Though maybe he was dead. That would explain the way his brain was floating, how when he looked around him – at this crowd, this party, this funeral – he had to remind himself it was real and that he was real too, that he was in his body and he was standing here. Archie had the sensation of being outside time. Able to observe the yawning pit of his life from a distance, without judgment but also without the deep burn of shame and fear that a reckoning typically triggered. He’d followed Vincent Pryce’s direction to play his game, and not play it alone, and now his life had loosened. Shifted. Tomorrow he could be anyone.
But today he was still himself. He’d ghosted his sister – hadn’t so much as emailed her, even after Tuesday correctly pointed out it was childish to vanish. “You don’t do that if you have any choice in the matter,” she said. “You do not do that to people you care about.” He tried to explain it was because he cared about Emerson that he’d disappeared. He didn’t want her to know where he was or whom he was with, because the less information she had that his brother could get, even tangentially, about his whereabouts or his intentions, the safer everyone was. Tuesday told him that was a steaming pile of self-deluding horseshit, and he knew it.
“You of all people,” she said – they were sitting on her tiny red sofa watching the other Vincent Price’s House of Usher (well, he was watching; Tuesday’s fingertips were flicking furiously across her laptop, like she was casting a spell) – and shoved him, hard enough to hurt. “You of all people should know how it feels for someone to vanish without a trace. Your father was a complete bastard, but don’t you want to know what happened? For sure?”
Archie held his tongue.
Tuesday had been online for hours. They’d hatched a general plan for what to do with the money, after which Tuesday said, curtly, she would take it from there. She’d taken it, all right. The rapid patter of her fingertips was both soothing and hilarious; Archie, who had never officially learned how to type, thought it sounded more like she was pretending to type than actually typing. Every once in a while he asked what she’d found, and she’d say, Not yet. I haven’t found it yet. Until she said, There, I found them. And he had to agree that she’d found something perfect.
“There are ways to let people know that you haven’t vanished off the face of the earth,” Tuesday continued. “And the whole ‘the more people I let in, the more people I put in danger’ thing is superhero vigilante crap. I’m already in danger. Your not telling me everything actually puts me in more danger, because I don’t know what we’re up against.”
Archie smiled at her.
“You said ‘we,’” he said.
“Also,” she said, “it’s patriarchal bullshit. If I were a man, would you feel as compelled to protect me?”
“You’re not a man? This whole time, when we met—” Archie shook his head. “I just assumed.”
“Don’t get cute. When we met, do you know what I recognized in you? What I saw?”
“My cuteness?” He shrugged. “It’s hard to miss.”
“You live every day with an unsolved mystery,” she said.
Archie held his tongue again, and though it seemed that she was about to say more, so did she. Until:
“Roderick Usher Real Estate owns a Gilded Age mansion in Brookline.” She turned her laptop to face him. “Roderick Usher owns a lot of property in and around Boston, not just the condo in Beacon Hill. But this one is …”
“What?” The Google satellite image looked like any other giant old house on the edge of Brookline adjacent to the Emerald Necklace, the string of parkland southwest of the city.
“Special.” Tuesday clicked over to a browser tab with the property record. “Look at the sales history. Roderick Usher bought it six years ago from NA LLC.”
“Not applicable,” Archie joked.
“NA LLC bought it a few years before that from ACE Real Estate Investments. ACE REI has the same corporate address as Arches Consolidated. It’s a subsidiary.” Tuesday’s voice was speeding up. “And ACE sold it to NA for exactly one dollar.”
“Is that like The Price is Right?” said Archie. “One dollar!”
“Real estate that passes from buyer to seller for one dollar typically means it’s an interfamily transfer. Your family company sold this old house to a private corporation with a family or personal connection. And NA sold it to Roderick Usher, for a lot more than a dollar, and a lot more than the surrounding properties are worth – possibly – or possibly not – knowing that Roderick Usher Real Estate traces back to Vincent Pryce.”
