“You little shit!” Henry Sykes shouted, dropping his grip on Christopher to clutch his leg. “You’re dead for this! You’re fucking dead!”
Leo seized Christopher’s hand and pulled him up, while expletives from Sykes’s undiminished rant scorched the air.
“You’re insane, Sykes,” Christopher said, rubbing his neck. “I heard you once bit the head off a rat.”
Now Leo reapproached Sykes, grinning. He wasn’t scared, he realized, not remotely. And the feeling, the complete absence of fear, was electrifying. He didn’t care what happened next, didn’t give a fuck. The thrill of fearlessness pulsed through him and, by the time he reached Sykes, Leo’s eyes were wide with it.
“Never. Touch. My. Friend. Again,” Leo said. “All right?”
Behind him, Christopher clapped. “You’re fucked now, Rugby Boy!”
Sykes was silent now. And the two boys flanking him shrank back against the gates. Leo waited. And, as he waited, he realized something else. Not only was he not afraid of being hurt, but he wanted Sykes to hit him, because then Leo could strike back, could slam him into the gates and thump him till he bled.
But Sykes nodded, mumbling in the direction of his cohorts, and the three boys slunk away. Watching them go, Leo felt the electric thrill of violence begin to ebb, replaced by the dull ache of disappointment.
10th October
Twenty-two days . . .
8:34 a.m.—Scarlet
“So, what’ll you do?” Walt asks. He’s returned, following a six-day absence while waiting on a replacement float switch for the dishwasher and leaving a disgruntled Scarlet to wash everything by hand. She feels grateful, for once, that the café hasn’t been too busy.
“I haven’t a clue.”
They sit atop the kitchen counter, cradling cinnamon buns and coffee. Behind them the finial Scarlet hammered into being seems to glow, as if it’s still in the furnace, so Scarlet imagines she can feel its heat pressing against her back.
“I won’t sell the café, and certainly not to him.”
“You know . . .” Walt swallows the last of his cinnamon bun. “As well as being a dab hand with a wrench, I also moonlight as a hit man. I don’t mean to be immodest but, in certain circles, my expertise is quite renowned.”
Scarlet can’t help a smile. “Oh, yes?”
Walt nods. “You’ll have to take my word for it, though. My clientele aren’t the sort to offer references.”
“I imagine not.”
“As luck would have it,” he says, “I specialize in the assassination of corporate capitalist pigs.”
“That is convenient.” Scarlet sips her coffee. “So, do you only murder or will you maim too?”
Walt considers this. “A simple no-frills assassination will cost you five grand. I charge extra for torture and dismembering. Now, the deluxe package—that includes the gouging of eyeballs, removal of toenails, strangulation of the victim with his own intestinal tract—will set you back an even ten.”
“Do you take direct debit?”
“Cash only, I’m afraid,” Walt says. “As you might imagine, the Revenue and Customs tends to take a dim view of my line of work.”
Scarlet sets down her coffee cup. “They might take a dimmer view of your tax evasion.”
“True,” Walt concedes. “Can I trust you to be discreet?”
“Well, I do prefer my intestines on the inside, so yes, I think you can.” Scarlet inches closer, giving Walt a grateful nudge. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For letting me forget about it all,” Scarlet says—failing grandmothers, financial struggles, and combustible moths—“For a few minutes.”
8:11 p.m.—Liyana
Liyana stares at the ceiling, trying not to think about all the things making her miserable: imminent penury, her failure so far to procure employment. Instead she thinks of Kumiko, Mazmo, the Slade . . . which is no better. Liyana sighs, her eyes filling. She blinks the tears away. One rebels and rolls down her cheek.
