“No.”
“Nothing at all?”
“I swear on my life and yours that I have nothing that can assist you, little sparrow. I say again that we have an excellent public library.” Madame Swann smiled as she took Liss by the shoulder and guided her back to the door. Her long nails pinched even through Liss’s polar fleece. “Or you could Google it.”
Before Liss could answer, Swann had hustled her across the threshold and shut the door in her face. The deadbolt clunked into place.
Alexa
Alexa hurried down the stairs and out the door of Fault Line Tattoo. Liss’s obnoxiously red SUV was parked out front, one tire obnoxiously on the curb. Alexa let out a sigh of relief and headed back to the North Coast High parking lot and her car. Liss might not have any redeeming qualities that Alexa was aware of, but she’d definitely shown up at the right time.
The meeting with Swann should have been simple, but then again Swann was more than a landlord. Lorelei had known her for years, though Alexa had no idea how they’d met. Once a month Swann would come over and she and Lorelei would catch up, during which time—Lorelei implied, never outright asked—Alexa was expected to find somewhere else to be. Lorelei deserved her privacy, so Alexa never asked questions.
Of course, Lorelei’s calendar marked one of Swann’s visits this week, although it was only the middle of the month and Lorelei had dropped in on Swann a few days earlier. Alexa had posed as Lorelei to text Swann, saying she was sick and needed to move the meeting. Delay it first, cancel it later, was Alexa’s strategy. Then Swann wouldn’t take no for an answer, which was frankly pushy. Finally, Alexa convinced her to move the meeting to the tattoo shop. Swann had still been expecting Lorelei when Alexa knocked.
“Lorelei sent me to drop off the rent. For the Dogtown house,” she’d said. “She wanted to come herself but she’s come down with something.”
Swann had leveled her black eyes at Alexa—or really, looked down at Alexa, since Swann was quite tall and Alexa quite not-tall—and asked, “Where is she?”
“She’s at home. She’s super sick. Probably sleeping, I think? Anyway, I brought her check.”
Swann had accepted the check but continued looking at Alexa in a way that was entirely unpleasant, with such singular concentration that Alexa worried that she could maybe read her mind, like Domino could, or somehow smell residue of that noxious rotty stink that filled the house.
That was impossible, Alexa told herself as she unlocked her car.
Although what, really, was impossible once you were telepathically talking to a cat?
Swann was sorted, for now. But she would have to be careful—more careful.
Alexa put the car into gear and headed back toward Dogtown.
Liss
Liss made it home from Fault Line Tattoo only to find her mother was waiting for her in the kitchen, flipping through a catalog at the massive granite island. Liss could tell that she was ready to spit venom from the way she was clutching her glass of pinot grigio.
Liss pulled a container of leftover pasta from the fridge. Liss’s father was in Sacramento, where he spent three nights a week for work. His absence put her mother on edge, but it also meant they were both free from pretending to enjoy family dinners. “Do we have any bread?”
“Bread and pasta? Usually it’s bread or pasta. Have some carrots instead. Are you going to tell me where you’ve been?”
“Studying at Dan’s.”
“Was studying at Dan’s so important that it was worth missing your appointment with the college consultant this afternoon?”
“That was today? I totally forgot.” A knot of anxiety tightened in her stomach. She’d been so excited to meet up with Dan, to lay her hands on the Black Book again, that she had practically run to her car after school had ended. And all that had come to nothing but another stupid fight.
I never want to see you again.
“We paid two hundred dollars for that appointment, and the consultant is booked into the new year. You knew this was your last chance to meet with him for the final edits of your personal statement. The applications are due in a week—”
“I have until the end of the month,” Liss protested. “That’s like three weeks.”
Her mother’s jaw was firm, and a tiny muscle near her eye twitched. The lines in her forehead would have been showing, if not for the Botox. “Today is the fifteenth. It’s two weeks, and if they’re not early, they’re late. We had an agreement.”
“What agreement?” Liss asked around a mouthful of pasta.
“That I would ground you if that’s what’s necessary for you to complete these applications on time—”
“By which you mean, early.”
“On time. And clearly that is what’s necessary.”
Liss dropped her fork into the cold pasta. “I didn’t agree to anything like that. You can’t make things up and say I agreed to them.”
“If you could be a tiny bit responsible for the first time in your life, this wouldn’t be necessary.”
“I am responsible, so this isn’t necessary.”
“This is for your own benefit.”
“My benefit?” Liss knew she should stop herself before she really made her mother mad. Giving into her self-righteousness might feel good for a few seconds, but her mother could make her feel like a worthless nothing with just one cold look. She couldn’t win an argument against her—she never had—but still, the unfairness of it ate into her. “I don’t even want to go to half these schools. They’re only on the list because you want to be able to tell Dad’s bosses that I’m applying to their alma maters.”
“What is so offensive to you about helping your father? All of this is thanks to his hard work.” She gestured around the kitchen, as if Dad’s hard work had amounted to dozens of gleaming white cabinets. “That’s how the world works. You don’t do things just because you want to; you act with purpose.”
