Chapter 20
The Gillespie residence was dark and quiet. In the still pre-dawn glow, there were no lights on in the windows, and there was no noise from the kitchen.
She hadn’t woken up when he carried her back, and when he set her down on the doorstep, it didn’t register that he was becoming particularly bold. He was gone again before she could even yawn, sitting in a dew puddle on the wooden stoop before the front door. When she stood up, wiping her wet hands off on the front of her pants, she realized that Acton hadn’t taken her back to the bar to change. It meant that she would need to go straight to the shower when she went in, and find something to do with the clothes.
In her groggy stupor, the idea of the window came to her mind. Acton would come to her window during the day, so if she put the clothes out on the sill, he was sure to find them. Looking straight up the side of the house, the depth of the sky nearly made her fall over backwards. She still didn’t know how he was getting to the window, whether it was flying, climbing, levitation…
Reeling forward and gripping the doorknob, Ember clutched at her stomach as a wave of nausea overtook her. She nodded her head furiously as it passed, hoping that Gina had made something good for breakfast. She was only eating twice a day now, once at the bar at night and breakfast in the mornings, and the alcohol and hypnosis always made the cramps worse.
Turning the knob and stepping inside the house, and even in the still, dead dark, Ember knew there was something wrong.
It was a feeling, akin to what one feels when they suddenly realize that he or she is dreaming.
“Mom?”
Nothing had changed inside the house. The furniture in the living room was exactly as it had always been, and there were shoes and coats hung in the entryway. In the kitchen, there were dishes drying on a towel by the sink, ready for breakfast, exactly where Gina had left them after dinner the night before.
But all of the knives were gone. Ember ran to the stairs. “Mom! Thalia!”
They weren’t in their bedroom, or in Nan’s, or in the room that had formerly belonged to Ember. However, she noted that Gina had taken the mattress from Nan’s room and moved it back into Ember’s bedroom. She supposed that meant she was moving back into her former accommodations.
Driven by the sudden rush of adrenaline, and without regard for the smell she was likely trailing through the house, she opened every single drawer in her mother’s room.
If they had left willingly, they hadn’t taken any clothes with them.
She went back to her bedroom, aghast, and collapsed onto her bed. There weren’t any linens on it. She was going to have to get the sheets and make the bed herself. As she adjusted her pillow under her head, her hand came back out with a small package—a note wrapped around one lone kitchen knife.
Good luck. Lock the doors. Thalia
Ember frowned miserably, holding the knife in her hand as she ran her finger over Thalia’s neat scrawl. Locking the doors wasn’t likely to help much, if it helped at all. It was probably something that Gina had done to make Thalia feel safe, when she hadn’t ever had any real safety to offer her. Ember hadn’t realized that she had taken them for granted, or how much she had counted on the safety net her mother provided.
She went downstairs and heated a bowl of soup on the stove, eating alone in the dead silence of the house. Nothing creaked or banged. No sounds of footsteps or rocks against the window made her jump. It was just Ember, sitting beneath the yellow glow of the lamp that hung over the kitchen table, vapors of soup steam drifting in front of her as she stared out the kitchen window.
Dark was turning to dawn, and with the heat and moisture of the hot soup in front of her face, all she could think about was lying with Acton next to the spring. She could remember the feel of him, pressed up next to her, and his cold breath on her cheek and whispering in her ear. She had woken with him curled around her, his cold, wet forehead pressed against the back of her neck, and his hands tucked under her shirt, splayed wide against the smooth skin on her stomach.
He must have left her to swim at some point, unless it was the steam or dew collecting on his skin. He was always cold and wet in the mornings, and his hands were clammy unless he kept them pressed against her. She was beginning to wonder if he was a reptile.
When she was done, she took her bowl and spoon to the sink and rinsed it off, and set them on a towel to dry, just the way that Gina always did. She went upstairs and got the linens for the bed, made it, and then changed into nightclothes. There was no warmth in the bed, and she knew it was because she had made it herself.
In the absence of her mother’s silence, and Thalia’s footsteps, quiet as a mouse creeping down the hall to check on her, she had the sinking realization that silence was all that awaited her when she left. The dream of the place that she wanted to go home to had been shattered. There was no place of warmth and noise to welcome her. She would never dream of coming back to this house.
