"Maybe... I don't know. It was a strange night."
"Yeah," Sindy said, and Abby caught the same flash in her friend's eyes.
"You okay?"
Sindy laughed, but there was very little humor in it. "Look at you, worried about me. So you took the test, right?"
"Yeah."
"And are you?"
"No." The lie was just as surprising the second time.
Sindy sighed sharply and put one hand over her heart like she was having trouble slowing it down. "Oh, thank God. I was really worried there."
"Yeah," Abby said, trying out a relieved laugh. She thought it sounded convincing enough.
"Looks like you can get back to normal, then."
"Looking forward to it."
Abby followed Sindy to the dining hall. What was she doing? These lies weren't going to last. What was she going to say when people found out the truth?
19
Halloween in Arkham
Every Halloween, Hester and Constance Thorndike hosted a huge party for the Daughters of Arkham. Only the Daughters were allowed to attend. It had been a tradition in Harwich Hall since Abby was old enough to be aware of it. As a kid, she had spent every one of her Halloweens trick-or-treating with her babysitter. When people began to shut off their porch lights, her babysitter would drop her off at a sleepover at a friend's house, usually Nate's. Abby liked it. Her mother and grandmother had their tradition, and she and Nate had theirs. As they grew older, they cared less about comparing their trick-or-treat loot and more about cheesy horror movie marathons.
Nate's little sister Veronica was at the tail end of her trick-or-treating career. She worshipped Abby and did everything she could to impress her. Veronica was small, like her brother, with the same dark hair and eyes. She was cute, though strangers would never call her beautiful. She was just as smart as Nate-he privately admitted she was probably smarter-and she would doubtless follow in his footsteps to the Academy. Abby wasn't sure where they had inherited their smarts. It wasn't like Arnold and Lana Baxter were stupid, far from it... but both of their children routinely broke intelligence tests and wrecked grade curves.
Abby liked Veronica. She was the sister Abby never had and always wanted. Though Abby had lost interest in the ritual of trick-or-treating, she enjoyed it through Veronica. She was looking forward to seeing the girl's costume.
As Abby got ready to go over to Nate's house, she realized this was the final year they would be doing this. She was due to be inducted in the Daughters of Arkham. When she was a Daughter, she would have to attend the party at Harwich Hall with her mother and grandmother. She wondered if Nate realized this. Probably. Knowing him, he'd deny it until it actually happened.
Abby had put on a black dress. She was putting the finishing touches on her makeup-also black-when there was a knock at the door. "Abby?"
"Come in."
The door opened. Constance paused in the doorway, and Abby would swear that she posed. She stretched one fair arm outward and one leg forward, emphasizing the elegant lines of her long ivory gown. Abby couldn't decide whether she wanted to look like her mother or whether she wanted to burst out laughing.
"Are you going to Nate's?"
"Yeah, I was just about to leave."
"Have fun. We should be finished just after midnight, but if you want to stay over, that's fine."
"Thanks, Mom." It was the one time of year Abby had freedom. There was a silver lining to every cloud.
Constance swept over to her and brushed a kiss across her daughter's forehead. "Have fun, dear."
With that, she was gone. Abby chuckled to herself and then checked her reflection in the mirror. She couldn't decide if she looked sufficiently witchy, and it was strange to see herself without her glasses. Tonight, she'd suffered through the squeamish horror of putting her contacts in. Her outfit wasn't quite a costume, but it straddled the line and you couldn't reasonably claim that you were a witch if you wore glasses. Nate and the kids would buy that it was a costume. If anyone else looked at her funny, she could protest that it was just a dress and some seasonal makeup.
Her phone buzzed. She picked it up, unlocking the screen. Nate's contact photo stared back at her. In the picture, he was using his best 'boy-band' smolder: head down, eyes big, staring just a little too hard. It always made her chuckle. She answered the call. "What's up?"
"Coming over?"
"Yeah. Give me a minute, and I'll head on over."
