AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Audrey blanches, holding her gloved hand against her stomach as though she’s just realized what he is.
“Sorry,” I say. “Gramps, this is Audrey. Audrey, my grandfather.”
“A pretty girl like you can call me Desi,” he says, slicking back his hair and grinning like he’s a rascal daring to be reprimanded.
He’s still grinning as we walk past him into the living room.
I sit down on the ripped cushion of our couch. I wonder what she thinks of the house and if she’s going to say anything about it or about my grandfather. When I was a kid and brought friends over, I was defiantly proud of the chaos. I liked that I knew how to jump over the piles and the shattered glass while they stumbled. Now it just seems like an ocean of crazy that I have no way to explain.
She reaches into her shiny black pocketbook and takes out a handful of printouts.
“Here,” she says, dumping the papers on my lap and flopping down beside me. Her red hair’s slightly damp—as though she’s just come from the shower—and cold against my arm.
Lila’s hair was blond, soaked red with blood the last time I saw her.
I press my eyes shut hard, press my fingers over them until I see nothing but black. Until I push the images away. When I was Audrey’s boyfriend, I thought that by making her like me, by making her think I was like everyone else, I’d become like everyone else.
I think about winning her back, wondering if I could do it. Wondering how long before I screw up and she leaves me again. I’m just not a good enough con man to keep her.
“Some ‘sleep aid’ pills can cause sleepwalking,” Audrey says, pointing to the papers. “Unofficially. I brought some articles from the library. Some guy was even driving in his sleep. I was thinking you could just say—”
“That I was medicating myself for insomnia?” I ask, rolling over and pressing my face against her shoulder, breathing in the smell of her, filtered through sweater fabric.
She doesn’t push me away. I consider kissing her right there on the dirty couch, but some instinct of self-preservation stops me. Once someone’s hurt you, it’s harder to relax around them, harder to think of them as safe to love. But it doesn’t stop you from wanting them. Sometimes I actually think it makes the wanting worse.
“It doesn’t have to be true. You can just say you were taking sleeping pills,” she says, like I don’t understand lying, which is sort of sweet and sort of humiliating.
It’s not a bad plan, really. If I had been smarter and had thought of it myself earlier, I’d probably still be at school. “I already told them I had a history of sleepwalking as a kid.”
“Crap,” she says. “Too bad. There’s this other pill in Australia that’s made people binge eat and paint their front doors while asleep.” She tilts her head, and I see six tiny protective amulets slide across her collarbone. Luck. Dreams. Emotion. Body. Memory. Death. The seventh one—transformation—is caught on the edge of her sweater.
I imagine crushing her throat in my hands and am relieved to be horrified. I feel guilty when I think of killing girls, but it’s the only way I know to test myself, to make sure that whatever terrible thing is inside of me isn’t about to get out.
I reach out and unhook the little stone pendant, letting it fall against her neck. Hematite. Probably a fake. There aren’t enough transformation workers around for there to be many real amulets. One worker every generation or two. That charm makes me wonder if the rest are fake too. “Thanks. For trying. It was a good idea.”
She bites her lip. “Do you think this has something to do with your dad dying?”
I shift abruptly, so that my back’s against the armrest. Real smooth. “Do I think what has to do with it? He was in a car accident in the middle of the day.”
“Sleepwalking can be triggered by stress. What about your mom being in jail? That’s got to be stressful.”
My voice rises. “Dad’s been dead for almost three years and mom’s been locked up practically as long. Don’t you think—”
“Don’t get mad.”
“I’m not mad!” I rub my hand over my face. “Okay, look. I almost fall off a roof, I’m getting kicked out of school, and you think I’m a head case. I’ve got reasons to be pissed.” I take a deep breath and try to give her my most apologetic smile. “But not at you.”
“That’s right,” she says, shoving me. “Not at me.”
I catch her gloved hand in mine. “I can handle Northcutt. I’ll be back at Wallingford in no time.” I hate having her here in the middle of my messy house, already knowing more about me than is comfortable. I feel turned inside out, the raw parts of me exposed.
I don’t want her to leave, either.
“Look,” she whispers with a glance in the direction of the kitchen. “I don’t want to set you off again, but do you think you could have been touched? You know, heebeegeebies?”
Touched. Worked. Cursed. “To sleepwalk?”
“To throw yourself off a roof,” she says. “It would have looked like suicide.”