At the age of ten, one of her teachers had gotten her a toy puppy for her birthday. She had wanted a real dog, but loved the toy all the same; she had given it a name and slept with it next to her pillow. It was the kind that ran on batteries and did a jump flip. One day, it had fallen out of her bed, and one of the legs had broken—the little dog couldn’t flip anymore. It couldn’t even stand right. She had kept it because it was her dog, and she couldn’t throw it away like it was a piece of trash. She still loved it, but she had hidden it in a box where she couldn’t see it anymore. Looking at her puppy, with its sad broken leg, only made her want to cry.
The house, and her bedroom, felt that way now. She wanted to put it in a box to keep it safe, and never have to look at it again. Having nice things was only a tragedy waiting to happen. Everything eventually broke.
Sometime later, Ember sat up and realized that Acton had left her another spider on the window ledge, with a new note tucked beneath the jar.
A friend to keep you company.
Clutching the knife to her chest, she didn’t sleep at all that day. She only watched the little spider crawl and stop, and crawl and stop, feeling the seamless edges of his jar. There was no way out. Ember wanted to tell him that she wasn’t going to hurt him.
She knew the only thing he would understand was being set free. She couldn’t bring herself to do it; she felt too lonely.
Much later that day, with the golden slants of the day’s final sunlight coming through the tiny window in the bathroom, Ember changed out of her nightclothes, filled the bathtub with water, slid in, and waited. She listened to the dead air inside the house, wondering if there had ever been any life here. Thalia’s bright hope was stifled by Gina’s grim reality, and everyone else was dying in the jar that was Tulukaruk.
The air knew it. It was stale, and so different from the buzz that surrounded her at school. There were bright colors in her dorm, and mementos, science projects, photographs, and the smells of food and hygiene products. None of that was on Tulukaruk, except in the false semi-dream world that the demons could make. Gina had sucked the life out of everything.
The front door creaked. He was back.
As slow footsteps climbed the stairs, she sank lower in the water. They stopped outside the bathroom.
“Em, if you’re naked in there, you’re going to want a towel.”
Ember sat straight up in the tub, and then made a mad dash to grab a towel before he could open the door. “Asher!”
She had the towel mostly around her body when he came in wearing a grin.
“Sexy.” He winked.
Ember rolled her eyes as she tucked in the towel and shoved him toward the door. “Get out, you creeper! Where’s Acton?”
“Ah. I see. You intended for Acton to find you in the nude?”
He laughed as she blushed madly, shoving him until he cleared a path for her to reach the hallway.
“He’s not that into you, Em,” Asher said, following her slightly too close as she went to get clothes from Thalia’
s dresser. “Not that way, anyways. Acton only likes skin when it’s cut and bleeding.”
She glared over her shoulder, shutting her bedroom door firmly in his face. “Why didn’t Acton come?”
“He doesn’t like it here,” Asher said through the door. “It freaks him out. I’ve never been inside this house…”
She changed in small fits and jerks, shutting the door again every five seconds as Asher turned the knob and gave it a light push. When the door stayed closed, however, she really started to panic. She yanked her shirt down over her head, folding her ears painfully in the process. She shooed her spider out the window, and then threw open the door. He was gone.
“Asher!”
“Who’s room is this?”
Ember spun to see Asher gently tapping at the little mirror hung on the wall in Ethel’s bedroom. When he looked over and saw Ember’s wide-eyed stare, another grin spread across his face.
Ember knew something was about to happen. “Get out.”
Asher looked back at the mirror, and in her mind, Ember saw it happen—the mirror was about to shatter into a million sparkling shards. But Asher frowned slightly, shaking his head as if to clear it, and put his hands firmly in his jeans pockets as he looked back at Ember.
“Ethel’s room?”
Ember nodded. Asher nodded back. He went to the other door—Gina’s room—and cracked it open, peering inside. Shutting the door, he looked back at Ember, and then a loud clap made her jump. Asher was gone.
Heart racing, Ember looked over the railing and down the stairs, and was checking Ethel’s room again when Gina and Thalia’s bedroom door popped open. Asher came out, sighing in satisfaction.
Looking at him, and then at the bedroom door, Ember gave Asher a sidelong gaze. “What just happened?”
“Nothing.” Asher smiled. “Let’s go. Acton’s waiting.”
Turning to him, Ember closed her eyes, shaking her head. “Acton doesn’t…he’s not…”
“Acton has only ever had one other, that I know of.” Asher crossed his arms. “Still does, to hear her tell it. She’s not too happy about you.”
