Mother of Crows

by David Rodriguez

  Abby smiled. “More like medium-sized Abby now.”

  Corinne had grown into a pretty blonde woman with classic patrician features. She spread her arms for a hug, and Abby fell into it gladly. “It’s so good to see you!” Corinne said before she let go and called Sindy over.

  Drew clasped Abby’s hand. His grip was warm and soft, but Abby could feel the strength behind it. He was absurdly handsome, like a matinee idol from the ’50s who had somehow figured out time travel and modern fashion. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said.

  “Let me look at the two of you,” Corinne said. She put one hand on Abby’s arm and one on Sindy’s. “You two just turned into a couple of heartbreakers when I was gone.”

  Abby felt the heat in her cheeks, and glanced at Sindy, who was visibly preening. “How was college?” Abby stammered just to say something.

  “Oh, we graduated. With honors,” Corinne said. “But you two aren’t looking at schools yet, are you?”

  “No.”

  “We start at the Academy tomorrow,” Sindy added.

  Corinne’s eyes-a shade of deep, roiling blue-widened. So did her smile. Her teeth were a bit too small for her head, as though she was still making do with baby teeth. It was the one flaw in her face. Like most singular imperfections, it only served to make the whole more impressive. “You’re going to have so much fun there. So that makes you… fourteen?”

  Abby nodded.

  “It’s an exciting time for you. The Academy, then joining the Daughters. I can’t believe how grown up you’ve become.”

  The word, Daughters, sent a chill through Abby. With school starting so soon, it was hard to even think of joining the Daughters of Arkham, and yet that, too, was almost close enough to touch. She noticed Corrine absently fingering the pin on her lapel. The small, embossed brooch was as good as a coat of arms in the town of Arkham. Abby had been intimately familiar with the seal of The Daughters of Arkham since she was an infant.

  Her mother and grandmother each had one of those pins. They never left the house without it prominently displayed on their left lapel, a ship’s wheel surrounded by leviathan coils. It was supposed to signify the town’s brave, sea-faring history, as well as the unwavering strength and fortitude of the women who had brought order to the wild, coastal settlement nearly 400 years ago. Abby thought that her iron-spined grandmother was a living and omnipresent testament to that fact. She wouldn’t be surprised if Hester “The Iron Maiden” Thorndike had actually been on the first ship over.

  “It’s good to see you, Corinne.” Abby smiled at her former sitter but found her eyes drawn back to the pin. She wondered what it would feel like to finally wear one.

  “You’ll be seeing a lot more of me soon,” Corinne said. She inflated her cheeks and gestured to her belly. “For a couple months more, at least.”

  Abby’s eyes widened. “You’re pregnant?”

  Corinne exchanged a look with Drew, and then nodded happily.

  “Congratulations!” Abby and Sindy said.

  “Thanks. We’re going to go find some food that isn’t double-battered. You all have fun tonight. And be safe!” She hugged them both again, and then she and Drew continued down the midway.

  Nate watched them go, the lenses of his glasses turned pink and green by the surrounding light. “Hi, I’m Nate,” he said.

  “Sorry,” Abby said. “She was our old babysitter.”

  “Is she from the north side?” The north side as in the rich side of town. It was getting harder and harder to ignore that there was a difference between where Abby and Sindy came from and where Nate came from. Even in a town this small, there was no way Nate would ever meet or spend time with Corinne Blackwell and Drew Marks. They all lived only a few miles away from each other, but it might as well have been across the Grand Canyon.

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s her lawn look like? I probably cut it.” Someone else might have missed the sting of bitterness in his tone, but not Abby. She’d known him too long.

  “Can I have a piece of your funnel cake?” she asked.

  His tone softened. “Yeah, of course,” he said, holding it out.

  “So what are we going to do?” Sindy asked, her arms folded.

  “Bumper cars?” Nate said. “Darts? Knocking over those bottles?”

  “Ugh. Kid games.”

  “They’re all rigged anyway,” Abby said.

  “Every game’s rigged,” Nate said, shrugging. “At least they’re upfront about it.”

  “We can’t be the only ones bored here,” Sindy said.

