The Alchemy of Forever (16 page)

This will be the last time Mrs. Morgan ever gets to hang out with her daughter, so I have to make every second count.

We drive to Fourth Street in Berkeley and wander among the boutiques and well-heeled shoppers. The air is crisp, carrying salt from the nearby bay. People say that there aren’t seasons in California, but they’re wrong. Seasons here are simply more subtle—a small shift I notice in the details. The angle of the sun in the sky, the dryness of the wind, the crispness of the leaves.

We pass a shop and I pause, struck by the display in the window. The mannequins are wearing normal clothes, but the scene around them is magical: a glittery forest that teems with color, small lights shimmering in the fake branches. On closer inspection, I notice that the mannequins have antlers growing out from their long hair, entwined with flowers.

I know Kailey would have loved it, this intersection of the real world and the magical. “You want to go in?” Mrs. Morgan asks, with a knowing smile. I nod.

The interior is softly lit, a kaleidoscope of soft fabrics and patterns, candles and locket necklaces, lace dresses and oxford shoes.

I’m immediately drawn to a lemon yellow tunic, but Mrs. Morgan shakes her head. “Cute, but that color won’t look good on you.” I glance down at my arms and laugh. She’s right. I think it would have complemented the olive-hued skin of my last incarnation, but I don’t have the eye for color that Kailey did.

She pulls a dusty-rose–colored dress from the rack and holds it up to me, nodding. I give up browsing on my own and follow her around the store, trusting her choices, till my arms are full of clothes. “What happened to automatically rejecting anything your mom suggests?” she asks playfully.

“Remember when I had purple hair?” I ask. “That was all me, right?”

“Good point,” she answers.

A saleswoman tucks me away in a dressing room, and Mrs. Morgan waits outside on a damasked sofa under a twinkling chandelier. I pull on a deep green top that’s softly gathered at the neckline, trimmed in gray embroidery. Suddenly Kailey’s eyes look vibrant and sparkly. Stepping outside, I model the top for Mrs. Morgan, who nods with a satisfied smile. “I knew that would fit,” she says.

Next is a scarlet dress, vaguely vintage-looking, fitted around the bodice with cap sleeves and pockets in its full skirt. I come out and Mrs. Morgan frowns. “I don’t think you tied the back right,” she says, stepping behind me to fix the sash. I watch her in a mirror.

“Mom?”

“Yeah?” I can feel her fussing with the dress.

“What was your relationship with your mom like?”

She looks up, surprised, and catches my eye. “Oh, that. Well. You already know the story.” She finishes with the back of the dress. “There, now turn around.” I do as instructed. “Hmm,” she ruminates. “I think this one is a no. Any dress that your mother has to tie for you is too complicated.”

I step toward the dressing room but turn around. “Will you tell it again? The story about your mother?”

She blinks and turns toward the window. “It was a long time ago.” I don’t move, waiting. “Okay, Kailey. As you know, I left home when I was sixteen. But I never told you that I ran away. I didn’t think of it that way at the time—I was just going on a trip with my friends. My parents were so controlling, they never would have let me go. So, I just left.”

I sit next to her on the sofa. She looks at her own reflection in the full-length mirror. “I was young. I wanted to see America. I wanted to get out of Milwaukee.”

She turns to me. “And what I didn’t realize is that my mother was out of her mind. She thought I was dead. She called the police, had everyone looking for me.”

“And then?” I say softly.

“And then, while I was away . . . she died. She had a brain aneurysm. She never knew that I was okay.” She reaches out and tucks one of my curls behind my ear. “And that’s why I’ve always let you do what you wanted. Maybe it wasn’t the best decision.” Her gray-green eyes shine with unshed tears, and I feel my own grow wet.

“Do you ladies need any help?” The saleswoman’s voice is annoyingly cheerful.

“We’re fine, thanks,” says Mrs. Morgan.

I stand up awkwardly. “I’ll go get changed.”

As I put my clothes back on, I feel a pang of sadness. Mothers and daughters. Is there any relationship more complicated in the entire world? I don’t ever want to hurt Mrs. Morgan. The fact that, unknown to her, her daughter is already dead pierces my heart. Even though I know it’s just the continuation of a fantasy, I want to let her live happily as long as possible.

Am I just trying to atone for my past? For the pain I caused my own mother? I don’t know. All I can think of is Cyrus’s smug grin.

