"Albert had this uncle who had one of those kinds of things going. Just about every house down there has some weird shack out back with a relative or three."
"Oh. I didn't know that."
"Why would you?" Nate shrugged.
He hadn't meant anything by it, but the words stung. Abby felt sheltered, and worse, young. She was unprepared for this, and here she was, playing detective in a murder case that everyone in town wanted to just go away. Nate was right, though. She had never been to Brookside. Before she'd discovered that Koons had family there, she'd never planned to. It was ten minutes from her front door, but that didn't matter. She would have never gone.
"Can you give me a ride down there?"
"Yeah, of course," he said, patting the padded handlebars of his bike. She had ridden on them so many times before that she jumped up without thinking and instantly found that her belly threw off her equilibrium. She slipped. Her shin scraped across the rubber tire.
Nate lurched forward reflexively. "Ah, jeez! Are you okay?" He frowned as she checked her leg. "Yeah. Didn't think about this part."
"What?"
"Should I really be putting a pregnant girl on my bike?"
She glared at him. "I'm asking you to, and since I'm the pregnant girl in question, I think it's okay."
Nate held up his hands. "Okay, okay. I don't want to start a whole thing."
Abby shot him another glare. It took her three tries before she was settled on the handlebars, and she had to lean back so far to keep her balance that she was practically resting against Nate's chest. She probably could have whispered in his ear just by craning her neck.
Nate started up, wobbling a bit as he got used to the new weight. They cruised down the hill toward the center of town. Abby's knuckles went white as she gripped the handlebars. They dug into her butt, despite the padding Nate had wrapped around them for this very purpose. The wind whipped over her face and into her hair. She felt Nate brush it aside, but when she shouted an apology, she couldn't even hear his murmured response. Her heart thudded loudly in her chest, but it was a fun feeling. A roller coaster heartbeat. Despite the strange nature of the errand and their unknown destination, riding with Nate felt good and right.
As they passed the green, she half-expected to see the spectral gallows there again. Everything was bare, covered with the dwindling snow of the coming spring. She felt grateful. Now that she knew the identity of one of the men, it was harder to dismiss as a daydream. It was real and it had happened. The momentum of the bike carried them effortlessly toward the turnoff that would take them across Endicott Bridge to Brookside.
The bridge was named for Clara Endicott, one of Sindy's ancestors. At one time, it had been the only way out of Arkham. Back then, Brookside had been little more than a hobo camp, but as the town grew larger, people had built actual houses over there and it was simply absorbed into Arkham as an official neighborhood.
The irony was that Brookside was like Arkham Hills-Abby's neighborhood-in one way: it was not laid out at all. Really, only Maple Park had been put into place with any thought for the future. The first settlers had taken their plots of land and built their houses in the hills wherever they liked. The hobos and migrants of Brookside had taken a similar approach to suburban planning. Streets wound around at random and dead ended into small bluffs. Abby had started out with a clear map in her mind to where the Koons family lived, but quickly realized that her internal GPS wasn't showing every side road and dirt track that made this place up.
The streets were quiet as she and Nate pedaled around in search of the Koons house. They might as well have been the last people on earth. The only sound was the squeak of the bike's gears and the whistle of the sullen wind through the bare trees. All of the houses they passed were one-story. Many of them looked to be one room, as well. Through the trees and the ugly yellow bushes in the yards, Abby could make out shacks at the back of many properties, just like Nate had said. She shivered, thinking of living in one of those places.
The Koons address was a shotgun house built along the street. Trees squeezed in on either side of it, as though nature itself wanted to get the people out of there.
"Here," she said.
Nate pulled over, and Abby attempted to jump down. She forgot about her belly again, and promptly pitched over on her hands and knees. She cursed.
"Crap," Nate said, hopping off his bike to help her up. She hissed with pain, wanting to rub her palms on her shirt though she knew that was exactly the wrong thing to do. Her tights were torn at the knees.
"You okay?" Nate asked her.
"Yeah, I'm fine. That was stupid of me."
"Me too. I'm sorry, I forgot."
"For a minute there, I did too."
They stood on the sidewalk looking up at the house. Abby had expected Sally Koons to come out to meet the two teenagers on her porch. Instead, the place looked deserted.
"Maybe no one's home."
Abby went to knock on the side of the screen door. It sent back a hollow echo. She waited. There was no answer. She knocked again. After a shorter wait, she knocked again, harder this time.
The front door of the next house over opened and a woman poked her head out. She was a withered nut of a woman, beaten down by a hard life. When she looked at Abby and Nate, it was with open suspicion. "Sally ain't here," she said.
"Do you know when she'll be back?" Abby asked.
At the same time, another house opened up. This time, a croatan stepped out onto his porch. He watched her from across the street. As she turned to glance at him, Abby instinctively felt this one knew that she knew he wasn't human.
She turned back to the woman, who said, "Don't think she'll ever come back."
More doorways began to open up. The street was coming to life. Like an immune system, it had waited for invaders and was now marshalling its defenses. There were humans and there were Crows. The humans remained partly inside, nervously using their doors as protection. The croatan strode out to their stoops and glared at the interlopers with undisguised hostility. Abby saw Nate tense, though he could not know the true nature of the threat.
