Mystic City

by Theo Lawrence

  “You’re delirious,” my mother says, but her face reveals she’s affected by my words—her jaw is tightly clenched, and the wrinkles she’s had so much surgery to hide are showing. “I did no such thing.”

  I lower my voice and speak as calmly as I possibly can. “You are no longer my mother,” I tell her. “And I will sooner bring down this entire family than marry Thomas.”

  For a second, her lower lip trembles. Then she composes herself and reaches over to my nightstand. She picks up a long silver needle and a vial of clear liquid. She empties the vial into the needle, then grabs hold of my arm.

  I try to pull away. “What are you doing?”

  “Hold still,” she says, locating a vein. Then she stabs me.

  I feel a rush of calm throughout my body. My blood grows thick, my eyelids heavy. My mother’s face is the last thing I see before falling back asleep, and I think I see her laughing.

  I dream.

  White. So much white. As though a freshly washed sheet has been draped over the entire city, a bone-colored canvas, waiting to be filled.

  My dreams splatter onto the canvas in color, every which way and larger than life, full of garbled images—carousels and cotton candy; thin beams of green mystic power; the chrome latticework of Turk’s motorcycle wheels; brown-black seaweed clinging to the side of a gondola; the glint of the quicksilver in the draining room’s tubes; the pulsing, liquid movements of the energy in the spires; the disappointed, angry look in my father’s eyes; the sound of a gunshot.

  Mostly, though, I dream of Hunter.

  Dreams of how his arms felt around me, the soft kisses he rained down on my collarbone.

  And then I remember that he’s dead, and I wake up in agony, screaming into the night.

  Two weeks pass. Eventually, my handcuffs are removed and I’m allowed to move around, as long as I stay within the confines of the apartment. My friends—Kiki, Bennie, and my other bridesmaids—have been told I’m incredibly ill, and that I will contact them as soon as I’m better. Kyle mostly ignores me, keeping to his room with his door locked or staying over at Bennie’s.

  My TouchMe has been confiscated. The only visitors I’m allowed are wedding planners. They ask me questions that I refuse to answer, hoping my lack of response will delay the inevitable. Instead, my mother answers for me. She chooses the cake (a three-tiered yellow cake with chocolate ganache, decorated with sugary red roses), and I have final measurements taken for my gown. My mother provides a list of her favorite songs to a musical director, who will rehearse with the band.

  There will be no bridal shower—part of my punishment, I suppose, though really I couldn’t care less. The wedding is set to take place Labor Day weekend, almost two weeks after the mayoral election on the twentieth.

  Thomas doesn’t visit—which I appreciate. He calls occasionally, but I always pretend to be sleeping to avoid speaking to him. His ring sits on my nightstand, collecting dust.

  “I can’t believe she’s just gone,” I overhear my mother say to Magdalena one day when she thinks I’m not listening. She’s talking about Davida, missing since the night of Hunter’s murder. “We practically raised the girl and then she just vanishes into thin air?” Mom rubs her temples. “People are so ungrateful.”

  Secretly, I wonder where Davida is, if she’s informed the rebels about what happened to Hunter. I hope she has, and that they can seek justice on his behalf.

  One night, Kyle sits down next to me on the living room sofa. I have a bowl of fruit that I’m picking through with a fork. The television is on, but I’m not paying any attention to it.

  He sits down and clasps his hands together. I study him out of the corner of my eye: he’s wearing a navy-blue T-shirt and plaid shorts. I don’t say a word to him.

  We sit this way, in silence, until he speaks. “I’m sorry, you know.”

  I don’t respond.

  “Aria? I said I was sorry.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t hear you. I don’t converse with assholes.”

  “Look,” he says, unclasping his hands and resting them on his knees. “About that mystic—”

  “Hunter,” I say, feeling an ache in my chest. “His name was Hunter.”

  Kyle ignores this. “I’m your brother, I want what’s best for you. Even though you don’t think so now, in time you’ll see that I did the right thing.”

