She nods. “I figured you had experience. I mean, you had condoms and everything.” Because my Dad gave me a pack along with the safer-sex talk last year. “I wouldn’t even know how to put one on a guy.”
I feel my eyebrows go up. “Sorry to pry but, um, don’t you and Dan use condoms?”
She says nothing but turns red.
“I guess if you’re on the pill,” I say aloud, “and you were both each other’s first . . .”
Her flashing eyes sting, almost like a slap. “You were my first, you idiot.”
“Oh,” I say, sitting down again. “Oh.” And you were mine. Just say it. Now would be a good time to say it. “I just don’t get it—you’ve been with the guy forever!”
She hugs herself. “I don’t want to talk about Dan.”
“Is he secretly gay?”
“No. He wants to. I just . . . wanted to wait.”
“So you’re not that into him.” Triumph of the occultist over the jock.
“Of course I’m into him, he’s my boyfriend. Forget it. I have to go home.” She walks to the door, and then she turns to me and says the words that smash my small, evil heart to smithereens. “This never happened.”
Chapter 29
ELYSE
For what feels like an hour, I wait for my biological father to give me a sign that it’s okay to leave the supply closet. I wait so long that I have to pee and get a cramp in my side from being folded into a pretzel shape, but I still don’t want to move and reveal myself, in case the doctor is still prowling around.
Finally I take the silence as a sign and make my move. I hurry into the elevator and from there to the garage. Back in Summer Falls, I decide to abandon Sheriff Hank’s car behind some trees a few blocks from Main Street.
As I start walking toward Marshall’s, a voice calls from behind me. “Elyse, wait up.” It’s Joe, looking contrite.
“You were right,” he says. “Your hometown is your hometown, and I have no right to put down your home, scary as it might seem to me. That said . . . you mentioned you were saving up to leave.” He reaches into his pocket and hands me a square of card stock. “This is an Amtrak pass. Takes you anywhere you want on the train, but you have to use it in the next five days.”
“Oh my god.” Anywhere. I think about California, escaping. Then I think about his secondhand clothes, the tiny cabin he lives in. “This must have cost you a fortune.”
“Please, it’s worth every penny.” He adjusts his owlish glasses on his smooth, young face. “How often does a guy like me get to be the hero and rescue the girl?”
“I’ll pay you back. As soon as I can.”
“My dear, you don’t owe me anything. I just want you to be free.”
Tears fill my eyes. “Thank you.” I slip the ticket into the back pocket of my jeans. And that’s when I notice there’s already something in there, something exactly the same size and shape as the train ticket.
I have two train tickets. And no memory of buying one—no note of it in my journal either. Which means someone likely gave me the first ticket too. Someone had wanted to help me before. Or someone just wanted me out of town. Was it him? Have we had this conversation before?
“Joe.” Pulse racing, I step back from him. “Are you the one sending me the dreams of California?”
“Oh boy.” He blinks twice and coughs, looks away from me. “How did you—? Never mind, not my business. None of it was my business, I know I crossed a line.”
I fold my arms. “Why did you?”
“Because you stood out,” he says. “In my classes, you were practically the only student with a spark. I knew you’d never be happy here. I wanted to help you, encourage you to get out of this benighted place and see the world. But the Institute has rules. You see, I’m only an observer. We’re not supposed to get involved with subjects.” He cringes. “Locals. I could lose my post for this . . .”
I think it over. I’m not really angry at him. There’s a lump in my throat, but it’s not anger. It’s—I’m touched that someone was thinking about my future. “Relax,” I say. “I’m not going to report you to some snooty Institute that thinks my life isn’t worth saving.”
He breathes a sigh, looks skyward. “Oh, geez, thank you!”
“But stay out of my dreams from now on. My head’s messed up enough already.”
“You seem all right to me.”
“All right?” I laugh. “I’m a total and complete mess. I don’t know who I am, and I hate who I was.”
He waves me away. “You’re just human.”
“Thanks, Joe.” I put my arm around him in a quick hug. “For the tickets and for caring.”
