I rush over, pick the sacred volume up, dust it off, then carefully set it back down on the desk.
“I’m really, really sorry,” I say, darting glances about to make sure nothing’s going to strike me down. “It’s all her fault.”
My mother’s features spring back before my eyes—all compact coldness, like an ice cube. Any thought I’ve ever entertained that she didn’t raise me because of my stepfather has vaporized, and, for the first time in my life, I let myself get angry at her.
There is no way I’m the fruit of her loins. For one, I’m probably twice her height. Then, I don’t have any of her angular features, and where her hair’s a darker shade of blonde, mine’s jet-black. Quod erat demonstrandum.4
I sink to the floor next to my luggage that’s been placed at the foot of the bed. If only I were adopted, then I’d have no qualm about leaving this horrid place. But if she believes sharing her genes makes me indentured to her, then she’s barking up the wrong tree. In fact, I might as well leave right now instead of waiting for my eighteenth birthday, for all the difference my presence makes.
Filled with newfound purpose, I grab my small suitcase, march to the door, and carefully crack it open. I peek through into the hallway, then, the coast clear, ease my way out of the bedroom, and stop.
What exactly am I doing? I don’t know this town, this country…this continent! I don’t have a dollar in my pocket. I don’t know anyone, except perhaps for Dean. For a moment I consider asking him for help, but quickly give up on the idea. He is, for better or worse, my parents’ bona fide lackey, and though he’s always helped me in hairy situations before, there’s no doubt this is not one of those times.
I rub my aching head. This is way-too-intense thinking for me to be doing when I’m jet-lagged and starving. Ah yes, that is how this whole mission started: food first, then escape.
I don’t know who designed this house, but whoever it was ought to be hanged, and quartered, for good measure. I make another turn and find myself in the living room. Again.
I retrace my steps around the perimeter of the mansion, careful to check every door and passage for a sign of the kitchen. This has got to be a trick, a ploy to keep me sequestered here so I can never tarnish my parents’ good name again! As I find myself once more in the living room, I give up, and face the embers glowing in the fireplace.
Hanging above the mantelpiece is an intricate metal-and-wood carving of two dragons standing back-to-back on their hind legs, each holding in its talons a large, glittering jewel. The Pendragon family sign! I draw nearer the sigil until I walk into the chimneypiece.
“You called, mistress?”
I jump nearly twenty feet in the air at the voice. Standing behind me is the small maid I’d seen upon my arrival.
“I didn’t hear you come in!” I say shrilly.
“Apologies, young mistress,” says the little woman. She readjusts her bonnet over her perfectly round head.
“Wait,” I say before the maid can disappear in whatever hole she’s come from. “I, uh…” I fidget, unsure whether she’ll report my unapproved activity to my mother or not.
The maid’s eyes look as big as apples in her pale face.
“Uh, the kitchen?” I ask.
“Is the mistress ready for her dinner?” she asks.
“Yes,” I answer, then add as an afterthought, “and as many snacks as you can come up with.”
The little woman nods. “As you wish, mistress. It shall be delivered in the dining room in—”
“No!” I look quickly around to see if my outburst has caught anyone’s attention, then resume, more quietly. “In my bedroom. Please.”
The servant curtsies, and, as quickly and quietly as she appeared, she leaves me alone once again. I take one last look at the foreboding dragons, having no difficulty pretending their faces are those of Irene and Luther. No, it definitely won’t be hard for me to leave.
I carefully make my way back upstairs, wishing for the maid to be quick. I don’t know whether the house is ordinarily so quiet and empty, and I don’t want to jeopardize what may be my one and only chance to flee.
“The Lamoraks have sent us notice that, apart from Notre-Dame du Chablais, they haven’t seen another instance.”
I freeze at the mention of my school. I slowly turn around toward the sound of my mother’s voice, for there is no mistaking her clipped tone.
“But Clarence says that he’s gone to investigate a murder that’s taken place in Annecy,” Luther says.
