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“Do you think the Other is Mary’s child?” Desmond asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, dazed and overwhelmed.
“We have her eyes. What if we’re actually Nicholas Vaughan and Mary’s descendants?”
“I don’t know.”
“That would explain why we have a special connection to the Other. It would explain—”
“I don’tknow, Desmond, and I can’t think right now,” I snapped. He shrank back. “I’m sorry. It’s just—I hurt, and I feel twisted up inside, like someone’s opened me up and scrambled things around and then glued me back together again. Iris and Eli said...”They said I might be dying.But what was the point of telling Desmond that? He couldn’t help me. “I’m sorry,” I said again.
He nodded, accepting the apology. A troubled look crossed his face. “You know, you’re not the only outsider here. You’re not the only one that gets treated like you don’t belong and gets kept in the dark. I’ve put up with this my whole life. Never being treated like I wascompletelya Vaughan. Never treated like I deserved to know all of Harrow’s secrets.”
“I understand,” I said.
“You don’t, really. I’m not sure you can,” he replied. “Being the only Black kid in your class is hard enough. Being the only Black kid in your family? I mean, when I fly out to see my dad, there’s more color there than here. InSwitzerland. I don’t know what I’m trying to say, exactly, just...” He sighed, rubbing his hand over his scalp.
“You’re saying that this isn’t only happening to me. I’m not the only one hurt in all of this,” I said.
“Something like that,” he agreed. He was right—I had been plunged into the deep end with this family, but there were things I hadn’t experienced and couldn’t understand. Hardships that I hadn’t had to face. “At least I can leave,” he said.
My hands fell limply into my lap. “Did you ever consider living with him? Your dad?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine choosing Harrow if you had a choice.
“Of course. But he went to Atwood, too. He thinks it’s the best education money can buy. There’s no way he’d let me transfer. Besides, I’m not leaving Celia behind. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but her dad is a raging asshole.”
“I did notice that, actually,” I said, grimacing.
“Anyway.” He sighed again. “Get some rest, okay? I’ve got to go call my girlfriend.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You have a girlfriend?”
“I have a life outside of you, believe it or not,” he said. He said it lightly, but there was that guarded edge to it again—the sense that there was a part of his life he needed to keep walled off from Harrow—and from me. It stung, but I couldn’t blame him for it.
“But you’re such anerd,” I said in mock confusion, breaking the moment of tension, and he flipped me off, laughing.
“Desmond,” I started, wanting to thank him, wanting to tell him how glad I was that he was here—but he wasn’t.
Time had crumpled again, and I was alone.
21
I LURCHED, NAUSEATEDagain, trying to get my bearings. There was a tray of food next to the bed, but I couldn’t bear the thought of eating. I vaguely remembered Mom bringing it in. We’d talked. But the memory was on the other side of a rain-streaked window, indistinct.
I limped to the bathroom and managed a few sips of water. My face looked wrong in the mirror—the angles less distinct, the skin almost waxy in its smoothness. My muscles shifted oddly beneath the skin. I tried a smile. It hitched, then stretched too far into a hideous grin.
I grabbed a towel and threw it over the mirror.
I sank to the floor and sat there, my arms around my knees, breathing through coruscating waves of pain. Around my wrists ran bright red lines. Tiny beads of blood welled up from them. My shirt stuck to my chest, the diamond-shaped welt on my sternum oozing.
They scatter us.
A procedure to divide the—
“What did they do to you?” I whispered, and I wasn’t sure who I was asking.
“A procedure to divide the consciousness of the Other,” my grandfather said in a detached monotone, his voice coming from right behind me.“First, it must be bound to an appropriate vessel. And then there shall be a division of the body, which shall in turn divide the Other, its will scattered and made pliant.”
“I don’t understand,” I moaned.