Mrs. Morgan pays for the clothes. Back outside, the light is failing swiftly, a quiet November twilight settling in over the shops and the restaurants. “Thank you,” I tell her.

“You’re welcome,” she answers. “We should probably head home.”

I feel tender and protective toward her as we walk back to the car. I’m lost in thought and barely hear when Kailey’s name is spoken. Mrs. Morgan stops, looking curiously around. I follow her gaze, spotting the all-too-familiar platinum hair.

Cyrus is seated at an outdoor table in front of an upscale cafe. A half-drunk cappuccino is in front of him, and he’s holding a book by Terence McKenna. “Good afternoon, ladies,” he says, flashing his perfect smile.

I feel like there’s a metal band around my chest, restricting my breathing. “Hi,” I mumble. Mrs. Morgan has an expectant, confused look. “Mom,” I tell her, “this is Mr. Shaw, our substitute bio teacher.”

“Delighted,” says Cyrus, taking her hand. “You must be Mrs. Morgan?”

“Nice to meet you,” she says, and I cringe as she gives him a warm smile. He’s too charming, when he wants to be, giving no hint to the monster that he really is. His victims never stand a chance. I want to get her away from here as soon as possible.

“I just found out I’ll be teaching the class for the rest of the semester,” he says, taking a sip of his cappuccino and somehow managing not to get a single bit of foam on his lip.

“What? Why?” I ask. “What happened to Mr. Roberts?”

Cyrus narrows his eyes at me. “He decided to take a sabbatical. He needed the time off.” I know he must be lying. Why would Mr. Roberts leave without giving us any notice? I wouldn’t be surprised if Cyrus killed Mr. Roberts. The thought makes me sick to my stomach. But I smile even wider.

“Well. Good for him. We were just leaving, so I’ll see you tomorrow.” I try to make my voice as carefree as possible, and start to walk away. “Come on, Mom.”

“Great to meet you, Mr. Shaw,” she says, reluctantly following me.

“He seems very nice,” she says, as we buckle our seat belts.

“He is,” I lie.

I’m reminded of how I used to play chess with Cyrus. It was his favorite game, and he was very good at it. I only won once, after which he smashed the board against the drawing room wall, splintering the wood and cracking one of the marble queens.

Suddenly, I am furious. There is hate in my heart, coiling like a snake, wanting to strike. The more I think about Cyrus’s smiling face and his perfect black suit, the angrier I get. In one day he’s managed to threaten everything I’ve come to care about. I’ve lived for hundreds of years under his rules—trying to keep him calm, trying to appease him, to help him. All for nothing—it never stopped him from hurting people, from killing senselessly, from acting cruelly. And here he is again, ruining what little I have as carelessly as he would smash a plate against the floor.

He’s so arrogant. He didn’t even try to hide from me. He came waltzing in to Berkeley High in the same body that I last saw him in. He thinks he knows me so well—that I’d blush the second I saw him, stammer, or do something to give myself away immediately. Well, I didn’t, and for that I am proud of myself.

He won’t catch me so easily. I’m leaving tonight. If I go as soon as the Morgans fall asleep, I’ll at least have a night’s lead. When Kailey’s parents discover me missing in the morning, they’ll sound the alarm. I need to cover some ground before now and then. I am picturing the moment when I don’t show up for biology tomorrow. Cyrus will definitely know it’s me. He’ll know that I won this round—that I got away before he could catch me.

Then I have a thought that sends me reeling: Cyrus
wants
me to run. Of course. That’s why he didn’t switch bodies. It wasn’t just arrogance—it was a well-played gamble. If I run, he knows it’s me, and he knows who to look for. My breath comes in little gasps of relief as I realize how close I came to playing right into his hands. He knows me too well.

If I stay, but play it cool, give my best possible performance as a normal teenage girl—I could win. He’s already questioned me, and I must have answered well enough. If I can just wait it out, he might think I’ve already moved on or that I was never here to begin with.

I congratulate myself on figuring it out. Cyrus may know me better than anyone on Earth, but I know him, too. It’s decided—I’ll stay, and hopefully, not too long from now, he’ll leave. In the meantime I can think about ways to convince him that Seraphina Ames was never here. If I plant a false clue somewhere . . . I’ll think of something.

But one thing I know for sure: I’m done running.