Step by cautious step, I make my way toward the library door, which has been left ajar, letting a wedge of flickering light fall on the red carpet. Another murder, in Annecy? That town’s only a few miles away from my school…They couldn’t possibly think I’m a serial killer now, could they?
“And if that’s the case,” my stepfather continues, “that means there’s a clear path between the first case and Morgan’s.”
My feet reach the edge of the light beam streaming past the door. I can hear the crackle of the fire now and smell the faint scent of burning wood. I tilt forward until I can see my parents. They’re both standing by a long table, poring over what looks like a map.
“Luther, could they know?” my mother asks. It’s the first time I’ve heard her sound nervous. “I mean, that’s exactly how her father died.”
I feel like I’ve just been hit by a train. I lean against the wall to prevent myself from collapsing. My father, dead before I was born, was killed by the same strange poison that got Agnès? How is that even possible? I cross my arms to stop myself from shaking.
Luther bends further over a second map. “More importantly,” he says, “our team’s extrapolated three different sources for the nefarious activity we’ve detected.”
Irene has to rise on the tips of her toes to see what Luther’s pointing at.
“No!” she gasps. “There’s got to be a mistake.”
“I’m afraid not,” Luther says.
He starts pacing the room, hands behind his back. I pull away, afraid they might see me. If only they could say something that made sense to me. Like the fact the inspector has given up his search for evidence against me, or that Agnès turned out to have died of some severe case of diarrhea.
“All we can do,” Luther says, “is wait to find out whether the murders will pop up again, and where. Maybe then we’ll be able to narrow the epicenters down to one or two.”
Goose bumps rise along my spine. They talk about those murders like they’re nothing more than items on a grocery list.
I hear a furtive sound behind me and spin around just as a hand clasps around my mouth and someone drags me backward.
“Who is it?” I hear my mother call out.
I try to fight back, but my opponent is taller and more powerful than me. He lifts me off my feet and drags me away into a dark room. The door closes just as I see Luther’s face poke out of the library.
Panic makes me lash out. It’s the murderer! He’s somehow tracked me down to this house and is now going to kill me! I kick furiously and feel my heel connect.
The man lets out a muffled curse and releases me. I trip against something hard and fall down. A green light flashes out of the corner of my eye, and I somehow find myself lying comfortably on a thick rug. I hear the killer move, and then the lights turn on.
Blinking, I sit up, noticing the coffee table laden with articles next to where I’ve landed; its sharp corners look angry to have missed my head. I then look up to find a tall boy staring down at me from behind dark blond strands of hair, his muscled frame reflected in a mirror that takes up a whole wall. He doesn’t look quite as ogreish as I’d imagined, but then again, the spark in his hazel eyes tells me he isn’t that innocent either.
“Who are you?” I ask. Then, deciding I don’t quite like the lack of vantage I have while sitting on the floor, I get up.
The boy smirks. He doesn’t look quite that young anymore, about my age. “I should be the one asking you that,�
�� he says. “You’re the one who was caught spying.”
“I wasn’t spying,” I say, offended. “I was just…on my way out.”
“Leaving?” He looks at me for a long second, and I feel myself blush. It can’t be that bad of an idea, can it? “You do realize,” he finally continues, “that should you disappear after having been accused of killing off your classmate, there’s bound to be a price on your head?”
I feel myself turn a couple shades darker. To hide my embarrassment, I pick up a newspaper cutting that’s fallen on the rug, and its title jumps at me.
Are Alien Abductions Behind The Disappearance Of Will And Ava Krueger?
For a moment, the strangeness of it makes me forget where I am entirely, until the guy takes the article from my hands and replaces it on the table.
“Look, I’m saying this for your own good. You better not get caught snooping around here.”
“I wasn’t snoop—” I start, but he takes a few steps toward me until I’m backed up against the wall. His eyes are so close to mine I can see the specks of gold spattered over the light brown of his irises. I swallow hard. Apart from Dean and the inspector, who are both much older than me, I’ve never been this close to a guy before.
