Touch

by Michelle Sagara

  Explaining this to the distant voices, on the other hand, was a lost cause; all it did was wake up her dog, who assumed she wanted to take him for a walk. Loudly.

  “Petal,” she said, catching his face in her hands, which was always dangerous unless you wanted a whiff of dog breath, “we’re not going for a walk, and if you wake Mom up, she’ll bite my head off.”

  He not only breathed in her face, but licked her chin as well. She hugged him tightly, and only in part to avoid his tongue. The dead didn’t bother him, he hadn’t brought home a stray boyfriend, and he wasn’t giving her advice she couldn’t bear to follow.

  The temperature in the room took a sudden dive; she tightened her grip around the rottweiler’s neck before letting him go. He, on the other hand, had both large paws in her lap; he was whining. The room was dark enough that the sudden blink of the computer monitor made her shut her eyes. When she opened them again—slowly—she saw Mark’s back. He was standing in front of the monitor, his hands by his sides. There were no key clicks, no mouse clicks, but the images on the screen were changing as she watched.

  She remembered her dad reading a letter she’d written and posted; she couldn’t remember whether or not he’d gone through the motions of touching the keys in order to make her more comfortable. It was something her dad would do—but Mark was not a child who would understand the need for that kind of make-believe. Neither, she thought, as she approached him, would Michael.

  The light of the computer screen turned most of the nearby room a pale shade of gray and blue; it didn’t touch Mark. The dead seemed to radiate their own light; regular light didn’t change their appearance at all.

  “Mark?”

  His profile, silent and almost graven, didn’t change. She wondered if he’d heard her. She almost reached out to touch him, but remembered that he didn’t like to be touched. With Michael, it was the only certain way to get his attention when his focus was buried inside his own head. Mark wasn’t Michael—but he reminded Emma of Michael in his childhood. Michael, however, was alive.

  “Mark, shut it off. Come away. There’s nothing there you haven’t seen.”

  He didn’t move at all.

  She came to stand behind him, her palms hovering over his shoulders. His search terms—he was Googling—made her flinch. Mother. Kills. Child. Before she could find words, “Murders” was substituted for “Kills.” On her best and brightest day, headlines like this were a horror she didn’t visit.

  She wished that Allison were here. Or Michael. Or her father. Anyone but her. At this time of night the only person who might wander by was her dad, and only because he no longer had to work in the morning. Brendan Hall remained conspicuously absent; Emma was alone with her slobbering dog and a boy who stood like a statue and read, and read, and read.

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  AT 8:10, Emma managed to be in the front hall, decently dressed but distinctly underfed. She hadn’t made her mother’s coffee but had managed to fill Petal’s food and water bowls; her mother could buy a coffee at a dozen places on the drive in to work; her dog, however, couldn’t open a can by himself. He could navigate the dry food bags and had in the past, but no one in the Hall house really wanted the contents of the bag spread across the kitchen floor.

  Michael was on time, no surprise there. But he was tense, his eyes slightly wider than usual, his lips compressed. His hands were rigid by his sides—which didn’t stop Petal from nuzzling them. It also didn’t stop Michael from feeding the dog, but it took him a minute to zone back in.

  “Emma,” Mercy called from the top of the stairs, as they were just about to leave.

  Emma turned.

  “Jon is coming over for dinner tonight. You’ll be home?”

  “I’d love to, Mom, but I promised Allison I’d—I’d do some work with her at the library.”

  Her mother said nothing for a long minute. “Well. Don’t be home too late.”

  “I won’t.” Emma escaped the house; she couldn’t escape the tone of her mother’s weary voice.

  “Who is Jon?” Michael asked as they headed down the walk.

  “My mother’s new boyfriend.”

  “Oh.”

  “You can say that again.”

  Michael, who was watching the ground as if he expected it to break beneath his feet at any minute, said, “You don’t like him?”

  “I—” She held her breath for ten seconds. “I don’t know him well enough to dislike him.”

  “But you don’t like him.”

  She grimaced. No one else would have asked the question, because the answer was so clear. “It’s not him, not exactly. I don’t like the fact that he’s my mother’s boyfriend. I don’t know him at all—I just don’t want to get to know him. Not like that.”

  “But your mother likes him.”

  “Yes, clearly. And she doesn’t care if I don’t.”

  “She doesn’t? Have you asked her?”

  “No. We don’t often ask questions in the Hall household,” she added, speeding up slightly and hoping for rescue by Allison if she could just reach her house under the barrage of questions.

  * * *

  Allison was two minutes late and came careening around the Simner door, clutching the backpack she hadn’t taken the time to loop over her shoulders, but Michael was so absorbed that he didn’t notice. This should have told Emma something. Allison hit the sidewalk taking longer than usual strides—mostly to match Emma’s.

  “Michael,” Allison said, before any of the usual morning greetings could be exchanged, “what exactly did you say to your mother last night?”

