“I don’t know, really.” Tomasi didn’t look all that interested in helping.
“Well, I’m going to take him to meet Cassandra,” Celia told him. “Come on, Bruno.”
He received another cryptic half smile from Tomasi over Celia’s shoulder, and Bruno followed her back down to the mezzanine. “Look for a plume of red hair. It’s like a spiral on the top of her head,” Celia told him on their way down the stairs.
Bruno peered around halfheartedly when they reached the mezzanine, wondering if two Ambassadors together would just suck whatever power he had out of him. It was dark until the lights from the lower dance floor swept across the space and blinded him for a moment. Celia pulled him toward one wall, and Bruno finally made out a couch where a regal woman with remarkable red hair sat by herself. She was smiling up at him and extending her hand, inviting him to sit down beside her.
“You lucky man! How do you know Celia?” she asked him. Celia perched on the edge of an ottoman across from them.
“From school,” Bruno said. Cassandra took his left hand and grazed his palms with the tips of her long fingernails. The sensation ran through his body, and he was instantly aroused. Oh, God. Did she do that? Is this what they do?
Cassandra smiled at him. “That’s okay. I have that effect on a lot of men, and some women.” Bruno stared mutely back at her. She returned to his palm. “So, what do you need from me?”
“Nothing!”
Cassandra gave him an odd look. Celia leaned forward helpfully. “We just figured out Bruno is Kind a few days ago. I thought he needed someone to get him started. Someone did it for both Tomasi and Mariette.”
“Someone already has.”
“Did I do it? Can I do that?”
“You can, but in this case it wasn’t you.”
Surprised, Celia sat back. Cassandra turned to Bruno, speaking low so Celia wouldn’t hear. “It’s okay if you tell her the truth, but that is up to you.”
“How do you know?” Bruno asked her.
Cassandra smiled indulgently at him. “I don’t need a book called You Are Here to tell me about you. Celia is an exquisite woman, and you are going to be a bigger part of her life than either of you realizes. But not in the way you would like.” She closed his fingers and tapped his wrist with her other hand, every touch sending a tingle through him. “I will tell you this: The one you are supposed to find, who lives in a house where no one’s home? You will know her by the stranger she carries.”
He stared again. “You know about that? Wait, the stranger she carries? What does that mean?”
“You are adorable,” Cassandra said. “I would kiss you myself if you weren’t so young.”
“I . . . I don’t know . . .” Everything was happening so fast, and these two women were pushing him along—was this what Lois had warned would happen? Bruno wished he felt more in control. Cassandra leaned even closer to his ear.
“What could I say to you to prove Celia and I won’t harm you? You will be suspicious until you decide not to be. Not everything you’ve heard is true, but you will have to find that out for yourself.”
“Thank you” was all Bruno could think to say. Cassandra let go of his hand—it felt like being left behind in a bathtub after the warm water had drained out—and she turned to Celia.
“And how are you, my dear?” she asked her. They bent their heads together, and Bruno politely looked away. After a minute Celia stood up and Bruno followed suit. Cassandra beckoned, and Bruno leaned down to hear her. “Don’t be afraid of the Ebentwine. Follow its rules, but don’t fear it.” She smiled and sat back on the couch, her fiery red hair illuminated by a passing spotlight.
On the way back upstairs Celia said, “I’ve never met anyone like Cassandra.”
“Neither have I,” Bruno agreed. Except you.
“I wonder why she thinks someone already got you started? Do you remember meeting anyone like that?”
Bruno shook his head, uncomfortable lying. In five minutes Cassandra had given him a wealth of tantalizing information, and he wanted very badly to believe Lois was wrong about Ambassadors, because clearly Cassandra had an amazing gift. He needed to talk to Lois again.
“What else did she say?” Celia asked him on the way back upstairs. “Wait, I shouldn’t ask you. It’s none of my business.”
