Dust and Roses: Book Two of the Dust Trilogy

by V. B. Marlowe

  “How come you never make me anything?” Fletcher asked as we rounded a corner, huddled underneath my umbrella.

  I hadn’t thought much about making something for him or anyone else. Besides Fletcher and I, no one liked my dresses. “I don’t know how to make shirts or pants, just dresses.”

  “It doesn’t have to be those things, just something. I’d love to wear something you made.”

  My cheeks warmed slightly despite the chill in the air. I hoped my face wasn’t red. “Okay. I’ll think about it.” Maybe I could make him a hat or something.

  Fletcher held the door open for me as we stepped into Molly’s Fabrics. I shook my umbrella out and placed it in the holder beside the door.

  As usual, the store was practically empty of customers. Almost right away, I settled on a red and black plaid material. It spoke to me and it was different from anything I had ever used. I could see the dress coming together right before my eyes—the puffy sleeves, gold buttons, maybe even a short train. While the salesperson cut the amount of fabric I requested, Fletcher and I waited by the plate glass window. He held up some white lace. “This is my favorite look on you. When you wear white frilly things. It’s pretty. You look like an Angel.”

  I shuddered. Why did he have to say that? Rose was an Angel. He had kissed Rose, something he would never do to me. The times we had kissed, I initiated it and he responded like a cold fish. I moved over to the register and asked if the fabric was ready.

  After I paid for my material, we headed for the coffee shop. Fletcher ordered a hot chocolate with all the fixings while I had a black coffee, no sugar.

  Fletcher sipped his hot chocolate slowly, shivering again.

  “What’s going on with you?” I asked. “I’ve never seen you sick until lately.”

  He shrugged. “It’s just a cold I can’t seem to get rid of. Probably all this rain. I’ll be fine.”

  “Fletch?”

  “Yeah?” He had taken the top off his hot chocolate and was playing with the marshmallows, trying to make them sink, but they would pop back up.

  “What if I do become a full Wendigo? You know that means we’d never see each other again.” I couldn’t imagine a life without him.

  He set his cup down and took my hand in his. They were warm from holding the hot chocolate. “You’re going to beat this. I know you are. I can feel it.”

  I wished I could be as confident in myself as he was in me. I pulled my hands away from his because his touch was only torturing me. Fletcher was a Giver with a fondness for Angels but would end up with a Walker. I didn’t fit into any of that. Even if he decided to go against the oath and be with whoever he wanted, it wouldn’t be me.

  I had other things to worry about other than Fletcher never being in love with me. Wiley had that horrible video he was holding over my head. I couldn’t discuss it with Imani because that would give my secret away. “We never finished talking about Wiley.”

  Fletcher rolled his eyes. “What about that weed head?”

  I thumped my fingers against my coffee cup, wondering if I should continue. “The video. About that night. He actually liked it. He keeps watching it over and over.”

  Fletcher nodded like he wasn’t surprised. “I’ve told you to stay away from him. Something’s wrong with Wiley. Stay away. He gives me a bad feeling.”

  The last time Fletcher had a bad feeling about someone, he had been right, but how was I supposed to stay away from Wiley when he had the power to ruin my life?

  “Well, what am I supposed to do about the video?”

  Fletcher slurped the last of his hot chocolate. “Nothing. He’s not going to show it to anyone. He’s stupid, but he’s not that stupid. Don’t go thinking you have to do stuff for him just to keep him quiet. He’s just playing with you.”

  I didn’t want to know what Fletcher meant by “stuff”, but I wasn’t as sure about Wiley as he was. “Okay, I won’t worry about it,” I lied.

  On the way home, I discovered a bigger problem than Bruce Wiley. Mrs. Nelson, my down-the-street neighbor was sweeping her front porch. She moved the broom back and forth briskly as she hummed to herself. Normally, this occurrence wouldn’t have warranted a second look, but that day it did. Mrs. Nelson was surrounded by a familiar purple haze.

