“She’s not really your niece, is she,” I say quietly. He pauses just before opening the sliding door. “Then who is she? Who is she really?”
“Haven’t you figured that out yet?” he asks. “She’s the girl they’ve trained to replace you.”
* * *
“This sausage is unbelievable,” Thomas says around a mouthful.
“Bangers,” Jestine corrects. “We call them bangers.”
“Why the hell would you call them that?” Thomas asks, looking disgusted even as he inhales the rest.
“I don’t know,” Jestine laughs. “We just do.”
I’m barely listening. I’m just robotically shoving things into my mouth, trying not to stare at Jestine. The way she smiles, the easy laugh, how she’s managed to win Thomas over despite his suspicions, all of these things juxtapose with Gideon’s words. I mean, she’s … nice. She hasn’t held any information back, hasn’t lied to us. She hasn’t even acted like we’re worth bothering to lie to. And she seems to care about Gideon, even if it’s obvious that her loyalty is with the Order.
“I’m stuffed,” Thomas declares. “I’m going to go take a shower.” He pushes away from the table and hesitates with a mortified expression. “But I’ll help you clean up first.”
Jestine laughs. “Go,” she says, and slaps his hand away from his plate. “Cas and I can do the washing up.” After making sure she’s serious, he shrugs at me and bounds up the stairs.
“He doesn’t seem too concerned about any of this,” Jestine observes as she picks up plates and carries them to the sink. And she’s right. He doesn’t. “Is he always so … reckless? How long has he been with you?”
Reckless? I’d never think of Thomas as reckless. “A while,” I reply. “Maybe he’s just getting used to it.”
“Have you gotten used to it?”
I sigh and get up to put the jams and jellies back into the refrigerator. “No. You don’t really get used to it.”
“What’s it like? I mean, are you always afraid?” Her back is to me as she asks. My replacement is pumping me for information. Like I’m going to mentor her or something, train her in before my two weeks are up. She looks at me over her shoulder, expectant.
I take a breath. “No. Not afraid exactly. It keeps you on your toes. I guess it’s sort of like crime-scene cleanup. Just interactive.”
She chuckles. She’s tied her hair back to keep it out of the sink, and it hangs down her spine in a long, red-gold rope. It makes me remember how she looked the night we got here, when she jumped us. I might have to take this girl down.
“What’s that smile about?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I say. “Don’t you know about ghosts already? The Order must’ve taught you.”
“I’ve seen my share, I suppose. And I’m ready to tangle, if they come at me.” She rinses a coffee cup and sets it in the strainer. “But not like you are.” Her hands plunge back into the sudsy water, and she yelps.
“What?”
“I cut my finger,” she mutters, and lifts it up. There’s a slice running between her first and second knuckle, and bright red blood mixes with the water, lacing its way down her palm. “There was a chip out of the butter dish. It’s not bad; the water makes it look worse.”
I know that, but I still grab a towel and wrap it around her finger, pressing down. I can feel her pulse through the thin cloth as the cut throbs.
“Where are the Band-Aids?”
“It’s not as bad as all that,” she says. “It should stop in a minute. Still, you should probably finish up with the dishes.” She grins. “I don’t want it to sting.”
“Sure,” I say, and grin back. Her head dips, to dab and blow at the cut, and I can smell her perfume. I’m still half holding her hand.
The doorbell buzzes shrill and sudden; I jerk away and almost pull the towel with me. I don’t know why, but for a second, my brain was sure that it would be Anna, that she’d be pounding the door down off its hinges with black-veined fists, ready to catch me with my pants down. But we were just doing dishes. My pants are firmly affixed.
Jestine goes to answer the door and I put my hands in the soapy water, fishing around carefully for the broken butter dish. I’m not interested at all in who’s at the door. The only thing that matters is it isn’t Anna, and even if it were, I am completely innocent, just scrubbing the egg pan. But Jestine’s voice is rising about something, and the voice that answers is a girl’s voice. Hairs that I never knew I had stand up on the back of my neck. I crane back to peer around the corner, just in time to see Carmel burst into the entryway.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“You just drag him off halfway around the world?” Carmel says, her toe tapping with indignation. “Where he has no contacts or advantages? Into who the hell knows what?” She narrows her eyes. “You said you’d take care of him.”
