“Piotr?” Ada said softly, making sure Lily was out of earshot. “What in heaven's name are you seeing?”
“Not Heaven,” he gasped, and forced a grisly smile for her. The women were gone, the trees no longer screamed. Piotr grasped at straws: could Ada truly counteract the madness running rampant in his brain? He needed to think so. He couldn't go on much longer like this. “Certainly not Heaven. Help me to safety and I shall tell you all that I know, Ada. For this, I promise you.”
In the Never the gate to the yard was significantly thinner than the surrounding fence; passing through it was simple. Within moments they were out in the front yard, standing beside Wendy's father's vehicle.
Piotr, swaying slightly at Eddie's side, waited as Eddie turned northeast and then, frowning, hesitated and turned to Piotr.
“Do you need help, man?” Eddie asked. “You don't look too steady on your feet.” He offered an arm and then, after a moment, drew it back. “Will I get freezer-burn if I touch you? Not to be a jerk, but you are baking cold like an oven over here and I have no frickin’ clue what to do about it. I'm worn through enough as it is, I don't dare let you burn…freeze me to pieces. This is entirely me winging it.”
“I am fine,” Piotr said and it was only half a lie. The visions had momentarily stilled, leaving him with the mundane sight of the two worlds layered over one another, but nothing more. Piotr welcomed the simplicity and bemusedly wondered how it could have ever seemed strange and unwieldy to see them both at once.
“The sooner we travel to your home, the faster—” Piotr broke off as the clouds above them darkened. All four of them looked up, stunned as a huge flock of gulls spanned the sky, their cries filling the air and the feathers spinning down in dirty white clouds.
“NO!” Ada yelled. “Run for cover!”
“What's going on?” Eddie cried, covering his head as the first bird dive-bombed the group. “I've never seen birds so big!”
“RUN!” Ada insisted and turned to flee back into Wendy's house. She made it two steps before a large flock of gulls swept down and, swarming like bees, attacked her.
In one smooth motion Lily drew her knives and strode to Ada's side, hacking and slashing at the whirling white chaos. Eddie, after a second's hesitation, drew the knife Elle had given him earlier and haphazardly stabbed at the mess as well. His thrusts were weak, however, and even with his twisted double vision, Piotr could see that Eddie was a greater danger to himself than the birds.
“Not like that,” Piotr cried, disgusted. How was it that a boy his own age could have gotten so far in life without knowing how to wield a knife properly? It seemed impossible.
Despite the muddy landscape that was his vision, Piotr knew he had to help. Limping as best he could manage, Piotr twisted and tried to join them in their fight against the birds. He stabbed and stabbed, but the way his vision wavered and waved, patterns in the air twisting as he slashed and cut, Piotr knew that he was missing his thrusts. The gulls were too fast, too vicious. Though neither Lily nor Eddie had the breath to tell him, Piotr knew that he was hindering more than helping.
Struggling to stand steadily, Piotr squinted and attempted to make out which was the real world and which was the Never. The colors were a muddy mixture, the memories of the past mingling with the reality of the present and all fading in and out, jagged and red-tipped. The only steady creatures in either world were the gulls and his companions.
Pushing past Ada, Piotr tried to step between two large gulls that were dive-bombing Lily, but tripped over the memory of a bush that wavered tauntingly in the Never. He fell to a knee, ankle twisting painfully, and felt his hand punch through the thin, icy crust of snow…concrete…snow.
“Not now!” Piotr hissed, scrabbling across the ice, reaching for the nearest branch. The sky was painfully clear and bright overhead and he could hear the tattered women blowing the horn yet again.
Sensing weakness, the bulk of the gulls shifted their attention from Eddie and Lily to Piotr. Lily and Eddie, previously trying to keep the birds off Ada, were forced to move to protect Piotr.
Ada, now alone, scrabbled along the ground for some weapon, a stick, a rock, anything to use against her avian enemy, but to no avail. One bird, larger than the rest, swooped down behind her. Piotr, the only one facing Ada, was the only one to see the Lady Walker, shimmering, appear from nothing, strip off a cloak of gull feathers, and wrap an arm around Ada's waist as Ada slapped helplessly against the overwhelming tide of birds. As Piotr watched helplessly, the Lady Walker stabbed Ada in the neck with a long, silver needle and stepped back, letting Ada's body crumple to the ground, holding the scientist by her hair alone.
