Glimmer (22 page)

My heart’s pounding. Before I can change my mind again, I pick up the chalice, drink down to the dregs, savoring the way it burns from my nostrils down to my stomach. I collapse into bed.

Elyse wraps her arms around me, sighing happily. “I’m so glad you’re here.” She sounds more like she’s seven than eighteen.

I wait for unconsciousness to wash away my aching sense of remorse.

—

I sit up, groggy, and shut the music box. I blow out the candles and lie on my bed in the smoky-smelling dark, hugging my knees to my chest. I wish the ghosts could touch me, because I want to unlearn everything I just saw.

I reach over and lift the edge of the mattress. There’s a slim pink cell phone tucked between it and the box spring. I turn it on and see a background photo: Elyse and Dan in formal wear. I hid this from her so she wouldn’t find out the truth. So she wouldn’t leave.

Elyse is downstairs making omelets for the three of us. I can hear her chatting with my dad. She has no idea this whole situation is my fault. My fault we woke up with no memories, helpless, clueless. My fault Elyse is still here, losing memories and being abused. My fault my father’s in this condition. Maybe even my fault Summer Falls still exists—that my mother’s still enslaved to the founder, delivering life force from its citizens.

I don’t have to tell her. She’ll never know what I did.

But I’ll know.

It’s in the past like everything in that stupid book she’s walking away from. Anyway, I’ve changed. I’m not the same selfish, impulsive person who let her down. I can walk away from this forever, right now.

But I’ve shared everything with her. If I don’t share this, then I’m still that manipulative person I was before. She deserves to know the truth.

I hear her socked feet padding up the stairs. “Here, I think I put too many mushrooms in it.” She hands me a plate with a professional-looking rolled omelet. Of course, working at a bed-and-breakfast, she would know how to do that. But I set it down on my desk, too nervous to touch it.

“Elyse, I need to talk to you.” Before I talk myself out of it.

“What?”

“When you first woke up, you thought I drugged you. I was all insulted.”

“Don’t blame you.”

“Well, it turns out I did drug you.”

“What?”

“With your permission,” I add quickly. “I gave you a memory-seal potion. We had a plan; we were going to do a spell together—I don’t understand how, since you’re not an occultist—and you were going to be the one to go under the waterfall pool to walk the labyrinth. I guess because I can’t go twice. And to keep our plan safe and keep you safe from the ghosts in there, I sealed you. Except I . . .” It’s hard to justify my actions, especially with her staring at me. “After your memory was already gone . . . I decided not to go through with it.”

“But I’d already gone through with my part.”

“I know. That’s, um, that’s what was bad. I think I knew that I was on a bad path, and I didn’t want to be that person anymore, or for you to remember me that way.”

“So you left me hanging, with no identity? You sabotaged our plan and risked killing both of us?”

“I know I let you down, but—”

“Why?” she demands.

“You were going to leave town after. Without me. You were going to leave me behind.” A lump is welling up in my throat. “You didn’t think I was worth taking with you.”

“I was right, you weren’t,” she says flatly. “I trusted you.” The disappointment in her eyes, in her voice, physically hurts me. It burns from my throat to my belly. Shame.

I want to argue that it wasn’t really me.

I want to slink away.

I want to bury my head in her lap and cry and beg for forgiveness.

“But I don’t even understand how our plan would have worked. Doesn’t matter, you’re right. The point is, I screwed up and got us into this mess. But I did change. I became a different person because I didn’t have those memories, because I had to find a new path.”

“Don’t lie to yourself, you’re not that different. You still love power. You still love magic.” She holds up the music box, dangles it open. “You’ve been spending more time with this than with—”

“Careful with that.”

“You should have been careful. With me.”

“I know.” There’s a lump in my throat. “Elyse, I was an isolated little kid. I grew up reading magic books in hotel suites in places where I didn’t speak the language. My mom’s idea of protection for her son was social invisibility. No one ever taught me right from wrong. My mom didn’t always know it herself. She always talked about changing the world, but she forgot the world has other
people
in it. People, not pawns. I thought the only real people were my family. And my dad thought being a good person would come naturally to me. But it didn’t. When I first got to Summer Falls I don’t know if I had the ability to empathize. Other people weren’t real to me, or they weren’t people. And then I met you.”

“Great, so it’s my fault,” she says. “You were looking for moral guidance in the wrong place.”

“No. Damnit. Stop putting yourself down. I’m not saying you don’t have problems—how could you not, after all you’ve been through?—but you’re a good person.”

