Eternity (26 page)

He stared at her for a long second, his eyes black and full of a need she couldn’t identify. Then he released her, and shoved a hand through his hair.

“I told you. They aren’t, like, how-to manuals—they’re not totally literal.  What I see . . . What I sense . . .  They’re more like . . . puzzles,” Crow said, pacing on the asphalt. “I don’t understand it any more than you do. All I know is what I saw—and felt. JD is dangerous. The details may be fuzzy, but the feeling is never wrong, Emily. I
knew
.” His voice got lower. Rougher. “I knew there would be a fire the night of the Ascension dance. If I had said something sooner, Drea might
still be alive. Okay? So you’d better listen to me when I say stay away from him. You
have
to listen to me. You have to, Emily. I’m
not
going to lose you.” His voice started breaking. “I’m not going to
fucking lose you, too
.” His voice was almost a whisper, and Emily didn’t know what to say. He went on, quieter, pleading now. “Just—for a few days—till we figure this out. Stay away from him.
Please.
”

“But I don’t
have
a few days,” Em whispered back, feeling the full weight of the truth pressing in on her lungs, making it hard to breathe. She swallowed hard. “Remember your vision about the tiger girl? About when the transformation would happen? Well, I’ve figured that one out. And it’s
tomorrow
. Skylar is the tiger lady. Or she will be, the night of the play. Tomorrow night. I only have twenty-four hours left.”

“
Tomorrow?
It can’t be—not so soon. . . . I need more time.” He stopped pacing to stare at her. “I haven’t figured out how to . . . channel them. Those bitches won’t give an inch. They won’t tell me anything. So I have to get closer. You have to get as close to the heart of evil as you can, if you want to strike it down.”

How could he even think about getting
closer
? She wanted to be as far from the Furies as possible. “That’s not a plan, Crow. That’s suicide.”

He let out a harsh laugh. “Listen. Don’t worry about me. All you need to know is that I’m going to keep you safe.”

“How? It’s not like you’re gonna sit down over tea and have a chat. They’re crazy. And dangerous, and—”

Something passed across his face, an expression of uncertainty or fear, but it was gone too quickly for her to decipher. “Maybe I’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse.”

“What could you have that they want?” she asked.

He stared at her hard. There was a pop of electricity between them. She could feel his eyes boring straight into her.

“You just let me handle the details,” Crow said quietly.

“I am
not
some damsel in distress. Whatever it is you’re planning, it’s too dangerous.”

“I’m supposed to save the princess, though. At least that’s how it works in the movies. . . . ”

“Don’t fucking joke about this, Crow.”

“I’m not joking, princess.” He took a step toward her. His voice was softer than she’d ever heard it. “You still don’t get it, do you?”

Her pulse quickened. “Get what?”

His eyes, those yellow-green cat eyes, flared with emotion. He sighed deeply, as though he was reluctant to even say the words that came out of his mouth. “That I love you.”

Her stomach dropped and she was mute, unable to respond, terrified of her own pounding heart.

“I know you care about me,” he said, staring at her as if he were doing mental arithmetic. Then he offered her a thin smile.
“And maybe you don’t love me, not the way I love you. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m going to protect you.”

And then he was gone, Em’s feet glued to the ground while Crow’s boots scuffed away. She wiped a tear from her cheek, whispering a good-bye he would never hear.

• • •

Driving home, she realized that she hadn’t yet told Skylar or Skylar’s aunt about the fire—or about Crow’s visions, or about Mr. Feiffer being dead. What would Nora and Hannah Markwell make of Walt’s death? It would be the final blow, tying the Feiffers’ tragic history together for Edie’s two friends.

She grabbed her phone and pulled up Skylar’s number. It didn’t ring—straight to voice mail. Em didn’t like that. She called the landline; it rang and rang. Something didn’t sit right; something was wrong. She decided to take the long way home, which would take her past Skylar’s house. If someone was home, maybe she’d just stop in. . . .

Nora’s tan Camry wasn’t in the driveway, but there was someone kneeling in the flower bed on the side of the house, where Skylar’s aunt planted her perennials.

