“Even the non-evil ones?” I ask sarcastically.
He ignores this and continues. “The demon who came through couldn’t have done so in full physical form. Not via the tether. He’s only here as energy, or spirit, or whatever you want to call it. But he must be able to either manifest physically for very short periods of time, or else take temporary possession of others’ bodies — that’s the only way he could have killed someone. And I’m sure that’s what happened. I felt something last night, a surge of energy, but I didn’t put it all together until you told me about Jeremy just now.”
Ryan holds up a hand. “Wait. So you’re saying this demon can possess people? Like, just take them over and make them do what he wants?”
“Well . . . yes. Pretty much.”
“So anyone at camp could be the demon.”
“Temporarily, yes.”
“And Cyn wouldn’t even be able to tell, assuming this new demon knows to mask the halo.”
“Right.”
“Is that, like, common knowledge down there now?” I ask Peter. “The halo thing?”
“Yeah,” Peter says. “Pretty much. I told you, Aaron’s a talker. And he knows a lot about you, Cyn.”
Ryan sighs bitterly. “Well, this all sucks a whole lot.”
“Agreed,” Peter says.
Ryan glares at him. Again. Or maybe just more, as he’s never really stopped glaring this whole time. “Don’t agree with me! This is all your fault! You should never have come here in the first place!”
I put a hand on his arm. “Ryan . . .”
He shakes me off, whirling to face me. “Don’t try to calm me down. This is your fault, too! If you’d never —” He breaks off abruptly.
Oh. I look at him sadly. “I thought we were past that argument. You know I had to go.”
He takes a deep breath, visibly trying to regain control of himself. “Whatever. I guess it doesn’t matter now, anyway. What’s done is done. We just need to put a stop to this as soon as we can.” He turns back to Peter. “You’d better figure out how. Really soon.”
“Everyone is so bossy today,” Peter mutters sullenly.
“I need to go. I’m late for rehearsal.” Ryan doesn’t quite look at me while he says this. Then he leaves.
I stand there, looking at Peter.
“Do you swear that’s everything?”
“Yes,” he says at once. He seems slightly more at ease now that Ryan is gone. “Someone else came through, and now he’s here, and he must have killed Jeremy to gain strength. Now that I know he’s here, I might be able to trace where he’s gone.”
“You keep saying he. Can you tell it’s a male demon, or are you just being sexist?”
“It’s just a feeling, mostly. But I can say he or she if you really insist.”
I decide that would probably be more annoying than it’s worth. “Whatever. Just please go and find out as much as you can as soon as you can.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Peter says. “Come on, Hector.”
“Hey,” I say, a question suddenly occurring to me. “What do you feed on?”
“Pardon?”
“You said you don’t kill people. . . . If you don’t feed on death or souls or whatever, what do you feed on? You must need something for strength, and I’m guessing it’s not the dining hall food. What is it? Pain?”
“No,” Peter says. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you. That’s not my thing at all.”
“So? What is?”
He smiles a little wearily. “Drama.”
“Come again?”
“I feed on drama. Fictionalized drama to some degree, but the real power comes from real drama. Love triangles, best-friend breakups, cheating husbands, secret baby daddies, all that daytime-talk-show-type stuff.”
I blink at him a few times, trying to decide if he’s serious. I can’t tell.
“Are you messing with me?”
“No!” he says. I wait for the well, okay, yes, but it doesn’t come. “I don’t know how it works exactly, whether being able to use drama as my source of strength grew out of my love of theater or if I was drawn to theater in the first place because of it or some combination of both. But for whatever reason, that’s where I get my energy. Luckily, the people involved in theater are often partial to drama behind the scenes, as well. Like Darleen and Celia in our show. Man, those two alone can keep me going for days. Did you hear what happened yesterday? Darleen was just standing there minding her own business, and Celia comes striding up —”
“Great. I’m glad all the fighting is serving a higher purpose. I don’t need to hear all about it.”