"All right. I downloaded Pumpkinhead, The Blob, and Dead Snow."
"I don't know what any of those are."
"You will by the time this evening's over!"
"If you don't add The Great Pumpkin to that list, I'll slug you, Charlie Brown!"
Nate laughed and hung up. Abby couldn't help but smile. Nate hadn't mentioned the pregnancy since she'd told him about it. He was acting like everything was normal.
Her phone buzzed again, and she picked it up without looking. "Chill out, I said I'm going to be right there."
"You did? Why didn't I remember that?"
It was Bryce.
"Oh. Hi. I thought this was someone else."
"Well, lucky him."
"It's not a... let's start over. Hi, Bryce. What's up?"
"My mother is going to your place for that big party, and I thought to myself, why should the adults have all the fun? Party at my place as soon as the sun goes down. You in?"
"Yes! I mean, yeah. Sure. I'll be there."
"Good. I'll see you."
Abby ended the call, glowing. Not only a party, but one that Bryce felt compelled to specifically invite her to. Definitive proof he at least wanted her around. And a chance to spend more time with him alone, maybe. She was giddy with butterflies.
Wait.
Nate. She'd just screwed Nate over. This was their tradition. He looked forward to it. He'd been incessantly dithering over which movies they would watch for weeks now. And, honestly, she looked forward to it, too. She liked passing out candy with Nate. She liked seeing all the cute local kids in their costumes. She liked hearing their shrieks of delight when she and Nate tried to scare them. She liked all of the awful movies they watched.
But this was Bryce. He had called her. Specifically.
She stared at her phone, then she bit her lip.
She dialed Nate's number.
"On your way?" he asked.
"No... Nate, I'm really sorry, but I'm feeling kind of sick."
"I thought you were okay?"
"It's been all day, but I figured it would go away. It hasn't."
"Oh." The crushing finality of his disappointment made her want to tell him she was kidding.
Instead, she made it worse. "It's probably, you know." She didn't want to say 'the pregnancy,' not only because she didn't want someone to hear her, but because she wanted to be able to lie to herself, too. She wasn't using it as an excuse. Not really.
"Oh! Oh, yeah. I've heard that can happen. It's okay, Abby. Just feel better, okay? Get some rest."
"We can watch those movies some other time."
"They'll still be here."
"Thanks for being so cool."
"That's me. Cool."
She ended the call and felt awful. Nate had been the one person she hadn't lied to, and she'd felt proud of that. Now she didn't even have that to hang onto. What was she becoming? More importantly, who was she becoming?
20
Home Remedy
As Nate Baxter put his phone down, it looked like he was setting something much heavier on the bed. The way his head hung and his shoulders slumped suggested that he was laboring under an invisible load that was liable to crush him. He stood in his tiny bedroom on the bare patch of floor between his bed, desk, and door, and he tried to collect himself.
It was stupid feeling this way, and he knew it. Abby was sick. She was pregnant, and pregnant women got sick. He had accepted her pregnancy the way he accepted any of the other harsh truths around him. When his parents had to tell
him that they were actually employees of his best friend's family and that was the only reason they'd ever met, he'd accepted it. Whenever they explained there wasn't the money for something he wanted, he'd accepted it. He understood already that life wasn't what you wanted it to be. Anything he gained would be through hard work. Abby's pregnancy was an unpleasant surprise, but wasn't like it changed who she was or how he felt about her. It was simply something he had to accept and help her through. Whatever she needed, he would be there.
A slow smile spread over his lips and brightened his eyes. She did need something. If she was sick, there was one thing guaranteed to make her feel better.
When they were eight years old, Abby had been hit with a particularly virulent flu that was going around. Nate had dodged it, but that wasn't really a surprise. He had always been blessed with an incredible immune system. One look at him as the school geek, and most people assumed he was wracked with allergies, seasonal flus, and head colds but the truth was he hardly ever got sick. Maybe it was all the hard work he did in the fresh air alongside his dad, or maybe it was a quirk of genetics, but if the Black Death ever came to American shores, it would find its doom in Nate Baxter's white blood cells.
