Dearly, Beloved Part 6

"Go get Dad and tell him we need money for a cab," I said, trying my best to sound authoritative and in control, like a big sister should. I moved to set Jenny on her feet before I dropped her. My arms were starting to shake uncontrollably.

Oh, G.o.d, not again.

5.

NORA.

I was grounded.

This shouldn't have fazed me, after all the running for my life and shooting at things I'd been known to engage in, but still-grounded!

At first I was almost pleased that my most recent brush with death had been enough to get my father to talk to me like a civilized human being. We called the house once we were on our way there. When the Roes dropped us off, Papa was waiting in the foyer with Dr. Chase, and they both came forward at once. As Papa took me in his arms I could feel how hard he was fighting to keep his own dead weight upright, and I instantly forgave him for his earlier outburst.

While my father directed my head so he could look at my cheek, I trained my eyes on Pamela's. "It's okay," I said, for about the twentieth time.

Pam gave me a reproachful look. She wasn't buying what I was selling. She always could pick up on my lies, white or black. "I told you not to wander off without telling anybody," she said. She sent Bram a frigid glance. "I thought you would listen."

Before I could say anything, Papa took over. "I feel that I ought to be the one addressing that issue." His voice reminded me of the few times in my childhood I'd managed to get myself into serious trouble-or what seemed like serious trouble at the time. The time I'd "run away," getting as far as the train station with my doll and a pocketknife before being caught. The time I'd put a handprint in every lemon tart in Mr. Roe's bakery after taking the "if you touch it, you must take it" rule of party food too far.

"I'm sorry," I said, taking the Voice seriously. "I really am."

Bram spoke up, moving to stand behind me. "I took her. It's my fault. I'm sorry-for the carriage, everything. This guy in a mask broke the window, and I figured I could take him ... but then his buddies showed up. There were four of them. I had a gun, but at that point I just didn't want to get taken out and leave Nora to handle them. It all happened so fast." I could hear the regret in his voice, and I knew it wasn't just for the loss of the carriage. The hijackers had won without firing a shot. That didn't just anger him, it angered me. Made me feel even more powerless.

My father shook his head. "No. You did the right thing in giving it up. A carriage is not worth shooting people over."

Pamela's gloves were fast becoming wrinkled rags, the way she kept tugging them back and forth. "Dr. Dearly, the horrid man who did it called Nora a nec-" I shot her the very best I love you, but shut up look I could muster. Pam got it and complied with a heavy sigh.

"Dr. Dearly, if I may," Mr. Roe said. "From what the police told Mr. Griswold, It seems there's a new wave of living people attempting to flee the city. The constables said it was likely the culprits wanted the carriage for that reason."

"You've already reported it to the police?"

"We were a block away from a police station when it happened," I said. "I only called the Roes because we were closer to them than the EF."

Papa took off his gla.s.ses, his right hand shaking ever so slightly. His left remained gripped into my shoulder. "I a.s.sume this latest exodus is related to the news about Patient One?"

"Probably," Bram said. "And the wireless news in the cab said someone set a pipe bomb off, too. Just left it in an empty alley. No one was hurt, thankfully."

"Only a few doors down from us," Mr. Roe added. "We heard it shortly before Miss Dearly called."

"I see." Papa's hand tightened on my shoulder. "Mr. Roe, thank you for coming to my daughter's aid. If you would send me a note telling me how much the cab cost, I'll happily pay you back for it. Dr. Chase, if you could see Mr. Roe and his daughter out, I'd be much obliged."

Mr. Roe offered a hand to Pamela. "Of course. My pleasure. Good evening, everyone."

Pamela bit her lower lip and came forward to hug me. "Call me tomorrow, okay?"

I hugged her back tightly. "Promise."

Once they were gone, my father turned me around where I stood. "We need to have a chat. Let's go to my room, shall we?"

This was Not Good.

"Sir," Bram interjected, "maybe before you do that we should get the whole house together, talk about what we're going to do. What all of this means. At the very least, with Elpinoy gone, we're down two carriages. We've only got two left for the household to use. Three, if Evola will let us keep his here."

Papa leveled a look at Bram. "Yes. I'll deal with that and you later. But right now, I need to speak to my daughter."

I cast a beseeching look at Bram, but didn't have time to say anything. Papa marched me in front of him, up the stairs and down the hall. He opened the door to his bedchamber for me, and I entered reluctantly, as if I could delay what was to come. Only a few times in my life had my father been truly angry with me-more often he had humored me in everything.

He shut the door and leaned on it. "I don't know where to begin."

"Papa, we didn't mean to find trouble. It sort of just ... happened."

He fumbled for the light switch on the wall beside the door. As he stood there before me, slightly bent over, his arm stabbing uselessly into the air behind him, I found myself seeing him for what he truly was-not a weary, scarred man, but a member of the living dead, reborn and different. So often I dealt with him as someone I'd never expected to have a few extra years with, all the while ignoring the fact that those years were going to be so short.

In the end I was going to lose him, too. Again.

This, along with the fact that I'd just had a gun pointed at my face, muted my usual temper. As he turned the lights on, I folded my hands together behind my back, ready to listen. I had no idea what was coming, but I'd listen.

