Sure, at first she’d related to how fast Selene had fallen for a boy she shouldn’t fall for—but Eureka hadn’t even seen Ander since that night on the road. She didn’t see what her accident had to do with a mythical sunken continent.
Blavatsky stayed quiet, as if waiting for Eureka to connect some dots. Was there something else? Something about Delphine the abandoned lover, whose tears were said to have sunk the island? Eureka had nothing in common with Delphine. She didn’t even cry. After last night, her whole class knew about that—more reason to think she was a freak. So what did Blavastky mean?
“Curiosity is a cunning paramour,” the woman said. “He has me seduced as well.”
Eureka touched Diana’s lapis locket. “Do you think my mother knew this story?”
“I believe she did.”
“Why didn’t she tell me? If it was so important, why didn’t she explain it?”
Madame Blavatsky stroked Polaris’s crown. “All you can do now is absorb the tale. And remember our narrator’s advice: Everything might change with the last word.”
In the pocket of her Windbreaker, Eureka’s phone buzzed. She pulled it out, hoping Rhoda hadn’t discovered her empty bed and concluded she’d snuck out after curfew.
It was Brooks. The blue screen lit up with one big block of text, then another, then another, then another, as Brooks sent a rapid succession of texts. After six of them came through, the final text stayed illuminated on her phone:
Can’t sleep. Sick with guilt. Let me make it up to you—next weekend, you and me, sailing trip.
“Hell no.” Eureka stuffed her phone in her pocket without reading his other texts.
Madame Blavatsky lit another cigarette, blew the smoke in a long, thin draft across the bayou. “You must accept his invitation.”
“What? I’m not going anywhere with—Wait, how did you know?”
Polaris fluttered from Madame Blavatsky’s knee onto Eureka’s left shoulder. He chirped softly in her ear, which tickled, and she understood. “The birds tell you.”
Blavatsky puckered her lips in a kiss at Polaris. “My pets have their fascinations.”
“And they think I should go out on a boat with a boy who betrayed me, who made a fool out of me, who suddenly behaves like my nemesis instead of my oldest friend?”
“We believe it is your destiny to go,” Madame Blavatsky said. “What happens once you do is up to you.”
22
HYPOTHESIS
On Monday morning Eureka put on her uniform, packed her bag, gnawed miserably on a Pop-Tart, and started Magda before she accepted that she could not possibly go to school.
It was more than the humiliation of the Never-Ever game. It was the translation of The Book of Love—which she’d sworn she’d discuss with no one, not even Cat. It was her sunken-car dream, in which Diana’s and Ander’s roles had seemed so clear. It was Brooks, whom she was used to turning to for support—but since they’d kissed, their friendship had gone from stable to critically wounded. Perhaps most hauntingly, it was the vision of the glowing foursome surrounding her car on the dark road, like antibodies fighting a disease. Whenever she closed her eyes she saw green light illuminating Ander’s face, suggesting something powerful and dangerous. Even if there were someone left to turn to, Eureka would never find words to make that scene sound true.
So how was she supposed to sit through Latin class and pretend she had herself together? She had no outlets, only blockades. There was just one kind of therapy that might soothe her.