No, it really wasn’t. Drake never cared enough to get clean.
She must’ve seen something in my face and asked, “You truly think that?”
The unnerving tingle on my back intensified, and the firelight wavered. My head felt strange. Open. I didn’t mind the feeling, actually, and wished it were stronger. Vayda angled her head, her big eyes the same green as century-old copper. They stood out against the darkness of the rest of her, and I could’ve—very willingly—let myself drown in their unsettled waters.
The front door opened, and Emory Silver set his briefcase on the floor. She backed away, folding her arms over her chest. Maybe to cover herself. Maybe because she was still miffed about seeing him with Sister Tremblay that morning. Whatever the reason, the hardwood floor might as well have been eggshells.
“Ward, it’s a school night,” Emory stated, tired but firm. “Get on home, boy.”
“It’s not a social call, Dati. His father died,” Vayda murmured.
Emory stopped mid-yawn, taking note of my jacket and threadbare trousers. He didn’t know me. Why should he let some stranger seek refuge in his home?
“I was a kid when my mother died. Rough times.” He cleaned his glasses on his shirt. “You live with your sister, right? She knows you’re here?”
“Her husband does,” I answered.
“Give me the number to talk with the fellow, make sure he’s okay with this. I’m sorry, Ward.” He patted my shoulder. “Don’t stay up too late, you two. You hear?”
Huh? He wasn’t kicking me out?
After I gave him Chris’s cell phone number, Emory walked over to his study. I lingered by the door a minute to watch while he shuffled some kind of art magazines and then took a picture frame in his hands. Vayda looped her pinky finger around mine and pulled me away before she shut her father’s door.
“He’s always up late,” she said.
“Insomnia?” I asked.
“Of a kind.” She slipped me a cup of hot chocolate. “Try this. I made it from scratch. You’ll like it, gadjo.”
“We’ll see about that, Betty Crocker.”
She motioned for me to follow her upstairs, and I trailed behind her a step or two. The walls of her room were purple, and the furniture was distressed white as if dropped off a junk truck onto a cobblestone road. She tugged on the strap of her pale blue top, no bra, and I averted my gaze, hoping she didn’t realize that I’d noticed. Her hand thumped her bed, encouraging me to sit. “Will you go to the funeral?”
“Hell no…I don’t know.” I drank the entire cup of hot chocolate without stopping to breathe. I liked the heat.
“You should say goodbye even if he wasn’t good to you.”
Pushing up the sleeve of my T-shirt, she ran her fingers over my raven. How did she know I had a tattoo? It wasn’t something I showed off. She asked, “You draw that bird?”
I scoffed. “Drake’s idea of a birthday present. He had the same tattoo, thought we could bond or some shit.”
“Did it hurt?” she asked while inching down my sleeve.
“You get used to the pain after a while, forget it’s there.”
Our arms touched. Vayda’s hand rested on my thigh. I liked her touch. A lot.
“You’re tired,” she said. “You should lie down.”
I stretched out on the mattress. The girls I used to know would never have me in their rooms, nor would I have been there, without an ulterior motive. Vayda’s fingers twirled my hair, and I sank into the pillow, blissed out.
The dream hit me abruptly.
The pine trees caged me in. Everything had a darkened blue cast, a shadow of nightfall before the sunset. Snow dusted the soil, and a smell of something burning was bitter on the wind.
I saw her, a pillar of cold fire, luring me closer.
Her back was to me, black hair cascading to her hips. I hesitated, but the magnet pull of her body was too forceful. I seized her waist from behind, hands moving over her nightgown and resting on her arms. She pushed aside her black hair to expose her neck, my lips swiping her skin.
The words swelled in my throat. I had to tell her I knew, but I had no idea what I was supposed to know.
Awake.
Vayda’s bedroom was black. I lay under her blankets. Her body was firm under my arm, but pliable like a girl-shaped pillow. I drowsily slid my hand from her hip, along her soft stomach, and stopped short.
Go back to sleep, Vayda’s voice echoed in my skull.
