Of Delicate Pieces (17 page)

Clattering disrupted the silence. Above the tips of the shelves, brass chimes swayed from the rafters.

Alex felt Chase appear behind her, and she reached back for him. For a moment, everything flashed to black and white. Alex had to blink several times before color returned to her vision.

“So, is that guy here?” Chase asked.

“I haven’t seen him yet. Isn’t this place cool though? Maori gets his hands on the rarest items.”

Looks like a garage sale
, Chase thought to Alex.

Little tilted her head to the side. “What?”

“Nothing,” Alex replied. “This place doesn’t exactly look like Tiffany’s.”

Little’s attention lowered to Alex’s feet.

Alex didn’t realize Rae had found her until she slung a protective arm around Alex’s thigh. “Oh. This is Rae.”

The room tinted yellow and orange when Rae dipped her head and her hair fell over her face.

Are your eyes playing tricks on you?
Chase asked.

With colors? Yes. I thought that was you.

Definitely not me.

Little’s head shook back and forth between Alex and Chase as they spoke to one another. “Whatever you’re doing right now, stop. It’s weird. You guys have strange energy.”

“Sorry,” Chase said without a hint of remorse, “but colorblindness doesn’t exactly make me feel comfortable.”

Little’s hands went to her cheeks. “Oh. I’m sorry. I might be doing that. Duvall says it’s a gifted thing. I get kind of excited when I’m in here because all of these items are trying to tell me something. They have so many stories.”

Skye would get along grand with this girl
, Alex thought to Chase.

They’re built from the same weird mold.

Little stretched her hand between them.

“What?” Chase asked.

“There was another weird sizzle of electricity between you guys. Did you feel anything?”

“No,” Alex lied. Chase shook his head.

Little squinted at them.

Alex felt a tug at her shorts. Rae shook her finger at the door. Professor Darby stood outside on the other end of the glass. Madison hurried down the street to join him, and Tess followed.

“We’re going to be late for curfew. What is it that you wanted us to see?”

Little slapped her hand to her head. “I almost forgot!” She hurried to the front of the store. “I saw it the first time my parents brought me here. It’s why they chose to live away from the gifted society.”

Little stopped beside a document, thick and yellowed. The caption read:

Official offer from representatives from the Union Army. Currency offered for Josephine “Sephi” Anovark. Sale completed.

Signed by:

Arthur Havilah, witness, and Edwin Stanton, United States Secretary of War.

Value: 10/10.

Origin: Parrish, Maryland.

For several moments, they each stood silently staring at the old paper. “Does currency mean what I think it means?” Chase asked.

Alex stepped even closer. “Money for Sephi?” She inwardly begged that this document had no others like it.

“This used to happen all the time. That’s why I was so surprised you didn’t know. Before the Truce, the gifted were traded like property. They were servants sold to the highest bidder.”

“Who would buy them?”

“Whoever had enough money. The gifted were used, abused, and then slaughtered like magical cattle.”

Alex didn’t know what was worse: seeing Sephi’s name on the paper or seeing the name of her family and her hometown right next to it.

“They were slaves.”

Alex knew her family’s reputation to be strict and unforgiving, but Parrish treated the Havilahs like royalty. If anything, they were monsters.

Chase shuffled back down the aisle, and with each step documents illuminated from both sides. There had to be hundreds of them, none as bright as Sephi’s. Alex couldn’t bear to look at the rest.

“This is what the Havilahs did. This is what Jack was talking about.”

Little’s nose pressed against the glass, reading the paper. “Sephi was sold to the Union. No wonder they won the Civil War. They had a prophet on their side.”

“You’re gifted,” Alex blurted out. “Little, why don’t you hate me?”

She angled her head forward. “
You
didn’t sell people. Besides, I can’t possibly look at your face and hate you. It was that face that ended this mess.”

Alex crouched down and buried her head in her hands. Which was she? Anovark or Havilah? When she finally wiped her face and straightened up, Chase had returned. He lifted a finger and placed it over a part of the glass.

“You notice this part, Al?”

Of course she saw it. Although she wished she hadn’t. She wished they hadn’t come into this store at all.

