Mother of Crows: Daughters of Arkham - Book 2

by David Rodriguez

  She didn't stop until the frigid air made her feel like she was inhaling sheets of glass. Only then did she look around-she had no memory of fleeing the house, only seeing the image of the monster Eleazar had become before her eyes. Everything around her felt entirely new. Arkham, the place she had lived every one of her fourteen years, was an alien landscape under its crust of snow. It was a bright and dangerous place. She stood at a crossroads on one of the sloping streets that fed into the hills. To her right, Arkham Academy and Harwich Hall. To her left, home.

  She thought of Abby. They were still best friends, regardless of their fight. Yes, things were still rocky... and yes, they still hadn't made up because she'd talked to Hester instead of Abby, but... She needed help. She needed to talk to her.

  Sindy remembered the first day of school. Abby had been running down the halls, screaming in terror at something only she could see. What if it was more than that? What if she'd seen something terrible?

  The secret of the blood had come from Abby's grandmother. What if Abby had tried it? What if Bryce Coffin had been turned into one of those things, too? Or... Maybe he hadn't been transformed. Maybe that was just what he always looked like, and Abby could see his real body. That would explain why she still hadn't kissed him despite how obvious it was that she wanted to.

  She shivered in the cold, her breath rising in great plumes. She had to ask Abby what she'd seen. If anyone could understand it would be her.

  41

  Bound by Secrets

  sindy trudged toward Abby's house. As she passed by Arkham Academy, she cast a superstitious look at it. It looked like a predator nestled in the perfect hiding spot. The windows were a hundred blank eyes hunting the world for more prey. Sindy shuddered again. She was allowing herself to get spooked. Then she thought of her boyfriend and thought she might not be scared enough.

  That put a hurry in her step, driving her to the gates of Harwich Hall. She stopped and looked at the house. In the snow, the Thorndike home was perfect. The lawn was a field of unbroken white and the trees held great fat drops of sugary powder. Sindy took out her phone, thinking that she should have texted Abby earlier and saved herself the walk. But if Abby wasn't home, Sindy also knew that she might have lost her nerve.

  U home?

  Waiting for the text in response felt like days, but it was barely a minute.

  ya~~~ u here???

  Out front

  get in here!!!

  Sindy smiled. There was no clearer signal that everything would be fine than Abby's enthusiasm.

  Before Sindy was halfway to the door, Abby stood waiting on the threshold. She was a little chubbier than she had been and her face had taken on a childlike roundness. Her green eyes were somehow brighter, looking more and more like precious stones enhanced by the glasses perched on her nose. Her pale complexion turned instantly florid in the cold.

  "Hey, Sindy."

  "Abs."

  They paused, and Sindy went in for a hug. Abby's embrace was grateful, though Sindy needed the contact more. She held Abby against the fear of what she had just seen.

  "Are you okay?" Abby murmured into Sindy's hair.

  "No," she said, her voice breaking.

  "Come on. Come inside."

  Abby broke the hug, and Sindy felt abandoned. She clutched Abby's hand as they went upstairs toward Abby's room. She saw Bertram in the front hall and smiled at him briefly. At least he wasn't a monster.

  In Abby's room, Sindy sat on the bed. She hadn't taken her coat off and Harwich Hall was warm, but she kept on shivering.

  "What happened? Is everything okay? Are you still..." Abby's voice faltered on the last word, and Sindy assumed it had to be because of how she looked.

  Sindy focused on her friend, and knew then how she could proceed. She was too brittle to leap into her own story. She needed to be certain she wasn't crazy. "Abby... I need to know what happened to you on the first day of school, why you were screaming and running down the halls. Okay? I need you to be honest. I promise you, no matter what you say, I won't think you're crazy, just... just be honest, all right? I need you tell me the truth."

  Sindy gazed at her friend. Abby looked so like her mother, though there was an undeniable warmth to Abby that Constance could never duplicate. There were too many emotions flashing behind Abby's clear emerald eyes for Sindy to count, but she could tell when Abby had made her decision.