Ember felt her face go red. She hadn’t ever considered that Acton had a girlfriend, or what she would think about the time Ember was spending with him. She hadn’t even considered him a friend, let alone anything more, until just recently. Seeing as she couldn’t remember so much of their time together, the relationship was complicated. “She thinks—I’m not—”
Asher held up a finger to her lips. “Hush hush, Em. Acton is waiting, and it doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks. Acton’s going to do what he’s going to do. You don’t want to do your hair, or put on makeup or something?”
Ember swallowed, shaking her head. “I haven’t really got any.”
Raising a hand to stroke an imaginary goatee, Asher flashed her another smile. “No matter. Let’s just go.”
He grabbed her hand and started for the stairs.
“Um…”
Asher stopped, looking back at her expectantly.
“I need to eat something.”
“Em,” Asher said, caught between amusement and disappointment. “Come here for a moment.”
He dragged her back up the stairs, and stood her in front of the bathroom mirror. Shifting uncomfortably, Ember watched her eyes dart back and forth between her reflection and Asher’s.
“There’s no food in here,” she said flatly.
“Matter of opinion,” Asher replied. “Look at yourself. Your hair is stringy.”
Ember rolled her eyes. “It’s not stringy. It’s wet. I just got out of the bath.”
“You look like a drowned rat,” he corrected. “And further, you look miserable. Em, you’ve caught an eye that’s hard to catch. Show a little pride. Or at least try to leave an attractive corpse.”
She frowned at herself in the mirror. “Fine. Get me—”
Asher had placed the scissors in her hand before she could finish. She stared at them, and then looked back at him.
“I’ve never done this.”
Snip.
She stared at the place in her hand where the scissors had been. Her eyes darted to the floor, where a lock of hair four inches long had just landed on the beige tile.
Snip, snip snip.
Ember’s jaw dropped open. Her hands flew to her head. “Stop!”
Looking into the mirror, she saw that he had cut her hair into a short bob. At least, that was what it most resembled.
“You’d better let me finish.” Asher laughed as he twirled the scissors in his hand. “Unless you like the mullet look.”
Too surprised for words, Ember grabbed at the hair left on her head, and then grabbed fistfuls of the castoffs on the floor. They were real. He had cut off her hair.
Snip snip snip.
Ember flailed her hands around her head to stop him, and then wrenched the scissors from him. Eyes wide and jaw still hanging open, she turned back to the mirror. Her hair was uneven in places, and Asher was definitely not a stylist, but it wasn’t horrible. She glared at him.
“No one will mistake you for Thalia now.” He gestured at the floor. “If you want to pay Isaac back for that book, you could give him this. Now, let’s go see about feeding you.”
Following him down the stairs in a daze, Ember couldn’t stop reaching for her hair, and shaking her head. It felt so light that she had trouble believing that a little hair could make such a difference.
In the kitchen, Asher was inspecting the contents of the cabinets and refrigerator. Ember walked up next to him.
“What did you do in my mother’s room?”
“What do you think I did?”
He grabbed a pitcher of juice out of the refrigerator, and returned to the cabinets for oatmeal and a pot.
Ember cocked her head. “Something unspeakable.”
“Acton’s the only one who does unspeakable things around here,” Asher said, flicking on the tap at the sink to fill the pot before putting it on the sink. “I just rubbed my ass on her pillow.”
For the amount of disgust she felt, she also wanted to laugh. She sat down at the breakfast table. “You know, Thalia sleeps in there too.”
“She’s going to burn it anyways,” Asher grunted. “What does one eat with oatmeal around here?”
Ember glanced over to the kitchen. Asher was picking through the pantry, which probably meant that all of the food was going to be inedible by Gina’s standards. That was, if she came back.
“They eat it plain,” Ember said. “Hey—where are they? Where did they go?”
“Your mother and Acton both suffer from not knowing their own strength,” Asher called. “She took Thalia to a doctor on the mainland to fix her broken nose and check for a detached retina. I haven’t the slightest idea where Ethel went off to, which probably means a shit storm is coming.”
Ember giggled; she wasn’t sure why. Thalia having a broken nose wasn’t funny. “Are you making me laugh?”
“No, sweetie, that’s just your dark sense of humor finally creeping out of the hole you’ve buried it in. Jesus. How long does oatmeal take to cook?”
Ember shook her head, going to stand next to him at the stove. The water hadn’t even started to boil. Asher was looking at her expectantly.
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Ten minutes, maybe?”
