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“Fine,” said Holly. She had the same coloring as Ash. Kami wondered how much more likely it was to be a sorcerer if you had a few drops of Lynburn blood in you. “How are you?”
Why was Holly turning Kami’s questions back on her? Kami thought wildly. Then she told herself to get a grip. “Also fine!” she answered. “Thank you for asking!”
Holly squinted at her, but she didn’t ask Kami if she was all right. Kami found that suspicious too.
“Where’s Angela?” Kami asked in desperation. She didn’t think she could bear to stand here doubting her friend for an instant longer.
Holly’s face shut like a door, leaving her eyes glittering and cold. “No idea,” she snapped. “I’m not interested in where she is or what she does.”
While Kami was still staring, Holly turned on her heel and walked down the corridor. Other people saw Kami getting the brush-off. A wave of murmurs hit her as she turned and walked the other way, trying to pretend nothing was wrong.
Kami ducked into a bathroom as she went, pulling out her phone and calling Angela. She stood in the center of the white tile floor, listening to the phone ring until it went to Angela’s voicemail.
“I’m too lazy to answer messages,” Angela’s recorded voice said, tinny and far-off in Kami’s ear. “Don’t bother leaving one.”
Kami hung up and rang Angela’s home phone. When she heard the soft click of the phone being picked up, she breathed out in dee
p relief. The breath froze on her lips when Rusty’s sleepy, good-natured voice said: “Rusty Montgomery’s emporium of pleasure. Tell me you’re good-looking and then tell me how I can serve you.”
“Rusty, for God’s sake,” Kami said. “What if it was my mother calling?”
“Your mother is a very nice-looking lady,” Rusty observed. “Though I’m not sure why you think she’d be calling me.”
“What if it was the grocer, then?”
“Mr. Hanley has a very individual but compelling charm.”
Kami could not force herself to laugh. She didn’t even know how to pretend to be normal, not when she couldn’t stop seeing how sweet, friendly Holly’s eyes had turned cold. “Is Angela there?”
“No,” Rusty said, his casual drawl coming an instant too late to be natural.
“Well,” Kami said, “do you know where she is? She’s not answering her phone.”
Rusty hesitated again, the scrape of his breath sounding like another door shutting Kami out.
“Rusty,” Kami said, “Angela shouldn’t be disappearing off on her own. It’s not safe.”
“She hasn’t told you anything?” Rusty demanded. His voice was suddenly sharp, which Rusty’s voice never was.
Nobody was acting normal. Kami felt disoriented, everything familiar made strange. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing,” said Rusty.
“Nothing?” Kami repeated. “Though you are a master of deceit, somehow I see through your cunning story.”
Rusty drew in a deep breath. “Look, Kami, Angela is fine. I promise you. I think she’s just gone off to be by herself for a while. She’s a little upset.”
“Angela doesn’t get upset,” Kami said blankly.
Kami had seen Angela at thirteen years old, when her parents went on a five-month trip. Angela had set up an old armchair as a punching bag in their garden and beaten it into rags and splinters before Kami’s eyes. Then she had gone and taken a nap.
Angela got angry and got even with the world by pretending she didn’t care. She didn’t run off to take some personal time and have a little cry.
“Everyone gets upset,” Rusty said, his voice soothing, as if that was likely to calm Kami, as if generalizations ever really applied to anyone. “She probably went for a walk in the woods.”
A walk in the woods, Kami thought. The phone slid a little against her damp palm. “Rusty,” she said. “There is something you’re not telling me.”
“What would make you think that?” he asked.