Peter shrugs. “Suit yourself. You’re missing out, though.”
Something else occurs to me just then.
“Is that why you keep trying to provoke Ryan? For the drama?”
“Oh, no,” Peter says. “I do that because it’s fun. He’s very entertaining.”
“Stop it.”
He grins at me. “Unlikely. Sorry, sweetie.”
Before I can say anything else, he disappears into the trees, Hector trailing menacingly behind him.
I walk back to the theater and slip backstage, not that slipping is really required, since Michael doesn’t pay much attention to me most of the time. The design is basically done, so it’s all construction now, and my team has that pretty well in hand. I supervise and pitch in where needed. Peter does not reappear for the remainder of morning rehearsal period.
When it’s time for lunch, I decide to stay behind in bunk 6 instead. I don’t feel ready to see Ryan. I’m still trying to sort out my various emotions. I’m mad at him for being mad at me about the demon stuff, since there’s no way I could have not gone after Annie to the demon world, and he knows it. He knows it even though he tried to stop me. And if I could forgive him for that, he should be able to forgive me for going. And I thought he had forgiven me — that’s the part that is really making me mad. I thought we were past all that. But apparently he’s still nursing that resentment, and it was just sitting there beneath the surface, waiting to come back up for air.
But right alongside the mad is the guilt, and I don’t know what to do with that part, exactly. Obviously this afternoon was not the right time to tell him that, yes, I’d still been keeping a fairly big demon-related secret from him. But I need to tell him. Soon. But when I tell him, he’ll be mad. And I don’t want him to be mad. More mad. But if I don’t tell him, and he finds out some other way, that will be even worse. He really might not forgive me if that happens.
But what if I tell him and he can’t get past it? Isn’t it better to maybe just hope that he never needs to find out at all?
There is a decided silence from the inner Cyn, including the voice of Old Cyn, who really thinks I should know better by now. And yes, of course, I should know better by now. I promised no more secrets. So I should tell him. But he’s already so mad at me. Surely it can’t be the wrong choice to wait until he’s not so mad and then tell him. Right?
More silence. I hate when my inner monologue goes unacknowledged.
Stupid various inner aspects of me.
More letters have arrived: another from Annie, and a joint one from Leticia and Diane. L&D’s letter lacks the artistic quality that Annie’s has, but their handwritten back-and-forth dialogue more than makes up for it. I feel like I’m sitting in the cafeteria with them, like we’re all still together and nothing bad is happening and everything is just good and nice and perfect like it was a couple of weeks ago.
Stop whining, I tell myself firmly. It will be okay. This is nothing like what you went through last fall. Nothing.
And that is true, and I know it, but it still sucks that there are demon things happening again.
Especially for Jeremy, Old Cyn points out. Suddenly I feel even more awful. What is wrong with me? How can I worry about Ryan being mad at me when some nice innocent counselor is dead? If I hadn’t come here, Jeremy would still be alive. If I hadn’t . . . If I�
�d never . . .
I force myself to stop. Dissolving into guilt and panic is not going to help anything. I take a deep breath, and then another. Focus. I can’t help Jeremy now. All I can do is try as hard as I can to make sure no one else has to die.
I have painting that afternoon, where we have been experimenting with various techniques in preparation for choosing one to use for a final project. I like this class; most of the kids in here are not artists, and so there’s a general sense of fun and messing around, because we don’t feel like we’re supposed to be perfect at this. (I may be handy with set-design sketches, but that doesn’t mean I can make a good painting. Trust me.) Today I am obviously in no mood to paint, but I also feel like I have to keep going through the motions of camp life until we figure out what to do next. I stare at my canvas and consider attacking it with dark colors and heavy brushstrokes, or maybe just ripping it to shreds with a steak knife, but I remind myself that I am more likely to be functional and useful if I work on staying calm rather than whipping myself back into an emotional frenzy. So I try to channel my inner Annie. I paint delicate lines of bright, pretty colors and attempt to change my mood from the outside in.