"What do you mean?" Abby asked.
"She moved out."
"Are you sure?"
"Yep. I'm sure."
Abby looked at the door.
"Abby, it's time to go."
She ignored him. She felt a twist in her belly, those familiar pains that came with revelation, and she encouraged them. It was like trying to flex a muscle she didn't know she had. There was nothing to grip onto, but the more she looked at the door, the more the pain increased, like the burner of a stove slowly cranked higher and higher.
A faint scent of perfume came to life and floated towards Abby.
She startled with recollection. She knew that scent. It was the smell of discipline and judgment that wafted through the corridors of Harwich Hall.
Hester Thorndike had been there.
The smell continued to build. It was becoming overpowering, as if she were being strangled in her grandmother's embrace.
"What happened?" Abby asked. She could not tear her eyes away from the door, even as the exquisite agony tore into her middle.
"Sally came into some money. Moved away. Can't hardly blame her."
Abby turned then, and saw more doors opening. The Crows outside had advanced almost to the sidewalk. It felt like she and Nate were in the process of being hemmed in.
"Now, Abby." Nate said. She looked at her friend and saw something foreign in his face. It was... hard. He almost looked angry. His eyes were narrow and they darted left and right, trying to see everything at once. He stood as tall as he could, his shoulders squared. There was a slight tilt to his head.
"Yeah. Okay. Let's go."
Nate put his hand on her elbow and escorted her down the stairs. She felt him holding her to his casual pace as they walked to his bicycle.
He got on and flipped the bike around in a smooth motion. The people and creatures all aroun
d them made no attempt to stop her as she mounted the handlebars. She did it right the first time, and soon they were pedaling away, back into the safety and familiarity of the Arkham she knew. Nate didn't speak again until they arrived at Abby's place.
"What in the hell was that?"
"Not all the people who were watching us were human," Abby told him.
"What?"
"You should come in. I've got some stuff to tell you."
56
Arkham PO Box 23
They spent every free moment parked in front of the Arkham Post Office. Bryce didn't really know what he was doing there. He wasn't dating Sindy-he wasn't dating anyone-and this wasn't the kind of time that someone put in just because.
Not that he wouldn't want to date Sindy. She was gorgeous by any rational standard. Glossy, black hair; ice blue eyes; a pale, flawless complexion; and other details he preferred not to dwell on in the cramped space of his car.
Bryce couldn't help but compare her to Abby. They were both beautiful. Thinking of Abby still upset him in ways he didn't like to acknowledge. Hurt feelings were for girls and little boys. He wanted to stay angry at her. He wanted a reason to hate her so he wouldn't have to think of how much he missed being close to her. He hadn't spoken to her since, because he was afraid that he'd crumple and give in at the first word or smile.
All of this was made worse by the crawling dread he felt over the prospect of being the father of Abby's child.
And here he was, sitting in a car with Abby's best friend, across the street from the Arkham Post Office. They had a clean view right into the small bank of PO boxes. Sindy had binoculars in her lap that made it easy to Number 23 whenever someone went inside.
They had expected it to be quick, but after a week of staking it out whenever they could, it dawned on Bryce that they were playing a waiting game with luck. He'd thought Sindy would lose interest after a day or two. She'd never seemed to Bryce like a girl with a long attention span. But it was obvious to him that Sindy was determined to see this through, though, almost to the exclusion of all else. Most days, she barely said more than a few words to Bryce.
Bryce looked down as his phone started buzzing. He'd turned it to silent on the second day, after Sindy glared at him when it beeped. He wasn't sure why. Maybe it broke her intense focus on the front door. He pulled the phone out of his pocket and saw that it was Abby. He stared at her picture on his phone for a few seconds before he stepped out of the car to answer the call.
"Hello?" he said in what he thought was a neutral tone. He could be a grownup. No reason to be uncivil.
"Bryce? Is that you?" Her voice went straight through the phone and into his chest. He felt his pulse start climbing. You cannot be serious, Coffin. Pull it together!
"Yeah, it's me Abs. What's up?" There we go. Totally cool. You're not hurt. You're not upset.
"Oh, well..." There was a wounded sound to her voice that sent fresh thrums through his body. She cleared her throat. "How are you?"
"I'm fine." He paused. He could give a little. She was trying. "How are you?"
"Better," she said with a small chuckle. "Much better than I've been in a while."
Bryce felt himself smiling like an idiot at the idea of her being happy, especially after the way they'd left things. "I'm glad, Abby."
"You are?"
"Yeah, I am. I'm glad you called." The words started falling out of his mouth before he could stop them. "And I just wanted to say... I'm really sorry. I was mad. I might still be, I don't know. It doesn't matter. None of it matters." His throat was tight. "But you do."
The phone was silent. He could hear her breathing.
"You know you're not saying anything, right?"
Abby laughed, and he could hear that it was tinged with tears. "This is not the way I thought this call was going to go."
"That makes two of us."
"Are we okay, then? Does that mean you forgive me for lying?"