  Chapter Nine

  It was time for me to face the facts. For my sake and for the sake of everyone around me, something had to be done about Rose. If I were truly on the winning side of the Gemini Curse, the transition wasn’t happening fast enough. Reality sank in even further when I realized it wasn’t just me against Rose. It was me against my parent’s true daughter and Paige and Quinn’s sister. If my family knew I was sucking the life out of Rose, they would hate me and never forgive me. Mom and Dad knew where Rose was, but they had never contacted her. They thought it would only complicate things for her. As far as Paige and Quinn was concerned, she didn’t exist.

  Part of me wanted to sacrifice myself. I could bring Rose to them, let them live happily ever after, and send myself to the sixth tunnel where the beasts belonged.

  My family had made a pact not to keep any more secrets, to lay everything out on the table. I figured it would be okay to ask Dad about the Gemini Curse during dinner. It would be the perfect discussion for Taco Tuesday.

  I filled a tortilla shell with ground turkey. “Dad, the Gemini Curse. Who has the power to cast it?”

  Mom cleared her throat, eyeing me as if she was saying not the time, not the place. Paige and Quinn didn’t even look up from their plates.

  “One group. The Archangels,” Dad replied. Archangels were the highest form of the breed. The highest type of Giver period. Dad, being a Guardian, fell a few rungs beneath them. Every October he would leave us to guard the Givers’ sanctuary. Once he month of duty was over, he would come home. As Givers went, all Angels were top tier.

  “Why would they do that?” I wondered. “Givers will also die because of the curse. I know they wanted to punish the Takers, but they’re hurting their own too.”

  Dad took a huge gulp of water and glanced at my mom and sisters, like maybe he didn’t want to talk about this. “Not if they think the Givers are strong enough to find and kill their Geminis. Typically, that’s what happens. That’s what happened the last time the curse was cast decades ago. That’s why we outnumber Takers now.”

  So that was it. The Archs were counting on the Takers failing and our numbers dwindling. A few of our species were already extinct or only few in number. I didn’t care for the way the Angels underestimated us or the fact that they were trying to take us out.

  “I thought Givers and Takers were trying to live in peace with each other. Why are you trying to get rid of us?”

  A flash of hurt danced across his features. I guessed I’d sounded like I was accusing him of something when it really wasn’t his fault. “I don’t want to get rid of anyone. This curse is the Archs’ decision. It’s the most effective form of punishment they have, and Takers were the first to breach our peace treaty. None of this would be happening had it not been for those attacks.”

  He had a point. Bailey had caused all this, but still. Why did the rest of us have to pay for her betrayal? “Can’t you get them to stop it? Can’t you talk them out of it?” I wanted this curse to disappear. That way I wouldn’t have to worry about killing an Angel or her trying to kill me.

  Dad shook his head, taking a bite out of his taco. After a moment he said, “The decision has been made and there’s no going back on it. I’m sorry. I don’t have any control over that and we shouldn’t even be talking about this.”

  A heaviness weighed down on my chest. It was anger directed at the Angels. They knew the Gemini Curse only effected creatures under the age of eighteen—kids who had done nothing wrong. “Dad, the lair is just a bunch of kids trying to live their lives. They’re not hurting anyone. They don’t deserve this. We don’t deserve this.”

  “I understand, but the best way to hurt someone is to go for their chil
dren. And as far as Takers go, the lair is all you know. There are many more Takers living on the outside, in the four surrounding states. They’re not all so innocent. You have no idea what they do, the reports we’ve received.”

  I wasn’t going to hold anyone to anything without knowing the whole story. “You don’t know why they’ve done what they’ve done, Dad. If they’ve hurt someone or taken a life, maybe it was because they had to. Look at me . . . it’s that what you think about me? I only did what I did because I had to.”

  Everyone at the table froze, watching Dad, waiting for an answer.

  His face softened and he took a deep breath. “Well, there’s one way to break the curse.”

  A small swell of hope made me sit up straighter in my chair. “Yeah, how?”

  Dad pressed his lips together until they turned white. “Honey, I’m really not supposed to . . .”

