A Murder of Magpies (10 page)

WardofRavens: Up late, I see.

SilverTongue: Can’t sleep.

Another message chimed to get my attention.

SilverTongue: I’m V.

Vayda. I smiled.

SilverTongue: Why are you still up?

WardofRavens: Bad night.

SilverTongue: Call me.

The clock read shortly before midnight. I dialed the number Jonah gave me for his
house regardless.

“What’s going on?” Vayda asked.

“Nothing good.” I cleared my throat, shaking out the kinks. “Drake’s dead.”

Vayda was silent. Maybe she didn’t know how to respond. Hell,
I
didn’t know how to respond.

“Do you need to come over?” she asked.

I breathed out. Relief, release, something. I wouldn’t have to be alone. “Yes.”

Heidi was in bed with Oliver. Downstairs, Chris watched some singer warbling off-key
on a late-night show. I leaned against the back of the couch and said, “I’m heading
out.”

He looked me over, seeming to wonder if I intended to get stoned, drunk, or any of
a hundred ways I could get fucked up. “Where will you be?”

I wrote down the Silvers’ number on a scrap paper. “Call in a half-hour if you want
to check on me. That’ll give me enough time to walk over there.”

“You are not walking this late. There’s already a hard frost, and that cough of yours
isn’t getting any better. We’ll take the car.”

This wasn’t typical of Chris. Maybe he felt bad for me. Maybe he wanted out for a
ride. I didn’t know but slipped on my leather coat and followed him to his Jaguar.
Nice, not terribly easy to break into. Chris tossed me the keys. He was gonna let
me drive his baby? Seriously? I wasn’t about to say no and held my breath as I settled
in the driver’s seat and negotiated the car down the driveway.
Don’t mess up.

“This car’s meant to go fast,” he told me as I pulled onto the street.

I could do fast. The Jag’s engine kicked in, and we careened along a forested stretch
of road on a pitch-black night. No other cars on the road. Chris and I might be the
last people awake in Black Orchard. The only creatures out at midnight were spooks.

The Silvers lived so close the Jag barely had time to pick up any speed. As I parked
between the gray stone house and the barn, Chris opened his door to switch to the
driver’s side and admitted, “You’re not bad behind the wheel. Heard you can hotwire
a car pretty fast, not that you should be proud of that.”

I snickered and handed back the keys.

The porch light outside the Silvers’ home was a welcoming lantern, but the hair on
my neck rose as I stepped inside the house. The sole light was the fire in the woodstove
and shadows shrouded the living room. Hard to tell where the walls ended. Vayda emerged
from the kitchen, set down a steaming mug of hot chocolate on the coffee table, and
hugged me. Her arms were icy, but her body was warm. She smelled like a blast of snow,
cold but burning, and I hung on tight.

“How are you?” she asked.

“Shitty,” I blurted.

“It must be a shock.”

No, it really wasn’t. Drake never cared enough to get clean.

She must’ve seen something in my face and asked, “You truly think that?”

The unnerving tingle on my back intensified, and the firelight wavered. My head felt
strange. Open. I didn’t mind the feeling, actually, and wished it were stronger. Vayda
angled her head, her big eyes the same green as century-old copper. They stood out
against the darkness of the rest of her, and I could’ve—very willingly—let myself
drown in their unsettled waters.

The front door opened, and Emory Silver set his briefcase on the floor. She backed
away, folding her arms over her chest. Maybe to cover herself. Maybe because she was
still miffed about seeing him with Sister Tremblay that morning. Whatever the reason,
the hardwood floor might as well have been eggshells.

“Ward, it’s a school night,” Emory stated, tired but firm. “Get on home, boy.”

“It’s not a social call,
Dati
. His father died,” Vayda murmured.

Emory stopped mid-yawn, taking note of my jacket and threadbare trousers. He didn’t
know me. Why should he let some stranger seek refuge in his home?

“I was a kid when my mother died. Rough times.” He cleaned his glasses on his shirt.
“You live with your sister, right? She knows you’re here?”

“Her husband does,” I answered.

“Give me the number to talk with the fellow, make sure he’s okay with this. I’m sorry,
Ward.” He patted my shoulder. “Don’t stay up too late, you two. You hear?”

Huh? He wasn’t kicking me out?

