“Better,” I say. “Though it’s hard to be certain.”
“Things seem to have quieted down,” Mrs. Cliffton agrees thoughtfully. “Do you know what the trouble was about at school? He seemed hesitant to tell me.”
I pick at the crescent of my thumbnail. “It was about Mother. The things people say.”
Mrs. Cliffton sighs. “I figured as much.” She sets out two mugs for us. Through the window I watch Will disappear into the garden shed and leave with his toolbox. My old curiosity sparks.
“Your mother wasn’t perfect,” Mrs. Cliffton says, paging through the rows of tea bags. “But she did a lot of good here.” She curls her fingers around the white threads of two mint teas. “I want you to know that.”
“I think you’re the only person who believes it,” I say. A cluster of burrs appears at the back of my throat.
“You probably never knew this, but your mother set me up with Malcolm.” Mrs. Cliffton plucks the kettle off the stove just as it starts to howl. “We might have wound up together anyway, but Juliet was the one who recognized that we had feelings for each other and pushed to make it happen.” She smiles. “So I suppose that without Juliet, there’s a chance Will might not have even existed.”
I take the steaming mug from Mrs. Cliffton. The burrs recede a bit.
“And, as I think Malcolm told you, your mother had a hand in creating the first Variants. She found us the thistle.”
I watch the tea bleed into the water.
Mrs. Cliffton returns to stirring the pot. Her hair shines as though it’s reflecting the pans hanging in a rainbow of copper behind her.
“I know some people think she was the Catalyst,” I say boldly. “Do you?”
Mrs. Cliffton doesn’t turn around. She just keeps stirring, for so long that I wonder if she heard me. “I think Juliet was a catalyst,” she says finally. “I don’t think that word always has to be a bad one.”
I’m silent. The steam whispers up from my mug.
When Mrs. Cliffton turns to face me, her eyes are bright.
“I’m glad you’ve come to Sterling, Aila. It’s too easy to vilify a person who no longer lives and breathes in front of you.” She reaches into her pocket and sets a glass globe of pearlescent Mind’s Eye on the table. “Don’t tell Malcolm I’ve given you this before you’re Of Age. But Juliet was a dear, lovely friend to me. She was a good mother.” Mrs. Cliffton pushes the Mind’s Eye to rest in front of me. “And I want you to remember her that way.”
There are so many secrets I’m keeping.
So many secrets between all of us, really. Big and little, silly and significant, weaving together into something that I want to believe is a safety net. But in some lights, it looks more like a web.
Every day I conceal from Will how I really feel about him.
There are other secrets, too.
The biggest are the ones I try to keep from myself.
I watch Miles from the second-floor window. He’s in the yard beyond the gardens, kicking a ball to himself, volleying it in short spurts on his knees and then chasing after it. Will has been working with him to practice, and he’s improved.
I want to ask him if he ever resents Mother sometimes, too. For lying. For leaving us. If he ever wonders whether Father could have fought the draft harder in order to stay with us.
If he ever wishes I were different than I am, the way I find myself wishing he was. Easier to be around.
Easier to love.
I watch him for a long time. Then I let myself out the back door, walk straight for him, and hug him without saying a word.
“What was that for?” he asks.
For being infuriatingly, inescapably mine, I want to tell him. For having echoes of Mother and Father pumping inside you even though they aren’t here. For knowing what it was like to have Juliet Quinn as a mother, and what it was like to lose her.
Instead I just shrug. “Sorry for fighting,” I say. “I know it’s been a hard year. I miss her, too.”
He juts his jaw. Blinks up at me a few times, as if he’s deciding something.
“Aila, I have something to show you.” The look on his face is fierce, but his lower lip betrays a twitch of nervousness. “Don’t be mad.”
My heart leaps when he motions for me to follow. Because suddenly I am sure what he is going to say.
He leads me along the garden path to the outer side of the stone wall. The sun is setting, and a light snow is beginning to fall. Miles kneels down and brushes off the few flakes that have collected like breadcrumbs along the top. Then he reaches his gloved hand into the crack, where it forms a perfect small shelf, enough to keep whatever is hidden there dry.
I close my eyes. We all have secrets from each other.
“I thought I missed her more. You don’t show it that much.” He takes a deep breath. “But I’m sorry for what I said. Because she loved you, too.”
And from the hidden crack in the wall, he draws it out:
Mother’s ring.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Date: 2/11/1943
Bird: The Great Gray Shrike
A songbird related to the common crow. It looks innocent. Doesn’t even have talons. But do not be fooled. It mimics the calls of a songbird to lure it close. Then it hammers it to death. Drags it to the nearest thorny plant or wire fence and impales it.
In the end, creating the Virtues turns out to be just like working with locks. It takes time and practice and making careful adjustments. I already have the equation from Vala. I just have to find the right dosage for a human to unlock what is inside.
Once I get Laurette to Sheffield, the vial I extract from her is a brown liquid, small and unappealing. It adds up to be little more than the tip of my finger—?but it is enough to render Laurette basically useless. I know I’ve done it when she starts to remind me of how Vala had been by the end. She quivers in the corner, her eyes wild and unfocused, muttering under her breath and shaking so badly that the simplest of house chores becomes impossible.
When we return to Phineas’s, she shatters a serving plate on the ground and then screams until she is hoarse. I send for her sister.
“A stroke, possibly? Or perhaps some onset of schizophrenia,” I suggest when the sister comes to collect her. I feel the smallest flicker of sympathy.
Then I call Victor with the news that I have the first vial of Peace for him to try.
“Is there someone who would make for a good test beneficiary?” I ask, holding it up to the light.
“Yes,” Victor says. “I know a man desperate for something that could help his son. His mind is consumed by addiction to opium.”
“What I have isn’t much,” I admit, tapping the vial with my finger. “And likely not of the best quality. But it’s enough for this first experiment. To work out all the kinks.”
Then I hang up with Victor and place an ad in the newspaper for a new maid.
But that isn’t where I will find my next candidate for the Virtues. I don’t want a maid. I need someone who has led a charmed life, unlike Laurette’s. Unlike mine.
Someone whose Peace is actually worth something.