Mother of Crows: Daughters of Arkham - Book 2

by David Rodriguez

  Abby had learned a lesson from Sindy: finding out was much worse than being told. She had to tell her mother. Abby figured that she would be screamed at, grounded for at least a year, and God knows what else. Postponing the conversation would only make the punishment worse.

  It was one thing to know that, and quite another to do anything about it.

  Abby sat on her bed, psyching herself up. She imagined she could hear her mother walking around downstairs, but that was all in her mind. Constance Thorndike was physically incapable of taking a heavy step. If she was moving at all, she used a light-footed glide, barely touching the ground at all.

  Abby was having very little luck convincing herself that some punishment now was preferable to all the punishment later. Even with the cold, hard evidence of Sindy's reaction staring her in the face, it was slow going. It would be so easy to just... deal with this later. She still had maybe a month or more of normalcy. She could get away with it.

  Her stomach had knotted up. Unlike the pain she had felt in her two, recent, strange experiences-the shape in the hall and the ghostly gallows-this felt like anxiety. It was the kind that made her want to crawl under her blankets until it passed.

  Abby stood up. She didn't think about it. She just left her room and went looking for her mother. She refused to think about the purpose of her quest. She wasn't going to have a difficult talk with her mother, oh no. She was just looking around the house. Nothing to see. Nothing to be worried about.

  It started getting difficult when she couldn't immediately find her mother. Abby searched room after room and began to lose her grasp on the self-delusion necessary to continue. She did her best not to allow her doubts to take root and pushed forward to scour the house. Why the damned house have to be so big? They used maybe a third of it. Entire wings did nothing but collect dust.

  Abby finally found her mother in a large, airy room overlooking the backyard. Constance was arranging fresh-cut flowers on a huge, stately-looking table that her mother called a workbench. The bouquet should have been indecently bright, but the autumn sky had sucked the color right out of it.

  "Mom?" Abby felt like she was yelling. When Constance didn't look toward her, she realized she had barely made a sound. She tried again. "Mom?"

  Constance turned, holding some clippers in her hands. She looked like she had just stepped from the pages of a magazine, even in her gardening gloves. "Yes, dear?"

  "Um. I need to tell you something."

  Constance frowned for an instant before adopting her normal, serene expression. "What is it?"

  Abby went to sit down in a padded wicker chair. It was the only, even faintly, whimsical thing in the entire house. Constance took off her gloves, set them aside with the clippers. Her frown returned as the silence stretched between them.

  "Oh, Abby," she said. "You're beginning to worry me."

  "I'm pregnant." Abby stared at the floor between her feet.

  "What?"

  Abby shut her eyes. She didn't want to say it again, but she did anyway. She waited for the inevitable yelling. They would probably be able to hear it at the Academy. Wouldn't that be fun gossip to hear in the halls on Monday?

  "Does anyone else know?" Constance asked. Her voice had dropped nearly an octave.

  Abby shook her head. It was a necessary lie. Nate knew and Sindy knew, and so did whoever they had told. Nate would take the secret to his grave, but Sindy... Sindy might tell her new boyfriend.

  "What about the father?"

  Abby shrugged.

  "Abigail, I need more than a shrug. I don't know what that means."

  "It means the father doesn't know."

  Constance nodded. "And who is the father?"

  "I don't know."

  "Abigail Thorndike!"

  "It's not like that. I... was at the carnival. And people were drinking."

  "Were you drunk? Is that how this happened?"

  "No. I didn't touch a drop. I swear, Mom. I just- was feeling sick all night and I had this pounding headache... and I don't remember anything that happened."

  "Were you drugged? By one of those... carnies?"

  Abby shook her head again. "No. I don't think so."

  "I don't need thinking, Abigail. I need facts."

  "I only shared food with Nate and Sindy. They were both fine."

  "That doesn't mean you couldn't have been attacked. Someone could have drugged you, and..." Constance paused. Nearly stuttering, she went on, "...taken advantage of your condition."