  He couldn’t tell me. A Giver telling a Taker how to break a curse was totally against the oath. This was a horrible position for both of us. Dad and I were on different sides, Givers and Takers, but then we weren’t. I could never see Dad as the enemy. I never would and I know he would never see me that way.

  I glanced around the table. If my family had to choose between me and Rose staying alive, who would they choose? I was a dangerous beast who was a threat to their lives while Rose was a harmless Angel. There really wasn’t much of a decision to be made, however, they had no idea that Rose was my Gemini. I never wanted them to find out.

  Dad pushed his plate away. I had lost my appetite too, which was highly unusual. “Arden, I’ve been watching you. If you’re not getting weaker, then your Gemini is. As long as you’re fine, that’s my only concern.”

  That was a lie. I knew it was. They had to be concerned about Rose too, they just had no idea of the connection between us. They didn’t know that if I were getting stronger, she was getting weaker. I’d thought about telling them the full truth about Rose, but I could never bring myself to do it. If I were the winning Gemini, even if it wasn’t my fault, I feared they would never forgive me.

  “Dad, you know there’s more to it than that. I need my Gemini’s strength to squash my Wendigo side. What if it takes too long? What if my Wendigo side takes over? What if I have to kill my Gemini?” I asked quietly.

  Quinn glanced up from her plate and spoke for the first time since we’d gathered around the table. “What do you mean kill? Kill who? You said you wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

  I didn’t even know where to begin. “No one wants to kill their Gemini, Quinn, but I might have to, you know, if they’re trying to kill me. If we chose not to kill, fate would choose one of us to die slowly. If I don’t do anything, I’ll always be looking over my shoulder wondering when they’re going to pop up. They could kill me first.”

  “How do you know who your Gemini is?” Paige asked.

  “No one knows but you,” Dad replied. “It’s just a certain feeling you’ll get when you’re near them. Your hair will stand on end. Your mouth will water. Your stomach may grumble. You’ll just know.”

  Paige locked eyes with me and then looked away. “Who’s your Gemini, Arden? Who would you have to kill?”

  Your sister. Your sister who you’d probably adore. Your sister who would fit right in to our family. “I don’t know,” I lied.

  Quinn dropped her fork suddenly. “But what if—what if Arden’s Gemini finds her first? What if they kill Arden? Dad, you can’t let that happen.”

  Paige’s eyes were watery. Mom cleared her spot at the table, totally removed from the conversation. She’d probably resorted to pretending that none of this was actually happening. I wished I could do that.

  I was touched that both my sisters seemed genuinely concerned. The thought of Rose creeping up behind me and taking my life was frightening. As if I didn’t have enough things to worry about already.

  “No one is going to kill your sister,” Mom spoke quietly from the kitchen sink, “and everything is going to be just fine.” She was so in denial. “This isn’t a dinner-appropriate conversation anyway. Let’s talk about something else.”

  “But—” Quinn began.

  “Something else!” Mom snapped.

  Everyone knew that tone. The conversation quickly turned from Geminis to what Paige would be wearing to her spring dance. I’d never been so jealous of my younger sister. Why couldn’t my life be carefree? Why couldn’t my biggest problem be deciding whether to wear Electric Blue or Watermelon Pink to a dance or deciding which of the dozen boys who had asked me would get to be my date? I had to worry about turning into a Wendigo. I had to look over my shoulder for an Angel who might be trying to murder me. Then there was the other problem.

  “Mrs. Nelson is going to die soon,” I blurted out because there’s no gentle way to say something like that.

  Mom dropped a dish and it clanked in the sink. “What?”

  My family stared at me as if I were some alien specimen and I immediately regretted saying anything.

  I cleared my throat and continued. “When I passed her house the other day, she was surrounded by a purple haze. That’s the same thing that happened with Ms. Melcher right before she disappeared.”

  No one spoke. One by one, they went back to finishing their meals. Mom started making chocolate pudding for dessert.

  I took my plate to the trash can to empty it. I hated to waste food, but the smell of tacos was suddenly making me ill. “I’m going to warn her.”

