Juliet’s house is quaint, tucked onto a quiet street, with icicles dripping from the gutters. I knock three times, then break in through a ground-level window as thunder rolls overhead. Despite everything that happened between Juliet and me—?even though her garden is overgrown and wilted—?I take care not to step on her flowers. I can tell that once, not long ago, they were tended with great care.
My steps echo on the staircase, which slants heavily to the right. There is a thin line of dust on the bureaus in the bedrooms, as if no one lives here.
Juliet’s house betrays her touch at every turn. I focus on keeping myself detached from feeling anything when I see the figurines she collected. The bed where she slept. The clothes she wore, still vibrantly colored but in more mature fashions than when we were teenagers. It doesn’t seem possible that her time has run out while mine ticks on. I rifle through her things, thinking, Where does a dead woman hide what might have kept her alive?
But the Stone isn’t here.
So I find a shovel in her garden shed and walk to the center of town. Push through the small white gates of the cemetery. Wind through the aisles of graves in a thick, cold rain.
These are the twists and turns that have brought me here. I look at the name engraved on her tombstone, barely visible in the sleet, and try to muster the old anger I once felt. All the simmering resentment. But now I just feel empty.
How ironic, that all my training with Phineas has prepared me for this.
I use her own shovel to dig. The rain helps to loosen the frozen ground, but I’m drenched when I finally crack open the shell of her coffin. I am careful not to look at her face. Something in me doesn’t want to.
Instead my eyes slide down to her hands, folded and white. Like marble. The Stone is not there, where it has always been on her ring finger.
Sometimes it feels like my whole life has been a cruel game. In the years when it would have been easy to take the Stone, I’d never known I would need it. And when I finally tracked it down and had it within my sights, it vanished again.
I’m close to the kind of laughter that will make me come unhinged.
Because of course I should be used to it by now. Something I want just disappearing.
I close the casket in the rain and surprise myself when I leave my hand for a moment on the wood. As if there’s any room to feel grief over her.
I hoist myself out of the grave.
Cover her and my memories over until they are both buried again deep within the earth.
When I shift, I feel Phineas’s maps folded in my pocket, marking the places that could end the Curse. The very thing that would make the people of the Sisters finally love me, and render Malcolm, Victor, and my Virtues useless.
But love isn’t what I thought it would be. It’s nothing but a currency that’s far too easy to spend—?and still end up with nothing in return.
I’m losing Phineas. Without that Stone I’ve already lost him.
I pull out the maps he gave me. I could use them to heal the Sisters and play the hero. But that’s not really what I want anymore.
I look at the X marked on each of the Sisters and then fold the maps. Chilled wetness curls its way up the legs of my pants.
What I want now is to twist the knife and make the Sisters hurt even more.
Chapter Forty
February 15, 1943
I’d almost forgotten the weight of Mother’s ring around my neck. I find myself reaching to touch it, the smooth glass of it behind my clothes. I do not take it off even to shower. I tell Mrs. Cliffton that I found it buried at the bottom of my schoolbag, and for the moment it’s even restored the precarious balance between Miles and me. Other than no word from Father, everything feels almost right again.
The feeling lasts for barely a week.
After school and Stars practice I join everyone for dinner. The sun is just starting to set. When I take my seat, Mother’s ring slips out from behind my dress.
“Aila!” Dr. Cliffton says. He places his napkin in his lap. “You’ve found your necklace!”
My eyes flicker to Miles. He stares down at his plate.
“I found it in my schoolbag—” I start to say, but then Mrs. Cliffton’s face blanches. “Mrs. Cliffton,” I pause. “Are you all right?”
“Malcolm—” she says, her voice trembling. Her face is ghastly white. “I can’t hear you.”
“What?” Will’s hand freezes on the serving spoon. “What do you mean?”
“Matilda?” Malcolm says, blinking at her. He gestures to his ears. “I can’t hear your voice. But—?I can hear the others.”
Will looks between them. “You can’t hear each other?”
“I don’t understand.” Mrs. Cliffton’s breathing starts coming faster, her face flushing with color again as she bunches her napkin on the table. “What does this mean?”
“Can you hear me?” Will asks, and at the same time they both answer, “Yes.”
“And me?” I ask.
“And me?” Miles asks.
They both nod. Dr. Cliffton is still clutching his silverware in his hands.
I can hear everyone.
Then Mrs. Cliffton whispers, “Me?” and Dr. Cliffton pales and shakes his head.
“What about me?” he asks. His voice rings clear to me, but Mrs. Cliffton’s eyes fill with tears.
The phone shrills from the library, and Dr. Cliffton stumbles toward it, his foot dragging in his haste. We hurry after him. Miles steps on my heel.
“Hello?” The crease in Dr. Cliffton’s brow sharpens as he listens. “It’s happened to the Parkers,” he informs us. “They can hear everyone but each other.” As soon as he replaces the receiver, it rings again. He picks it up.
“And the Silvermans,” he confirms. He hurries for his coat and his cane, and then he stops. Strides toward Mrs. Cliffton and pulls her into an embrace. She lays her head on his chest and he kisses her forehead, then turns her so that she can see his face. His lips. “We’ll find the answer,” he says to her, and her eyes fill with tears.
“But we just had a Disappearance,” she says.
“It can’t be that,” Will insists. “We’re not due for another seven years.” His voice falters. “Right, Father?”
The phone rings again, shrilly, making us all jump. Mrs. Cliffton quickly takes it off the hook.
“Stay with your mother,” Dr. Cliffton says to Will, me, and Miles. Miles’s eyes are wide as he leans against the doorjamb.
“Where are you going?” Will asks.
“I’m calling an emergency Council meeting to find out what the devil is going on.”
Then he slams the door so hard that the window glass rattles in his wake.
He doesn’t come home until breakfast the next morning. When he bursts through the front door, his eyes are bloodshot. At the sight of him Mrs. Cliffton immediately sets down her coffee cup and stands. He kisses her cheek, then gestures for us to follow him into the library.
“Clearly something significant has happened,” he says, wheeling out a chalkboard. He searches along the rim for a slice of chalk.