Betwixt (39 page)

“But how did you know? How did you know which way to pick?” He was just next to her now, nearly limp in Finn’s wiry grasp.
She looked stronger, less pained than before.

Her voice was a whisper. “I don’t know, Nix. I just wasn’t ready to go. I don’t know how else to explain it.” She stopped
zipping. “Now go to bed. You have a long day ahead.”

A hoarse “yeah,” was all he could muster. He ducked into the darkness and heard a last zip behind him. Just how long was anyone’s
guess.

M
ORGAN D
’
AMICI IS A TWAT
. Morgan D’Amici is a cold-blooded bitch. Morgan D’Amici is a frigid, neurotic Ice Queen. No. Ice Witch. Snow Sorceress. Popsicle-licking
Princess of the Below Zero. Morgan D’Amici is a —

Fairy.

The word made Morgan laugh and she grabbed her pillow and held it over her head to calm down. Everyone in Yvonne D’Amici’s
one-step-above-a-trailer home was still in bed. It wasn’t yet dawn. Out of a thick, dreamless sleep, she had awoken, snug
under her covers, cracking herself up.

Nix had said it best:
Flying fucking fairy.

Shouldn’t she have felt worse that her darling brother’s darling girlfriend was lost somewhere under the sway of an evil cutter
named Bleek, whom she herself had been tweaked by only a day before? (No. She rather liked it.) Shouldn’t she have been upset
that Nix hadn’t called to tell her where to meet him in the morning? (No. She knew he would.) And Yvonne. Poor,
dilapidated Yvonne, hanging on her children’s successes like a kiddie-pageant mother, slugging Long Island Ice Teas at the
Spaghetti Factory, picking the garlic off her breadsticks
so as not to ruin her breath for Todd,
hugging her children compulsively every time the waitress came by to ask if they wanted refills of their Cokes — shouldn’t
Yvonne have annoyed her, like she usually did? (No. Morgan
lurrved
Yvonne that day.) Even K.A. seemed to sense something was up, the light in his room still on when she woke up sometime in
the early morning to pee. Shouldn’t she have been worried about this, at least?

No. No. No. Everything was a mess. Yes, everything was a mess. And somehow, it felt —

Delicious. Thrilling. Sexy.

The day had come. How easily she had caught on, Morgan thought, staring into the warming darkness above the bed.
Of course
she hadn’t told K.A. about Neve. Why would she have? She had called Neve’s father — fat old man — after she got home from
the park, told him K.A. wasn’t home, and that she’d call him as soon as she heard anything. A lie. She’d have to make something
up about where her brother had been, but that wouldn’t be so hard.

You’re a frigid bitch,
a cow-eyed college boy she’d once rejected told her. She took it as a compliment.

She sat up and rolled the covers down from her T-shirt-warm shoulders. Dawn was breaking, and Morgan could make out
lemony green streaks in the sky above the rosebushes. She hadn’t gone into the forest the night before, she realized; she
must no longer be under the sway of her subconscious. Good. It meant she had more control now.

A plan was in the making. Shadowy, long-term, but a plan nonetheless. So Nix was a ringer. Good. She would need one. And Moth
— she’d show him. And not just for his stunt in the park. No. The boy needed to pay for messing with her that first night
at Ondine’s. He had promised a kiss. Morgan never forgot a promise.

Moth she would seduce, Nix, use. Bleek she would learn from; Viv she would conquer. Ondine she would destroy. Neve, well,
it didn’t much matter what happened to her.

She wouldn’t be called a frigid bitch for nothing.

An hour passed; she watched the aqua lines of her digital clock morph into other lines. The only thing that mattered was Nix’s
call. She already had messages from Jacob on her phone. She ignored them.

At last her phone buzzed.

“Corner of First and Ash,” he said. “Now.”

She had no time to reply before he hung up, and he didn’t have a cell so she tossed the phone on her bed and got dressed quickly
in the half dark. Jeans, bra, dark long-sleeved T-shirt, hoodie. She smoothed her hair back and eased on her white baseball
cap. Over her hoodie she put on a thin black ski vest.
She slipped her wallet into her pocket, grabbed her cell phone, and shook out her duvet cover and her sheets. Morgan D’Amici
always made her bed.

