My stomach sinks. He knows. He knows I’m broken. I made Elyse promise not to tell a soul and then I gave it away just by acting stupid. Okay, damage control: At least I didn’t tell him about her. I’ll keep her secret to the end.
“Wh-who could have done this to you?” Joe’s eyes have gone round with fear. “Because if they could get to you, I’m cooked. Let’s just say there’s a reason my father pushed me toward investigation and not spell casting.”
“Dude, calm down.” I’m not sure if I’m telling him or myself. “What do you mean, someone did this to me? Someone wiped my memory using . . . magic?” It still sounds ridiculous.
He gives me a pitying, patient sigh. “Of course with magic, Marshall. And magic is how you’ll cure it too. But first things first. Let me fill you in on the history you’re missing.”
My head’s already spinning, but he had me at “cure.”
A cute pixie redhead appears with a notepad, and Joe orders a strawberry phosphate while I stare at the menu, unable to concentrate or make a decision. She pops her gum.
“He’ll have a chocolate shake,” Joe says with confidence.
“Is that what I usually get?”
“No. I just figured you were never going to order, and besides it doesn’t matter. She’ll get confused and bring us the wrong thing. They always do.”
I laugh, relieved. “How many times have we come here together?”
Joe hesitates. Then he breaks into a geeky smile. “I could tell you anything right now and you’d believe it, wouldn’t you?”
It’s not a reassuring thought.
“What do you want to know first?” he asks.
“I want to know about me, what kind of person I am. What I was like. I’m tired of connecting the dots to try to figure it out.”
“You’re not alone.” His owlish eyes turn suddenly serious. “All human history’s full of holes. As a species we’ve forgotten almost everything about ourselves, and still we move forward. Well, except here in Summer Falls. I think evolution’s stopped for a little nap here, if you will.”
I feel relieved. “So, other towns aren’t like this then?”
He laughs. “Other towns and cities are very different from Summer Falls. This place is enchanted, like Sleeping Beauty’s castle. Only people here aren’t quite asleep, they’re just pleasantly drowsy.”
“You mean like the heatnaps.” And Liz’s moments. “How does anything keep running in this town if people are so scattered?”
Joe glances around, then lowers his voice. “Something’s holding this town together, but it’s not the townspeople.”
“Something? What could possibly do this to everyone?”
“The answer to that’s above my pay grade,” Joe says. “But they don’t seem to mind. It keeps them happy before it burns them out.”
Pixie Waitress ambles over to us with an order of fries and three Cokes carefully balanced between her arms. Not what we ordered. At all.
“Thanks, love.” Joe pats her on the head like she’s a puppy. She smiles shyly and wanders back toward the kitchen. “You can tell that one’s had a lot of bad memories wiped, for her age,” he says grimly. “Childhood trauma, most likely. I give her another five years, tops.”
His tone is casual, but his meaning sinks in like a cold knife in my chest. “Wait. Are you saying in five years that girl will be catatonic, like the lady at the fair last night?” The openmouthed stare. Dead inside. A void.
“Oh, but she doesn’t know what’s coming,” he assures me. “They live in the moment. Probably better that way.”
I shake my head. If he’s trying to comfort me, he’s failing miserably. Her not knowing that she’s losing her mind makes it worse. If she knew, she could do something about it. Like leave town. If people knew what was going on here, they’d all leave and never come back. No one would ever set foot in the city limits if they knew . . . except that Joe did. And maybe my mother too. I take a deep breath, bracing myself for the answer to a question I’m almost scared to ask. “Why exactly did my mother come to Summer Falls? What was she mixed up in here?”
Joe sighs. “I think Eva was trying to change this place. To end the cycle, redirect the magic somehow. Her notes would give us more information, but we know that her body was found near the—” He stops, hangs his head. “Sorry, Marshall. How insensitive I’ve become, living alone in this place . . .”
“No, go ahead. Where was she found?”
He nods. “In a small cavern. Just behind the waterfall, next to a natural pool. I believe—and we at the Institute believe—she was trying to perform a ritual of restoration, returning strength to the townspeople. After living here nine months and three days, I’ve been tempted to try it myself . . . but I’m not the genius that she was.”
