“You know,” he told her, picking up a chocolate and handing it to her, “some people call the night before Halloween, Mischief Night. A few guys at school were going out to soap windows and throw eggs. Kid’s stuff. I couldn’t imagine anyone I’d want to do mischief with more than you.”
Liv took the chocolate but couldn’t put it in her mouth. Her legs trembled and her stomach did little flips. The candles and the warmth of the room made her dizzy, and she put a hand up to a rafter to steady herself.
“This is for you,” he said, sitting on the blanket and putting his hand on a black gift box. A red bow sat in the center.
Liv sank to her knees and pulled the box toward her. She lifted the lid. Nestled in a sheath of tissue paper, she found an olive-colored satin gown. On top of the gown rested a jewel-encrusted mask in the shape of a cat’s face.
“I bought it in Detroit,” he told her, just over her shoulder now. She felt his breath on her neck, and when she turned, Liv saw the candlelight dancing in his pale eyes.
When he leaned forward, she drew in a breath, but did not pull away.
He kissed her.
His lips were soft, and warm.
She kissed back, yielding into him as he eased her back onto the blanket. Helplessness spiraled her down and down.
She went willingly, thinking of winter nights with George only days before. She had sung in the spirit of Freya, the goddess not only of battle, but also of love.
As she wrapped her arms around Stephen’s neck, she imagined the images of Freya in George’s books, a woman with wild hair and blazing eyes.
Stephen’s kissing grew more urgent, and Liv’s own desire grew to a crescendo to meet his. He pulled at her clothes and she shrugged out of her pants, laughing when one foot got stuck. Her fingers shook as she unbuckled his suspenders and then loosened his trousers.
Her thoughts lured her away, wanted to criticize her awkwardness, remind her of the frayed elastic in her panties or her breasts loose beneath her shirt.
“I am here,” she whispered.
Stephen paused and gazed at her for a long moment.
“Destiny,” he breathed, and then lowered his mouth to hers.
Liv slept next to Stephen all night. Curled beneath his satin covers, she felt the achy wetness between her legs.
She had not only kissed a boy that night; she had gone all the way. There were people who would whisper about women who did such things out of wedlock, but Liv had not been raised in such families. George spoke of Viking women as free, their bodies not bound by the close-minded ideas of men. Her own mother had created Liv from a night of grief mingled with yearning.
As Stephen slept beside her, his breath soft and lilting, Liv’s mind wandered to the future. What would become of their love? Of this night?
The following night was Halloween, and the Masquerade Ball. They had planned to play their trick on Veronica, inviting her to the party and then handing her the Night Haunts curse.
Suddenly none of it mattered. Not the kids who’d teased Liv, not Veronica and her friends, not the poverty she’d grown up in, not even George and the old ways. Liv wanted only to lie in bed with Stephen forever.
She walked home in the chill of early morning. Stephen had kissed her goodbye, his lips warm in the cold October dawn. Icy dew clung to Liv’s shoes and the hem of her pants. She held the gift box tucked under one arm.
The night before drove her deep into her thoughts. As she walked, she did not see the trees or the road edge, but only Stephen leaning over her in the firelight.
A longing to return to him sat heavy in her limbs, but a sense of wanting to run lingered there too. Because what would become of their friendship now that they’d crossed that invisible threshold?
Snores filled her ramshackle home when she crept in.
Her mother sat at the kitchen table, already awake for the day at five a.m., sipping her chicory coffee and looking haggard.
When Liv walked in, her mother’s eyes widened.
“You’re home,” she gasped. “I had the most terrible dream that you’d gone away.”
She stood and walked to Liv, pulling her close.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to worry you.”
Liv’s mother didn’t speak and did not acknowledge the gift box other than with a flick of her eye. She pulled away from her daughter and studied her. Liv felt as if the night before was plain on her face.
Her mother did not ask.
“There’s warm water in the basin. Best wash your face and go to bed.”
Liv did as she was told.
When she crawled into bed next to her sister, she watched the rise and fall of the little girl's chest as she breathed. She wanted to curl around her and inhale the scent of her tangled hair.
Instead, she lay in the early light beginning to filter through the window and thought of Stephen.
Chapter 36
Liv
Liv sat on the stiff white hospital bed. She wrapped a sheet over the bowl Kaiser had delivered her stew in that evening. She’d dumped the meal into her bedpan, knowing if she ate it, she’d be unable to perform the tasks that lay ahead. She cinched the fabric beneath the bowl, knotting and pulling it tight.
She rested the bowl in her lap, closed her eyes and began to lightly drum on the fabric. The sound was soft, muffled, nothing like the drums from her childhood with George, but she knew what mattered most of all when calling in the spirits - a clear intention, a voice so filled with purpose it could cross the barriers between the living and the dead.
Though it was not the spirits of the dead she sought that night, but the spirit of a cat.
She hummed low, and beat her makeshift drum.
Rhythmically she began to rock back and forth. Eyes half-closed, Liv watched the room slide in and out of focus, until finally it slipped away like water cascading over a cliff.
On the fringes of a trance, Liv gazed into the moonlit forest that surrounded Stephen Kaiser’s childhood home.
The house filled her with dread, but she slid by the windows, like accusing eyes, and followed the scent of the animal she sought. She found her crouched in a bush, watching a field mouse who shivered in a crevice within the bark of a fallen tree.
“Kǫttr,” she called to the cat.
The cat’s ears pricked and a shiver ran along her spine. Her silken black fur rose in a sinewy spike from nape to tail.
The spirit of the cat listened, and when Liv moved into the animal, the spirit shifted and made room for her.
They ran through the cold high grass, the wet flicking against her whiskers. Up the porch, a swift, smooth jump carried her to the first eave. They scampered to the highest roof and there beneath an overhang, the cat squirmed into a hole in the abandoned house. On the pads of her hardened feet, she landed in the attic, nudged open the door with her nose and trotted to the floor below.
Stephen’s door stood ajar, and the cat slipped inside.
Jesse
Jesse sat in the dark kitchen, hands wrapped around a mug of tea. Overhead, a door creaked. He held the drink tighter, willing the sound away.
He didn’t want to follow the sound and see what apparition waited for him upstairs.
When another door creaked, he forced himself out of his chair.
He took the steps two at a time to the third floor, not bothering to hide his presence. If he crept slowly, the fear would have crippled him.
The door to the closet stood open, and a shaft of moonlight lit the open trunk.