“Wait!” he cried, flinging up an arm against the onslaught of birds and trying to scrabble toward Ada. “Stop! Net! Do not!”
The Lady Walker lifted a single finger to her lips and hushed him, the curve of her half-rotten smile very clear under the hook of her filthy hood. She gestured and the remaining birds, seeing Ada helpless, dove in.
Releasing Ada's hair, the Lady Walker donned her cloak of feathers once more and vanished into the mass as the birds tangled their claws in Ada's hair and dress. Pulling powerfully upward, the huge birds worked as one and lifted Ada from the earth. They flew away, cawing and crying and shrieking their bird-cries as Piotr trembled below.
As if some signal had been given, once Ada was lost in the expanse of sky and her shadow was dim and distant, the remainder of the flock ceased their attack. As one they pulled back and flapped away, squawking and crying to one another, leaving only grisly splats of filthy white and the occasional feather to show that they had been there.
Bleeding and confused, Eddie, puffing heavily, plopped to the ground next to Piotr. His limbs were fraying at the edges, his elbows and knees worn thin and pale. “That,” he said, examining the seeping scratches on his arms and legs, “was some Wizard of Oz crap right there. Do we have to go rescue her from the Wicked Witch's castle now? Isn't that how this thing goes? Where the hell would a bunch of birds take her anyway?”
“They did appear to be biding their time,” Lily agreed solemnly. “But to what end? Ada is high up on the Council. I cannot imagine why gulls would do such a thing.”
“We should have captured one,” Piotr said bitterly. “We could have questioned it.” He thought to tell Lily and Eddie about the Lady Walker, but could not convince himself that he'd truly seen her. His hallucinations were quite vivid; it was entirely possible he'd imagined her as part of the grisly scene.
“Birds are hardly more intelligent than any other animal,” Lily said scornfully. “We would have gotten nothing.”
“Hey, Piotr? Not that I'm not digging this whole hindsight extravaganza, but have you taken a good look at yourself, man?” Eddie plucked at Piotr's sleeve and his fingers slid through. “You're falling to pieces. And…” Eddie held up his transluscent hands, his essence now growing paler in a gradient from the curve of his elbow to the tips of his fingers, “coming from me, that's saying something.”
He was not incorrect. Worn weak by his horrible madness, Piotr was significantly less substantial than before, his essence thin as tissue paper in places, and the tips of his fingers were rimed with frost.
Refreshed after her nap, Wendy stretched hugely, arching her back and feeling her spine crackle in all the right ways. She knew she had begun running somewhat of a temperature—the warmth in her eyes alone told her that—but it didn't feel quite as overwhelming after her rest.
Humming under her breath, Wendy wiggled her toes until they popped. She eased off her bed, glancing around for Piotr or Eddie or even Elle or Lily. None of them were to be seen.
“Huh,” she said. “I wonder where they went?” Then she spotted Eddie's note.
“The answering machine?” Wendy said, surprised. The day after her mother had fallen to the Lost, Wendy had ferreted out the old machine and plugged it in on her desk, listening to the outgoing message over and over again with tears streaming down
her face. She had tucked it away at the very back corner of her desk; it was so unobtrusive she'd entirely forgotten that she'd left it hooked up.
Pressing play, Wendy listened to Emma's message with a scowl. “That two-faced bitch,” she muttered under her breath. “After all that crap she said to me in the dreamscape? Seriously? Yeah, if I lay eyes on her I'm going to…”
Wendy took a deep, calming breath. “You know what? Never mind. Not important. She wants to play this game? Fine, we'll play it. I'll memorize the crap out of that damn book and we'll see who's Reaper material then, won't we? Stupid fancy-ass doctor thinking she can mess me around.”
Comforting herself with the fact that Emma and Jane wouldn't be there for at least forty-five minutes, Wendy drifted downstairs, led by a rich chocolate smell.
Jon, bent double over the oven and sliding in a baking sheet, didn't hear her approach.