“NA.” Archie didn’t want to even say his name. “Is my brother.”
Tuesday inhaled. “That’s my guess,” she said. She was already typing furiously again. “But why this house? What is this house? Did your family ever live in Brookline? Do you recognize the neighborhood, or the property?” She paused. “It’s almost like there’s an – undergame. Like the surface of Vincent Pryce’s adventure is a dash around the city, all codes and playing cards. But there’s another game underneath it, festering. And it’s all about” – she jabbed a finger at him – “your family. And I can’t figure it out.”
Archie didn’t say anything.
“Yet,” she said.
Archie didn’t have to ask, once they were standing in the humming crowd at Vince’s funeral, whether Tuesday had figured it out yet. It was clear that she hadn’t. She was too distracted still, too uneasy. Too raw.
“Aren’t you going to talk to him?” Archie asked, nodding toward Dex and the food tent. Tuesday was acting funny about Dex too, preoccupied and hesitant. When he’d asked if Dex was meeting them at the funeral, all she’d said was We need to look for a Madonna. Then she’d cocked her ear again, and listened, and muttered something that sounded like nested. Tuesday was a still point in the center of the Common, thoroughly distracted, but not, he suspected, by the tumult around her. Her brain was looking inward, turning over details and trying to make them fit. Trying to reach, through the thicket of Vince’s game, a satisfying conclusion. But Archie knew Vince. And by now he knew Tuesday well enough to think that they might have competing definitions of what made a conclusion satisfying.
Vince was everywhere at his own funeral. In the hundreds of revelers strewn across the grass, in the circle of colored bonfires, in the woodsmoke and music on the breeze. In the very air, crackling with weird potential. It made Archie feel sick. Because Vince was in a movie at the back of Archie’s brain too. And in that movie, Vince was looking at him across the crowded ballroom of the Four Seasons Hotel. Exactly as he had looked at him, as they had looked at each other, in the moment before Vincent Pryce died. It was the first time they’d seen each other in six years, since the summer Edgar Arches Senior disappeared.
It was also the summer Edgar Arches Junior had been disappearing by degrees. Had been becoming, thanks to Vincent Pryce, a man named Archie. Who believed he could live a different life than the one he’d been born to.
And it was the summer his brother changed his life forever, but not in the way Archie thought Vince meant.
In the movie in Archie’s head, Vince stood up and screamed. Then he opened his eyes in shock, in horror, at Archie standing in the back of the ballroom.
You and your brother, screamed Vince, have one thing in common.
The funeral music stopped abruptly, midsong, like someone had yanked out a cord.
A squeal of feedback shot through the dark.
“Friends, freaks, all and others, I welcome you. To my funeral.”
The crowd broke into applause and whistles. Archie, hearing Vince’s voice – everywhere – all around – his knees softened. I killed you, he thought. I didn’t mean to. I’m so sorry. But it’s what an Arches does.
An Arches kills.
He bumped into Tuesday and held on to her.
“Usually at a funeral – well, usually, at a funeral, the deceased does not speak.” Vince’s voice came from the sky and the ground. Vince’s voice was in Archie’s bones.
“But this is my funeral, and I can say whatever I please. I’ll start with thank you. Thank you for coming. I hope the food and the music are excellent. I hope tonight you drink and dance and laugh and hold one another close and in the midst of my death feel very much alive.”
Archie breathed.
“And some of you, tonight – I hope some of you cross over.”
The crowd cheered, and the sound was very far away, like it was coming from the other side of the world.
“You began playing this game when you didn’t know for certain what you might win,” Vince said. “You played for the sake of playing. You played for the hope of a great fortune shared. Now you are one step closer: for, should you be one of the thirteen chosen, you shall be driven from this place in a horse-drawn hearse to one of my most prized possessions. Not all of the objects in my vast collection of the fantastic and phantasmagoric fit inside my house on the island. Some of those haunted objects are themselves—”
“Houses,” hissed Tuesday, and squeezed Archie’s arm.
