A Curse So Dark and Lonely

by Brigid Kemmerer

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  HARPER

  Jake gives Lawrence’s men the necklaces. He says the gold bars and coins would invite too much question, but the necklaces can be explained away.

  We’re safe. For the time being.

  An ambulance comes to take Mom’s body away. I feel an emptiness when I watch the paramedics load her body onto a stretcher and zip a nylon bag closed around her.

  I eventually succumb to exhaustion. I sleep fitfully at first, then wake late in the morning. So late that it’s almost lunchtime.

  I’ve grown so used to my room in the castle, to late-night chats with Zo, to the warmth of Rhen’s body in bed beside me—that waking in a cold twin bed alone is jarring.

  I don’t want to be here. Jake doesn’t want me here. I don’t know why I came back.

  For Mom.

  I couldn’t save her. I don’t even think I gave her any peace.

  I’ve told Jake everything. After the paramedics were gone, after Lawrence’s men were gone, we sat in the living room and I laid it all out.

  He doesn’t believe a word of it. And seriously, who could blame him.

  Then I said, “Why don’t you go see Noah. Ask him what he thinks.”

  He froze. I think I actually saw the blood drain from his face. “Noah who?”

  “God, Jake. You know I know.” I hesitated. “I told you about the pictures on your phone. I told you about the curse.” I shrugged. “I just didn’t understand why you never told me.”

  He looked at his hands then. “I wanted something Dad’s mess couldn’t ruin.”

  I understand that. So I left it alone.

  Grey is returning tonight. I thought I’d be uncertain about returning to Emberfall, that somehow my family would anchor me here, that I was obligated to play a role in their drama. I don’t think I ever realized that I’m not trapped by their choices, any more than they’re trapped by mine.

  I am going to miss Jake. We’re not close now—not like we were—but we could be again.

  Once he believes the whole princess thing.

  This afternoon, I pull on jeans and a long-sleeved shirt and head out for a walk. I’m sure there’s some law against the concealed knives on my wrists, but I wear them anyway. I want to head toward Dupont Circle, where the sidewalks will be thicker with tourists and hipsters, but I end up heading south instead. Clouds cover the sun, the concrete buildings matching the sky overhead.

  I remember hiding in doorways, so afraid someone would hassle me while I waited for Jake to keep us safe.

  I’m not afraid now. I can keep myself safe.

  I stay out all afternoon, buying dinner from a food truck, remembering the city that once felt too large to be comfortable. I walk along the dusk-darkened streets, my foot scraping lightly against the pavement because I’m tired, and think, I’m ready to go home.

  Home doesn’t mean here.

  Home means Emberfall.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  RHEN

  There’s a moment during the change when I’m aware of who and where I am.

  It’s a moment when I’m aware of what I am.

  One moment I am falling into darkness, the wind a wild rush in my ears, death a welcome certainty at the bottom.

  The next moment I am flying, powerful wings beating against the air current, catching my weight before I hit the ground. I swoop upward. A terrible screech pours from my throat. I fly upward, soaring high.

  My keen ears pick up the sound of men shouting in sudden alarm as I am spotted.

  Run, I think.

  Then my eyes find the figures standing atop the castle. My claws extend. I feel each muscle and tendon. I fight the urge to attack and kill.

  Run, I plea. Run.

  And then I think of nothing but death.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  HARPER

  To my surprise, Jake joins me on a bench before midnight, saying he’ll wait for Grey with me.

  He thinks he’s patronizing me. I’m not entirely sure what he really thinks is going to happen, but we curl onto a bench near the awning where Grey left me, as the city shuts down around us.

  “Are you excited to be going back to fairyland?” Jake’s voice is edged with a little mockery.

  “Go to hell, Jake.”

  He says nothing, but eventually, a long breath escapes. “I’m not sure what to say, Harper.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. Go back home.”

  He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t leave, either.

  “I was really worried about you,” I say. “I can’t believe what you were doing for Lawrence.”