She looks at me with pity in her eyes. “How would you know what a good person is?”

A lump is welling up in my throat. “Because being around you has helped
me
get better. And I’m still working on it, I’m still trying. I could easily have kept this from you. But I thought you deserved to know what happened to us.”

“Wow. Am I supposed to thank you?”

“No. But do you think . . . you could maybe forgive me? I mean, after everything we’ve been through you know there’s more to me than that one stupid night.”

From her body language, folded arms and stiff back, I know the answer. “Believe me, I
want
to,” she whispers. “I feel like I could forgive you almost anything, but not betrayal.”

“Betrayal? It wasn’t like that.” In my head. In reality, from anyone else’s perspective, what else would you call it?

“You’re not really asking forgiveness, anyway. You’re asking me to trust you again. But you crossed a line. And trusting someone is about taking a chance, until you know them. Now that I know the truth about you, every fiber in my body’s telling me to walk away. I know you could stop me,” she adds. “You could stand up and grab me and hold me back. You could follow me. Or you could stop me with magic. So I’m going to ask you not to do those things. Just sit there and let me leave.”

And that’s what she does—straps on her backpack and walks out the door, still carrying the music box. I watch her, wanting to run after her. She’s going to the bus station, then she’ll board a train, and if I ever see her again it’ll be years and years from now. She’ll be a different person. I know some spells that would hold her here, just so I could talk to her a little longer . . . but then I’d just be proving her point, that I haven’t changed. There’s no way to win.

Chapter 31
ELYSE

Preston House is dark and quiet when I enter, so I’m hoping my parents have taken the tourists for a mind-clearing hike up at the falls.

I’m in no mood to deal with Liz, let alone Jeffry. But there he is sitting like a lord at the kitchen table, reading his newspaper. Beer in hand, boots resting on the chair across from him.

“How’s my princess?” He grins at me like I’m five. Like he didn’t just days ago shake me and throw me against a wall. Seeing my backpack he automatically asks, “How was school?”

I clench my teeth. It’s Saturday, you abusive jackass. “Super,” I say, confident he can’t process sarcasm. “Most productive day of my scholastic life.”

“Good deal. Hey, since you’re here, could you rustle up some dinner for us?” I’m hyperattuned to the tiny cloud of irritation forming around his eyes. “I don’t know where your mother’s at.”

Make it yourself.

I just lost my only friend, the only person I could be myself with. The only guy I could imagine being with forever.

I’m leaving town today.

I’m not going to say any of the things I want to say to him. Thanks to my journal, I’ve learned the hardest way, time and again, the only safe way to deal with this man is indirectly. Lying to him. Avoiding him. One more lie, then he’s out of my life. “Sure, let me go upstairs and put my bag away. Then I’ll wash up and . . . roast a chicken.”

“That’s a good girl.” He doesn’t even look up from his paper.

I figure I have five to ten minutes before he’s breathing down my neck again, so I head into my room and call Joe. “I was thinking,” I say. “About that ride you offered, to the bus stop.”

“Leaving
right
now,” he says. I can actually hear car keys jingling in his hand. “Be waiting outside for me in fifteen minutes.”

It doesn’t take me long to pack. Two pairs of shorts, two T-shirts, extra socks and underwear. My journal and a pen, my iPod, wallet stuffed with cash. Even with the music box, there’s a lot of room in my backpack. I debate bringing my cell phone. It could be useful, but what if I were tempted to call Marshall? Or pick it up if he called? I delete the contacts, delete the video of me urging my future self to trust him. I can buy a new plan when I get to California. Or wherever.

Or just sell the phone.

It occurs to me that I don’t know how long it’s going to take for me to find a job out there. Maybe I should bring along a few more things I can sell fast for extra cash. Another phone would be nice. A laptop, even, if I can get my hands on one. I feel a quiver of shame. I’ve already lied to my mother, now I’m contemplating stealing from her. I think of Marshall’s unapologetic retort: “I did what I had to do.” I finally get it. To get out of this place before it kills me, I will do whatever I have to do. No matter how dirty it makes me feel. Stealthily I tiptoe downstairs to scout the family room for boostable electronics.

Instead I run into Liz coming out of the garage and into the laundry room, keys in hand.

“Honey, you’re back!” She beams at me, looking like a little kid in her pink jumper and crisp white blouse. “How was . . . ?” She trails off, clearly unable to remember where I’ve been the last couple days.

“I’m not back for long.” I know she’ll have to have this memory wiped, and it’ll take her one step closer to insanity, but selfishly I want this moment of honesty. I need it. “I just came to get a few things. I’m leaving town, and I might not ever see you again.”

