Cold as Marble

by Zoe Aarsen

  “It will be, soon,” Trey told me and then asked with one eyebrow raised, “You really think my mom cast a spell on Violet’s dad?”

  “I think she really cast a spell. On who? I don’t know. But that girl we met at the bookstore in Chicago thinks this might be a case of spell interaction. Like maybe your mom cast a spell on the Simmons family not realizing there was already one on them, and then the spells got mixed up,” I explained.

  Trey said, “Like if Violet’s mom cast some kind of spell to help her have a baby that actually lived right around the same time as my mom cast a spell to get revenge, then…”

  Our eyes widened in unison as Trey drifted off. The timing and sentiment of his theory were like the missing piece of a puzzle. It made perfect sense; Mrs. Simmons or anyone who knew how badly she wanted to have a healthy baby might have put a spell on her with the best of intentions, possibly without even believing that it would work. If Trey’s mom’s spell had interacted with it, then it was simple to see how Violet had been created with a hitch—and that hitch was that she, or someone else, had to endure the consequences of the spell every month. Her life hadn’t been a gift, it had been a barter. Hence Violet’s sacrifices. And if the original spell had been put on Violet’s mother, then in a bizarrely logical way it made sense that she was the one who would die if Violet didn’t fulfill her obligation with each passing cycle of the moon.

  “That’s it!” I whispered, my scalp breaking into a firestorm. I was certain that we were right. “That’s the gist of it, at least.” With my pulse racing, I pulled the pendulum out of my coat pocket. “Pendulum, did someone cast a spell on Violet’s mother in order for her to have a healthy baby?”

  The keys slowly but surely rocked back and forth. “And the spell that Trey’s mom cast interfered with that original spell?”

  Yes.

  And finally, the clincher, “Pendulum, will Violet’s mother die if Violet doesn’t make a sacrifice every month?”

  The pendulum slowed down as if implying that we were mostly—but not entirely—correct.

  “Her mother hasn’t died yet,” Trey reminded me. “And as far as we know, Violet’s still a month behind in her sacrifices. So maybe that’s ultimately what will happen, but she’s still trying to catch up.”

  So excited I could barely get the words out, I asked, “Pendulum, is Violet planning to make extra sacrifices right now to keep her mom safe?”

  Yes.

  “Holy…” Trey’s attention had been caught by something on the passenger-side window. The windows had filled with steam from our breath while Henry had been inside the motel’s front office, and we both watched in awe as an invisible finger drew stick figures of girls on the glass just inches from Trey’s head.

  I whispered, “That’s Jennie. She’s shown me these drawings before.”

  Again, line by line, she drew three girls, left a space, and then began drawing a fourth as Henry returned to the car. “Hey, guys,” he greeted us cheerfully without any traces of his anger from an hour earlier. “I managed to get a room with two beds, but—”

  “Shh.” We hushed him in unison, and he instantly saw what was appearing in the condensation on the window.

  “What the hell?” he murmured as he just stood there with the driver’s-side door open.

  “Close the door,” I urged him. “Don’t let the steam evaporate before we see what she’s trying to show us.”

  Henry climbed into the truck and pulled the door shut behind him. The three of us watched as a fifth stick figure was completed, and then, unlike the first time Jennie had drawn these figures for me, a sixth girl was drawn in the gap. Violet. When the second of her stick legs had been drawn, completing the form of her body, a circle was drawn around all six.

  “She’s reminding us that the other five need to see Violet in their world in order for this to end,” I explained, somehow instinctively just knowing that was what Jennie had intended.

  “Right,” Trey agreed. “Because maybe if Violet turns up as the sacrifice, then it breaks both spells.”

  “You guys have lost me,” Henry said, sounding hopeless.

  Still dangling the pendulum from my right index finger, I asked, “Pendulum. Has Violet made her sacrifice for this cycle of the moon yet?”

  Side to side. No.

  “Is she planning on making that sacrifice tomorrow?”

  Back and forth. An irrefutable yes.

