by Nina Malkin
“Excuse us,” I mumble. “Come on, Char, let’s go wake Duck.”
“Mm-kay. But Dice? I don’t want these anymore.”
“Yeah,” I say, collecting the bedeviled bouquets. “I don’t blame you.” Bloom over stem, out the open window with the lot.
En route to Duck’s room, we manage to avoid smacking into his parents. I rap on what I hope I remember to be his door and slip in, rather than loiter in the hall. Sun slants through the shaft in the shutters, but the boy is out, on his stomach, the edge of the sheet throttled in one fist. I say his name a few times, then go for a shoulder poke.
“Hnghwuph?!” He jolts like a jack-in-the-box, gingery hair in clumps. “Oh! Dice! And Char—oh, thank goodness!” He tumbles from bed, belly of rising dough atop the waistband of SpongeBob boxers, his a.m. chubby thrusting one yellow rectangle front and center. It’s the most normal sight in the world, and I love him so much right now. I wish I could tell him his brother came with us and is just down the hall getting fussed over by Lillian and Paul. Instead, I tell him some fast truth. Then I notice Charlotte riveted. “Char, don’t stare.”
“But Dice, he’s got a big bump in his underpants.” It feels so good to giggle. “That happens to boys in the morning sometimes.”
Hastily Duck pulls on shorts he picks off the rug. He adds a fresh T-shirt and the moccasins he scuffs around in. “Let me run you girls home. Or I suppose you’d prefer Pen’s house?
That’s where Marsh went, after you and Sin . . .” Of course. Marsh couldn’t bear to head home with Charlotte kidnapped; she couldn’t camp out on the drop cloth in the east wing, either. Being near Willa was as close to comfort as she’d get last night. Nodding, I say, “Right, let’s crash their slumber party. I bet Pen’s mom will make us all waffles or something.”
Waffles and something (namely, blueberry pancakes) before Lainie toddles off to tennis. We get the little ones set up in the breakfast nook before taking it to the Leonard dining room.
I pull Antonia’s missive from my jeans pocket. “Read it and creep,” I say as they pass it around.
“So Sin’s still there? With her?”
“Is he staying? For good?”
“What kind of vow? What does she mean?”
I feel like a target in a shooting gallery. “I don’t know, and she’s not talking—literally,” I say. “Antonia’s mute, which explains the lack of communication between her and Sin. Who absolutely denies pledging her so much as a stick of gum. But yeah, I left him to stall her and scope Crane—Charlotte saw him, by the way, and he’s okay—”
“Couldn’t she lead you to him?” Logical, Duck. “Oh, but she must!”
“That’s . . . complicated,” I say. “I don’t know what the kid knows, but she’s scared of Antonia, for good reason.” I recap the earsplitting play of ghost girl’s extreme sport.
“Oh God—poor Char,” Marsh groans. “Duck, you know I want Crane back as much as you do, but my sister’s traumatized enough.”
I jump in before those two can get further at odds. “The way things are on the other side, I doubt it would do any good to give Char the third degree. Even if she identifies what room Crane’s in, Antonia may have him stashed in a different century.
Who knows—she may even be able to shuffle him around at will.”
Like in a game. Ghosts ab-so-lute-ly adore games. I’m starting to feel pretty pawnish myself, and realize that’s what we all are—human tokens on Antonia’s high-stakes chessboard.
My head reels. Slamming caffeine doesn’t help. The four of us push gluey pancake residue across our plates, slumped and silent.
Then Pen, for whom subtle segues don’t exist, says, “Tell me this: Does Bruise Blue still intend to do Chest-ah-Fest? Because I got the email—we’re in.”
The girl’s priorities are way out of whack. Our expressions convey this succinctly.
“What?” she blunders on like a blond Sherman tank. “My reputation is on the line. If we’re going to bail, I need to let them know.”
I could spike her head like a volleyball. Then again, Bruise Blue is crucial to all of us, on both sides of the gate. Music is a mighty force, and the band is our bond—we can’t let Antonia Forsythe continue to pluck us apart. “Uh . . . when is it again?”
“The tenth and eleventh. They have us down for the second day.”
“Of July?” Damn, I am time-trashed. “And what’s today?”
“The twenty-sixth. Of June,” Pen says. “Do you need the year?”