  “I’m not bored.”

  Sindy shot him a death glare. “Let’s look around, see who else is here.”

  Nate didn’t protest, but Abby saw the visible slump in his shoulders. They set off down the midway. The clattering of the rides, the warbling of the music, and the call of the barkers formed an impenetrable cacophony around them. They saw familiar faces, both older and younger, but all of them were oddly distorted by the chaos of the lights and the crowd. Abby was having difficulty looking up and around. She had the distinct dropping feeling in her belly that she got when a car accelerated too fast, a tingle at once pleasant and unbearable. She wanted to ask her friends to take her out of there, for at least a little while, but Sindy and Nate agreed on only one thing: they were staying at the carnival for as long as they were allowed. Abby couldn’t disappoint them, especially over something as odd and undefinable as this feeling.

  She followed them as they moved through the blaring crowd. Above, the Chair-o-Plane swung screaming people around in circles. Beyond, a clown mercilessly heckled passersby from a dunk tank. A woman selling candy apples called out, “See what the serpent was going on about! These got us kicked out of Eden!”

  Abby’s stomach flopped over at the sight. She regretted eating funnel cake. “Nate? Do you have any Coke left?”

  “I have ice. It might be mildly Coke-flavored ice.” He handed the cup over, and she upended a few shards into her mouth. It tasted better than anything she had ever eaten.

  “Hello, hello,” Sindy said so quietly that Abby nearly missed it.

  2

  Bryce

  Abby looked up and found Sindy’s attention consumed. When Abby followed her gaze, she found herself ensnared as well. There was a boy coming through the crowd on the midway, flanked by… Abby had no idea who they were. People, she supposed, but for the moment they were little more than shapes that provided depth and texture for the star at center stage. His presence was like a black hole. Everything was drawn toward him. The closer you got, the slower time seemed to move.

  Bryce Quincy Coffin had that effect on people, and he knew it.

  Calling him “magnetic” or “handsome” did no service to the words, except maybe by making them more interesting with their relationship to him. To Abby-and, she knew with a mixture of envy and despair, to the bulk of the female population of Arkham ages twelve-to-eighteen-Bryce was the most attractive boy in existence. His features were hard and angular, with just a touch of boyish softness. His eyes were a pale and cloudy gray, rimmed with gold around the irises, and his hair, an immaculately tousled raven black. He owed his trim, athletic build to his success on the lacrosse field, his expensive clothes to the bottomless Coffin fortune, and his style-well, no one knew where that came from. It was all uniquely Bryce.

  Abby had admired him from afar until he left Mather Primary for the Academy last year. Now she only saw him at Rick’s or the Lamplighter, and he was never without at least one of his entourage hanging off his every word. Abby suspected that most (if not all) of them flocked after him because associating with the heir to the Coffin fortune was good social business. She liked to believe that she cared about Bryce as a person and not just because his shoulders were so delightfully broad.

  Abby was so deliberately not dwelling on that particular set of shoulders that she didn’t see that he was almost on top of the three of them. Abby realized he was heading toward Sindy-S
indy in her stupid minidress, showing everything God gave her-while Abby herself was as indistinct as the people around Bryce. She forced herself to look at them, and recognized a few infamous faces. There was Charity Duckworth, who wore skirts so short they were better described as belts. She clung to Ben Knowles, whose money couldn’t hide the fact that he wasn’t all there. There was Eleazar Grant, quiet and brooding. His attempts at fiction used to get him sent to the office once a week at Mather Primary. Beside him was Delilah Cutter. Delilah was a whole lot of girl. In Mather Primary she had towered over the girls and boys at five feet eleven inches. And while time had evened out some height differences, Delilah had only added pounds to her large frame. But Delilah Cutter didn’t bother to hide behind shapeless clothing. Her hair and makeup were as impeccable as any of the other girls and Abby had never known her to be single. Though Abby had never spoken to her, she wished she could be as confident as the heavyset girl appeared to be.

