by Bre Hall
“Be my guest,” Richard said.
“Okay.” Ren spun on the heel of her tatty combat boot and walked down the hall toward the basement door. Alfie followed her.
“Say hello to Vinny for me,” Richard said.
“Who is Vinny?” Ren asked.
“The basement ghost,” Richard said.
“There’s a ghost down there?” Alfie asked.
“He’s lying,” Ren said, although her heart gave a little kick at the thought of encountering some ghostly figure called Vinny.
“Good luck,” Richard said. “He likes the young ones.”
Ren rolled her eyes and opened the door to the basement. The wooden steps were stripped almost completely of their old grey paint, only a few flecks of color remained. The stairs descended into a dark, dank abyss. Ren sank onto the first step. It creaked so loudly she froze for a moment before climbing onto the next one.
“Get the light, will you?” she asked Alfie.
He flicked it on. A dim, yellow glow appeared below. Long, black shadows materialized over the floor. Twisted and warped. What did Richard keep in the basement? And why was Meredith creeping around down there? With each step, Ren came closer to answers. Or so she thought.
At the bottom of the steps Ren’s shoulders drooped. The room was the size of a walk-in closet. No bigger than ten feet by ten feet. The shadows belonged to a tall grandfather clock, carved out of oak and pushed against the far wall. The long, golden pendulum swung steadily, while the gears clacked loudly inside the frame.
“Maybe she’s fixing it?” Alfie asked.
“Since when does Meredith fix clocks?”
“Maybe she comes down here to do yoga then,” Alfie said. “There’s enough space.”
“Meredith’s never done yoga in her life,” she said, drawing closer to the clock.
She ran a hand along the edge of the frame. Her palm slid over three small hinges. She drew a line across to the other side. Halfway up the frame was a pair of metal eyelets, a padlocked looped through. She yanked on the lock. It didn’t budge. She pressed her face to the glass, but other than the shiny metal of the pendulum, she could see nothing. It was completely dark.
“What is it?” Alfie asked. “What’s up with the lock?”
“I don’t know,” she said, pulling her face away from the glass. “But whatever Meredith’s doing involves the inside of this clock. I’m sure of it.”
“What do you think it is?”
Ren gazed up at the clock face. Behind each number, painted into frosted glass, was a phase of the moon. The twelve was a new moon, a hollow circle indicating it. The rest of the moons waxed and waned to and from the bulging, full moon at the six. She shook her head, wondering what Meredith might possibly be doing with such a thing. Ren took a step back. “I don’t have the slightest idea.”
chapter
14
THE LINE TO ORDER AT Roast was a long ribbon of townies. Crusty, grey-bearded farmers in overalls, tight-bunned Mommies in yoga pants with toddlers propped on their nonexistent hips, loud, wily teenagers from Ren’s school, hunch-backed old ladies, dressed to the nines, young men, covered in dust from a hard day’s work at the wheat mill on the north side of town. Coffee has no boundaries. It is a drink for all. And in Wynn, the only place to get your fix was at Roast.
With her hand concealed inside her jacket pocket, Ren clicked open and closed the pocket watch she’d just bought for Peter. She had tucked the watch out of sight as soon as she’d paid for it before Alfie could get too close a look and start asking questions. She tried to imagine Peter’s face when she finally gave him the watch. Subdued, but happy. Pleased, but hiding it. She couldn’t wait to show him. Wished she could ditch Alfie and pedal over to the old Johnson place right then. But it would only cause trouble with Alf.
A family with a litter of children peeled away from the counter and the line shuffled forward. Alfie pulled out the paperback book he always kept curled in the back pocket of his khaki shorts and fanned through the pages until he found his place. Ren’s good eye focused on the cover: A swirl of muted, rainbow tones surrounding a cartoonish sphynx. Justine, the title was, by Lawrence Durrell.
“I thought you hated that author?” Ren asked, recalling a conversation they’d had in Richard’s the winter before, the day they’d discovered a trunk full of books in a remote section of the shop.
“I don’t hate him,” Alfie said, not taking his eyes off the page.