Abby had been dealing with the worst sore throat of her life, and Nate couldn't handle seeing his friend suffer. He did some research and learned that one of the most reliable ways to kill a sore throat was with marshmallows. He read that ancient Egyptians had used the marshmallow root to fight sore throats. People said that modern marshmallows still worked, though they didn't have any of the actual marshmallow plant in them.
Eight-year-old Nate made a batch of Fluffernutters-though instead of marshmallow fluff, he used mini-marshmallows, as he couldn't be certain the fluff would have the same effect. They seemed like the ideal food. She needed some nutrition and nuts were high in protein. Peanut butter for energy; marshmallows for her throat. He biked them over to Abby's place, and got past Bertram by claiming he had Abby's school assignments.
He had delivered his sandwiches to Abby. Remembering it now, he had never seen her so pale. Considering that all of the Thorndikes were as pale as it was possible to be, that was saying something. Abby had watched him dubiously while he explained what he'd learned about marshmallows. She hadn't said anything; her throat hurt too much to allow her to speak. Eventually, she relented and tried one because she trusted him. It took a while for her to get through it. He'd been clever enough to consider robust sources of protein and Egyptian folk cures; he hadn't thought about how she'd wash the sandwich down.
"I can talk," she had croaked after the first one. She looked impossibly relieved. "Give me another one."
He had never felt so much joy or pride as he did then. Since that time, whenever Abby got sick, it was Nate's unspoken duty to bike over to her house with a basket full of Flutternutters. He brought them over for any symptom and invariably-and Nate understood that this was the placebo effect in action-she felt better.
She probably wasn't expecting him that night, since she knew how important Halloween was, but that was just going to make this even better. This was the one time she wasn't expecting him to come through and he would. He thought of that look of relief on her face when she was eight and resolved to see it again.
He left his room, and his sister's door sprang open. She burst out into the hallway. She was dressed haphazardly and she had red spray dye in her hair. "Is Abby here yet?"
"Who are you supposed to be?"
"I'm Foxface!" She held her arms out as though that explained it. "From The Hunger Games."
"Doesn't she die?"
"Peeta poisons her because he's a monster," Veronica said, nodding like this was some kind of statement of immutable fact.
"That's horrible," Nate said. He headed for the kitchen. He wanted to end the conversation as soon as he could. Veronica followed on his heels.
"So where's Abby?"
"She's not coming."
"What?" The disappointment on his sister's face was nearly as bad as what he imagined on his own. It was almost funny.
"Yeah, she got sick."
"Oh. I wanted to show her this costume."
Nate smirked inwardly. Abby had once mentioned liking The Hunger Games. Veronica had immediately devoured every last word in the series.
His mom was working in the kitchen. Nate was already taller than she was, but that was no mean feat. She was a tiny woman that barely topped four feet eleven. She had thick black hair, usually swept back in a ponytail, and sharp cheekbones and almond eyes that showed her clear leaning to the Aztec side of her Mexican ancestry rather than the European. Working full-time and raising two children on a tight budget hadn't taken the sheen off of Allana Marisol Veles-Baxter. She still turned heads wherever she went, much to Nate's embarrassment, but that didn't keep him from spending time with her. Outside of Abby, his mom was his favorite person in the world.
"Did I hear that Abby is sick?" Lana asked.
"Yeah, Mom. I think it's a stomach bug or something."
"Heading over?"
His cheeks burned. "Yeah, I was thinking about it."
"Well, you tell her I said feel better."
"Tell her I said that, too!" Veronica shouted. "And tell her about my costume."
"She's Foxhead," Lana said.
"Face! Face!" Veronica ran out of the room.
"I know what it is, but that's more fun," Lana said, and laughed. "Your dad and me will be in our room as usual. Don't stay out too late."
"I won't, Mom," he said, getting the peanut butter and marshmallows from the pantry.
"You're a good boy, Natanael," she said. "I hope she realizes that."