Liyana sits up. It’s no use, she needs comfort. She contemplates her options. First, her girlfriend. But she’s already walking on thin ice with Kumiko and doesn’t want to crack it. Second, her aunt. A reflex thought, since when it comes to physical affection (of the platonic sort) Nya is, unless the circumstances are exceptional, about as cuddly as a shark. She tries, but she’s been built too brittle. Third, the fridge. But given the way Liyana’s feeling right now, she’ll gobble up everything before moving on to the cupboards. Which leaves option four: her mother. Unfortunately, Isisa Chiweshe hadn’t been a great source of comfort in life and nor is she in death. So Liyana reaches under her bed for the box. It contains twelve things, including a copy of The Water-Babies that Mummy used to read as a special treat when they weren’t trudging through Dickens. And her tarot cards.
Liyana shuffles the cards until her panic begins to subside. She selects four and sets them on the bed, their pictures bright against the white sheets. The Page of Wands: a boy standing straight and proud, holding a white feather. New perspectives, not afraid of challenges or risk. The Five of Pentacles: two girls huddled together in the snow, three birds watching protectively, the coins scattered at their feet. Despair, loss, hardship, poverty, survival. The Moon: an arched purple wolf howls at the sky. Prophetic dreams, illusions, the unconscious mind. The King of Wands sits on his throne with a snake at his side, surveying his kingdom. Self-assertion, leadership, confidence.
Liyana stares at the cards. Something is different. As she looks down at them, elements in the pictures begin to shift and connect, forming patterns until they’re giving her a clear instruction. Liyana frowns, confused. The echo of her mother’s voice is sharp in her head: Don’t claim to know anything, Ana, until you’re absolutely certain. Self-doubt seeps in. But still, the message is clear. The cards are telling her to find her sisters.
Which is strange, since she doesn’t have any sisters.
8:59 p.m.—Bea
“You’re starting to believe me.”
“Of course I’m not,” Bea says, already wishing she hadn’t called.
“You are. I can feel it.”
“I’m not.”
Her mamá’s laugh is a warning. “A little hint, my dear. When it comes to lying, don’t underestimate your mamá.”
Bea is silent. She thinks about last night, how vivid the dream had been, how shocking the emotions. But what shocks most of all is her growing sense that it hadn’t taken place in a library, or in Cambridge, or, indeed, in this world at all. The books had once been white leaves, the library a grove of willow trees, and the place the subject of her mamá’s tales: Everwhere. But while Bea might be used to playing with philosophical notions of truth and reality, she’s drawn her line in the sand far behind the fantastical. “Well, so what if I am?”
“Well, thank the Devil for that.” Her mamá lets out a theatrical sigh. “Now you can stop being such a bloody shadow of yourself and start embracing who you really are.”
“Which, as far as you’re concerned, is an evil bitch,” Bea says. “Right?”
“You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”
“I think you’ll find that is the general consensus.”
“¡Mierda!” Cleo snaps. “Fuck the general consensus—pura mierda. The general consensus is made by millions of passive conformists, thus the general consensus is invariably bullshit.”
Bea pictures herself cocking a pistol and marching ten paces. “Maybe I’m not who you think I am.”
“Y veremos.” There’s that smile in her mother’s voice. “We’ll see.”
Bea grits her teeth. “Look, I’ve got to go. My moral philosophy essay is due Monday, and I’ve not read any—”
“I already told you”—now the smile is gone—“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’ll call you on Sunday night,” Bea says, and hangs up.
10:27 p.m.—Goldie
Working at the Hotel Clamart is a dream compared with the Fitz. Due
to both the absence of Garrick and the presence of Leo. The shitty toilets are the same, the sticky sheets, the filthy bathroom floors . . . but being able to clean, and pilfer from, the rooms and walk the corridors without watching out for grabby hands and with the expectation of seeing Leo is a joy indeed.
And the place is a gold mine. Leo was right about that. If the Fitz’s guests were rich, these are super rich. It’s quite something to see. And the Americans leave incredible tips. This morning a family of four left me a twenty-pound note on the dressing table. I felt a little guilty, since it wasn’t the only thing I’d taken from them during their stay. Still, I don’t suppose they’ll ever notice.