After I gave him Chris’s cell phone number, Emory walked over to his study. I lingered
by the door a minute to watch while he shuffled some kind of art magazines and then
took a picture frame in his hands. Vayda looped her pinky finger around mine and pulled
me away before she shut her father’s door.

“He’s always up late,” she said.

“Insomnia?” I asked.

“Of a kind.” She slipped me a cup of hot chocolate. “Try this. I made it from scratch.
You’ll like it,
gadjo
.”

“We’ll see about that, Betty Crocker.”

She motioned for me to follow her upstairs, and I trailed behind her a step or two.
The walls of her room were purple, and the furniture was distressed white as if dropped
off a junk truck onto a cobblestone road. She tugged on the strap of her pale blue
top, no bra, and I averted my gaze, hoping she didn’t realize that I’d noticed. Her
hand thumped her bed, encouraging me to sit. “Will you go to the funeral?”

“Hell no…I don’t know.” I drank the entire cup of hot chocolate without stopping to
breathe. I liked the heat.

“You should say goodbye even if he wasn’t good to you.”

Pushing up the sleeve of my T-shirt, she ran her fingers over my raven. How did she
know I had a tattoo? It wasn’t something I showed off. She asked, “You draw that bird?”

I scoffed. “Drake’s idea of a birthday present. He had the same tattoo, thought we
could bond or some shit.”

“Did it hurt?” she asked while inching down my sleeve.

“You get used to the pain after a while, forget it’s there.”

Our arms touched. Vayda’s hand rested on my thigh. I liked her touch. A lot.

“You’re tired,” she said. “You should lie down.”

I stretched out on the mattress. The girls I used to know would never have me in their
rooms, nor would I have been there, without an ulterior motive. Vayda’s fingers twirled
my hair, and I sank into the pillow, blissed out.

The dream hit me abruptly.

The pine trees caged me in. Everything had a darkened blue cast, a shadow of nightfall
before the sunset. Snow dusted the soil, and a smell of something burning was bitter
on the wind.

I saw her, a pillar of cold fire, luring me closer.

Her back was to me, black hair cascading to her hips. I hesitated, but the magnet
pull of her body was too forceful. I seized her waist from behind, hands moving over
her nightgown and resting on her arms. She pushed aside her black hair to expose her
neck, my lips swiping her skin.

The words swelled in my throat. I had to tell her I knew, but I had no idea what I
was supposed to know.

Awake.

Vayda’s bedroom was black. I lay under her blankets. Her body was firm under my arm,
but pliable like a girl-shaped pillow. I drowsily slid my hand from her hip, along
her soft stomach, and stopped short.

Go back to sleep
, Vayda’s voice echoed in my skull.

My eyes fluttered open. Was this a dream or something else? I couldn’t tell where
reality ended and the dream began. I only knew that I was with Vayda, and all at once,
I never felt safer and more in danger.

Vayda

The glare of sunlight through the living room curtains awakened me. I blinked against
the bright light before I sat up, rubbed my neck, and wondered what time I fell asleep
on the couch, why Dad hadn’t moved me up to my room.

Midnight.

Ward. His dad died.

I remembered now. How I stayed with him even after his exhaustion claimed him. I’d
been too afraid to move and startle him, so for too long, I’d lain beside him with
my fingertips wandering over his arm to the veins mapping his hand. No one saw us,
but was a line crossed? Jonah had it easy compared to me—my family’s traditions demanded
chasteness of me. Yet last night, the weight of Ward’s arm, his breath near my ear,
felt good. A complacent current had dovetailed our bodies, like electricity tracing
the copper filaments in an antique light bulb—from me to Ward and bouncing back. His
mouth had grazed over my neck, and I wondered when he’d awaken, what his fingers,
what his lips might do then. What I wanted them to do. I slipped away once he slept
hard and began to dream.

My skin prickled, frozen. That dream. Did mine spill into his, or—I was getting ahead
of myself. It was nothing. It didn’t have to be something.

Cardinal rule: Wishes and dreams weren’t childish things. They were the soul’s secrets.

Something about Ward knew mine.

