“Why are bad things allowed to exist?” Liv wondered aloud.
“Because nature is a siren. We are all built differently. You ask why horrible things exist, but terror wonders why people like you exist. Gatekeepers and caretakers are necessary.”
Liv reached for a yellow voix stone and spun it in her fingers.
“We are appraisers, and that is what we are meant to do. Sometimes people have to be brave enough to accept a life that isn’t ordinary. Your friends understood that. It’s all a part of fate.”
A gnarled voice interrupted them. “Fate schmate.”
Liv hated that stupid clown slouched in the doorway. He sat sideways with his longs legs propped on the doorframe.
“Get your feet off my walls,” Thea commanded.
“Technically, I’m not really touching it.”
“Of course you are. Don’t you ever wonder how things get so dirty? It isn’t only the bodied who make the messes.”
“A doorway isn’t furniture,” the boy argued, but he lowered his feet nonetheless.
Thea looked at him in dismay. “And what’s your issue with fate? You don’t think Sephi knew what she was doing?”
“Oh, she knew.”
“But you scoff at it?”
“The things that Sephi predicted she helped to create. How is that foreseeing the future?” The Jester began tossing Thea’s shoes down the hallway. “She predicted that the way this town operated would drive the residents insane. There’s a mental institution here now.”
Liv stood up the retrieve the shoes. “Sounds like she was right.”
“The institution was created because the Havilahs went insane after Sephi cursed their daughters to look like her! When they weren’t hurling themselves off cliffs, they were drowning their own babies.”
Liv stopped in her tracks, looking around the corner of the hall and then under the couch. She felt the haunt of hidden eyes. She owned a cat when she was little, and sometimes it would hide in the strangest of places like under pillows or in between shoeboxes in the closet. Liv would know the cat was there watching, but she couldn’t find her. She had the same feeling now.
Thea took out a tube of lipstick and reapplied. Then she opened her compact mirror and puffed up her short curls.
“What are you doing, Grandma?”
“Tell your friends to sit down.”
“What?” Liv glanced at the door where the Jester still slouched.
He snapped his fingers at her. “Why are you looking outside? You don’t have friends who need to use doors.” His shoulders slumped. “Aw, man. They didn’t bring their pretty friend this time. Where’s the Gossamer girl from last year?”
Liv never understood what it meant to feel a heart skip a beat until now. She spun around and looked in the foyer to find Alex and Chase standing hand in hand. Liv clutched her chest as her heart felt a happy devastation. They were dead but together.
Alex’s innocent eyes grew wider than usual. “Thank goodness you’re still here. Can you see me?”
Through her tears, no, she couldn’t. “I can hear you.”
“Hey, Liv,” she heard Chase say.
“Oh, my God, Chase, I’m so sorry.” Her voice cracked. “I’m so, so sorry. I couldn’t save her.”
It should have been her. She would have traded places with Alex in a heartbeat. Then she’d be free of this body and this cage her grandmother calls “a calling.”
Something covered Liv’s hand. It was like dipping her fingers into a current of energy. Tears spilled out of her. Chase was squeezing her fingers.
“I didn’t expect you to,” he assured her. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m sorry I put you through all this.”
Liv swallowed a sob. “I’ve missed you guys.” She felt energy surround her when Alex touched her shoulder.
“We miss you. You were so important to me. You still are.”
To hear beautiful, tragic Alex Ash say this to her felt overwhelming. Alex didn’t need more than Chase. She chose to like Liv. Here was proof that Liv was likable.
She couldn’t stop staring at them even when they sat down in the living room. The Jester crept closer to listen even though he pretended not to care. Chase sat next to Alex, leaving no space between them, just like he had in life. It made Liv happy.
“Thea,” Alex began, “the hunters can’t take you, right?”
Her grandmother was happy, too. Liv could tell. She also seemed proud. Her shoulders were back, and she beamed at their company. “No. We’re protected by history and this town.”
“Because we saw something. About Liv.”
“They can’t take her either.”
Alex’s face creased with worry. “Did Rae show you the way to Eidolon?”
Liv couldn’t believe her ears. They knew Rae?
“She’s the one that told us—well drew us a sketch—of Liv being taken.”
Liv’s heart raced. “I never left town, not really. Rae took my hand when I was meditating, and I was thinking of you, Alex. It was only a flash and then I was back in my room. Grandma, you said everything would be fine.”
“It will be,” said Thea.
“I wanted to find you,” Liv said.
“I wish we could take her to Eidolon with us,” Alex said to Chase.
Liv’s heart lifted. She could have her friends back. She could live somewhere she belonged.
Thea took off her glasses and wiped them with her shirt. “The Cinatris divided the world into three: living, dead, and gifted. Eidolon, Parrish, and Paradise were constructed together. Separate but equal. They’d never allow intermixing.”
“So stupid,” said Alex.
“Sephi thought so too.”
“Are you sure they can’t take Liv?”
“Where would they take her? She’s already a prisoner here.”
Liv knocked on the window separating them from the woods. “But they could put me down there!”
Alex yanked her head in the direction of the window. “Down where?”
