“He’s a real asshole, huh.”
“The worst.” I straighten up and tuck my hair behind my ears. “He’s rude and weird and his face is all”—I make a violent twisting gesture in midair—“and you know I like tattoos but there’s an upper limit. And he’s so full of shit, and so arrogant about it, like he knows what’s best for everybody else—what?”
“Nothing,” Jasper says, but he gives me the sideways, shit-eating smile of a kid who’s about to break into the K-I-S-S-I-N-G song.
I jam my elbow between his ribs and both of us lose it, laughing in the abrupt, overloud way you do when you haven’t laughed in a long time. I have a split-second vision of an alternate world, where monsters aren’t real and Starling House is just a house, where Mom never died and I never dropped out and my brother and I were allowed to be dumb kids together.
When we stop laughing, I say, quietly, “Hey. I’m sorry.”
“It didn’t hurt. You’re like, super weak.”
“I mean for being such a baby about everything and for ignoring you earlier and for—before. For not telling you what was going on.” There’s a whole lot more I could and probably should tell him, but I chicken out. My whole body feels raw and weepy, like a skinned knee.
Jasper sobers. “It’s okay. I mean it’s not, but it is.” An unfamiliar weight drags at the corners of his mouth, a hint of confessional guilt. “Look, Opal, I . . .”
He draws a deep breath and I’m struck by the suspicion that he’s going to say something heartfelt, that he loves me or forgives me, and I’m too dehydrated to do any more crying. So I say, “Been working on any new videos?”
He closes his mouth. Opens it. “No.”
“Why?”
“Just over it, I guess.” Jasper shrugs. I’d would call it his tell, except his entire body is comprised of tells. He looks out the window; he fidgets guiltily with the wrapper on the peach can.
A sudden thought knocks the smile off my face. “It doesn’t have anything to do with Baine, does it? She hasn’t been bothering you?”
A sharp look through his lashes. “No,” he says slowly. “She hasn’t. And she won’t, because you don’t have anything to do with that house anymore.”
“No. Yeah, I mean, I don’t.” It’s not even a lie. I’m through with Starling House and its Warden, with Elizabeth Baine and her cut-glass eyes, with the whole ugly mess of debts and desires, sins and stories.
I just can’t swear they’re through with me. Gravely blood. “But call me if you hear from her, okay? And”—I reach into my back pocket and withdraw the copper penny I stole weeks ago, which I never quite managed to sell or give back, because I liked the feel of it, the round print it left on my skin—“take this, will you?”
Jasper takes the coin gingerly. He studies the swirling lettering, the faded harp. “Why?”
“For luck.” I say it lightly, but I hold his gaze until he slides the penny into his pocket. Maybe when he falls asleep I’ll stitch an Eye of Horus into the lining of his backpack; maybe I can find a horseshoe somewhere to hang over the door to room 12. Maybe all Mom’s stupid little charms and superstitions were the reason she made it as long as she did.
I have a sudden, sick memory of her hair tangling with the plastic beads of that dream catcher, the night her luck ran out.
“So.” Jasper makes a visible decision to sidestep all my weird shit. “What’ll you do now?”
Get you the hell out of here. Before Baine gets creative, before Arthur throws open the gates of Underland, before the mist rises again. Which means cash. Which means—“I’m going down to Tractor Supply in the morning. Figure I’ll get my old job back from Frank.”
Jasper swallows and the whatever-it-was vanishes. “Didn’t you quit without notice and text him a middle finger when he asked where you were? You think he’ll hire you back?”
I smile one of my least charming smiles, all sharp angles and teeth. “Yeah. I think he will.”
He does. I mean, the first thing he says when he sees me walk through the door is “No,” followed shortly by “Absolutely not,” and then “I will call Constable Mayhew and have you removed from the premises,” but he comes around. All I have to do is mention my familiarity with child labor laws and the documented fact that he paid me for more than thirty hours per week while I was a minor. His face goes blotchy pink and he disappears into the back office. He returns with a contract balled in his fist and warns me that he’ll call Constable Mayhew anyway if I try any more “funny business.” He finishes with an admirable attempt at an intimidating glare, and I pay him the courtesy of not laughing in his face. I’ve gotten used to a higher class of monster, this spring.
I spend the next two weeks wearily reassembling the life I’d had before Starling House, like a hurricane survivor returning home after the water recedes. I open the laptop and drag “document 4.docx” to the recycling bin. I wrap Underland back in its shroud of grocery bags and shove it deep under the bed, except this time I add a long woolen coat. It’s too hot for it, anyway.
I charge my phone and make a call to Stonewood Academy to confirm that they received my final payment. I ask about summer courses and discover that, for some reason, room and board is twice as much as the regular term. The bursar suggests, delicately, that we might consider an installment plan. I agree, even though I have no idea how I’ll make the payments. Then the bursar suggests, even more delicately, that Jasper might want to enroll in noncredit courses the first term. “They’re designed to help students like Jasper catch up to their peers.”
“Oh, no, his grades are great.”
“I’m sure they are! Stonewood only accepts the best, after all.” But she keeps talking, circling and insinuating. She mentions culture shock and his background and how hard they’re working on their retention rates for underrepresented demographics.
I find myself picturing those boys on the rowboat, the oversaturated blue of the sky behind them. I bet none of them ever took a noncredit course; they were the lesson Jasper was supposed to learn, the blueprint he would spend the next two years studying.
Eventually I manage, through a suddenly tight throat, “Thank you, we’ll look into that.”
I go through my missed texts, including six or seven from Bev asking if I’ve talked to Charlotte lately and telling me the guests in room 9 left half a pizza behind if I want it. I don’t reply.
I block Elizabeth Baine’s number without responding to her last message. I make sure to walk fast across the motel parking lot. I never see her, but sometimes I feel the sharp press of eyes on the back of my neck.
I hesitate before tapping the conversation labeled Heathcliff,my chest seizing with hope or hate or maybe simple hunger, but his last message is weeks old. Good night, Opal. I wonder if he’s sitting in that big empty house, just waiting for a misty night. I wonder if he’s been sleeping at all. I wonder if I’ll ever see him again.
I take the long way to work. At least it isn’t cold anymore; by the end of May the air pants against the back of your neck and the sun lands like a slap.