  Emma froze in midstep, which, given the temperature of the morning wasn’t as hard as it should have been. The shadows she cast in snow made brown by dirt, salt, and many feet had become desperately interesting. She turned to look at Michael, who was still concentrating on the ground. “I told her that we were late coming home from Emma’s.”

  “That’s all you said?”

  “No. I told her about history and Mr. Taylor’s accident.”

  Allison exhaled. “What did you tell her about—about Mark?”

  This did get his attention, possibly because Allison’s intensity was ratcheted up to a much higher level than usual. Attention, on the other hand, didn’t mean that he shifted his gaze much. “I didn’t tell her anything about Mark,” he said. “You said it wasn’t a good idea to talk about the dead.”

  Allison didn’t relax much; Emma, who had started to, thought better of it when she looked at Ally’s compressed lips. “Your mother called my mother this morning. That’s why I’m late.”

  Michael did look at Allison then, possibly to see what her expression actually was. “My mother phoned your mother?”

  Allison nodded.

  “Why?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Allison replied. She now glanced at Emma, who shook her head. “Was your mother upset last night, Michael?”

  “No.”

  “Did you—did you talk to her this morning at breakfast? I mean, this morning at all?”

  “I always talk to her in the morning.”

  Allison, by dint of will and familiarity with Michael, did not pull her hair or shriek. “Did you talk about anything related to what happened last night at all?”

  He was silent while he considered the question. “Yes,” he finally replied.

  Emma now stepped in. “Allison, what did she say to your mom?”

  “She was worried about Michael. She asked if we knew of anything that had happened at school—at all—that might cause him to ask her about parents killing their children because their children weren’t normal enough.”

  “Michael, we don’t know that that’s what happened,” Emma said, voice low, glance sweeping the sidewalk for po
ssible eavesdroppers.

  Michael said, “We do. We do know that’s what happened.”

  “No, we don’t. We know that—that Mark’s mother took him for a walk. We know that he—” she took a deep breath. “We know that he died. But we don’t know why she left him there. It might be—”

  “Emma, I’m not stupid.”

  Allison briefly raised her hands and covered her face with them. Michael, who was genuinely sweet most of the time, was not without a temper.

  “I heard what he said,” Michael continued. He’d stopped walking. “I understood what it meant. Were you listening to him?”

  “I . . . I was.”

  “Why do you think his mother left him there?”

  She had to look away from what she saw in his face. “I don’t know, Michael. I can’t ever imagine doing that to anyone’s child—and I’ve babysat monsters.” She tried to smile at the joke, but it was pathetic, even by Hall standards.

  “I know I’m not normal—”

  “Michael, no one is completely normal.”

  “I know that. But—”

  “I’m a Necromancer,” she said, digging hands into her hips. “How much less normal could a person be?”

  That stopped him for a few seconds; it didn’t, however, start him walking again. Allison glanced at her watch, but she didn’t start walking either.

  “People have already tried to kill Allison because I’m a Necromancer.”

  “Yes, but none of those people were her mother. Or yours. Do you think your mother would—”

  “No!”

  “Why?”

  “She’s my mother—” Emma lifted a hand because she couldn’t stop the words that had just left her mouth, and she had no way to claw them back; not with Michael. “She knows me. She loves me, even when she brings strangers into my house that I don’t want there.”

  “It’s her house, too,” Michael replied—as automatic in his response as Emma had been in hers.

  “Yes. Technically it’s entirely her house. But I live there, and she never asked me for permission. But even if she’s disappointed at my reaction to her—her friend—she would never just lock me out to freeze to death.”

  “If she did,” Michael replied, “You could come and stay at my house.”

  Emma smiled, and the smile was genuine, if pained. “Michael—your mother loves you. She always has. Yes, you’re different. You’ve always been different—but different’s not bad. You’re normal for you. I’m normal for me. Allison is normal for Allison. None of the three of us are the same—but we’re still friends, we still care about each other.”

  His shoulders slumped, half-inch by half-inch, as some of the tension left him. In the wake of tension, however, confusion opened up his expression. “Why did she do it, Emma?” His eyes were round; Emma thought he was close to tears. Michael had never been particularly self-conscious about them.

  “I don’t know, Michael.”

  “She couldn’t have loved him.”

  “No.”

  “But he was her child!”

  “Yes. If I could explain it, I would.” She swallowed, and added, “I’ve been thinking of nothing else all night—because Mark wants to know as well. He wants to know more than any of the three of us do. It happened to him. I don’t know what to say to him,” she added, as she began—slowly—to walk. Michael was upset, yes—but being late wouldn’t help that at all. “If you can think of anything—anything at all—”

  “I have to understand it,” Michael replied.

  “There’s not much to understand,” Allison told them both. “His mother is a monster.”

  Michael was silent for a long moment before he turned and began to follow Emma. “She isn’t,” he said, his voice soft. “She’s a person. If she were a monster, it would be easier.”

  * * *

  “Mom?” Emma cupped her phone to muffle the pre-class noise in the hall and hoped she was audible.

  “Em? Is something wrong?”