“My phone number’s on the back of the ticket,” he says into my shoulder. “Call me when you want a ride to the bus station. I want you to get out and see the world, kid.”
Get out and see the world. Why do those words sound familiar?
All the way back to Marsh’s house, I clutch the tickets in my hand, reassured by their smooth feel, the bold blue ink, the date unexpired, the promise of a glimmering possible future outside this town. But Joe’s final words to me keep reverberating in my mind. They’re still nagging at my subconscious as I open the gate and slip into the side yard overgrown with rosebushes, scarlet blooms pushing through the rotting wood fence posts. My sneakers bounce up the back porch steps and I reach for the doorknob.
And nearly trip over a sad, person-size crescent hugging the doorframe.
Gasping, I jump backward.
A woman’s form curled on the mat. She’s beautiful, small, and dark, with slender limbs and wild black curls. She turns to me, her warm, dark eyes gazing up at me.
When I look at her again, she’s shimmering in that way that they do.
“I know you from the pictures,” I say. “So this is where you’ve been hanging out.” As close to her family as she can get. “Can you hear me, Eva?”
Marshall’s mother nods sadly. Her magic that always protected them is now protecting them from her. Keeping her memory alive. Then she gives me an apologetic look and suddenly she’s on her feet, those melted chocolate eyes inches from mine and her hungry ghostly hands grabbing for my face. I run all the way around to the front yard and bang on the door.
Marshall answers, and I collapse in his arms. I pour out my whole story: Elizabeth, Hazel, the asylum, my father, tickets, seeing his mom, and Dan.
“What if we could have saved him?” It’s the first time the thought occurred to me. “I mean, what if we’d opened up to Dan? He wasn’t the brightest bulb, but he was open-minded. He had possibilities. Now they’re gone. What if we’d brought him in, told him the truth, put a coin circle around him . . . why didn’t we?”
He says nothing.
“Because you were jealous? And I felt guilty? Is that why we left him to rot?”
“You can’t blame yourself for this one, Elyse.”
On some level I know he’s right. But nothing will ever be the same.
In front of the bathroom mirror I smoke Dan’s last few cigarettes and with the borrowed scissors that had been in my backpack I begin to cut my hair. Idly, absently. Trapping a clump of it between the scissor blades, my other hand sucking in nicotine. Shorter and shorter, in unceremonious rounds, till all the smokes are gone. Till my head’s surrounded with bouncy waves less than an inch long. Small, round ears with tiny gold studs in them. I was wearing earrings all this time and I didn’t even notice. No smoke alarm goes off. I’ve changed into one of Marshall’s T-shirts and like the way it hides my shape. The girl in the mirror looks sad, looks tired, looks like a mess, but she no longer looks like a stranger.
When I come out of the bathroom, Marshall’s sitting on his bed with a book across his lap and a look of intense concentration as he waves a red crystal at the plastic trash can. Remembering how Marshall knocked Dan around with another crystal before, I start to say something to let him know I’m here, when suddenly the trash can explodes, showering the air with plastic conf
etti.
“Whoa, what was that?” I ask.
He looks as startled as I am. “Just trying to figure out what I can do.”
“You know, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should,” I say.
He stares at the pile of rubble in front of him. “Yeah, why don’t we keep that one in reserve?” Finally he looks at my hair. “Holy shit. You look fierce. You realize every girl in school is going to copy you.”
“Actually, they won’t.” I decide now’s as good a time as any to blurt it out. “I’m not going back to school,” I say. “I’m leaving town, today. And I want you to come with me. We can buy a ticket for your father too.” I want him to say yes so much that my heart’s pounding as I say it.
But he shakes his head. “What if I’m not ready to leave? And what about your mom? You’re going to leave her behind, with Jeffry?”
I remember how Jeffry talked about Liz, the bruises telling the same story mine do, that he must have shaken her. My stomach drops—I can almost smell Jeffry’s pimple cream. But what could I possibly do to help her? She won’t listen to me. We can’t even have a real conversation. “She’s already a zombie,” I say. “A pod person.”