“Actually, Carmel, I said—”
“Oh, I don’t care what you said!”
“How did you find us, anyway?” I ask, and she finally inhales. She crashed into the house, a disaster in knee-high boots, and brought everything to a skidding stop. Upstairs, I hear the shower abruptly shut off. I hope Thomas doesn’t slip and crack his head open in his rush to get down here. And I hope he remembers to put on a towel.
“Morfran told me,” Carmel says. “Your mother told me.” The heat is suspended in her voice, neither rising nor cooling. Her eyes linger on my hands, studying my rolled-up sleeves and the clinging patches of soap bubbles that drip onto the floor. It must make for a quaint, domestic little scene. Nothing like the torrent of danger she expected. I wipe the suds off against the sides of my jeans.
Jestine slides through from behind, careful to keep from turning her back on Carmel, someone she doesn’t know. There’s tautness to her movements too, like she’s ready to spring. Whoever it was who taught her, taught her well. She moves like me and she’s twice as suspicious. I catch her eye and shake my head. Carmel doesn’t need to be welcomed the same way we were, with Jestine chanting curses and sucking the air from her lungs.
“She said she knew you,” she says. “I guess she was telling the truth.”
“Of course I was,” Carmel says, giving Jestine the once-over as she stands beside me. She extends her hand. “I’m Carmel Jones. I’m Thomas and Cas’s friend.” When they shake hands, my stomach relaxes. Jestine’s only curious and Carmel’s hostility is aimed at me. It’s strange, but my instincts told me they’d get along pretty much like a snake and a mongoose.
“Can I take your bag?” Jestine asks, gesturing to Carmel’s oversized duffel, some white designer thing with blinged-out zipper clasps.
“Sure,” Carmel says, and hands it off. “Thanks.”
We stare at each other with restraint until Jestine is upstairs and safely out of earshot. It’s really hard to maintain a serious expression. Carmel’s got on her best angry-frustrated face, but she really wants to hug me, I can tell. Instead, she shoves me so hard I stumble and catch myself against the arm of the sofa.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming over here?” she asks.
“I was sort of under the impression that you didn’t want to know.”
Her face scrunches. “I didn’t want to know.”
“So what are you doing here?”
We both look up. Thomas is standing in the middle of the stairs. He was so quiet, coming down. I expected a bunch of stomping. I half expected him to fall and wind up at our feet, shampoo in his hair and naked as a jaybird. I watch Carmel’s expression carefully when she sees him. It’s as happy as someone can possibly look when they know they have no right to be so happy.
“Can we talk?” she asks. The pulse in her neck speeds up when he purses his lips, but we both know Thomas. He wouldn’t let her come across an ocean just to be turned away.
“Outside,” he says, and pushes through us to the door. Carmel follows, and I crane my neck around to different windows, following their progress as they walk around the side of the house.
r /> “Something complicated there,” Jestine says into my ear, and I jump. This place lets people creep too easily. “Will she be coming with us?”
“I think so. I hope so.”
“Then I hope they get everything sorted. The last thing we need is drama and angst and people making stupid decisions.” She crosses her arms and walks back into the kitchen to finish cleaning the remains of breakfast.
I should probably ask Jestine why that is, what we’re going up against, but Thomas and Carmel have disappeared from view. Carmel being here is spinning my head around. She’s almost surreal, an unexpected piece of Thunder Bay pasted into the picture. After what she said to me that day in my room, I thought she was gone for good. She’d made a choice, to have the life Thomas and I weren’t going to get. I was happy for her. But as I follow Jestine back to the kitchen, there’s a big ball of relief in my chest, and gladness too, that this thing I can’t get away from isn’t that easy to walk away from either.