  “I—I got my library date confused. I’ll be coming home for dinner tonight. Do you want me to pick up anything on the way home from school?”

  “Milk. And eggs. Not for dinner,” she added. “But I think we’re out.” There was a pause, and then her mother said, “Thank you, Emma.”

  Emma felt a rush of something, a mix of guilt, affection, worry—and, ultimately, trust. Michael wasn’t the only person affected by the morning’s discussion. “I’ll try, Mom. I don’t always handle surprise well.”

  Allison waved her over as she ended the call. “Amy wanted me to tell you the yearbook committee is meeting after lunch.”

  “Is she still on the warpath?”

  “It’s Amy.” Allison readjusted the necklace Ernest had given her. She didn’t generally like things hanging around her neck. Her eyes widened in a particular way, and Emma turned; Michael was standing in front of his open locker staring vacantly at its interior. He hadn’t removed his coat or his backpack.

  Allison and Emma exchanged a single glance.

  Michael had seen Necromancers. He had seen the dead. He’d even kept two dead children amused until Emma’s arms were numb with the cold of making them visible. He’d seen men with guns, and he’d seen their corpses. But it was Mark that had caused the internal meltdown, because Mark’s situation seemed so similar to his own, and Mark was dead.

  “Michael,” Emma said quietly, putting a hand on either shoulder.

  He startled and turned.

  “We’re at school now. You need to take your coat off or you’ll miss math.”

  Allison took his computer out of his pack, and waited until he’d removed his coat. She handed the computer to Michael, who stared at it as if it were a new and unknown object. No wonder his mother had been upset; Emma hadn’t seen him this stressed since elementary school.

  “Will you take Mark home?” Michael asked.

  Emma couldn’t even tell him that it wasn’t safe to talk about Mark at school. “I don’t know.”

  “You promised.”

  “I did. But I don’t think his mother is going to be happy to see him, and I don’t think that’s going to help. What would you want, if you were in Mark’s position?”

  “I’d want to know why,” was the low, intense reply.

  “Math,” she said quietly. “Whatever happens, it won’t happen until after school.”

  “Can I come with you?”

  Emma closed her eyes. She hadn’t lied—one didn’t, to Michael. She was afraid of what such a confrontation would do to Mark. He was eight, but a very young eight. His mother had taken him out for a walk on a literally freezing January day, and she’d left him in the ravine, returning to “normal” life without him.

  What could she possibly say to Mark that would explain that? What could she do that would give him any peace?

  “Yes,” she said, after a long pause. Her voice was thick. “If I can’t talk Mark out of it, you can come with me.”

  “Allison too?”

  “And Nathan,” Emma said, surrendering.

  Michael inhaled and exhaled deeply. Then he straightened his shoulders and looked around the school halls as if they’d unexpectedly coalesced when he hadn’t been paying attention. Emma steered him toward his class, just in case.

  * * *

  Lunch might have been awkward, but Emma only had to endure fifteen minutes of it. Given Eric and Chase, she wasn’t certain she’d survive five; they were in a foul mood. They spoke normal sentences as if each word were a bullet, no matter who their target was. Michael, who brought his own lunch, had held the table. Nothing said in the cafeteria line—and admittedly, on committee meeting days, Emma got to jump to the head of the line—had indicated rage or fury.

  But Michael was silent throughout most
of lunch; not even Connell’s question about mana decks could fully engage him.

  Emma was hugely relieved when she had to leave the table to attend the yearbook committee meeting; she threw Allison one guilty look. Allison grimaced. Emma wasn’t likely to be able to budge Chase, Eric, or Michael today. If she missed the yearbook committee meeting, she’d be adding angry Amy to the mix for no reason.

  * * *

  “I can’t understand,” Chase said, as Emma all but fled the cafeteria, “why everyone’s so terrified of Amy.”

  “Given the caliber of your enemies, that’s understandable,” Allison replied. “But think about it on the inside of our lives for a minute. Amy is the reigning queen of the graduating year. She is gorgeous, she’s on the Head’s honor roll, she’s talented, and she knows everyone. If she wants to make your life miserable, you will—while in school—be miserable.”

  “Amy can be nice,” Michael interjected. “She’s not a bully.”

  “I wouldn’t call her a bully,” Allison replied, realizing that she was skirting the edge of exactly that. “It’s not that she makes people suffer because she enjoys random suffering. If she makes you suffer, she’s absolutely certain there’s a good reason for it. It just happens to be Amy’s version of a good reason. But she’s a steamroller. She’s driving heavy machinery while the rest of us are digging ditches with our hands.”

  “Have you ever been on her bad side?” Chase asked.

  Allison shook her head. “She mostly doesn’t notice me. She’s not looking for victims, but she has her friends.”

  “I would have guessed you were one of them.”

  “I like Amy the same way I like thunderstorms; she’s a force of a nature. But . . . I’m not really Emery mafia material.” She didn’t generally talk about things like this, and she found herself almost embarrassed to say it so clearly to Chase. The embarrassment rattled her, but not enough that she wanted to hide the truth or, worse, lie.