Conjured

Chapter Ten

Eve ducked into Malcolm’s car. Rain spattered inside and beaded on the dashboard. Outside, it pounded the windshield. As Eve fastened her seat belt, Malcolm slammed her door shut. He then climbed into the driver’s seat, squeezed the steering wheel so hard that she saw the veins in the back of his hands, and started the ignition. Eve watched the muscles in his cheek twitch as he backed out of Zach’s driveway.

“You could yell at me,” she suggested. “Seems to make Aunt Nicki feel better.” She remembered Aunt Nicki shrieking at her once when Eve had tried to fetch the mail alone. Eve tried to identify when that memory was from and couldn’t. One of the lost weeks? If she could reclaim those memories …

He backed onto the street and put the car in drive. Across from Zach’s house, a black SUV pulled up and parked. Twisting in her seat, she watched a man in a suit step out of the car. He was pelted by rain as he strode toward the house. “Who’s that?” she asked. “What does he want with Zach?”

“That’s not your concern.” Malcolm drove, a little too fast, away from Zach’s house through the rain. Puddles sprayed as he hit them.

Yes, it was her concern. It was her fault! She’d brought trouble to Zach, exactly as Patti Langley had warned her—she’d caught him in her storm, both literally and figuratively. “If the agency hurts Zach in any way, I won’t cooperate with the case.”

Malcolm slammed on the brakes. The car squealed to a stop in the middle of the street.

“You don’t make threats.” His voice was quiet. She shrank against her seat. “You don’t know how many have died. You don’t know how they died. They were cut to pieces. Carved like drumsticks from a turkey. And each piece was kept in its own box until the ritual was complete.” He turned back to the road and continued to drive. “You will cooperate, and we will catch him.”

Eve’s mouth felt dry. She nodded. She tried to push the image of severed body parts out of her mind, but couldn’t. Her hands clutched each other on her lap. “That … that’s the case? My case?”

He drove in silence as the rain pounded the car.

It wasn’t like him to talk like this—the cold tone, the tight anger. At last she said, “You’re just trying to scare me.”

“Yes!” He hit the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. “You need to be scared!”

Eve stared at him. She’d never seen such an expression on his face, contorted as if she had stabbed him. His breathing was hard and fast.

“Don’t risk yourself,” he said. “Please. Stick to the established schedule. Stay with agency-approved people. Inform me immediately if there are any changes in your status. Please, Eve. I can protect you from everything but yourself. Do you understand?”

His voice caught on her name, and she had a sudden thought: He cares about me. She wanted to reach out and touch his arm, to reassure him or apologize or … she didn’t know. She’d never had thoughts like these before. Besides, he was driving, and she didn’t know how he’d react. So she only nodded.

Malcolm parked the car, breathed in deeply, and put on his shades. He then stepped out of the car into the rain, checked up and down the street, and crossed to her side. She unclicked the seat belt and climbed out. One hand on her shoulder as if he expected her to bolt, he guided her into the house.

Inside, Malcolm dumped her in the doorway to the living room. He then stalked to the kitchen without a word.

Eve stepped into the living room. A puddle formed around her shoes. Damp, her clothes stuck to her skin. She remembered Aidan saying once that “drowned rat” was not her look.

Aunt Nicki rose to her feet—she’d been sitting on the couch. Aidan, who had been by the window, vanished in a whoosh of air. He reappeared next to Eve, wrapped his arms around her, and folded her in against his chest. Aunt Nicki raised both her eyebrows at this.

Two hands on his chest, Eve pushed him away. He staggered back. “I only … I’m just glad you’re all right,” Aidan said.

“I’m fine,” Eve said.

Walking in a full circle around Eve, Aunt Nicki inspected her. “I assume Malcolm read you the riot act about never doing that again?”

“He hinted that it wouldn’t be acceptable,” Eve said dryly.

A cabinet slammed in the kitchen, and they all flinched.

“You’d think he’d be at least a little pleased,” Aunt Nicki said. “Sneaking out with a boy is a very normal-teenager thing to do. I hope you at least made out with the boy.”

Eve felt her face flush.

“I’ll talk to Malcolm. You talk to him.” Aunt Nicki pointed to Aidan. Snorting in what sounded suspiciously like a laugh, Aunt Nicki headed for the kitchen, leaving Eve alone with Aidan in the living room. Eve studied the carpet, the coffee table, the mantel, the wall.

“Can we … talk?” Aidan asked.

“I’d rather not.” She wished she’d kept walking down the hall and into her bedroom. She wished she’d gone farther away than Zach’s house. She wished she hadn’t let Malcolm bring her back.

“Then I’ll talk. You’re special, Eve. You have to know that. You make me crazy, worrying about you all the time …”

“Why?” She looked at him. He was running his fingers through his artfully tousled hair. She noted that he had dark smudges under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept. She didn’t know why—she hadn’t been gone for more than an hour. “Who am I to you?” she asked, and then she took a breath and asked a question that she knew Malcolm wouldn’t want her to ask. “Who are you to me?”

“You really have to ask that?” He looked hurt.

She should continue to lie about her memory, play along with whatever people dropped on her. “I do,” Eve said firmly.

Aidan walked to the mantel as if to look at the fake photos of her. Eve suspected he didn’t want to stand near her anymore.

“Who are you?” Eve asked.

He ran his fingers through his hair again. “Rules.”

“Forget the rules. Why should I trust you?”

“Because I care about you, Eve.” He held out his hand, as if expecting her to come to him. She laced her hands together in front of her and didn’t budge. He lowered his hand. “Because you are the first thing in this world of vacant people, tasteless food, gravity-bound structures, and flaccid entertainment that I have found interesting.”

