“I study,” Eliot said.
“Are you seeing anyone?” Lucille asked. An annoying question from anyone, but even more so coming from her, especially in his father’s presence.
“No,” Eliot said. “I’m not.”
There must’ve been something in his tone, because suddenly, his father was scrutinizing him.
“You’re not seeing one of those library girls, are you?” his father asked, and it was clear by the tone of his voice that when he said “library girls,” he actually meant “scholarship students.”
“No,” Eliot said too quickly.
Another hard look from his father. “Good. I want you to stay away from them, Eliot. If they pretend they like you, it’s only because of your money.”
I wish I could turn you into a toad, Eliot thought.
Lucille coughed into her napkin. Because, of course, when his father and Lucille first started dating, that was what everyone suspected of her. Knowing his father, how hard he was to deal with, Eliot still sort of suspected that of her.
None of it mattered anyway. If he was interested in Tess, which he unfortunately was, the interest was unrequited. He was a fool if he thought otherwise.
twenty five
Tess
THE WEEKEND WAS A MESS OF FOOD AND SPILLED SALSA AND crabby tables, but Tess couldn’t get that dream out of her head. Couldn’t stop thinking about the press of the devil’s fingertips, the susurration of his breath, the coolness of the cello in her hands.
Was Eliot experiencing the same things she was? Tess doubted it. If he was, he probably would’ve come to her already.
Maybe. But she couldn’t forget about the parallel tracks of the headlights outside her window that night—or even worse, the feeling in her stomach when she’d opened her eyes and they were gone.
Awkwardness aside, she needed to talk to Eliot. She didn’t want to—God, really, she never wanted to see him again after the horribleness of puking on him coupled with turning him down for a date—but the devil was not gone, even now that the book was. She could still feel the press of the blade in her hand from her dreams, and the image of the devil’s pleasant smile was burned into her brain.
Monday morning, after she opened the library and sat fidgeting at her desk for nearly an hour and a half, he finally appeared. He walked through the door like he was stepping out of one of her dreams, only confident in his own insecurity.
Tess looked away when he caught her gaze, cheeks burning.
Eliot nodded to her and hesitated as if he meant to say something.
Tess opened her mouth, but no words came out. What could she say? She wasn’t going to apologize, couldn’t apologize, and she had no idea how to bring up the dreams without him saying anything about the book first. Eliot’s uncertainly turned to a grimace. He swept up the stairs, into his office, and shut the door behind him.
Tess had barely moved. Hadn’t spoken. She closed her eyes and dropped her head against the desk. So much for talking to him, for acting normal. She couldn’t decide which was worse: Eliot acknowledging their mutual disasters, or Eliot coming into the sun-drenched library like a stranger.
Regina arrived at noon, just as scheduled, and said something mundane about the weather and the number of people on campus. Mathilde sent Tess to the nearby deli to grab her a sandwich for lunch, and then made her sit at the desk while Regina shelved books.
But still, Eliot’s office door remained closed.
The library remained empty and quiet.
Mathilde came out of her office when Regina was still downstairs. Her grayed hair was swept back into a clip, and she looked more like Tess’s grandfather, whom she’d barely known.
“Theresa,” she said. “I have two matters to discuss.”
Tess nodded, pushing her chair down the desk to allow Mathilde space to bring the other chair closer. Mathilde set down a paper on Falk letterhead. “As your guarantor, I received this letter in the mail.”
Tess hunched over, trying to read quickly, but the only words she caught were Natalie Matheson and tuition increase before her breath seized in her chest. She glanced up at Mathilde.
She couldn’t take more shifts. Dammit, she couldn’t work any harder than she already was.
“I just want you to know about it,” Mathilde said, folding the letter back up and putting it in the pocket of her sweater. “Now that Natalie is moving into the high school, her tuition has increased. I’ve already covered it. You don’t need to worry about her funding.”
