Red Glove (2)

by Holly Black

  “Oh,” I say. “Do you think we’ll fit?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  I’M USELESS IN CLASSES the next day. I fail a quiz in physics and conjugate my verbs completely weirdly in French. Luckily, I probably won’t need French in my future assassination career, unless I’m one of those fancy movie assassins who travel the world and also steal jewels. Physics I might need—got to calculate the trajectory of bullets somehow.

  I call Barron on my lunch break to avoid the cafeteria. I don’t know how to say anything to Sam and Daneca that isn’t all lies. And I don’t know how to say anything to Lila that isn’t the truth.

  “Hey,” he says. “We still on for Tuesday pizza?” His voice is casual. Normal. It makes me almost believe that I can relax.

  “I need to ask you something. In person. Where are you?” A teacher walks by and gives me a look. We’re not supposed to be calling people during the school day, even between classes. I’m a senior, though, so she doesn’t give me a hard time.

  “Mom and I are having fun. We’re staying at the Nassau Inn. It’s pretty swank.”

  “That’s in Princeton,” I say. It’s right downtown, minutes away from Daneca’s house. I experience a frisson of horror at the thought of my mother and hers in the same pharmacy line.

  Barron laughs. “Yeah. And? Mom says you two basically tore up Atlantic City, so we’re looking for a fresh start.”

  I have no idea why I thought that Barron would do anything but amplify all of Mom’s problems. A memory of him saying something about a painting nags at me; I should have seen this coming.

  “Look, whatever,” I say. “Can you meet me somewhere at six? I can skip dinner and some of study hall.”

  “We’ll come over now. Mom can sign you out, remember? We’ll get sushi.”

  “Sure, okay,” I say.

  It takes them an hour and a half to make the twenty-minute trip from Princeton to Wallingford. By the time they get there, I am in the “extra help” period, where I have to suffer through realizing that almost all my physics mistakes were dumb and obvious.

  It’s a relief to be called to the office.

  Barron is lounging against the secretary desk in a sharkskin suit. Mom is next to him, her hair pulled back into a Hermes scarf with a massive black-and-white hat over it, black gloves, and a low-cut black dress. They’re both wearing sunglasses. She’s bent over, signing a sheet.

  I think she’s supposed to look like she’s in mourning.

  “Mom,” I say.

  “Oh, honey,” she says. “The doctor wants to see you to make sure you don’t have the same thing that killed your brother.” She turns to Ms. Logan, who looks scandalized by the whole encounter. “These things can run in families,” she confides.

  “You’re afraid I’m going to come down with a bad case of getting two in the chest?” I say. “’Cause you might be right about that running in families.”

  Mom purses her lips in disapproval.

  Barron claps me on the back hard. “Come on, funnyman.”

  We walk toward the parking lot. I shove my gloved hands deep into the pockets of my uniform. Barron is keeping pace with me. He has left the top couple buttons of his crisp white shirt undone, enough so that I can see a new gold chain slide against his tan skin. I wonder if he’s wearing charms against being worked.

  “I thought you wanted us to come get you,” Mom says as she lights a cigarette with a gilt lighter and takes a deep drag. “What’s the matter?”

  “All I want is for Barron to tell me where the bodies are,” I say, keeping my voice down as I walk across the lawn. Having them here is surreal. They don’t belong at Walling-ford, with its manicured lawns and low voices. They’re both larger than life.

  They exchange a look brimming with discomfort.

  “The people I transformed. Where are they? What did I turn them into?”

  I don’t know exactly what Barron remembers about the disappearances of Greco and Kalvis and all the rest. I have no idea how many of Barron’s memories are missing, how extensively he’s damaged himself with blowback, but if there’s a record in his journals, then maybe he knows something. Yeah, sure, I changed his journals so that he forgot that he wanted to use me to kill Zacharov, forgot that he wasn’t on my side against Philip and Philip’s buddy, Anton. But I didn’t change anything else.

  “There’s no reason why you need to know that,” Barron says slowly. Which sounds promising.

