But reading those words is the first time I ever associate her miraculous health with wearing the Stone. The first time I wonder whether that Stone actually does have some power in it after all.
“She still has it,” I tell Phineas, and his face becomes brighter than I’ve ever seen it. “She sent it to be polished, and then she’ll put it in the mail to us.”
Hope threatens to open long-shuttered wings inside my chest, but I push them back. Hoping makes it harder to breathe. I notice how eager she sounds to do anything that would make things right between us again.
I wonder if I could even forgive Juliet for all her past sins. If she does something unselfish for once and helps me save Phineas.
That night I creep down the hallway and peek into his room. The light falls across him as he lies motionless in the bed. His skin is papery and faded into the pillow. My heart catches for a moment at the silence.
But his chest still rises, falls. I stand and watch its movement until my own heart returns to a normal rhythm.
Some nights I want to lie down on the floor next to him and hold on to his sleeve, as I had so long ago with my school uniform.
As if that is all it would take to make sure he is still there in the morning.
I wait for the package from Juliet, the one that will carry the Stone. A week. Then another. Then another. She is certainly taking her time to send it.
No—?she is taking Phineas’s time. From him.
From me.
My rage builds and burns. I write her one more time. Suggest that I could even come get it myself.
The day before I plan to jump on a train and confront her over her silence, her response finally comes.
I know with one glance that it is too small, too thin. I slit it open with trembling hands. Wondering what excuse she is going to give. If I would actually have it in me to kill her.
But I don’t find her effusive scrawling. Only the tight handwriting of her husband, Harold Quinn, and a newspaper clipping folded inside.
Dear Mr. Shaw:
I’m sorry to tell you that Juliet has passed away.
Forgive me for not inviting you to the funeral. I’m only just now making it through all of Juliet’s old mail. I’ve included her obituary.
We buried her yesterday.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The week that passes after my fight with Miles does nothing to cool my anger. I’m trying to help Mother’s reputation in Sterling, and he’s done nothing but make it worse. It feels strange to be in a new year without her—?as if I’m walking through a door into a new room, leaving her behind, and the next year will be another room, and another, and I don’t want to go.
Cass’s response to my letter about Miles is so laced with reassurances and shared history that I could cry, but the days pass with no mail at all from Father. I sit in the library and halfheartedly look through Austen and Shelley for possible music Variant clues while George steadily crosses off more lines in Dr. Cliffton’s black book.
“No closer?” I ask as he packs up his things.
“Every wrong answer eliminated is a step closer to the truth.”
“What does the truth even matter,” I say, suddenly bitter. “People are just going to believe whatever they want to believe.” I think of Mother’s desecrated house. “Or what is most convenient for them.”
“Of course it matters,” George says, closing his book, and his voice is sharper than I’ve ever heard it. I think of his steady hands peeling the onion, of the way he documents each finding in our labs with something between a child’s excitement and a scientist’s precision. “Something happened that set this whole thing off, and we don’t get to decide what it was. If our premise is wrong, then we’ll keep moving in the wrong direction, looking for the answer in the wrong places. And we’ll never be able to set it right unless we know which Catalyst was the true one.”
I shrug at him.
“Let me ask you something.” George examines me with the blazing intensity normally reserved for his microscope. “What exactly is it that you’re looking for? I mean, what do you want out of all this?”
I shift uncomfortably. “Of course—?I want the truth—” I stammer. “Then maybe people will stop being so awful. I mean, you should understand now. Didn’t it make you angry that night at the race? With all those copies of ‘The Mackelroy Misfortune’?”
He laughs a short laugh. “Who do you think mimeographed those and sent them around for everyone to read?”
“What?” I blink at him, dumbfounded. “Are you saying you did that?”
George sighs. “My mother is very resourceful, especially as head of the Library Preservation Society,” he says. “She got to almost every copy of the Council book first and tore out the pages. If she knew that I hid one and made copies, she would ship me off to boarding school.” He pushes his hair up from his forehead. “I’m not sure what compelled me. It just made me feel . . . right somehow, doing that.”
“Even if the Catalyst does end up being tied to you?” My throat clenches. “Even if people hate you for it?”
“We’re all in it,” he says. “We all have those questions, and we’re all hoping that it isn’t us. Shouldn’t that make us more empathetic when the truth comes out?”
I follow him to the foyer, where we almost collide with Will. He nods good night and climbs the stairs, and as I watch his retreating back, I want to ask George, How can you be so unafraid of the truth? Even truth that is inconvenient or damning or not what you want it to be?
“Well, it should make us empathetic,” George says, his voice rising at my silence. “So you know what?” He flings his arms out wide. “If it’s my family, then so be it. I just want to find out and end all of this. But know this, Aila. You can’t search for the truth with integrity if you’re only looking to find the kind that benefits you.”
I set my jaw, stung.
“I’m sorry,” I say, softening. “You’re right. When I first got here, I guess I did just want to clear my mother’s name.” I look at him. “And that was selfish. But now I want to find out the truth. For everybody’s sake.”
His mouth twists into a smile. “All right,” he says simply. “I believe you.”
Then he lifts the front window curtain and peeks out. “Look.”
Mrs. Mackelroy is parked on the drive, craning her neck out the window for any glimpse into what’s going on inside. George throws open the curtains and waves at her with both hands. She dives back into the shadows, laying on the horn in her haste. It blares a short, shrill blast.
George lets the curtains fall again and shrugs. “Covert Operations keeps trying to recruit her.”
He’s broken my sullen mood despite myself, and I open the door into the cold night. “You’re a really good friend, George.”
“You too, Aila,” he says, and I fix the latch behind him and hurry up the stairs to catch Will.
I call his name in a low voice just as he reaches his room, and his hand pauses on his doorknob.