  Then, there was Hunter Hanshaw, the last hope for the Hanshaw name after last summer’s bizarre boating mishap. The few faces Abby didn’t recognize were more of the same: refined, patrician, and above all, beautiful. They were probably students from all over the country, sent to Arkham to get an education and make connections that would serve them up through the Ivy Leagues. Abby knew the story well because it was basically her own. She’d just never moved.

  “Hey there,” Bryce said. A smile crinkled the corners of his mouth.

  Abby waited for Sindy to say something before she realized Bryce’s eyes were focused squarely on hers. As she met his gaze, she felt a jolt. She was positive that if she touched Bryce at that moment, a literal spark would arc between them. She was trying to figure out what to say when Sindy, in the sultriest tone she could manage, said, “Hey yourself.”

  Bryce blinked. For a moment, his eyes flickered to Sindy. It felt like the longest and coldest moment Abby had ever experienced, but it balanced out quickly when Bryce turned back to her. “Abby Thorndike, right?”

  “Uh, yeah. You’re Bryce Coffin.”

  “I hope so. Otherwise I stole his car.”

  His friends laughed.

  “Car?” Abby croaked.

  “Turned sixteen yesterday, and what do you know? Got a car.”

  “Nice,” Sindy said. Bryce barely looked at her.

  “So what are you up to?” he asked Abby.

  “Same thing you are.” It was the first thing that popped into her head.

  The whole group, except Eleazar, laughed. “So, you’re looking for trouble. Never would have guessed.”

  “Oh… Um…”

  “Actually, we were heading for the bumper cars,” Nate said. It was a clear challenge.

  Bryce grinned even wider, throwing an arm around Nate’s shoulders. “Now that is a coincidence. Let’s go, Dexter.”

  “It’s Bax…” Nate coughed. “Ter. Nate Baxter.”

  “Sure, let’s say that. Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s go.”

  The group moved, and Bryce waited just long enough to make sure Abby was following along. She could swear she saw his perpetual grin widen the tiniest bit when she started moving. The sick feeling in her belly had shifted both lower and higher, and she was having trouble thinking at all. She was silent as they walked. Bryce held court while the older kids talked. Sindy did her best to get involved, while Nate moved in next to Abby.

  “Do you know these guys?” he asked.

  “Well… yeah. That’s Bryce and that’s-”

  “No, I mean are they your friends?”

  “I guess so. Now.”

  “I thought we were hanging out together. You know, just us. Three.” A plaintive note crept into Nate’s voice that Abby didn’t like.

  “Now we’re hanging out, just us… let’s see, four, five-”

  “Okay, okay,” Nate said, but with his gloomy disposition, Abby knew it wasn’t okay. Right now, she didn’t care. This was the closest she had ever been to Bryce for this long, and the most they’d talked since he asked her to scoot down a few seats to make room for him and his friends at the movies. She’d pored over his precise tone and phrasing with Sindy afterwards.

  As for Sindy, she was talking up Eleazar Grant. He seemed completely enamored by her, and the funny part was that they looked like a couple. His hair was long and so blond it could be white. His pinched face, deep-set eyes, and pale skin made him look like a vampire. For Sindy, that was practically perfect.

  Abby kept thinking she should say something, if only to remind Bryce she was there. Every time she mustered the courage to speak, the conversation had already moved on, or she had analyzed what she was going to say and determined it was the stupidest thing anyone could or ever would say. So she remained quiet, stealing glances at Bryce whenever she thought his head would be turned. He caught her looking more than once. Though she turned away each time, he never did. She felt his gaze burning through her, from her tummy up to the crown of her head.

  They stopped at the bumper cars and their group took over half the course. Most of the boys were laughing and already marking their targets. Nate hunkered gloomily behind the wheel of his car. Abby noticed he looked almost exactly like the duck on his t-shirt. She pictured the slogan NO MORE MR. NICE GUY over Nate’s head and giggled aloud. Nate’s head snapped around. She covered her mouth, but he saw it, and the cloud around him darkened. It only made him look more like the duck.