But by far the best thing about the job is that I will see Leo every day. The best and the worst. Because the temptation is torture. I wish he’d touch me. This morning I tried commanding him, as I had the first time we met, to no avail. I think I was too nervous. I could say something. But I won’t. If he turned me down I’d be so mortified I’d have to quit, and I can’t afford to do that.
11:59 p.m.—Leo
After Christopher died, Leo decided to never again entwine himself with another, boy or girl, mortal or immortal. He’s been safer on his own, stronger. And if he’s had to forgo love to escape grief, it’s a bargain he’s been happy to make.
Until now, until Goldie, Leo has never been tempted, never even been curious. With her, it’s different and he can’t say why. Now he’s curious. Now he wants to know. And although he knows a great deal about her that she doesn’t, he also suspects she has secrets he can’t see. And he wants to know everything—not by sleight of hand or silver tongue, but for her to tell him, willing and free.
He wants to pretend, to play make-believe. He wants to hold her, to feel the pulse of her heart under his palm. He wants to imagine that, if he held her tight against his chest, she would feel his heart beating too.
Leo never thought it would be possible for longing to coexist with loathing, at least not like this. It seems impossible that he can want someone so much while also knowing that, when the time comes, he will have to kill her.
11th October
Twenty-one days . . .
3:33 a.m.
Wilhelm Grimm watches his four favourite daughters. He watches and he waits. Over centuries he’s developed the patience of a saint, so to speak, since he’s anything but. However, when it comes to humans, demons need to be as patient as angels. He doesn’t have much longer to wait now: a strike of lightning, a flicker of starlight. In three weeks they’ll turn eighteen.
He doesn’t yet know how the night of the Choosing will go. It’ll be a particular shame if he must kill them, as he has so many of his other daughters before—he can’t afford, after all, to have such powerful forces working against him. But Wilhelm has high hopes for these four, especially Bea. And if he can win over Goldie, that’ll be a coup indeed. She’s the most powerful Grimm girl he’s seen in four hundred years, not that she has any inkling of that just yet. Her potential for darkness delights him. It’s surprisingly great, given that her mother was such a wimp. Although the stepfather had helped to twist her spirit and stoke her rage. Now all she needs is a nudge in the right direction.
Just imagine the devastation she could wreak, the agony, the misery . . . Unleashed on the world, she could do in a week what a dozen other diligent sisters could only do in a decade. If Goldie goes dark, Wilhelm knows, she will be unstoppable.
3:33 a.m.—Goldie
When I wake, the feeling that I’ve been with Leo, that I’m holding his hand, is so strong I can feel the warmth on my skin. But he’s not beside me. I’m alone. My sheets are cold, except where I’ve lain, where they are wet with sweat.
In the dark I think about the first time I saw him. I start to wonder if I could call Leo to me, if I could summon him with my thoughts as I did the first time we met. If I could override his reticence. Is it possible I have the power to do that?
3:33 a.m.—Leo
For now, Leo waits. Seducing Goldie will have its strategic advantages, certainly. But he’s still not certain that he can be trusted not to compromise himself in the process. He’s already thinking about her far too often. He already feels more than he should feel.
It isn’t easy. When they speak, exchanging pleasantries on the weather or breakfast, Leo wants to stop her. When they pass in the corridor, Leo wants to seize hold of her. Instead, he watches her walk away and waits until the next time, when he does the same thing all over again.
6:58 a.m.—Scarlet
It had taken Scarlet no time to discover that nursing homes, even crappy ones, cost a fortune. She’s looking at anything between five hundred (dire) and two thousand (plush) pounds a week. A week! Which means Scarlet will not only have to sell the café for an extremely tidy sum but also find something far more lucrative than waitressing to finance the shortfall. But there’s no point in worrying about all that right now. First things first. She has, much to her regret, called Ezekiel Wolfe.
They’ve arranged to meet tomorrow, on neutral territory. Walt—who’s still working on the damn dishwasher—has kindly agreed to sit with Esme while Scarlet’s gone, in exchange for a tray of cinnamon buns. She’d offered him a batch of brownies too, to sweeten the deal, but he looked offended and said he didn’t need to be bribed to do something he’d happily do for free. Scarlet had wished, in that moment, that she could hire him to look after Esme full-time. She couldn’t afford £120 an hour, but perhaps she could pay him in cakes.