The mediator listed for the trade was a woman named Abigail
Frank
.

During the next few days, Alex couldn’t think of anything without Sephi’s contract invading her mind. The more she tried not to think about it, the more it tortured her. Alex’s projection suffered: her hair tangled like a rat’s nest and her mismatched clothes hung loose and sloppy.

Sale completed. Currency offered.
Sale
. Sephi was bartered, and the Havilahs were to blame. And the Franks. Liv’s family. Alex’s life continued to haunt her in death, the coincidences piling up like a stack of teetering books ready to topple at the slightest nudge.

Alex rested her chin on the railing of the seventh floor. She observed the crowd in the vestibule below; most spirits had already left for Lazuli Street. She could hear the ruckus beginning outside. The festival was in full swing.

“Happy birthday.” A square, wooden box appeared in front of her. Next to it, Chase set down a large Ex cup with a candle balanced on top.

“It’s not my birthday.”

“Death day, I guess.” He kissed the top of her head before sitting down opposite her.

“I didn’t even think about it.”

“The beginning of the festival leading up to All Soul’s Day. A celebration of death. You couldn’t have timed that any better.” He sat back in his chair and studied her.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

She wanted to know what he saw when he looked at her. She tried to jump into his mind, but he blanked out his thoughts.

“Make a wish.”

The only thing she’d ever wished for was right in front of her. She tried to blow out the flame, but no amount of effort worked. She pouted. “Is that why you’re grinning at me like that?”

“I wasn’t quite sure what would happen. I’m thinking you probably have to use your head.”

“Right. I’ll smash the flame with my forehead. Happy death day to me.”

The corner of his lips curled. “That’s not what I meant.”

She flicked her gaze to the flame and thought about it extinguishing. It disappeared in a flash, rising into a ribbon of winding smoke, twisting its way toward the very object of her wish.

“Bravo.”

The only thing she wanted was for him to always look at her in such a way. A combination of intrigue and humor with a dash of adoration.

“You got me a gift?”

“Nothing crazy,” he warned. “It isn’t much.”

She lifted the lid of the box, and the paper curled like the petals of a blooming flower to reveal a mask framed in white, fluffy feathers. The glass glistened like black ice, and long silver eyelashes stretched at least a foot high. Her attention gravitated to a jagged crack. The imperfection was no mistake; it zigzagged deliberately from left eyebrow to right chin.

“It’s beautiful.”

“You like it?”

“I might never take it off.”

“Let’s not get carried away.” Chase clasped his hand around hers, bringing her to her feet. He lifted the mask from the box and fastened it around her head.

She bent to gather her things, and when she rose again, Chase’s face was hidden behind porcelain. The black lips of the mask curled into a fitting smirk, and there were wise crow’s feet painted around the outer edges. Attached to the top was a lopsided fedora. Even though it covered most of his face, the white of the mask and the markings around the eyes accentuated the brilliant blue shining behind them. Chase always looked good in costume. He looked good in anything.

One year for Halloween, Alex had her fragile heart set on Dorothy from the
Wizard of Oz
. It was the same year she became a regular at the hospital, and Danya struck a deal with her in August. If Alex remained injury-free for two months, she had free reign to select the boys’ costumes. It was the ultimate prize. Somehow, she managed it, eight weeks with no dislocations or breaks and barely any bruises … even after Jonas attempted to shove her off the monkey bars in a last-ditch effort to save his hide. Because of his interference, Alex forced him to dress up as the wicked witch. Even through the dark green paint, everyone could see his blush of embarrassment. Kaleb picked the Tin Man, Gabe picked the lion, and Chase was the scarecrow. It was her favorite Halloween.

On the day she died—exactly a year ago—she felt very much like becoming Dorothy again. When she left Miss Petra’s classroom and stepped into her new world, it was like watching the movie switching from black and white to vibrant colors. She never thought she would ever again see something as fascinating as those colors upon first sight. She was wrong. They changed every day. They brightened, shifted, and sometimes bled into one another.