  Abby considered this. Was that possible? She backtracked through that evening, remembering everything she had eaten or drank. Sindy said she'd been waiting for everyone outside the funhouse. Surely someone would have noticed if she had seemed out of sorts. Then she'd gone with the group down to the Lodge and then had gone off into the woods with someone that Sindy said was either Bryce or Nate. If anything had happened, it had probably been there... and not in the funhouse.

  Thinking of the funhouse sent a stab of pain through Abby's head and stomach. She winced and held her side. Her mother didn't seem to notice. Constance paced around the room.

  "This is important. I need you to answer me."

  "No, Mom. I don't think there was a chance for anyone to drug me."

  "All right, fine. Are you certain you are pregnant?"

  "I guess so. I took a test-"

  Constance's head whipped around. "Purchased from where?"

  "I got it in Middleton. The test was positive. But no one else knows but you and me."

  "All right, good." Constance's voice returned to its usual lightness, a perfect match to her gliding tread.

  Abby looked up at her mother in confusion, blinking tears away. This was where the yelling should have started, but Constance just stood there in the middle of the room, thinking. She had the same look as someone considering what to make for dinner.

  "You are taking your iron supplement, aren't you?" Constance asked.

  "Uh... Yeah. Of course," Abby said. She had taken it just that morning, in front of both her mother and grandmother.

  "Pregnancies can drain the iron right from your blood," Constance said. Then, abruptly, "If you had to guess who the father might be, who would you say?"

  "I don't know. I guess either Nate or Bryce Coffin."

  Constance smiled. "Let's hope it's young master Coffin, then."

  "I'm so sorry, Mom."

  Constance waved it away. "Your grandmother won't be thrilled, but nothing has been done that can't be undone."

  "Undone?"

  "I'll make an appointment with Dr. Collins." Dr. Evelyn Collins was one of Constance's close friends, present at every Daughters of Arkham function.

  "An appointment?"

  "To get this taken care of, dear. It will be very quick, very discreet, and no one need ever know."

  32

  A Single Drop of Blood

  sindy had to talk to Abby. She hadn't spoken to her in almost two weeks, and it was time to end the freeze-out. She understood now that Abby had lied because she was scared. It hurt that she'd reached out to Nate first, but it wasn't the end of the world... and Abby really needed support. She kept texting and IMing Sindy with different versions of the same apology, or she'd write freaked-out accounts of what was happening to her body. Every message from Abby that she ignored made her feel more and more guilty. The problem with this kind of fight, though, was that it was so much easier to start one than it was to finish one.

  She set out for Abby's house on Saturday afternoon. The walk from the Endicott place over to Harwich Hall wasn't long, but she disliked being out in the chill late-autumn weather. Probably it was a kind of penance. She'd made Abby suffer for very little, so it was her turn to do the same.

  On the walk, her thoughts continually wandered to Eleazar Grant. She hadn't really been looking for a boyfriend, but there he was. They'd only been dating for a couple of weeks or so-the same period of time she had been giving Abby the silent treatment-but it was going well. Sh
e was learning all sorts of things about him. She knew now that he hated his nickname as much as she did, and in exchange for the secret, she'd granted him the privilege to call her Sincere, though she hated her full name as much as he hated his nickname. He acted like some brooding rebel to the rest of the world, but when he was with her, he lived to do nice things for her. Whenever she wanted something, he was more than happy to oblige.

  The Grants weren't old money like the Endicotts or the Thorndikes, but they were well-off. Eleazar lived with his father in a decent-sized house that butted up against the north side foothills. Both of them had those odd Biblical names that were so popular in the nicer parts of Arkham. Sindy hadn't told her mother that she was dating Eleazar, and she suspected she was in for a lecture about how he wasn't appropriate-that meant rich enough-for an Endicott woman. She'd deal with that if and when her mother found out. Maybe she could throw Eleazar in her mother's face as an "option" for their money trouble.

  Eleazar didn't matter right now, pretty as he was. It was more important to make up with Abby. Best friends shouldn't be apart. It was against the natural order of things.

