Every Heart a Doorway (Wayward Children #1)

“You mean removed?” asked Christopher.

“No, I mean extracted,” said Jack. “I’d need to open her skull to be sure, and I don’t have a proper bone saw, which makes that a difficult task, but it appears that her eyes were fully extracted, all the way along the optic nerve. Whoever assaulted her didn’t just pluck them out like grapes. They used some sort of blade to separate the eye from the muscles holding it in place, and once that was done, they—”

“Do you know who did it?” asked Kade.

“No.”

“Then please, stop telling us how it was done. I can’t take it anymore.”

Jack looked at him solemnly, and said, “I haven’t gotten to the important part yet.”

“Then please, get there, before the rest of us throw up on the floor.”

“Based on the damage to the skull and the amount of bleeding, she was alive when her eyes were taken,” said Jack. Silence greeted her proclamation. Even Nancy put a hand over her mouth. “Whoever did this subdued her, removed her eyes, and let the shock kill her. I’m not even sure her death was the goal. Just getting her eyes.”

“Why?” asked Christopher.

Jack hesitated before shaking her head and saying, “I don’t know. Come on. Let’s prepare her for burial.”

Kade retreated back to the far side of the basement and stayed there as the others got to work. Nancy undressed Loriel, folding each piece of clothing with care before setting it aside. She somehow doubted that these clothes were going to make it into the general supply. They would probably need to be destroyed along with Loriel’s body, just for the sake of safety.

While Nancy worked, Jack and Christopher pulled an old claw-footed bathtub out of a corner of the basement and into the center of the room. Jack uncorked several large glass jugs and poured their greenish, fizzing contents into the tub. Kade watched this with dismay.

“Why does Eleanor let you have that much acid?” he asked. “Why would you want that much acid? You don’t need that much acid.”

“Except that it appears I do, since I have just enough to dissolve a human body, and we have a human body in need of dissolving,” said Jack. “Everything happens for a reason. And Eleanor didn’t ‘let’ me have this much acid. I sort of collected it on my own. For a rainy day.”

“What were you expecting it to rain?” asked Christopher. “Bears?”

“There was always a chance we’d get lucky,” said Jack. She pulled several plastic aprons off a shelf and held them out to the others. “You’re going to want to put one of these on, and a pair of the gloves that go with them. Acid is not a fun exfoliator unless you come from Christopher’s world.”

Wordlessly, Nancy and Christopher donned their plastic aprons, rubber gloves, and goggles. Jack did the same, and together they lowered Loriel into the fizzing green liquid. Kade turned his face away. The smell was surprisingly pleasant, not meaty at all: it smelled like cleaning fluid, faintly citrus, with a minty undertone. The bubbles increased as Loriel disappeared beneath the surface, until the liquid was completely opaque, obscuring her from view. Jack turned away.

“It’ll take about an hour to reduce her to a skeletal state,” she said. “I’ll neutralize the acid and drain it off when she’s done. Christopher, do you think you can handle her from there?”

“She’ll dance for me.” Christopher touched the bone in his pocket. Nancy realized there were small indentations in the surface. Not holes, not quite, and yet it still managed to suggest a flute. The tunes he played on that instrument wouldn’t be audible to the living. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t be real. “All skeletons dance for me. It’s my honor to play for them.”

“All right, clearly the two of you”—Jack gestured to Nancy as she stripped off her gloves—“were meant to be together. If you can’t find your doors, you should get married and breed the next generation of creepy world-traveling children.”

Christopher’s cheeks turned red. Nancy’s didn’t. It was a pleasant change.

“Maybe we should figure out why people are dying before we start trying to set up a breeding program,” said Kade mildly. “Besides, I met Nancy first. I get asking-out dibs.”

“Sometimes I suspect you learned all your hallmarks of masculinity from a Neanderthal,” said Jack. She removed her apron, hanging it on a nearby hook. “Everyone please take off the gear you borrowed. That stuff is expensive, and I only get to place three orders a year.”

“Do I get a say in this?” asked Nancy, shooting an amused look over at Kade. She didn’t mind flirting. Flirting was safe, flirting was fun; flirting was a way of interacting with her peers without anyone realizing that there was anything strange about her. She could have flirted forever. It was just the things that came after flirting that she had no interest in.

“Maybe later,” said Jack. “Right now, we need to get out of here. The acid will do some off-gassing as it breaks down her tissues, and I don’t want to fill my lungs with Loriel. Besides, I shouldn’t leave Jill alone for too long.” She sounded uneasy.

“I’m sure no one will hurt your sister,” said Nancy. “She can take care of herself.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” said Jack. “When you spend years with a vampire, all those lessons about ‘don’t bite the other children’ sort of go out the window. If they corner her because they’ve decided I’m guilty, she’s liable to hurt someone just so she can get away. I’d rather not get expelled right after I’ve disposed of a body. Seems like a waste of good acid.”

“All right,” said Nancy, pulling her apron off over her head. “Let’s go.”

Since they were no longer trying to spare their fellow students the sight of Loriel’s body, the foursome walked up the interior stairs, emerging into the deserted hallway. Kade looked in both directions before turning to Jack and asking, “Where would she go?”

“How would I know?” asked Jack. She sighed when the others stared at her. “I’m her twin. I’m not her keeper. I’m not even her friend. We mostly stick together out of self-defense. The other girls think she’s weird, and they think I’m weirder. At least when we present a united front, they’re less likely to do things to us.”

“Things?” asked Nancy blankly.

Jack fixed her with a look that was equal parts pitying and envious. “You didn’t get a hazing phase. That’s the real reason Eleanor put you in with Sumi. Once Sumi liked you—or at least tolerated you—no one else was going to cross the line, because everyone knew better than to mess with Sumi. She was vicious. Nonsense girls always are. Jill and I…”