My eyes fluttered open. Was this a dream or something else? I couldn’t tell where reality ended and the dream began. I only knew that I was with Vayda, and all at once, I never felt safer and more in danger.
Chapter Eight
Vayda
The glare of sunlight through the living room curtains awakened me. I blinked against the bright light before I sat up, rubbed my neck, and wondered what time I fell asleep on the couch, why Dad hadn’t moved me up to my room.
Midnight.
Ward. His dad died.
I remembered now. How I stayed with him even after his exhaustion claimed him. I’d been too afraid to move and startle him, so for too long, I’d lain beside him with my fingertips wandering over his arm to the veins mapping his hand. No one saw us, but was a line crossed? Jonah had it easy compared to me—my family’s traditions demanded chasteness of me. Yet last night, the weight of Ward’s arm, his breath near my ear, felt good. A complacent current had dovetailed our bodies, like electricity tracing the copper filaments in an antique light bulb—from me to Ward and bouncing back. His mouth had grazed over my neck, and I wondered when he’d awaken, what his fingers, what his lips might do then. What I wanted them to do. I slipped away once he slept hard and began to dream.
My skin prickled, frozen. That dream. Did mine spill into his, or—I was getting ahead of myself. It was nothing. It didn’t have to be something.
Cardinal rule: Wishes and dreams weren’t childish things. They were the soul’s secrets.
Something about Ward knew mine.
Twenty minutes later, I’d showered and descended the stairs, catching a reflection in a mirror in the landing. A burning chill unwound beneath my ribs, a power seeking release. Mom’s smoky gaze reflected back from what should have been mine. I approached the mirror, my head hooked in the same angle as Mom’s when she examined her tarot cards, and inched my fingers toward the glass. A bolt of blue-white light sizzled from my fingers when Jonah jerked me back from the mirror.
“What was that?” Dad called from the kitchen.
“Electrical glitch,” Jonah fibbed and held my hands within his, smothering a fire. To me, he whispered, “And you say I’m the one like Mom.”
I didn’t want to be like her.
Dad and Ward sat in the kitchen, each cupping a coffee mug to absorb some heat in the chilly house. Ward stole a peek as I passed him. As I splashed my coffee with cream, I tuned in to Dad and him.
“You go around hunting down old furniture to sell?” Ward asked.
“You have to know what has potential, son.” Dad rubbed the heel of his hand on the table, one he’d restored. “I can take something busted to hell, fill in the cracks, and sand its jagged spots. Shine it up real pretty and make it worth something. Takes skill and patience.”
“How’d you learn what’s good?”
“I’m self-taught, learned some in art school, though my father was pissed his only boy would rather draw than play football. I was kinda pissed my father was such a closed-minded bigot.”
“Hmph.” Ward circled the rim of his mug with his thumb. “Heidi thinks I should go to art school ’cause I work with metal.”
Dad stood and grinned. “Don’t take this wrong, but you’re no quarterback. Come by Fire Sales once you’re home from paying respects to your father, and I’ll show you around.”
He gathered his mug and newspaper, motioning me to follow into his study. Joy, here it c
ame. “Awkward” redefined.
Dad sat at his desk where he removed his glasses, squeezed the bridge of his nose, and took a long time to inhale. “Vayda, is that boy being decent to you?”
“Nothing happened.”
It would take me two seconds to get from his desk to the door. Three if I stumbled. This was worse than going clothes shopping and he got so flustered when I had to buy bras.
“Can I go?” I asked.
“Not yet.” He played with the Chinese magic box on his desk. “I know you’re friendly with Ward. Don’t mistake your feelings for trust. Not yet.” I crossed my arms over my chest, and he added, “He seems honest, and you and Jonah laugh an awful lot around him. Keep your head.”
About to leave, I halted as my hand brushed a newspaper on the desk. The newspaper from Hemlock with Mom’s photo. I unfolded it, tracing the curse written across the picture. I tried to seek out any emotion attached to the paper, any clue for where it came from, but I got nothing. Odd that whoever sent it had left it without any emotional imprint, especially with such a hateful word written across the paper. Maybe Jonah was right, and my abilities were unwieldy because I didn’t use them.