“Don’t say that. She’s just a person who needs help, like my father.”
“She’s nothing like your father!” The forcefulness in my tone surprises me. “All your dad needs is a goddamn moving truck. Liz needs a new brain.”
“Okay.” He says the word in a supercalm voice, like coaxing a crazy person off a ledge.
“It’s not okay. You think our problems are the same, but you don’t know how lucky you are. Your father is begging you for help, you just won’t give it to him. Why didn’t you, all this time?”
He exhales hard, his eyes searching his own mirrored reflection as if for an answer. “Maybe because I knew I could do more,” he says finally. “I can help more people than just my dad. I’m not leaving till I’ve done whatever I can to help all these people.”
“Marsh, I know you’re a hero at heart and it’s tough for you to hear this. But how can we save everyone?”
“I’ve been studying my mom’s notes, her plan to reclaim the place of power.” He starts rewinding the music box. “I bet I’ll find out more the next time I go back under.”
I sigh. As much as I fear I don’t deserve someone like him, I don’t want to leave without him. If he really believes there’s a chance we could heal Summer Falls, I want to help. But is he just kidding himself?
Am I kidding myself thinking I could leave without him?
He lights the candles. I’ve gotten used to the smell of beeswax. “I’ll stay for one more night.” I lie on the green-and-blue plaid comforter. “Let me see those notes.”
Chapter 30
MARSHALL
Twilight and the thunder crack of bat hitting ball. A wave of cheering erupts through the bleachers as a light-footed figure rounds the bases. When he dives into home plate, the band floods the field. Raucous trumpets and saxophones blaring the Summer Falls High School song, the cheering turning into a chant, “Dan! Dan! Dan!” and people are rising to their feet. In the next to last row, Ruta jumps to her feet beside me. Jeremy shrugs and joins her, and I stand so I won’t be the only person in the crowd sitting on my ass.
The Sunrays have won the big game—as they always, always do. The kids from Green Vista look dejected. They huddle close together in their dark green jerseys and worn out cleats, a sweaty forest of shame and disappointment.
Dan, hoisted on his teammates’ shoulders, dives into the stands. He surfs on his back, bobbing over a sea of orange jerseys. “This is the best night of my life!” he yells. “I could die right now. Tonight all my dreams came true.”
“Douche,” I mutter under my breath, covering it with a fake cough.
“Incoming!” Jeremy yells.
Along with everyone around us we lift our arms, even tiny Ruta, to accept Dan. He passes over us, hairy, sun-browned limbs and a rock-hard trunk reeking of alpha-male sweat.
“Very firm butt,” Ruta reports when Dan has been handed off to the row behind us.
“Yeah, ’cause his entire head’s jammed in there.” Jeremy laughs bitterly.
“Jer.” She slaps his arm playfully. “Why don’t you like him?”
I watch, feeling a twinge as Jeremy stuffs his hands in the pockets of his dorky Bermuda shorts. “Just don’t trust him, I guess,” he says cheerfully. “Eyes are too close together.” Right, nothing to do with the dozens of swirlies he’s given you. The times he’s slammed you against the lockers. That’s all forgotten, but not forgiven. “I could have played baseball too,” he says. “If I wasn’t working at the mill on weekends.”
And if you hadn’t been cut from the team. “I know, man,” I say.
Dan’s finished his crowd-surfing and has been reunited with Elyse up front. Members of the baseball team hoist each of them into the air so they can kiss in front of the crowd. He devours her lips, holding her so close that all I can see is the back of her skirt and a pair of giant paws grasping her windblown hair.
“So, you guys want to come over?” Ruta asks finally. “There’s still three slices of cheesecake.”
“Yeah, sure,” Jeremy says, a little too eagerly.
I shake my head. “Got a project to work on, sorry.”
“It’s the mango cheesecake,” Ruta says, as if that detail could clear up a terrible misunderstanding, could change my plans. “You said you liked it at my birthday. Did I remember that wrong?” She frowns.
