“Are your parents still alive?” Jesse asked.
“My mom is,” Tony said. “My dad died three years ago, heart attack. He knows now. Sometimes I think about that. One way or another, he knows.”
Chapter 32
Liv
George set a plate in front of her. A bloody organ lay in the center of the tin plate.
“The boar’s heart. Eat it, Volva. You will need his courage.”
Liv shook her head.
She had eaten the hearts of many things. George had been feeding her the organs of animals since she was a child, but usually he prepared a soup or made it palatable in some way. This one was raw and cold.
“I’ve been having dreams, child.”
George faced her across the table.
She’d returned his book to the hollow beneath the floor, but it seemed to pulse with energy. Could George sense it?
“What kind of dreams?” she asked, pushing the heart around on the plate. Her stomach gurgled at the sight.
“Dark spirits are courting you, Volva. Eat the heart.”
“No, I can’t. I’ll get sick.”
George pushed the plate closer.
“There are trials ahead for you, my child. Eat the heart.”
She saw the set of his jaw, the hard-flinty edge in his eyes. Holding her breath, she lifted the heart and took a bite. Blood squirted into her mouth and she gagged, dropping the heart and pushing away from the table.
“No, I can’t. I’m not going to.”
She grabbed a rag from the basin and wiped at her face.
The heart lay in the center of the table.
“How will you have the strength to perform a curse without courage, Volva? Hmm…?”
He watched her impassively.
Liv glanced toward his bed, where the book of spells lay beneath the floorboards.
“Did you think I wouldn’t know? Did you think I didn’t know days before you took it?”
“Stephen wanted to see it. That’s all. We’re not going to curse anyone, George. I swear. I-”
He held up a hand, but it was the expression of disappointment in his face that silenced her.
George shook his head.
“The old ways will protect you, Volva. But if you turn away from them, if you cannot prostrate yourself at the feet of the wise ones…” He trailed off. He took her seat at the table and pulled the plate over, cutting a bite from the organ and putting it into his mouth.
They did not speak as he ate. When he finished, Liv cleaned his plate and returned it to the cupboard.
“We will celebrate the winter nights next week.”
Liv nodded, gazing through the window toward trees shifting from green to gold.
Stephen would leave for school soon. Her gut ached at the thought. She imagined the spells in George’s book. There were ways to make him stay, but she’d never dare.
Liv stumbled when she saw them - Stephen and Veronica sitting together at the Silver Spoon Diner.
The toe of her worn shoe caught on the edge of the sidewalk and she plunged forward, landing on her hands and knees. Pain streaked through her limbs, and she climbed gingerly to her feet. Her knees were scraped and bloody; her hands matched. She brushed the tiny stones embedded in her palms back to the ground, and then looked again at the window.
Stephen and Veronica watched her, their half-empty cream sodas sitting before them on the table.
Veronica’s face melted with delight. Liv could see the bob of her dark head as she laughed. Stephen did not smile, his expression pitying, but he did not come to her aid.
Stephen had left for school two weeks before.
And now, here he sat with Veronica.
Liv’s face grew hot, and she wanted to turn and run back the way she’d come, but she didn’t. Tilting her chin up, the abrasions on her knees throbbing each time she bent her legs, she walked down the street. Tears threatened, but she held them back.
She imagined sitting with George in the peaceful quiet of the Stoneroot Forest. He often spoke of emotion as a spirit who crept into the body and stole reason. The spirit rejoiced in chaos. If Liv cried, the spirit would celebrate and return again to steal her power.
She stopped at the little schoolhouse Arlene attended.
Her sister squealed and jumped from the circle of children when she saw Liv. She raced across the yard and crashed into her legs.
“Whoa,” Liv said, wincing. “How was your day, peanut?” She patted her sister’s blonde curls.
“Are you hurt, Livvy?’ Arlene asked, touching a finger to Liv’s bloody knee.
“Just a scratch,” Liv assured her, though the pain in her heart felt much deeper.
She steered the little girl toward home.
“Did you know that Mrs. Bartleby’s son lost his leg in France in the War to End All Wars?” Arlene chirped. “He’s a hero. All the kids think so. And he has twin sons that are only a year younger than me. Funny they called it the War to End all Wars because we’re at war again.”
Arlene prattled on as they took the dusty two-mile walk home.
Liv only half-listened. She couldn’t erase the image of Stephen and Veronica together at the diner. Each time she pictured them, her stomach grew tight.
“Hey!” Liv heard Stephen’s call as he stripped off his clothes and ran down the dock.
He dove into the lake and barely rippled the water.
Liv swam away. She reached the weedy shore and climbed out. By the time his head broke the surface, she’d shuffled into her clothes and shoved her wet feet into her shoes.
“Hey! Where are you going?” he asked.
She didn’t answer, but turned and walked into the woods. She fanned her shirt away from her clammy skin. It wouldn’t dry anytime soon. She hadn’t even shaken off before putting her clothes on.
“Liv! Wait up.” Stephen ran up beside her, barefoot and wearing only his Jockey shorts.
Liv didn’t look at him. The tears she’d felt at the cafe the day before struggled up from her belly. They wanted to pour forth. She stuffed them deeper.
“Liv, stop!” He grabbed her arm and tugged her to face him.
She saw hurt and confusion in his pale blue eyes. She wondered what he saw in her own.
“Why are you upset, Liv?”
She swallowed and jerked her shoulder back, pulling her arm out of his grasp.
She opened her mouth, and a little sob fell out. It seemed to flop on the forest floor between them, limp and strange.
She closed her eyes and tried again.
“You were with her. With Veronica.”
When she opened her eyes, Stephen had a funny little smile on his face.
“Of course I was, Liv,” he said. “It’s all part of the plan. How are we going to kill her if we don’t befriend her first?”
“Damn it, Stephen!” she cried. “We’re not killing her. It’s all a joke. I saw her. She was laughing at me.”
Liv turned, but Stephen grabbed her again. His hand was hot and slick in her own. Liv’s heart pummeled against her rib cage. There was something different in the touch, something softer.
When he pulled her to face him, she saw a flush in his cheeks.
“Liv,” he murmured. “I invited Veronica to the diner to ask her to the Halloween party. I would never go out with her. I hate her. I hate her for you.”
He stepped closer to Liv. His breath pushed hot against her cheek. His hand slid from her wrist to her upper arm. If he moved any closer, her breasts would press against him.
His eyes were so pale now, a blue that reminded her of stones in the river, polished nearly white but still holding a remnant of their original color.