I make a face and do the math. Almost two weeks to practice, assuming Sin and I wrap things up fast beyond the fissure. Can we? How? What’s our next move? Damn, I’ve got to swing the gate again. “We should play,” I say, “but I just . . . I’ve got to . . .” Break down? Yeah, that’s it. I shove aside my plate and clunk my head to the table.
A disgruntled noise from Pen, but Marsh hustles to kneel beside my seat. Her cool hand against my neck supports me, sustains me, helps me tap a new strain of strength. I straighten up and smile at her.
“How’s this?” she proposes. “Dice, you get some sleep—the spectral jet lag must be awful. Tonight, when you’re rested . . .” She trails off, then gets tough. “You and Sin can take care of business, bring Crane home, and we’ll be a sextet at Chest-ah-Fest.”
The hope in her voice. The faith in her eyes. Her trust in the power of love and music and, well, Sin and me. Maybe Marsh is crossing a bridge made of toothpicks, but hope and faith and trust are all we’ve got.
An abyss of sleep, deep and luxuriously dreamless, until I hear Marsh in the hallway. Sluggish, I weave to the bedroom door and steady myself on the jamb.
“Oh, Dice, I woke you.” She lopes up.
“No, no, it’s cool—I’ve got to get up anyway.” Still, I fumble toward the bed, and Marsh follows, perching on the edge, sort of talking to the air.
“I wish I knew how to thank you, Dice. To go over there in the first place, and then leave Sin so you could bring Char back. It’s just—” She looks at me, away again. “I’ve always been the big sister. Even with my mom, her being kind of flighty, me always having to get between her and my dad. But with you, I feel—no, I know—I’ve really got someone, no matter what.
It’s like that with Crane, I guess—or it was—but when he first disappeared, my reaction was that he was over me. With you, whatever happens, wherever you are . . . you’re there, for me . . .” It’s nice she feels that way; even nicer she’s expressing it. In the house Marsh grew up in, showing emotion was like wetting the bed. Only right now, with everything so close to the surface, I want to avoid an emotional eruption of my own. One quick hug while I tell her, “Shut up or I’ll have to start calling you Mush.” Then I check the clock. Eleven hours unconscious and I’m still in a fog. “I better shower.”
When the hot spray hits, my brain kicks in, calling roll on my obsessions. Sin? Indeed. Antonia? Yeah, lucky me. Crane?
Yep. Tosh? Mm-hmm, him too. At least Marsh’s sister is safely squared away. I reach for my pouf and lather up, then...!
My mark, my bruise, that indelible blue badge of desire and testament to true love. It’s gone. What? How? When? A slow fade that began on the solstice with Sin’s return to this realm?
Or did it vanish in a heartbeat—now that I’m here and he’s there, beyond the gate . . . with her? More urgent, why? Because I said “gone,” but it’s not quite gone: It’s some other kind of emblem now. White, whiter than my surrounding moon tan, and raised, thickened—a scar.
Yet while my fingertips detect the change, the area itself is devoid of sensation. I scrub there. Nothing. Scratch there.
More nothing. Pinch, hard. Just numb, as though a few inches of flesh had been surgically supplanted with an analgesic.
Bittersweet as the pain had been, this nothing, this non-pain, really bites. Some signal from Antonia, a malicious display of victory? Or from Sin, my white scar his white flag of surrender?
Could it be that despite prior p
rotestation, he’s come to accept that she and he—
No, no, no! That’s nuts. Can’t be, won’t be. If anything the scar is an SOS, a sign that Sin’s in peril. Hop out, dry off, fling on clothes, and dash downstairs.
Marsh is there, car keys in hand.
Too much to say, so we say nothing till we get to Forsythe Manor.
Then she tells me, “Duck said he’d be in the studio.” He’s not alone. Facing each other, Pen and Tosh straddle the piano bench. Tosh gets up when he sees me. We come toward each other until we stop. Then, with a little lunge, his arms come around me. For a second it’s awkward, and then it’s awesome, since Pen joins in, and Duck and Marsh. The group hug almost hurts. After all, I was never that girl—the girl in the middle of a tight-knit clique, the girl who was part of something. Basically it had always been Ruby and me—we had other friends who were cool and all, but we were all we needed, all we believed in. This is different. This is Bruise Blue. I belong to these people. What I’m about to do I’ll do for us.