Twenty minutes later, I’d showered and descended the stairs, catching a reflection
in a mirror in the landing. A burning chill unwound beneath my ribs, a power seeking
release. Mom’s smoky gaze reflected back from what should have been mine. I approached
the mirror, my head hooked in the same angle as Mom’s when she examined her tarot
cards, and inched my fingers toward the glass. A bolt of blue-white light sizzled
from my fingers when Jonah jerked me back from the mirror.

“What was that?” Dad called from the kitchen.

“Electrical glitch,” Jonah fibbed and held my hands within his, smothering a fire.
To me, he whispered, “And you say I’m the one like Mom.”

I didn’t want to be like her.

Dad and Ward sat in the kitchen, each cupping a coffee mug to absorb some heat in
the chilly house. Ward stole a peek as I passed him. As I splashed my coffee with
cream, I tuned in to Dad and him.

“You go around hunting down old furniture to sell?” Ward asked.

“You have to know what has potential, son.” Dad rubbed the heel of his hand on the
table, one he’d restored. “I can take something busted to hell, fill in the cracks,
and sand its jagged spots. Shine it up real pretty and make it worth something. Takes
skill and patience.”

“How’d you learn what’s good?”

“I’m self-taught, learned some in art school, though my father was pissed his only
boy would rather draw than play football. I was kinda pissed my father was such a
closed-minded bigot.”

“Hmph.” Ward circled the rim of his mug with his thumb. “Heidi thinks I should go
to art school ’cause I work with metal.”

Dad stood and grinned. “Don’t take this wrong, but you’re no quarterback. Come by
Fire Sales once you’re home from paying respects to your father, and I’ll show you
around.”

He gathered his mug and newspaper, motioning me to follow into his study. Joy, here
it came. “Awkward” redefined.

Dad sat at his desk where he removed his glasses, squeezed the bridge of his nose,
and took a long time to inhale. “Vayda, is that boy being decent to you?”

“Nothing happened.”

It would take me two seconds to get from his desk to the door. Three if I stumbled.
This was worse than going clothes shopping and he got so flustered when I had to buy
bras.

“Can I go?” I asked.

“Not yet.” He played with the Chinese magic box on his desk. “I know you’re friendly
with Ward. Don’t mistake your feelings for trust. Not yet.” I crossed my arms over
my chest, and he added, “He seems honest, and you and Jonah laugh an awful lot around
him. Keep your head.”

About to leave, I halted as my hand brushed a newspaper on the desk. The newspaper
from Hemlock with Mom’s photo. I unfolded it, tracing the curse written across the
picture. I tried to seek out any emotion attached to the paper, any clue for where
it came from, but I got nothing. Odd that whoever sent it had left it without any
emotional imprint, especially with such a hateful word written across the paper. Maybe
Jonah was right, and my abilities were unwieldy because I didn’t use them.

“Any luck figuring out who sent this?” I asked.

“I have an idea,” Dad replied.

“You gonna tell me?”

“You don’t have any business fretting over it. Everything’s taken care of.”

“
Dati
!” The light bulb in his desktop lamp switched on and glowed brighter the longer I
stared at him. “Why do you need to have so many secrets?”

“Vayda Lisette Murdock, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, why you’re questioning
me.” Dad’s drawl was clipped, his green eyes hot. “Everything I’ve done is for you
and Jonah. If I say it’s okay, believe me. Now get ready for school.”

I stormed from Dad’s office and tossed some blueberry waffles into the toaster in
the kitchen. The plate of food clattered on the table as I set it before Ward.

His shoulders rode up around his neck. “Is he pissed because I stayed the night?”

“He’s
Dati
.” I melted the butter into the perfect crispiness of the waffles. My appetite was
toast. “One of his cardinal rules is that you don’t turn your back on a friend in
need.”

Ward’s hand ran through his sleep-messy hair and touched my chin. Pinprick shocks
stung my skin. I reached under the table to hold his hand. The few times I saw my
grandpa Bengalo, he always claimed that
gadje
didn’t understand
Rom
.
Bapo
said in the old lands,
gadje
treated
Rom
badly. It was different once their clan came to Georgia. They settled. They were
accepted, though they still wouldn’t trust
gadje
. That my parents were friends with Rain was an anomaly, but Dad said times had changed.
Ward sat across from me, radiating warmth from his hand, the roughness of his scars
against my fingers. He was
gadje
. He didn’t know my world, and yet I wanted him to. That meant trusting him.