Asa considered the book for a moment more. He pulled out an object from his leather jacket: a lighter. In an instant, he set the notebook alight. Then, in one swift heave, he threw the burning notebook off the cliff, into the fog.
“NO!” Gretchen screamed. “What are you—why would you do that?!”
Asa produced a smile. It looked terrible on him.
“It wasn’t yours,” he said, pulling out a cigarette to accompany his lighter. As he did, Felix noticed a scar, red and ugly, on his right hand.
“I can’t believe you,” said Gretchen. “I can’t believe—it was mine. I found it. And you’re just—you’re—”
“Don’t burst a blood vessel.” Asa blew a cloud of smoke in her face. “Why’d that stupid thing matter to you, anyway?”
“It’s nothing.” Gretchen turned to Lee. “Don’t tell him anything!”
Asa cocked his head toward Lee. “This is too good. Hanging with the enemy. It’s straight out of Romeo and Juliet.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Gretchen.
“Don’t I?” Asa pointed at Lee with his cigarette. “I wonder, Gretch, have you told Gram about your new boyfriend? A Vickery?”
“Asa,” Gretchen whispered, “don’t you dare.”
“Oh! I don’t dare anything. Just asking questions. My own investigation. Because that’s what’s going on here, right? My little sister as Sherlock Holmes, trying to uncover who pushed Essie Hasting off a cliff.”
Gretchen stuck out her jaw. She looked scared, Felix thought, but was trying not to show it. “We both know who killed Essie,” she said. “You hear things, same as I do. You know it was Death.”
Felix started. There were two ways to speak about death. The first was universal—patients spoke of death as an event, something impersonal that simply happened, the same as skinning your knee or falling asleep. But there was another way to speak of death: as Death, with a capital D. Death the person. Death the Shade. Death, the most powerful force in Boone Ridge. That was how Gretchen Whipple spoke now.
Asa, however, looked unmoved. In a flat voice, he said, “Everyone dies.”
“You know that’s not what I mean,” snapped Gretchen. “Something happened here. Something people in this town are covering up. And you just threw the one clue I had off a cliff!”
“Didn’t realize you were such a conspiracy theorist,” said Asa. “What were you doing, reading that Rite aloud? Trying to impress a certain someone? Does Romeo even know you’re not allowed to summon?”
Lee was breathing hard. He looked at Gretchen with parted lips and chattering teeth. “Y-you can’t do Rites?”
Gretchen gave Asa a withering look. “I might be able to, if I ever got the chance. It’s just a stupid, old rule. Who says secondborns can’t summon? I’ve got the same blood as you.”
Asa laughed. “Is that what you think? That you’re Gretchen, the summoning prodigy?”
“Why not!” Gretchen shouted. “And I was going to find out for myself, only now you’ve ruined everything!”
As brother and sister fought, Felix drew near Lee, stepping closer until they were side by side. “Let’s get out of here,” he whispered.
He put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, and Lee met his gaze, and for that moment, Felix thought things might be all right. They could run away and forget all this, be rid of Gretchen Whipple for good. But then something caught Felix’s otherwise unseeing eye. Something behind Lee, in the wood.
There was a man standing there—a tall, thin figure between tall, thin trees, dressed in a top hat and a three-piece suit.
It was Death. Death with a capital D.
“What’s the matter with him?”
Gretchen could’ve gone on fighting Asa for hours. She could’ve yelled at him for following her, for talking down to her, for making her look bad in front of Lee. There was a whole list of things to scream about. But even in the midst of a shouting match, she could tell something was wrong with Felix. His face had turned a sickly pale, and he was staring hard at the trees—so hard that Gretchen and even Asa turned to see what had caught his attention.
“What’s wrong with him?” Gretchen asked again. “What’s he looking at?” She couldn’t make out anything but bare branches.
“Get him to quit it,” Asa told Lee, grinning. “He’s scaring my poor baby sister.”
“He’s not—!” Gretchen caught herself and turned to Lee. “He looks like he’s about to croak.”
Lee tugged the sleeve of his brother’s jacket. “Felix? What is it?”
