“I most certainly do not.” I sidestep away from her, avoiding the shortest route to more tears.
It takes me a few minutes to understand there’s a range of sizes in the closet, and then to find a suitable pair of jeans and a tank top. Cas shakes her head and hands me a lightweight floral blouse instead. “I don’t see any dresses in here that will work for tonight,” she says, sliding the hangers together back and forth with an annoying clack. “Look at this!” She’s triumphantly hoisting a floor-length velvet ball gown. “It’s so heavy.”
“I wonder what she wore it to.” I finger the soft, black velvet edged with silver piping. “It’s beautiful.”
“And you’d look beautiful in it. Right after you stuffed your bra. And everything else,” Cas says, trying to keep from laughing.
“Oh my god, Casandra Willis, did you just make a joke?” My melancholy is upended by consciously stupid, but contagious giggles.
“Do you even weigh enough to wear it?” she asks, still laughing.
“I will after dinner.”
And, miraculously, we are, for an hour or so, fourteen again. We straggle down the stairs, suggesting all the least appropriate places to wear my mother’s old dress—the diner, the rodeo, the stockyards.
An hour or so later, we’ve walked to town and pile through the door of the mercantile, still giggling as Cas introduces me to Bill, who now runs things for his parents. I never knew him. Like Cas’s brother Perry, he is one of many lucky enough to have returned to a stable hometown before things went really wrong. He seems like a nice guy, and Cas hands him my grocery list, refusing to add any cigarettes. She tells him to invoice me later. Bill gives me his condolences, but then his attention is on Cas. He’s looking at her like he’s never seen her before, and her face is still lit up and smiling, and the other customers are unable to get his attention.
Cas is oblivious until I tease her about it out on the wooden sidewalk. Her cheeks deepen into rouge dimples. I am walking backwards, singing old nursery rhymes about trees and kisses, when all the blood drains from her face. I simultaneously back into a something stationary. I spin and come face-to-face with the enormous, solemn Bishop.
The Bishop nods to Cas, dark robes swirling. “Blessings, children.”
Cas nods. I hold my hand out, waiting to introduce myself.
“Remember,” he says, dismissing my handshake, “our streets will stay civil if we remain sober in our countenance.”
“Yes, Bishop,” she says, head bowed.
I can’t stop myself from snorting. “The Spirit is displeased with laughter?”
He examines my face as if I am a pinned specimen. “My condolences, Miss Turner,” he says. “But, a word of advice: in matters of the Spirit, I am afraid you are out of your depth.” He steps off the boardwalk, heading east.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I raise my fist at his retreating back.
“Don’t,” Cas whispers. She’s batting at my arm.
“Why?”
“It’s just . . .” She presses her hands to her temples. People on the sidewalk are staring. “It’s just . . . it’s not worth it. We’d better get started back to my house if we’re going to be on time for dinner.”
It is then that things fall into sharp focus. I’m dressed wrong, in my dead mother’s old clothes, walking up the hill to the Governor’s mansion—once upon a time simply my friends’ house. And it’s when I think of my clothes that I realize why Cas handed me the modest blouse. Why the balance has shifted between the us of long ago and the us of now: I have become an embarrassment, a thing to be ashamed of.
I want to say I can’t do this—that I don’t feel well—but there is really no polite way out of the impending awkwardness. We hear a horse behind us and move to the right of the two track, but it’s only Len.
“Just coming back from your place, Syd,” he says. “Mama wanted to make sure Pi would come.”
“Great.” I force a smile on my face that must look more like a grimace, but Len’s in a hurry, trotting off toward the barns. Maybe Cas and Len meant to invite me to a family dinner, but it is no surprise her mother is making it into a production.
The dread seeps down my limbs as I climb the front steps behind Cas. And when she opens the doors, the scene inside the foyer is nothing short of chaos.
