Silence. The air itself seemed to be listening before I heard Mommy’s footsteps, quick and light. She jerked the front door open, and voices drifted up the stairs.
Women’s voices.
“What are you doing here?” Mom sounded . . . angry. And a little surprised, like she hadn’t expected whoever it was. I could almost see her cocking her head a little, blue eyes turned cool and considering. She sometimes looked at people that way, especially when they wanted something out of her. Grocery store checkers or salesmen paled under that look, especially if they were trying what Dad called “funny business.”
Your mom, he sometimes said, when he’d had some Jim Beam and could be coaxed to talk about the past. She didn’t stand for no funny business.
“I came to visit. Such a charming little house.” Tinkling laughter, and the rustle of silk skirts.
“You’re not welcome here.” Mommy’s voice was sharp and angry, a warning all its own. “I left the Schola Prima, the entire Order, to you. What more do you want?”
The pretense of laughter left the other woman’s voice. It dropped away like the mask it was, and when she spoke again her words crawled with nastiness and hurt.“Where is he?”
My mother’s tone turned cold and businesslike. “What, my husband? He’s human, what is he to you? You even come near him, and I’ll—”
“Human? A human husband? You’re kidding. Even you wouldn’t sink so low.”
A charged, crackling silence. I could tell just from the sound that Mom was furious. She was never angry; Dad called her sweet-tempered. He said he’d eat his goddamn hat if she ever said a mean word about anyone.
This was new and strange. I didn’t like it. I closed my eyes and turned over, burrowed into my pillow. It was warm and safe up here in my bed, even if the wind fingered the sides of the house with a hungry whispering sound.
“Oh.” Sudden comprehension. I heard my mother move, a drawer opening. “He’s left, then. He always said he would.”
“You know where he is.” Sharp and accusing. “You know. He’d run to you.”
“He’s not here.”
“Maybe I should look around and make sure.”
The drawer closed with a bang. There was a heavy metallic click. “Anna.” The tone of warning was new, too. It prickled through me just like the buzzing static did. Child-me moved restlessly again, kicking at my covers. “Get. Out. Of. My. House. Or I will kill you.”
“You’re not a good hostess.” But was that fear in the other woman’s tone? Camouflaged, but still quivering and raw. Of course, if Mommy talked to me like that I’d cry. I was glad she never had. “Swear to me he’s not here!”
“I’m not swearing a single goddamn thing to you. Get out of my house. Or I will shoot you and the Order will need a new head bitch.”
“If you see him . . .” But the woman stopped, her whine trailing off. I didn’t like her voice. It hurt me. My head was full of bad images, mud and blood and sharp teeth, and the only thing that kept me from whimpering was a sudden thickening in the air around me. I was so tired, and if I made a noise, Mommy might come upstairs and talk to me in that cold, angry voice.
And I didn’t want that. I would never want that.
“If I see him, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him. I can’t imagine it will make much difference. He does what he wants.”
“Oh, I know that.” Bitterness now, and I could hear the front door creaking as it ghosted wide open. They hadn’t even shut it during this entire conversation. “If I find out you’re hiding him here, Elizabeth—”
“I have a life. One that doesn’t include him or you and your petty little games. Don’t darken my doorstep again.”
“Sleep well, then.” A smirk even I could hear, upstairs in my room. “Don’t let the nosferatu bite.” A cruel, chilling little laugh, and the front door slammed.
I heard my mother let out a shaky breath. And the buzzing was back, rattling in my head, running through my bones. I knew what came next.
Next I would fall asleep. And when I woke up in the dark, I knew what would happen. It will be that dream again, the worst of all dreams.
Then the buzzing pours through me, and the prickling like steel needles in my flesh. I struggle against the dream. I don’t want to remember this. I never want to remember this, and each time is more painful because I know—
She is leaning over my crib, her face bigger than the moon and more beautiful than sunlight, or maybe it’s just that way because I’m so young. Her hair tumbles down in glossy ringlets, smelling of her special shampoo, and the silver locket at her throat glimmers.
But there is a shadow in her pretty eyes; it matches the darkness over the left half of her face. It’s like the shadow of rain seen through a window, light broken in rivulets.
“Dru,” she says softly but urgently. “Get up.”
I rub my eyes and yawn. “Mommy?” My voice is muffled. Sometimes it’s the voice of a five-year-old; sometimes it’s older. But always, it’s wondering and quiet, sleepy.
“Come on, Dru.” She puts her hands down and picks me up, with a slight oof! as if she can’t believe how much I’ve grown. I’m a big girl now, and I don’t need her to carry me, but I don’t protest. I cuddle into her warmth and feel the hummingbird beat of her heart. “I love you, baby,” she whispers into my hair. She smells of fresh cookies and warm perfume, and it is here the dream starts to fray. Because I hear something like footsteps, or a pulse. It is quiet at first, but it gets louder and more rapid with each beat. “I love you so much.”
“Mommy . . .” I put my head on her shoulder. I know I am heavy, but she is carrying me, and when she sets me down to open a door I protest only a little.
It is the closet downstairs. Just how I know it’s downstairs I’m not sure. There is something in the floor she pulls up, and some of my stuffed animals have been jammed into the square hole, along with blankets and a pillow from her and Daddy’s bed. She scoops me up again and settles me in the hole, and I begin to feel a faint alarm. “Mommy?”
“We’re going to play the game, Dru. You hide here and wait for Daddy to come home from work.”
I know what will happen. Daddy will come home and find me, but things will never be the same.
Because that was the night Sergej came, the night he killed her, but he did not find me.
And it is all my fault.
The dream turns to rotting cheesecloth veils, strangling me. Wrapping around wrist and ankle and hip with clammy-cold touch and I struggle up, screaming, desperate for air. I don’t want to see, I don’t want to see—
“—don’t want to see stop it I don’t want to see!” I fought, blindly, screaming and sweating and shaking. Struck out with fists and feet, starfishing. Hit nothing but empty air.
“It’s just a dream!” Graves said urgently. “Just a dream!”
No, it’s not, I wanted to scream. It’s real. It happened; it keeps happening.
Someone was pounding at the door. I choked, stared up at Graves. Blinked furiously. I must’ve been crying in my sleep; my cheeks were wet and my nose was full. The scream died in my throat. I gulped in a breath. My T-shirt was twisted all around, and my new boxers were all bunched up, too. They get that way when you thrash.