“It doesn’t work like that, kid.”
I exhale. “Of course it doesn’t. Can you tell me something? When you die, do you stay here forever?”
“No. Everything fades. From the moment you were brought into the world, you were dying. How fast you do that is up to a lot of things. I’ve been here more years than I can count. But I guess it’s good to know that when things end, you can start again.”
I blink, fighting back the memory of my mother, sitting on the edge of my bed, telling me something so similar. Sometimes things end. And it’s comforting to be able to begin again.
He wags a finger at me. “But listen, girl. Stop getting ideas. If anything happens to you, your momma’ll skin me. Not alive, because that ain’t possible, but you get the picture. You’re all she ever talks about.”
“I—I am?” I sputter. I can’t believe that’s true. He must have me confused with someone else’s daughter. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. “I can’t leave. Not when I know my mother is over there.” I bite my lip, thinking of my mother. She left me; why wouldn’t I do the same to her? But the answer is immediate: I’m not like her. “I don’t abandon my family.”
Now he starts to pace around me, hands on hips. When he stops, his eyes burn into me. He’s angry. “If anyone could be the death of me, you’re it. You can’t do nothing about it, kid. Accept it. Just do what your momma said.”
I start to argue with him, but then I hear something. We both freeze at the sound of tires on gravel, coming nearer, up the driveway.
He reaches out and at first I think he’s going to poke me, but instead, he gently touches my cheek with his icy finger, leaving a line of tingles there. I wonder if it tingles that way because he’s not human or for another reason, but already I yearn to feel it again. I want to grab his hand and keep it there, but before I can, he says, “Go home.”
And then it’s like he was never there at all.
Chapter Sixteen
When Angela and Justin return, they look tired, not exhilarated, like I expect them to. They live for hiking and outdoors stuff, and yet Angela just collapses on the sofa without so much as a nod in my direction. Justin drops their backpacks on the foyer floor and studies me, an unfocused, confused look on his face. Finally, it’s like something switches on in his brain, because he says, “You feeling better?”
I’m standing in the kitchen, which is probably not something I should be doing if I just sprained my ankle. I start to limp over to him. “Well, uh—”
“You have your hiking boots on. Did you go outside?” He sounds suspicious, which catches me off guard. Justin is not the suspicious type.
“Yeah, I—I wanted to get some fresh air, so I just went out for a little bit,” I lie. “How was your hike?”
He kisses the top of my head. “Cool. Would have been more fun with you there, though.”
I smile at him. Of course he’s just saying that.
“I’m going to catch a shower at the Outfitters. Then we can go see that movie, okay?”
“Sounds good,” I say. A movie is the last thing on my mind, though. I can’t stop thinking of what Trey said. Someone is conspiring to overthrow the Mistress. My mother, the Mistress. This woman, the most important person of my childhood, who I adored beyond words, is only yards away. As incredible as that sounds, after all I’ve witnessed, I believe it. Inexplicably, I can almost feel her presence. It is what drew me to this place. Suddenly I realize why I haven’t been able to leave. Here, I’m enveloped by that clammy yet comforting feeling I used to get whenever she touched me. I belong here. I know now that my mother felt the same.
My mother. Even just thinking about her now, when I haven’t in so long, ties my stomach in knots. Trey said I’m all she ever talks about. And here, all this time, I’ve never talked about her. I pushed her out of my mind and off my tongue for so long, I can barely think the word without clenching my jaw. Mother.
I go upstairs into the bedroom where I left my bag and begin to change. Though there is no trace of grit on my skin or dampness anywhere from my plunge in the Dead, my clothes just feel wrong. They scratch at my skin almost as if they were full of river. The sun is beginning to set, casting orange streaks on the river across the way. I watch it as I kick off my mud-crusted boots and peel my shirt and jeans off.
I stand there in my bra and panties, rifling through my bag, looking for my lip gloss. I never go anywhere without slathering my lips in the stuff. When I find it, I step to the mirror and smudge the bubble-gum-pink color into my lips. Then I find my brush and run it through my hair, letting the hair fall loose down my back. I stand back to look at myself. Two days away from civilization, and I still look presentable. Awesome. I’m about to reach down and find my shirt when I see it.
A face among the dark trees outside.
I gasp and turn, reaching for clothes, and that’s when I make out the figure that is standing there, watching me. Jack. He knows I see him, and yet he doesn’t shy away. He doesn’t move, almost as if he is a part of the landscape. He keeps staring at me, this look—of approval? No, of wanting—on his face. His eyes are full of fire, so full I’m suddenly aware of this burning sensation that starts in my chest and radiates down between my legs.
What is wrong with me? From what Trey said, I should know Jack is bad. Trey said he’s the enemy. Still, I can’t help thinking that there’s something about him I want so deeply. I drop the shirt to the floor, only because I know it would please him. I want to please him. I want it with everything I am. My fingers are not my own; they feel like they are attached to puppet strings as they reach behind my back and undo the clasp of my bra.
There’s a faint noise in the hallway. I whirl around to see that the door is open an inch. It shudders a little, and that’s when I see an eye in the opening. Refastening my bra, I recognize it just as the door opens fully and Hugo steps into the room, hitting me with a wave of foul-smelling air, a mixture of old alcohol, vomit, and morning breath. He hasn’t even cleaned himself up; he has the worst five o’clock shadow and his hair is sticking up straight at the very top, kind of like a Mohawk. Gagging, I grab my shirt and hold it over my chest as he drawls, “Hey, you.”
“What are you doing in here?” I shout. “Get out of here!”
He’s running his tongue around his mouth like it’s his toothbrush. He eyes me like he’s got something on me. “Why were you … Who was out there?”
I turn back to the window. Jack is gone. In that instant, everything I was doing just seems so stupid. What was I doing? I’m starting to blush, something I don’t want Hugo to see, or else he’ll know. He’ll know he’s gotten to me. So I grab my hairbrush and hurl it at him. “Get out!” I scream.
He ducks away and it smacks against the wall near the door, leaving a crescent-shaped dent in the plaster. “Ice Girl my ass. More like Psycho Girl,” he calls behind me.
Psycho Girl, I think, as I put on my new T-shirt and jeans, carefully looking out into the darkening forest every so often. But Jack never returns. Maybe he was never there in the first place. I’d hate for Hugo to be right, but this time, he probably is.
I’m lacing up my hiking boots when Angela comes into the room. Her hair is damp, so she must have showered. “Hi, Lucky Charms,” she says. “How’s your ankle?”
“Hi, um …” I think Angela spends most of her free time trying to think of new cereals to call me, but this time, I’m blank. “Trix?” There’s a cereal called that, right? “Much better.”