“Dude, you’d rather do homework than go to a girl’s house?” Jeremy puts his arm around Ruta, who doesn’t protest. “Forget about that geek, Rue.”
“Yeah, forget me,” I say, though it’s the last thing I mean. If everything goes well tonight and tomorrow, no one in this town will ever forget me.
—
Five hours later, the full moon is shining through my bedroom window. Inside the air smells like rosemary and hawthorn leaves, and wax from the three fat candles forming a triangle on my desk. White, red, and black. Slowly, carefully, I set my mother’s gold chalice in the triangle’s center. Peer down at the thick red liquid that’s making it so heavy. The potion. The seal. It’s by far the most advanced thing I’ve ever done. Unless you count the antidote now cooling in a shot glass on top of my dresser. That was even harder.
I flip around on the web for an hour, checking the window for her face a thousand times before I finally see her outside, a fast-moving figure in white against the navy blue sky.
Downstairs in the living room I pass my father snoring in his easy chair, robe falling open to his chest. The TV’s playing static again.
I let her in, reaching over to kiss her lips as she stands in the entryway, but she pushes me away, grinning, her hands cool with the night air. “Your dad’s right there.”
“So?” I smile back. “He’s out cold.” For the millionth time I can’t help staring at Dan’s promise ring on her finger, the world’s tiniest diamond.
“And he’s probably getting cold.” She shoots me a reproving look and covers my dad with a crochet blanket from the couch. We tiptoe past him up the stairs.
“So how’s the spell casting, Harry Potter?”
“All systems go. How was the after-party?”
She groans. “Parties, they all blend together. The keg, the red plastic cups, the mating call of the drunk cheerleader . . .”
I wouldn’t know. “I’m surprised jock-boy actually let you out of his sight tonight.”
“Let me?” She rolls her eyes. “Dan doesn’t own me. Come on, let’s make the video.” It’s the way she smiles and shrugs that tells me it’s bravado. Has to be. No one, not even Elyse, could be this cool about drinking a memory seal.
“Elyse . . . I just want to say, it’s okay to change your mind. I mean, I know this is asking a lot—”
“Marsh. I’m not wussing out. This is the most important thing I’ll ever do.” She’s looking right at me,
her clear green eyes serious, sincere. “When this is all over, assuming I don’t die, I’m going to California and never looking back. But I don’t want to leave Summer Falls like this. I have to try, even if it kills me.”
I just nod again. I’ve been trying hard not to think of that possibility, of her dying underwater. I’ve also been trying not to think of the almost-certainty that she will leave town forever the second I hand her the antidote and say, “Congratulations, you saved Summer Falls.” That I’ll never see her again. I want to tell her all these things, but they’re too sincere. Too raw. I’d sound like a dork. It doesn’t help that no matter how many times I’ve crushed my lips against Elyse’s, kissed her so hard it hurt us both, no matter how many times I’ve held her close in this dark secret room away from her real life, when she is this close to me I’m always a little starstruck by her beauty. Not cover-model beauty. Not old-fashioned-painting beauty either. Just some strange power I can’t name but that makes her impossible to turn away from.
She perches on the edge of my bed and whips her phone out of her pocket. I sit next to her, careful not to touch her.
“Hi, Elyse!” She waves at the phone screen. “I know you don’t remember this, but I’m you. I recorded this just last night. First, don’t worry, you will get all your memories back. I promise. Second, trust this guy.” She turns the camera toward me briefly. “Because I trust him with my life.” Her voice breaks. “I know nothing makes sense right now, but this is all going to be worth it in the end. You’re doing this for Mom and Marshall’s mom and all the other people out there who deserve a better life. Or, afterlife.”
“I’m deleting that part.” I grab the phone from her. “Too specific. Anything you know, Preston could find out if a ghost catches you. Just say you trust me and nothing else. It’s not like I won’t be there to explain things.”
“Good point,” she says. “Better hide your spell notes from me too.”
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