"What did the thief call you?" my father inquired. "Miss Roe began to tell us-what was it?"

Recollection of the term filled me with an oozing, disgusting sense of shame. "A ... necros.l.u.t." I'd never heard the term before, but I could guess what was being implied.

Dad gripped his hands tightly about the handle of his cane. "What else?"

"We got out. We told them we didn't want any trouble." I hated even thinking about it. "One of them told me I should be ashamed for siding with the dead. That's why they were taking our carriage. They were using something to change their voices, it was weird. Then they drove away."

Papa didn't say anything. I didn't like how cold he was-far better he should treat me as he had before. "We weren't doing anything," I stressed. "We were just sitting there."

He held up a hand to shush me. "I'm not blaming you-and when the police find that man, I will punch his teeth back into his throat for what he said. But Bram shouldn't have driven you out alone at night. I trust him with my life, I admire him, but he is still courting my undebuted, underage daughter. Heavens, compared to other parents, I let you both get away with murder-but the line must be drawn somewhere."

"It's not his fault. You upset me." My voice threatened to tighten, to rise, and I fought to keep my tone somewhat reasonable. "We weren't going out to neck somewhere. He knew I needed room to breathe. To think. I've been cooped up-"

"I realize that. And I realize etiquette is not the real issue here." Papa moved past me, and I stepped aside to make room for him and his cane. He sat on the edge of his bed. "The real issue is your safety. Which is why I intend to send you to Belize. To your relatives."

This statement sent my train of thought careening off the rails. If he'd just said he planned to sequester me in a diving bell until I came of age at twenty-one, it would have made more sense. "What?"

All at once my father's control disappeared. He slumped, his voice weakening. "It's the only way."

I stepped forward, my cheeks heating. It was Cyprian's all over again. He'd rushed me off to boarding school, never giving me a choice, never explaining why-because he'd unintentionally infected my mother, turning her into a host. "No. I don't even know anything about them. I've never met them in my life."

"Nora-"

"Because they disowned you for marrying Mama!" That was the only bit of ammo I had, literally the only thing I knew about my father's family, so I tried to deliver it with all the frustration and anger currently in me. "I won't go. And that's the thing. I know how upset you are, how serious all of this is, so I've tried to be a dutiful daughter of late-but I can't hide forever! And you need to stop avoiding me, keeping things from me!"

"'Keeping things'?" Papa's eyes glinted, and he dug into his waistcoat, drawing out his plain black cell phone. "I know you've been trying to call me. Do you know why your calls keep getting bounced?" He raised the volume, and I blinked. The thing was ringing. Had it been ringing all this time?

Papa punched a series of b.u.t.tons angrily with his thumb, and hurled the phone to the bed. It was his voice mailbox.

"I know you created this plague. I know where you live, Dearly. It's easy enough to find things on the Aethernet."

"You should burn in h.e.l.l. You should be forced to watch every part of your body go through a meat grinder while you look at a photograph of my son. My son didn't deserve to die, you rotting son of a b.i.t.c.h!"

There were dozens of such messages, each one vile. At the end I barely found it in me to say, "Where did they get all of these ideas?"

"Pundits? Misinformation on the news? Who knows. Someone found my number, published it on the Aethernet." Papa collected his phone. "Do you see why I worry?"

"I'm sorry." Things made more sense now. Still, I said, "But Papa-if anything, this means you should leave."

"I can't. I can't leave my work. My teams."

"Exactly. If we all go together, that's one thing, but I can't leave everyone. You. If things get bad again, I have to help. Don't you see? I don't want to be a soldier, but I still want to do something with my life. I'm not a little girl anymore."

"And you're far from a woman." My father shook his head. "I just want you to see that there's a difference between being able to defend yourself and actually inviting tragedy into your life by acting recklessly. The carriage thieves were obviously opportunists, but people have used you to get to me before. I won't let that happen again."

"Papa ..." I pushed my hair back in aggravation. "Papa, it's not like I'm normal, okay? I live in a house with a bunch of walking dead people. I'm wrapped up in the whole thing. You can't expect me to live as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened to me. When I was a child you always let me be myself, let me do my own thing."

"It was safe to do so then. And I thought you were no longer a child." My father flexed his hands angrily around his cane. "The world has changed forever, Nora-changed, and not changed at all. Even if the dead weren't walking the streets, do you think I'd let you run about like some parentless foundling? At your age?"

"Are you even listening to yourself? I'm not going to say the H-word, but I'm going to imply it by staring at you reeeeally hard right now."

"I am being hypocritical, it's true. I know I'm the last person who should lecture anyone about being impulsive. But you are my daughter." He slowly relaxed his hands. "And you're the only real family I have left."

Had he given up on finding Aunt Gene alive, then? Sobering, I walked over and sat beside him. He pulled me to his side and I leaned against him and shut my eyes, relief flooding into me at this simple display of affection. Sometimes my feelings about my father confused me. When I'd thought him truly dead, I wanted him back more than anything. Now I needed him, and I didn't need him. I wanted his attention, and didn't want it.