  The motel was a typical two-story, L-shaped structure with each room overlooking the parking lot. Our room was in the corner on the second floor, and we could hear the din of TV shows through the doors of the few rooms we passed. It had two double beds covered by ugly pink-and-blue floral comforters, a painting of a seascape in a tacky frame hung in the space on the wall between the beds, and mismatched lamps. A dog-eared Bible was in the drawer of the nightstand that I opened out of curiosity, set atop a thick Yellow Pages from 2012.

  Henry flipped through channels on the television, trying to find out if local news was covering the scandalous story of the teenage boy and girl who’d escaped from their reform schools to run away together. However, local stations were airing late-night talk shows at that hour, and Trey and I were definitely not big enough news to serve as the punchlines of jokes during the hosts’ monologues.

  Despite the fact that it was after eleven, Henry called Kirsten to check in on Mischa. She was still doing fine, but she asked to speak with me.

  “You heard about Tracy, right?” she asked me. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t like that girl, but I’ll still feel really bad if she dies tomorrow instead of me.”

  I carried Henry’s phone over to the window of our motel room and pulled back the dusty curtain to peer at the slim wedge of moon in the sky. It was possible that Tracy had already passed away at some point that day. The only way I could have confirmed that was if I’d called Cheryl and asked, and Cheryl was supposed to be at Fitzgerald’s Lodge with the rest of the junior class at that hour, getting a good night’s sleep in preparation for ski lessons the next day. “Well, we’re here. And we’re ready for tomorrow.” This was a bit of a lie, since I still hadn’t figured out what magic words I might say to convince Violet to play the game with us. But we were ready in spirit even if we lacked a tactical plan, which was all Mischa needed to know.

  “Please don’t mess up,” Mischa begged me. “I’m sure my mom and dad are worried sick, and I have no idea what I’m going to tell them when I go home. If I go home. Matt, too. I wasn’t allowed to tell him where I was going.”

  I promised her we’d do our best and said good night. It was stressful enough thinking about what we’d do when we encountered Violet in the morning. I couldn’t think beyond that to how we’d start patching up the disaster I’d made of my own life by running away from school, or Trey’s by convincing him to run away from his.

  Although Henry had packed an overnight bag and Mrs. Richmond had sent a pair of Olivia’s pajamas along with me, Trey had nothing to change into. Without any of us discussing formal sleeping arrangements, Trey kicked off his pants and pulled off his shirt before climbing into the bed closest to the door, and I crawled in beside him. I didn’t want to think about what Henry inferred from our comfortability with sharing a bed. He’d probably made the incorrect assumption that Trey and I had been sleeping together since the fall, but it was not an appropriate time to clarify matters for his benefit (and I wasn’t sure why I cared if he thought that).

  As soon as I nestled into the blankets, my eyelids became heavy. Trey wrapped his arm around my waist and nuzzled my neck with his nose. The mattress was lumpy, but after having bounced around in the truck all day, it still felt heavenly to me. I’d just started thinking about whether it would be better for us to approach Violet at the ski lodge in the morning or out on the busy slope, where it might be more difficult for her to summon help from other people, when I fell into a deep sleep.

  Bam. Bam. Bam.

  I sat straight up in bed having no idea whe
re I was, surrounded by darkness.

  “Open up. Police.”

  Thoughts returned to my brain in jolts. I wasn’t at Sheridan, and I wasn’t at home. I was at Hal’s Motor Lodge with Trey and Henry just outside Traverse City, Michigan. I didn’t have my phone, but I glanced to the old-fashioned digital alarm clock on my nightstand and saw that it was 12:57 a.m. And the police were outside banging on the door of our room.

  “What’s going on?” Trey asked, his voice thick with sleep.

  “Police,” I whispered.

  Across the room, in the other bed, Henry had stirred awake and was pushing back his blankets. “Be quiet,” he urged us, motioning at us with his hands to keep our volume low. “It’s probably nothing.”

