Meridian. Part 13

"Has anything happened before?"

"Silly things -toilet paper, eggs, paint-but nothing I couldn't attribute to bored children."

"From the church?"

77ani "Maybe."

*"Are the Nocti churchy?"

"To blend in, maybe, but with so many people moving here and those I know leaving? How do we know who it could be?"

The teakettle whistled. I poured the boiling water into the teapot and watched the steam rise from its spout as the brew steeped.

"You must trust yourself. Be alert at all times, or they'll capture you. They aren't above murder, but they'd rather make you one of them than lose your energy to the other side. If they can, they will turn you."

"How?"

Auntie wrung her hands. "I don't really know. I've never faced a Nocti. I've heard a Fenestra must kill herself in the presence of one and then, rather than send her soul on, somehow put it back into the body."

"Well, I'm not killing myself, so we're okay."

Auntie's expression was stormy. "I'm sorry. Meridian. I should have prepared better for the Nocti. I should have done more to -"

"Stop." Tens interrupted her as he strode into the kitchen. "You've never done this before either, right?"

"No."

"So you have nothing to apologize for. We can handle it. Right. Meridian?"

I wasn't sure I agreed, but Auntie was beyond troubled by what she seemed to believe were her inadequacies. At the moment, she appeared as if a strong wind could blow right through her. "Right. Tens and I can figure it out."

Thank you, he mouthed.

Auntie pursed her lips, then sighed. "I have to go lie down. I can't seem to stay awake these days. Will you be okay?" She was already shuffling out of the kitchen before she finished speaking.

"Are you sure? Do you need help?" I followed, but she climbed the stairs, not answering me.

"I'm sorry," Tens said, standing in the doorway.

"For what?" I glanced at him, momentarily stunned by the intensity of his expression.

"I should have been here. I should have -"

78.

"What? Used the shotgun?"I tried to make light, but my joke fell flat a ni *Tens slapped the doorframe, agitated. Clearly, he felt responsible for us. "It's important. I'm supposed to -"

"Tens, you didn't do anything wrong. Why are you apologizing?"

He shrugged out of his coat and folded his long limbs into a chair.

I poured him a cup of tea, unsure of what else to do.

"I should have been here. That's all." He swallowed great gulps of tea, almost as if scalding his throat were an earned punishment.

"We're fine. Forget it."

"How's she doing?"

"Until that, okay, I guess." I chewed on my bottom lip, not sure I wanted to ask my next question but needing to know the answer. "How long? You know, for Auntie? Do you know? Before she ..." I couldn't make myself finish.

"Not long."

"Years? Months?"

Tens frowned and finished his tea without answering.

"Come on." I reached out and gripped his forearm. "Seriously how long?"

"Days. A week or so if we're lucky."

"What about medical care? Shouldn't she be in a hospital or something?" I hated feeling powerless.

"She made me promise she wouldn't die in a hospital. Meridian, she's one hundred and six.

How much longer do you think they could keep her going anyway?"

"That's harsh!"

"Am I wrong?"

I swallowed. Tears pooled in my eyes and one slid down my cheek. "You're asking me to -"

"No. I'm not." Tens knelt in front of me and wiped the droplet from my face. "If you can get her to go be checked out by a doctor, maybe they could make her more comfortable. But Fenestras don't live longer than one hundred and six. They just don't. And she wants to die here, in this house. She's not insane, Meridian. She knows exactly what she wants. We can give that to her. This last thing, we can do. Even though it means it's harder in some ways on you, I get that." Tens stopped, seemingly shocked by his long speech. "Can we not do 79 this right now?"

a ni *I nodded, not wanting to add to his pain.

"Should I make you a sandwich?" I asked, my appet.i.te completely gone.

"No, thanks. Maybe later."

I picked at my sweater and realized I was still wearing my pajamas. "I, um. I'll go get dressed."

He grunted. His focus lay on the journal I'd forgotten about.

"I was looking up the Aternocti, hoping -"

"If Auntie doesn't know it, it probably doesn't exist."

"Oh."

"I'll check. You go."

"I can stay -"

''Go!" He bit off the word, anger vibrating in that one syllable.

I scurried up the stairs, but I could have sworn I felt eyes watching me.

80ani *

Chapter 15.

Smoked sausage and a jolly tupping. Ale and folly. Fickle bosoms and bar fights. That is the sum of experiences my souls gathered from their lives. Why do I attract all the unsophisticated fancy men? For once could one love the opera and his mother?

-Lucinda Myer, b. 1702-d. 1808 A crow sat outside my bedroom window and cawed incessantly. I walked over and stared into the one beady eye it turned my way. I expected it to drop out of the tree dead at any moment, but it only called and hopped around the branches. Movement in the field below caught my attention and I pressed my face against the gla.s.s, trying to get a better view.

It was Tens, on snowshoes and carrying an oversized hiking pack. He was loaded down with bulging pockets, and packages tied onto the pack. It had to weigh at least seventy-five or a hundred pounds. He trekked out of sight. Something must have been terribly important, for him to leave us alone again so quickly especially given his earlier feelings of guilt.

Custos trotted at his side to the edge of the trees, her tail wagging. Then she turned and raced back toward the house. Where is he going? What is all that stuff on his back?