"I'm sorry if I frightened you earlier, or hurt you." He set his cane aside. "I'm so exhausted I'm almost unfeeling now."

"Frightened" wasn't the right word for it, but I decided not to make a scene. In the moment, he'd been hotheaded and unthinking; now he seemed in control. "What Elpinoy said-do you really think you're to blame for the plague?"

Papa stroked my hair. "It's a hard thought to shake, yes."

"But it isn't your fault." I looked at him. "If you'd killed the zombies that showed up all those years ago, instead of helping them, studying them ... then I wouldn't have this little bit of time with you. I wouldn't have Bram-I never would have met him."

"I know. It's just ... scary. Scary, the idea that this illness might continue. Might change, and change, until it's conquered the globe."

"Papa, I'm scared, too. But I can't live like this either. Everything's different."

Papa was quiet for a moment. "I know it's difficult."

"I was happy to help organize the house when we arrived here, get everyone settled, but I don't want that to be the only thing I do. And studying? Seriously? I should be helping you. Or doing something to help the zombies in the Morgue, or-"

"No. I forbid you to visit that place. It's dangerous. You should see some of the injuries that come from there." He sighed. "Nora, I just don't want you to become so obsessed with the present that you can't see the future. That is my great sin. It shouldn't be yours."

Looking down at the carpet, I took a breath. Because I knew what he meant. A future without most of the people I currently loved.

"Our situation is very tenuous. As you've now heard." He removed his gla.s.ses. "We need to try to fit back into society. We have the right to exist, to carry on with our lives, but we are also blessed with the wisdom to know when to lay low. That doesn't mean I don't trust you. That doesn't mean I don't respect your need to fight. I just want you to think more than I do." He pointed at the sagging skin of his face, and then knocked his metal leg. "Look at what my mistakes have cost me."

Instead of saying anything, I nodded. I could see the truth behind half his arguments, and with the other half I wasn't getting anywhere.

"Now, I'm going to take your advice and get some rest. Then I'll head back to the lab and get to work."

"Without Dr. Elpinoy?"

"Oh ..." Dad let off an annoyed tongue-pop, and rose to see me to the door. "By the way," he said as I entered the hall, "you're grounded for a week."

I spun around and glared at him. "What?"

He lifted his cane, touching the end of it to my chin. I batted it away. "You won't move elsewhere, then you're grounded. I don't even want you out in the EF. I want you to remain here in the house where you're safe, until some sort of order is restored in the streets. Then we'll talk about how you can help."

"But we don't have that long. What about those masked freaks? We should go after them!"

"You're a smart and independent young lady, Nora, and I would have it no other way. But it is not your duty to save the world. And if you won't opt to remain safe, I'm not above forcing you to remain safe."

That did it. "I think you lost your right to ground me when you faked your own death. Just saying."

He lifted an eyebrow. "Do you want to make it two weeks?"

I could have broken him down. I could have reminded him how his secrecy about the undead had taken my mother from me and almost gotten me killed. I could have reminded him how he'd abandoned me instead of telling me the truth, and how this translated into his having-in theory-about zero authority over me.

But I also knew he already blamed himself for all of those things. I couldn't be that cruel. I'd already taken him to task; I didn't need to do it again.

"Besides, I have a project you can work on." He stepped back, so I could better see into his room. Rows of brown cardboard boxes were arranged along the far wall. "Do you know what's contained in those boxes?"

"Information about Aunt Gene." He'd been making various inquiries for months. As a show of goodwill I added, "Sir."

"Exactly. Go through them again and see if I've missed something. That top one contains information for my lawyer. If we ever find out what happened to her, and it turns out the Allisters lied ... I want to string them high." His eyes narrowed. "I don't trust Lord Allister."

I didn't understand this, but I knew I didn't trust his son. According to him, my aunt had been with his parents when the Siege struck. "That makes two of us."

"Good. You can start in the morning. You can actually do some homework, too. You will complete your education. Now, go get someone to st.i.tch up your cheek. Good night, NoNo."

Instead of doing so, I curtsied and marched to my bedroom. Once there I proceeded to terrify a few cats by digging out my collapsible scythe, the morbid entrenchment tool Samedi had built, from under the bed to practice with. I meant to tire myself out so I could sleep. I wasn't worried about the cut on my cheek; it wasn't that bad. I had bigger things to worry about. The city, my father, Bram ...

A second later the tingle of apprehension these ideas caused blew up, fanning out into an anger so profound it was almost comforting. It wasn't the last straw-it was the last gallon of kerosene. I started swinging the double-ended scythe at nothing in particular, in time with my furious thoughts. Then, panting, I hurled my weapon against the wall and sat down. I drew my knees up under my skirt and wrapped my arms about them, before hiding my face in the cool folds of fabric. Even if I was immune to the new strain, that didn't mean I was special. All things considered, I was just as vulnerable as the next person. The same as anyone else. No better. No safer.

And grounded. Pfft. I thought I'd left things like that behind with knee-length skirts and pigtails.

I fervently wished I were back in the jungle, with Bram at my side-a messed-up version of Tarzan and Jane. Innocent, in a way. Primed for adventure. Free.

My version of safe.