Now, a year after her death, weaving through the crowds of the Autumn Mask, she realized how weak her eyes had been even then. She could see merriment suspended above the dancing crowd in the form of a bubble; it hung like nostalgia, pulsing in the energy that fed it. Lazuli Street was ramose, something that had taken her months to realize. It was only the trunk to the other roads that branched off of it, roads that had been invisible to her until she was looking for them. Tonight, from those interconnected streets she could tell from a mile away which music was playing where. The classical pieces rose into the night as physical notes, tranquilly taking their time. The jazzy music shot bursts of jovial, energetic orange lightning. The jumpy dance music shook the stars overhead. Some notes were hyper enough to jump and others drooped with sadness; it depended on the piece.

Last year it frightened her. The people, the chaos, and the masks. The simple and beautiful, feathery and light costumes were swallowed by the darkness of the skulls, the flames, and the distortion. Alex remembered clinging to Jonas because he was something familiar in this hallucinatory setting. The vendors lined the streets eagerly promoting inventions, games, and refreshments. Josepha and Johanna twirled in hoop skirts outside their fashion agency. They yelled in French and passed out mouthfuls of wavy-looking steam cake. Across the street at the stairway to the Lazuli gardens, the florist stood on the steps lifting flowers into the air like lanterns. The flower shop itself was even in costume, wearing a pouty mask and a crooked hat on its angled roof.

The Ex distributors offered steaming cups of vapory emotion, and spirits sipped or inhaled. Comfort tasted like coffee, insight like honeysuckle, and energy like wine. Dancers, gamers, and storytellers intermixed with the partygoers.

She hadn’t been ready to see certain aspects of the world then, and she suspected she still wasn’t ready for the reality of the things her mind prevented her from seeing now. Through wigs of dancing ribbons and wings of spider webs, spirits clutched strings in their hands, attached to clouds suspended above their heads. Some of the clouds released rain, others released sunlight. Some of the walkways and stairways led to tableaus or light shows. Spirits ogled at the art or added their own touches; some rearranged their own features and limbs to make themselves the art. Hair grew from shoulders, arms became legs, and fingers stretched like yardsticks. A girl with pillar candles dripping wax down her face and shoulders spread red on an invisible canvas. Her art stuck to the night. Alex and Chase found Kaleb and Gabe standing in a crooked doorway, painting extra hands to a shattered clock.

Alex wrapped herself around Chase’s arm and used her free hand to reach out for the bubbles of colorful energy floating over them. Each time she popped one, it released emotion. Her favorites were the yellow ones that drenched her in happy sunlight.

Kaleb managed to balance the bubbles on his fingers, taming them like butterflies. He’d offer them to the girls they passed, who giggled or kissed him in return.

They reached Gramble Street where the center of travel, Gramble Station, was dressed like a harlequin. A black and white checked skirt fluffed at the base of the building and the giant red mask around it had a beauty mark at the lip. A motorcycle raceway originated outside of Gramble and twisted around the walls of the city and through the trees, which were dressed like the night sky, twinkling with millions of lights. The Lasalles spent half the night trying their hands at beating the course without crashing, but they had no success. They returned their bikes in shambles.

The costumes intensified as the night wore on. Some spirits were aflame. A singing girl holding a raining cloud stood beside one torched spirit to put out the fire. Next to her, a girl somberly sang from underneath a cage of wires. The creepiest faces lacked costumes. Like smeared artwork, distorted light or misshapen features, they danced about in the kaleidoscope of a crowd.

Alex tensed when they reached the area for storytellers and aura readers. Last year, Jonas told her not to trust them, not to even travel into this section of the festival, but Kaleb wasn’t afraid of anything and needed to be a part of everything. He had Pax Simone slung over his shoulder, and Little followed behind them, hanging off Kaleb’s trail of energy, even though Linton Darwin was desperately trying to get her attention. Skye rolled her eyes and scooted away from them.

One deep-voiced storyteller wore a gorgeous headdress of a half-moon in sparkling gold. His nose and lips were made of stars, and constellations rotated around him. He was talking about the haunting of the Sallie House in Kansas, and Gabe perked up, leading their group to a vacant area to the left of the moon man. There, sandwiched in between so many mesmerized spirits, Alex felt comfortable because she was hidden behind a mask.