“Houses,” said Vince, as though he’d been listening. “Should you pass the widow’s interview, tonight you will sleep in a haunted house, not far from here, with a view of Olmstead’s emeralds. And tomorrow, should you listen to the spirits, let them rattle and lift you, you may awaken anew. You may rise the recipient of wonders beyond what this world knows.”
Vince cleared his throat. The crowd whistled.
“I make a point,” he said, “of putting a serious question to a person whenever I meet them. The hour is late and the time for words without meaning is past. I am deeply sorry I am not here tonight, in a form more corporeal, to hear your responses. But still I wish to ask of you all:
“What are you looking for?”
Tuesday’s grip on Archie’s arm tightened.
“Well.” Vince laughed a little. “That’s all. Have fun. Take care of one another. This is my party; like my life and yours, it too will end. Not very long ago, I found myself wondering whether it was time to seal myself into my own tomb. I had lost a dear friend, and I had, in my grief, retreated from the world, with nothing left but to set my affairs in order. But then one mystery led to another, and led me back to myself, and I found I had yet more life, and more people, to love. Do not stop. For you, there is still time. To do the work. To reckon with the past. To shed light, and to become it; to make and remake this world and to imagine and build others. Yes, for you there is time, because you, unlike me, are not dead. Please, if not for my sake then for your own—”
Archie was shuddering. He saw Vince across the ballroom. He saw Vince’s eyes widen. He saw Vince see him, in his last seconds. Know him, in his last thought.
Blame him, with the last beat of his heart.
“Act accordingly,” purred the dead man.
16
INTERVIEW WITH THE WIDOW
“You’re not going to run away this time, are you?”
Lyle was sitting in a deep-red velvet wingback chair, purpled by shadows, her body buoyed by yards and yards of rustling black fabric. She was a widow in black lace. The dress was true black, rich black, the kind of black that ate light, with a high neck, puffed sleeves, and shiny black buttons to the elbows. A veil floated around her face. A layer of black fringe hung heavy along the hem. A black parasol, collapsed, leaned against her chair.
It couldn’t be the most comfortable thing to wear, especially when you were pregnant. But it was boss as hell.
“No,” said Tuesday. “I—”
Don’t even bother, said Abby, and Tuesday snapped her teeth together.
“Have a seat,” Lyle said. Tuesday sat in a matching red velvet wingback across from the widow. Behind Lyle, not so close to the tent wall to be a fire hazard, was a fireplace. On a faux mantel above sat a white marble bust of, presumably, Pallas. Lyle passed Tuesday a plate heaped with chocolate chip cookies.
“Cookie?” she asked.
Tuesday took one.
Archie sat in another wingback, tipped slightly askew over the uneven grass.
Lyle blanched.
“That’s Vince’s,” she said. “That’s Vince’s robe. How did you get Vince’s robe?”
Ooh, delicious, said Abby.
“This isn’t funny.” Lyle moved to the edge of her seat. “Whoever you are – how did you get my husband’s robe?”
“I knew him,” said Archie. Painfully, like the words were a dry cracker stabbing his throat. He pulled the lapels of the smoking jacket tighter. They’d stopped at the condo on their way to the funeral. Archie didn’t have a costume, and Vince’s robe was the only thing he said he could imagine wearing.
“That’s nice. I knew him too.” Lyle lifted her chin at one of the security guys posted at the entrance of the tent, and he channeled his attention on the small circle of chairs. “You need to do better than that. This is the part where I get to decide whether you keep going.”
“How do you decide?” asked Tuesday.
“Your costumes are part of it. And you’re already tanking hard in that respect.” She stared at Archie. “Tell me now how you got Vince’s robe or you’re both out.” She looked at Tuesday. “Sorry, Tuesday. Your boyfriend better not screw it up.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Tuesday said.
“I knew him.” Archie blinked. Swallowed. He’d been distracted for most of the day, but since they’d gotten to the funeral, he had become a human balloon. Without Tuesday to tether him, he would’ve drifted away.
