Gypsy (The Cavy Files Book 1) (11 page)

I’m across the room in a few steps, and not even the fact that half the student body stops eating to stare at the reunion of the Darley girls can squelch my happiness. The desire to toss my arms around her neck and squeeze pummels me, as forceful as ever, but I don’t touch the Cavies.

Instead, I plop down next to her at the table. Her shoulders fall from where they’re hunched around her ears. We don’t say anything right away, just grin like idiots.

“Are you okay?” The tears gathering in her eyes burn like acid, try to choke off my question.

Of all of us, Reaper’s emotions burrow the furthest beneath the surface. They have to, considering what can happen if they bubble up. Her mutation is entwined with her anger for some reason the scientists never uncovered, and she struggles with losing control.

She shakes her head, gasping a wet laugh. “What are you doing here?”

“Modeling private school uniforms. What do you think?”

“Fabulous. You’ve turned into an even bigger smart-ass outside the plantation gates.”

“Isn’t it great?” I mean everything—the world; having families; being free to live actual lives among actual people; school, as confusing as it’s been—but even though a healthy dose of sarcasm taints my question, every last inch of her face darkens.

I hold my breath, waiting for the cafeteria to turn into a bloodbath, but she calms down.

“What’s
great,
Gypsy? That we got ripped away from our home? That no one’s going to be able to help me anymore ? That the whole rest of my life will be about hiding?” She slips the accusations inside questions, blowing them across the table like little Trojan horses.

“No,” I say, feeling defensive. “I just meant that we’re together still. That’s all.”

“So what?” The spat words sting like a slap, an acknowledgment of my worthless contribution to the Cavies.

It doesn’t surprise me. I’m the last one any of them would choose.

“So, you’re wrong,” I argue quietly. “You’re not alone. You have me. We still have each other.”

Silence wraps our table in a cocoon, as though we’re physically separated from our chatting, clanging, laughing peers instead of set apart by a lifetime of experiences.

After what feels like forever, Reaper heaves a sigh and slumps back in her chair. “I know. I know we do. I’m just…” She glances at the table I came from, and I follow her gaze to catch all of them staring. “I’m not going to fit in like you do, Gypsy. I can’t.”

“You can. Come sit with them. They’re nice.”

She shakes her head. “No. I think… at least for right now I prefer staying separate. Taking fewer chances.”

“Okay.”

She doesn’t want to sit with the normals, but I’m less than enthused about staying here. Continuing to be the weird girls from Darley doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest.

The lights flicker on the wall before our impasse resolves, signaling the end of another period. Fatigue crawls through my veins like mud, discouraging my blood from flowing, my heart from beating, my limbs from working. How do Maya and the others do this day after day?

“I’m Norah, by the way. In case you want to holler at me in the halls.”

“Or be study buddies?” She snorts, glancing around to make sure we’re alone. “You and I are way ahead of these traditional-world morons,
Norah.
”

I ignore her rude superiority. “What should I call you? Assuming you’re not going by Reaper.”

Her lips twist, and she leans forward, her long, jet-black hair creating a waterfall of privacy between the room and us. “I guess we have new code names, huh? I’m Eve. Apparently.”

“Eve.” I smile, trying to shake the exhaustion and sorrow that’s leapt from her to me. “I’ll see you around.”

Chapter Eight

The rest of the day stumbles past, as clumsy and slow and clueless as the old mule the Philosopher let us keep when we were young. It feels like a miracle when it’s over, a mirage, but the bright, warm afternoon that hits my face outside claims its reality.

“Hey. You walking home?”

I squint to my right, unable to stop a smile at the sight of Maya. She may only be interested in me because I’m a shiny new toy, but she made my first day better. Wisps and chunks of this morning’s tidy hair fumble on the breeze, and light smudges of mascara sweep below her eyes. She pulls her shirt from inside the waistband of her skirt, further disassembling her proper school-day attire.