“But …” Tess sputtered. She gripped the edge of the desk, trying to make sense of it. “You said you wouldn’t pay for it. For us to go here. Why are you … You don’t … Are you sure?”
Mathilde studied Tess for a long moment, and she couldn’t shake that odd feeling of familiarity. She herself had never gotten close to many members of her father’s family; her grandparents died when she was young, and Mathilde, the only remaining great-aunt, only appeared in Tess’s life for holidays. Asking for help was a last-ditch effort, one she didn’t actually expect to pan out.
“I put myself through college,” Mathilde said. “My father didn’t want his daughters to go, but I did anyway. I worked hard. I didn’t let anyone tell me what I could or couldn’t do.” Mathilde leaned back, looking away out the window, down the slope of rolling grass towards the park. “I see that in you. You work hard. You’re not going to stop. But if you keep going on like this, I worry what will happen.”
Tess closed her eyes to regroup. “I’m not going to burn out. It’s just a few more years.”
“A few years is a long time,” Mathilde said—somewhat forebodingly, Tess thought. In a rare moment of affection, Mathilde reached over and laid her withered hand over Tess’s. “Let me worry about Natalie. You just focus on you, Theresa. Alright?”
Tess sighed, either in relief or the knowledge that she now owed somebody else. “Okay. You said you had two things?”
Mathilde’s expression hardened. Her eyes flicked up to the offices and back to the desk, and she produced another piece of paper. “I received a remote request for one of young Mr. Birch’s books. I only need the book for a few hours to scan pages and forward them on. Could you retrieve it for me?”
Tess fought the urge to groan. If only there was a way to take a key, to go up without Eliot noticing … But no. Mathilde had done her a favor. And after all, this was her job. She took the paper.
“I’ll get it,” she said.
Mathilde nodded. “Don’t be too long,” she said, and again, there was that peculiar note of warning.
Tess trudged up the stairs as if every one was one step closer to the gallows. Which, in a way, it was. She didn’t want to talk to Eliot—or, rather, she didn’t know what to say to Eliot. Hey, I’m sorry I threw up on you, but I think I’m having PG-13 dreams about the devil? Not likely.
She knocked twice. His voice said, “Come in.” After taking a second to steel herself, she opened the door.
There was no trace of happiness on Eliot’s face when he realized it was her. “Do you need something?”
Tess flung out the paper towards him. An explanation; an excuse. “I’m here for a book. Just for a bit. We need to send pages to someone.”
Eliot got up, stretching out every movement and taking his own sweet time as if he was intentionally trying to prolong her discomfort. He scanned the paper, frowned, and turned to his cart of books. Tess glanced over at the shelf of weird things he had, just as she always did when she was in here. There was some new sort of chalk marking on the shelf and another on his desk. She fought the urge to move closer to investigate.
“Here,” he said, pulling a book and thrusting it out towards her. She took it, catching a glance of Eliot’s chalk-whitened hands. He had a few rings on—something she’d never noticed before. One, on his pinky, looked like a wedding ring. She looked away before she could remember how his hands felt catching her. Or worse, how they felt in her dreams.
“Is there anything
else?” Eliot asked. He crossed his arms over his chest. Then, because he looked too uncomfortable just standing there, he turned, took a square of cloth from his desk, and began wiping away the chalk markings.
“No, of course not,” she said, only because she hated that set to his shoulders and the way his jaw kept working. But of course something was the matter. There was ink staining everything around her, simultaneously dying the world black and leaching the color away from her life. She took a quick breath and a second to recollect, and said, “Actually, yes. I need to talk to you.”
“So talk.” He was intensely focused on one spot on the shelf, rubbing the chalk into non-existence and leaving only streaky smears of dust.
“Have you had any strange experiences since we took the book back?”
Eliot paused. “Strange?” His voice was tightly contained within that single word, but his hand stopped scrubbing the already erased marking. “I can’t say that I have.”