“Fortunately for you,” he whispers, his breath brushing my burning cheeks, “I won’t say anything…Sister.”
He pulls away suddenly, strides back to the door, and opens it with a flourish. “By the way,” he adds, “you probably shouldn’t be found lurking around our parents’ office either.” And with that warning, he’s gone.
My knees go weak, and I slide to the ground. Brother? I take deep breaths to clear my foggy mind. Now that I think about it, I vaguely remember Dean mention to me once, ages ago, that my mother had given birth shortly after I was sent away.
Somehow, I’d conveniently forgotten that detail. Now, however, I remember seeing him mentioned from time to time in the few articles dedicated to my parents’ work around the world. A quiet, polite little boy named Arthur.
Except he’s not that little, and far from polite. I glare at the door as if he were still standing there. “Jerk!”
Not for the first time since this whole ordeal began, I can’t bring myself to fall asleep. Who would’ve thought that the wish of meeting my family, held for so many years inside me like a rare and fragile orchid, would turn into a nightmare?
Whenever I close my eyes, I see Agnès’s corpse taunting me, her cracked lips black against the white of her skeletal smile. A smile once shared by my father, whose face I’ve never seen, not even in pictures.
I toss around in bed and kick at the covers. Then, with a worn-out sigh, I resign myself to dealing with the next worst thing that’s happened to me since the murder: meeting my family. Perhaps, if my father had still been alive, all those letters I sent for years on end would have gotten responses. Instead, my mother’s shriveling looks are inked to the back of my eyelids like some insipid tattoo I can’t get rid of. Anger broils in me as I relive the moment of my dismissal, like I was some booger she’d flicked off her dainty little finger. But before I can garner the strength to punch my fat pillow, another face flashes before me, all crooked smile and mocking eyes.
“You!” I mutter, shaking my fist in the air. “If I weren’t so tired, and you so big and strong, I’d teach you to be dutifully respectful to your older sister.”
The words feel strange in my mouth as I utter them, like tasting a chili-covered candy for the first time. I let my hand drop back down on the covers. I don’t think I’d like that kind of candy.
Seeing Arthur, my brother, live the life I’ve always wanted, surrounded by parents who have never kicked him out or would even dare think he could commit a murder…My eyes prick with the onset of tears, and I sniffle them back down.
“Life is just not fair,” I whisper. “I’ve tried everything I can think of to conform and be accepted, but nothing’s worked. Then again, when my own mother doesn’t want me, there’s no reason for the rest of the world to want me either.” I feel like toxic waste.
Stop whining. You’re not five anymore.
I glare at the ceiling. “Who asked for your advice?”
That was more of a recommendation, actually, because I know you’ll be kicking yourself come morning.
“Can’t you, for once, just allow me a minute, make that five, of self-pity? It’s not like I ever asked you for anything.”
Except to listen to you every time you have a problem.
I growl. “That’s your role. You’re my guardian angel.”
You’ll feel better once the light of day comes, he says. Things always seem worse when it’s dark.
“But I feel like the night’s never going to end.”
No answer comes, of course. I’m not quite sure what’s worse right now: the fact I was expecting one, or that I’m talking to myself again.
A loud bang startles me awake.
“Get ready, or you’re going to be late for school.”
Blinking, I stare at Arthur’s tall frame obstructing my bedroom door. He’s dressed in a burgundy-and-black suit, a sparkling metallic belt at his waist, and what I can only assume are steel-toed cowboy boots on his feet. A strand of hair falls in his eyes, and he brushes it away with a hand heavy with rings. I blink some more. This is way too sparkly a way for me to wake up.
“School?” I manage to mutter.
“Uniform’s in the closet,” he replies.
“For what?” I say. “Rodeo clown school?”
Arthur’s not paying attention to me. Or rather, he’s paying too much attention to me and not at all to what I’m saying.
