A Murder of Magpies (12 page)

He whispered, “You shouldn't have done that.”

“You know the answers,” I told him. “In theory, they’re on the paper. Invisible ink.”

“I’m not talking about the quiz, Vayda.”

If I were like Jonah, I could’ve rebounded and shoved my way into his mind, learned
how to fix this, but that wasn’t how I worked.

By the time lunch roared into the cafeteria, a headache squelched my appetite. As
I picked the pith from my orange, I spied my brother’s hand on Chloe’s back across
the cafeteria, oblivious to the whispers of the other students. Not long ago, she’d
have gawked right along with them. Jonah gave her a long kiss, interrupted only when
Ward approached them. The boys began to walk outside when Chloe darted to Jonah, kissed
him once more, and giggled as she backed away. I felt like I could puke, and threw
away the remnants of my lunch. That wasn’t the same girl who begged me to keep quiet.

Chloe sidled up beside me with her neat paper sack. I’d come to know her fizzy energy
well. She was all cherry soda, bubbly and sweet.

“Oh, man, I missed your brother,” she exclaimed. “What was I thinking when I broke
up with him?”

“That if this school was a caste system, he’d be an untouchable,” I grumbled. “Chloe,
don’t you care that everyone’s talking about you two being together again?”

“Trust me. He’s worth it. I’m so, here’s a ten-cent vocab word,
uninhibited
with him.”

I knew what an uninhibited Chloe did with Jonah.

She opened a bag of chips, offering me one. “Are you gonna tell me what happened between
you and Ward?”

Nice to know Chloe was still active in the gossip mill even if she didn’t care that
she’d become one of its favorite subjects. I dismissed her with a limp wave. “I’m
not discussing it.”

“Please, for some mysterious reason, you like Prince Mood Swing. It’s obvious you
give that boy the worst hard-on, so how’d you piss him off?”

I opened my mouth but was distracted as Ward stopped by the vending machines. A cute
sophomore pointed to the Modest Mouse shirt visible under his dress shirt and necktie.
He didn’t object when she fixed his hair. I blew on my hands, trying to cool down.

“Hey, Vayda,” Marty leered and plopped down beside me.

He helped himself to a crunch from Chloe’s bag of chips and leaned in close. I pushed
him back with my elbow. Maybe some girls went for the devolved type.

“So,” he began, “everyone’s been talking about you and the Ravenscroft guy. I mean,
a week ago, you two seemed tight, but something happened?”

I said nothing. One more spike of anger or smugness, and my head would blow.

Marty set down an unopened can of lime soda, a mocking twist to his mouth as Ward
fed money into a machine with sandwiches and yogurt containers. “You know, guys like
him, you can’t trust them. He’s all kinds of messed up, and I’m worried about you.
I’m not saying that ’cause I think you’ll listen. I already know what you think of
me, but that guy’s trouble, Vayda. As much as I freakin’ hate Jonah, I hate guys like
that more.”

“Marty, you’re wasting your breath,” Chloe hissed. “You don’t even know Ward.”

He snorted. “I don’t want to know him. I can’t understand why Vayda would.”

“I’m right here, Marty. You can talk to me, not about me.” I shifted away until I
hung halfway off the bench. The pounding in my head wanted him gone. I didn’t like
the energy coming off him. This wasn’t concern—he was jealous, and it felt like a
black slime leaching out and soaking the table.

“You wouldn’t give me a chance because I’m not one of
your kind
of people, but you’ll give it to him?”

I focused on Chloe, taking her hand and flipping it over to examine her palm. Mom
had shown me how to read palms, and reading Chloe’s would be a good distraction. I
might get some idea of exactly how far my brother’s influence had taken her off her
life’s true course. My feelers focused on hunting Chloe’s energy, feathery and light.

“What, Vayda?” Marty snapped. “Am I not good enough to talk to? Frigid bitch.”

Chloe yanked her hand from mine and sneered. “Oh, sure, the way to get a girl’s interest
is to call her a frigid bitch. Marty, get thee to the Confessional.”

When even Little Miss Student Ambassador was fed up with you, perhaps the hour for
self-reflection had dawned.