Felix shuddered. He put both hands to his face. Then, slowly, he lowered the eyepatch that had been knocked out of place in all the commotion. He positioned it back where it belonged, over his right eye.
He breathed in once, deeply. He breathed out.
“I thought I saw . . .” He looked at the trees once more and shook his head. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
Everyone remained quiet.
“Well, okay,” Gretchen said at last. “That was weird.”
Asa was looking at Felix, but not with the usual mean, bully stare. He looked thoughtful, as though Felix were a motorbike he was appraising.
“Where’d you come from?” Asa asked.
Gretchen could’ve blurted out who Felix was. She wanted to, really. A defiant I’m hanging out with two Vickeries, so there. But something told her the brothers might never speak to her again if she spilled those beans.
“It’s none of your business,” she told Asa.
“Really? Seems a lot like the family business to me.”
“It’s not—that isn’t—” Gretchen turned red and silent. There was no point in lying to Asa now. “It’s still not your business. Next time—ow.”
Asa had grabbed hold of Gretchen’s shoulder. His fingers dug in hard, and he glared at her with dark, dark eyes. “There won’t be a next time, got that? I see you hanging around this park again, I won’t keep my mouth shut about what you’re doing or who you’re with. God knows what Gram would say if she knew what you were up to.”
Gretchen wrenched out of Asa’s grip. “Why does it matter what I do? You don’t care about anyone but yourself.”
“I won’t say it again. Keep your nose out of this. Rites aren’t for kids.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not a kid.”
Asa shook his head. He laughed a little, all wrongly. “Fine. But if you go careening to your death again, don’t expect a helping hand.”
With that, her brother stalked away toward the wooded slope, tearing down a long stretch of yellow tape as he went. Moments later, the rev of a motorbike engine ripped through the park.
Reluctantly, Gretchen turned to Lee and Felix. She wished they hadn’t heard any of that. Asa had made her look weak. Small. Insignificant.
“I’m sorry I almost got you killed,” she muttered to Lee. “I guess now we’ll have to try Plan B, which is—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Felix cried. “Plan B? Are you crazy?! Your brother just said—”
“Asa isn’t the boss of me! And neither are you, Felix Vickery. I’ll do what I want, and Lee will, too. Won’t you, Lee?”
Lee looked uncomfortably between Gretchen and Felix.
“We made a deal, Vickery.”
“Um,” Lee said.
“Oh.” Gretchen crossed her arms. “I get it. You’re turning coward on me.”
A look crossed Lee’s face that Gretchen had not seen there before. She had made him angry.
“I’m not a coward,” he said. “And you’re a liar! You said you could break the Agreement with a Rite, but Asa just said you’re not allowed. When were you going to tell me that? Maybe the same time you told me your top-secret master plan?”
Gretchen wobbled, off-balance. She hadn’t thought Lee had this much force in him.
“I—I told you,” she stammered, “it’s a stupid rule, antiquated. It says only the firstborn Whipple is allowed to perform Rites. But it isn’t fair that I can’t try
, just because of when I was born. I’m a Whipple, same as Asa or my dad. I could summon. I just don’t know yet, because I haven’t done any Rites.”
Lee shook his head. “But maybe you can’t summon. Which means maybe you can’t do anything for us. What kind of quid pro quo is that?”
“I’m telling you, I think I can! I only need a Rite to prove it, and in case you didn’t notice, those just got thrown off a cliff.”
“So? Your family has a whole book of them, remember? Why don’t you try one of those?”
Gretchen hesitated. It was a mistake.
“You don’t really have the Book of Rites either, do you?” Lee cried. “You’ve made all of this up!”
“I haven’t!” Gretchen shouted back. “It isn’t made up, I swear! I may have just . . . fudged the details, but I have a plan for everything, including breaking your Agreement.”
“So what is it?!” Lee demanded. “You want my help? Then I’ve got to know the plan. I’m not just going to go running through woods and falling off cliffs when I don’t even know what I’m running and falling for.”