Bruno leaned in close to her ear. Her hair brushed against his nose, holding the scent of cinnamon. He decided to trust her. “She gave me some really good advice. I can see why you like her.”
She nodded happily at him, and again he felt like following her anywhere.
Near the end of the evening Bruno noticed Tomasi standing beside him; the two of them watched Celia dance. Eventually Tomasi said, “It’s different for everyone. You’ll have powers I don’t have. All I can say is, do everything you can to keep it a secret—from your family, from your closest friends.” Tomasi’s warning sounded a lot like Lois’s.
“Celia said your parents have been rough on you.”
“That’s putting it mildly. They think I’m the freaking Antichrist. They don’t like Celia because they know I met her here, and they’re convinced this place is some kind of devil worship club or something. If they only knew . . .” They looked around at Sylvio, Marco, Regine—a whole room full of beautiful people who had no idea who Tomasi and Bruno really were, or what Celia and Cassandra knew. “It makes me crazy that my parents don’t like her, because she’s the only reason I haven’t run away from them again.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
Tomasi shrugged. “After this year I’ll go to college, and then it’ll be better. For now my parents and I just give each other as much space as we can.”
“So, you can travel between places by going through books?”
“Not all books. I need some connection to the book I’m traveling to. I have to have a page or part of a page from it, and the book has to be open on the other side. Maybe when I get stronger I’ll be able to do more with that power. Right now it’s good for visiting Celia, though.”
“And nobody else has that power?”
“I think some people do. Sometimes I see other people in there, in between the books. It goes by so fast, I can’t make out a lot of details. But I think they’re traveling the same way. Or maybe they do something else in that space. It’s hard to see. It’s more useful to be able to read what’s in other people’s books, or letters in their pockets. That’s probably an important thing I should tell you: You have to be careful not to abuse your powers. It can really make a mess of things.”
“I would think so. You could do a lot of illegal stuff with that power.”
“Illegal is one thing. Harmful is another. Whatever you do, don’t ever use your power at anyone else’s expense. All it takes is one time, and you’ll switch from the Kind to the Unkind. And from what I understand, it’s hell getting back.”
Bruno’s searched Tomasi’s serious expression. “Really? Just once?”
Tomasi nodded. “I’ve never met anyone of the Unkind, although I saw the chemistry teacher the night Celia stripped him of his powers. But everyone knows the stories. Do not use your power to harm anyone. There is nothing to prevent you from doing it, but once you do, you cross over. Then your next admonition requires you to do bad things instead of good, and your powers grow darker and more destructive. You do not want to go down that road.”
Bruno took a breath. “I thought Ambassadors were dangerous—that they got their power by taking it from Kind.”
“What? Who told you that?”
“No one. I’ve just heard it . . .”
“I’ve never heard that. And it’s definitely not true. Celia fulfilled my admonition and increased my power. She’s only made me stronger, not weaker.” Tomasi turned and walked away.
Bruno had barely spoken with Marco since they’d arrived. He went over to him, and Marco gave him a wistful smile. “There’s always one point in the evening when one of us says something about it not feeling the
same without Brenden and Ivo and Liz. All last year it was the six of us, and now three of us are missing. I can’t get used to it.”
“There are six of us here now,” Bruno offered.
“Yeah—oh, I didn’t mean to put you guys down. I’m really glad you finally came. But it’s not like we’ve all been here together, you know? I have two years of memories with Brenden and Liz and Ivo in this place. It’s just different.” Marco’s eyes shifted away, and Bruno turned to see what had gotten his attention.
A group of boys had entered Patrick’s room in a tight pack. They were dressed elegantly in black shirts and suits. Some of them wore black ties. One had a black vest under his jacket. Another wore a black cummerbund. They looked authoritatively in every direction as they crossed the floor, their confident expressions saying I might want to sleep with you, and aren’t you lucky we’re here?
“Who are they?” Bruno asked Marco.