“Cookies?” Wendy asked loudly and grinned when her younger brother jumped a foot and came down hard, knocking over the flour with his elbow. He'd donned their mother's apron to cook and it was straining almost comically over his belly. Their mother had been a tiny woman and Jon, even before he'd gained all that weight, was not delicately built.
“Don't do that!” Jon snapped, fist pressed to his chest and scowling at Wendy as she settled onto her favorite stool at the counter. “And, yes, cookies. Chocolate macadamia nut, for the Welcome Back Bake Sale. Want one?” Jon wiped flour-dusted hands against his forehead, leaving a smudge of white behind.
“Don't mind if I do,” Wendy said, peeling a fresh, gooey cookie off the wax paper that covered the counter.
“Delicious,” she declared. “Man, I'm not ready to go back yet. I was comatose through half of break!” Wendy leaned over, ignoring her brother's wince, and stuck a finger in the batter. “Mmm,” she sighed, licking the goo off her finger. “That's good. Man, I am so frickin’ hungry!”
“Did you wash your hands?” Jon asked, dampening a dishtowel to wipe up the flour he spilled. His lank hair swung against his cheekbones as he concentrated.
Wendy rolled her eyes. “Yes, Dad.”
“Hey, if I get the whole school sick, no one'll let me live it down.” Jon tossed the dishtowel in the sink and set the timer over the stove. “Speaking of comatose, I didn't hear you get in last night. How's Eddie doing?”
Wendy shrugged and licked a finger. “He's still breathing without any machines, which is always a hell of a plus.”
Out of the corner of her eye, in the Never, Wendy spotted a large gull fly past the window and alight for a moment on the fence. It had to be the biggest bird Wendy had ever seen and, for a short moment, she was reminded of her dream, the sound of birds shrieking into the sky. Frowning, she pushed the memory away.
“Still no clue why he's out, then.” Jon pushed away from the counter and kicked disconsolately at the edge of a lower cabinet. “I'm starting to wonder if doctors are just winging it, like everyone else.”
“Don't fuss,” Wendy said. “It's Eddie. One day he'll wake up and it'll be like nothing happened. He'll pinch a nurse's butt and hit on the orderly and they'll throw him out after a couple days of observation. I mean, hell, Dad convinced them to release me after only 24 hours, you really think Eddie's pushy mom'll let him stay in for longer than me? We'll be okay. He'll be okay. It'll all be okay.”
That is, she added silently, if I can figure out where his cord is and, once I've got it in hand, how to stick him back in his body. Until then, Wendy was hoping against hope that Eddie wouldn't start to degrade the way her mother had.
Eager to change the subject, Wendy glanced around the kitchen. The huge stack of mail normally spread across the breakfast nook was neatly sorted, the tile gleamed, and the perpetual fog of fingerprints on the sliding glass door had been polished clean. When she sniffed the air she could make out the faint scent of Pine Sol and bleach underlying Jon's sugary cookie aroma. “It's really clean in here. You did all this?”
“Yeah right,” Jon snorted. “I got home and Chel was up to her elbows in suds, scrubbing with a stack of old washcloths cuz she couldn't find the mop.”
“It's in the laundry room.”
“Yeah, we know that now. Chel did the laundry too; got up at the buttcrack of dawn to exercise and then kept cleaning. Been in your closet yet? Cuz she started there.”
Rubbing her forehead, Wendy grumbled. “I thought something felt different in my room.”
“I'm not kidding, check your closet. Guess who made me help iron while she was—get this—color-coding your stuff? And, AND, ordering them all by size. Did it all last night while you were out.”
“No.” Wendy covered her mouth with her hand. “Really?”
“The red smush'em'flat corset all the way up to that wired-up blue waterbra thing.” He waved a spatula at her. “In a totally unrelated note, why, sister-dear, don't you have any normal clothes? Does Dad realize that you essentially just traipse around town in your underwear?”
“Oh shush,” Wendy replied mildly, sitting back and glancing at the stairs. “Why would Chel—”
“Go all OCD? No clue. But she's been like this for days, and when I try to talk to her about it she tells me I'm the whack job.” He frowned and poked his gut. “Then she says I need to get outta the kitchen or I'm gonna get fatter. Not that she's wrong, but that's just mean.”