  “Let’s just say that I do.” I stop walking, forcing them to either stop too or go on without me. They stop.

  “Don’t argue, boys,” Mom says, blowing out a cloud of smoke that hangs in the air. “Cassel, come on, baby. Let it go.”

  “One,” I say. “Give me one body.”

  “Fine.” Barron shrugs nonchalantly. “Remember that chair you hated?”

  I open my mouth and then close it, like a fish. “What?” I say, but I know which chair he means. The one I almost threw out when Grandad and I cleaned the house, because the thing always creeped me out. It was a too-exact replica of one I’d seen on television.

  He laughs and tilts up his sunglasses, so I can see him raise his eyebrows at me. “Yep.”

  I root my keys out of my bag. “Thanks for signing me out, Mom,” I say, kissing her on her powdered cheek.

  “I thought we were going to have lunch,” she says. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing—”

  “I’ve got to go,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry nothing,” Mom says in a syrupy voice, grabbing hold of my upper arm. “You can come to lunch with us or I can call that nice lady at the desk and tell her that your appointment got canceled, I brought you back to school, and won’t she be a dear and make sure you’re where you’re supposed to be?”

  “Don’t threaten me,” I say, which makes Barron look at me like I’ve gone crazy. Telling Mom what to do is never a great idea.

  Her hand clenches tighter around my arm, nails biting into my skin through the white dress shirt. I look down; somehow she got her glove off without my noticing. If she slides her fingers lower, she could touch my bare wrist. Or she could go higher and grab for my neck. “A mother shouldn’t have to threaten her son into wanting to spend time together.”

  She’s got me there.

  Mom slides into the booth at Toriyama’s and plunks down her purse next to her, leaving Barron and me to use the chairs. Her gloves are back in place. When I study them to figure out how she rigged things to remove one so fast, she gives me a pointed look. I study the framed kimonos hanging above us and the pale bamboo table instead.

  The waitress comes, dressed all in black, and pours us tea. She’s pretty, with supershort bangs and a nose ring that glitters like a single drop of absinthe. Her name tag says Jin-Sook.

  Barron orders one of the big platters of sushi. “It comes on one of the boats, right?” he asks, pointing toward a shelf of lacquered wooden ships, some of them with two masts, that rests above where the chef carves fish. “Because one time I ordered it and it just came on a plate. But on the menu it says boat, so I just want to be sure.”

  “It comes on a boat,” Jin-Sook says.

  I take a sip of the tea. It’s a jasmine, so hot it nearly scalds my throat.

  “So,” Barron says. “We’ve got a new mark we’re looking at. Someone big. We could use a hand. And you could use the money. Besides, we’re family.”

  “Family looks out for family,” says Mom, a line I’ve heard her recite more times than I can count.

  It’s tempting to say yes, even after everything. I used to long to be asked to grift alongside my brother. To prove that even though I wasn’t a worker, I could con along with the best of them. And my brother and mother are up there with the best of them.

  But now I know I’m a worker and a con artist and maybe a murderer, too. And if there is one thing I want to prove to myself, it’s that I can be different.

  “Thanks, but no thanks,” I say.

  Barron shrugs philos
ophically.

  Mom reaches for her teacup, and I see the flash of a fat blue topaz circled in diamonds sitting on her first finger, over her leather glove. The ring’s new. I shudder to think where it came from. Then I spot the ring on the other hand. The stone is reddish, like a single droplet of blood spilled into water.

  “Mom,” I say hesitantly.

  Something in my expression makes her look down at her hands.

  “Oh,” she gushes, clearly pleased. “I met the most fantastic man! He’s absolutely perfect.” She waggles the finger wearing the topaz. “And such good taste.”

  “He’s the one I was telling you about,” Barron says. At my blank look he lowers his voice and raises his eyebrows. “The mark.”

  “Oh,” I say. “But what about that other ring?”

  “This old thing?” Mom says, holding out her other hand. The pale red diamond flashes in the fluorescent restaurant lights. “Also a gift. One I haven’t worn in years.”