He smiled again, though he knew she couldn't see him. "How about we call it a push and go from there?"
"That sounds fair."
"Awesome. So, if this wasn't what you expected, what did you actually call for?"
"Oh, right! I was wondering if we could meet. There's some weird stuff going on, and I think it's got to do with that night at the carnival. Remember? I thought maybe if we reviewed everything we..."
A car pulled up to the front of the post office. It was a new Mercedes. Even from across the street, Bryce could tell it had all the bells and whistles. Other than his car, it might have been the most expensive one in the entire town. This might be the one. Crap.
"Abby, can we finish this up later?"
"Uh, sure, I guess."
"There's just something I need to take care of right now."
Sindy lowered the driver's side window. She was frantic. "This is it! Get in the damn car before they see you."
"Is that Sindy?"
Bryce ducked down and let himself back in the car. "Yeah, we're just doing this thing, but then I'll call you back, okay?"
"Sure, Bryce. Take all the time you need." She hung up, and Bryce was in such a hurry that he missed the frost in her tone. Sindy had her binoculars up, watching the Mercedes. He should have been more surprised to see Constance Thorndike step out of it.
Constance, of course, was not driving. Their old manservant was sitting behind the wheel. Bryce frowned.
Sindy said, "You're never going to believe this, but-"
"Constance Thorndike owns PO Box 23."
"Yep."
"Have fun telling Abby."
57
Always an Option
Abby didn't answer when Bryce called her back. She didn't know what to say. Bryce had moved on. Not only that, but he'd moved on with her best friend. Well, "best friend," complete with sarcastic air quotes, would be a more accurate descriptor. No true friend would betray her like that.
She couldn't find refuge at home, and school had become a nightmare. The rumors had teeth now. Abby was no longer able to hide her weight at all. Before, she could brush the jokes off, but now everyone admitted that they had a ring of truth to them. To make matters worse, her closest friends couldn't even deny it. They might try, but the lie was easy to see on their faces.
It was common knowledge at the school: freshman Abigail Thorndike was pregnant.
The whispers and jokes were stupid and juvenile, and rationally, she knew they shouldn't hurt, but they did. They stabbed right into that great black void that was the night of the carnival. The night that her baby-and she had begun to think of it that way-had been conceived. She still had no idea who the father was. Of her two prime suspects, one was dating her second-best friend, and the other was her best friend.
She kept her head down and did her best to let the barbs slide off, but they caught her. Almost every time, they caught her.
Lunch time was the worst. It was like she was on display for the entire school. The hushed whispers blended together to become a spiteful buzz that dug into her back while she waited for her tray of food. She reached the end of the line with only a few sympathetic glances from the cafeteria workers and took a deep breath before she turned to face the room, holding her head high.
Sindy and Bryce were conspicuously absent. Probably eating off-campus, she thought as she sat at her usual spot, trying to draw as little attention to herself as possible.
She was barely maintaining her status as the pariah of Bryce's group. She knew all of them, and a couple still said hi to her in the hallways, but the tension was growing. Abby couldn't tell if she was causing the rift to widen, or if they were. She supposed it didn't really matter.
Eleazar brooded across from Abby, poking at his food. Charity whispered into Ben Knowles' ear and showed him her phone. He looked at it and his loud guffaw echoed across the table, drawing Abby's attention. She watched as Ben nudged Hunter. Charity leaned over to show him, too. Hunter cackled and Abby felt a flush rise to her face. They were talking about he
r. Of course they were talking about her.
She forced herself to swallow her bite of food, choking it past the shame caught in her throat. She tried to look around the cafeteria without raising her eyes and noticed that there were more and more people looking at their phones, then at her, and then laughing. She clenched her entire body, forcing herself to stay seated as she wedged another bite of food between her teeth. She was a Thorndike. She would not run. She would not cry. She would not give them that satisfaction.
Her phone buzzed.
She knew what it would be before she picked it up. Whoever sent the image out to the school directory hadn't bothered to cull Abby's name from the list. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. She swiped the screen and tapped the message icon. An image immediately filled the screen, Abby breath caught in her throat.
It was a picture of her riding on Nate's handlebars.
Someone had snapped it as they were riding towards Endicott Bridge. Abby was leaning back into Nate's chest, her rounded belly clearly visible. Nate's face was practically buried in her hair. Her legs were splayed open farther than usual in order to keep her precarious balance on the padded handlebars, but the angle of the shot and the beatific smile on Abby's face made the whole picture seem obscene. The image had been manipulated to look like one of those motivational posters, and the headline read "WHOREWICH HALL." Underneath that was another sentence: "The First Ride is Free."
Abby felt tears sliding down her cheeks as she tucked the phone away. The laughs were louder now. Charity covered her mouth, but she had to lean into Ben as her body shook with laughter. Hunter leaned back and mimicked Abby's facial expression from the picture, drawing more laughs. Abby stood with as much grace as she could muster, refusing to wipe her eyes, and began the long and interminable walk out of the cafeteria.
Mother of Crows: Daughters of Arkham - Book 2 Page 25