Thirty seconds later, Ember was seated at the breakfast table with cold vegetable stew leftovers and a fork. Asher stood in front of her, watching her pick around the peas and carrots to get at the potatoes. “So, is my mom like a superhero or something?”
“She’s a pain,” Asher said lightly. “Is that a superpower?”
Ember sighed in exasperation. “You know what I meant.”
“She’s a hunter.”
“A hunter?” Ember repeated. “Of demons? Is she saving the world?”
Asher turned his head at a slight angle, unblinking. “She’s a prison warden. That’s all.”
“What??
?s your crime?” Ember asked. She swallowed another glob of cold stew; it was pretty disgusting, but she was so hungry that she didn’t care.
“No crime,” Asher said, sitting down next to her. The gold flecks in his eyes flashed unnaturally in the incandescent light. “I came here willingly. I stay here willingly. We all do.”
Ember considered for a moment, digging out and eating another potato. “I don’t believe you. You’ve done something, or you wouldn’t call her a warden.”
Asher’s eyes danced around her face, before his lips spread into a wide grin. “I killed several young women. I murdered them and cut them up. The law never caught me, but karma did—one of them bit me, and not in the kind of way I usually like. She infected me.”
Ember set her fork down. There was a sore spot in her stomach, but she wasn’t sure if it was from the cold, slimy stew or not. “Infected you?”
Raising his eyebrows, Asher nodded. “Oh, yes. I was just like you before. Well, maybe not exactly like you, because I can say small children and animals weren’t fond of me. The curse straightened me out, so I suppose it isn’t all bad. I felt emotions for the first time in my life after that thing took a piece out of my thigh. Ironically enough, I’ve preferred men ever since…”
Asher was staring at her with such intent earnest that she didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, but he wasn’t smiling. He had a look in his eyes, cold and present, that occasionally flashed in her mind when she thought of Acton. When Asher let out a loud guffaw, she jumped.
“…As victims, Em.” He laughed. “I prefer them as victims. But not since I came here. That’s the deal—your mother is the warden, and when any other hunter comes sniffing around here looking for one of us, she vouches. It’s the only place in the world where a person of my affliction can live his life without constantly looking over his shoulder, waiting for some damned self-righteous hound to come and rid the world of me.”
Crossing her arms, Ember leaned back in her chair, looking up at the ceiling. “That’s great. She’s condoning murderers, but she can’t stand the thought of living with me.”
“You’re a person who uses the word ‘condoning’ in casual conversation.” Asher shook his head. Ember sneered at him. “Can you blame her? But as I said before, you shouldn’t be worried about her, or anyone else. Acton makes the decisions around here, and for today, he likes you. I encourage you to accept his generosity while you have it.”
“I suppose it’s no use to say I don’t want to go?” Ember tried.
“You want to go,” Asher said with light smile. “Do you know what it is to be me, Em? To be anyone with this curse? I don’t just feel my emotions. I feel yours too, and your pain, and I know you want to go, and so does Acton. You’re broken and unwanted, just like the rest of us. We don’t judge you for it.”
“I’ve never killed anyone.” Ember said, feeling her voice elevate to a yell.
He silenced her with a quick motion of his hand. “I didn’t say you did, but don’t fool yourself. Hunters are born murderers, and someday, you’ll be one, too. You’ll be a murderer like me, but your kind justifies it. I know you saw what was left of Joseph after Gina was through. I only said that you were unwanted. But we want you, and Acton wants you. What you want more than anything else in the world is a place to belong, and he’s offering it to you. I very strongly suggest that you don’t reject his offer, because Gina’s already counted you a tragedy. She would be here if she thought there was anything worth protecting.”
Staring at the table, Ember felt the knot in her stomach double in size; he had put it very succinctly. When Asher laid a hand on her shoulder, she almost fainted. His eyes were still cold, and lifeless. All of their eyes were that way. Ember had never seen a dead person before, but she imagined that their eyes were the same. They were always unfocused, except when they were looking right at you—it was chilling.
Ember reached for a napkin, wiping her mouth as Asher removed the stew from in front of her. She hadn’t realized that her hands were shaking. “So the black stuff—what is that? Is that you, or is it like your blood, or what?”
Walking back out of the kitchen, Asher gestured for her to get up from the table. “Em, I would love to play doctor with you, but I don’t think Acton would appreciate it. Shall we?”
Ember took his hand, and let him lead her back out into the dark.