  Sindy turned the corner, coming up alongside the stone wall that blocked the Thorndike property from the road. It had stood there unchanged since Colonial times, the only security that protected the estate. The Endicotts, who owned considerably less, had state-of-the-art cameras and a wall specifically designed to be unclimbable.

  But what did the Thorndikes have to fear in Arkham?

  Sindy snorted. Nothing more than the Endicotts, and yet her own mother was a security freak. Her dad had probably made her mom paranoid. He wasn't there to look after them all the time, so he made sure they had the best cameras and motion detectors available. Sindy wanted to talk to him about the money problem, but it had to wait until he was home from Europe.

  Nate's bike was leaning against the wall near the side gate. She'd know it anywhere, with the industrial basket on the back, reinforced handlebars, and Star Wars stickers on the body. She sighed. She didn't want Nate around for the reunion. She could tell Abby she needed to speak to her alone, and Abby would get him to leave. He'd do whatever Abby wanted anyway.

  Sindy went to the front door and knocked, her stomach buzzing.

  Bertram answered the door. His normally impassive expression brightened to a pleasant, if reserved, smile. "Miss Endicott. So lovely to see you."

  Sindy had always liked Bertram. It might have been because her own family's man was similar, or it might have been because of his impeccable manners. It helped that she'd always thought he was fond of her.

  "Is Abby home?"

  "I am not entirely certain. If you would like to retire to the lounge, I would be pleased to find out. May I take your coat?"

  She smiled at Bertram and allowed him to lift the heavy coat from her shoulders. She unwound her scarf and handed that over as well.

  The lounge was a wide-open room full of overstuffed chairs, a sofa, and several end tables, each with a crystal ashtray. There were a few bookcases along the walls, each laden with a standard array of antique books. Sindy was fairly certain that there was a store somewhere that sold the same collection to every wealthy woman who wanted to appear cultured. She had the same set in a similar-looking room at her house, and she could reliably identify each book from twenty feet. Moby Dick, Treasure Island, The Red Badge of Courage... She'd never read any of them until this year when they all popped up on her syllabus. Maybe that was how they'd been chosen for decoration in the first place.

  Sindy picked one of the softer chairs and waited.

  A few minutes later Bertram returned to the room with a mug on a tray. It was topped with fluffy whipped cream. "I took the liberty of preparing some cocoa, Miss Endicott. You look chilled."

  "Thank you," she said, accepting the mug.

  "It's very hot, so give it some time."

  He wasn't exaggerating. She put it down on a coaster while the cream melted into the chocolate.

  "Miss Thorndike is not at home, but her grandmother, Mrs. Thorndike, would like to speak to you. If you would wait here, she will be along presently."

  "Um. Uh. Okay?"

  Bertram vanished through the door. If Abby wasn't here, then what was Nate doing here?

  Hester Thorndike entered the room and Sindy forgot about Nate. She had to consciously resist the urge to stand and curtsey. She half-rose anyway, but Hester held out a skinny hand. She might as well have put it directly on Sindy's shoulder.

  "Please, dear. No need for that."

  Hester Thorndike scared most people, but not Sindy. Hester had always been kind to her.

  "Hello, Mrs. Thorndike."

  "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

  "I was coming over to see Abby, but Bertram says she's out?"

  "Is she? I'm afraid she doesn't tell me when she comes and goes. I imagine that you tell your mother, don't you?"

  "Of course." No, she didn't, but she wasn't going to say that to Hester.

  "Of course you do. Of course. You look troubled, dear. Not like you do when you usually come over."

  "Oh. Yeah, I guess."

  "It's weighing on you."

  "I was coming over to say I was sorry."

  "That's very big of you. It shows grace and character. It's too rare a quality, especially these days." Hester said 'these days' with the resentment of age.

  "Thank you."

  "Whatever did you do to warrant an apology? I find these things are most often two-sided affairs, but one has to take the leap and apologize for the mending to occur."

  "It's silly. I mean, especially with the baby and all."