“So when I want things, it’s being selfish, and when you want them, it’s acting with purpose. Got it.”
“You ungrateful little—how did I end up with such an insolent daughter?” Her mother’s nostrils always flared a little piggishly when she was angry. “Go to your room.”
“I’m actually grounded?”
“You can tell Dan that she’ll be studying alone until you get your applications in. I’m sure she’ll understand, unless she’s turned into another good-for-nothing druggie for you to embarrass yourself with, like that boy you used to date.”
Liss fought against the urge to stomp all the way up the curved staircase, because it was juvenile and also would surefire upset her mother even more, which Liss couldn’t risk. It was as if her mother had ripped open her chest and filled it with venom and left her to burn—not with anger or drive or anxiety like Liss often did, but something altogether different and sadder and darker. Something that made her want to unmake herself, consume herself and start again as someone not so terrible, not so worthless, not such a fuck-up. A better daughter, even though she knew intellectually that she was a perfectly fine daughter. She was a good enough daughter. That was the same as awful, wasn’t it?
Liss shut the door to her room and locked it.
It was just that her mother was a raging bitch when she got bored, and her boredom was directly proportional to how much attention she got from Liss’s father. It was Monday, which meant he’d be gone for three more days before he’d work from his office in Fort Gratton on Friday.
When she saw him on Friday nights, Liss always felt like she’d been rescued. He hadn’t forgotten the two of them—“my beautiful girls” he called them—in the too-big house that all his hard work had paid for.
But when he was home, he wasn’t really there. He spent the Saturdays crammed into a spandex outfit biking North Coast’s twisting roads, and Sundays watching any kind of sports and reviewing hi
s work for the next week—alone. He never noticed the tension between his “beautiful girls.” Sometimes it was like he never noticed Liss at all, unless she was notifying him of another A.
The applications were piled on Liss’s desk along with course catalogs she’d picked up on campus visits, and half a dozen books and reference guides, like Writing the Personal Statement or Cracking the College Admissions Code. She’d been planning to finish the applications this weekend, but that hadn’t panned out. She could still get them done during winter break, while she hid in her room away from all her mother’s fussy Christmas stuff. After she knew Johnny was okay and it was safe for her to leave North Coast.
She shouldn’t have missed the appointment. She’d planned on telling the consultant the truth, now that she was getting down to the wire: they couldn’t go over the draft of her personal statement, because she hadn’t been able to write one yet.
It wasn’t that she didn’t know what it was supposed to be about; she’d gone on a whole community service program last summer specifically so she’d have a “life-changing adventure” to write about. There was even a session on how to convert the experience into a personal statement. She was supposed to say something about how Guatemala was beautiful and inspiring, and she’d been so lucky to have the opportunity to give back to the community, which was not her community but was still really important to her as a global citizen, by building a rural school out of cinderblocks, which was so rewarding because she really valued education, which everyone should have access to, including herself, by being admitted to whatever college the admissions officer reading the statement worked for.
But the truth was, the trip wasn’t inspiring at all. She’d been miserable and lonely and distracted the whole time. She missed Dan, even if she was still angry with her for pushing that horrible spell in the first place, and she thought about Johnny constantly. It didn’t help that the absence of a reliable internet connection meant she couldn’t even do any research into where he’d been taken and how he could be saved. Liss knew building the little one-room school was important, but it was hard to feel proud of it when she’d accidentally let her boyfriend get kidnapped by some kind of demon. Obviously that wasn’t something she could put in a statement, which meant she had to lie, but what if they saw through it? The admissions committee, the college consultant, her parents, everyone—what if they cut right through her lies and saw the truth? What if, with her whole life leading up to this, they judged her and found her wanting?
Liss didn’t know if she could survive the rejection.
TWELVE
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16, SENIOR YEAR
Alexa
Alexa bolted upright—or more upright—in the chair she was sleeping in at Lorelei’s bedside. It was still fully dark outside, and ominous shadows cluttered the room.
Someone was banging on the front door.
Alexa lurched to her feet and grabbed the kitchen knife she’d been keeping nearby since Keith’s visit in case of emergencies.
“Open up, Alexa!”
She didn’t recognize the voice. It sounded like a woman’s—but Alexa’s brain was woozy with sleep. Could it be Keith?
Alexa’s gaze was fixed on the front windows, but with the curtains drawn and the lights off, she couldn’t see anything. Her eyes felt dinner-plate wide.
The banging continued.
But why would Keith knock when there was nothing stopping him from breaking in again?
Alexa tightened her grip on the knife and flipped on the living room light. The room still felt off-kilter and strange. The clock read barely 5:00 a.m.
“Alexa, open the door!”
Domino padded toward her with a casual slink that seemed not at all appropriate for what was happening.
“Should I open it?” she whispered.
I’m a familiar. I don’t make decisions.
“That’s not helpful!”
Fine, if it means we can go back to bed, I’m in favor.
Alexa opened the door.