She was ready to go. She crept down the hallway past K.A.’s room and started to edge open the kitchen door when she remembered
that she should leave a note for Yvonne. There were Post-it notes by the phone. She’d just scribble something about needing
to be at work early —

A hand on her shoulder made her jump, and she was about to scream when she felt broad fingers across her mouth. She was struggling
to see who it was when she heard the familiar soft scratchiness.

“Calm down, Morgue. It’s just me.”

K.A. loosened his grip and she turned around in her brother’s arms. She hadn’t counted on him being awake, and here he was
in front of her, fully dressed. Tousled blond hair poking out from under a trucker’s hat, running shoes, jeans. Just like
his sister.

She whispered, but her voice was stern. “Do you want to wake Mom?”

“What’s going on?” He looked sad.

Morgan turned and shrugged. “I have to go to work. They need me to do some accounting before opening today.”

Mom, Had to go to work early
, she wrote in an even hand.

“Jesus Christ. Do you think I’m an idiot?” Morgan could hear the mounting anger in K.A.’s constricted whisper. “Jacob’s
been calling me all night, asking me whether I’ve heard from Neve.” He leaned closer. “He said he saw you last night with
Nix, up at the park, after we had lunch. He said he told you Neve hadn’t come home and you said you were going to try to find
out where she was. Why didn’t you tell me, Morgan? What the hell is going on?”

She gripped her pen and looked up.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She knew what her face must have looked like — cold and blank, the face of a liar — but she didn’t care. Nix was waiting for
her; she had to meet Bleek in the tunnels and nothing, not even her brother, was going to stop her.

“Look, they’re expecting me at work, and I have to go. I don’t know what Jacob Clowes is telling you about where he saw me,
or whom he saw me with, but it can wait. He’s upset. His daughter is a mess and I guess he doesn’t know where she is, and
he’s trying to draw you into the drama.”

Be back later! xxxx Morgan

She put down her pen and started to slide past her stunned brother when she realized he was trying to beat her to the door.
Was he … was he trying to stop her?

“Are you kidding me?” Morgan stopped in front of the sink, her hands perched on the counter behind her. K.A. turned the toggle
on the knob, locking it, and situated himself in front of the door. “You’re going to stop me from going to work? That
little bitch really has you wrapped around her coke pinkie, doesn’t she, Kaka?”

She tipped her chin up but he didn’t move.

“You need to tell me what’s going on,” he demanded.

She sighed, playing the concerned sister, though the gestures, she knew, were undermined by the amount of hatred she felt.
She wanted K.A. out of her way. Now.

“You don’t need this in your life and I certainly don’t. It’s really too crazy.”

Her brother only stared.

“We can talk about it at work,” she tried. He leaned farther into the door.

“You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what you know about Neve.”

The expression on her brother’s face would have broken her heart, if at that moment she’d had a heart to break.

“I. Don’t. Know. Anything.” Morgan forced the words through tight teeth and felt a chilling inside of her. She was conscious
of the room around her: the one she knew so well, the one she had spent many evenings in with K.A., washing dishes, joking,
having soap fights. Now he had her cornered. Which is exactly how she felt: trapped, like an animal.

She barely heard the first knife slip off its magnetic strip before it went whizzing by.

K.A. jumped away from the door, his jaw open, staring. The
knife had lodged itself a few inches inside the door frame, right where his body had been a moment before. Morgan followed
its trajectory.

“Did you —” He squinted and stared at her, now beside him. “Did you just throw a knife at me?”

“No,” she replied, her hand now firmly on the doorknob. This time she wasn’t lying.

She ran into the driveway, started her car, and accelerated. First and Ash. This was all that mattered now. She never noticed
the black Mustang trailing behind her.

O
NDINE

G
REEN BEAN
.”

Ondine felt a soft hand on her shoulder. She rolled over but the hand stayed.
Off. Want it off.
She was sleeping. She registered that it was her mother’s hand, which she was glad about, but Ondine didn’t want to get up.
She wanted to stay in bed and dream about — what was that she was dreaming about again? — Pollen — a hazy sky — coral pink
petals — blue beyond.