Let him go, said Abby, and Tuesday shook her head.
“I knew him when I was younger,” Archie finally got out. “He was my friend. He – uh.” He closed his eyes. “When I got back to town, I – I have a PO box here, just – in case. He sent me a key. To his place in Beacon Hill, and I – got used to wearing this. It’s drafty.” He tugged on the smoking jacket. “And this is … cozy.”
Lyle’s eyes slid into slits.
“He knew me before – the last time I saw him was six years ago. No – the last time I saw him.” Archie wrapped his hands around his kneecaps. “The last time I saw him was the night he died. I was there, at the hotel, in the ballroom. And I—”
“It’s true,” Tuesday told Lyle. “He was at the Four Seasons. That’s where we first met.”
Archie made a noise like a wounded bird.
“I killed him,” he said.
“What?” said Lyle.
What? said Abby.
Tuesday didn’t say anything.
That’s impossible, Abby continued.
“I – I know it was an aneurysm, but. The shock of seeing me. After—” Archie dragged both his hands down his face. “He looked at me and knew me and he – I could feel how much I had hurt him. How disappointed he was in what I had done, or not done, really. I—”
What’s impossible? Tuesday thought at Abby.
Lyle leaned forward, mouth slightly open, face rapt and still.
Look at her, said Abby. A man just confessed to stressing her husband to death.
“So you’re Archie,” Lyle said.
“Yes,” said Archie.
And she’s taking it in stride.
“You’re Vince’s lost Arches. You got the letter I sent to the PO box. Vince kept that box for you all this time,” said Lyle. She sat back, voluminous skirts rustling, and stared hard at Archie’s face. “I see it now – the resemblance. That shiner threw me off.” Then she handed him the plate. “Cookie?”
“What?” Archie said.
Because she knows, said Abby. She knows better.
“Cookie.” Lyle waggled the plate at him.
“But—” said Archie.
“You didn’t.” Tuesday’s head felt hot. “You didn’t kill him.”
“No,” said Lyle, looking sideways at Tuesday but addressing Archie with her body. “You didn’t.”
“You can’t know that,” said Archie. “The shock – you can’t know. You can’t know, not for sure.”
“Believe it or not,” said Ly
le, “not everything in this world happens because of you.”
She knows, said Abby, that Vincent Pryce didn’t die at the fundraiser.
The hair on the back of Tuesday’s neck sprang. How—
Yes.
Of course Vincent Pryce hadn’t died at the fundraiser.
The show couldn’t begin until the actors were on the stage.
“You didn’t kill Vincent Pryce at the fundraiser,” said Tuesday to Archie, casually, though the back of her brain was fizzing like a sparkler. “You couldn’t have, because Vincent Pryce didn’t die at the fundraiser.”
Lyle’s mouth dropped open. “Well,” she said, bright, “I wasn’t sure anyone would figure that out.”
“Figure – what?” asked Archie. “What do you mean? You mean – Vince isn’t dead?”
“No,” said Tuesday. “He’s dead.”
“He is,” said Lyle. “Dead.”
“Sometime in the last—” said Tuesday. She hovered her hand over her own belly and raised an eyebrow at Lyle. “Eight weeks?”
Lyle’s lips pressed together in a flat line that wasn’t a smile.
Cool it, said Abby. Figuring out all the secrets at once won’t get you another cookie.
“Please,” said Archie. “Would someone please explain what’s happening?”
Lyle turned up her palm and gestured to Tuesday. “The floor is yours.”
Tuesday clasped her hands. You got this, said Abby.
“An aneurysm is a bomb without a countdown clock,” she said. “It goes off when it wants to. You can’t know. You can’t plan. Vincent Pryce, faced with that certain uncertainty, decided to plan everything else. Prepaying, preprogramming his funeral service. Elaborately. He set up all the dominoes while he was still alive and trusted his surviving loved ones to set them off.
Tuesday Mooney Wore Black Page 31