Thea sighed. “Underneath us. They needed a place to send the lawbreakers. Balin Cinatri was the first resident of Parrish’s underground paradise.”
Liv saw Alex’s hand fly to her mouth.
“She kept trying to get into Eidolon. The first rule established by the three cities was that no one was to cross into another’s territory. I let them be traded. I let them be tortured. Bought. Sold. To keep us safe. They can’t take Liv.”
The Jester jumped to his feet. “No time for talk. They’re coming!”
“Who is coming? What’s going on?” Liv put a hand on her grandmother’s shoulder.
“The hunters,” the Jester said. “They’re right outside the door.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Alex tapped her foot against the floor of the hallway, disturbing the dust. “Liv needs to run.”
The Jester sat opposite them with his back against the wall of the gray hallway. His long legs stretched toward them, forever molded with that thin knobbiness of a boy who still had some growing to do. “You can’t run from these people. They aren’t normal. Those are witch hunters.”
Alex shifted in the tight space. “She should hide.”
The Jester shook his head of white-blond hair. “Weren’t you listening? They aren’t allowed to take her. That’s a written law. They’re probably here because there was a sale.”
Chase put a hand on Alex’s arm. “Can they hear us? See us?” He asked the Jester.
“If they really wanted to, but they aren’t looking for you, so chances are they won’t notice.”
With that small bit of reassurance, Alex poked her head around the edge of the hallway wall. She could see Liv still poised on the window seat, but Thea was at the door. Her wrinkled knuckles turned white as she clutched the doorknob.
Moments later, Thea entered the living room with a middle-aged couple. She introduced her granddaughter and Liv’s shoulder
s relaxed as she offered to go make some tea for their customers.
“Customers,” the Jester sneered. “My ass.”
The man on the couch hunched his shoulders and shoved his hands in his pockets. His physique was impressive for a man of his age, but despite his size it wasn’t his presence that filled the room. It was the woman at his side who twisted a handkerchief in her trembling hands as she sat on the couch. It was she who wanted to be here, not him.
“We appreciate you seeing us in light of our history. I just, we just didn’t know what else to do.” The woman continued to twist the handkerchief, wringing out the scent of grief.
The woman couldn’t be a hunter. Her voice was as sweet as southern tea.
Alex felt Chase tug at her arm. She pressed her back against the wall again, but she didn’t like the disadvantage. She watched the Jester, whose expression hardened.
Chase jutted his thumb behind them. “You know them?”
Jester nodded.
“Is everything okay?”
He shrugged one shoulder.
Alex couldn’t help herself. She twisted her torso to get another look.
“It’s my boy.” The woman’s voice cracked. “I was wondering if we might be able to speak to him through you.”
Thea was solemn. “Hunters do not linger in between worlds. I know that much about your beliefs.”
“He’s not gone,” the woman assured her.
“How do you know?”
The woman rested a hand on the man’s knee, which was jerking up and down. “He tried to come to us, but he was turned away. We didn’t know.”
“How long ago did he die?”
“Almost two years have passed.”
Alex elbowed Chase. The Jester jumped to his feet and hurried away, bells jingling.
“Where is he off to?”
Alex was already looking around the wall again. All four people in the sitting room had turned in the direction of the Jester’s departure, as though they could hear him.
“He’s still around,” the man remarked. “With his blasted bells.”
“Of course,” Thea said. “He never leaves.” She leaned forward. “There are ways to summon your son, but I’ll warn you that a spirit so newly buried might have difficulty arriving.”
“Why?” the man barked, causing his tear-streaked wife to jump in her seat.
“There are rules.”
The way the man curled his nose gave Alex the creeps.
“Please,” the woman begged.
“Mrs. Seyferr, I’ll do what I can.”
The Jester flew back into the hallway, his hair whiter than ever. “The others are coming, Thea. I don’t know why. They’ll arrive momentarily.”
Liv stood and crossed the room, blubbering about the tea.
Thea shifted in her seat and clutched at her hip. She reached for a cane Alex had never seen her use. “Why are you really here?”
Mrs. Seyferr sobbed into her handkerchief. Mr. Seyferr reached into his pocket and handed a document to Thea. “We got orders to deliver a boy from underneath.”
Thea tut-tutted. “He arrived not too long ago.”
Alex looked at Chase. What were they talking about?
“There’s an offer. If accepted, we got the delivery schedule with us. But we are also s’pposed to investigate a bounty issued for this area. Have any of your kind traveled within restricted boundaries?”
Alex’s being grew icy cold. She scrambled to her feet and ran to the kitchen to Liv.
“You know I’m not allowed to leave.”
The man waved his hate-stained hand. “I don’t think we are here for you, Thea. But rules, they’ve been broken. You aren’t hiding any refugees in the house again, are you?”
“You’d sense it if I was.”
He wiggled his fingers before using them to shove his own chin sideways, cracking his neck with a teeth-grinding pop. “You know my senses holler at me within ten miles of this place.”
“If you wish to speak to those you sense, knocking on their doors might be difficult.” She held out an open palm to the window overlooking the woods. “If you want to risk your neck down in Parrish’s underground, be my guest.”
“I reckon no witch buried in your tomb city could have thought her way into a spirited city.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“Don’t play me for a fool.”