Marty ignored her and put his hand on my shoulder. I wasn’t ready. My barriers couldn’t
take that great a shock. Beyond jealousy over Ward, something dark was in him, and
it surged through me. I’d felt so many emotions from others, but this was worse than
spite, worse than a grudge between him and Jonah, between him and me. He had hate
in him, and it drenched me in a foul wash. I braced my hands on the table and felt
like I might be sick when my little finger bumped his drink. Energy into electricity,
from me into metal, the can ripped open and splattered radioactive green soda all
over Marty’s face and uniform.

“What the hell?” he bellowed, beads of syrupy soda dripping from his chin. He jumped
up from the bench and thundered toward the restroom, stopping long enough to shove
Ward into a candy machine, amid some chortling from the girls’ basketball team.

Chloe’s skin flushed maroon as she cackled, but even with Marty gone, I was nauseous
and losing the battle with my gut. I got up from the table, head down as I fled, only
to ram right into Ward.

I wanted to go around him and leave before I got sicker. Yet he stifled it. He stifled
all of it.

He didn’t move away. Steel. Unbending. His jaw contracted, and he coughed until I
gave him another throat lozenge.

“I guess I got sick standing in the cold,” he explained.

What could I say?
I’m sorry your immune system blows
?

“
Gadjo
—”

“Stop.” He put up his hands in defense and took a step back. “I don’t know what you
want from me. If you’d said, ‘Hey, I don’t like you that way’ or you weren’t ready,
I’d be fine, but don’t act like it’s cool and then bolt if I make a move without telling
me what happened. Stop it with the mind games.”

What a choice of words.

I stammered, “I-it’s complicated.”

His voice rose sharply. “You think I won’t understand complicated? Get the hell over
yourself. Until then, I’m done.”

He stormed past me, leaving me unguarded. My weakened barriers cracked against the
force of so much emotion hitting them at once, as if every student in the cafeteria
had picked up a stone and thrown it at me. Each stone was their joy, stress, fatigue,
glee, and it all pelted me. I grabbed my head to block the static and whipped around
to see Ward’s back as he smacked his palm against the doorway before disappearing.

By study hall, Jonah zipped through Sister Hillary Lauren’s copious notes on William
Blake while tracing his finger over my palm. To anyone else, he appeared to be predicting
my future as I had tried with Chloe. In truth, he basked in the heat of the energy
I’d taken in, energy I couldn’t handle, and left me with a chill that took the faintest
edge off my headache.

I want to be normal.
My words ran the psychic trail between us.
I hate what I am. If I were normal, I wouldn’t have to worry about scaring people.
I wouldn’t have to worry about winding up like Mom.

My brother worked the currents through my palm.
You aren’t normal, but you won’t be like Mom ’cause she actually knew what she was
doing with her Mind Games. What we do isn’t a curse, you know.

It isn’t a blessing either, Jonah. What we do gets people killed.

He gave a loud sigh, though he couldn’t argue. Mind Games killed people. Mom hadn’t
been innocent, and she paid with her life.

My brother opened his mouth to reply when a willowy figure materialized in the doorway.
I felt drained, ill, and squirmed in the presence of Sister Tremblay. She rested her
emotionless eyes on mine and curled her index finger. “Miss Silver, you are to come
with me.”

Jonah began to stand when Sister Tremblay whisked into the room and laid her hand
down on his desk. As she planted a seed of darkness, a spiritual shadow mushroomed
from her fingers, blooming across the desk to touch both of us. “Not you.
Her
.”

The other students distracted by their conversations and homework began looking up.
I swallowed hard and grabbed my backpack. My legs quaked as I walked out of the classroom
with the tall nun, Jonah’s voice faint in my mind.
I’ll be listening
. This time, I didn’t mind letting him in.

Every breath reminded my heart to slow, and yet I searched the hallway for any place
where I could escape from Sister Tremblay. As we walked, my footfalls echoed off the
walls. She took me through the blue, lightless language arts wing, past the arched
doors. Then, on the way to her office, we passed the sanctuary, and I glimpsed the
altar. I’d never been inside a church so dark but for the flickering light of votive
candles in red glasses. St. Anthony of Padua was the saint for missing things. No
one going into that church would find what they sought.

Sister Tremblay shut her office door and gestured for me to sit on a stiff, wood chair.
There would be no slouching on her clock. “We haven’t had the pleasure of getting
to know each other, Miss Silver.”