  I think of the pictures I found when I was cleaning out the house. Photos of Mom in vintage lingerie, posing for a person I couldn’t see. Someone with an expensive wedding ring. Someone who wasn’t my dad. I wonder if the man from the photograph had something to do with the diamond.

  “Who gave that to you?” I ask.

  She gives me a look across the table like she’s daring me to contradict her. “Your father, sweetheart. He had the best taste of any man.”

  “Well, I don’t think you should wear it in public. That’s all.” I smile to let her know I’m not fooled. It feels like we’re alone in the restaurant. “Someone might steal it.”

  That makes her laugh. Barron looks at us both like we’re speaking a language he doesn’t understand. For a change, I am the person with the insider information.

  The food comes. I mix plenty of wasabi into my soy sauce and drag a piece of sashimi through it. The fish is salty on my tongue, and the green horseradish flares all the way up my nose.

  “I’m glad you came to lunch,” Barron says, leaning in to me. “You seemed a little freaked-out back at school.”

  I don’t mention that by the time they picked me up it was way past time for lunch. We’re surrounded by an early dinner crowd.

  “What you’re feeling is part of the grieving process,” he goes on, with the total sincerity that makes him so convincing. “There’s no making sense out of what happened to Philip, so you’re trying to make sense out of something else instead.”

  “Maybe that’s it,” I say.

  He ruffles my hair with a gloved hand. “Sure it is. You’ll see.”

  Jin-Sook brings our check in a narrow black folder. Mom pays for it with one of a dozen stolen credit cards.

  Unfortunately for her, the credit card is declined. The waitress brings it back with apologies.

  “Your machine must be broken,” my mother says, her voice rising.

  “It’s fine,” I say, reaching for my wallet. “I’ve got it.”

  Barron turns to our waitress. “Thanks for such great service.” His bare hand is on her wrist.

  For a moment she looks disoriented. Then she smiles back, a big grin. “Thank you! Come back again.”

  Mom and Barron get up and start toward the door, leaving me there staring after Jin-Sook, trying to figure out how to tell her that her memories just got rearranged.

  “What’s done is done,” Mom says from the front of the restaurant. The look she gives me is a warning.

  Family looks after family.

  The girl’s memories are gone. I could get Barron in trouble, but I can’t undo what’s already done.

  I push back my chair and follow my mother and brother out. Once we’re on the street, though, I shove Barron’s shoulder. “Are you crazy?”

  “Come on!” he says, grinning like it’s all a great joke. “Paying is for suckers.”

  “I get that you don’t care about other people. But you’re messing up your own head,” I say. “You’ll use up all your memories. There won’t be anything of you left.”

  “Don’t worry,” Barron says. “If I forget anything important, you can just remind me.”

  Mom looks over at me, eyes glittering.

  Yeah. Right. What’s done is done.

  They drop me off back at Wallingford, in front of my own car. I start to get out.

  “Wait,” Mom says and takes out a pen from her handbag. “I got a cute little phone! I want to give you the number.”

  Barron rolls his eyes.

  “You hate cell phones,” I say.

  She ignores me as she scribbles. “Here, baby,” she says. “You call me whenever. I’ll call you back from the nearest pay phone or landline.”

  I take the slip of paper with a smile. After her three years in jail, I don’t think she realizes just how rare pay phones are these days. “Thanks, Mom.”

  She leans in and kisses my cheek. I can smell her perfume, sweet and heavy, long after they pull away.

  My car makes a horrible noise when I try to start it up. For a moment I think I am going to have to chase down Mom and Barron for a ride. Finally I put it in second gear and get it rolling. Somehow the engine turns over and the motor roars to life. I have no idea how long my car is going to stay running or whether I’m going to be able to get it started again when I want to return to Wallingford.

  I drive to the big old house I grew up in. From the outside the unpainted shingles and off-kilter shutters give it the look of a building long abandoned. Grandad and I cleaned out most of the garbage, but inside I can smell the faint odor of mold under the Lysol. The place still looks tidy, but I can tell Mom’s been here. There are a couple of shopping bags on the dining room table and there’s a mug of tea rotting in the kitchen sink.