Except I don’t get a chance.
The studio door flings wide—no knock, no nothing—and in strides Sin.
True, his stride is hampered by a steamer trunk that must weigh as much as a baby elephant, the way he’s lugging it. He throws it down with a thunk. And if the old-fashioned leather-bound chest looks anachronistic in the modern studio setting, so does Antonia Forsythe in her finest faille and brocade gown.
Part III
The Game
XXXIX
Twiggy fingers snag his sleeve as Sin leads the incongruously costumed monstress into our midst.
“Allow me to present Miss Antonia Forsythe,” he says formally, steering her toward Pen. “Miss Penelope Leonard . . .” Pen gives her paw like an obedient puppy.
“Mr. Simon Williams . . . Miss Kristin Marshalll. . . Mr. Tosh Peters . . .”
Shock value must keep Marsh and Duck from tackling Antonia, demanding Crane’s return. After all, it’s not every day they meet the dead, and this girl-ghost-your-guess-as-good-asmine exudes palpable clout—a chill dampness coupled with that sickly sweet rose perfume that steals in on an inhale and creeps from the lungs to the blood. I didn’t sense it on the other side, but I get a whiff now, as does everyone else. Each in turn extends a hand, manipulated like marionettes. For every intro, Antonia curtsies minimally, a courtesy she chooses but isn’t required to bestow.
“And of course you know Dice.”
The penurious smile. And then she says, “Indubitably.” That’s right, a thin, timid, wispy sound, but it’s a sound and she makes it. In response, my own vocal chords seem initially paralyzed; then I choke out, “You—can—talk.” The look Antonia gives me, the eighteenth-century equivalent of Duh! “It has been ages since I’ve wished to speak. Yet now there is so very much to say.” Her rain-cloud glance reviews me. “One day, dear Dice, perhaps we shall have our overdue chat about music and horticulture. Although at present more pressing matters ought be addressed. Such as the gentleman who’s been my companion of late.” A cracked cry from Marsh, and Duck almost shouts his brother’s name.
“Crane, indeed.” Recognizing Duck as a current inhabitant of her ancestral home, Antonia fastens onto his arm and proceeds to drop the subject. “At first I thought it impertinent to arrive without invitation, but Sinclair’s urging was so . . .adamant.” Inclining her head his way, she flaps pale, scant lashes before returning her attention to us. “Then it occurred, there’d be no breach of etiquette—since this is, after all, my house.” The heiress to Forsythe Manor allows her gaze to roam. “Everything’s so different now,” she says, and as her eyes rest on mine, adds, “But then again, so am I.” Still attached to Duck, she begins to tour the studio. “Is it not interesting, though, that the more things change, the more they remain? Since this was for the most part a music room when last I dwelt here.” As Antonia muses, her voice gains vigor.
“Whenever my mother, the Lady Anne Forsythe, was in town, she preferred to entertain here. Such artistic friends she had—the most amusing people, though few as artistic and amusing as she.” Antonia pauses and strokes the air. “Her instrument prevailed here—she was quite an accomplished harpist.” Then wanders on, Duck in a trance at her side. “And here, by this wall, was my virginals.”
Her what? I can’t have heard correctly—right now I don’t trust any of my senses. It’s incredible that we’d allow her to lead us along, literally or figuratively, considering the crimes she perpetrated against us. Then again, that was as a silent ghost on the far side of the spectral divide. We’ve got even greater cause for caution now, since who knows what she’s capable of, this immortal and possibly amoral being. And whom do we have to thank for that? I pry my crazy-glued soles off the floor and sidle his way. “Sin?” I say innocuously. “A word, if I may?” Antonia’s apparently enjoying herself, raising no alarms as Sin and I convene in a corner. “Dice,” he begins, “before you lay blame, remember you’re the one who left me alone with her.
I implored you not to—”
“For a day!” I hiss. “You were alone with her for a day—”
“The longest day of my existence. She followed me everywhere, a scrap on my boot heel. I’d sit in a chair and she’d be behind me, stroking my hair, massaging my shoulders—or she’d fall at my feet and put her head in my lap . . .” Okay, eww. But I’d better hear him out. To avoid arousing Antonia’s suspicion, I nudge Sin toward the bar as his litany continues. “She brought out this get-up—” Yeah, that: full pre-Revolutionary regalia. The height of fashion and finery, too—not his humble farrier’s garb. A skirted, collarless coat and ruffled cravat, with leather spatterdashes below his breeches. It’s the outfit he wore when I glimpsed him and Antonia waltzing, and he carries it with the same poise and aplomb as his typical gear.