  “The only thing I’ll see in time is how much more of a traitor you are,” I find myself saying, “and I already think you’re a huge one, so that’s saying something.” I turn and look at him. Despite what he’s saying, he looks sheepish, ashamed. “You take Stic,” I say, getting up from the sofa. “You used it to jump from your balcony to mine and eavesdrop on me. That’s how Dad knew we were on the roof.” I look him dead in the eyes. “Hunter’s blood is on your hands. I don’t want to talk you. Ever again.”

  Kyle looks at me, stunned. “Aria—” he starts, but I don’t wait for him to finish.

  I scramble up the stairs and into my room, where I flop down on my bed and stare at the tin ceiling.

  There’s a knock on my door. “Go away, Kyle,” I mutter.

  Another knock.

  “I said, go away.”

  The knocking continues, though. I heave myself out of bed and press the touchpad on my wall. The door slides open. “Kyle, just leave me—”

  “It’s not Kyle,” Thomas answers, standing before me with a bouquet of roses. He’s wearing a red dress shirt and a pair of linen pants, the collar open slightly at the neck. His hair is gelled and pushed back from his forehead; I can see a tiny mole near his temple that I’ve never noticed before. “May I come in?”

  “No,” I say, crossing my arms. Even though I hate Thomas, I wish I’d washed my hair in the past few days. Oh well.

  Thomas smiles. “But I’m here to apologize. Again.” He steps inside anyway, walking past me and resting the bouquet on my desk. “These are for you.”

  “Very original,” I say, perching on the edge of my bed. “So? You might as well get it out—the sooner you’re done talking, the sooner you’ll leave.”

  “Aria,” Thomas says, sitting down next to me. “You’re thinking about this the wrong way. I’m not the enemy here.”

  “You lied to me. And you cheated on me with Gretchen Monasty.”

  Thomas shakes his head. “Gretchen is nobody to me.”

  “But you still—You know what? It doesn’t matter,” I tell him. “I don’t love you, Thomas. I don’t remember anything, and you used that to your advantage. I’ve never taken Stic. You have. The only reason we’re getting married is because of some political scheme our parents cooked up.”

  Thomas leans back. “And?”

  “What do you mean, ‘And’?” I say, raising my eyebrows.

  “I mean,” Thomas says, “who cares why we’re getting married. So maybe we didn’t fall in love the way you thought we did. Are you happy here”—he motions around the room—“locked up like some kind of prisoner? You keep fighting against your parents, but there’s a reason why they run this city, Aria. They’re smart.”

  “What’s your point?” I ask.

  “My point,” Thomas says, “is that we can be smarter. So maybe you wanted that mystic. Did you ever stop to think that I might have wanted something else, someone else?”

  An image of Gretchen comes to mind, Thomas’s lips pressed to hers.

  “Our first kiss, how we met—nothing you’ve told me is true, is it? I don’t even care about Gretchen. You’re a liar, Thomas.”

  He raises his eyebrows. “There are worse things than lying, Aria. Especially when you’re lying to protect someone.”

  “And who exactly were you trying to protect?”

  He shakes his head. “You really don’t get it, do you? I was trying to protect you.”

  “Me? Try yourself, Thomas.”

  “Both of us,” he clarifies. “You’re not the only one who’s expected to do what your parents tell you to do. So why fight it
? Marry me, and then do whatever you want. I’m no warden like your father. Wanna sneak around with a mystic on the side? Go for it. I don’t care. Think of our union as a business transaction. A way for us to remain wealthy and powerful, to get what we want. Soon Garland will run the city, and after that, I will. Don’t you want that—to be the wife of the most powerful man in Manhattan?”

  I look away. How did I ever imagine that those heartfelt letters, those professions of love, could have come from someone like him? Thomas cares about wealth and prestige and image. Only someone who truly loved me could have written those letters—not someone resigned to a marriage of convenience. Or were the letters just another part of this whole fabrication, planted to make me believe Thomas wrote them?

  Were those memories I had of us together in the Depths, of falling in love … were they ever truly of Thomas? Or did I just convince myself they were? Is this all part of what Lyrica suggested, that my memories have been tampered with?

  “I want to get married when I’m in love,” I say eventually. “I want to spend the rest of my life with someone because I want to, not because I have to.”