Maybe Lee had a point, Gretchen reflected. She had been so excited when she’d seen him on those bleachers—when she’d realized Lee Vickery had actually shown up—she hadn’t taken the time to consider how much Lee should know.
How much could she really tell him?
Gretchen pointed to Felix. “I’m not saying anything with him around.”
“No,” said Lee, folding his arms. “Felix joins us. You’re the one who lied, so you don’t get to make the rules anymore, I do. And I say you don’t get my help if Felix can’t join, too.”
Felix looked just as disgusted as Gretchen felt about this sudden proposal. “I don’t want to join,” he said. “This whole thing is crazy.”
“But the Rites,” Lee said. “There might be a way to—”
“No. We tried, Lee. We can’t. Especially not with her.” Felix looked accusingly at Gretchen. “What if you can’t do the Rites after all?”
Gretchen looked at her galoshes. “I’ll figure something out. I—I can ask my father.”
“Great,” muttered Felix. “Another Whipple.”
“Yeah, another Whipple,” Gretchen snapped. “In case you aren’t aware, we’re the only ones who can do Rites, so maybe be nicer, huh?”
“Both of you cut it out,” said Lee. He nodded to Gretchen. “You investigated, and I helped. In fact, I almost got killed for you. So now it’s time for you to tell me about summoning.”
Gretchen coughed. “I don’t—”
“Quid pro quo, remember?”
She closed her eyes and sighed. Quid pro quo.
Gretchen wondered, was she about to do something unforgivable? If she told the Vickeries her family’s secrets, did that make her a traitor? She hadn’t considered that when she’d first made her deal with Lee.
“If I tell you,” she said, “it has to be under the strictest confidence.”
Lee nodded solemnly. “Of course.”
“All right.” Gretchen shouldered her backpack, her mind made up. “We’ll go to my place. Gram will be at bridge club, so we’ll have the house to ourselves until six. Is he going to come?” She pointed to Felix.
“I don’t know.” Lee turned to his brother. “Are you?”
Felix looked pained, as though someone were pinching him very hard. But he nodded.
“Then I guess I can’t stop you,” sighed Gretchen. “Come on, both of you.”
Lee couldn’t stop his hands from shaking, even after Gretchen had lit a fire in the library hearth. His clothes were damp and his skin chilled, but Lee suspected the shakes weren’t entirely owing to the rain. He could still feel Gretchen’s arm slipping through his hands, still see the fog-shrouded ravine and the very great distance between him and it. Today, he had almost died.
He was upset that Felix had followed him—had left home without permission—and Lee feared what punishment awaited his brother. To take his mind off that unpleasant thought, he looked around the wood-paneled library, at its rows and rows of books, stacked and fitted all about him.
Gretchen stood atop a tall stepladder and was scanning a row of books five shelves up. She ran her finger along the spines, a soft tip-tip-tip. Then the tip-tipping stopped, and Gretchen cried out, “Here it is!”
She pulled out a book and clutched it one-armed as she hopped off the ladder and settled on the sofa next to Lee. Felix, who had said nothing since their departure from Hickory Park, sat across from them on an ottoman near the crackling fire.
“What is it?” Lee asked, scooting closer to Gretchen and looking the book over. The cover was deep green and resembled snakeskin. Or maybe it really was snakeskin.
Gretchen opened the book, and a strong scent of must emerged from the pages.
“Ugh,” said Lee.
“I know,” said Gretchen. “Like something died.”
Felix snorted. “That isn’t what death smells like.”
“Why thank you, Mr. Expert,” said Gretchen. Clearly, she and Felix meant to argue every point on principle.
“This is the best book on the topic of summoning,” Gretchen said. “It was made by the very first mayor of Boone Ridge, over two hundred years ago.”
She tapped the first page of the unnamed book, on which there was an ink drawing of a coiled snake. Its head was lifted ever so slightly, and its slit eyes stared up at Lee in a way that sent him shaking once more.
“This is how I learned most of what I know, really.” Gretchen turned the page. “It’s so clear. Everything is arranged all nice and neat. A chapter on Memory. A chapter on Death. A chapter on Passion. A chapter on ‘practical applications.’ There are lots of pictures and charts. It’s very comprehensive.”