“Yeah.” I take a cue from her, twisting my hair up into a lazy bun.

“Want some company?”

Not really.
It’s been a day filled to the brim with stimulation, and the streets home will be busy enough without having to make conversation the whole time. There’s not a good reason to refuse, though, and I
do
like her. I think. “Sure.”

“Where to?”

“Um, Water Street?”

“Quaint. I live a few blocks toward the Battery, off Meeting.”

The area sounds familiar—no one who has seen the Battery, even for a moment, could forget it—but I don’t try too hard to picture where Maya lives. My brain is tired, and the fresh air and beautiful streets call me toward solitude, offering comfort as tangible as an extra log on the fire on a chilly winter day.

We start down Archdale, the Unitarian Church and the second entrance to its creeptastic graveyard catching my eye for the third time since I moved into town. Basically, every time I see it, it forces me to look.

“Do you ever cut through the graveyard?”

She shudders—shoulders jerking, arms wrapped around her torso, hips shaking. “No. That place gives me a serious case of the willies. Not even the stoners will go in, and there are plenty of places to get lost and smoke some weed.”

We pass by, my lungs aching as I adhere to the old practice of holding my breath while passing a cemetery so that the spirits can’t get in. Darley has an old slave cemetery, hundreds of unmarked dead rotting away among the trees, and Goose passed out once during a contest to see who could stay inside the longest.

“Is there a story? Something that freaks you out in particular?”

She shakes her head, not glancing at the church and refusing to slow to a normal pace until we head east on Queen Street. “Not really. The Annabel Lee we Charlestonians believe inspired Poe is buried in the Unitarian graveyard but hers is a sad story, not a scary one. It’s also haunted by the ghost of Lavinia Fisher, supposedly. The first female to be hanged in South Carolina.”

“Why?”

“Why was she hanged or why does she haunt that cemetery?”

“Both, I guess. If you don’t mind.”

Maya shoots me a smile, letting me know my questions aren’t a bother. “She and her husband were serial killers—owned an inn or a boardinghouse or whatever, and when salesmen would stay over with nice wares, they’d off them and sell their shit in the city.”

“Charming,” I murmur, kind of disturbed by her nonsensationalist delivery.

“Right? Anyway, they got caught and convicted. Story is that her husband was a sniveling mess at the gallows, crying and refusing to walk to the noose like a big pussy. I mean, if you know you’re going to die, at least have some balls about it, right?”

“Hmm.” Maya’s offhand irreverence makes me smile, and I like how she talks about these long-dead people as though they live next door.

“But ol’ Lavinia, she’s wearin’ her wedding dress, and she ain’t crying.” Maya’s Southern drawl puts down roots in her sentences, connecting through every syllable of her morbid tale. Her accent is there in daily conversation, but now that she’s knee-deep in a story, it blossoms. “They ask her if she’s got any last words, and she tells the whole crowd that if anyone has a message for the devil, she’ll be glad to take it to Hell. Then Lavinia runs and jumps right off the platform with that rope around her neck, and does the job for them. Bats, right?”

“Bats,” I echo.

“Now, sinners can’t be buried alongside good, God-fearin’ folk, not in Charleston, so they dumped Lavinia’s body in some potter’s field or mass grave or whatever. But the tale is that someone felt badly for her soul—must’ve been because she was a woman, because how else anyone could mistake that whackadoo for someone with a soul is beyond me. Anyway, they snuck her in the back of the Unitarian graveyard, unmarked.”

“That’s why they say she haunts it? But why?”

“Haven’t you been listenin’ to my story, Norah Crespo? That woman was crazier than a shithouse rat. Who knows? They found out eventually and dug her ass up, dumped her back Jesus knows where. She supposedly haunts the old jail, the neighborhood around it, and probably a half-dozen other places. Because she was a mean old bitch who wants to stick around and watch the world burn, that’s my guess.”