  He shakes his head somewhat ruefully. “I didn’t want to, Harper. I just … I just couldn’t see another way out of it.”

  “I know.” My voice is thin. I keep thinking of Rhen and all the choices he’s had to make along the way.

  I wonder what he’s doing now.

  Would it have been so hard to tell him I love him?

  Was that even a choice?

  Did I love him?

  This is all so confusing. I’ve never been in love before, but I feel like it shouldn’t be like this.

  I look at Jake. “You could come with me. To Emberfall.”

  His face twists, like he’s caught between believing me and wanting to patronize me before I vanish again. “Harper …”

  “What?”

  He rubs his jaw, roughened after two days of not shaving. His voice is low and quiet. “I can’t leave Noah.”

  I hesitate. There’s a note in his voice I’ve never heard before. “You love him.”

  He glances at me. His expression is almost shy. “I do.” He pauses, and that shyness turns into sorrow. “Mom’s the only one who knew.”

  I rise up on my knees and lock my arms around his neck.

  He stiffens at first, but then he holds me, too. “I missed you so much,” he murmurs against my shoulder.

  “I missed you, too.”

  “Even if there’s a part of me that thinks you’ve gone crazy.”

  I laugh a little, but he doesn’t let go, so I don’t either.

  “I wish I could have met Noah,” I say.

  He draws back and grimaces. Late-night traffic rolls past us, but the sidewalks are empty. “I don’t want him to get involved. I don’t want him to know about any of this.” He pulls his phone—a new one he must have gotten to replace the one I lost in Emberfall—out of his pocket and glances at it. “He’s at the hospital tonight anyway. He said he gets off at midnight, which really means he’ll be working until like six in the morning.”

  “How’d you meet him?”

  Jake hesitates, but then a small smile finds his lips. “I was buying coffee once. When I was there with Mom. You know. He’d forgotten his wallet, so I picked up his coffee, too.”

  “He’s a doctor?”

  “Yeah, but he’s still a resident.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “He’s still learning. He’s doing a rotation in a hospital. He’s in the ER now.”

  “Sexy.”

  He grins. “Yeah.”

  My eyes burn again, for an entirely new reason.

  “I can’t believe you want to leave,” says Jake. “You just got home.”

  I press my hands to my face. “There’s too much at stake.”

  “In Emberfall.” He hesitates. “There’s a lot at stake here, too, Harp.”

  “Yeah.” I pause. “Please. Please come with me.”

  “You know I don’t really believe in this whole thing you’re telling me.”

  “You do a little.”

  He blushes. “Yeah, the part of me that used to hide in my room with Eragon and Harry Potter. But they’re not real.”

  “It is real.” I hesitate, wondering what Jake will think of Grey. “You’ll see. At midnight. You’ll see.”

  “Even if this magical swordsman appears—”

  “He’s not magical.”

  “Fine.
” Jake rolls his eyes. “Even if this completely mundane swordsman appears, I can’t just snap my fingers and leave home. It’s nuts, Harper. Do you understand what you’re asking me to do?”

  “I understand that you’re not going to be safe,” I say. “You think Lawrence isn’t going to hold what you’ve done over your head to make you do more for him?”

  He flinches but doesn’t say anything. We sit and watch the odd car roll down the road. Somewhere in the distance, a woman is shrieking at someone: a child or a boyfriend. No way to know.

  Darkness eventually slips out of the sky to wrap us up. The store closes. I’m curled on the bench, leaning against Jake. So much about him is familiar. His scent. The pattern of his breathing.

  “Harper.”

  I jerk awake. The street is pitch-black and I’m freezing.

  “It’s almost midnight,” says Jake. “Do you have to do something special?”

  Adrenaline hits me harder than a shot of espresso.

  It’s almost midnight.

  Grey is coming. This is it. I’m saying goodbye to Jake … possibly forever.

  My breathing is quick and rapid. I look at the darkened streets, at the narrow store doorway.