  Dad sighed. “Arden, that never works. I understand that part of being a Banshee is to carry warnings of death, but it’ll just end up backfiring. It always does.”

  I couldn’t believe what he was saying. Should I just let Mrs. Nelson die without giving her a heads up? What if there was something she could do to change her fate?

  Quinn had been reading my mind. “What, Dad? She has to tell her. She could save her life.”

  “She won’t say a word to that woman and neither will you,” Mom said, raising her voice. She grabbed the hand blender from the cabinet. “You just can’t run around telling people they’re going to die. It’s just not . . .”

  “Normal,” I finished for her. “No, it’s not, Mom and I’m sorry that I can’t be normal, but I didn’t ask for any of this.”

  Mom pointed the hand blender at me. “None of us asked for this. That doesn’t mean you have to go around making things worse than they already are. You will not say a word to Mrs. Nelson about anything, you understand me?”

  I looked to my father. He glared at me sternly. He was a Guardian Angel. His purpose was to protect. He of all people should have wanted me to help Mrs. Nelson. I was beginning to think that not all Givers were as good as they thought they were.

  I finished scraping the food from my plate and dropped it into the sink. Sudsy water splashed onto the counter but I didn’t bother wiping it up. “Fine.” But it wasn’t fine. The whole situation with Mrs. Nelson was sitting on my shoulders like a weight.

  Before I headed to bed, I crept into Dad’s office where his head was bent over a thick binder. It was always easier to talk to him without Mom and her judgements around.

  He glanced up and blinked a few times, looking exhausted. “I thought you had gone to bed.”

  I plopped down sideways in the chair in front of his desk and let my legs dangle over the arm. “I was on my way though I probably won’t be able to sleep.” I picked at my nails so I wouldn’t have to look at him. I was disappointed with my father’s response to what I should do about Mrs. Nelson.

  He sighed. “If this is about—”

  “Dad, I don’t think any of you are being fair. You have no idea what it’s like to get these omens about someone. How horrible it is and how guilty you feel—yet you just want me to ignore it and act like it’s not happening.”

  Dad closed the binder and leaned back in his chair. “It’s not that, sweetheart. It’s just that most of the time, there’s nothing the person in question can do about it and giving them a warnin
g like that, well it has to be terrifying. Put yourself in Ms. Melcher’s or Mrs. Nelson’s shoes. You’d just be scaring the poor woman for no reason. Did a warning help Ms. Melcher?”

  I cleared my throat. “Maybe. We don’t know that she’s dead anyway.” I hated how everyone had given up on Mrs. Melcher, but I wouldn’t.

  I finally looked at my father. He gave me a sympathetic half smile which meant he thought I was being stupid. “I’m sorry about Mrs. Nelson, and I wish we could do something about it, but I think you’re forgetting one important part of being a Banshee.”

  I sat up straight and swiveled my legs so that they were in front of me. “What?” Rain pounded on the roof as it had been doing all evening and a great boom of thunder shook the windows.

  “You are a Taker. Your job isn’t to save anyone’s life. You can’t save Mrs. Nelson or anyone else. You’re an announcer of death, nothing more.”

  I cringed at his statement. He made it sound as if I were incapable of doing something good because of what side I was on.

  He switched his desk lamp off and rubbed his eyes. “You don’t warn people of their deaths so they can avoid it. Banshees simply drop the bombshell when there’s nothing the person can do about it. It’s really a cruel thing to do. There’s nothing you can do for Mrs. Nelson, not even if you wanted to. Your power isn’t to change anyone’s fate. That’s not what you were made for.”

  I couldn’t bear to hear anymore, so I headed to bed. Dad telling me that Banshees were no good and that my job was to know people were going to die but I shouldn’t do anything about it, was just too much. Even if what my father said was true, that Banshees were cruel, it still beat becoming a Wendigo.

  The following day, on my way to homeroom, someone grabbed my arm and pulled me into the tiny space between the two trophy cases in the main hallway. I prepared to punch Ranson in his throat, because he was the only one who would do something as jerky as that.