lana said.

  “Face! Face!” Veronica ran out of the room.

  “I know what it is, but that’s more fun,” Lana said, and laughed. “Your dad and me will be in our room as usual. Don’t stay out too late.”

  “I won’t, Mom,” he said, getting the peanut butter and marshmallows from the pantry.

  “You’re a good boy, Natanael,” she said. “I hope she realizes that.”

  “Mom, come on.”

  “I know, I know. Gross.” She kissed the side of his head, and though he flinched, he secretly loved it. She left him to his sandwiches.

  Out in the living room, he heard the squeals of Veronica’s friends as they arrived. They would descend on the neighborhood in a pack, but this was likely their last year having a Halloween, too. Seemed like growing up was going around these days. Nate wished he could have lived his entire life between his eleventh and twelfth year, but time had other plans.

  Nate spread a layer of peanut butter on the first slice of bread, then began to place marshmallows like he was planting tiny trees. He used to make patterns with them, but Abby never looked. His strategy now was better, anyway: he optimized all of his marshmallow placement so that it was impossible for her to take a bite without getting at least one. He made four of sandwiches, two of which she would devour immediately and two more to save. He wrapped each one in butcher paper, and put them in a brown bag.

  Even sick, Abby was better company than anyone else. Besides, there was always the chance that the sandwiches would put her right and she could ride back to Nate’s house on his handlebars, and they could have another Halloween together.

  Their last Halloween together.

  21

  Coffin Manor

  abby had seen Coffin Manor from a distance, and she secretly suspected it could be seen from space. It was the largest house in town, and probably among the biggest in the entire nation. The Coffins seemed to enjoy that distinction. Unlike Harwich Hall, which had stood for hundreds of years without a single modification, Coffin Manor was always under renovation. Sometimes it was another wing or another pool. Other times, it was some stables or a hanging garden. If it could be added to a house, the Manor either had it, had had it, or was about to have it.

  Most of the architecture in Arkham was Georgian, keeping with the town’s self-consciously colonial appearance. The newer buildings were Victorian. Only the brand new businesses downtown were anything approaching modern. Coffin Manor was all of these things and none of them. The central house, which had been there almost as long as Harwich Hall, was as Georgian as the rest of the town but each new addition had been constructed without any thought for the manor’s overall floor plan or aesthetic. When Abby’s mother could bring herself to speak of Coffin Manor, she sniffed that it was an eyesore. Hester said it should be bulldozed. Only new money would live in such a vulgar place.

  Abby had only the vaguest idea of what “new money” meant, but if anyone in Arkham was new money, it was the Coffins. By anyone else’s standards, they would have been aristocracy. They’d made their fortune on timber over two hundred years ago. But in Arkham, any family whose money came after the Revolutionary War was hopelessly nouveau riche.

  Abby stood in the driveway, transfixed. The sky was dark; the manor’s wrought-iron gates were flung wide; the only light she could see came from inside the house and it was every color imaginable. Music thumped across the lawn, thundering from the second floor. Halloween had transformed Coffin Manor into a grinning, singing, skull that blared with electronic rainbows.

  Abby had never even imagined that such a thing could exist.

  She had to force herself to walk, not run, toward the front door. She couldn’t look too eager, not after things finally seemed to be on the right track with Bryce. She saw people in the windows—really just pagan shapes—twisting amid the shimmering lights.

  As she drew closer, she began to recognize people from school. Most of the faces were human, but she caught a glimpse of an odd, circular croatan mouth. Flashing lights glinted off of the spiraling rows of teeth in the monster’s mouth. Eleazar Grant, Abby thought immediately. It was impossible to be certain it was him, but she didn’t want to go inside. The skin along her spine and her arms tingled with the impossible sensation that one of those things was behind her. Things. She had thought she was past thinking of the Crows as ‘things,’ but standing before the threshold of a dark house with her senses baffled, her trepidations all came back. She hesitated. This felt an awful lot like the carnival. Maybe it was better to just go home.

  Sindy spotted her. “Abby!” She came out into the night and shivered. She had a red plastic cup in her hand and despite the chilly weather, she had not made a single concession in her ‘costume’ choice. Abby was pretty sure that Sindy couldn’t have possibly taken a full breath since she’d put on her little red dress. “I thought for sure you’d be wasting another Halloween with Nate.”

  “It’s not a waste. It’s fun.”

  “So fun you decided to come here instead?”

  Abby didn’t have a good response to that one. She averted her gaze. Poor Nate.

  “You made the right decision,” Sindy said. “Come on.” She grabbed Abby’s hand and dragged her into the house.

  Abby thought she might scream. She felt certain that the inside of Coffin Manor would be overrun by scaly Crows just waiting for nubile flesh to devour. With their wormlike heads and slick arms, they had the look of something you might find hiding beneath a rock. They weren’t nocturnal, but it was so dark in here… Surely they would be bolder in the strange half-light of the party than they were in the daylight at school or downtown.

