And then she starts to scream again, a sound I am certain is going to haunt me for the rest of my life.
Dr. Cliffton’s mouth twists. He covers his face with his hands as the doctor rushes to sedate her again.
Stefen’s voice breaks. “I’m sorry.”
He flinches when Will slams his fist into the wall.
And then they take him away.
The sun rises like melted wax over the fields behind the Clifftons’ house the next morning. Miles has slipped into my bed, and I’m grateful for the warmth of him. I watch him sleep, free from both dreamed nightmares and living ones.
Mrs. Mackelroy arrives shortly after dawn with George, two casseroles, and all the news from town. She immediately sets to work organizing the influx of food and flowers that are already piling up outside the Clifftons’ closed gates, and she whispers to Dr. Cliffton.
The double tragedies of the Larkin and Cliffton families have rocked the Sisters.
The rest of the tournament has been canceled.
“People are panicking. You’ll want to lock away any of the Variants you have,” she continues in what is likely the lowest voice she can muster. “There was a run on the Marketplace, and every last one of them is gone. Malcolm—?some people out there are angry,” she warns, and looks meaningfully in my direction.
Dr. Cliffton inhales and rubs his eyes wearily. He turns to me.
“You and Miles are not to leave the grounds of this house,” he instructs me. “Not for any reason.”
So I slip out the back door. Rain showers have slicked away any traces of blood in the garden. The grass is a lush spring green, and the silent flowers are starting to erupt from the ground.
Miles and I never should have come here. We led Stefen right to this house.
I sink down and start gathering the flowers. Armfuls of lilies and peonies. Pinks, oranges, yellows, whites. I bring them inside, and Genevieve helps me arrange them all in vases. And then, just as Father did for my mother, I bring the garden in to Mrs. Cliffton.
I open the curtains so that her bedroom feels less like a grave. Now her eyes are closed, her breath rising and falling in her chest. Her red hair flares out on the pillow, wild and untamed around her pale face. I arrange the flowers in a colorful wreath to surround her.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Cliffton,” I whisper.
Miles knocks softly. “Have you eaten?” he asks. I can see the blue of his veins running under the skin of his wrists, carrying Mother’s blood and Stefen’s. Guilt splays out like fingers pushing against my chest. Why is it that whenever our family touches Sterling, it seems to be the wrong things coming together, a combination that always ends in tragedy?
“I’ll come down in a little,” I say. He turns to go.
“Miles—” I say, and he pauses. Waits in the doorway.
“What?”
“I love you,” I tell him.
“I know,” he says. He makes a grimace at me, but just before his back is turned, it becomes the faintest smile.
I take the picture in the silver frame from my room and place it next to Mrs. Cliffton’s bed, like a guardian to watch over her. I look at the image one last time, at the two women who have loved me as mothers. I have found the handprint I was looking for, shimmering on the glass—?the real Juliet Cummings Quinn, between all her brightness and shadows. I think of how much she knew and didn’t know, and all she tried to shield us from. How greatly she failed. How I still love her, even so.
I turn away, and a sob catches in my throat. The flowers, the bed—?it is too much like the last time I saw her. A new echo of my nightmare, all over again.
I reach for Mrs. Cliffton’s hand as though I’m following a script. But this time, when I touch her skin, I find that it is still warm.
The guilt and sorrow that swirl within me are replaced by something else. Resolve. It suddenly tightens in my chest like a steel fist.
I’m not going to run from the Curse, the way my Mother did.
I’m going to stay here. And I’m going to end it.
“Can you come at nine tomorrow?” I ask Beas over the telephone, repeating the same words I’ve just spoken to George.