“The pleasure is all yours,” I muttered. “What do you want? If this is about Marty—”

“I have no interest in Marty Pifkin. Monsignor deals with him and all the other crude
devils.” She blinked, the only sign of life on her blank face. “Your father’s concerned
about your brother and you. I’m very familiar with what grief can do to the soul.
Losing your mother, I imagine that’s been very hard for you both. You must be lost
without her. Maybe even out of control.”

My lips buzzed, and worry swirled in my fingertips.

“We don’t talk about my mother,” I said.

“Yes, that’s a Romani belief, right? Not to speak of the dead? I do know a little
about your heritage, Miss Silver. It doesn’t change that your father’s worried about
you.”

“He wouldn’t tell you that,” I said. The worry in my fingers swelled to a sharp prickle.
Overhead, the light hummed.

“In not so many words.” Her hands sprawled like a daddy long-legs. “Your father’s
rather cagey. I don’t suppose he’s always been that way. Perhaps something’s raised
his guard.”

With her spider fingers, she picked up a Bible from her desk. I spotted a coffee mug,
white emblazoned with a black-and-red G, on the desk. University of Georgia. Rain
had always kept a flag with that logo flapping on his front porch. Dad went there
for a semester. I’d have known it anywhere.

Sister Tremblay noticed me studying the mug and plucked a tissue from a box on her
desk, dabbing her nose. A single drop of blood stained it. “I was raised in Atlanta,
but I also lived for a while in a town called Hemlock. Do you know it?”

The hair on my neck felt as if a spectral fist yanked it. In. Out. Breathing deep.
I sat on my hands to mute the blitz in my fingers.

“Wh-wh-why would I know anything about that town?”

She sat forward, locking on me. “Your father has an unmistakable southern accent.
Jonah has traces of one, too, but yours is nearly imperceptible. Like you’re hiding
where you’re from.”

Energy ripped out of me. The computer screen on Sister Tremblay’s desk glowed bright,
near blinding, until it split amid a shower of sparks. Yowling, the nun leapt and
opened a window to release the smoke and rancid stink of melting plastic.

“I have to go,” I blurted and darted from my chair.

My shoes pounded the floor as I raced past the empty sanctuary and Stations of the
Cross, past portraits of saints and rows of lockers to my study hall. Jonah waited
by the door. His arms clenched my back as I tumbled into him.

“I heard everything. We’re gonna be okay,” he promised in a quiet voice. “Let me handle
Sister Tremblay.”

I nodded, though I wasn’t reassured. That Sister Tremblay was from Hemlock and now
in Black Orchard wasn’t a coincidence, so what was she doing here? If she had been
searching for us, then bully for her. Mission accomplished. Now that she had us in
her sights, what did she plan to do?

Ward

The cursor at the end of the Google search box blinked too many times before I lost
count. Two words were in the box: Vayda Silver. What could I find out about her with
a little digging around? Something of her life before she came to Black Orchard? She
didn’t talk about her past. Neither did Jonah. Searching for her online? Wasn’t that
how people got to be stalkers and crazy shit? Besides, was it fair to judge people
by their past? It wasn’t as if I didn’t have my own secrets I was tight-lipped about,
and Vayda was obviously hiding something. Her mother was murdered, but she hadn’t
said how or why. She wouldn’t talk about her.

I glanced once more at the cursor begging me to hit the Enter button. Instead, I struck
Delete.

“Are you sure you won’t stay for dinner, Jonah? I’m making goulash.”

Heidi uncovered the piping cauldron of organic vegetables on the stove. Bubbles swelled
and popped on the surface. I shook my head at Jonah.
Don’t do it.
He looked a little sick as Heidi sank a wooden spoon into the goulash.

Jonah forced a grin and handed over a tin of some red spice. “Smells good, Ma’am,
but
Dati
’s a stickler for us eating supper as a family. Something tells me Vayda’s making
supper right about now. She’s good in the kitchen. It’s one of her secret talents.”

I shut my notebook beside the laptop. I never did have much patience. “Hey, Jabber
Jaws, shut up and help me write this speech.”

He ducked his shoulders while he fidgeted with the chain hanging off his wallet. “Are
you sure I can’t hold up cue cards for you to read? Speaking in front of class gives
me fits.”

“Jonah Silver, are you shy? I’ll never believe it,” Heidi teased.