I’d known vaguely that Dr. Cliffton was some sort of scientist, and I’d never thought to ask more than that. There had been too many other unanswered questions coming first.
“Yes. Most of them,” Will says. The way he reaches up to touch the shaved part at the back of his neck lets me know that this makes him proud.
“Goodbye, Will,” the guard says, clapping Will on the back as he opens the wall door. The door closes, and the ivy falls back into place behind us. And now I understand why there are so many smiles and nods of acknowledgment in Will’s direction. Why the ladies in town with Mrs. Cliffton hadn’t pressed too hard about her Variant infringement.
Because the Clifftons are the ones who have offered Sterling the chance to regain a part of what they’ve lost—?one shattered, glittering piece at a time.
The sun has sunk a hand’s width deeper by the time we pick through the forest and reach the main road. I don’t want to tell Will what I’m thinking. Where will this end? How many more tables of Variants will be added over the years of his life?
Genevieve will be preparing dinner by now, and we should be getting home. But there’s one more thing I want to see.
“Will,” I say, “did my mother live anywhere near here?”
“Um, yes.” We cross a wooden bridge, the water running underneath our steps. “But I think the house might have burned a long time ago.”
“Can you show me anyway—” I hesitate. “I want to see it.”
He weighs this for a moment and then nods. We quicken our pace, turning off the main road and walking for a few minutes more until the burned husk of a house appears. My feet ache, and strands of my hair have come loose to whip in front of my face.
As we draw nearer, I start to wish we hadn’t come. Dried, burnt cornstalks have grown tall around the foundation of the house to form an endless patterned wall that is eerily still. Broken glass bottles and cigarette butts are ground into the dirt. What remains of the house are only the gutted slabs of two walls, gaping holes of blown-out windows, and the rubble of a brick chimney. The foundation fades into the dirt in a mix of debris, ash, and clumps of decaying wet leaves.
I stop, and Will stands next to me, our shoulders almost touching, as I take in a word scrawled in graffiti on the charred remains of the house and etched over and over in the dirt under our feet.
“What does it mean?” I ask softly, toeing it with my mud-speckled boot. “Catalyst?”
Will exhales, as if he wishes he hadn’t brought me.
“The Disappearances are so ordered that something had to happen to set them off, right? Something, or . . . someone,” he says. “No one knows what happened, or why. So we just call whatever triggered it the Catalyst.”
I stiffen.
He takes a deep breath. “If we can figure out who or what is to blame, we’ll be a step closer to figuring out how to fix it.”
I rub out a drawing of an hourglass with my toe. “Do people really think it’s something intentional? Like a curse?”
“Some do,” he says. “But it’s all wild theories and finger-pointing, and it always has been.” He picks up a glass bottle at his feet, knocks it against his palm. Then he suddenly hurls it away from us, into the cornstalks. “Because if you look hard enough, you can find a reason to suspect almost anyone.”
Wind rustles the cornstalks in a wave around us, and I shiver. I think again of Mother’s book, of the strange markings within it.
“One more thing,” I say as we turn to go. “The Disappearances—?do they have anything to do with Shakespeare?”
The look he gives me is genuine bewilderment. “Shakespeare?”
“Never mind.” I shrug and give him a half smile to hide my suspicions and how much it hurts to see Mother’s home burned and scrawled over with slanders. I’m learning that I’m actually quite good at hiding things.
I am my mother’s daughter, after all.
Chapter Twelve
Date: 2/28/1941
Bird: Jackdaw
Jackdaws are unusual in that they will often share their own food with others.
Known to steal jewelry and other shiny things to collect in their nests.
Sometimes considered to be an omen of death.
Phineas doesn’t have any money.
At first I just chalk it up to his moods, which wax and wane like the moon. The way Phineas barks when I spill the milk. Drags his feet to replace burnt-out light bulbs. The way the phone jangles shrilly and his smile warps. “Don’t pick it up.”
Then he starts to cough. It’s as though the telephone calls make it worse. “You know, you think you can repay your past mistakes,” he says, hacking into one of his pristine handkerchiefs. “But you never can. That debt will just keep growing. Like mold. Until you can’t breathe.”
“Do you owe someone something?” I ask.
He just shakes his head. “It was a long time ago.”
The sharp knock comes two days later. I’m prying off the old battens of the porch screens when I hear Phineas swear, then open the door. I grab my pocketknife and walk toward the kitchen.
An unfamiliar voice. “I’ve come to collect, Phineas.”
I stand in the shadows and hold my breath. “I paid your father back, Victor,” Phineas says. “Every penny.”
“Yes, of the original loan. But not the interest we lost while you were in the clink. It’s nothing personal, Phineas,” the voice says. “Just business.”
I click open the pocketknife. Then I flick it shut and stride into the kitchen.
“I’ll get it,” I say to the man. He has wispy black hair, a small beard and a pointed chin that make him sort of resemble a mouse, and small, blazing eyes that seem to be almost entirely iris. “Don’t bother him anymore. He’s dead broke. I’m the one you should concern yourself with. Stefen Shaw.” I thrust out my hand.
Phineas glares. Takes a cut of gristly meat from the icebox and unwraps it, muttering, at the counter.
“Victor Larkin,” the man says, taking my grip. He keeps shaking my hand, hard, even after I try to let go.
“Don’t be a damn fool, Stefen,” Phineas says.
“I’ll get it,” I repeat to Victor Larkin. We make arrangements for the first installment, and then I firmly escort him to the door.
Phineas lights the gas stove, his back turned to me. “Where’s that money going to come from, Stefen?”
“You’re going to teach me your old trade.” I look at his fingers, bloody from the meat. “I told you, I’ve always been good with my hands.”
Phineas sighs and turns the flame up as high as it goes.
“I don’t like it,” he says, but he throws the meat on to sizzle, and the decision is made. I will follow in my father’s footsteps.
Learn the art of robbing a grave.
Chapter Thirteen
On Monday morning George stands in the hallway, examining the school notice board.
He greets me by asking, “So what are you going to do for the Sisters Tournament?”