The story and its delivery charm me all over again. Like an aging Southern mother, this city not only inspires, but insists upon, adoration from its children. “Some girls are like that, I guess.”

“Oh, don’t I know it.” Maya eyes me, a mock serious expression on her face that’s belied by the sparkle in her eyes. “What kind of girl are you, Norah? I know at least two people who’d love to know the answer.”

“You and… ?” I’m stalling for time, unsure how to answer and even more uncomfortable with the idea of people wondering about me.

“Oh, not me. I’ve already got you pegged. One is Jude, of course. Which means the other is Savannah.”

The look she casts my direction, probing for my reaction, inspires a blush. Maya’s probably wrong about Jude’s interest, or making it up in an attempt to find out if
I
have interest. Girls do that, in the movies, and Maya seems to enjoy being in the know.

But to them I’m just the girl who grew up on a secret plantation. Savannah’s gorgeous and already Jude’s friend and a part of things. Established. Even if Jude has spent time thinking about me since we met this morning, there’s one very big, very glaring reason I should not think about
him.

He’s going to die. Soon. If I knew when his birthday is, I could prepare.

Maybe you could stop it.

No. The Philosopher did tests, and Haint overheard him and some of the other scientists discussing my development potential on more than one occasion. Without any added ability to affect the future, my gift of precognition has no practical application.

Which means that no matter how nice a boy Jude appears to be, or how intrigued I am by the life that created such a blend of good heart and good humor and bad Latin, I can’t stop him from dying. Getting to know him will only make it hurt when he does.

“Are he and Savannah some kind of couple?” I ask to avoid acknowledging what she said about Jude, and because it’s the obvious question.

“Captain of the dance team and the star athlete. It just makes sense, right?” She nudges me with her shoulder. “They have been together off and on, but it’s been off for at least a year. Savannah still considers him her property, even though she’s always made it clear he’s beneath her. She’s my friend and I love her, but she’s complicated. Be careful how much of her nice-girl exterior you buy.”

Jude is beneath her? I file that description away for later perusal, then erase it a moment later. I don’t need to think about him. Or her, for that matter. “Savannah doesn’t have to worry about me trying to steal him away.”

“Oh, I think you’re wrong about that. Jude and I have been best friends since we were smearing poop from our diapers on the nursery walls, and he likes you. In fact, I’ve never seen him take a shine to someone so fast.”

“Please, he’s just being nice. You all are.” Nice and curious. When they couldn’t get gossip about Darley, would they get bored and leave me behind? “I’m, like, a freak to you guys.”

“God, Norah. You’re so tragic. I love it.”

Maya shifts closer, as though she’s going to loop her arm through mine, and I pretend to stumble on an uneven piece of concrete to avoid her.

“Oh, no. You’re clumsy, too. This friendship is going to end badly, I can tell already.”

“Maybe we should call it now, then,” I lament, only half kidding. Maya’s too friendly. It’s too easy to fall in with her, to trust her, to forget I’m not like everyone else.

“Nah. Do you believe in fate?”

“Like, one true loves? Not really.” I’d never thought much about it, honestly. The future of a Cavy isn’t a concrete thing; it’s not a given. Haint, who’d been born with the kind of suspicion the rest of us had to work at, thought maybe the Philosopher and his staff would get rid of us one day, either by accident with their tests, or on purpose when we became a liability. Or they’d decide to sell us. The useful ones, at least.

“Not just with romance. I believe in all kinds. Like, people who are supposed to meet will meet, and it’s all predetermined whether they’ll be enemies, or hardly notice each other, if they’ll be friends. Whether friendships last until they die or just long enough to accomplish something specific.”

“Hmm.” It’s hard to keep up, but her patter is interesting. Maya’s not boring, that’s for sure. “And which kind are we?”

“Friends, definitely. Too soon to say how long it’ll last, I suppose.
Que sera sera
and all— Hey, what the hell?” Maya nearly slams into a man, older than the two of us by at least ten years, maybe more.