  Jake must read my panic, because he says, “Harper. We can just go home. You don’t have to go anywhere.”

  “What time is it?” I demand.

  “It’s eleven fifty-nine.”

  I swallow. Leave it to Grey to bring it right down to the minute.

  I don’t know what to do. Jake takes my hand. “It’s okay,” he says. “Whatever you decide.”

  I count to sixty.

  Then I do it again, in case I did it too fast. And again.

  Grey doesn’t appear.

  A strangled sound comes out of my throat.

  “It’s okay,” Jake says again.

  I punch him in the shoulder. “It is not okay.”

  Something happened.

  Grey would show. I know he would.

  “We need to wait,” I say to Jake. “Just—we need to wait.”

  We wait all night.

  Grey doesn’t show.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  MONSTER

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  HARPER

  I had this moment in Emberfall, when I was in the stables behind the inn, when everything around me felt real, and my real life in Washington, DC, felt like a dream. A fantasy.

  That’s happening again. In reverse.

  Two days have passed since Grey was supposed to return. I’ve spent so much time in the doorway of the shop across the street that they’ve called the cops and accused me of loitering. I’ve walked the streets Grey and I walked to get home. I’ve waited in the alley where we first appeared.

  I should be helping Jake figure out what to do with Mom’s body. I should be trying to find Dad. I should be going through Mom’s things or praying in church.

  By Thursday night, Jake finally agrees to invite Noah over. We don’t have much food in the apartment, but we throw together macaroni and cheese and hot dogs, along with two cans of green beans from the cupboard.

  If anything makes Emberfall feel like a fantasy my mind concocted, it’s this food.

  I can see why Jake loves Noah. I knew it from the pictures I could see on Jake’s phone, but it’s entirely different to meet him in person. We’re playing cards, and his long, slender fingers flip them easily when he shuffles. His voice is deeper than Jake’s, and he has a quiet, gentle manner that’s soothing. He’s also casually familiar with my brother, little touches and moments of warmth that take me by surprise. It’s a nice counterbalance to the anxiety and sorrow that’s been seeping through the walls of our apartment.

  Noah sits across from me, and I’m not sure how much Jake has told him about where I’ve been, but it becomes painfully clear when he says, “Harper. Jake says you had quite the adventure.”

  “Yeah,” I say noncommittally. I don’t know if he’s patronizing me or what, but I know he doesn’t believe me. When Grey didn’t show, I’m pretty sure I kissed Jake’s belief goodbye, too. As I put together dinner, I heard Noah murmur things like coping mechanism and escapist fantasy and you don’t know what she’s been through.

  Noah deals cards around the table. We’re playing crazy eights, but I wish I had a deck of Grey’s hand-painted cards so I could say, Look. I didn’t make it up. It was real.

  “Jake mentioned you fashioned an alliance with a false country,” says Noah. “It’s creative, I must say.”

  “It’s nuts.” Jake snorts. “Why would anyone believe that?”

  I scowl and say nothing. Maybe it was a little nuts, but it was working.

  “Maybe not,” says Noah. “If the president came on television and said we were involved in a war with a country you’d never heard of, you wouldn’t get on a plane to find out for yourself, would you?” Noah shrugs. “Why do you think conspiracy theorists gain any traction?”

  Jake considers this, then glances at me. “He’s too smart for me.”

  “Probably,” I agree.

  He smiles and gives me a good-natured cuff on the shoulder. “Speaking of smarts, do you want to look at re-enrolling in school?” Jake says to me.

  My hands hesitate on the cards. High school feels like a million miles away. Even when I was going, my mind was here, with Mom. With the mess Dad was making of our lives. I kept my head down and got my work done, but I doubt anyone was surprised when I disappeared. “It’s the first week of April. You think they’re just going to let me back in?”

  “You need to graduate, Harper. We could find out what you need to do to take the GED. We can’t rely on your bag of gold forever—if we can even figure out a way to sell it without looking like we stole it.”

