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He laughs. “Who could forget that?”
“Okay. How about when you smoked all that weed that you thought was laced with something? You fell in the tub, but you refused to get out because you were convinced the back of your head was going to fall off. The only thing that would calm you down was reading out loud, so I read the only book in the bathroom—one of Mom’s romances, called The Windflower, cover to cover.”
“Why are you asking me about this?”
“Do you remember?”
“Sure, yeah, I remember. You read the whole book. It was easy to clean up the blood once I got out. Now, what’s with the interrogation?”
“None of those things happened,” I tell him. “Not to you. You weren’t there for the toad thing. My roommate told me the story about the boob lamp fire. He paid his little sister to lie. The third story happened to a guy, Jace, in my dorm. Sadly, no one had The Windflower on hand. Me and Sam and another guy on our hall took turns reading Paradise Lost through the locked door. I think it actually made him more paranoid, though.”
“That’s not true,” he says.
“Well, he seemed more paranoid to me,” I say. “And he still gets a little weird at the mention of angels.”
“You think you’re so funny.” Barron sits up straighter. “I was just playing along, trying to figure out what your game was. You can’t play me, Cassel.”
“I did play you,” I say. “You’re losing your memories and you’re trying to cover it up. I’ve lost memories too.”
He gives me a strange look. “You mean about Lila.”
“That’s ancient history,” I say.
He looks over at Grandad again. “I remember you were obviously jealous that I was dating her. You had a crush or something and you were always trying to get me to dump her. One day I walk into Grandad’s basement and she’s lying on the floor. You’re standing over her with this stunned expression on your face.” I suspect he’s telling this story just to needle me, just to get me back for embarrassing him.
“And a knife,” I say. It bothers me that the thing I most remember—my horrible smile—is absent from his telling.
“Right. A knife. You said you didn’t remember anything, but it was obvious what happened.” He shakes his head. “Philip was terrified that Zacharov would find out, but blood’s thicker than water. We covered up for you—hid her body. Lied.”
There’s something wrong with the way he’s describing the memory. It’s like he’s remembering a few lines from a textbook about a battle instead of actually remembering a battle. No one would really say blood’s thicker than water when their memory should be full of smeared, clotted redness.
“You loved her, right?” I ask him.
He makes a gesture—a wave of his hands—that I can’t interpret. “She was really special.” A grin lifts a side of his mouth. “You certainly thought so.”
He must have known what was in the cage in his spare room, what was crying and eating whatever he gave her and soiling his floor. “I guess it’s true what they say—I have loved too much not to hate.”
Barron tilts his head. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a quote. From Racine. Also, you may have heard, there’s a thin line between love and hate.”
“So you killed her because you loved her too much? Or aren’t we talking about you and her anymore?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’m just talking. I want you to be careful—”
I stop as Philip comes into the doorway.
“I just got off the phone with Mom,” he says. “I need to talk to Cassel. Alone.”
Barron glances at Philip and then back at me. “So, what is it you suspect is going on? You know, that I should be careful about.”
I shrug my shoulders. “I’d be the last to know.”
Philip leads me back to the kitchen and sits down at the table, folding his hands on the stained white cloth. Around him are a few remaining plates and several mostly empty wineglasses. He picks up a bottle of Maker’s Mark and fills one of the used coffee cups with amber liquor. “Sit down.”
I sit, and he regards me silently.
“What’s with all the grimness?” I say, but my fingers reach down unconsciously to rub the spot where the pebbles rest under my skin. The soreness is reassuring and as addictive as touching the tip of my tongue to the raw socket of a recently lost tooth. “I must have really upset Mom.”