  When the cars turned on, Bryce, Hunter, Eleazar, Ben, and Charity became pack hunters. They worked together, battering one person at a time into the side of the course. Abby tried her best to evade them, while Sindy whirled ineffectually in place. Nate gunned his car, and rammed right into Bryce’s bumper. The other boy was thrown into his steering column. When he turned to look at Nate, the glint in his eye was less than pleasant. His usual grin stayed, but Abby saw a splinter of cruelty there. Nate didn’t seem to mind. He backed up for another pass.

  That’s when Ben blindsided him into Hunter. Charity slammed into him as soon as his car stopped. They were picking on him, and Abby wasn’t about to let that happen. She shrugged off a few hits from innocent bystanders, and made a beeline for Hunter, the worst of the lot. She was inches from his bumper when she felt a thud. Her whole body rag-dolled before snapping back into place. She turned and saw Bryce smiling as he swept away, only to be hit himself by Sindy and then Eleazar.

  Bryce stood up on his car and jumped for Eleazar’s. The other boy wrestled with Bryce for a second, but Bryce got the better of him and commandeered the car. A moment later, Abby felt hands under her armpits. She screamed with laughter as Hunter hauled her out of her seat and slid into her place to take the wheel. Abby perched on the smooth, aluminum back of the car, barely balancing and ready to be thrown to the floor at any moment. Hunter’s car was only a few feet away. She grinned, thinking about the games of Hot Lava she played at Nate’s house over the years. They’d tightrope-walked from sofa to couch to bookcase, never touching the shag carpeting that they’d imagined was lava (with piranhas and crocodiles, if Nate’s little sister Veronica was playing). You couldn’t play Hot Lava in Harwich Hall because there was no furniture there; only antiques. The one time they tried, Nate had shattered a vase on the marble floor in the front hall. Abby had told her grandmother she had done it.

  Her mom and her grandmother weren’t here to glare disapprovingly at her. It was just her, a bumper car, and a few feet of polished, pitted hardwood that her mind transformed into glowing magma. When she leapt onto Hunter’s abandoned car, she wasn’t graceful, but she felt so light that for a moment she thought she could float away. Sindy leapt onto the car at the same moment Abby did. There was a wild grin on her face, too. “Hold on!” she said, gunning it for the back of Delilah’s car.

  Pretty soon, every member of the group had swapped at least once. The barker had to stop the ride. “Okay, you punks, off the ride! No getting out of the cars. It’s the one rule!”

  Bryce laughed at him. “Come on,” he sa
id to the others, and they all followed, their shoulders squared and steps lazy.

  Behind them, the barker said, “Sorry folks. Let’s get a couple people buckled up, and we’ll start over.”

  As they walked back to the midway, Abby felt pleasantly boneless. She had never done anything as crazy as the jump; never even known it was an option. They went up the midway, stopping whenever Bryce stopped at a booth. If someone else stopped first, they always waited for Bryce’s confirmation that yes, it was a good idea. A line of shooters sprayed jets of water into the faces of open-mouthed clowns, inflating balloons on the tops of their heads. The first one to pop the balloon was the winner. Abby was old enough to register something deeply creepy about the childlike facade of the game, but when Ben wanted to stop and play, they did. Almost instantly, Bryce turned his gun and fired a blast at Abby. She shrieked and shot him back. A water fight broke out and quickly included the man running the booth. He shut the water off and told them to go on their way.

  They misused every game they tried. At the dart game, they attacked the cheap, stuffed ‘Family Guy’ characters hanging along the booth walls. At the fishbowl game, they bounced their ping-pong balls off the heads of other customers. At the milk bottle game, they just stole the baseballs and dumped them in a cotton candy machine.

  Angry barkers chased them all the way up the midway. Abby was gasping for breath. She’d never laughed so much at a single stretch in her life. The group stopped behind one of the trailers on the edge of the carnival, sinking to the dusty ground as they caught their breath. The lights threw watercolor shadows over the dirt, and everyone stayed in the shadows of the trailer, as though touching the light would somehow cause the whole thing to end.

  Abby had gotten to know, at least a little, the other members of Bryce’s group. There was Shawna Roberts, whose dad was a famous golfer; Taran West, who never said anything except to sometimes darkly mutter that he had been “sent here”; and Ashley Stewart, who barely seemed aware of anything going on around her.