Standing on the porch was a tall and slender figure, almost luminously pale in the moonlight.
“Swann?”
Swann came forward, but Alexa blocked the doorway.
“Where is she, Alexa?”
“Who?”
Swann’s eyes narrowed. “I’m here for Lorelei. You—oh god, what’s that smell?”
Suddenly Swann gave a look of realization and pushed past Alexa into the house.
“She’s sick—she’s sleeping!” Alexa stumbled over the mess left behind from the break-in to block the way to Lorelei’s room. She wedged herself into the doorway and grabbed for the door, but Swann put out a surprisingly strong arm to prevent her from closing it. Swann peered over her head into the dark bedroom. The smell alone was enough that Swann would never be satisfied that nothing was wrong. Alexa shoved back her rising panic. “This is completely inappropriate. I know you own this property but this is our home, and you have no right to barge in here—”
“Stop this, Alexa. You must know I’m here to help.” Something in Alexa’s face must have demonstrated that she knew nothing of the sort, not even close. “Well, I am. Didn’t Lorelei tell you? I’m the Overwarden for the whole region, so if something’s gone wrong it’s my responsibility.”
“The what?”
But Swann had already taken advantage of Alexa’s hesitation. She was in the bedroom now, searching for the light. Alexa didn’t turn to watch.
The light clicked on.
Swann gasped.
* * *
—
Alexa nervously tidied the living room, Domino at her heels, while Swann conducted a stern, closed-door examination of Lorelei.
At least Swann hadn’t freaked out when she barged into Lorelei’s room—no screaming or cop-calling. She’d laid a white hand against her white throat, her shoulders slumping, and quietly said, “Oh, love, what’s happened?” Since then, she’d been concerned but composed, the way TV doctors acted when they faced difficult cases. The fact that Swann accepted Lorelei’s situation as bad in a normal way, not bad in a defying-the-laws-of-logic way, sparked some hope that Lorelei’s condition was temporary, or even a regular kind of sickness. Alexa told herself Swann was being helpful, and she did need help, like it or not. But she couldn’t entirely quiet the nagging worry that, precarious as things already were, they’d started to slide entirely out of her control.
Swann emerged from Lorelei’s room, an unreadable expression on her narrow face. She requested a cup of tea then went to the bathroom to wash her hands.
“I apologize for showing up like this,” Swann said once they were seated outside. The front steps they sat on were grimy and the porch partly crushed, but at least the air was breathable. “You set all my alarm bells ringing yesterday. I thought it best to take the situation by surprise, which is most easily done before dawn.”
Alexa frowned. She prided herself on her ability to work the sympathies and expectations of adults to her advantage. She’d thought the meeting had gone convincingly well.
“It’s good that I came, because Lorelei’s situation is quite dire.” Alexa searched for something encouraging in her tone and found nothing. “In truth, I’m not sure an earlier intervention would have helped. Lorelei is very sick. Or, I shouldn’t say sick because I don’t want to suggest she can get better. I’m not sure if she can. She may get worse.”
“Okay,” Alexa made herself say, letting Swann’s words concentrate themselves in her brain. She had known this was possible—probable, even. Although she had dared to hope that if Lorelei was still breathing, there was a chance it would all right. “Okay,” she repeated.
Swann leaned forward and gingerly placed a supportive hand on Alexa’s knee. “I’m sorry. Lorelei was—is—my friend, too. I care very, very much for her.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
> Swann withdrew her hand. “It’s a curse, naturally.”
“Naturally,” Alexa repeated, her voice flat, while her brain caught up to what she’d heard.
A curse.
It was impossible. People didn’t just go around getting cursed like they were in a freaking fairy tale.
But wasn’t that how Alexa had been thinking of it all along, since the very first night? It felt like a curse. And science wasn’t likely to explain the static in the air as Lorelei’s skin blackened, or the strange wind that whipped through the house as she stopped breathing, then started again.
“Okay, so if it’s a curse,” Alexa said tentatively, “we have to do what, reverse it?”
“This was done very powerfully. I’ve not seen anything like it in years—perhaps ever—and the damage, you know, is extensive.” Swann gave her a soft look that was not encouraging and fiddled with the handle of her mug of tea. “It is strange though.”
“That she was cursed?” Alexa ventured.
“No, love, that she’s alive at all.” Swann tilted her head in an oddly swanlike gesture. “The curse should have worked quickly. Work like this rots you from the inside. That’s what the black is: necrosis. It’s what’s making the smell.”
Alexa grimaced. The smell was so stomach-churningly thick Alexa was surprised she couldn’t see it.
“I don’t have much of a sense of smell, so if I’m getting a whiff, you must truly be suffering. I’ll bring something by to help clear it.” Swann continued, “To speak plainly, Lorelei should be dead already.”
Alexa folded her arms over herself. She didn’t know what to say, what to think, what to feel, other than the sick, grasping feeling tangling her guts. Lorelei could be gone. She’d known this was possible from the minute Lorelei rammed her car into the house.
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