I’m starting to get the feeling my mother was some kind of rock star in the world of occultists. Strange as it all is, I can’t help being a little proud of that.
Our waitress is crossing over to us with a check when an orange flare leaps into the edge of my vision. Fire. A grease fire’s just broken out in the fryer, and the fry cook’s staring at it with a puzzled expression.
I bolt from my chair and start scanning the walls for a fire extinguisher. “Joe, can’t you put it out with magic?”
Joe’s already jumped out of his own chair. “Pains me to say it, but I’m crap at magic. This is where we run.”
“We have to evacuate them!” I spot a red extinguisher behind glass in the far corner, but no one’s moving toward it. Nor are they mobbing the door. Everyone’s just gaping as if mesmerized by the bright flame. I don’t know how I remember this fact, but if you don’t put a grease fire out in the first few seconds, it’s too late. And water makes it worse.
I smash the glass and lug the heavy canister behind the counter. “Out of the way!” I yell to the fry cook.
“Okay, everybody, line up behind me and start moving outside!” Joe calls halfheartedly from the door. “They’re just staring. I’ve seen zombies smarter than these people. Really.”
I aim the extinguisher at the blaze, but only a thin dribble of foam spews out. And the second it makes contact with the fryer, a tower of flames shoots up. I hear screams from the tables behind me. What now? Keep spraying or run? If I give up, the fire will spread for sure. Take the risk or take the loss. I can’t afford the loss. I hold my finger on the can. Instantly, the column of flames dies down to silence. The fire’s out.
I let myself exhale.
Behind me I hear a splat and a thump, then another and another. I turn to see the whole restaurant full of people passing out into their ice-cream bowls and French fry baskets. Collective heatnap.
“Very impressive.” From across the sea of unconscious townspeople, owlish blue eyes meet mine. “Heroic, even.”
With my T-shirt I wipe beads of sweat from my forehead. No one got hurt. Everyone’s safe—everyone.
“Sleepers.” Joe leans toward me conspiratorially. “That’s what my father used to call nonoccultists. I called him an insufferable snob at the time, but now . . .” He pushes up his glasses and sighs. “Now I rather see his point.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t.” Since we’re the only ones not drooling on our plates, I’m guessing all occultists must have some kind of defense against heatnaps. I don’t see how that makes us better though. Just luckier.
“You’re clearly your mother’s son,” he says with a broad smile, and it occurs to me again that he seems to view my mother as some kind of deity among occultists. I can’t help but feel proud on two levels. He pulls a business card from his pocket. “Call my mobile anytime. Or just stop by. I’m renting a cabin just off the main trail near the waterfall. You can’t miss it . . . looks like it’s a hundred years old, but that’s what a teacher’s salary gets you out in the sticks. And it’s well-kept, like everything is here. Stop by for a cup of tea. I wouldn’t mind the company.”
His airy tone sounds strained, and it occurs to me why. He’s trying to
hide how desperately lonely he is. This is probably his first assignment as an investigator. “You miss home, don’t you?” I ask. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I miss my home, and I don’t even remember it.”
“Sure, I miss London.” He smiles sadly. “But I wouldn’t fit in there anymore. Sometimes I wish I’d never taken this post, but even magic can’t change the past.”
He hunches his shoulders and walks out the door. As usual without paying.
All around me, Mollie’s is waking up noisily. The kitchen’s completely covered with white powder. The smell of smoke and chemicals is overpowering. Feeling sorry for whoever has to clean up this mess, I shrug, grab a moist towel, and start wiping powder off the grill.
The pixie redhead, who’d passed out on the ground, stretches and saunters over to me with the same peaceful smile as before. “Are you, like, the new guy or something?” she asks.
“Marshall.” I stick out my hand. “Yeah, I’m brand-new.”
Chapter 23
ELYSE
I linger in the women’s locker room, showering off each and every molecule of chlorine, then slowly dressing. In front of the mirror I blow-dry every section of hair till my waves smooth out into a glossy curtain that blankets my shoulders and covers my bruises.
