When we turn in, I can hear Mrs. Cliffton’s voice from the neighboring room as she tells Miles good night. “Miles,” she says, “is there anything you’d like to ask me? Do you want to talk about school tomorrow, or anything else?”
I pause mid-line in my reading of Coleridge to listen, wishing I had thought to ask him that. I never would have before, but it feels like I should start, somehow.
He doesn’t ask her about the Variants or the Disappearances or Mother or the war or any of the thousands of questions that I wish he would. “Does the tooth fairy come to Sterling?” he says instead. “I have a very loose tooth.”
I roll my eyes. I’m fairly certain Miles knows the tooth fairy doesn’t exist. I’m also fairly certain he’s saving pennies for a new Sub-Mariner comic.
“Of course,” Mrs. Cliffton says. “Sterling is one of her favorite places. But you must tell me when it comes out so I can make sure she knows where to find you.”
“Oh,” he says. “All right.”
“Tomorrow’s going to be wonderful,” she continues. “There are so many nice people at your school. It’s exciting, isn’t it? Knowing that tomorrow you’ll meet so many new friends.”
Miles is quiet. And then I hear him repeat the words my mother always said to us when we were young. I haven’t heard them in years. I didn’t even know he remembered them.
“Mrs. Cliffton, may your dreams be filled with stars and not with shadows,” he says. Now that I can’t see him, his voice seems to belong to someone smaller.
“Thank you, Miles,” Mrs. Cliffton says, so softly I almost don’t hear it. “But I’m afraid dreams are another thing that have been gone from Sterling since long before you were born.”
I close my eyes. So it wasn’t a coincidence that my nightmares stopped once we got to Sterling. Dreams, even the bad ones, were the last way I could reach out and touch my mother. And even that figment of her was better than nothing at all.
That night I wait in my room for the house to quiet. My new uniform hangs in the closet. The white blouse, necktie, and dark skirt pressed into crisp pleats seem to promise I will make you appear like you belong. I try not to look at it.
Instead I pull my hair up into a bun, allowing my ears to breathe in the secrecy of my own room. Of all the features I don’t like, it’s the ugly bump of cartilage, knotted like a kernel of corn on the tip of my right ear, that I hate the most. For a few months I’d almost grown to like it when it inspired my father’s nickname for me. “My little elf,” he’d say, and pull me into his lap.
But that all ended one spring day in eighth grade when Dixon Fairweather, the boy I’d secretly pined over for four years, tapped me on the shoulder in class. I’d leaned toward him with the stupidest smile on my face until he suddenly jumped back. “Say, what is that?” he asked, pointing. “Is that a wart? That’s repulsive.”
Repulsive.
The finishing word. For me and my ear.
I’d waited to cry until I was at home, carving the deepest gash into my floorboard. Two weeks later Dixon busted his own nose trying to wallop poor Simon Sneed with a tetherball.
And that time, Cass and I had both shed tears—?of laughter.
I shake away the memory, figuring I’ve waited long enough for everyone to fall asleep. Time to take another look around Dr. Cliffton’s library.
When I open the door, the hallway is dark. I steal downstairs and check the kitchen just to make sure I’m alone. The lights are out, and Genevieve has long since retired for the night. I reach for the light switch.
When it clicks on, a chair scrapes against the floor and someone jumps up. I shriek, then stifle it with my hand.
It’s William.
He’s been sitting at the kitchen table in the dark, and there’s a partially eaten sandwich on the plate in front of him. His face looks more angled than it does in the daylight. His new haircut is a little short, but it suits him.
I freeze, realizing that my own hair is still in a bun on top of my head and there is no easy way for me to cover my ear. Not to mention that I’m wearing a nightgown so thin it probably barely conceals my chest. You utter dip, I tell myself, don’t look down, and I can feel my face lighting with fire. Of course I hadn’t thought to put on a bathrobe.
An endless moment goes by, and finally Will clears his throat.
“Trouble sleeping?” he asks politely. He fixes his gaze on the floor next to my feet.
“I was thirsty,” I lie. Then I do something awkward with my arms and end up crossing them over my chest.
“There’s some milk and soda there,” he says, smiling toward the refrigerator.
“Right,” I say, moving toward it as quickly as I can.
Will sits back down and gestures sheepishly at the sandwich on the table. “On the days I practice, I’m usually still hungry, even after dinner. Just promise not to tell Genevieve.” I can feel his eyes taking in my flushed face before he averts them back to the wall.
He takes another bite of sandwich. “Do you want to sit?” he asks, his mouth full. I pour a glass of milk and hesitate. He is wearing a white T-shirt and blue striped pajama pants, which makes me feel the slightest bit better.
I return the milk to the refrigerator and slide into the seat opposite him. When there is silence again, I drink my milk too quickly.
“We went into town today,” I finally say. “I met Mrs. Mackelroy.”
Will laughs, and I can glimpse his one slightly crooked incisor. “One of Sterling’s brightest gems,” he says.
“And your mother showed me the Looking Glass Variants.”
“Ah, the Variants.” He lets out a deep breath. “So now you know.”
“I guess,” I say. “I feel there’s still so much that I don’t know.” I hesitate. “Does Sterling have a Council?”
“Yes. They make decisions in the town’s best interests. Regulate the Variants, plan town events. My father’s part of it.”
“And they . . . had to vote to let us in?”
Will pushes the crusts of his sandwich around on his plate and won’t quite look at me.
“Listen,” he says finally. His eyes are blue and clear, and something in his voice makes my breath catch. “There are some people here who . . . didn’t always have the fondest feelings toward your mother,” he says. “Try not to let it get to you. My mother says she was a great person.”
This shouldn’t shock me, not after the note from town, but somehow it still does. “Oh,” I say. “Well. I know that. I know who she was.”
But really—?do I?
“If anyone says anything, you can let me know,” he says.
“Why . . .” My voice catches and betrays me. I clear my throat. “Why didn’t they like her?”
The crumbs left from his sandwich are spread out like a constellation between us. He plays with the edge of the plate.
“I heard that she was different than everyone else. You have to understand that people here do whatever they can to prove they’re not tied to the Disappearances. But your mother . . . She was the only one who could leave this place and be free,” he says. “She got out and never looked back. I guess that left a bad taste in some people’s mouths.”
I chew on my bottom lip and process this. My mother was the only one?