  She listened as Abby told her a terrible story of waking up to find creatures walking among normal people as though they belonged. Then she described them: monsters that looked like they'd risen out of the deepest parts of the ocean. They were so loathsome to the mammalian eye that the only possible reaction was blind panic.

  Abby paused, recognizing something in Sindy's expression. "You've seen them too." It was a statement.

  Sindy nodded, a jittery, abortive gesture. "Only one."

  "Who?" Though the way Abby said it, Sindy knew her friend already knew.

  "Eleazar." The name came out in a whisper.

  Abby nodded. "I'm so sorry."

  "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "Tell you what, exactly? Is there anything I could have said that you would have believed?"

  "No. I guess not."

  "I'm still sorry."

  "No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gotten weird about everything. Not when you needed me."

  "It's okay."

  Sindy hugged Abby, wishing she could be as forgiving as her best friend. Knowing she wasn't crazy was comforting, but something still wriggled in her mind.

  "There are others?"

  "Oh, yeah."

  "Who?"

  "Are you sure you want to know?"

  Sindy nodded. "Tell me."

  "Okay. Well, there's Eleazar and his dad. Mr. Harris. Mr. Weatherby. The janitor..."

  Sindy's eyes got wider and wider as Abby ran down the list. She used the term croatan once, a label that made them sound more like a race and less like monsters. 'Crow' fit better in her mouth. It was something that she had seen, even if it made no logical sense; the correlation to a tangible creature was enough to hold the insanity at bay. Finally, she asked, "Only men?"

  "Yeah. I've only ever seen men."

  "What do you think their women are like?"

  42

  It's Beginning to Look

  a Lot like Dysfunction

  Bryce thought that every poor person in Arkham under the age of twenty must have envied the Coffin family Christmas. They probably imagined a tree sitting on top of a colorful mountain of presents that promised untold riches in gifts. They probably pictured him and his mother by the fire in silk pajamas, sipping at eggnog-hers laced with just a nip of brandy-opening gift after gift and sharing broad, white-toothed smiles that only existed on television.

  There was indeed a tree in Coffin Manor, and it was fairly tall as far as indoor Christmas trees went, but Bryce and his mother spent little time enjoying it. The tree was in the front room, which was the closest thing to a living room they had, though his mother referred to it alternately as the lounge or parlor. The ceiling in there was vaulted, so it was easy to accommodate trees of twelve to fifteen feet.

  It was dripping with perfectly arranged decorations. Marianne Coffin paid strangers good money to have it decorated. None of the ornaments were personal. There were glass icicles, silver balls, a few bells, and candy canes. Once the tree was taken down, Bryce would never see any of those ornaments ever again. In the houses of his friends, the tree would have at least one ornament that hinted at familial love. Something made by the children. Something that said the house was a home.

  When people envied his Christmas, they probably pictured the kinds of presents that only the rich kids got: a real car to drive around, remote-control helicopters, or whatever video game console was on the market that year. They probably wouldn't imagine an envelope with his name scrawled across it, tucked into the boughs of the tree.

  Bryce knew that inside there was a message from his mother
wishing him a Merry Christmas and a check for one thousand dollars. Bryce didn't even have to open it to know, because it was the same thing every year. The worst part was that it was always in Harcourt's handwriting. Bryce had a tidy little collection, and he looked forward to adding a new one to it. Sometimes he liked to fan them out and wonder what real parents got for their children.

  It was about a week before Christmas, and Bryce started the day like any other. While Marianne Coffin slept off her hangover, he was in the game room, death-matching with a bunch of strangers. An entire wall of the room was a screen with his game projected on it. A bunch of futuristic warriors, nearly the same size as Bryce, butchered each other with a variety of bizarre weapons. Bryce didn't get even a small amount of pleasure from wiping out player after player. He didn't even react to the kid cursing at him in a foreign language.

  "Bryce!"

  Bryce took off the headset and turned around. His mother was dressed and made-up. It hardly looked like she had consumed her weight in vodka the night before. Just seeing her like that told Bryce what she was after, but he wasn't going to go easy on her.