“Any luck figuring out who sent this?” I asked.
“I have an idea,” Dad replied.
“You gonna tell me?”
“You don’t have any business fretting over it. Everything’s taken care of.”
“Dati!” The light bulb in his desktop lamp switched on and glowed brighter the longer I stared at him. “Why do you need to have so many secrets?”
“Vayda Lisette Murdock, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, why you’re questioning me.” Dad’s drawl was clipped, his green eyes hot. “Everything I’ve done is for you and Jonah. If I say it’s okay, believe me. Now get ready for school.”
I stormed from Dad’s office and tossed some blueberry waffles into the toaster in the kitchen. The plate of food clattered on the table as I set it before Ward.
His shoulders rode up around his neck. “Is he pissed because I stayed the night?”
“He’s Dati.” I melted the butter into the perfect crispiness of the waffles. My appetite was toast. “One of his cardinal rules is that you don’t turn your back on a friend in need.”
Ward’s hand ran through his sleep-messy hair and touched my chin. Pinprick shocks stung my skin. I reached under the table to hold his hand. The few times I saw my grandpa Bengalo, he always claimed that gadje didn’t understand Rom. Bapo said in the old lands, gadje treated Rom badly. It was different once their clan came to Georgia. They settled. They were accepted, though they still wouldn’t trust gadje. That my parents were friends with Rain was an anomaly, but Dad said times had changed. Ward sat across from me, radiating warmth from his hand, the roughness of his scars against my fingers. He was gadje. He didn’t know my world, and yet I wanted him to. That meant trusting him.
My mom’s friends, our neighbors, they betrayed us before. Mom was rash, but none of us hurt anybody on purpose. That didn’t mean people weren’t killed. We were different. If Ward found out how different we were, could I be sure he wouldn’t go Judas on me?
***
The afternoon was a gloomy Sunday, over a week into November, over a week since Ward returned to Minnesota. The sky was quilted with clouds, and the surrounding evergreens were dark, pointy, dense. I sat outside on the steps, working in my scrapbook.
Mom’s frantic as she clings to Dad on the living room floor. His arms fold around her as she rocks back and forth. Someone else’s blood sprayed in reddish dots on her forearms and neck, on her face. There’s death all over her. Death she caused.
“Oh, God, Lorna!” Dad gathers her against him until she’s in his lap. “What’d you do?”
When Mom died in the fire, all my tangible memories were lost with her—from the Snow White costume that she sewed for my third-grade play to the lipstick I stole from her vanity. A thousand snatches of her charred and lost. Six months ago, Rain sent some photos he found dating to when he, Mom, and Dad were in high school, a history of my parents’ early days through Jonah’s and my first birthday. I glued dried Spanish moss from a craft store to the page with a cutout of peaches from a can of pie filling. Two things I recalled best about Georgia. Next, I mounted one of Rain’s photos on the page.
“I like that picture.” Jonah pointed to our parents’ wedding photo. They were so young, only nineteen. It was hard to believe they were only a few years older than I was now.
“Think Dati knew about her Mind Games by that point?” I asked.
Jonah shrugged. “I’m more curious if he knew we’d inherit her abilities.”
Mom’s father had worked Mind Games. So did his mother, my great-grandmother. Grandpa Bengalo had steel-gray hair smelling of chicory hanging to his belt. Bapo had lived in Hemlock and died when I was seven. When you’re little, sometimes you overhear things and not know what they mean. Bapo always said he couldn’t be seen with Mom, that his clan’s baro might bring him to a kris for talking to her. Kris were for only terrible offenses. Mom said it was fuddy-duddies gassed up on cigar smoke and wine, casting judgment and telling people what they could and couldn’t do. So what had she done that’d been so bad even her own father abandoned her?
We were alone with no clan. Because of Mom. Dad never discussed his vitsa, but Mom once let it slip after too much wine that his family disowned him. What had they done, and why did I feel like Jonah and I were paying for it?