  But considering why we were in Michigan and everything else that had happened to us, I figured there was little chance that the cops were knocking on our door arbitrarily. “We have to hide,” I said.

  Trey’s eyes searched the dark room wildly. “Is there another way out of here?”

  “Just the window in the bathroom,” Henry said. “But it’s a sheer drop, two stories.”

  “Come on, open up! Police!”

  Trey gestured at me to crawl under the bed we were sharing. At warp speed, we hastily made the bed, smoothing the wrinkled sheets and pulling the comforter over the pillows.

  “Just a second!” Henry called.

  We shoved our winter coats and snow boots under the bed, and Trey dove under before I did. I hesitated after dropping to my knees, reluctant to follow Trey under the bed frame. The space was very cramped. Maybe eight, nine inches in height.

  “It’s dusty down here,” Trey warned, which shouldn’t have surprised either of us. Vacuuming regularly underneath beds was probably a huge waste of time for motel maids. But the dark space scared me. If there was dust down there, there were probably other things, like dead bugs. Junk left behind by previous guests.

  Just as my fear had gotten the better of me and I was about to make a dash for the bathroom, the overhead light in our room switched on, and I wriggled under the bed next to Trey as quickly as I could. The door cracked open, and shirtless Henry greeted the police. “Hello, officers. Sorry, I was just… sleeping.”

  Under the bed, Trey and I struggled to control our breathing. The bedspread was long enough to nearly reach the floor, which obscured us but also made it impossible for us to see what was going on.

  “Good evening, or rather, morning. Are you Henry Richmond?” one of the gruff-sounding cops asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Henry replied politely.

  “You got anybody in here with you?”

  “No, sir,” Henry lied.

  “You probably have some idea why we’re here, don’t ya?” the other police officer asked. “Mind if we come in?”

  Before Henry replied, we heard soft footsteps on the carpeting. The bed above us sagged as someone sat down on it. Trey and I saw the springs dip toward the edge of the bed on my right side. “What brings you to Traverse City?” the seated cop asked.

  “I’m meeting a friend to go skiing,” Henry answered. “She’s joining me tomorrow.”

  “Any chance this friend is named McKenna Brady?” the cop with the lower voice asked.

  My heart felt as if it were beating a thousand times per minute.

  “McKenna Brady? No. I barely know her. She was one of my sister’s friends,” Henry said coolly.

  “That’s interesting, since she went missing from her boarding school yesterday, and her mom told the police back in Wisconsin she suspected you might have had something to do with that, and that the two of you might be on your way here to cause some trouble on a high school ski trip. And here you are, just as Mrs. Brady thought you might be.”

  Ugh, my mom, I groaned inside my head.

  I could see Henry’s bare feet planted near the door, which he’d closed slightly but not completely to keep the cold air out. “I don’t know anything about a high school ski trip,” he said, and then yawned. “How did you guys even find me here? Is every cop in Michigan looking for my truck?”

  “Pretty much,” the cop who was standing said in a tone intended to intimidate. “Don’t suppose you know that in the state of Michigan, you could be facing up to ninety days in jail for aiding and abetting a runaway?”

  I became aware of the chorus of voices rising in my head and panicked. This was not a good time to be distracted, and definitely not a good time to be half focused on deciphering what they were trying to tell me. It sounded like they were hissing the name Steven, Steven, but that didn’t make any sense. I didn’t know anyone named Steven.

  “I did not know that,” Henry said. His nice-guy act was running out, and he was starting to sound a little sarcastic. “I’ll keep that in mind if I come across any runaways.”

  “So,” the officer sitting on the bed began, “this friend of yours who you’re meeting tomorrow. Mind if we call them right now and ask them to verify that?”

  “Um, sure,” Henry said, sounding a little surprised. I bit my lower lip. He didn’t have any friends who were planning on meeting him in Traverse City. I didn’t think he even had any former classmates back in Willow who knew anything about him hanging out with us while we tried to stop Violet. He was busted, but I saw him step forward to hand his phone to the cop on the bed anyway. “Her name’s Kirsten. But she might not answer. She had to work today, and she’s probably sleeping.”