Thea seemed to find this amusing. “I play you for a lot of things though a fool isn’t one of them.”
They regarded one another with revulsion for several unbearable moments. Liv started to leave the kitchen doorway, but Alex stepped in front of her.
Mrs. Seyferr gasped and jumped to her feet, crouched in a squat on the couch. She clung to her husband’s arm and shrieked at the empty floor.
Mr. Seyferr swiped his hand in front of them. “Whatever you see, it ain’t real. She’s trying to get rid of us.” He regarded Liv as he passed her. “They say the villain is a young witch. Tell me, how old is your granddaughter now, Thea?”
“You can’t—”
Seyferr interrupted. “My hunting corps is waiting outside. Gather the boy.”
He stomped out, leaving the door ajar for Thea to follow. Alex flew across the room and wedged herself behind the open door, moving the window curtain aside. Over a dozen hunters circled the property, armed with long-barreled guns. The man in the middle resembled Reuben, if Reuben had been cut from an ideal mold. Unlike Reuben’s toupee tuft of blond, this man’s marine-short hair appeared as no-nonsense as he did. His broad shoulders bulged under his shirt as he held his aim steady.
A wrinkled hand slapped the curtain back into place. “Don’t. If they knew you were here … ” Thea took a deep breath and walked out the door.
“Where is she going?” Alex asked Liv, who stared at her toes.
“If one of them has been sold, she has to release him.”
“Wait,” Chase said, his face twisting in disgust. “I thought Thea had to approve some sort of paperwork.”
“Maybe in the old days that’s how it was done, but there aren’t any Havilahs left to look out for us. They stay in the treatment center. We have to do what they say.”
Alex watched through a small slit in the curtain. Thea crossed the yard to a large monument Alex had never seen. Moss covered most of the aged granite in the shape of a preaching Esker Havilah. Thea disappeared through a door in his stone podium. There was nowhere for her to go but down into Parrish’s version of Paradise. That was the entrance.
“My grandmother says they’re sent here if they’ve been caught doing something wrong, but their sentence can turn into servitude if someone pays the price for them. I’m not so sure I believe that anymore. I think if they’re out in the open, the hunters snatch them and make up a lie.”
“Where will they go?”
“They’re bought by research facilities, or corporations with money, or by governments.”
The pounding in Alex’s mind felt like a wooden beam had landed on the crown of her head. Thea emerged from the tomb followed by a barefoot boy with bony knees and ankles shackled together. A bag covered his head, and his hands were bound.
This isn’t right! Alex’s conscious screamed so loudly she barely felt herself step through the open doorway. “I’m not letting you take him.”
The bag on the boy’s head turned in her direction. He could hear her!
Thea shook her head at Alex. “Go inside.”
“No,” Alex replied.
“You don’t even know where he’s going! For all we know, his own family could have bought him back.”
Liv stepped out next to Alex. “The last time that happened you ended up with a gravestone in your front lawn.”
Alex searched the yard but found no such gravestone. Chase appeared beside her, squinting at the hunters. She could feel him analyzing their colors.
Seyferr faced his troops. “Take the grandda
ughter too.”
“Absolutely not.” Thea stamped her foot. “It’s illegal.”
“The Havilahs won’t stop me. Their legalities mean nothing now.”
One by one, the hunters raised their guns. They aimed at the house. Liv looked around fearfully.
“We won’t let that happen, Liv,” Chase said.
Thea’s voice shook. “There was nothing on that paper of yours that specified my family.”
Seyferr didn’t waver. “She won’t be imprisoned. She needs to be questioned.”
“Over my dead body.”
“This ain’t really the place to joke about that.”
Thea hobbled back toward the porch in a steady rhythm of 1-2-3, cane, foot, foot. She stopped at the bottom of the steps with her back to the kids. She spoke over her shoulder. “You need to stay inside.”
Mr. Seyferr joined his ranks and slung a rifle over his shoulder. “Is her granddaughter the only one she’s speaking to?”
The hunter standing closest to Alex lowered his aim, revealing a baby face with fresh stubble. “There are a few, sir. One is the Anovark girl.”
“You mean the Havilah.” Seyferr chuckled. His eyes searched the property, not knowing where to find Alex. “Thank you for ending the lineage, girl. You’ve passed the prestige to a more suitable family. The Seyferrs are now the oldest living line of hunters.”
“Congratulations. Shall we inscribe a trophy for you?” Liv gestured to the tomb. “Or how about one of those trophies? I’m sure we could pick out a nice headstone.”
Alex had been in awe of Liv’s fearlessness since the day they met, but school bullies and cranky, premenstrual teachers were much different than an army of hunters. They stood still as statues without blinking or flinching like the little green army soldiers the Lasalles treasured as children.
Seyferr regarded Liv with surprise. “I should think you’d be glad to be free of your bondage.”
“The Havilahs aren’t really dead,” Thea said calmly, even while addressing a fortress of loaded guns. “Alex is still technically alive. As are other Havilahs.”
“They are without bodies,” Seyferr growled.
“Get ready to run,” Liv commanded.
Of Delicate Pieces Page 27