Noah doesn’t look at me as I get into his car, and he spends the whole drive talking to Bryan about football. I know his feelings must be hurt. I feel bad about rejecting his offer of a walk yesterday.

Bryan runs off as soon as we get to school, and Noah starts to walk toward the building without me. “Hey!” I call. He turns around, but doesn’t say anything. His face is expressionless. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” I tell him. “I was in a bad mood, but it had nothing to do with you.”

He shrugs. “You don’t have to explain yourself, Kailey. If you want to just forget about what happened on Halloween, that’s okay with me. I get it.”

I walk toward him till we are standing very close, then I reach out and take his hand. “I
don’t
want to forget about it. I couldn’t.” I gesture for him to lean down, and kiss him on the cheek. “Nothing’s changed,” I murmur in his ear.

When I pull back, his face is relaxed again. He smiles. “You wanna hang out in the tree house later?”

I laugh. “Sure. Or, y’know, we could even go out on a date somewhere. Like grown-ups.”

“How about I take you to the cafeteria for lunch?”

I’m amused. “Deal.”

The overwhelming smell of formaldehyde hits me as soon as we enter the biology classroom, but it’s the sight of Cyrus, in another beautiful suit, that makes me sick to my stomach.
Don’t let him get to you,
I remind myself.

As soon as the class has settled down, Cyrus speaks. “Yesterday we talked about the chemistry of consciousness, about the mysteries that mainstream science has yet to explore. Today I want you to keep those questions in mind as we perform a dissection.”

There’s a collective groan from the class, and more than one audible “Ew!”

“We’ll be dissecting rabbits,” he continues, “and I agree, it’s unfortunate that our subjects are dead. It would be much more instructive if they were still alive while we cut them open.” He pauses, taking in the shocked silence. “I’m kidding!” Nervous laughter fills the room.

Cyrus hands out dissection pans, gloves, scalpels, and finally, the preserved rabbits. I regard my lab partner, a boy whose name I can’t remember—Mike or John or something equally common. He’s nice-looking in a generic sort of way, tall and athletic, with close-cropped blond hair and a dimple in his chin.

“Before we do any cutting, I want you to notice the rabbit’s structure,” Cyrus instructs, wandering among the lab tables. “See its powerful hind legs—a rabbit is a prey animal, and its best chance at survival is to outrun its hunter. Sometimes escape is the best defense, better than any teeth or claws.” He smiles at me, and I beam right back. I refuse to be intimidated.

“Okay, class, go ahead and make your first cut. We’re going to remove the skin, then examine the musculature.”

My lab partner picks up the scalpel. “I better do this part,” he says gallantly.

“Go right ahead,” I answer.

He turns the rabbit on its back and gently tickles its belly with the tip of the scalpel. His face is pale and slightly greenish. I watch him take a few deep breaths and then hold out my hand. “Let me do it,” I say.

He looks abashed but grateful as he hands me the scalpel. I make a smooth slit from the rabbit’s throat to its groin, then four additional cuts down each paw and hind leg. I’ve got the skin peeled back from the muscles before the rest of the class has finished their first cut. I’ve skinned plenty of animals in my life.

Cyrus walks by, examining my work. “Well done,” he praises. “Very . . . precise.”

“Thank you,” I say curtly.

He clears his throat and speaks to the rest of the class: “I realize this is difficult for many of you. That in this modern society you do not often have occasion to come face-to-face, or hand-to-paw, as it were, with death. My advice to you is: Get over it!”

Everyone laughs. He always loved an audience.

My breath catches in my throat as Cyrus approaches Noah’s lab table. He leans over Noah’s shoulder, looking at his notebook. “These are beautiful diagrams you’ve drawn,” Cyrus says with admiration. “You have a real eye for illustration. Are you an artist?”

Noah looks down, embarrassed. “Not really. I like to take photos, but that’s not like being a painter or anything.” He steals a quick glance at me.

Cyrus shakes his head. “Don’t downplay it! You have a talent. And anyone who says photography isn’t art is, forgive me, an idiot.”

My lab partner says my name, and I realize he’s been talking. “What?” I ask.

“I said, do you want me to fill in the diagram? Since you did all the dirty work.”

“Sure, yes. Thanks.” I strain to listen to Noah and Cyrus. There’s something in Cyrus’s manner with him that I’ve seen before, and I don’t like it.