“Mrs. McVoy?” Em called out her open car window. The hunched figure didn’t turn. She got that now-familiar swing of fear, almost like vertigo. “Nora?” Em said even louder.

But by now she was close enough to see that the person in the dirt wasn’t Aunt Nora or Skylar. It was Lucy, Skylar’s sister.
She was humming again, that same tuneless drone that Em had heard the other day. Her face was practically buried in the plants.

“Lucy?” Em parked and stepped out of her car, wondering if she should call Skylar, or try to get Lucy back inside the house. “Do you remember me? I’m Emily.”

The girl turned around slowly, revealing a toothy smile. Em drew back unconsciously. Lucy’s arms were smeared with dirt, and in one hand she held a crushed white geranium; on closer inspection, Em saw that a piece of white petal was stuck to her lips. Had she been
eating
the flowers? And were geraniums poisonous?

Em looked over her shoulder, hoping in vain that she would see Nora’s car pulling into the driveway. She took a deep breath. Lucy was damaged, and probably scared, but she wasn’t dangerous. Em came closer and motioned to the flower in Lucy’s hand. “Doing some gardening?”

Smiling one of her bright, pageant smiles, Lucy nodded eagerly. “The albinos like shade, not sun.”

That again.
The albino.
“I . . . don’t know much about flowers,” Em admitted. “Are your sister or your aunt home? I just have a few quick things to tell them.”

The deranged garden show was apparently not over. With the same TV smile—one that did a poor job of hiding the blankness in her eyes—Skylar’s sister continued to describe her prized plant. “The albino. It will make the voices stop.” As if she were discussing what sort of fertilizer to use, Lucy
continued her lesson. “It kills the darkness. They tell me it will. They
promised
.”

Em looked down and realized that Lucy’s fingernails were digging into her skin.

“Who promised?”

“They’re trying to protect the seeds,” Lucy said sadly.

“What seeds?”

“The seeds bloom inside a heart of evil,” Lucy intoned, as though she was reciting a child’s nursery rhyme. “Shhhhhh.”

Heart of evil.
That was the exact phrase Crow had used, talking about his visions, talking about the Furies. To hear the words come out of both of their mouths made Em more sure than ever that there were clues hidden in Lucy’s nonsense talk.

The seeds. A heart of evil.
Could Lucy
know
—truly know?

“Who tells you these things, Lucy?” Em asked.

Lucy looked at Em with one final remark. “When the light brings up the albino,” she said, “the darkness stops.” Then something happened, a flicker across her face, and Lucy’s demeanor changed. She grew suddenly quiet.

“Did the Furies tell you this?” Em wanted to snap her fingers in front of Lucy’s eyes. “Did they?”

But Lucy was taciturn now, silent, sullen.

“Please. Listen to me.” Em’s hands were on Lucy’s shoulders and then she was shaking her, back and forth, like a rag doll.

It took just a second for Em to realize what she was doing.
She cried out and let Lucy go, snapping her hands behind her back.
Jesus.
What was wrong with her? She backed away quickly when she heard wheels turning into the driveway.

Aunt Nora emerged from the car and her linen skirt billowed behind her as she walked toward the flower bed.

“What’s going on? What’s going on here?” She looked back and forth between Lucy, who had retreated back into her private universe, and Em, who tried to explain. She prayed that Nora hadn’t seen her turn momentarily violent.

“I came over after school, to tell you . . . I thought you should know that Walt Feiffer is—dead,” she blurted out. “And Lucy was here, outside here, and she started talking. I think about the Furies. She was saying something about seeds, and a light. . . . ” Em trailed off, not knowing what else to say.

“Emily, I’m sorry,” Nora said after a long pause. “I really am. But we’ve had enough tragedy here. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.  And I can’t help you any more than I already have.”

“Nora, I need your help,” Em pleaded, but Nora ignored her. “I don’t have much time.”

“Let’s go inside, Lucy.” Nora said as she started guiding Lucy toward the front door. When she reached the entryway, she looked over her shoulder at Em.

“Please don’t come here again. You’re not welcome.” Then she slammed the door before Em could sputter out a response.

Em’s head was spinning.
Flowers. Seeds. The albino.
Could the
answer have been in front of her all along? For the first time in days, she felt a surge of hope. Maybe, just maybe, she had one last chance to save herself.