  Henry’s quick thinking impressed me. I sent a swift prayer to heaven that Kirsten wouldn’t answer, and if she did, that she’d quickly figure out the right answers to provide based on the questions the cop asked her.

  Steven, Steven. The volume inside my head, which was really more like an increase in pressure, rose and fell. The voices demanded my attention no matter how hard I tried to subdue them. I tried to tune them out so that I could remain aware of how quietly I was breathing.

  After a moment of tension, the second cop said, “Hi there, Kirsten. This is Officer Raymond Mulvaney with the Traverse City Police Department. We’ve got your friend Henry Richmond here, who tells us he’s expecting you to join him for a ski trip in the morning. I’d appreciate it if you could give us a call back at your earliest convenience at two-three-one, five-five-five, four-seven-nine-nine.”

  A voice mail. I could see panic in Trey’s blue eyes. I hoped that the police would be on their way, but then the one who had been sitting down on the bed stood up. The springs in the mattress squeaked with joy to be relieved of his weight. “Why don’t you put on some clothes and come on down to the station with us to answer a few questions,” the officer told Henry.

  “I don’t understand. Am I under investigation?” Henry asked.

  “Not yet,” the cop told him. “Let’s just go downtown and get to know each other better. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  There was nothing Trey and I could do as Henry pulled on a pair of jeans and his plaid shirt and his coat, and followed the police officers out of the room. I held my breath as a quiet beep beep sounded as the door locked. I was grateful that he’d had the presence of mind to leave the light on. I would have been terrified if we’d been stuck in the darkness while he was gone out of fear that the police would linger in the parking lot for a while, keeping an eye on our room after they left. We heard footsteps descending the staircase down to the parking lot, and about a minute later, we heard a car start and pull away.

  “Let’s get out from underneath this thing,” Trey said, and we scurried out from under the bed. The voices in my head ceased at once as if they recognized and respected that I had a bigger issue to address right then than whatever they were trying to communicate. Trey and I looked around the room helplessly. “Sounds like your mom’s been worried about you.”

  “Yeah,” I said, frustrated but also homesick. “I can’t get mad at her. She’s probably furious with me. Plus, it would look really bad if I went missing from Sheridan and my mom wasn’t cooperating with the police search, you know?” Gui
lt filled up my stomach and made me wince with discomfort. Every minute that I stayed away from Sheridan, my future grew grimmer, and my mom had to be very aware of that.

  “We should probably get out of here in case Henry cracks,” Trey said.

  “Someone might be watching the room outside,” I reminded him. “Plus, I’m sure there’s video surveillance. What if the person at the front desk sees us leave?”

  Trey reasoned, “If there were video surveillance, then the person at the front desk would have told the cops they saw us enter this room. The cops wouldn’t have left without searching this place top to bottom.” He had a valid point.

  “I really don’t think Henry will crack,” I said. “He wants to break the curse on Violet just as much as we do.”

  “Okay. But we should still probably get out of here in case they want to take another look around when they come back, and who knows when that will be?”

  I was torn; I didn’t want to get separated from Henry because we didn’t have any way of getting in touch with him, but at the same time, there was a definite possibility that the police would return to the room either with or without him, depending on how his interrogation went. We dressed quickly and realized just as we were about to step outside that as soon as the door closed behind us, we’d be locked out, which might have turned out to be pretty inconvenient considering that it was winter.

  Luckily, Henry had left a paper envelope on the dresser containing a second key card. Trey placed his hand on the doorknob and was about to twist it when he lost his nerve. “Ask your magic keys if anyone in the parking lot is casing our room.”

  Following protocol, I burned a bit more of the sage Henry had bought that morning, and then asked the key pendulum if it would be safe for us to leave. It assured us that we could exit the room without any problems, but it wouldn’t give us an answer about whether or not Henry would be coming back. Instead, it just dangled limply from my fingers. “This isn’t good,” I commented.