9:09 a.m.—Bea
He is sitting on the rain-soaked library steps when Bea sees him again. She slows her stride, stopping at the step below him. “You really can’t take a hint, can you?” Bea says. “And I didn’t think I was that subtle.”
“You weren’t,” he says. “You made your feelings quite clear.”
“That’s what I thought,” Bea says, twirling the handle of her umbrella. “Then why are you here? I presume you’re not sitting here just to soak up the rain?”
He hesitates.
“Come on, I haven’t got all day.”
“I . . . I thought it might be weighing on your conscience—your slightly callous dismissal,” he says. “So I thought I’d give you the chance to be a bit politer this time.”
Bea eyes him as an owl might a mouse. “You’re serious?”
He shrugs.
Bea kicks at the stone step. “All right then, I’ll be civil when I tell you to piss off this time. So, what’s your name?”
He tugs at his beard. “Valállat.”
Bea narrows her eyes. “Did you make that up?” she asks, annoyed at being unable to pronounce it. “I’ve never heard it before.”
“It’s Vali.”
“That’s not what you just said.”
He shrugs again, pulling his jumper down from riding up over his belly. “It’s Hungarian. I’m adapting it for”—he’s unable to resist glancing at Bea’s mouth when he says this—“The English tongue.”
“Watch it,” Bea warns.
“Sorry, sorry, I . . . Anyway, you can call me Vali, or Val, whatever you want.”
“Why shouldn’t I call you . . . the other thing,” Bea asks. “I’m perfectly capable of learning to pronounce your real name.”
“I know, but I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Why not?”
Vali hesitates, wiping rainwater from his brow. “It’s not really a proper name.”
“What is it then?” Bea says, curiosity momentarily trumping cruelty.
Vali fixes his eyes on his feet. “It—it means . . . ‘beast.’”
Bea frowns. “Why the hell would your mamá call you that?”
Vali shrugs. “Apparently that’s how I looked when I was born, like a little beast—all red and wrinkled and covered in hair.”
“Hair?”
“I had tufts on my ears, supposedly, and on my back. Not much, I think, but enough to set my mother’s mind. Her opinion didn’t improve over the years either—” He looks s
uddenly startled. “Oh, but you should know that I don’t anymore. My back is now entirely hair-free.”
Bea glares at him. “Why the hell should I care how hirsute you are?”
“Yes, of course. Not at all. Apologies for the digression,” Vali says. “Anyway, now you know my name, you can tell me to piss off again.”
“Right.” Bea looks down at him. He looks up at her. She bites the inside of her lip. “All right then . . . Perhaps that can wait. Get up, you’re soaked.”
Frowning, Vali stands.
Bea holds out her umbrella.
Vali grins.
“Stop grinning.”
Vali doesn’t.
Bea rolls her eyes. “You look like a fat hamster.”
12:34 p.m.—Liyana
Liyana stands in the long lunch queue at Ottolenghi, her aunt’s favourite Islington café. In the time before their financial crash, Nyasha liked to say that Ottolenghi’s fare could be bettered only by Blé Sucré in Paris or Panificio Bonci in Rome. Now, by rights, Liyana shouldn’t be here at all. But when all is lost, and the swimming pool is out of bounds, some small solace can be sought in Ottolenghi’s lemon brûlée tarts.
The lunch line inches forward while Liyana’s thoughts settle gloomily on the Slade. She’s decided to reapply for the next academic year, determined to spend the time between now and then working and saving to meet that part of the £18,900 first-year fees and expenses not covered by loans. Loans she’ll spend the rest of her life paying back, but so be it. It’s only a shame that her passions and talents aren’t inclined towards a more financially stable subject, like economics or law. Even media studies would be a safer bet than fine art.
The Sisters Grimm Page 14