“Yeah-huh,” Ren said. “You called him self-indulgent. Flowery. You said Ernest Hemingway’s hefty prose could crush Lawrence Durrell’s with a pinky finger of pressure.”
“You’re exaggerating.” Alfie licked the tip of his finger and turned the page. “I never said that.”
“Look, it’s okay if you want to own up to the fact that you made a mistake,” Ren said. “You wouldn’t be the only one to admit your first impression was wrong.”
“Mhhh,” Alfie hummed.
She expelled a forceful breath and splayed her palm over the open book. “Are you even listening to me?”
Alfie jerked the book away from her. Kept reading. “To be honest, I’ve learned to tune you out.”
She punched Alfie’s shoulder. “Asshole.”
The door to Roast chimed and Scary Larry wandered inside, sliding his clunky goggles from his eyes to his forehead with bony fingers that were thrust through fingerless, leather gloves. Ren pictured him, eyes wide, mouth pried open—the look he’d had when she’d lifted him into the air with her mind.
“What?” Alfie asked, turning just as Scary Larry locked eyes on Ren. The tile screamed obnoxiously beneath Larry’s tennis shoes as he turned and darted back out the door as quickly as he could, as if the entrance to the outside world was a portal about to snap closed at any moment.
“What a pussy,” Ren muttered.
“It’s good he’s afraid of you,” Alfie said.
“Yeah?” Ren asked, watching the last of Scary Larry whir up the sidewalk.
“It means he won’t talk about what you did to him,” Alfie said. “Anyone else would have told someone. Take Garret Callahan for example—”
Ren’s nose wrinkled. “You mean Garret Monahan?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Alfie said. “Take Garret for example. He would have told someone he knew, who would have blabbed to the biggest gossip in school, who would have lit the news on fire and burnt you to the ground. Trust me, Larry and his loner ways are what you want. The only living thing he’s probably told is the stray cat that lives in his trailer park.”
“Shit,” Ren said, a sly grin tugging on the edges of her lips. “I bet that cat has told everyone in town by now.”
“Probably,” Alfie said. “You should probably move to a new city.”
“Or a different country.”
“Or have a plastic surgeon craft you a new face,” Alfie said. A laugh escaped Ren. The kind of surprised laughter only best friends can conjure. It filled her with an instant warmth.
Then, the cashier called, “Next,” and the feeling was gone.
Alfie patted Ren on the shoulder with his paperback and took a step toward the dining room. “Order me a mocha. I’ll find us a table.”
Ren nodded and stepped up to the edge of the steel countertop, covered with glass cake stands, stuffed with an assortment of muffins, croissants, and sugar-flecked scones. A bushel of frizzy, dishwater blonde hair popped up from below the counter. It was Alice Martin, dowel rod-thin, wearing a loose, green scoop neck t-shirt beneath her stained, black Roast apron. Alice hauled a bundle of napkins out from under the cash register and plopped them onto the counter. When she saw Ren, she smiled wide.
“Hey,” Alice said.
“Hey,” Ren returned. “I didn’t know you were working today.”
Ren liked the days Alice worked. She always comped her coffee or threw in a free scone. Not that their acquaintanceship was dependent on the freebies, but it helped Ren not want to roll her eyes at Alice every time she me
ntioned her Shih-tzu, which was fairly often. Ren and Alice had very little in common, but what they did—both of them farm kids—gave them an instant connection. That and Alice hadn’t succumbed to the popularity plague most girls with her pretty face had. Ren blamed the hair. It was like a sheep had been stitched to Alice’s scalp, dampened, and then allowed to air dry in a tropical climate.
“What can I get you?” Alice asked.
“I’ll have a vat of black coffee, no cream, no sugar, and a medium mocha, extra whip,” Ren said. “Alfie would go ballistic without his whipped cream.”
Alice swallowed loudly before slowly punching Ren’s order into the register. “Anything else?”
“Nope,” Ren said.
“How about a muffin?” Alice asked. “On the house?”
“Thanks,” Ren said, as Alice moved toward one of the glass stands with a pair of tongs. “How about lemon poppyseed?”
“Those are my favorite,” Alice said.
“Alfie’s too.”