“Right.” Tess waited, sure he would turn around and say something, sure he would sigh and the tension in his shoulders would release, sure the one awkward moment they’d had in his car would dissolve and leave their former camaraderie behind.
Except, of course, they didn’t have any former camaraderie. The only experience they’d shared was the book, and that saga was over. She had no reason to speak to Eliot anymore, besides polite nods to one another when he was coming and going.
“Okay,” Tess said. “I guess that’s it. I’ll see you around.”
She turned to go—she should’ve gone—but the bubble of sudden frustration was too much for her to walk away and leave it behind.
She hated feeling this off-kilter where Eliot was concerned. He was not meant to take up her time or occupy any space in her thoughts. He was not meant to be any more than a boy she helped with books.
She hated that she thought about him at all, let alone as often as she did.
Still facing away, she said, “You know, this whole time, I didn’t think you were just talking to me for a date.”
Silence behind her. She couldn’t do this, have her back to him, and not see his reaction. When she turned, Eliot was by the window, forehead pressed to the pane, eyes closed.
“I wasn’t, Tess.” His voice was tense and even, a string tuned to the breaking point, a bow pulled across it—one long, eerie note.
“Then why are you being so rude now?”
“I’m not being rude,” he snapped. “I saw something that wasn’t there, and I don’t fault you for not feeling the same way. All I’m trying to do is move on with my life and taking some space for myself to realign with that, and you waltzing in here is making that extremely difficult. Okay? You rejected me. I’m not mad. I’m not upset. I am giving you your space so you don’t feel awkward for being honest with me, because if I was in your shoes, I would want the same thing from you.” It was more words than she’d ever heard him say at once, more words than she thought he had inside of him at any given moment. Softer, but not calmer, he continued, “All I want is some peace.”
If he wanted peace, he could have it. “Fine,” Tess said. “I’m sorry I bothered you.” A deep, dark voice inside of her whispered, If he wanted peace, he wouldn’t wear the devil’s face, but Tess pushed that voice far down inside of her and locked it away.
She turned on her heel and went out.
twenty six
Eliot
ALL I WANT is SOME PEACE. RIDICULOUS, ELIOT SCOLDED HIMself. He sounded like some sort of washed-up, unlikeable bastard, like some pathetic boy who couldn’t get a date. He was aiming for Mr. Darcy and made himself into a Collins instead.
Eliot and his overloaded satchel shuffled back home, ignoring the note from Henri on the door—Haven’t seen you in a bit. Emiliano’s?—and threw himself onto his bed. He would not go to Emiliano’s with Henri. He would not take such a risk.
He would call his mother and deal with the wreckage of himself afterwards.
The phone rang, discordant and unending. Earlier in the summer, he’d thought his father might have something to say about the massive phone bills Eliot’s calls accrued, but he hadn’t. It was only later that Eliot learned Lucille dealt with most of the bills; she was the only one who knew how much Eliot was really spending talking to his mother, and she hadn’t breathed a word of it to his father.
The call went to voicemail. Fear pinged deep in Eliot’s heart. If something happened …
But no. Josie would’ve told him. Josie would’ve called.
He tried again. This time, before his thundering heart could rise to his throat, before he could really start worrying, Josie answered.
“Eliot, dear. I’m sorry, it’s not a good day. I don’t think you’ll want to speak to her.” She said it all in a rush, each word running into the one before.
“Oh. Are you certain?”
“Dead certain,” Josie said. “You don’t want to hear about today, Eliot. She keeps talking about blood and magic …”
Of course, Josie didn’t know the truth. He got up and paced, past the window to the bed, past the door to the window, past the window to the bed, over and over again. “Should I come home? Do you think it’s that bad?”
“Eliot, love …” There was some sort of noise in the background, some sort of slip and then a wail. “I’ll call you if I think that needs to happen, okay, darling? Focus on your studies.”