When I step outside, the guy and girl who work the front desk are flirting. Smacking each other on the head with their name tags and giggling. I let out a heavy breath. Dan’s nowhere to be seen. He gave up on me. For now.
By the time I reach downtown Main Street, the afternoon light’s slipping to pink and purple around me. The sidewalk’s bustling with tourists and local teenagers alike, mostly couples. At one of the metal sidewalk tables outside Mollie’s Milkshakes, I spot Carla in a group of couples snuggled up with a guy in a letterman jacket. Auburn hair.
“Pete!” He’s out of the hospital already. He’s all right. Thank god.
But as I rush toward them, Carla and the guy turn, and I see it’s not him. It’s some guy I’ve never seen before. Carla’s already moved on.
“Leese?” Carla says in a worried voice. “Who’s this Pete guy you keep talking about?”
“Never mind.” I shake my head. “Just someone I used to know.”
Carla’s brow creases, and too late I realize how nuts I sound. “We know all the same people,” she says. “I’m worried about you. You’ve been having a lot of weird . . . moments.”
Suddenly demon butterflies are attacking my stomach. People think I’m going crazy, because I’m the only one who remembers Carla’s maimed boyfriend? “I’m fine, really.”
“If you say so.” Carla looks around expectantly. “Where’s Dan? Still at the pool?”
Announcing that I broke up with Dan is just going to cause more problems. “Dan and I just had separate plans tonight.”
Another cheerleader laughs. “I thought you guys took your ‘nature hikes’ on Fridays.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I felt like doing something else for a change,” I say.
Carla glances around the table, and her new boyfriend nods encouragement.
“You’re not acting like yourself,” Carla says finally. “I’m going to call Dan and have him pick you up.” She pulls out her phone. “I think we’d all feel better knowing you’re not alone.”
That’s the last thing I want. “I need to get home and help my mom,” I say. “I won’t be alone, don’t worry.” And I hurry past before anyone can stop me.
Near the quiet end of Main Street, the homeless lady’s bouncing up and down on the pavement, red ringlets hopping around her head like snakes, a spray-paint can clutched in her dirty fingers. She’s already sprayed an obscenity on the sidewalk.
“What’s going on, girl?” she calls to me, like we’re old friends. “We haven’t heard from you in days.” We? Is that her and her multiple personalities? I turn away from her crazy eyes and wait for the stoplight to let me walk.
On the other side of the street, facing me, a thin woman digs frantically through her purse. She’s in her fifties and the purse is worn and brown and something about her looks, I don’t know, motherly, and the next thing I know I’m smiling at her, like it’s okay, you’ll find it, whatever it is. As she hoists the purse over her shoulder and crosses toward me though, her mouse-colored bob starts to shimmer, and then her complexion does too. She’s one of them. Her grin has frozen into a hunger-trance, and she’s bounding straight for me. My heartbeat’s shaking my whole body.
“’Samatter, girl, you forget how to run?” the homeless woman shouts at me.
I take off, her laughter bouncing behind me. I duck behind the library, dash down the dirt path, halfway to the falls before I meet the main road again and risk spinning to check behind me. No one’s there. Yay for running track. Is this why I became a sprinter? I pause to catch my breath, panting frantically.
It’s not till I’m halfway up the driveway of Preston House that it hits me: I’m not the only one in Summer Falls who can see ghosts. The homeless lady can see them too. But then why didn’t she run? Why did she just stand there laughing? The answer is because she’s crazy. But how did she get to be crazy, anyway? She’s hardly the only one, either—there’s an asylum right outside town. I’m working on a glimmer of a theory, but I need to talk to Marshall before I can get further. It always helps to talk to him.
I have so much to talk to him about that I decide to walk around the house, through the yard, and straight to the cottage rather than going upstairs.
When I knock on the cottage door though, Jeffry opens it and pulls me in. For once he’s not smiling.
“I came to install the new shower rod,” he says calmly, “and what do I find in here?”