Lee took a good look at the table of contents. Memory, Death, Passion. Never had Lee seen their names written out like this, in one place—a testament to their reality. Of course he knew they were real, but no one in town or at school ever spoke like they were.
“Humans are content to live small lives,” Lee’s mother had told him once. “They know greater forces are at work, but it’s such a lot of effort to see or understand them. It’s easier to just eat your breakfast and watch your favorite television shows.”
But then, Lee thought, Gretchen wasn’t an ordinary human. And she certainly hadn’t been raised to live a small life. She saw what Lee saw, and she understood, but in a different way than he ever had.
“What sort of pictures?” asked Felix, scooting the ottoman closer.
Gretchen flopped the pages over to the center of the binding. There were two drawings, each covering a full page. One was captioned Death Rite, the other Memory Rite. Felix let out a shout.
“What?” said Lee, growing excited. “Is that what they look like, then?”
The pictures were ink drawings. In one, Death stood tall, a young man dressed in an expensive-looking suit; he held a top hat in one hand and a pair of metal pincers in the other. Under his gaze, a small girl was kneeling with tears in her eyes, bent over the figure of a lifeless old man.
In the other picture, labeled Memory Rite, a sharp-jawed woman, dressed in lace from throat to ankle, stood over a boy, who sat cross-legged with a large book titled Book of Rites in his lap.
Felix had told Lee how Death and Memory appeared to his otherwise sightless eye. He’d described Death as a man in a suit and Memory as a beautiful lady, Queen Anne’s lace threaded in her hair. But the pictures in Gretchen’s book were more than vague descriptions: they were slopes of noses and turns of cheekbones and curves of ears—clear and unmistakable faces.
“That’s them, all right,” Felix whispered.
Gretchen laughed in a breathy, nervous way. “So it’s true. You do live with them. You can see them.”
“I see them every day.” Felix tapped his eyepatch. “In this eye.”
Gretchen pointed to Lee. “And you hear them through your deaf ear.”
Lee nodded.
“They live with you,” she said softly. “I thought . . . I thought maybe Dad was lying about that. It can’t be easy, can it? Living with Shades?”
Lee exchanged a look with Felix. They shouldn’t be talking about this, he knew. Not with a Whipple. But then, only a Whipple would understand.
“No,” he said. “It’s not easy.”
“The Agreement.”
Gretchen did not say it like a question, but Lee knew it was. He and Felix were still looking at each other. Felix’s look said We can’t say more. Lee’s said We’ve already said too much.
“Gretchen,” Lee said, “what exactly do you know about apprentices?”
“That you suck,” Gretchen said promptly. “The Shades offer you one nice thing, and for that you give them the rest of your lives. And then you don’t care about humans anymore, you just do whatever your Shade tells you, like mindless drones.”
Lee decided it was not worth pulling apart these words.
“So you know apprenticing is usually hereditary, right?” he asked.
“Sure,” said Gretchen. “Like summoners. You grow up with the family business. And then when you’re sixteen you choose whether or not to sign an apprenticeship contract.”
“Right,” said Lee. “That’s how it was for our parents. Mom’s family has been apprentices since the Great Depression. And Dad’s has since . . .” Lee frowned, trying to remember.
“Since 1865,” said Felix. “It used to be Carvers, but the last of them died off in the Civil War.”
“Right,” said Lee. “Felix remembers the dates better than me.”
“And they didn’t just give away their lives for ‘one nice thing,’” Felix said tightly. “They were trapped into signing those contracts. Bad things happened to them, and they had to sign to make the bad things better. They—they didn’t really have a choice, they—”
Felix had grown red in the face. He looked liable to explode, and for that reason, Lee cut in. “Anyway, Felix lives with our dad and Death, and I live with our mom and Memory.”
“Only, you can’t see each other,” Gretchen said, her eyes bright. “I mean, Felix, you can’t see your mom, and Lee, you can’t see your dad.”
The House in Poplar Wood Page 10