“I have no idea.” Marco’s face was crammed with fascination, defensiveness, confusion and envy. Meanwhile, the boys took a spot on the other side of the dance floor, clustering together like an elegant murder of crows. One of them slipped his arm over another’s shoulder; two others linked arms.
Out on the dance floor Regine’s whirling slowed and her steps became hesitant. Marco said, “Regine does not get upstaged very often when she’s dancing.” Bruno followed him into a huddle with Celia and Tomasi. “Have you ever seen those guys before?”
Celia shook her head. Tomasi said, “Not here, but I know who they are. They go to St. Dymphna’s. I think they’re all sophomores. I’ve never really talked to them. At school they’re always together, big on dressing well and dark music. I’m kind of surprised they haven’t come here before; maybe they didn’t have a way to get here. They kind of remind me of your group—the Rosary. I think they try to be more provocative than you guys, though. There are rumors about how they’re all bisexual and they’ve all slept with each other, but I think it’s just a bunch of crap.”
“They definitely know you,” Celia said. From across the room, one of the boys saluted Tomasi by cupping his hand and touching his fingertips to his forehead.
“Um, I have no idea why,” Tomasi said.
“Because you’re a senior who wears all black and likes this music, and they look up to you?” Marco suggested.
In the car on the way home Sylvio wanted to talk, but Bruno was preoccupied with all the things he had learned. The world of the Kind was unfolding around him, with unexplored paths seeming to run off in every direction. Every answer only prompted more questions. Bruno decided his first priority had to be his admonition. If he didn’t solve that mystery, the rest wouldn’t really matter as much. Who carries a stranger? What does that even mean? Even though he couldn’t be completely sure who to believe about Ambassadors, Cassandra had given him a clue, no less cryptic than everything else.
THE NEXT MORNING BRUNO stayed in bed for a while after he woke up. Something about the visit to Diaboliques had finally done him in; the world had become too complicated even for him to decide what to wonder about first. Lois had warned him about Ambassadors, but Cassandra had suggested Lois didn’t know what she was talking about—none of which helped Bruno force down his attraction to Celia, with her dark beauty and her rare but delicious laughter. Tomasi stood between them, but Celia was kind—in the best way, with a small k—and he knew she liked him, which made him ache.
What did it really mean to be one of the Kind? It had just happened to him, like going to the doctor and finding out he had to have some kind of vaccination, and here comes a needle. Bruno still would have said yes, if someone had asked him today to be part of the Kind. But it wasn’t easy, or simple, or without consequence.
He also needed to figure out the rest of his admonition. He had to find whoever was carrying a stranger and complete the inscrutable task of replanting a family tree. The next blue moon would happen in December; the first full moon would be on the second of the month, followed by another on New Year’s Eve. That was still a few months away, but it stressed him out anyway, considering how unprepared he felt at the moment. In every class, every time he walked the halls, he was going to have to pay attention to the things his peers carried. What might someone carry that could be described as a stranger? Should he assume the person he sought was at Suburban?
7
isolation
“HOW’S YOUR DAY?” LOIS asked when he arrived in the library.
“I just had a pop quiz in my web design class,” Bruno told her. “The only reason I did okay was because it was about this diagram, a flow chart of operations, and I tend to remember things like that.”
“Glad to hear it! Who teaches that class?”
“Ms. Moreletii. She’s no joke.”
“I don’t think I’ve met her. I don’t make it down to the teachers’ lounge very often.” Lois looked over his shoulder. “I don’t know who this is, either.”
Bruno turned. “That’s Mr. Williams. He’s no joke, either. I have him for geography.”
Mr. Williams raised his eyebrows when he saw Bruno, but he spoke to Lois. “Do you have any volumes of Piranesi?”
Lois turned to the computer. “Giovanni Battista, or Francesco?”
“The father. Giovanni.”
“We do. Would you track this down, Bruno?” Lois jotted the call number on a scrap of paper.