Checking the windows, I can catch a glimpse of them through the westernmost one that looks into the back garden if I lean far enough to the left. The scene is pretty intense; all direct eye contact and open hands. But damn it. I can’t read lips.
“You’re like an old woman,” Jestine quips. “Wipe your nose print off the glass and help with the dishes.” She puts the sponge in my hand. “You wash. I’ll dry.”
We scrub in silence for a minute and the smirk grows deeper around her mouth. I suppose she thinks I’m trying to listen to what they’re saying.
“We should leave in the morning,” Jestine says. “It’s a long train ride and a long hike on foot. It’ll take two solid days of traveling.”
“Traveling to where, exactly?”
She holds her hand out for a plate. “There is no exactly. The Order doesn’t keep a dot on a map. It’s somewhere in the Scottish Highlands. The western Highlands, north of Loch Etive.”
“So you’ve been there before?” I take her silence as a yes. “Fill me in. What are we in for?”
“I don’t know. A lot of pines and maybe a couple of woodpeckers.”
Now she gets dodgy? Irritation creeps up my arms, starting in the hot dishwater and ending in my clenched jaw.
“I hate doing dishes,” I say. “And I hate the idea of being pulled around Scotland by someone I barely know. They’re going to test me. You can at least tell me how.”
Her face is a blend of surprised and impressed.
“Come on,” I say. “It’s pretty clear. Why else wouldn’t we just go with Gideon? So what is it? Are you not supposed to tell me?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you,” she says, and tosses the towel onto the countertop. “You’re so transparent.” She leans in close, scrutinizing. “The challenge excites you. And so does the confidence of knowing you’re going to pass.”
“Cut the crap, Jestine.”
“There is no crap, Theseus Cassio. I can’t tell you, because I don’t know.” She turns away. “You’re not the only one being tested. We’re alike, you and me. I knew that we would be. I just didn’t know how much.”
* * *
Thomas and Carmel come back inside after an hour and find me slumped on the sofa in Gideon’s living room, flipping between the BBC 1 and BBC 2. They shuffle in and sit, Carmel beside me and Thomas in the chair. They look awkwardly, uncomfortably reconciled, a kind of made-up that hasn’t quite stuck. Carmel looks the most wrung out, but that could just be jet lag.
“So?” I ask. “Are we all one big happy family again?” They look at me sourly. It didn’t come out how I wanted.
“I think I’m on probation,” Carmel says. I glance at Thomas. He seems happy, but guarded. And that’s just about right. His trust was shaken. In my brain too, weird phrases whirl around. I want to cross my arms and say things like, “Don’t come back if you’re not going to stay!” and “If you think that nothing’s changed, you’re wrong.” But she’s probably heard all this stuff from Thomas already. I wasn’t the boyfriend. I don’t know why I feel like I should get the chance to yell at her too.
Jesus. I have become the thing they call the third wheel.
“Cas? Something wrong?” Thomas’s brow is knit.
“We’re leaving tomorrow,” I say. “To meet the Order of the Blah Blah Blah.”
“The Order of the what?” Carmel asks, and when I don’t, Thomas explains. I listen with half an ear, chuckle at his pronunciation, and supply factoids when asked.
“The journey is going to be a test,” I say “And I don’t think it’ll be the last one.” Jestine’s comment about enjoying the thrill of the challenge is still bubbling in my stomach. Enjoy it. Why would I enjoy it? Except that I do, sort of, and for exactly the reasons she described. And that’s pretty sick when you think about it.
“Listen,” I say. “Let’s take a walk.”
They get up and exchange a glance, catching the ominous vibe.
“Just make it a short walk, okay?” Carmel mumbles. “I don’t know what I was thinking flying in these boots.”
Outside, the sun is out and the sky is cloudless. We head for the cover of trees so we can talk without squinting.
“What’s going on?” Thomas asks when we stop.
“Gideon told me something before he left. Something about the Order and Jestine.” I shuffle. It still sounds so impossible. “He said they were training her to take my place.”
“I knew you shouldn’t trust her,” Thomas exclaims, and turns to Carmel. “I knew it the minute she cursed him in the alley.”