Liz gasps and leans against the door to the garage for support. In a small voice she says, “Well. Well, I shouldn’t be surprised. You’re almost never at home as it is. . . .” She nods at my guy-jeans and oversize men’s T-shirt. “Dan’s going with you, right? He’ll take care of you.”

Dan’s catatonic in the asylum, but thanks for trying to stay in touch with my life.
“Aren’t you even going to ask where I’m going?” I snap, surprised at my own anger. “Aren’t you going to try and talk me out of it?”

“I can’t stop you, Elyse. You’re eighteen. And you’ve got your father’s iron will.”

“Don’t
ever
compare me to
him.
” I can barely recognize my own voice. Then I realize she might not be talking about Jeffry. She could be talking about my biological father. The olive-skinned man at the asylum. Maybe some part of her remembers him still. I think of their faces close to my three-year-old face in that photo I glued inside my journal’s front cover, where I’m looking up at him with total trust and adoration. He let me down; he let me fall so hard I broke in two. Those things can never be undone. I want to scream in his face like I did to Jeffry, but he’s not here. I turn to Liz. “You just let things happen, don’t you?” Though I know in my heart it’s not Liz’s fault. “You let my dad disappear.” What could she do against Preston, against the town, the whole system? “You let Jeffry hurt us.” She was a victim too—still is. But right now I don’t care. All I care about is my truth, my pain. “You let bad things happen. To me, your daughter. You’re supposed to take care of me, how could you let him do that?” I can barely speak through the lump in my throat. “Why couldn’t you stop it from happening?”

Even through my tears I can see her recoil from me, can see the person I was just talking to recede from the surface, into the backs of her blue eyes. My answer’s wrapped inside my own question.
Couldn’t.
She couldn’t. And she still can’t. “Why shame on you.” She sounds robotic; her gaze looks clouded. “Your father would never hurt a fly.”

I point to her sleeves. “Why are you wearing long sleeves in the heat? Your arms are covered in bruises from where he grabbed you.”

Her eyes dart to her covered arms. Slowly she raises one sleeve and frowns. “I don’t . . . remember what happened here, but I know . . .” She shakes her head. “Now what were we just talking about?”

“I’ll tell you what happened!”
You’ve tried to leave him many times. Sometimes you get as far as the bus stop or a motel.

I pull the book from my bag and hold it up. “I wrote it all down, here, in my journal.”

“That book.” She freezes. “You and that book.” She grabs it out of my hands, her voice turned low and guttural with rage. “Always writing up in your room. What is it about that book that makes you act so strange?” She holds it open and rips it in two, and I dive at her, clawing at her hands, pulling both halves of the journal toward me, twisting her arms in the process. It’s only paper and ink, it’s only the past, but I’ve gone berserk. I’d die for this book, I’d kill for it. It’s me she’s trying to rip into pieces, that’s how it feels, and I’ll fight tooth and claw to save myself, till with a cry of pain she lets go.

That’s when I realize how badly I’ve scratched her hand with my nails in my fury to save the journal. I stare at the drops of red blood on her wrist. Thick and red and real. Somehow I had thought—why had I believed she wouldn’t bleed real blood? That her flesh was plastic doll flesh, that nothing could penetrate to make her feel pain.

I hug the two halves of the journal to my chest, overcome with guilt. Am I becoming like Jeffry, willing to hurt people when they frustrate me? “I am so sorry—”

“No, it’s okay!” She holds up her hand, tears running down her cheeks. “Tomorrow I won’t even remember where I got these marks, just like I don’t remember the others. Everything’ll be fine again, like none of this ever happened.”

“No it won’t.” A lump aches in my throat. She’s saying she’ll forget my abuse, just like she forgets Jeffry’s. I’m just another source of bad memories for her, calling the hungry ghosts to her window. Making her crazy. “It won’t be fine, because
I
won’t forget.”

“I know you won’t.” Her shiny eyes meet mine. “You’ve always been different from me, from most people. My life has been a blur, but you . . . you see more, you understand more.”

Her voice is sad, but there’s a spark in her eyes, the same spark as when she comforted me at the bus stop so many years before. “Thank you.” I’m not sure why I said those words. I don’t even know if what she said was really a compliment. But I’m so grateful to see her—the real Liz, the one from my happy memories. I never thought I’d get to see her again. Unconsciously I lean toward her, dropping my head on her shoulder.

