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. She’d never been this close to him before, nor had she imagined that he could be in the least bit tender, especially to someone like her. But there he was, inches away from her, so close she could feel the warmth of his body. She thought she might be swooning. She’d only read about that in books, but she couldn’t find another way to describe the sensation. And then the bastard went and smiled at her, his grey eyes finding hers. Her legs were turning to butter.
“You’re right. I’m sorry, Ophelia. Please sit down.”
She was most decidedly and officially 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, at a safe, non-thought-clouding proximity.
“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 I 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 butte
r 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 than 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.
“What prompted you to come see me? I can’t remember any outstanding assignments.”
“Duncan Koons.”
Mr. Harris’ lamprey face was impossible to read. Still, she could detect sharpness in his response. “What about him?”
“Do you know what happened?”
“Abigail, this is a matter for the police. As your teacher, as a responsible adult, as anything really, I have to urge you to let them do their jobs.”
“That’s just it, Mr. Harris. Duncan Koons is innocent. He didn’t do it!”
“How do you know something like that?”
Abby faltered. It was difficult telling anyone what she was there for, let alone her teacher. “I just know, okay?”
Harris was silent for a few minutes. Abby shivered in a sudden gust of frigid wind. Finally, he said, “If you cannot explain to me why you are certain, than you cannot really be certain of anything, can you? The police are the experts in this matter. If they believe they have enough evidence to bring this Koons to trial, let them do it. If the man is innocent, it will come out in court.”
“But Mr. Harris!”
“I know you want to help, but the best way to do that is to allow the system to do its work.”
Abby wanted to shout at him, but she knew it would do no good. Every adult was going to say the same thing. Dealing with killers wasn’t something a teenage girl should be doing, anyway.
“May I ask you something, Abigail?”
She looked up, and once again was felt a minor twinge of disgust at the monstrous sea-thing gazing down on her. His voice was so normal and calm that she always half-expected it was a human speaking to her whenever she looked away. “Sure.”
“This is difficult, as it’s not appropriate, really. Consider it part of our other arrangement.”
Abby nodded. She knew he meant her promise not to tell anyone she knew of the croatan.
“Do you take any pills?”
She frowned. “Yeah. Of course. I take an iron supplement.”
“An iron supplement? Whatever for?”
“You know, the groundwater in this town. It leeches the iron out of some people, so I have to take a supplement or I get anemic.”
Harris was quiet again, and Abby cursed her inability to read his expression. “Can you bring me one of these pills, please?”
“Sure, I guess.”
“Thank you, Abby. And the other?”
“I’ll stay out of it. I promise,” she lied.
The next day, she slipped one of her supplements into an envelope and put it in Mr. Harris’s mailbox. She wasn’t certain she could face him again so soon.
44
Heir Apparent
sindy Endicott had nothing to do. It was only a few days before Christmas and relentless winter storms were keeping most people inside. She looked forward to the day when even that would not stop her. She’d have a car of her own, and she could decide what did and what did not constitute driving weather.
She fiddled around on Facebook, refreshing her timeline every few minutes. No one was posting because no one was online. She kept hoping the snow would let up long enough to convince her mom to give her a ride to Abby’s.
There was a knock at the door. “Yes?” she said, turning in surprise.
“The family has a visitor. You’re wanted downstairs, Miss Endicott.” It was Abelard, the Endicott family’s only full-time servant. Sindy had always found the reedy little man annoying.
“I’ll be right down.”
Sindy took her time. S
he fixed her makeup in the mirror, put on shoes, and brushed her hair. The irony was that her mother always advised her to perform this ritual, even though Sindy was only using it now to kill time. When she had pushed it about as far she considered safe, she went downstairs to see who constituted a family visitor.
She was shocked to find Hester Thorndike in the parlor of their home. Faith Endicott, Sindy’s mother, fawned over the old woman. “Coffee? Tea? Please, it’s no trouble.”
Hester made a single sharp gesture with her hand and Faith went silent. Hester turned to look at Sindy. The old woman nodded. “Would you please fix us some tea?”
“I’ll have Abelard—”
“I believe I asked you, Faith. Did I not?” Hester said without looking away from Sindy.
Faith quailed. “Of… Of course. Excuse me.”
“Hello, Sincere,” Hester said. “Would you care to join me?”
Sindy wondered what would happen if she said no. Was it even an option? Probably not. But the fact was, she liked Hester, and it was always fun to watch someone treat her mother the way her mother treated everyone else.
The Endicott family parlor was furnished in a modern style, with fake antiques cluttering up every corner. Real antiques probably would have been cheaper, but that was the opposite of her mother’s point. The Endicotts were far from the wealthiest family in Arkham, so they had to try harder.
Sindy took a chair next to Hester’s, a small end table between them.
“It is so good to see you, Sincere,” Hester said.
Sindy rankled at the sound of her real name, but didn’t correct her. “It’s good to see you too, Mrs. Thorndike.”
“You’re turning fifteen soon.”
“April 7th.”
“Very soon.”
It didn’t seem soon to Sindy, but then again, she had experienced a lot fewer Aprils than Hester. So had most of Arkham.
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