The tongs clanged against the glass as Alice tried to grab the last lemon poppyseed muffin. She didn’t look at Ren as she spoke. Just kept watching the tongs dart around towers of blueberry and chocolate chip muffins. “You know, if you ever need to talk about anything, I’m here.”
A cold rush washed over Ren. She thought of Scary Larry. Was Alfie wrong? Had he told someone what he saw? It was only a matter of time before everyone in Wynn knew about Ren. About her being a Discentem. About the experiments. “Why? What did you hear?”
“Oh, no, no,” Alice said, knocking a chocolate chip muffin onto its side. She finally grabbed the lemon poppyseed and dropped it onto a plate. “I haven’t heard anything. I just meant if you need to talk, you know, as friends. I’d be willing to listen.”
“You know, I’ve been meaning to get back to you about the horse-riding thing,” Ren said, slowly deflating from her influx of panic. Clearly, Alice was just suggesting they talk in a girly way. In a hang out, paint nails, eat ice cream from the tub, gossip over a chick flick kind of way. Something Ren wasn’t used to with Alfie. “I’ve just been busy. Maybe in the next week or so?”
Alice slid the muffin toward Ren. “It’s not a big deal. Whenever you want. I just wanted you to know that I’m here. Any time, any thing. You can confide in me.”
“Thanks,” Ren muttered as Alice filled a white, ceramic mug, that might as well have been a bowl, with drip coffee. As Alice wrestled the pump pot, Ren pecked at her free muffin. The sour, yet sweet, taste of the baked good melted on her tongue. She barely chewed, barely swallowed, then went in for a bigger bite. With the line still long behind Ren, Alice quickly handed Ren her black coffee before grabbing a second mug to start Alfie’s mocha.
Ren stared down at her drink. Its surface was smooth, like polished black onyx. She could make out her reflection perfectly. The curve of her long neck. The ratty, fly-away hairs sticking out of her pony-tail. She blinked and another reflection appeared in the coffee. Someone so close Ren could feel the heat rising off of their body. At first, she suspected it might be Peter, but when she whipped her head around, she was surprised to look into the face of a stranger. A woman with eyes so light they almost glowed. Ren stumbled away from the woman.
“Pardon me,” the woman said, her accent prim, unmistakably British. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s fine,” Ren said sharply. “I just didn’t expect you to be that close.”
“My apologies,” the woman said, her lips twitching. They reminded Ren of a dog on the verge of snarling. A sputter of the jaw. A twitch of the nose. Ren waited for the woman to bare her teeth. “I just couldn’t stay away. I had to see you up close.”
A bite of muffin caught in Ren’s throat. She coughed. “I’m sorry?”
“You’re such a pretty girl,” the woman said, dragging her fingers through Ren’s pony-tail. They caught on a knot, but that didn’t stop the woman. She tugged sharply and kept sliding her fingers down. Ren flinched at her touch.
“Okay, you need to back off,” Ren said, thinking only of the Rogue Auxilium wanting to kill her. Was this woman one of them?
The woman’s lips stopped twitching and morphed into a smile. The woman’s eyes were stiff, though. Not at all reflecting happiness. “Sorry, love. I just couldn’t—you really are remarkable, aren’t you?”
The whipped cream canister hissed as Alice swirled a cone of white on top of Alfie’s mocha. She pushed it next to Ren’s black coffee. “Here’s the second drink.”
“How much do I owe you?” Ren didn’t turn away from the woman. Not even as she pulled the drinks and the muffin into her arms.
“On me,” Alice said.
“Thanks,” Ren muttered as she backed slowly away from the counter, from the woman. Ren made her way to where Alfie sat in the front corner of the shop, right beside the window. His face was still shoved in his wrinkled paperback.
Ren dumped the dishes onto the tabletop. “Trade places with me.”
Alfie held a finger above the top of his book. One beat. Two beats. Ren tapped her foot against the black and white checked linoleum, scuffed in every place imaginable. She glanced back at the woman, who was talking to Alice at the counter. Her silver eyes flashed toward Ren.
Ren grunted. “Alf.”
“Shh,” he said. His eyes wriggled from side to side as he tracked the story to the bottom margins. Then, he dog-eared the bottom corner, closed the book, and looked up at her. “What do you want?”
