Ruined 2 - Dark Souls (15 page)

“Hey,” he said. It was strange seeing him in daylight. He looked very pale and tired, dark shadows under his eyes.

“Hey.” Miranda felt shy with him. The kiss had complicated things. She wasn’t sure what it meant, or if he regretted it. Did she regret it? Miranda didn’t know. One thing she knew, though: They couldn’t take it back.

“Tomorrow night,” he said, throwing the match onto the ground. “Don’t go to the concert. Come out with me.”

“But it’s my mother’s concert,” Miranda protested. “She would be really upset if I wasn’t there.”

“She won’t know. She didn’t even see you at the rehearsal.”

“My father will know.”

“Tell him you’re going to sit somewhere else. Tell him you’re going to sit with friends.” Nick seemed agitated, rocking back against the wall.

“He doesn’t know that I
have
any friends here,” Miranda said archly.

“Please,” said Nick. He was reasoning with her, not pleading. “It’s our last chance to spend time together.”

“We could spend time together this evening. Tomorrow. You could come with me tomorrow afternoon to hear my father’s paper on Richard III, if you want.”

Nick frowned at her, as though she were stupid.

“I can’t see you at all until tomorrow night,” he said. “And then that’s it. You’ll be gone on Monday, and so will I.”

That’s it.
So this is what happened after a kiss, Miranda thought. Things ended.

“Um … what about after the concert?” she suggested, though she didn’t really know how she was going to manage shaking off her family. There was going to be some sort of after-party in a restaurant on Swinegate.

Nick bowed his head. His dark hair was tipped with crystals of icy snow.

“After is too late,” he said, still looking down.

Miranda wanted to see Nick again: That was the only thing she knew. She wanted to be alone with him. She
wanted to feel him touch her hand again, his long fingers gently stroking her skin. Maybe she even wanted him to kiss her again. “I just … I don’t know,” she said.

Nick jerked his head up and looked her in the eyes. There was something in his gaze that was beyond intense. Something wild, like the look of a cornered feral animal.

“You have to,” he said. “Please. I’ll come for you around eight thirty tomorrow night, all right? I’ll knock on your door. If I’m late, don’t worry. I’ve just been … held up. Wait until I get there.”

Miranda fingered the cellophane wrapping of the flowers. She didn’t know what to do. Her heart was thumping. She wanted to see Nick again, but it was going to mean lying, and hiding, and skipping out of something…. It was all so complicated.

“Please,” he said again. “It’s important. To me. To you, I hope.”

“Yes,” she said, turning her head to avoid his gaze. It was too much. All of this was too much. “Tomorrow at eight thirty.”

“Wait for me,” Nick said. “Promise?”

“I promise,” said Miranda, and he bent toward her, as though he was going to kiss her again. But he didn’t kiss her. He just looked at Miranda, really looked at her, as if seeing her clearly for the first time.

When she got back to the flat, nobody else was home. Miranda was relieved. She didn’t feel like talking to anyone. She was still thinking of Nick walking away through
the market. The shape of his shoulders, the flare of his coat. She felt guilty, horribly guilty, at the thought of skipping out on her mother’s concert. But not seeing Nick again would feel much worse. She’d never met anyone like him before. However strange he was, however abrupt and mysterious, he understood her. He understood ghosts. It was okay.

Miranda dumped the flowers in a tall drinking glass filled with lukewarm water, and arranged them on a place mat on the table. Upstairs in her room, she flopped on the bed, too agitated to nap. She reached out a hand for
Tales of Old York,
but it wasn’t on the bedside table. It wasn’t on the floor, either, though Miranda thought she might have knocked it there. It wasn’t anywhere in the living room or — after she pounded down three flights of stairs to check — in her jacket pocket. She remembered slipping it in there on her way out … when was it? Yesterday morning? When she’d been walking around last night with her hands in her pockets, she’d felt it — or had she? Miranda couldn’t remember. After that kiss, everything had been a blur. But even when she looked through everything all over again, Miranda still couldn’t find the book. Yesterday she’d had it. Today it was gone.

M
iranda had two conferences to attend on Sunday. The second, that afternoon, was taking place in the King’s Manor, where the Richard III Society was gathering again to hear scholarly papers, drink coffee, and discuss exciting new theories about what might or not have happened at the Battle of Bosworth Field.

The first conference was that morning, in the bathroom, with Rob.

“I call this meeting to order,” he said, attempting to sit on the closed toilet seat and, at the same time, rest his bare feet on the towel rail. “Ow!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Someone’s turned that thing on. My toes are scalded.”

“Ssshhh! Stop making so much noise. Why are we in here, anyway? We could be having this conversation in your room. Or mine.”