“Uh-huh.”

Since she hadn’t crossed to him, Aidan came to her. “Or if you don’t like that answer, then try this: because I’ve lost people. People I care about. In my world, there’s a war …” His voice cracked, and for the first time, Eve thought she was seeing through his smiling facade. Then he controlled himself again. He clasped her hand and drew it to his heart. “You are the answer to a prayer. You are the treasure that I have been seeking. You are the prize that I am destined to win.”

“That’s nice.” Eve wormed her hand away from his.

“I can be your knight in shining armor. I can make you happy. I can make you safe. I can make you whole, if you let me.”

Eve opened her mouth to say he couldn’t—she was broken with pieces missing, except that she didn’t feel broken anymore, thanks to Zach.

“But you found someone else to do all of that. Tell me about him, Evy. Who is this human boy who caught your eye and captured your heart?” He caressed her cheek and then curled his fingers in her hair. His hand tightened into a fist. “What can he do for you that I can’t?”

“He can make me fly.” She pulled away, and several strands of her hair, still knotted around his fingers, yanked out of her scalp. She spun away from him and ran to her bedroom.

“Evy!”

She shut her door and leaned against it. She scanned the room—the only other door led to a closet, and the window was locked with a padlock. And she realized she’d spoken the truth. She’d flown with Zach—and she hadn’t had a vision.

He’d fixed her. He’d cured her.

She didn’t have to be the broken girl anymore, afraid of herself, afraid of what she could do, afraid of what was inside of her.

She strode to her dresser and opened the top drawer. “Go back,” she told the paper birds. “Be as you were.” Eve felt wind in her face as the paper birds fluttered in the drawer. They rose out in a spiral. Backing toward the bed, she watched them dive and soar around the room before flying toward branches in the wallpaper and settling against them. She saw a bird melt into the paper—before she pitched backward, unconscious.

The Magician has a black felt hat. He flips it off his head and tosses it up and down his arms and across his back. He throws it into the air, and I can’t see it against the glare of the stage lights. He catches it, plunges his hand in, and pulls out a bouquet of tissue roses, held by the severed hand of a girl. The hand is rigid and bloodless.

The audience laughs, but it’s a tinny sound, as if it were an old recording. It cuts off abruptly. I can’t see the audience from where I lie, wrapped in stage curtains like a shroud, but I see a girl step onto the stage.

She has freckles, red-brown hair, and antlers like a deer.

The Magician gives her the flowers, and the severed hand begins to bleed. Red flows down the antlered girl’s arms. It pools at her feet.

And then she and the Magician are gone. I lie unmoving in the silence.

Eve stumbled to the bathroom. She clutched the sides of the sink and tried to force the remnants of the vision out of her mind. It’s not real, she told herself. This is real. This sink. This house. These people. This life. This body. She splashed water on her face.

Breathe in, she ordered herself. Out. In.

She thought of Zach.

He hadn’t fixed her.

She pictured him next to her—if he were here, he’d be telling her facts about sinks or toilets or mirrors or toothpaste or whatever caught his attention. Closing her eyes, she listened to his voice in her imagination. It was like wrapping herself in a warm, soft quilt.

When her breathing was under control again, she listened for sounds of who was in the house. She heard a clatter and then sizzling from the kitchen. At least one person was here.

Leaving the bathroom, Eve followed the sounds to the kitchen. Aunt Nicki was at the stove, stirring hunks of meat in a skillet. She glanced at Eve and then shook pepper onto the meat.

“What’s today?” Eve asked. “Have I forgotten again?”

“Don’t know.” Aunt Nicki stirred more. “It’s the day you nearly gave Malcolm heart failure and broke Aidan’s heart all in one fell swoop. I’d call that a twofer. You really dove into the traditional teenage rebellion with flair.”

It was the same day. She hadn’t lost any new memories, at least not yet. Eve exhaled heavily and sank into one of the chairs. “I saw an agency car outside Zach’s house. Is he all right?”

Aunt Nicki twisted her head to look over her shoulder at Eve. “You actually care. Astonishing. This is not unlike discovering that one’s cat has an appreciation for fine art.”

“Did I endanger him?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“What do I do?”

Aunt Nicki’s lips formed a perfect O. “You’re seriously asking me for relationship advice. Again.” She laid down her spoon and sat in the second chair, opposite of Eve. “Well, if you were an ordinary girl, I’d tell you to spend as much time with him as possible doing ordinary things. See if you like being together, or if you drive each other nuts. But since you’re not an ordinary girl …”

Eve waited.

“In your case, for his sake, you should stay the hell away from him.”

“Oh,” Eve said.

Above the refrigerator, the clock ticked loudly. The refrigerator hummed, and the food in the skillet hissed. In a gentler voice, Aunt Nicki said, “The agency is taking care of it.”

Eve felt her breath catch in her throat. Again, her ribs wouldn’t expand. She clasped her hands together hard. Aunt Nicki couldn’t mean … “Please don’t let the agency hurt him.”

“You don’t—”

“I kissed him.”

Aunt Nicki shrugged. “You kissed Aidan too.”

“But it was different. Zach and I floated in the air. And this morning, in the library reading room, we made the books fly. And at his house, we made it rain. And I didn’t black out. Not once. Until I was alone again.” As the words tumbled out of her mouth, she thought she sounded more like Zach than herself. Thinking about him in danger made her stomach clench.

Standing up fast, Aunt Nicki knocked her chair backward. “Stay here,” she ordered. She darted out of the room as she yanked her phone out of her pocket. Eve heard Aunt Nicki say, “Lou, it’s Gallo. It’s about the boy …” and then her voice was too soft and muffled to make out the words. On the stove, the meat began to burn.