Beah Willis envelops me in a cloud of turquoise silk and sweet perfume. Cas’s father—I have to get used to calling him Governor Willis—shakes my hand for too long. Cas is trying to hug me, protectively, but only succeeds in making me more claustrophobic. Beah shoves me forward, as I try to stop to take my shoes off. “I wouldn’t dream of it, dear,” she says, eyeing my mom’s old, red cowboy boots. “I remember those,” she says. “From Al’s Bootery over in Meadow. Those were the days, and a pretty thing like you might just bring back the trend!”
Cas is glaring at her mother from the bootjack in the hallway, but waves me ahead when I try to wait. In the parlor, Len is pestering Perry to stand up and say hello, to no avail. Perry’s only concession from his chair in the corner is to lower his book a few inches and nod.
There’s a tap on my shoulder, and as annoyed as I am with Cas, I still wish she were running this gauntlet with me. When I turn and grab onto the hand offered, it belongs to the only Willis brother I haven’t yet greeted.
“It’s great to see you,” Troy says. “I’m so sorry about your father.”
“Thanks,” I say, trying to find more words somewhere in my brain. The last seven years have been good to him. He’s taller than the rest of the Willis men now, and better muscled. His eyes are that same Willis gray, and he’s looking at me in a way that makes me feel like the only woman in the world.
He doesn’t try to hug me or grab me or guide me; he simply takes a place at my side, as if it were the simple, natural thing to do. As if the Governor weren’t frowning in our direction.
“Would you mind terribly finding me a drink?” I ask him, frog still catching in my throat.
“Of course,” he says, with a nod. When I was younger, Troy’s earnest sincerity seemed like a weakness, but I’m surprised to find it’s different now. In the City, vulnerability isn’t a default state, and the way Troy looks at me is as refreshing as it is unsettling.
Perry closes his book with a flourish. “So when are you leaving?”
“What Perry meant,” the Governor says, sidling up beside him with a playful pat on the shoulder, “is we want you to feel welcome, no matter how long you stay. Don’t we?”
Perry rolls his eyes. I know exactly what he means. Happy homecoming is not it.
“Sorry,” Cas whispers in my right ear. Troy reappears at my side with a syrupy pink concoction, which I no sooner examine than Len removes it from my hand, replacing it with a crystal tumbler with a generous three fingers of whiskey.
“Nice work, Troy,” Len says, though he’s laughing. “She’s old enough to have the real thing now.”
When I was fourteen, the two years between me and Troy had been a yawning gulf. One our parents disapproved of. Troy ignored Perry’s dire warnings that I’d turn him into a delinquent, or worse, as his father cautioned: a wannabe City boy. He treated me like a princess, even begged me not to leave. But I thought I knew the life I wanted. So few girls had the chance to dance as a professional so young. He said he understood, but he never sent a word after I was gone. It’s why I’m surprised he’s at my side and not camped out across the room with Perry.
“Y’all give Cressyda some space, now.” Beah sashays to my side, and the ring of Willis siblings widens. “If you need anything at all, dear, you just say the word.”
“Thanks.” I start to fidget, then remember myself. “Thank you for having me.”
The doorbell rings, mercifully, and Pi enters, squeezing my shoulder and delivering a hearty handshake to the men in the room. In the corner, Beah has Cas by the wrist, inspecting her fingernails, and smoothing down a cowlick that has escaped her braid. Like one would do to a chil
d. I’m sad. Repulsed.
It doesn’t get better.
The dinner goes something like an old television sitcom. Beah rules over the table like a suffocating thundercloud, the Governor proud and overeager. Pi is gracious and self-deprecating. Perry—whose features are darker and finer and well attuned to his sullenness—is a prick. Len takes the role of jokester; Troy stares silently at me; and Cas withers, afraid to put a foot wrong.
“Casandra, elbows,” says Beah, even as I lean lazily on my forearms.
I look around to join a conversation. Perry is talking to Beah about bolo ties, and at the other end of the table, the Governor is explaining the intellectual merits of his children, as if they are prize stock. Len, across from me, is spelling kill me now with his green beans.