“But this is our meeting room,” said Rob, looking at her as though she were stupid. “And I’m trying to get used to sitting around in small spaces. Okay. Present — Rob Tennant, chair, and his top advisor, the dormouse. On the agenda — one item only. How do I get out of going to the concert tonight?”

Miranda sighed. She wasn’t in the mood for Rob’s minor problems: She had other things on her mind. Last night she’d woken up sweating after the strangest dream, where
she
was the girl in the floaty dress, running along the street desperately looking for someone. There was a guy up ahead, but it was too misty to see clearly. At first he looked like Nick, then he looked like Rob. However fast she ran, she couldn’t catch up with him.

“Well?” Rob demanded. “Could you put on your
thinking cap?”

Miranda couldn’t help laughing. This was something that Peggy used to say to them when they were little kids.

“Okay, okay,” she said. “People can sit anywhere at this concert, right?”

“Except for the front row, which is reserved for VIPs. That’s where Dad and Sally’s parents will be sitting, and Lord Poole, and us. And the husbands of the Sorceress and all the Witches.”

“So we go along with Dad, as planned. And then we tell him that a big group of Sally’s friends are coming along, and they’re sitting farther back. We want to sit with them, is that okay, blah blah blah. He’ll say yes,
because he’s busy talking to Lord Poole, and Mr. and Mrs…. what’s Sally’s last name?”

“Framington.” He said it lovingly. Miranda rolled her eyes.

“He’ll be busy chatting up the Framingtons. We’ll go to the back. Then you and Sally can slip out.”

“Why do
you
have to say you want to sit with Sally’s imaginary friends?” Rob asked. “And could you open that window? I can’t breathe in here.”

“I just … I just think it’ll be more convincing if both of us go off to sit together.” Miranda had decided not to tell Rob about her plans with Nick. He might disapprove. He
would
disapprove. He would start asking questions about Nick — how often she’d seen him, what they were planning to do that night. And what could she say? Miranda had no idea what they were going to do that night, but the most likely candidates — looking for ghosts, talking about dead loved ones, kissing — were not things Rob would want to hear.

“Okay. You’re the brains of the operation, apparently.” Rob stood up, clearly eager to open the door. “I gotta go — we’re ripping out the bar today. You do know what they call Dumpsters in this country? Skips. Crazy name, crazy town.”

Miranda waited while Rob loped up the stairs, two at a time, back to his own room. She picked up her toothbrush and put it down again: She’d already brushed her teeth. There was too much to think about today. Too much to worry about.

Her father stuck his head inside the door.

“What were you two conspiring about in here?” he asked, grinning at her. He was way overexcited about his conference.

“A present for Mom,” Miranda told him, amazed at how easily the lie slipped out.

Down in the kitchen, her mother was scrubbing the counter with a little too much vigor. If Jeff was overexcited, Peggy was overanxious.

“I’ll do that,” Miranda told her, but Peggy shook her head. Her hair, still wet from the shower, was twisted up, held by a clip that looked ready to slide out. She was wearing a long sweater and leggings. Miranda had never seen her mother in leggings before. Probably that bossy Second Witch had talked her into buying them.

“Cleaning helps keep my mind off tonight,” she said, moving on to polishing the faucet. “I’m trying to be rational. It’s not a huge orchestra, or a complicated score. The venue is — well, amazing. The soloists, when they’re singing and not talking, are really quite good. Everything should be fine.”

“Everything’s going to be
great,
Mom,” Miranda said.
Oh, and by the way — your children are planning to skip the concert so they can get up to who-knows-what with who-knows-who.
Another secret to keep. Another sharp pang of guilt.

Peggy tossed the dishcloth into the sink and rinsed off her hands.

“It’s just …” She was gazing out the window. Miranda couldn’t see her expression. “I have this really bad feeling.
Not nerves, exactly. Just this feeling that something isn’t quite right. Hard to explain. Silly.”

“What do you mean?” Miranda asked, trying to keep her tone neutral.

Her mother shook her head, and swung around to look at Miranda.

“Nothing,” she said, pretending to smile. Miranda knew that fake smile: She was an expert at it herself, saying there was nothing wrong, smiling. Peggy reached for Miranda’s hand and squeezed it.

“Just nerves, probably,” Miranda told her. Peggy smiled again.

“I’m sorry we haven’t had any time this week. You and me, I mean. These rehearsals have just consumed my days, and in the evenings I’m so tired….”

“It’s okay,” Miranda said quickly. “Really.”

“I thought we’d have time to do some fun things, like more shopping,” Peggy said, sounding forlorn. She squeezed Miranda’s hand again. “But time’s raced by, and I haven’t even had a minute to look in a store window all week.”

“Where did you get the leggings?”