Surprisingly, it kind of works. The happy colors and shapes and thinking about Annie have me feeling a lot better by the time class is over.
I go back to the bunk to rest and clean up a little before dinner. Lots of the girls, including me, tend to shower at this time of day instead of in the morning, to avoid having to get up extra early before breakfast. The hot water finishes the job of washing away my bad feelings, and by the time we leave for dinner, I’m ready to find Ryan and make things feel okay between us again.
I see him on the food line and gently bump him with my hip. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he says back, slipping an arm around my waist. This exactly perfect response is one more reason why I love him. Nothing says we’re okay like an arm around the waist. I lean into him and feel my heart unclench inside me.
Dinner consists of meat and veggie burgers with a heaping side order of more gossip. Belinda is buzzing from table to table gathering more rumors about Jeremy, and people are talking about whatever the latest argument was between Darleen and Celia. No one seems to notice that Ryan and I aren’t really participating. I hope Peter is able to find out something fast. Maybe I should have offered to help. But this feels like a Peter-and-Hector kind of job, really. If I can’t rely on my halo spotting, which I can’t, then I’m not sure how much use I’d really be.
Evening activity tonight is a practice concert by several musicians, including Susan. I try to locate her cute oboe player, who she said would also be playing, but I can’t quite make him out from where I am sitting. The concert is in the open-sided theater that Ryan’s show rehearses in, and despite everything it’s lovely to be sitting in the night air, listening to what turns out to be a really nice concert. The music is not from any one show in particular; this is a group that plays together during one of the elective sessions in addition to whatever show they’re each assigned to. Ryan sits beside me, holding my hand, and for a while I let myself just listen to the music and focus on the very comforting feeling of his fingers wrapped around mine.
After, when everyone goes to the canteen, I hold Ryan back. “Let’s stay here,” I say. “Just for a while. I don’t want to hang out with everyone else tonight. Just you.”
“Okay.” We find a spot in the corner against one of the outer columns. I lean my head on his shoulder. Our knees are gently touching. He takes my hand again and holds it.
“Tell me more about this Scarlet Pimpernel,” I say after a few minutes of comfortable silence. “I don’t think I really understand the plot.”
“Well,” Ryan says, stroking my hand while he talks, “it’s set during the French Revolution, and all kinds of bad things are happening in France. Percy and Marguerite run off to England and get married. Citizen Chauvelin, aka yours truly, is devoted to the ideals of the Republic and wants to execute everyone who opposes it. Also, he used to be sort of together with Marguerite, which becomes important later.”
Hmm. He hadn’t mentioned that part before. But I don’t want to interrupt.
“Right after they get married, Percy finds out that Marguerite gave information to the Republic that led to one of his friends being executed. He shuns her but doesn’t explain why. Then he recruits a bunch of his friends to help him start rescuing French aristocrats before they can be executed. He becomes the Scarlet Pimpernel and spends all his time as Sir Percy acting like an idiot so no one will ever suspect that he’s actually this daring mastermind. Chauvelin becomes obsessed with capturing him, and he blackmails Marguerite (after trying unsuccessfully to win her over by reminding her of their past relationship) by threatening to kill her brother unless she helps him find out the true identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel.”
“Does Marguerite know it’s her husband?”
“Not yet, no. She arranges to meet the Scarlet Pimpernel, and he hides in the shadows so she can’t see his face. She tells him Chauvelin’s plan, including about her brother, and says that Chauvelin blackmailed her before, too, for the information about Percy’s friend who was executed, and Sir Percy is all happy and relieved that she’s not willfully helping the enemy. Everyone ends up in France to try to save the brother, but Marguerite is captured by Chauvelin, and he sentences her to death by guillotine and sings a song about how he’ll never have her back and she can go die on her own, et cetera.”
“Charming.”
“Hey, he’s a man of strong principles. And she broke his heart and insists on staying true to a man everyone believes is a moron.”