I realize that I’m only wearing my pajamas, a decidedly improper attire in front of a boy. Sister Marie-Clémence would not approve. He takes a step closer, and I shrink away.
“You, uh,” he starts, then pauses.
“I what?”
He clears his throat. “You may want to wash your face first. You’ve got drool on your chin and goop in your eyes.”
With a quick grin, he storms out of my bedroom. I stare after him. Then, unable to come up with anything better, I yell, “Jerk!”
I’m really going to have to work on better swear words. Then it hits me—am I really going to school, not juvenile hall?
It’s not until I finally get downstairs that I realize it’s still pitch-black outside. The house is dead quiet, as I’ve come to expect it, with no trace of either my parents or the house servant. Apart from Arthur, only Dean’s there, dressed impeccably as usual, his dark hair slicked back over his blank face.
“What time is it?” I ask, stifling a yawn.
“Four thirty,” Arthur says, “now get a move on.”
Before I can protest, he ushers me outside and into the already running car, and seconds later, we’re on our way. The streets are completely deserted as we make our way north, every sane person still sound asleep. Arthur’s not saying a word, seated up front next to Dean, who’s driving for once.
“What happened to our parents?” I ask to fill up the uncomfortable silence—it’s obvious those two don’t like each other, not that I can blame Dean.
“Irene and Luther had to go to the airport,” Arthur answers without looking up from his lap.
“Oh, another charity event?”
No one answers me this time, and I resume picking at my pleated skirt. Despite its airy look, it’s actually quite heavy, a fact I’ve realized is due to tiny metal threads weaved into the fabric. Why anyone would want to dress kids like ambulant lightning rods, I have no idea. Upon closer inspection, it seems that Arthur and I may be going to different schools. Whereas his school’s logo is a bunch of crowns—no doubt to represent kids born with a golden spoon in their mouths—mine is a simple cross.
Dean accelerates, and I look out the window. Under a bright single light is a sign:
Winnebago Mental Health Institute 5 miles
Despite the heat blasting in the car, I turn cold. Surely that can’t be o
ur final destination. I’ve never told anyone that I sometimes talk to myself, except once, to Father Wilhelm at confession, when I was six! And wouldn’t my mother have sent me to a shrink sooner if that was what she was worried about? Unless…
I glare at Arthur. Maybe they’ve placed a spy on me.
“No need to stare so hard,” Arthur says. “You might wear your eyes out.”
“Where are we going?” I ask. We take the hospital’s exit, and I see another sign, for the State Hospital Cemetery this time.
I lean forward so I can look Arthur in the eyes, but a gleam draws my gaze downward to his lap instead. I gasp as I realize that the thing Arthur’s been playing with all along is nothing but a long, nasty-looking knife.
“Where are we going?” I ask again, unable to hide the rising panic in my voice.
This is what they were planning all along, isn’t it? To bring me to a secluded place in the middle of the night, kill me, and dispose of my body before I can taint the family name any further.
Startled, Arthur’s eyes finally meet mine. “School, of course,” he says as Dean parks and turns off the car.
“With a knife?”
Dean opens the door for me, but I refuse to get out. If they think I’m going to make it easy for them, well they better grow a brain.
Except nobody’s forcing me out of the car, and this is Dean, isn’t it? When a second, then a third, vehicle arrive and park next to us, I’m forced to admit that Arthur told the truth. Unless this is going to be a public execution instead of a private one.
To my surprise, I hear the sound of waves gently rolling in the dark, reminding me of Lake Geneva and my occasional unsanctioned excursions there. Tucking my hands deep in my pockets, I follow the ever-increasing crowd to the shores of Lake Winnebago, where Dean is already waiting for me.
“Where’s Arthur?” I ask, looking around at the gathered sleepyheads around us. Everyone seems to be waiting for something or someone.
Blood of the Fey (Morgana Trilogy) Page 2