“I want to sit there,” she said, tugging on his shirt sleeve.
“Why?” Alfie asked.
“That woman,” Ren said, nodding behind her. “She’s freaking me out.”
“You’re freaking me out.”
“Shut up and move,” Ren said.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re bossy?”
“Once or twice. Now, move,” Ren said. She latched onto Alfie’s elbow and dragged him out of his chair.
“Jesus, Ren,” Alfie said as he tumbled into the chair opposite. “What is wrong with you?”
Ren slid into the space Alfie had occupied and stared at the woman. She had a palm pilot pulled from the leather purse looped around her arm. Her back was turned, her black bob concealing all of her facial features.
“See that lady?” Ren asked.
“Who?” Alfie craned his neck, his head pinging this way and that. Ren leaned across the small table and pointed toward the woman. Alfie’s head stopped moving. “Ah, I see. What about her?”
“She’s creepy as all get out.”
“She looks decent.”
“She was breathing down my neck,” Ren said. “And she’s not from here.”
“How do you know?”
“How do you not know?” Ren asked. “Look at her shoes—designer. And that haircut? No salon within thirty miles of Wynn can make your hair look that silky and smooth. Her accent didn’t fit either. She’s British.”
“Okay?” Alfie said slowly. “Still doesn’t mean she’s creepy.”
Ren set her lips in a hard line, then took a long sip of her coffee. “I’m telling you, Alfie. I’m telling you.”
“You think she’s an Auxilium?” he asked at a whisper.
“I think there’s a good chance she is,” Ren said. “Mark my words, she’s not human.”
“Shh,” Alfie said, swiveling back around. “Don’t say that too loud.”
Ren’s whole body stiffened as the woman grabbed her paper cup of coffee from Alice and turned to leave. Ren held a breath as she watched the woman weave through the dwindling line of townies and push through the front door. The woman paused just long enough to glance over at Ren. Her expression was blank, but her eyes were white-hot. Then, she was gone. Stalking down the sidewalk. Crossing the street. Passing out of sight. Ren breathed.
“Holy shit that was close,” Ren said.
“Was it though?” Alfie asked. “Don’t get me wrong, I believe Peter when he says there are Auxilium after you, but not eve
ry out-of-towner wants to harm you.”
“She ran her fingers through my hair.”
“Maybe she was trying to brush it?”
“Alfie, be serious,” Ren said. “That’s creepy.”
“Still,” he said, “It doesn’t mean she wants to hurt you.”
“How do you know?” Ren asked.
Alfie took a drink of his mocha, the whipped cream lingering on his upper lip for a moment before he wiped it away with the back of his hand. He sighed and said, “I guess I don’t.”
“Exactly.”
She sipped at her coffee. Carved a few hunks out of the muffin with her fingers. As Alfie started to ramble on about some book he had read the week before, Ren only half-listened, keeping her good eye trained on the street. Waiting for the woman to appear again. For her silvery eyes to catch Ren’s. Just thinking about it set spider-like creepers crawling over Ren’s skin.
chapter
15
THAT NIGHT, REN WATCHED THE silver and blue light from her TV scribble over the popcorn ceiling from where she laid on her bed, her head where her feet should have been. Something tapped against her window. She sat up on her elbows. Squinted into the darkness with her good eye. Crouching on the roof was the unmistakable, curly-topped head of Peter. His canvas jacket was zipped to his chin and, when she moved to open the window, half of his smile was concealed by the fabric.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Ren whispered. She shivered in nothing but the knee-length t-shirt she wore for pajamas. She racked her brain for reasons Peter would be outside of her bedroom window. Then, the ghoulish face of the woman she encountered at Roast popped into her head. “Seriously, why are you here? What’s wrong? Are you alright? Am I in danger?”
Peter laughed through his teeth, a cross between a sigh and a bouncing hiss. “Nothing’s wrong. I was coming to check on you. Why’d you stand me up this afternoon?”
Ren shook her head. “Alfie.”
“Ever thought of burning the parasite off of you?”
“Hey,” she said. “He’s like family.”