  Good thing Grandad’s down in Carney; he’d be annoyed.

  I walk straight to the chair. It’s covered in a kind of a mustardy cloth and is perfectly normal-looking for a club chair, except for the feet, which, now that I really look at them, are awful. I thought they were claw feet holding on to painted balls, and at a glance that’s what they look like. But now that I am inspecting the chair closely, those claws are actually human hands, the knuckles bent under.

  A shudder runs through me.

  I sit down on the floor beside it, despite wanting nothing more than to get as far away from it as I can. I reach out a hand and concentrate. The power still feels strange, and my whole body is braced for what comes after, for the pain and helplessness of the blowback.

  As my palm comes down on the chair, everything goes fluid. I can feel the curse here, feel the threads of it, and even feel the man underneath. I rip the magic with a push that’s almost physical.

  After a moment I open my eyes, not even realizing I had closed them.

  A man stands before me, his skin pink with life, his eyes open. He’s wearing a white sleeveless undershirt and underwear. I feel a wild hope.

  “Henry Janssen,” I say, my voice trembling. He looks just like the picture paper-clipped to his file.

  Then he falls, his skin turning ashen. I remember how we tried to fake Zacharov’s death. Seeing Janssen fall, I realize how wrong we had it. You can see the moment it happens, like a light burning out in a lamp.

  “No,” I yell, crawling over to him.

  And the blowback hits me. My body cramps all over, limbs elongating like a spider, reaching toward the ceiling. Then it’s like I’m made of glass and each twist of my body creates cracks that turn to fissures until I am lying in pieces. I try to scream, but my mouth has turned to crumbling earth. My body is turning itself inside out. As agony grips me, I turn my head and stare into the glassy eyes of a dead man.

  I wake up, drenched in sweat, next to Henry Janssen.

  Every muscle in my body is sore, and when I look at the corpse, I feel nothing except a growing sense that I have to get rid of it. I no longer understand the urgency that sent me here. I no longer understand why I thought there could be any other outcome but this. What did I think was going to h
appen? I know nothing about transformation or its limits. I don’t even know if it’s possible to turn an inanimate object back into something alive.

  I don’t care, either. I’m tired of caring.

  It’s like the part of me that feels all that guilt has finally overloaded. I feel nothing.

  Even though the most practical solution is to curse him back into being a chair, I can’t face another round of blow-back. I think of burying him, but I’m pretty sure the hole has to be deeper than I have time to dig.

  I could dump him in deep water, but since I’m not even sure my car is going to start, that seems problematic too. Finally I remember the freezer in the basement.

  It’s harder to carry a dead person than someone who’s alive. It’s not that they’re heavier; it’s that they don’t help you. They don’t bend their body into your arms or hold on to your neck. They just lie there. On the plus side, you no longer have to worry about hurting them.

  I drag Janssen down the stairs by his shoulders. His body makes a sickening thud with each step.

  There’s nothing in the freezer except half a pint of Cherry Garcia ice cream, rimed with frost. I take it out and set it on my father’s old workbench. Then I put one hand under the dead man’s clammy neck and hook the other around his knee. I lift and half-roll, half-toss him into the freezer. He sort of fits, but I have to bend his limbs so that I will be able to close the lid. It’s pretty bad.

  I’ll come back, I tell myself. In a day or two I’ll come back and change him.

  Looking down at a freezer full of Henry Janssen, I think about Philip’s corpse laid out in the funeral home. Someone—a woman—was caught on video walking into Philip’s condo. And since I know I killed the rest of the people in the files, the FBI are on the entirely wrong track. They’re looking to connect the killers. But whoever murdered Philip had nothing to do with all this, probably didn’t know anything about it.

  Maybe I should get back to thinking about suspects other than myself.

  My car starts without a problem; the first good thing that’s happened to me in a while. I drive back to Walling-ford eating the Cherry Garcia ice cream and thinking about red gloves, gunshots, and guilt.