  “We can’t always get what we want, Aria.” Thomas shrugs. “Hunter certainly didn’t.”

  I slap him. “I don’t choose you.”

  Thomas brings his hand to his cheek and snarls at me. “It’s not a choice. Your parents haven’t told you? The wedding has been moved up. We’re now to be married before the election. Be smart and go along with it—otherwise, you might get us both killed.”

  • XXIII •

  The next day, Kiki and Bennie come over to cheer me up.

  I’m unsure why my mother has broken her No Visitors rule, but I don’t complain. Apparently I’ve made a “miraculous recovery” and am no longer sick. Go figure.

  My family has managed to keep the Hunter incident out of the papers. They’ve announced the new wedding date, and Thomas wasn’t lying. We’re now to be married on August 11, two Saturdays before the Tuesday election on the twenty-first. I can’t believe I was one of the last ones to find out about the change.

  “We just came from our dress fittings,” Kiki says, blotting her forehead with a handkerchief. “The design your mother picked out is gorgeous.”

  “Divine,” Bennie chimes in, motioning to her chest. “Tight around the top, with a cinched waist and then”—she lets her hands fall downward—“va-va-voom, all the way to the floor!”

  Kiki giggles. “But don’t worry. We won’t upstage you. We promise.”

  I manage to roll my eyes. “Believe me, I’m not worried.”

  “You know, just because you were sick doesn’t mean you couldn’t text us,” Kiki says, yanking open the curtains. “Or allow your room to look like something besides a mausoleum. Seriously, Aria.”

  I shield my eyes from the light. The past few days, my mood has been so dark that I wanted my room to match.

  I can’t believe Hunter is gone. I feel hollow to my core, emptied out by a sadness that refuses to let go. My body is ragged, my nose and eyes raw from crying. In a way, it doesn’t even seem real … and yet I know he’s dead. I saw them shoot him.

  The only thing that will make his death mean something is to warn his family—to sneak underground and alert Violet Brooks and the rebels that my parents are coming after them. But the way I’ve been monitored lately, I can’t even do that.

  “So, out with it,” Kiki says, plopping down next to me on the bed. “Why did you have the wedding moved up—especially since you’ve been ill. What’s wrong with you, anyway? Are you so in love with Thomas you just can’t wait to be married?” She laughs. “Aria the lovesick Rose.”

  Bennie laughs along with her, and I wonder how they could possibly be so naive. I wish I’d told them everything from the beginning; now it’s too late. I think about what Thomas said, how one wrong move could get us both killed.

  Would my parents actually murder me if I disobeyed them? No matter what, I’m still their daughter. But with the election at risk, well … I don’t know what they’d do.

  And that scares me.

  “Aria, you don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to!” Bennie says. She looks like a sailor today, in a cute white dress with blue trim. “But if you do want to tell us”—she skips forward and takes a seat next to Kiki—“we won’t complain.”

  I wonder if Bennie suspects what might be in store for her if she stays with Kyle—a lifetime of servitude to the Rose political cause.

  “The new date was my mother’s idea,” I say. “She thinks it’ll be better for the election.”

  The girls nod as if they understand. “That makes sense,” Kiki says. “Meanwhile, I still don’t have a friggin’ date to the wedding! I want some cute guy to dance with during the slow songs and make out with in the bathroom.”

  “Time is tick-tick-ticking away!” Bennie says, clapping her hands together.

  “Oh, blah,” says Kiki, standing up and looking at herself in the mirror. “No guys ever notice me anyway, not when I’m sandwiched between the two of you. You have bodies like celery sticks, except with boobs and butts. Mine’s more like … an eggplant. Maybe even eggplant Parmesan.” She sighs. “Holy Depths, I’m jealous.”

  Bennie turns to me, rests her hand on my wrist. “So, Kiki and I were thinking—why don’t we come over on Wednesday night with some girls from Florence? We’ll watch movies and eat popcorn and gossip. It’ll be fun. A low-key bachelorette party, since your mom said you weren’t feeling up to having a real one.”