  Like the food we’re eating, nothing drives home the permanence of this situation like Jake talking about the GED and me needing to get a job.

  Welcome home. I’d be laughing if it weren’t all so pathetic. A week ago I was a princess trying to save a country. Now I’m wondering if the grocery store is hiring.

  A heavy knock sounds at the door.

  Jake is on his feet before the knocking is complete. A knife finds my hand.

  “Whoa,” says Noah. He flattens his cards against the table.

  “Shh,” Jake says fiercely. He makes a slashing motion against his throat.

  Something shifts against the door again.

  “Lawrence?” I whisper.

  “I don’t know,” says Jake.

  I tiptoe to the door and look through the peephole. All I see is dark clothing. Whoever stands outside is all but leaning against the doorjamb.

  I tighten my grip on the knife and ease to the side so I’m not directly in front of the door. Jake is right at my back. Noah is sitting at the table, wide-eyed.

  “Who’s there?” I demand loudly.

  Something shifts against the door again. Then a male voice says, “My lady.”

  My heart stops. I throw the lock.

  The first thing I see is his face, drawn and pale and smudged with dirt—or worse.

  Then I see all the blood: it’s everywhere, on his armor, on his empty sword scabbard, on his cloak.

  “Grey,” I say. “Grey, are you—”

  He starts to fall. He outweighs me by at least a hundred pounds, especially with the armor and weapons, but I drop the knife and step forward to catch him. Jake is suddenly beside me, lending his strength to the effort. Together, we ease Grey to the ground and get the door shut.

  Blood oozes from everywhere. Under his armor, around his boots, through his sleeves. It’s already on the carpet. His uniform is torn in several places. One especially deep gash cuts across his arm. His eyes are closed and he lies in a heap, breathing shallowly.

  “Grey.” I want to put my hand on his chest to shake him a little, but I don’t want to hurt him. “Grey, please.”

  He doesn’t respond. A small sound escapes my throat.

  Noah drops to a knee beside me. He pic
ks up the knife, and when he speaks, his voice is all business. “His name is Grey?”

  I nod, and he says, “Grey, can you hear me? I’m going to try to find out where all the blood is coming from.” Without waiting for a response—not that he gets one—Noah takes the knife and starts cutting through the leather buckles that hold Grey’s armor on. Claw marks have gouged lines in the leather. The straps are slick with blood, but the blade is sharp and slices right through. The uppermost strap is already broken.

  Noah’s eyes flick up to Jake. “He’s in shock. Call nine-one-one.” Then he looks at me. “Get some towels.”

  “No.” I swallow and look at Jake. “I mean—you can’t. You can’t call.” I have no idea what a hospital would do with Grey, but I can’t imagine they’d treat him and let him walk out the door. He has no identification. No insurance. There would be questions we can’t answer.

  Questions I can see in Noah’s eyes right now.

  “Please.” My voice breaks. “Please help him.”

  “He needs a hospital.” Noah slices through the straps on the opposite side of Grey’s armor and lifts it away.

  All the breath leaves me in a rush. Whatever attacked him found the vulnerable stretch of skin under his arm and dug four deep grooves into his ribs. A pink stretch of muscle glistens beneath all the blood.

  “Clean towels,” says Noah. “Now.”

  Jake goes. He comes back with three. Noah rolls one tightly and presses it against the injury. With his free hand, he puts two fingers against Grey’s neck, looking for a pulse. “You need to call.” His voice is grim. “He’s breathing, but his pulse is weak. He’s lost a lot of blood.”

  Jake is looking down at me. His eyes are wide. He’s heard everything about Scary Grey and my stories from Emberfall, but hearing it and seeing it are two different things.

  I don’t want to think about what could happen if Grey woke in an ambulance. He once said he’s somewhat familiar with this world, but there’s a difference between snatching girls off the street and waking up in Shock Trauma. “He’s not—he’s not from here. He won’t understand. The cops will be all over him.” I look at Noah. “Can’t you stitch him closed?”