"Mom, come on."
"I know, I know. Gross." She kissed the side of his head, and though he flinched, he secretly loved it. She left him to his sandwiches.
Out in the living room, he heard the squeals of Veronica's friends as they arrived. They would descend on the neighborhood in a pack, but this was likely their last year having a Halloween, too. Seemed like growing up was going around these days. Nate wished he could have lived his entire life between his eleventh and twelfth year, but time had other plans.
Nate spread a layer of peanut butter on the first slice of bread, then began to place marshmallows like he was planting tiny trees. He used to make patterns with them, but Abby never looked. His strategy now was better, anyway: he optimized all of his marshmallow placement so that it was impossible for her to take a bite without getting at least one. He made four sandwiches, two of which she would devour immediately, and two more to save. He wrapped each one in butcher paper, and put them in a brown bag.
Even sick, Abby was better company than anyone else. Besides, there was always the chance that the sandwiches would put her right and she could ride back to Nate's house on his handlebars, and they could have another Halloween together.
Their last Halloween together.
21
Coffin Manor
Abby had seen Coffin Manor from a distance, and she secretly suspected it could be seen from space. It was the largest house in town, and probably among the biggest in the entire nation. The Coffins seemed to enjoy that distinction. Unlike Harwich Hall, which had stood for hundreds of years without a single modification, Coffin Manor was always under renovation. Sometimes it was another wing or another pool. Other times, it was some stables or a hanging garden. If it could be added to a house, the Manor either had it, had had it, or was about to have it.
Most of the architecture in Arkham was Georgian, keeping with the town's self-consciously colonial appearance. The newer buildings were Victorian. Only the brand new businesses downtown were anything approaching modern. Coffin Manor was all of these things and none of them. The central house, which had been there almost as long as Harwich Hall, was as Georgian as the rest of the town but each new addition had been constructed without any thought for the manor's overall floor plan or aesthetic. When Abby's mother could bring herself to speak of Coffin Manor, sh
e sniffed that it was an eyesore. Hester said it should be bulldozed. Only new money would live in such a vulgar place.
Abby had only the vaguest idea of what "new money" meant, but if anyone in Arkham was new money, it was the Coffins. By anyone else's standards, they would have been aristocracy. They'd made their fortune on timber over two hundred years ago. But in Arkham, any family whose money came after the Revolutionary War was hopelessly nouveau riche.
Abby stood in the driveway, transfixed. The sky was dark; the manor's wrought-iron gates were flung wide; the only light she could see came from inside the house and it was every color imaginable. Music thumped across the lawn, thundering from the second floor. Halloween had transformed Coffin Manor into a grinning, singing, skull that blared with electronic rainbows.
Abby had never even imagined that such a thing could exist.
She had to force herself to walk, not run, toward the front door. She couldn't look too eager, not after things finally seemed to be on the right track with Bryce. She saw people in the windows-really just pagan shapes-twisting amid the shimmering lights.
As she drew closer, she began to recognize people from school. Most of the faces were human, but she caught a glimpse of an odd, circular croatan mouth. Flashing lights glinted off of the spiraling rows of teeth in the monster's mouth. Eleazar Grant, Abby thought immediately. It was impossible to be certain it was him, but she didn't want to go inside. The skin along her spine and her arms tingled with the impossible sensation that one of those things was behind her. Things. She had thought she was past thinking of the Crows as 'things,' but standing before the threshold of a dark house with her senses baffled, her trepidations all came back. She hesitated. This felt an awful lot like the carnival. Maybe it was better to just go home.
Sindy spotted her. "Abby!" She came out into the night and shivered. She had a red plastic cup in her hand and despite the chilly weather, she had not made a single concession in her 'costume' choice. Abby was pretty sure that Sindy couldn't have possibly taken a full breath since she'd put on her little red dress. "I thought for sure you'd be wasting another Halloween with Nate."
Mother of Crows: Daughters of Arkham - Book 2 Page 10