“That’s why he’s apprenticing at the veterinary clinic,” the Governor is saying to Pi, tipping an empty soupspoon at Troy. “Boy’s got no heart for politics.” There is an audible deflation around the table, a family stepping over the remains of a long-trodden argument.
“Syd will figure things out once she starts Vocational Retraining,” Cas adds.
“When I do what?”
“Residents under the age of twenty-two are now required to attend Vocational Retraining or the equivalent,” the Governor explains. “Since the world out there, as you know, is very different, we need to, shall we say, redirect the learning of our young folks.”
“For young ladies there’s another program at the Sanctuary. I keep telling Cas she needs to attend,” Beah says. “They have classes on home economics, how to run a household, hire good help, that sort of thing.”
“Help?” I ask, choking on my broccoli. The Willis’s hired woman, Amita, stands in the corner and coughs quietly.
“None of this matters if she’s leaving,” Perry says, louder and better enunciated this time.
“Who says she’s leaving?” Cas asks. Perry has clearly pushed all of her buttons.
“Volume,” Beah cautions.
“She left once; she’ll leave again. She’s a Survivor, a traitor.” Perry throws his napkin into his chicken potpie. “This is ridiculous. Invite her in and give her the keys to the kingdom.”
“How do you know what her plans are?” Troy challenges him in a quiet voice.
Though it’s best if everyone thinks I’m content with what New Charity has become, I don’t want anyone else fighting my battles for me. “So you’ve got all of us Survivors pegged?”
“We’ve been over this,” Len groans. “She’s one of us, Perry. Leave it.”
Perry points his fork at me. “You people bitch and you moan: you don’t have this, you don’t have that. Somehow it’s our fault and we’re supposed to fix it? We’ve got our own community to support, or haven’t you noticed?”
It’s no wonder the Willis family sent Perry away. But it’s when I think of his life outside the gates that I remember I have something to make him squirm. I smile my most winning smile. “Come on now, Per, would you talk that way to Nelle Harris Mangold?”
He waits a few beats too long. “I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
Troy throws down his own napkin. “What is your problem? She’s not doing anything to you.”
Cas’s mother interrupts to announce cordials in the parlor. I linger only a few minutes before making an excuse to go home.
“I’m so tired from traveling,” I say. I give a quick wave to Pi, who is trapped in the corner armchair by the wine-loosed prattle of the Governor. I feel a little bad for abandoning him, but the cool air outside is too inviting to renege.
I’m descending the stairs with Cas when Len rounds the corner with a cigarette. “Smoke?”
“Hell, yes,” I say.
“Are you going to try Vocational Retraining tomorrow?” Cas asks.
Len waves her off. “Let her be.”
Troy steps out the front door, and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Oh good, I caught you before you left.” His lips are dark with wine, and he looks bashfully over my right ear. He shifts from foot to foot as if he doesn’t trust himself.
I know what this is or at least what it is about to be, and I already feel guilty. In a world without Mina and Buster, Agnes and Doc, I’m tempted to allow the way he looks at me into my heart for a while. Maybe for good. But I resolve to hold him at arm’s length.
“Hey. I wasn’t trying to sneak out. I’m not used to all this attention.”
This time he meets my eyes. “I wanted to tell you that I’m really glad you’re home, Syd. I told Perry all those years ago that you’d come back. And I was right.”
I am already set to break his heart, and I’ve done nothing but smile at him.
“So if you need anything, we’re here.” Troy looks at Cas and Len, as if he’s just realized they’re standing beside me. “Right, guys?”
“I appreciate it. But honestly, I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I . . .”
“Oh, knock it off,” Len says. “We’re still your friends.”
“There are things I would like to understand better, but I don’t want to put any of you in a bad spot, you know?”
“What things?” Len says, leaning back against the lintel.
I hate having to admit this, but I say it anyway. “My dad. Why he never came for us.”
“That makes sense,” Cas says, but she has a funny look on her face. She’s always hated talking about death. I’m not sure if it’s because of her visions or just her general aversion to things that aren’t nice.