“Sure.” Bruno went off and found the book, a sizeable collection of etchings. He glanced through it before he returned, and the drawings captivated him immediately. Some of them looked real: the Colosseum in Rome; ancient temples, plazas, and ruins. Other drawings showed foreboding cavernous spaces, and it was hard to tell if they were real or the product of Piranesi’s imagination.
Back in the reading area, Mr. Williams thanked Bruno for the book and left.
“He seems nice,” Lois said. “He complimented your knowledge of geography.”
“That’s a surprise—usually it seems to annoy him.”
In the hall on his way to his next class, Bruno decided he was having a good day: He had dodged a bullet from Ms. Moreletii, and Mr. Williams might like him after all. Suddenly his books went flying out from under his arm and crashed to the floor.
Bruno turned and found Van retreating behind him, laughing with his buddies. Bruno sighed and dropped to his knees to gather up his things.
“Can I help?” The girl with the blond ponytail whom he had helped back at the beginning of the semester stooped next to him. “He’s a jerk. He leaves miserable people behind, wherever he goes.”
“Yeah, and he really doesn’t like me.”
“Why’s that? You don’t seem like the type of person someone would be mean to.”
“I kind of gave him a reason,” Bruno admitted.
“Oh. I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”
“Thanks,” Bruno said when she handed him the rest of his things.
“Sure,” she said, smiling.
BRUNO NOW WORE DARK stylish clothing every day like his friends did, and listened to more alternative music. This was his surface life, which hummed along, untroubled by the supernatural riddles he labored to solve. That was the part no one remembered about having a secret identity, wasn’t it? One’s real, non-secret life still comprised the vast majority of one’s day. Celia turned to him one morning. “Your hair’s getting long,” she observed pleasantly. Immediately he felt all wrong.
Between classes he studied himself in the bathroom mirror, brushing his bangs away from his eyes, consumed by the desire to fix this problem. At home after school he plotted every barbershop in Whiterose on the map, but none of them was close enough to reach on foot.
He went out his back door and made his way to the Ebentwine clearing. Once again, Gardner emerged from a corner. This time he carried a coil of hose. “Bruno, where’ve you been? It’s been ages.”
“I didn’t realize it mattered to you.”
“Were you avoiding this place?”
“I
was,” Bruno admitted. “It’s a little crazy—no offense.”
“None taken. So why are you back?”
“Because someone told me as long as I obey the rules, I shouldn’t be scared of it.”
“That’s good advice.”
“I was thinking about what you said about Ebentwine not just being a shortcut—liminal—between my backyard and Celia’s. Does that mean it can go other places, too?”
“Yes indeed. Where are you headed, then?”
“I want to go to the barbershop on George Street.”
“You need a haircut? I suppose you do. It’s right through there.” Gardner pointed.
“Thank you.” Bruno headed off. Passing through the hedge, he stepped out of the trees onto a pedestrian path. A short way off was an intersection, and when he got there, he found the swirling barber pole easily.
While the kindly Italian man gave him the classic short cut he had chosen from the faded pictures on the walls, Bruno congratulated himself for finding another way to put his powerful secrets to good use. This is what being Kind was about—getting to places more easily, not needing a ride from his brother to get a haircut. He wondered how far the Ebentwine could take him. If he told Gardner he wanted to go to New York City, or Rome, would the man just point to a place in the hedges and send him on his way?
He strolled out of the barbershop and back down the pedestrian path, ducking through the bushes to return to the Ebentwine clearing.
“That’s a good look for you,” Gardner said.
“Thank you.” Bruno had intended to return home, but paused. “Maybe I’ll go by Celia’s house.”
Gardner nodded. “Sure. That way. But you know, she’s not home.”
“She’s not?”
“No, she’s at the bookstore. Where she works. She told you about that?”
“Oh, sure. Never mind, then.”
“Well, why don’t you go to the bookstore?” Gardner pointed to another side of the clearing.
Pull Down the Night (The Suburban Strange) Page 10