  Sindy pulled Abby through the front hall and up a twin staircase to the second floor. They went past rooms full of strangers and school acquaintances, and then into a vaulted room that was being used as a dance floor. A DJ at the far end of the room had set up a mix table surrounded by massive stacks of speakers. Abby wondered if Bryce knew the DJ or if he’d hired him. Maybe both.

  “This is the ballroom,” Sindy said with an amazement usually reserved for religious relics.

  Abby had seen ballrooms before. Harwich Hall had one of its own. Right now, every important woman in town was there drinking expensive champagne and talking about whatever it was adults discussed at parties. Bryce’s ballroom, however, dwarfed the one in Abby’s house. The windows in the back were at least two stories tall. “Look!” Sindy said, dragging her over to them. There were doors at the bottom of each one that led out onto a balcony. From there, you could see the edge of the stables, a half-finished fountain, most
of a swimming pool, and the rolling hills and meadows beyond the estate. The view, the throbbing music, and the confusing lights all made Abby feel even more uneasy.

  She kept looking for Crows. Instead, she saw regular teenagers. They clustered at the edge of the ballroom in quiet twos and threes, holding their drinks. Bryce was in the middle of the dance floor surrounded by several girls, looking like some kind of fairytale prince. His hair was impossibly black and the color of his eyes seemed to change in time with the flickering lights.

  Abby wanted to break away from Sindy, but she reluctantly followed her friend into a neighboring room. On a normal day, it might have been a sitting room, someplace for people to rest during a night of dancing. Tonight, it had been co-opted for less refined purposes. There was a table at the center of the room covered in bottles of liquor, empties, and open liters of soda that were slowly going flat. There were bottle caps scattered everywhere around the table. The floor was sticky. People had abandoned half-empty drinks next to stacks of clean, red plastic cups. Abby couldn’t imagine throwing a party like this in her own house. Her family didn’t even buy disposable cups; she’d have to serve people using the good porcelain. Constance would probably have a heart attack.

  Sindy let go of her and wobbled over to the drinks. She stared at the table and muttered, “Where did you go…” A moment later, she found Sprite, vodka, and grenadine, and mixed up a pair of syrupy drinks. She took a swig of one and handed the other to Abby.

  Unbidden, Abby thought, The baby.

  “Let’s not do this again,” Abby said, acutely aware of the other people in the room. The music was loud, but their conversation could and would be heard.

  “Come on! It’s just you and me. Don’t make me drink alone. Besides, this’ll help you finally make your move.”

  “Make my move?” Abby hissed.

  “On Bryce!” Sindy tried a stage whisper. It was possible she thought she was being quiet. Abby expected the music to cut out right then just so the entire house would hear.

  “Sindy!”

  “What?” Sindy asked. She threw her arms out, still holding both drinks. They sloshed a little. “That’s what you’re gonna do, right? Wait.” She blinked. “What are you gonna do? Because I don’t know if you know that I know this. But you, do not, have any moves. Like any.” She thrust one of the cups at Abby again. “Drink.”

  Abby felt like her head was about to overheat. In her black makeup and her black dress, she probably looked like a tomato someone stuffed in a dress sock. She couldn’t think of anything to say, so she turned and fled, going from room to room until she found one no one was in.

  She finally stopped in a room whose purpose was not immediately apparent. Big houses always had rooms with no obvious purpose, but this room seemed to go out of its way to be obscure. There were shelves, but they were entirely empty. The floor had a single rug, off-center, and only one chair, which was nowhere near the rug. The curtains were drawn. Abby opened them and found they looked out at a strange statue of a thoughtful-looking man. It looked like a cross between a memorial and an idol.

  “Abby?” Sindy asked, her voice echoing off the walls. Her footfalls were irregular. “Abby, there you are. What’s wrong?”

  Abby turned. “What’s wrong? You just shouted to an entire party that not only do I like Bryce, but that I also have no moves!”

  “No, I didn’t. I was keeping my voice down.”

  “Well, I’ll have you know I’ve got moves, Sindy.”

  “Of course you do, sweetie. I’m sure they’re really amazing.” Sindy’s words were barely slurred. Abby wasn’t sure how drunk her friend was and how much she was playing it up.

  “You could try harder to patronize me and be at least a little sorry.”

  Sindy grinned. “Oh, who cares? Liking Bryce makes you, what, like every other girl?” She paused and held up a single finger and then pointed at herself while winking at Abby. “Minus one.”

  Abby couldn’t help but smile a little. “Still, though.”

  “The only people hanging out in that room are the ones who can’t stand to be more than ten feet away from alcohol. There’s no way they’re going to remember anything.”