Jonah’s palm rested on my shoulder, and his voice slipped over my mind. Ward wants you to meet him at Café du Chat Noir in an hour. I told him you’d be there.
I elbowed him. Got anything else to put on my calendar while you’re at it?
Truth was I hadn’t seen Ward since the night he stayed, though we’d talked. He’d been too tired to talk much, but even his voice over the phone had brought a welcome hush. Still, my body hummed with electricity.
Try not to knock out the lights, Jonah wisecracked and sat beside me.
If it happens, I’ll use your old standby: just a power surge.
He put his arm around me. The currents coming off him were relaxed. He tucked my scrapbook under his arm and gathered my supplies. Sister Tremblay called.
What’d she want? I wondered.
Dati took the call, but I’m keeping my eye on her. We’re golden, all right? Don’t worry.
Sister Tremblay stopped by Fire Sales twice. Each time, Dad leaned back and played with his glasses. Uneasiness swelled around him even if he didn’t say anything. I felt it. They spoke in whispers, and Dad was too good at blocking Jonah and me from his head.
I touched Jonah’s arm. Mind what you say to that woman. And especially mind what you do.
He mimicked my concerned face, the bunched forehead and penetrating stare, and snickered. “Vayda girl, come on. I’m not dense.”
“No Mind Games around her. Period.”
“If the lady of the manor insists.”
Did he really think his Mind Games were immune from detection? I liked Black Orchard. I liked the conifers and isolated roads. I even liked the cold. All it took was the wrong person to spot him opening a door or retrieving a pencil with his mind, and we’d be gone.
“By the way, I’m hooking up with Chloe while you’re away,” Jonah announced. “Give me a signal when you’re coming home so I can scoot her out of here.”
“So are you two are really back together or fooling around? If you’re messing with her head to make her be with you…”
“You gonna throw stones?” The sunset warmed his skin with its dying rays, but his eyes remained black. “I didn’t think so. I helped Chloe. That girl was so wound up in doing what everybody else wanted that she was miserable. Is it that hard to believe she’s happier forgetting about them?”
“It’s not who Chloe is.”
“I haven’t forced her into doing anything. She hasn�
�t been hurt. Actually, she has a damn good time with me, the way she used to. You really think what I’m doing is wrong?”
I wrapped my arms around myself while Jonah descended the steps and strolled past the barn to the woods, heading out for a walk. The boy was trifling with something he shouldn’t, something twisted and, yes, wrong. All that energy he pushed onto others, some of it had to come back.
***
As I entered Café du Chat Noir, I snuck up on the table where Ward was lost in the beat from his headphones, his left hand working in a sketchpad. I drummed on the table, and he yanked off his headphones. Before either of us spoke, his arms wound around me, and my body snuggled close despite the shocks bursting between us.
“It’s good seeing you,” he said after a waitress came by to take my order.
“I missed you, too.”
As the waitress set down his coffee and my hot tea, Ward handed me an iPod along with a makeshift booklet. The tracks he’d loaded on the iPod were an indie hodgepodge, and ink and pencil sketches filled the booklet. My house. Me from behind in the woods with wind tugging at a long, black skirt. Him sitting on stairs. Stacks of Tennessee Williams’s work. Bernadette.
“Magpie’s Mix,” I read aloud. “What’s this?”
“Some songs you can’t live without,” Ward said. “I thought about calling it ‘A Flock of Magpies’ or something like that, but I don’t know what the name for a group of magpies is.”
“It’s called a murder.” My fingers running over the booklet, I beamed. “This is incredible, gadjo.”
He sipped his coffee. The currents from him whizzed through my hands. With his stormy eyes and skewed smile, he was distinctly Ward. Except for the clinks of the baristas washing coffee mugs and spoons and some old-time jazz on the speakers, the café was quietly comfortable—until I faced Ward. Energy arced between us. He licked his lip and leaned in toward me, his hand sliding across the table to cover mine. I shifted back. Then toward him.
“How was Minnesota?” I asked.
A Murder of Magpies Page 8