“Still, guillotine is pretty harsh.”
“True,” he concedes. “Anyway: eventually Chauvelin, cunning devil that he is, lets Marguerite and her brother think they’re escaping so he can follow them to the Scarlet Pimpernel. Marguerite finally learns it’s her own husband, and then there’s a big duel where Chauvelin fights valiantly but ultimately fails to capture his nemesis. Percy and Marguerite live happily ever after.”
“But not poor Chauvelin.”
“No. He lives on bitterly and in disgrace.”
“Hmm. I think I’d like this story better if Chauvelin won.” I refrain from saying “And Jules got executed.” Barely. “And the love story doesn’t sound very good if they spend the whole show not talking to each other.”
“No, no,” Ryan says. “The love story is great. They have this deep connection, and then they both think they must have made it all up, because how could it have gone so wrong between them if they had really known each other . . . because Percy doesn’t realize then that Marguerite had been coerced into giving information about his friend, and Marguerite doesn’t know why Percy turns away from her as soon as they get married. And so they’re both still deeply in love but think they’re alone, but they’re not really, and eventually they come back together with an even stronger bond after everything they’ve been through.”
We’re both quiet for a minute.
“So even though there was this whole perceived breach of trust thing, they eventually forgive each other and come to a greater understanding?”
Ryan squeezes my hand in the darkness. “Yes.”
This is it. This is the moment I should tell him about the two other trips I have to take to the demon world. I open my mouth to begin, when suddenly there is a flash of light and we’re both temporarily blinded.
“Hey, you two!” a voice says from nearby. “What’s goin’ on?”
After what seems like several minutes of violent blinking, I start to be able to see again. And then I wish I couldn’t.
The figure before us takes on disturbingly familiar features. Mostly familiar, anyway. But completely disturbing. Ryan makes a sound beside me that indicates he might be trying not to throw up his burgers. I silently second the sentiment.
It’s Aaron.
“Aaron?” Ryan and I say together.
“Long time n
o see and all that, huh?”
Aaron looks, in some ways, just as I remember him. Forty-somethingish, short brown hair shiny with product, old-school concert T-shirt (this time it’s the Violent Femmes). In other ways, he looks very different. For example, he now has a long, sinuous tail that curls around into the air behind him. It is black and white and scaly, and reminds me of one of those zebra moray eels they sell for tropical aquariums. He also has what appear to be fish fins coming out of the back of his shoulders. And possibly what are gills on the sides of his neck.
“What are you doing here?” Ryan asks in bewilderment.
I experience several emotions at once. The top three are: (1) anger at Aaron for appearing right then, right when I was about to fix the lying and come clean and tell Ryan before he found out some other way (like, say, by Aaron appearing and saying the demoness has summoned me back for one of those additional two trips I promised her); (2) sorrow at the prospect of what is about to happen between Ryan and me when Aaron answers his question; and (3) slowly rising terror at the idea of actually having to go back to the demon world, which I’d still been half-successfully managing to convince myself might not really ever need to happen.
Aaron does a quick look back and forth between us, and I see that he sees that Ryan really has no idea why Aaron is here. I send Aaron urgent telepathic begging to please please please please please not tell him.
Miraculously, Aaron seems to understand what is happening and (equally miraculously) takes pity on me.
“My beautiful mistress wishes a word with our Cynthia here,” he says. “In person.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Ryan says. “We are done with all of that stuff.”
“That’s not what I hear,” Aaron says, smirking. “I hear you’ve got a demon friend right here in Camp Whatever-It’s-Called. Looks like you two can’t help but get involved with our kind at every opportunity.”
“Our kind?” I ask, both curious and eager to jump on any possible tangent topic of conversation. “So you’re one of them now?”
“Well, not exactly,” Aaron admits. “Not yet. But I will be! In time. Off to a nice start with the tail, huh?” He waves it slowly around, looking back at it admiringly over his shoulder.
Revenge of the Evil Librarian Page 9