And then Josie hung up. Eliot stared at the useless technology in his hand. It couldn’t get him to London unless he suddenly developed an app for teleportation.
He threw it at the wall. The screen shattered. Immediately, there was his father’s voice in his head: You naïve boy. Don’t you think of consequences? Do you ever stop and think before you act?
No, he wanted to shout back. No, he didn’t think, didn’t ever think. He picked up his broken phone and slid it into a drawer so he didn’t have to look at it anymore, didn’t have to face the reality of his own carelessness.
He sunk down against his bed, tucked his knees against his chest and bowed his head down. Tried to breathe. Tried to think.
He was twelve, on the edge of thirteen, when they noticed something was wrong. Things were forgotten, misplaced. Once, he’d found his mother sitting on the kitchen floor, crying because she’d lost dinner. They’d found a perfect Sunday roast, fully cooked, sitting on a dusty shelf in his father’s office with no explanation for how it had gotten there.
The diagnosis followed, just days after the incident with the roast: anaplastic astrocytoma. A brain tumor.
There was a surgery that Eliot barely remembered, and days spent curled next to his mother in hospital beds as specialists came and went. Long afternoons spent barely paying attention to lessons while her endless tests marched on, one after the other, all with the same results.
Nothing was working.
When he went home for the weekends, Eliot noticed more spell books in the house, caught the scent of magic lingering in the garden. Visitors came and went, claiming to know his mother from her Oxford days. Eliot realized, despite being fearless, she was afraid to die.
It wasn’t a surprise when his parents decided to turn from the NHS, to find experimental treatments. And eventually, her cancer started to become almost manageable. It was fine, through most of his freshman year at Falk; even fine into his sophomore year. But last year, things once again took a turn for the worst.
No matter how much Eliot begged, no matter how much he pleaded, his father did not let him return home. He had to sit here, in America, while she was dying. While the cancer came back, while she forgot who she was, while her magic slipped away.
He had to watch, and he had to suffer.
Sometimes, Eliot wondered if the whole thing was set up to punish him for a thousand unchangeable indiscretions. Because he looked more like his mother and acted more like her too; because he told the truth when he shouldn’t have. Because he had his mother’s magic and his father’s disappointment. Because he was weak.
/>
In the end, none of that mattered. He couldn’t forgive his father even if there were reasons.
Eliot allowed himself the barest moment to pretend that it wasn’t real. And then he picked up his wallet, shoved his phone into his back pocket, and went out to get his screen fixed.
twenty seven
Tess
“TESS.”
His voice was there the instant she closed her eyes. At first she thought it was the devil but no—no, it was not. It couldn’t be.
Tess stood in the middle of her father’s ill-fated stationery shop, half memory, half nightmare. There was the door to the back room, where they kept stock. There was the desk where the register stood, where her father used to run figures and design new pens and pick colors for marbled papers. There was the window seat where she spent her afternoons in between school and cello lessons.
But it was not all as she remembered.
Tattered, water-damaged paper and notebooks laid strewn across the floor. The window over her seat was shattered, glass spilling over the moth-eaten cushion. The lettering on the window flaked away, spelling M THES TATI NERY CO NY.
She trailed her fingers along one of the shelves as she crossed the shop. Someone rustled in the back room, adding to the horrible familiarity. There could be two people in that room, and both options were bad: her father or the devil.
“Tess,” the voice said again.
The door opened. Her father stood, silhouetted in the entry.
When she left, there had been no final blowout. It had been anticlimactic, if anything. Tess had never directly fought with her father about what he had caused, what he had done. Because in the end, if she examined her own choices, she feared she would’ve sacrificed just as much for what she wanted.
She understood why her father kept throwing money into the shop even when it was failing, even when there was nothing left, even when it dragged the family into ruin with him.
“You came back,” her father said.
But she hadn’t. Not by choice, at least. If she had her way, she’d never come back to this place where everything fell apart.
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