  Abby sighed. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right! And besides, who cares if people know that Bryce’s girlfriend likes him. Girlfriends are supposed to like their boyfriends!”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “Yeah!” Sindy lurched forward. Abby watched her walk, growing convinced that the wobbling had more to do with her precarious shoes than it did alcohol. Sindy’s wedges were a bit too advanced for her, it seemed. She felt secretly pleased that her friend wasn’t completely grown up yet. She was also glad she’d stuck with her modest heels.

  Sindy reached Abby and moved in close. Her breath came in candy-scented waves as she said, “You’re gonna go over there. He’s gonna ask you to dance. Ooh! Maybe you can ask him to dance.”

  “Sindy, I can’t. He thinks I have sex.”

  “He doesn’t care about that. If that’s all he wanted, he could take his pick of girls.”

  “It looked like he already did.”

  “Nah. It’s been like that since you know… forever. But he doesn’t pay any attention to any of them for more than a couple minutes at a time. He just keeps looking at the door. It’s like he’s waiting for someone to show up.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I know you don’t know. Which is why you need a sip of this,” Sindy said. She held out the cup. Abby’s stomach turned.

  “No. No, I can’t.”

  “It tastes just like candy.”

  “Yeah, I know. I can smell it from here.”

  Sindy sniffed hers. “You know, it smells like cherry Skittles.” She held it back out.

  “Come on, Sindy.”

  “You come on. Trust me. I won’t let you get drunk. I want you to unclench that legendary Thorndike sphincter for like, ten minutes! You deserve to have fun and be happy. So, a little of this and all those worries are going to fall away and you’re going to realize that the only thing stopping you is you.”

  It actually sounded pretty good. But after what she said at the carnival, and in the car with Bryce… And there was the baby to think about… And… She shook her head. “No.”

  Sindy didn’t pay attention. “This is barely a drink. It’s mostly a Shirley Temple. Like we used to get at the Hat and Musket,” she said. It was the one restaurant in town which catered to children that Constance Thorndike would be seen in.

  Abby reached for the cup, and then drew her hand back. “No, I can’t.”

  “Abs, what is it? The carnival?”

  “Yeah,” Abby said, but there wasn’t much conviction behind it.

  Sindy watched her. “What else is… You’re worried about something else.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Don’t lie to me. You totally are.”

  Abby could see the wheels in Sindy’s head turning. She had to cut her off, now.

  “I’m watching my—”

  The wheels clicked into place. “You’re pregnant,” Sindy said. Her eyes widened with realization.

  “Sindy…” Abby began.

  “You’re actually pregnant?” Sindy practically shouted. “Are you freaking kidding me?”

  “No,” Abby said, watching her feet.

  “Oh my God. You lied to me. Right to my face.”

  “I couldn’t face it. I mean… This is a nightmare, Sin. You can’t tell anyone, okay?”

  “Who else did you tell?”

  A wave of nausea and anxiety crashed over Abby. This was going to get bad very quickly. “Why does that matter?”

  “Don’t play with me right now, Abby. First you lie, then you beg me to keep your damn secret. You tell me who else knows.”

  Abby was defeated. Her voice was barely above a whisper; she could hardly see Sindy through the hair covering her face. “Nate.”

  “Of course you did,�
�� Sindy spat. That felt familiar; they’d had this fight before. Sindy had always considered Abby her best friend, but the feeling wasn’t mutual. Nate was Abby’s best friend. The conversation didn’t go where Abby expected it to, though. “You trusted him with that, but I’ll bet you didn’t tell him you were going to Bryce’s party tonight, did you?”

  Abby shrugged.

  “Right. Is there anyone you aren’t lying to? Or are we just the super-lucky ones?”

  Before Abby could think of anything to say, Sindy stormed out of the room. Abby collapsed into the chair, wondering what she was going to do. At least Sindy had taken both cups with her.

  22

  Harwich Hall

  nate’s bike had a basket bolted behind the seat. It was a stainless steel cage about the size of two shoeboxes stacked on top of one another, and he had installed it himself. Most baskets were intended for the handlebars, but Nate would never let such prime real-estate go to waste.

  The handlebars belonged to Abby and always would.

  People had made fun of the basket on more than one occasion. “If you know a better way to transport things on a bike, I’d like to hear it,” he’d say to whoever was stupid enough to poke fun at him, if he bothered to say anything at all. Usually he could solve those problems without words.

  Right now, the basket was full of the Fluffernutters and a thermos of hot tea. Nate rode toward the north side of town, where all the big houses were, the ones with names. In his neighborhood—a little borough that had been optimistically named Maple Park—nearly every house had been decorated for Halloween. There were haunted houses, slaughterhouses, charnel houses, and everything in between. The streets teemed with children dressed as monsters and superheroes and at least one literary character.

  He left the narrow sidewalks to the kids. It was better to ride on the pavement, anyway; the roots of the trees planted all along the roads had broken and splintered most of sidewalks, like whales caught surfacing in a concrete ocean. He pedaled along, the light pinned to the front of his handlebars wobbling and weaving.