  "What?"

  "We have company. Turn off your game and get ready."

  "I can't, Mom. All of these foreign strangers are counting on me. You wouldn't want to disappoint 'LOLUSUCKDONG,' would you?"

  Marianne walked over and turned the game off-it was the one thing she knew how to do on any electronic device-and left the room before he could swear at her. He got up, thinking he could just as easily cuss her out in another room, but by the time he found her in the lounge-slash-parlor, she had company: Patience and Ophelia Thomas. Bryce wanted to roll his eyes, but such a juvenile display would only undermine his position.

  "And here he is," Marianne was saying. "Bryce, say hello to Ophelia."

  "Hello, Ophelia. Hello, Mrs. Thomas."

  "Hello, Bryce," the woman said. She greeted him with an apprehensive smile, but she had nothing to worry about. Bryce rarely used the same tactic twice.

  "I was thinking you could show Ophelia around the manor," Marianne said.

  "What a lovely idea, Mother. You're such a good hostess. What would I ever do without you telling Harcourt to tell me how to be a better person?" Bryce said and turned before he could see the scowl darken his mother's face. He offered his arm to Ophelia.

  "Miss Thomas, would you care to take in the sights?"

  Ophelia gave a shy smile and tucked her arm through his as they started to walk. "Let's see," Bryce said as they entered the next room. "This is the drawing room, but I couldn't begin to tell you why. Neither of us draws anything except judgmental conclusions. "

  Ophelia released his arm and stepped away. "You don't actually have to give me a tour if you don't want," she said.

  "What else is there to do?"

  "I don't know. You could tell me about yourself."

  "You're getting married to me and you don't know anything about me? What kind of a crap fest are you hens running?"

  "Look, this wasn't my choice, either. I didn't arrange any of this."

  "Yeah, but you're sure not fighting it too hard."

  Ophelia looked around the room and shuffled her feet. "The Daughters thought this would be a good match."

  "Oh, I'm sure you do whatever they say, especially if it means you get to punch above your weight." She reddened. He smirked. "No offense."

  "Bryce," she began with a shaky voice, "I know that you're not happy about what's going on here. And I'm not asking you to be. But you will be civil." He opened his mouth to retort, but she cut him off. "No. Shut up. It's my turn to speak." Her shaking voice gained volume as she spoke, defying the tears that stained her cheeks.

  "I don't care what you have to say right now. I don't care how rich you are. I don't even care how goddamned pretty you are." She looked at him square in the face, refusing to wipe her eyes. "If you ever speak to me or my mother like that again, I swear to God, I am going to punch you right in the dick."

  Bryce burst out laughing. Ophelia was startled. Her face contracted in anger before she realized that he wasn't laughing at her. Not even a little. It was a clean, honest laugh; the kind that reached his eyes and made the gold ring around the grey sparkle. Ophelia couldn't help smiling through her tears.

  Bryce continued to chuckle to himself and shake his head as he went to get her a tissue. He walked over to Ophelia and, without asking, began to wipe the tears from her face. She looked up at him in surprise and with a touch of wonder. He'd never been this close to her before, nor had he imagined that he could be in the least bit tender, especially to someone like her.

  "You're right. I'm sorry, Ophelia. Please sit down."

  She looked like she might be swooning. She took the tissue from his hand. As she brushed her fingers against his, she jumped back a step, as if his skin were electrified. She walked over to the couch and Bryce joined her.

  "So what can we talk about that will keep your righteous fist away from my dick?" he asked. Ophelia laughed this time, and he grinned at her.

  "I don't know. Do you want to start with our parents?"

  "Ugh. Do you? They deserve each other. Sometimes I think my dad died just to get away from that woman."

  The statement seemed to smack Ophelia right between the eyes. Bryce was confused. He wasn't trying to upset her again. "I'm sorry. I was mostly talking about my mother. I'm sure yours is super nice and that your parents are really happy."

  Ophelia looked away and stammered, her eyes darting around. "No. You didn't... I mean... my father is dead, too."

  "Oh," Bryce said. "Well, there's something we have in common in guess. How did your dad die?"

