She’d had another dream, unbearably vivid.
She was on a hydro-bus, heading home, standing room only. It was so crowded she couldn’t even reach out for a pole to hold on to, and she tried to keep her balance as the bus lurched its way up and down the hills of Belle Heights. Next to her stood a man, tall as a tree. She looked at his face, saw those heavy-lidded eyes . . . she couldn’t believe it. Her dad! Her dad was here! But he had died even before hydro-buses came to Belle Heights. So she didn’t want to say anything, since that might break the spell or embarrass him because he was doing something impossible. Probably he would explain the misunderstanding of it to her later, how when everyone had thought he was dead, he’d just stayed out of sight for a while, but now he was here and here to stay. She was so happy—she was bursting with happiness.
Eventually she had to speak up. “Dad,” she said casually, trying not to sound too excited, “it’s our stop.”
“You go on ahead. I have to be somewhere.” His voice, still gentle, didn’t have a smile in it, like it used to.
She didn’t want to let him out of her sight. But she couldn’t make a big deal out of it. It was important just to act normally, so then he could just show up later at home and everything would be the way it was supposed to be. She got off the bus—bad mistake. So stupid! Why hadn’t she made up some excuse, that she had to be somewhere, too? She stared at the bus as it went down a hill. A woman was suddenly next to her, asking, “Did you leave something on the bus? I forgot my bag once. I called the office and they said it was in the Lost and Found.”
Waking, the girl got a wrenching pain unlike anything she’d ever felt. A fist had tightened around her heart. She didn’t blame Clara for climbing into a glass coffin and staying there. Who in her right mind would want to go through this? Strangely, though, she felt close to Clara here in this place, and it felt like a place, where Clara had never been.
She looked at Mr. Moore’s painting, propped up on her bureau, and also out the window, at Belle Heights Tower, where Kim lived.
She got up and left the room.
Evelyn always slept with the door wide open and the curtains apart. In the almost-full moon, the girl could clearly see Evelyn’s desk with her laptop, her tall mahogany bureau, and her bookshelf, where Clara had leafed through books by experts. Evelyn’s bed was near the window, open just a crack. Her dark hair was spread across her pillow, and the gold necklace around her throat caught a glint of light. She was wearing a pale nightgown with a scoop neck that exposed one shoulder. A flowery kimono was draped over the foot of the bed.
The girl walked over to Evelyn, who smelled like lavender. She leaned down and gently nudged Evelyn’s shoulder.
“Oh—” Evelyn stiffened and looked around urgently. “What—what time is it?”
“Late. Early.”
Evelyn blinked to get used to the semidarkness. “Give me a minute. I’ll get up.”
“You don’t have to.” The girl hadn’t realized she’d brought the bald elephant with her until she put it down on the bed. “I just want to say . . . I made you worry last week, when I stayed out so long. Before I went to Forget-Me-Not. I’m really sorry.”
Evelyn seemed relieved—no emergency, apparently. “I didn’t know what to think. If you were all right, if you were running away. . . . I tried to find you. I looked in the school directory and called your friends.”
“You mean Kim and Cooper?”
“The ones you had lunch with. Selena Kearn and Astrid Mills.”
But they weren’t her friends. They weren’t even each other’s friends. The girl decided right then she would ask Mr. Slocum to switch her to different lab partners. Though he’d never done this before, she knew he would do it for her.
“I had to leave a message for Astrid, but Selena picked up,” Evelyn said. “She told me you were with them at brunch and then you left. She also said something about a party here this Saturday—?”
The girl shook her head. “No, that’s not happening.” Astrid and Selena would definitely not be pleased that she was canceling it the day before it was supposed to happen. She could picture Selena, face burning behind her freckles, bitterly complaining she’d already promised everybody a DJ. She could even hear Astrid saying beneath her breath, “We were nice to you. You blew it.”
“Evelyn,” the girl said, “I should probably let you get back to sleep.”
“That’s okay. I’m awake.” She sat up and leaned her back against the headboard.
“I always wondered.” The girl hesitated. “I hope you don’t mind my asking . . . why do you look in the mirror so much?”