“So I thought, to appease her, I’d put it on—quickly, so that, once dressed, I might search for Crane. Only she allowed me no privacy! Stood there while I disrobed, hiding her eyes behind her hands, but Dice, I assure you she was peeking!” Bitch! I smolder inside, bending to the mini-fridge.
“Beverage?” I invite aloud, rummaging through the stock.
“At one point, I began to stride through the house, throwing back doors and calling Crane’s name,” Sin says. “She trailed all the way—tittering in this . . . this . . . titter! I took her by the shoulders as if to shake his location out of her, but she just tightened her lips and lofted her chin.”
I fill an ice bucket. Clearly, Antonia was in mime mode the whole time on the other side. Speech must be a phenomenon of crossing over. What other new attributes might she have acquired?
“So I changed tactics, complaining of boredom, which is when she urged me into this room,” Sin goes on. “She poured me a brandy and then sat at her virginals—” Her whatsit? “Excuse me?”
“The damned harpsichord she pounds upon. It’s called a virginals—yes, with an s, despite the singular.” I remember it from the salon. The wooden keyboard overly embellished with a relief of roses in mother-of-pearl, as if adornment could compensate for the player’s lack of talent.
“She only seems to know the one damned song.” How easy to envision Antonia, daughter of this regal hostess, dutifully practicing her little piece. I can even see a younger version—age twelve, when the Forsythes first took up residence in the grand manor—being trotted out to play for guests, only to screw it up and be . . . not punished, not chastised, just shunted aside, ignored. Maybe that’s when she lapsed into silence, the early stirrings of insanity.
“I asked her to dance—if only to stop the awful plinking.” Naturally Sin can boogie down without music, just part of his something-something. “And that’s when I began to speculate . . .what would happen to Antonia were she to attempt the voyage?”
I find a kitschy set of tiki-god cups and have to stop myself from knocking Sin upside the head with one.
“After all, as a ghost, I couldn’t walk among men. I was entirely dependent on you, Dice, if
you recall.” Uh-huh. I recall.
“Were it not for your touch, I’d have had no substance at all.
And were it not for the rite that golemized me, I’d probably still be rambling around inside your cousin.”
Okay, if I were Sin, I might think along the same lines. But isn’t he forgetting one tall, thin, and kidnapped thing?
“Hence, as a plan began to formulate, I filled her ear with the marvels of the modern world. Teased her with motor vehicles and television and smart phones. Tempted her with the freedom women now enjoy—no burden of corsets, panniers, or petticoats. Specifically, I spoke of you and your friends, the camaraderie you share, the band—”
Oh, no he didn’t! He did not tell Antonia she could be in Bruise Blue!
“Dice, it was ideal. I’d swing her through—and see her no more. Be free of her! And in vanquishing her, release Crane, of course.”
Of course? Well, you never could accuse Sin of pessimism.
I’m flipping tabs on soda cans, filling tiki cups.
“I knew she’d agreed when our waltz was done,” he says.
“Her gaze assured me she’d follow me anywhere.”
Yeah—I know the look.
“And then she did the damnedest thing. Perhaps she recalled the failure of her first attempt to kiss me, since rather than launch herself at my lips, she knelt and, squeezing my hand, planted one there. Dismally, as you’d expect—more protracted nip than kiss.” He scopes the room quickly. “Left a mark, too.” Hiking up his left shirt cuff, he exposes the spot.
Which is when I spill soda all over the tray. A tiny wound—a hickey, okay—bright pink and shaped exactly like a rosebud. And all at once I know. The moment Antonia put her brand on my man, my blue bruise turned to insensate scar. Sin may not realize it yet, but with horror I do: The rosebud love bite won’t be gone by tomorrow; that nasty little nibble on his wrist will keep him under her thumb! If only I’d warned him when I saw the two of them dancing, but I had no idea it would lead to this.
“Dice!” He hisses for my attention.