• • •

“You’re home earlier than I expected,” Em’s mom said when Em pulled into the driveway. It was dusk on Monday evening and Mrs. Winters was in the yard, scrubbing their kitchen curtains by hand in a huge soapy bucket on the lawn. “I thought you were going to try and catch up on some homework with Gabby today.”

“I couldn’t really concentrate,” Em admitted. “Thought I’d come home and see what was going on around here.”

“Em, honey, we’ve got it under control. . . . ” Her mom leaned back on her heels and sighed.

Sorry, Mom, homework and lab reports have been taking a backseat to fighting the bloodthirsty witches who want my soul.

“I’ll get everything done,” Em promised. “We barely got any sleep last night and I have a lot on my mind. I didn’t know how bad it was, you know?”

“Well, the damage is worst in the laundry room and the kitchen,” her mom said. “Your father took the day off—he’s in there now, ripping up what’s left of the linoleum. We’ll have to get new cabinets and patch up the walls. But it’s nowhere near as bad as it could have been. Nowhere close. Plumbing works.”

“Can we, like, still live here?” Em looked up at the house and felt a wave of nostalgia. She just wanted to curl up on her bed
and smell her family’s laundry detergent. What if Lucy’s words held meaning? What if Em actually had a fighting chance?

“Yes,” her mom said. “Things are going to be in shambles for a few weeks, but it’s safe. We’ll be able to sleep in our own beds.”

That was a relief.

“What caused it?” Em asked, even though she thought she knew. The Furies were egging her on. Teasing her. Daring her. Turning this into a game.

“Something with the wiring,” her mom said, waving her hand vaguely.

Em kneeled down in the cold grass next to her. “Mom,” she said, reaching out to touch her mother’s arm. “Thank you for waking me up last night.”

“You think I would leave you in a burning house?” her mom responded. “Only if you forget Mother’s Day.” She nudged Em with her shoulder, then grew serious. “I’ll always do what I can to protect you, sweetie. But I’ll be much more effective if I know what’s going on in your life. Like this Colin. Care to tell me who he is?”

“He’s just an old friend of Drea’s who’s having a hard time right now,” Em said. “He had nothing to do with the fire.”

“I’m not accusing him of anything, Emily,” her mom said, wringing out a curtain. “I just like to know the young men who visit in the middle of the night. Next time he comes over I’d like to meet him under more relaxed circumstances.”

She tried to imagine Crow sitting on their living room couch, making small talk with her parents. . . . It was so absurd, she almost laughed out loud. “Sure, Mom, if that will make you feel better.”

“It will,” her mother said. “Thank you for humoring me.”

Em started to get up.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” her mom asked for the thousandth time.

If her mother only knew—if she had even the slightest idea of what was going on—could she help? Would she be able to? It was tempting for Em to succumb to the childish notion:
Mommy will fix this.
But she couldn’t bring herself to tell the truth. Not because she was worried that her mom would think she’d gone truly insane (though that would probably happen too), but because she was ashamed to admit the mistake that had bound her to the Furies in the first place. It was like light-years had passed since that fateful night when she and Zach shared their first kiss. She felt like a different person. She
was
a different person. And no one could fix things but her.

“I’m gonna be fine,” she whispered, her throat hoarse with regret. She wished she believed it.

Once I send this, it will be too late for me,
Walt’s letter read. JD lay in his bedroom, rereading the thin sheet of paper for what felt like the millionth time.

I started seeing the visions when I was young,
the letter said.
Thought I was just overdoing it with the late nights and the partying. I used to see these three figures. Dark. Women. Snakes in their hair. I saw them coming here. I knew they would come even before they did. Because they’d been here before, just like they’ve been everywhere.

And then my Edie summoned them because she didn’t know any other way. There wasn’t any other way to get rid of him. That’s what she thought, anyway. I didn’t know everything—not then. She thought he was coming after Drea.

They really got their claws in her. And so she made a deal with
them, some sort of arrangement. After that, everything changed. She thought she was tied to them forever. She thought they’d never leave her alone. So I did what I had to do.