“So she's back to central standard bitch-time?” Wendy shook her head. “I thought she'd been too nice since Mom's funeral.”
“I don't think it's all about Mom, though.” Jon shrugged. “I thought it was just to keep herself from getting her hands on some more Phentermine, but she's eating and she quit cheerleading and she even donated all her Twiggy-clothes to Goodwill, so I don't know anymore.”
“I'll try and talk with her.” Glancing at the clock, Wendy slid off the stool and ruffled Jon's hair. She still had at least fifteen minutes before the Reapers were due to arrive. “I'm gonna go to Sumi's for a trim on Saturday. You want an appointment too?”
“Sure, whatever.” The timer dinged and Jon turned toward the oven, muttering, “Tupperware, Tupperware,” under his breath. As Wendy turned to go, he said, “I'm borrowing Dad's car and running up to Safeway, okay? We're out of the good milk.”
“Okay,” Wendy said and, leaving her brother puttering in the kitchen, wandered back upstairs to find Chel.
The bathroom light was off, but Chel's room was quiet. Wendy glanced at the time on her cell. She had only napped for about an hour, so it was too early for Chel to be asleep. “Hey?” Wendy gingerly tapped on the door. “Marvelous Madame Michelle? You up?”
“Yeah,” drifted Chel's voice from inside. “Come in.”
For the first time Wendy could remember, she didn't have to pick her way across her sister's floor. The closet door was open and even by the dim moonlight that filtered in through Chel's windows, Wendy could make out that her sister's overflowing closet was now almost empty.
“Jon wasn't kidding,” Wendy said lightly, settling on the floor beside the bed. Chel rested on top of her covers, eyes closed and fingers threaded together, damp hair dangling over the edge of her bed against Wendy's shoulder.
“I felt like cleaning,” Chel replied simply. She yawned.
Flummoxed by this new, strange sister, Wendy struggled with what to say before inspiration hit. “Saturday, Jon and I are going to get a trim.” Wendy tugged one of Chel's bleached curls. “You wanna come? Your roots are showing, copper-top.”
Sleepily, Chel chuckled. “The roots to my ears? I hadn't noticed.”
“Hey, personally I think the two-tone thing is kinda cool,” Wendy said, taking a lock of her own black-tipped coppery curls and twirling it around her finger, “but you've never really been into alternative style.”
“Make the appointment,” Chel sighed. “But make mine a dye job. Henna maybe. I don't care. I'm done with being a buffy. Too much effort.”
“Chel?” Wendy hesitated. “Are you okay?”
“P
eachy keen,” Chel said, scrubbing her face with her hands. “I know it seems like I'm cracking up and all but really, I'm fine.” She opened her eyes and flipped onto her stomach, resting her cheek against one arm. “I'm just tired, is all. I've got some personal guy-stuff going on that I don't wanna talk about, but other than that I'm fine.”
“Sure you are,” Wendy agreed dryly. She knew her sister well enough to know when Chel was bald-faced lying. “You're just tired. Uh huh.”
“Fine. You want to know what happened? Andrew broke up with me. That's what happened.” Chel smiled tightly, more a grimace than a grin. “No, actually, he dumped my ass.”
“Oh, honey. You want me to go kick him in the taint?” Wendy wrapped her hand around Chel's wrist and squeezed.
Snorting, Chel buried her head in her arms. “I wish I could tell you how awesome that would be if you pulled it off. Little ol’ nobody Wendy, walking up to the king of the queeraphobe quarterbacks and taking him down a peg or two. That would be…amazing.”
“Andy's a homophobe? Isn't his dad, like…” Wendy see-sawed her hand back and forth. “You know?”
“Yeah. He's got issues.” Chel sighed. “It should've been me dumping him, but everything's been so weird since Mom…well, you know. Anyway, the jackass didn't even bother breaking up with me first. He just put his hands down Laura Dee's pants at the mall food court. In front of everyone, Wendy! Around the food! And I was all, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ and he was all, ‘What does it look like I'm doing, you batshit crazy skank?’ and everyone started laughing and…UGH!” Chel pounded a fist into her pillow. “I hate that school,” she sniffed, her voice thick with emotion. “I hate it, I hate everyone who goes there. I'm ready to just be done, already.”
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