  Ophelia still wouldn't look directly at him. "Um... Heart attack. He had a heart attack." Ophelia's mother probably put a stick of butter in every meal, Bryce thought, but he kept it to himself.

  "Mine died when his helicopter crashed," he said instead. "Can you believe that? Talk about first world problems, right?"

  "Yeah, that sure is something."

  Bryce was confused. He thought he had smoothed over their issues, but there was obviously something bothering Ophelia. It was too bad. Once he got past his rage at their parents, he found himself enjoying her company. She was sweet and way tougher than she looked. He almost chuckled again at the idea of this girl punching him in his junk.

  "You know who else died from being rich? Ben Knowles' father. He was racing in Monte Carlo and his..." Bryce stopped talking. It was like he was seeing Arkham for the first time in that single moment.

  It was so obvious.

  It had been right there in his face for years, but he'd never noticed. It was like when a building vanished or changed owners. It was impossible to remember what had been there before that. The mind became so used to it that it became invisible.

  But this connection between him, Ophelia, and Ben Knowles shined a light directly on the painfully obvious truth. He couldn't believe he hadn't seen it before.

  His father was dead, and so was Ophelia's. It was the same with Ben Knowles, and Charity Duckworth, and Hunter Hanshaw. Hunter's whole family was dead. Mr. Hanshaw had died in a boating accident. Abby's father wasn't around, and neither was Sindy Endicott's. In fact, Eleazar was the only one with a father who was alive, well, and in the picture.

  An entire town of fathers.

  Gone.

  Bryce blinked, barely able to comprehend the enormity of what he'd just stumbled upon.

  "Bryce? Bryce?"

  He turned to Ophelia, and saw the worry in her eyes.

  "Are you all right?"

  "Sure. Sure, I'm fine."

  He was lying to her. His eyes drifted to the iconic Daughters of Arkham pin on Ophelia's sweater, and he felt a chill. He found himself hoping that the sweet-faced girl wouldn't figure out that he was lying.

  43

  The Iron Supplement

  Abby felt grateful that she and Sindy had made peace, though she did wish it had been over something more pleasant tha
n the existence of the croatan. She'd had several months to live with that knowledge, but her first revelation had been terrifying. She would've liked to have spared Sindy that same anguish, but it was over now and out in the open. She was grateful for that much.

  Besides, Abby had more immediate concerns than the Crows. They weren't causing any problems; they never had. Duncan Koons was about to stand trial for a murder he didn't commit and Abby was certain that he would be convicted. He'd already been found guilty in the court of public opinion and not a single voice had spoken out in his defense. The only person who wanted to help him was Abby. But the police and the press were complicit, and Abby's mother had told her to drop the subject. She had only one person left to ask for help.

  Arkham Academy was a ghost town. Most of the out-of-towners had gone home for the holidays, and the campus was covered in the same blanket of snow that had fluffed over the rest of town. Abby shuffled along a pathway that the grounds crew kept shoveled for the few people who remained at the school over break.

  Mr. Harris had to be one of those people. It wasn't like he was going to spend Christmas in the briny deep, was he?

  She followed the path around the classrooms and dormitories until she came to faculty housing. It was a small group of tidy cottages tucked away from the dorms and sheltered in a grove of leafless trees. The winding path snaked through the houses and all the front doors faced in slightly different directions, like an off-kilter colonial village. Abby went from house to house, looking at all the mailboxes. Soon, she found one marked L. HARRIS.

  She knocked on his door, unsure exactly of what she was going to say.

  Mr. Harris answered the door. He was dressed in a sweater, slacks, and slippers, like a dad from a Norman Rockwell painting. The contrast between his outfit and his sucking, inhuman maw was almost comical.

  "Abigail," Mr. Harris said. "What a pleasant surprise. What can I do for you?"

  "Can I come in?"

  "I'm afraid not. We're not permitted to have students in our residences."

  "Oh." She wasn't terribly cold, but she didn't relish the idea of talking out in the open, even if the campus was quiet as a tomb.