  She said that? I’m not surprised.

  “I’ll have to ask my mom,” I say, “and I doubt—”

  “We already got her okay!” Bennie says with a little jump. “Oh, this is going to be so upper! And don’t worry, Aria—we’re planning everything.”

  “You just have to show up,” Kiki says, giving my shoulder a squeeze.

  Even though a party is the absolute last thing I want to have—besides a wedding—I nod. Kiki and Bennie squeal with excitement.

  Well, I think, at least some people in the world are happy.

  A few hours after they’re gone, I begin to hear a lot of noise—what sounds like four or five women chattering and walking back and forth past my bedroom.

  A vacuum begins to whir, and at the same time, my mother raps on my door. She opens it and speaks to me from the doorframe. I’m resting in bed, on top of the covers.

  “Aria,” she says, “just so you know, I’m heading downtown with Erica Foster.”

  “Okay. What’s with all the noise?”

  She glances down the hallway. “Oh, we’ve hired a cleaning service to go through and dispose of Davida’s things.” She straightens the diamond pendant around her neck. “Anyway, I’ll be back by four. They should be finished by then.”

  I watch her leave my room, then lean my head back against the pillow. I wonder what happened to Davida. She was probably so traumatized by what my family’s done that she’s gone off to be with her mother. I’m about to close my eyes when I think of something and sit back up.

  Davida’s stash of gloves. I can’t let them be thrown away.

  I hop out of bed and sneak down the hallway, past Kyle’s bedroom and into the servants’ corridor.

  Davida’s door is wide open. I poke my head inside and see dozens upon dozens of garbage bags, halfway stuffed. Three women in all-white uniforms are sifting through the mess. The sight makes me incredibly upset. Not only have I lost Hunter, but I am losing Davida, too.

  “Excuse me?”

  The women stop what they’re doing and look up at me.

  “I just need a moment in here alone—can you come back in five minutes?”

  They look at each other and shrug, then leave the room. I shut the door and go straight to where I last saw the gloves—underneath Davida’s bed. I drop to the floor, reaching out my hand and feeling for the sharp corners of the metal box.

  It’s not there.

  I pull back my hand and glance around th
e room. There must be at least twenty bags filled with the clothes and books and trinkets Davida has collected since childhood. Thankfully, the bags are open, so I don’t have to undo any knots. I quickly sift through it all—two bags are filled with uniforms of different sizes, some so small they must have been from her girlhood. Did Davida never throw anything away? Another bag is packed with toiletries and underwear; none of the bags holds a metal box. Or the gloves. Where in the Aeries could they be?

  I stand and wipe the sweat from my forehead with my pajama sleeve. What’s left?

  Her closet.

  It has been left open, mostly empty. I scroll through what little remains—a few casual sweaters and dresses my parents gave Davida for special occasions, the clothes she only wore once. She was always in her uniform. These garments are all practically new.

  I pull out a pink gown with rhinestones on the collar and begin to tear up. This is the dress I gave Davida for her sixteenth birthday.

  I press the soft material to my face and breathe in. Traces of rose-scented detergent fill my nostrils. I picture Davida on the night of Hunter’s death, looking between us and sobbing.

  I put back the dress and remove a sweater that used to be mine. I suppose I’ll take it back until she turns up again. But instead of it feeling soft, it feels … crunchy.

  What?

  I hold the sweater up to the light. It looks normal, but then I slip my hands inside and feel something stiff lining the material. Slowly, I turn the sweater inside out. I gasp at what I see: the entire inside is lined with paper, the paper covered with Davida’s handwriting, stitched into the cotton.

  I place the sweater on Davida’s bed, then remove another piece of clothing—a thin white nightshirt. I slip my hands inside and feel the same stiffness, then roll up the bottom: there is another set of notes sewn inside.

  I go through the rest of Davida’s closet: a red knit dress she wore once to temple, a white jersey dress with black trim, a stark black blazer, a pleated navy skirt, a soft green cardigan. There are at least a dozen pieces here that are filled with writing. Without hesitating, I grab the items off the hangers, bundle them into my arms, and take them back to my bedroom.