  "Baby?" Hester said. Her tone was so airy, Sindy missed the keen interest hidden beneath it.

  "Abby's baby."

  "Oh yes. Of course," Hester said, and Sindy knew this was the first she'd heard of it. She wondered if she'd just gotten her friend into deeper trouble. She hid her dismay as best she could.

  "Um. Yeah. Sorry. I didn't mean to bring it up."

  "Nonsense, Sincere. You have always been a sister to Abigail. And soon, you will be sisters in a more concrete sense when the two of you are ushered into the Daughters of Arkham."

  "I hadn't even thought of that."

  "Nor should you. You have a few more months of being a girl. You should enjoy them while you can. When the time is right... When do you turn fifteen, dear?"

  "April 7th."

  "April 7th," Hester said, as if she were pleased it was that date and no other. "Just around the corner. Not even a month after our own Abigail."

  Sindy nodded, and covered the fact that she had no idea of what to say with a sip of cocoa.

  Fortunately, Hester didn't seem to need prompting. She went on, "I've been looking forward to your induction for some time, Sincere. You always struck me as a young lady with a rare combination of intelligence and charm. That would be such a boon for us. Who knows? Someday you may find yourself at the head of our little group."

  "The head? I always thought, you know, Abby..."

  "With very few exceptions, Thorndike women have always been leaders, it's true. You might be one of those exceptions. I don't believe there is anywhere a young woman like you could not go."

  Sindy glowed. She didn't want to let on how much Hester was affecting her with this praise, but the truth was Sindy had never heard anything of the sort. Her parents said nice things to her, of course, but nothing like this. They didn't believe she could be president, but Hester Thorndike did. More importantly, she thought that Sindy could head of the Daughters of Arkham, an organization much more exclusive than the presidency. "Thank you," she muttered into her hot chocolate.

  "Tell me, dear. Do you have a boyfriend?"

  The heat in her cheeks returned. "I guess so."

  "Which is it? Either you know or you don't."

  "I do."

  "And what is this lucky boy's name?"

  "Eleazar Grant."

  Sindy expected to see the light die in H
ester's eyes when she heard that the great hope for the Daughters of Arkham was dating a Grant, and not a Coffin, Hanshaw, Knowles, or Barker. On the contrary, Hester offered the most genuine smile Sindy had seen from her yet. There was a knowing gleam in her eyes. "Eleazar Grant. A good boy from everything I have heard. Very polite."

  "Yes."

  "Although I don't imagine his politeness was what seduced you. Oh, I was young once, too. Well, he is a lovely match. Just lovely."

  "Thank you, Mrs. Thorndike."

  "You are still taking your iron supplement?"

  "Of course. My mother makes sure, every morning."

  "Good, good. If our ancestors knew what this water does, perhaps they wouldn't have settled here."

  "Then there wouldn't be any Daughters of Arkham."

  "You know, when I was little girl, we had a folktale..." She chuckled as though she was about to dismiss the memory, but Sindy saw something else in the old woman. "If you wanted a boy to be yours forever, you had to feed him a single drop of your blood in a cake."

  "Blood?" Sindy was repulsed by the idea, but an electric trill went through her limbs. It was the same jittery, lovely feeling she got when she'd first kissed a boy.

  "Mm-hmm. Just a little drop of blood baked right into a cake. You would, of course, have to bake the cake yourself."

  The trill should have stopped, but it didn't. It sang through her body. She began feeling pleasantly warm, from the core of her out to her fingertips. The room had snapped into perfect clarity. When she sipped at her hot chocolate, her tongue easily separated the dark, buttery, round flavors of the chocolate from the claws of the cream. "Did you ever do it?"

  "I don't know a single girl who didn't try it once."

  "What happened?"

  "He married me and we had Constance," Hester said, smiling.

  Sindy's belly lurched again at the thought of marrying Eleazar. She had nothing against him; she liked him a lot-but she was young. They were still young. Still... Was the blood-in-the-cake thing really something that worked? Was this a secret that Hester Thorndike was imparting on her heir apparent? Was that what she was?