I picked out clean clothes, grabbed the stack of fashion magazines Mom had packed for me, and padded down the hall. I hoped to soak away this oppressive reality in a claw-foot tub, the likes of which I'd only ever seen in movies. My chest felt so tight it was difficult to get a full breath. Phone calls were scary, but eviscerating a helpless animal crossed the line of crazy.

I sighed, opening drawers in the ancient vanity, hoping to spot bath salts or bubble bath. No luck.

A brisk knock at the door startled me. "Meridian? It's Auntie."

I opened the door. "Is it okay for me to bathe in here?"

"Of course. I used to spend hours soaking in the tub too. It was like a minivacation, almost as good as the hot springs up the road." She smiled and held out a basket full of bottles.

"Bath salts and bubbles and I don't know what else. Use whatever you like."

Guilt flooded me. "Do you need me for anything?"

She smiled. "No, you enjoy."

"Okay."

She closed the door.

I yanked it back open. "Auntie, where did Tens go?"

81ani *She paused, but didn't turn around. "He's running an errand for me." She disappeared around a corner.

"On foot?" I asked the empty hallway. I shrugged. Clearly, I wasn't to know. That bothered me. I'm supposed to be learning and trusting and doing what I'm told, and yet I'm not trusted with the whole truth. I'm either part of this or I'm not.

Soon the bathroom filled with scents. I stripped my pj's off and dipped a toe in, then a foot and a leg, until I was all but submerged up to my chin. Bubbles tickled my nose like b.u.t.terflies.

I ran my hands over my body, trying to imagine what it would be like to be the recipient of quick, careless caresses, Sam was the only person in my family who ever touched me without hesitation. Tears leaked from beneath my lids. What does Sammy think? What has he been told? That his sister just disappeared? Does he think I don't love him anymore?

Where are they?

I grabbed the top magazine from the pile. I'd lugged twenty pounds of magazines across the country, but I knew Mom thought she packed what I wanted most in the world. She always thought I wanted to be a magazine writer or editor. She never understood that in those glossy pages I saw the material world of normalcy. It didn't matter how many issues I read, but that elusive world of everyone else's never looked like mine. There were no happy Christmas scenes photographed with dead reindeer under the tree or the family dog being buried in the backyard beneath fairy lights and falling snow.

I'd never had a friend. Not since I'd made the mistake of telling Jillian the truth after her hamster died in my hands during a playdate. I told her everything died around me. She must have relayed this to her mother, because pretty soon Jillian was always busy. Finally she told me she didn't want me to kill her, too.

I tossed magazine after magazine toward the wall. None of them brought the distraction they used to. I closed my eyes and a montage of Tens flashed across my eyelids. I remembered the feeling of him carrying me. He was safe and dangerous all at the same time. He made me want to trust him with every dark secret, but also to run away as fast as I could. My lips tingled as I imagined what kissing him might feel like. What I'd give for him to regard me with the warmth and love he showed Custos.

Did he wonder what kissing me might be like? Did he even know me as anything other than Auntie's pesky, sickly niece? Auntie's imminent death loomed above me.

Frustrated, I dunked my head underwater and held my breath.

And held it.

And kept holding it until I was past the point of bursting. Then I pushed to the surface, gasping great gulps of air into my burning lungs.

The tub suddenly felt like a coffin. I grabbed a bar of soap and a razor and shaved my legs for the first time in weeks. I scrubbed my skin with a washcloth until it was red and sensitive. I used a handful of shampoo on my hair. My long gorgeous hair that my mother 82an refused to let me cut, that took forever to wash and even longer to dry. The red color was i *fading back to its normal dark brown. I lifted the plug in the tub so I could rinse off in clean water.

It took nearly a year to get all the soap out of my hair. Suddenly my eyes snapped open. I had an idea. I needed scissors. Sharp scissors.

There was no one to tell me no. No worlds to collapse if I did this. No one was going to care. I rubbed the towel on the huge antique mirror so I could see myself. My hair hit the curve of my back, right above my tailbone. I dressed in an old turtleneck and jeans.

I dumped my pajamas on my bed and rummaged around in the bureau drawers. I found a set of skeleton keys. Most of the doors in the long hallways of the house were locked. The temptation was irresistible. My mission for scissors shifted as curiosity got the better of me.

I felt a bit like a pirate searching for treasure. Behind one of these doors was the tool I needed. I wandered down the hall, trying keys in the locks until one worked.

The door creaked open. A musty cloud of cold air hit my face and shivers broke down my body. Spiderwebs hung like tinsel from the ceiling, and a thick coat of dust made my nose twitch. I tried the light switch. A lamp emitted a soft glow, one made even dimmer by the dense layer of dust on the shade.

I caught a whiff of pipe tobacco. Heavy masculine chairs flanked a fireplace, and easels of stretched canvas with half-finished landscapes on them faced the windows. But the crown jewel of the room was an enormous, intricate desk. The top was bare, but when I opened drawers I found bits and pieces of treasures.

Old photographs of a young man in uniform. A postcard with a hospital on the front and a note in spidery script on the back: Will be here at least six more months - terrible and exhausting. Much love, M.

A dried rose crumbled when I picked it up. Pens and pots of ink hid behind carved doors with k.n.o.bs made of onyx and ivory.

Bundles of letters flanked the desk. Most were yellowed and fragile with age, tied together with grosgrain ribbons, but others were clearly more recent.