She smoothes my hair, and I feel hot tears glide down my own cheeks. “You shine with a special light. Like you didn’t really come from me, just came through me. Passing through, from someplace better. On your way to something brighter than I’d ever see.”

After all the wipes, all that she’s endured and forgotten, maybe there’s only a sliver of a person left inside that body, trapped behind those tired eyes. But that person is real, and suddenly I don’t want to leave her behind. “Don’t say that. Your life’s far from over.” I take a deep breath, reach into my jeans pocket, and pull out the Amtrak passes. I hold one out to her. “Mom, why won’t you come with me?”

She bites her lip.

“Take it, please. What?”

“You called me Mom.”

Did I? “We could go anywhere, start over.”

“But why would I want to leave?” Her wrist rubs the wet creases of her eyes where tears have pooled. “I’m so
happy
here.”

“Don’t do this. Please don’t disappear on me again. I saw the real you just now, we had—”

“We had a moment, that’s all it was.” She shakes her head sadly. “I don’t know if there is a real me left.” She reaches behind her neck to the clasp of the ruby necklace. Grandma Bets’s necklace. She unhooks it, opens my hand, and lets the chain slip down and disappear into my palm. A good-bye present, the oval stone warm from her body. I came down here to steal from her, and instead she’s given me everything she had. Like she’s always done. Maybe not what I wanted, not what I needed, not enough. Just what she had.

“Liz!”
Jeffry yells from the top of the stairs. “You home? Hey, wasn’t someone going to roast me a chicken?”

“Coming, honey!” she calls back cheerfully, and grins at me as if nothing’s happened. “Time for me to go start dinner.”

“Good-bye,” I say, though she’s already halfway up the stairs and can’t hear me.

She’s bought me time to escape. I swing my pack over one shoulder and sneak out the open garage door just as Joe’s car pulls up to the driveway.

I throw my backpack in the back and launch myself into the passenger seat. “Just get me out of here.” He doesn’t know how close I came to losing it all.

“Don’t ever look back,” he tells me.

“I won’t.”

“You’re doing the right thing.”

“I know.” I realize I’m still hugging the two halves of my ruined journal. “I just wish I could have talked my mom into going with me.”

“Oh, no, it’s way too late for her,” he says cheerily. “She’s getting close to used up.”

Used up. Such a brutal judgment. I can feel a sudden fury heating up my cheeks at the thought of my mother being used up. Of Jeffry using her to cook him dinner. And the founder using her to keep his spell working, and even the tourists using her as some kind of folksy R & R–providing robot that makes beds and serves breakfast, never once seeing her as a real person. And what about me? How long did I take her for granted for all her uses before I finally figured out there was a human being inside? But as harsh as Joe’s words sound, I wouldn’t be this angry if they didn’t contain a grain of truth. It probably is too late for my mom. I tried to talk to her, tried to help her. All I can do for her now is honor her memory. “Don’t talk about my mother like that,” I say to Joe. “She’s not an object, she’s a person.”

“Oh, of course, forgive me.” He gives an embarrassed chuckle and fumbles with the AC. “I’m afraid this assignment hasn’t been good for me. Seeing what this place does to people, it’s made me cynical.”

I nod, trying to calm down. I can’t blame him for that, seeing as how it almost had the same effect on me. Even though as a magic user he’s protected from the ghosts, he’s still a victim of this place too. There’s no way to just be an observer. “I hope they assign you someplace better next time.”

He chuckles. “They’ll probably find somewhere even worse, but it’s out of my control. Like the army.” Then he cheers up and spends the whole ten-minute ride listing all the wonderful things I absolutely have to check out in California. From the Golden Gate Bridge to the San Diego Zoo to Universal Studios. I don’t have the heart to tell him I’m sort of over California, now that I know he’s the one who wanted to go there after all—not me.

Then abruptly he pulls over to the side of the road, right under the “Welcome to Summer Falls” sign, beside the copse of aspens that Hazel stumbled out of to attack the sheriff.

“Looks like the new bus stop’s over there,” he says, gesturing. I can see it, too, the bench and its sheltering overhang, just on the other side of town limits. Across the strange line where dewy green grass all of a sudden gives way to hot, barren rock. Clutching the journal halves tight in my arms, I quickly cross the street and reenter the real world, once again marveling at the eerie transformation from lush garden to forsaken desert. Hot, dry air burns my lungs as I turn back and wave good-bye to Joe, who’s still sitting in his car. He waves back at me, an almost tender expression on his smooth, owlish face. Young mothers watching their toddlers wade into the pool on the first day of swim lessons have that look.