Emma runs a pale finger below his name. Jasper Clarke had one of the shortest tenures in the box. It took him a single month to find someone to take his place. The writings are fuzzy here—literally. The ink has faded out to a faint sepia, and it’s hard to read. A few words are legible here and there: “wine,” “pain,” “heart,” but that’s it.
Emma then flips to find the entry for Rebecca, the jilted woman at the start of it all. Her fingers flick through the pages clumsily. It takes longer this time, but then her palms splay over the pages, thumbs and forefingers framing the entry. And then, so quietly I can barely hear her over the sounds of the road rushing beneath us, Emma says, “Oh God.”
Emma’s slender fingers ruffle her hair as she skims over the words again and again. “Rebecca Marx was a fortune-teller, we knew that. She stayed on after she cursed Jasper. And then,” Emma’s voice cracks, “the night Jasper passed on the curse, she rode to the top of the Ferris wheel and threw herself from it. She um…she didn’t make it.”
A frown tugs at the simple lines of Emma’s ruby mouth as she stares out the window. It is the impotent stare of the furious; it has to be, because there’s nothing but Texas fields, fallow and boring, out the window. There’s nothing I can say that will help, I know that much, so I put my hand on hers and wait.
“That…asshole! I can’t believe he… I could never do that… I just…I hate this. And she killed herself. She made this horrible curse and now I feel sorry for her? Somehow? And I’m still so mad at her I could punch her old lady ass. If, you know, she were an old lady. God. Now I feel like a jerk for wanting to punch a hypothetical old lady.”
I want to help but don’t know what to say, so instead, I just rub my fingers over her palm and the back of her hand, thinking I’ll warm it, but realizing at about the same time that there’s far too much of her to try to keep warm. But as soon as I’m about to stop, she leans against me.
Neither of us says anything about the seemingly insurmountable task in front of us. At the same time, now that I know with certainty there’s something other than the cycle of passing along the curse, now that the person in the box means something to me, I have to help. But it all comes back to New Orleans. All our answers are there.
The sun washes against us through the curtained windows, the tall, thin shadows of telephone poles flashing over us. The light goes from a bright sunshiny yellow to the deep gold of the late afternoon.
I don’t want the moment to end. Somehow, without my realizing it, she has become my constant. The steady thrum of the tires on the asphalt is soothing to the point where I drift off into sleep with my head on her shoulder.
Just my luck that I’ve always been a heavy sleeper.
Emma shakes my shoulder, a steady stream of frantic whispers in my ear. Too late, I realize that I can’t hear the road rushing beneath us or feel the steady rattle of the Airstream in motion. I scramble out of the booth, pulling Emma with me. But when the door swings open and my mother steps in the trailer, there’s nowhere to go.
My hand is still tangled up with Emma’s when my mother sees us.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Emma
Hell hath no fury like an angry Audrey Singer.
I have always passed the parent test with flying colors. Jules’s parents love me. Every one of my friends’ parents I’ve ever been introduced to likes quiet, well-mannered Emmaline King. I am respectful, polite, and nonthreateningly funny.
Audrey doesn’t even give me a chance.
“Get out.” On the surface, she’s calm. But anger simmers below it all, a mother bear with claws at the ready. If I had a pulse, it would be racing.
To her, I am only the Girl in the Box, the girl whose kisses and lies can trap someone in the curse, and I’m charming her only son, the child who is the only reason she came back to a job haunted by her former lover. I guess I can see why she doesn’t like me.
It only takes three long strides for Audrey to cross the Airstream. Her hands grip around my arm—so hot they feel like fire made solid—and she drags me away from Ben. I topple to the ground, my limbs clacking and thumping against every solid surface on the way.
“Get out, get out, get out!” Her voice goes from the angry yell of the righteous to a banshee scream. Hair flies from her neat braid, a halo of gold to frame her fury. And I won’t forget the icy gleam of hate in those blue eyes for the rest of my life.
“Mom!” Benjamin yells, scrambling to get between us.
Audrey’s hands—big hands calloused and lined from years of working toward making this carnival what it is—tighten around my upper arms as she shoves me toward the door. I’ve barely got my feet beneath me, and my legs are trembling as I back away, but she gets in another push, this one sending me crashing into the counter. Another hard thrust, and I’m almost to the door.
“I never want to see you in this home again,” Audrey says. Her palms strike me square in the chest, and the last shove sends me flying out the door of the Airstream. I hit the ground so hard that for a split second, I worry this cursed body of mine might crack. Audrey jumps to the ground, looming over me. Ben tumbles out of the trailer behind her, grasping her shoulders to pull her away, but Audrey isn’t going anywhere. “No one’s come looking for you, not your parents, not your friends. No one wants you, and no one loves you. How could anyone love a girl stupid enough to be tricked into the curse in the first place? Find a rube, pass on the curse, and get far away from here.”
“Mother!” Benjamin snaps, finally managing to pull her back.
Shame wells furiously within me. It starts up the shaking, hiccupping thing this body does when my human body would have been driven to tears.
Benjamin drags Audrey into the Airstream. The door slams with a metallic clang, and almost immediately I can hear mother and son yelling at each other.
“So she’s on a rampage.”
It’s then that I notice Sidney leaning against the pale aqua truck the Airstream is attached to. When I finally manage to drag this twitchy body off the ground and join him, I pretend to ignore the tears dripping off his chin. His red-rimmed eyes stare at the plump white clouds that scud across a sky so pale it seems colorless.
Another shudder runs through my chest. Another sob. Stupid as it sounds, I wish I could cry, because it would at least be some kind of release for all this self-loathing bubbling inside me.
He chuckles darkly, brushing tears off his cheeks. He lowers his gaze to the ground—hard brown stuff scattered with weeds in shades of yellow and a sickly green. “It’s not you, you know. I screwed her over something fierce.