*
There was no more cleaning to do, and Cath felt uneasy being in the house by herself. She tried sleeping on the couch, but it felt too close to the outside and too close to her dad’s empty room—so she went up to her room and crawled into her own bed. When that didn’t work, she climbed into Wren’s bed, taking her laptop with her.
Their dad had stayed at St. Richard’s three times before. The first time was the summer after their mom left. They’d called their grandma when he wouldn’t get out of bed, and for a while, she’d moved in with them. She filled the freezer with frozen lasagna before she moved out.
The second time was in sixth grade. He was standing over the sink, laughing, and telling them that they didn’t have to go to school anymore. Life was an education, he said. He’d cut himself shaving, and there were tiny pieces of toilet paper stuck with blood to his chin. Cath and Wren had gone to stay with their aunt Lynn in Chicago.
The third time was in high school. They were sixteen, and their grandma came to stay, but not until the second night. That first night they’d spent in Wren’s bed, Wren holding Cath’s wrists, Cath crying.
“I’m like him,” she’d whispered.
“You’re not,” Wren said.
“I am. I’m crazy like him.” She was already having panic attacks. She was already hiding at parties. In seventh grade, she’d been late to class for the first two weeks because she couldn’t stand being in the halls with everyone else during passing periods. “It’s probably going to get worse in a few years. That’s when it usually kicks in.”
“You’re not,” Wren said.
“But what if I am?”
“Decide not to be.”
“That’s not how it works,” Cath argued.
“Nobody knows how it works.”
“What if I don’t even see it coming?”
“I’ll see it coming.”
Cath tried to stop crying, but she’d been crying so long, the crying had taken over, making her breathe in harsh sniffs and jerks.
“If it tries to take you,” Wren said, “I won’t let go.”
A few months later, Cath gave that line to Simon in a scene about Baz’s bloodlust. Wren was still writing with Cath back then, and when she got to the line, she snorted.
“I’m here for you if you go manic,” Wren said. “But you’re on your own if you become a vampire.”
“What good are you anyway,” Cath said. Their dad was home by then. And better. And Cath didn’t feel, for the moment, like her DNA was a trap ready to snap closed on her.
“Apparently, I’m good for something,” Wren said. “You keep stealing all my best lines.”
*
Cath thought about texting Wren Friday night before she fell asleep, but she couldn’t think of anything to say.
The Humdrum wasn’t a man at all, or a monster. It was a boy.
Simon stepped closer, perhaps foolishly, wanting to see its face.… He felt the Humdrum’s power whipping around him like dry air, like hot sand, an aching fatigue in the very marrow of Simon’s bones.
The Humdrum—the boy—wore faded denims and a grotty T-shirt, and it probably took Simon far too long to recognize the child as himself. His years-ago self.
“Stop it,” Simon shouted. “Show yourself, you coward. Show yourself!”
The boy just laughed.
—from chapter 23, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright ? 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
TWENTY
Her dad and Wren came home on the same day. Saturday.
Her dad was already talking about going back to work—even though his meds were still off, and he still seemed alternately drunk or half-asleep. Cath wondered if he’d stay on them through the weekend.
Maybe it would be okay if he went off his meds. She and Wren were both home now to watch out for him.
With everything that had happened, Cath wasn’t quite sure whether she and Wren were on speaking terms. She decided that they were; it made life easier. But they weren’t on sharing terms—she still hadn’t told Wren anything about Levi. Or about Nick, for that matter. And she didn’t want Wren to start talking about her adventures with their mom. Cath was sure Wren had some mother–daughter Christmas plans.
At first, all Wren wanted to talk about was school. She felt good about her finals, did Cath? And she’d already bought her books for next semester. What classes was Cath taking? Did they have any together?
Cath mostly listened.
“Do you think we should call Grandma?” Wren asked.
“About what?”
“About Dad.”
“Let’s wait and see how he does.”
All their friends from high school were home for Christmas. Wren kept trying to get Cath to go out.
“You go,” Cath would say. “I’ll stay with Dad.”
“I can’t go without you. That would be weird.”
It would seem weird to their high school friends to see Wren without Cath. Their college friends would think it was weird if they showed up anywhere together.