“Look, just because they groomed her for the position doesn’t mean that she’s going to try to steal it. Jestine isn’t the problem. We can trust her.” Thomas clearly thinks I’m a dope. Carmel reserves judgment. “I think we can. And you’d better hope we can. She’s taking us through the Scottish Highlands tomorrow.”
Carmel cocks her head. “You don’t have to use that accent when you say ‘Scottish Highlands.’ You know as well as we do that this isn’t a joke. Who are these people? What are we walking into?”
“I don’t know. That’s the problem. But don’t expect them to be happy to see me.” It’s an understatement. I keep thinking of the way Jestine spoke outside the chapel at the Tower of London, and the reverent way she looks at the athame. To these people, I’ve committed sacrilege.
“If they want Jestine to take over, what does that mean for you?” Carmel asks.
“I don’t know. I’m banking on the idea that their respect for the athame extends at least partway to the original bloodline of the warrior.” I glance at Thomas. “But when they find out what I want to do with Anna, they’re going to fight it. It wouldn’t hurt to have Morfran’s voodoo network up my sleeve.”
He nods. “I’ll tell him.”
“And after you do, you should both stay here. Wait for me here, at Gideon’s. He’ll watch my back. I don’t want you guys getting into it.”
Their faces are pale. When Carmel slides her hand into Thomas’s, I can see it shake.
“Cas,” she says gently, and looks me right in the eyes. “Shut up.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The train ride feels long. Which doesn’t make sense. It should feel short and too soon, my nerves should be shot, wondering what the fuck I’m going to find on the other end of the track. The cautionary speeches of my mom, and Morfran, and Gideon roll back and forth between my ears. I hear my dad too, telling me the way he always used to, that there’s never an excuse to not be afraid. He said the fear kept you sharp, that it kept you steadfastly holding on to your life. Rapid heartbeats to keep that heartbeat fresh in your mind. It’s maybe the one piece of his advice that I threw away. I had my share of fear in the years after his murder. And besides, when I think of his death, I don’t like to think that he died afraid.
Outside, there’s nothing but stretches of green, lined with trees. The countryside is still pastoral, and if I saw a carriage roll through one of the fields I wouldn’t blink. There’s so much of it
that it may as well go on forever. It didn’t take long for the city to fade out behind us after we left the station at King’s Cross.
I’m sitting with Jestine, who has clammed up and is strung tight as a bow. This is what she’s been waiting for her whole life, I suppose. My replacement. The thought of it sticks in my throat. But if that’s what it takes, will I do it? If that’s the price of saving Anna, if we get there and all they ask me to do in exchange is politely hand over my father’s athame, will I do it? I’m not sure. I never thought that I wouldn’t be sure.
Across the compartment, Carmel and Thomas sit side by side. They’re talking a little, but mostly staring out the window. Since Carmel got here, what we’re doing feels mostly like playacting, trying to get our old dynamic back when it’s obviously been altered. But we’ll keep trying, until we get it right.
My mind strays to Anna, and the image of her blooms up so strong in my senses that I can almost see her reflection in the window. It takes everything I’ve got to blink and stop seeing it.
“Why don’t you want to think about her?” Thomas asks, and I jump. He’s sitting behind me now, leaned over the partition of the seats. Stupid train noise. Carmel is stretched out across the seats, and beside me Jestine is out cold too, curled up against her duffel bag.
“She’s the reason for all this,” he says. “So what’s with the guilt?”
I squint at him. He finds his way in my head at the most inopportune times. “Carmel’s going to have a very annoying life.”
“Carmel’s figured out how to block me, for the most part.” He shrugs. “You, not so much. So?”
“I don’t know.” I sigh. “Because when I do, there’s a lot of shit I’m forgetting.”
“Like what?”
He knows that I don’t really want to talk about this. I can barely get it straight in my own head.
“Can I just think the random crap that’s going through my head and you can figure it out?”
“Only if you want me to get an unstoppable nosebleed.” He grins. “Just … talk.”