“Green bean, honey. Time to wake up,” her mother whispered again. Oozily Ondine started to remember. A plane. Spilled club
soda. Her father picking her up. A dark drive. Lights on water. Then a house, not her own. She opened one eye and then another.
Trish Mason was sitting on the edge of the unfamiliar bed Ondine lay in, her face smiling above a taupe silk sweater. She
felt a swelling of love and sat up to hug her mother. Behind her the light coming through the white-curtained window was
bright and there was a single pink rose in a vase on the desk next to the bed.

Tomorrow morning. Rose Garden. Grant Park.

“What time is it?”

Trish must have seen her daughter’s eyes rolling around in her head because she put a hand on Ondine’s forehead. First the
palm, then the back of the hand.

“I’m not sure. Nine-thirty or so? Are you okay, honey? Do you have a fever?”

Ondine shook her head. “I’m fine … much better. I … I just need to know what time it is. I promised to call someone at … at
ten. Is it ten?”

Trish sighed. “Hold on; I’ll check the alarm in the bedroom.” At the door she looked back. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I just need to know what time it is, Mom.”

Her mother walked out the door and down the hall. Ondine could hear Max bounding down the stairs, calling to their father,
who must have been in the kitchen preparing breakfast.

“Nine twenty-three,” Trish called from the other room, already walking back toward Ondine. She would sit on the edge of her
daughter’s bed then, like she often did. To see how the plane ride was, to spend time. To talk.

Ondine was already out of bed and yanking on the clothes that she had worn the night before. Underwear, bra, jeans,
hoodie mini, RVCA jacket. She was slipping a foot into a tennis shoe when her mother walked back in.

“What’s going on? Why are you putting your shoes on?”

“I … I have a …” What, what the hell did she have? Ondine scanned the small room for her other sock, which she located under
the bed. “I have a school friend who’s here for the summer … at Evanston. At Northwestern.” She groped for a name, choosing
a girl she vaguely knew from gym in eighth grade, who was good in kickball. “Lissa. Lissa Griffiths. She could see me only
this morning, and I promised. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“What?” Trish’s hands were limp beside her in the doorway. “Why are you going now? And who is Lissa Griffiths? You’ve never
mentioned her. What’s going on, Ondine? You just got here.” The woman stepped closer to her daughter, her voice gaining in
intensity, her hands moving from her side to her hips. “We need to
talk.
”

Ondine nodded and avoided her mother’s eyes, working the other foot into its tennis shoe. “I know. I know. I want to. I want
to talk. I just have to meet this girl. Lisa …
Lissa.
Lissa Griffiths. I must have mentioned her to you. She’s a new friend of mine.” God, she was terrible at lying. What kind
of teenager was she?

“Supercool,” she added pointlessly, avoiding eye contact. “Lissa’s supercool. Helping me with physics. You know how hard physics
is for me.”

She knew she’d better stop before she started inventing an entire backstory for Lissa involving various science fair victories,
favorite nonsuspicious extracurricular hobbies (amateur filmmaking, squash), and which college Lissa would be applying to
for early admission after her summer spent taking sailing lessons at Northwestern. Ondine grabbed her wallet off the desk
and was at her mother’s side giving her a kiss before Trish could say another thing.

“Tell Dad, okay? I’ll be home by one….
And don’t worry,
” she added, in a voice that would make any mother suspicious.

Bewildered, Trish received her daughter’s brief, tight hug and then it was just Ondine, bounding down the stairs toward what
she dimly remembered from last night to be the front door. She was in Chicago. She’d have to remember to look at the house
number as she left, and the street name. She hoped her mother wasn’t following her, but really she didn’t care. She had to
go to the rose garden to meet whoever was supposed to be there. The dream she’d had about the sky, the pollen, the blue beyond
— abstract and mystifying but insistent, too, like someone’s name you’ve forgotten, or the particular bend of a tune — had
told her to.

Ondine slid through the front door before her father came out of the kitchen.

“Bye, Max, bye, Dad, justgoingtomeetafriendbebackinan-hourortwo!”

She had no idea where the rose garden or Grant Park was,
but as she scanned the street — 727 Emerson — she saw a convenience store at the next corner, and figured she could get the
information she needed there. Or call a cab. If someone were meeting her there, as the note had told her, they’d wait.