He’s pointing to my goofy old bunny slippers, on the chair where I left them.
Shit. My heart’s pounding as if I just sprinted up a hill. “We were just talking—”
“You’re lying.” The slap almost knocks me down. “He can’t even speak English. What were you doing in there at night with that grubby foreigner?”
“Nothing.” Grubby foreigner? I back away from him, panic rising. Tasting blood from where he split my lip. “Where’s Liz?”
“You tell me.” He hurls the slippers across the room. “She disappeared again, without making dinner. I can’t seem to keep track of all the things the two of you do while my back’s turned.” He sounds so paranoid and angry, I suddenly get why she felt she had to lie to him. “Slut,” he says grimly.
Even though I was calling myself the same bad word earlier, his saying it feels like a knife tip slashing my belly. It feels like my insides are coming out for him to see and poke at with disgust. Shame leaks out of me, the shame I’d been carrying since I met Dan and realized I’d (probably) cheated on him.
“My own daughter’s a slut.” Jeffry’s voice is thick with disgust. His dark blond mustache twitches above his squeamish grimace, as if he’s manning up to crush a giant cockroach. The roach is me, and also sex itself. The whole idea of it horrifies him: sex and bodies and dirt.
I dodge the next slap, but now I’m trapped in a corner. Jeffry lunges for me, pins me against the wall, his hands clamping down on my shoulders. Jerking them so I have no choice but to shake with his will. Every gasping breath I take reeks of his medicinal pimple cream. The back of my head smacks the wall, and somewhere deep inside me a dark flower blooms. Rage. Rage, but I can’t use it to move, to fight back. It’s far away from what powers my limbs, wrapped up in a spiderweb of mental fuzz. Then Jeffry shifts one huge hand to my throat and squeezes, not quite hard enough to choke me. Just hard enough for me to seize up in terror.
Suddenly it feels like there are two Elyses. There’s the conscious me that’s livid, shocked. How could he? Why am I not fighting back? Why am I just waiting for it? He could kill me. Then there’s the deeper me, my body, and it’s not shocked at all. Of course he can do this, he’s done it before. This me has no ego, no will but the will to survive. And this is the me that takes over.
As if drugged, I go limp, and Jeffry nods and kind of grunts in approval, like this is what he expected from me all along. Ashamed but even more scared, I sit still and let him move his right-hand grip to my upper arm, big fingers digging into my flesh till it feels like they’ll pierce through and meet his thumbs. A groan of pain escapes me, and I hate myself for crying out, even though it hurts so bad.
Jeffry fixes me with a cool, stern gaze. “Let’s see, now,” he says calmly. “You live in my house. I let you have my name. Is it too much to ask that you not pollute yourself while you’re under my roof?”
I don’t want to answer him. But I’m in trouble here. Marshall’s not coming back; Liz is nowhere; no one’s going to rescue me. “No.” I whisper it. Not me. My body. It’s made its calculation: I’ll be safer not fighting. It won’t let me fight.
“Is it too much to ask that you don’t shame me by acting like a filthy whore?”
“No, sir,” I breathe, hating myself for my own fear, my own weakness. My mind’s still foggy, but my body’s twitching, pulsing, shaking, sweating in anticipation of more pain. And I’m starting to understand that I need to trust my body, because whatever else it may be, it is always, always right.
My body knew it was him who gave me the bruises, right from the start.
He reaches back one arm and cuffs my left ear, hard enough to make it ring. He doesn’t care how much he’s hurting me. I’m not a person to him, I’m just a malfunctioning machine. “Tell me where your whore mother went.” His voice so calm, despite the crazy things he’s saying. “She should be here making dinner. What’s she out doing that’s more important? Or who.”
I’m ashamed to admit this even to myself, but the fearful part of my brain is spinning, trying to think of something to say that will make him stop hurting me. To divert his wrath. I think of Liz, tiny harmless Liz who runs this place with hardly any help and never complains. Whose happiest moment was painting her daughter’s bedroom pink. No way am I sacrificing her to feed this monster’s paranoia.
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