I choose my words carefully. “I want to understand the Blessing. But I want to understand, even before that, if the Spirit really . . . I mean, why we didn’t get sick.”
Almost in unison the three of them shove their sleeves up. A faint blue dot pulses on the insides of their biceps. “This.”
“But I don’t have that,” I say.
Cas reaches for my arm. “May I?” I nod. She rolls up my sleeve and runs her thumb up the inside of my arm. It feels like normal pressure until she hits a spot that feels as if she’s gouging me with an icicle.
“Ouch!” I yank my arm out of her reach. But when I do, lo and behold, there is the same faint blue dot. “What did you do to me?”
“I didn’t do anything. You’ve always had it. It was the inoculation the Bishop gave when he first got here. Maybe you don’t remember. There was bird flu or something, and most of us took it.”
Nausea settles over me. “My mom didn’t.”
“I’m sorry,” Cas says. I wish she’d stop being sorry.
I heave my thoughts back to now. “How come it wasn’t glowing before?”
Len snorts. “Maybe you should’ve scrubbed a little harder in the shower this morning.”
“After the Blessing,” Troy interrupts, “they changed. They seem to glow whenever we’re close to the Ward protecting New Charity. You probably didn’t notice it in the shower this morning because, well, why would you.” Troy is blushing furiously at this point. Len hip checks him, tells him to pull himself together.
“Ward? A magic Ward? I thought everyone gave up their powers?”
Cas and Len exchange a glance. “They did. But it’s a little more complicated than that. There is still magic at the reservoir.”
“Okay. Whose?”
“Maybe,” Cas says, “to know the things you want to know, you should give retraining a try. Just for a bit.” There’s a warning in her voice, and I realize I must be completely transparent.
“I do want to learn more about New Charity. I do. I’m just not sure school is the right place for me.” I can almost hear Agnes’s rebuke. You should be in school, Syd.
Cas throws up her hands and starts up the steps.
Len lifts his chin at me, his gaze too intent. “This week is power station infrastructure. Fascinating, right? Meet us at the diner at seven for breakfast. Sheriff Jayne says she might take a group of us out to the station on Wednesday. These little tattoos really light up there right next
to the reservoir.”
Is this my opening? It’s way too good to be true. “Fine,” I say, but Len is already bounding after Cas, halfway inside.
“Want me to walk you home?” Troy asks.
I take a deep breath. “Any other night, yes. But I need a little time to clear my head. Would you do me a favor, instead, and make sure Pi doesn’t overdo it on the sherry?”
“Of course, Syd. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow after you guys are done with class.”
“Yeah. Sure,” I say, though at this point I’m almost tired enough to wonder if another sunrise is worth the hassle.
I’m halfway down the hill when Perry steps out from behind a big ponderosa, and I stumble backwards. I’m trying to regain my balance when he grabs me by the shoulder and spins me to face him. My heart is racing with two parts relief and three parts rage.
“You scared me half to death, you . . . maniac.”
“What did she say?”
“Get your hands off me. What did who say?” My pocketknife is at my hip, and I make a note to keep it there, no matter what. I’ve only been in New Charity a day and I’ve been manhandled more times than in partnering class at the Company.
He backs up, arms in the air. Tears are streaming down his face. Perry is crying? His sharp features are ugly in the half-light, twisted in desperation.
“You’ve made your feelings about me pretty clear, Perry. Find someone else to help you.”
“Syd. Just, please?”
I should have forgotten her name as soon as she told it to me. “Is this about Nelle?”
He sinks to his knees.
CHAPTER FIVE
Cas
It was hard to sleep, replaying in a loop through my head: “After all she’s been through,” Mama had said at dinner. “Still so poised and confident.” The Deacon had nodded proudly, mouth full of mashed potato. “Such a beautiful young woman.” Mama had droned on and on, giving my hair her relentless side eye.
I’d had nebulous misgivings about Syd’s return. Now those were muddled with the thrill of having a true friend at my side and my outright resentment of that same friend.
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