“A gift. The Second Witch. Too young for me?”

“No. Cute.”

“I swore I’d never wear anything I wore in the eighties,” Peggy said. “If you catch me in leg warmers and an off-the-shoulder top, please stop me from leaving the house.”

“No problem.”

Rob was thundering down the stairs, shouting his good-byes.

“Bye, honey!” Peggy called. The front door slammed shut. “You’d think he had much more exciting plans for our last full day here than cleaning up after the fire. He’s in such a good mood.”

“Hmmm,” agreed Miranda, thinking about their combined secret plans for later on.

“And you’ve been all right, haven’t you?” Peggy looked anxious. Miranda hated making her mother worry — especially today, which was supposed to be her moment of triumph. “Your dad said you seemed to have a nice time at Lord Poole’s house.”

“Really nice.” It was Miranda’s turn for the fake smile. Thinking of Lord Poole’s house made her think of the picture of Nick. It was too late to tell her mother about Nick now. There was too much to explain. Too much to withhold.

“Good.” Peggy looked relieved. “You know, I have no idea why I’m so doom and gloom all of a sudden. I think this trip has been really great for us all. Rob seems so much happier. Despite everything that’s gone on at the White Boar — the break-ins, the terrible fire — it’s as though he’s woken up again. Sally’s been good for him, I think. I wish he would tell her about the claustrophobia — I’m sure she’d understand.”

“But she … oh yeah,” said Miranda, remembering that Sally’s discovery of Rob’s panic attacks — in the White Boar’s cellar, in the middle of the night — was still
in the top-secret file. “You’re right. I’m sure she’d understand.”

“The only thing is, with Rob so preoccupied, and Dad busy with his research, you’ve been left on your own, haven’t you?”

“I’ve been fine,” Miranda reassured her.

“You really should have come to the medieval banquet with us.”

“Dad said that you two were the youngest people there by, like, twenty years.”

“True. It’s a shame you didn’t have a chance to meet people your own age here in York. Make some friends.”

“Sally’s got some friends,” Miranda blurted. “I mean, she’s bringing them along tonight, to the concert. We’re all going to sit together and hang out and everything. She says they’re really nice, and that maybe we’ll all go out afterward.”

“Oh, honey!” Peggy looked delighted, and this made Miranda feel worse. She wasn’t used to lying this much to her parents. She gripped the edge of the counter with her free hand, trying not to squirm. “That will be
so
nice for you. Don’t worry about coming out with us afterward. You all go out and have a good time. Get Dad to give you some money.”

“What’s this?” Jeff appeared in the kitchen door. He was wearing a dark suit and his White Rose of York tie. “Do I have to pay you to come and listen to my paper?”

“Yes,” Peggy told him, winking at Miranda. “A pound a minute.”

“I’ll have to read quickly, then,” he said, pretending to look aggrieved. Everyone was a fake today, thought Miranda. Everyone was pretending. And, hopefully, they’d all make it through the day without anybody getting caught.

Her second conference of the day took longer than the meeting in the bathroom, and Miranda found it much harder to concentrate. Not that her father’s paper wasn’t interesting — in parts, anyway — and not that he expected her to stay for the rest of the afternoon session. But two things had proven really distracting and disconcerting.

The first was the walk up the stone staircase to the expansive paneled room lined with portraits, where an optimistic fifteen rows of chairs were set up for conference attendees. Miranda was following her father, listening to him chat with someone Scottish — who was wearing an identical White Rose of York tie — when a man came racing down the stairs so fast he was almost a blur. Her father and his new friend didn’t flinch, but Miranda had to practically leap out of the runner’s way. As he passed, a whoosh of intense cold whipped through her, as though she were wearing cotton in a snowstorm.

Great, she thought, hurrying to catch up with her father. King’s Manor was haunted. Of course it was: It was built in the fifteenth century. Henry VIII had stayed here with Catherine Howard, his fifth wife, not long
before he had her imprisoned and executed. No surprise at all that a ghost would be charging down the stairs past Miranda, giving her the big chill. But really — it was broad daylight. Couldn’t they just leave her alone for five minutes?

The second thing unsettling her today was the sight of Lord Poole sitting in the front row of uncomfortable folding chairs. He clapped loudly at the end of each paper, even if the person giving it had read in a monotone or impenetrable accent.

He’d smiled broadly when he’d seen her, shaking her hand in his hearty way as though she were an adult. He was so genial, so kind. He’d been nothing but generous to her this whole week. And what had Miranda done in return? Lost the book he’d lent her, when he’d driven into York — a two-hour round trip — just to leave it for her. Miranda wanted to kick herself for being so careless. She must have dropped it somewhere in the street, not noticing when it fell out of her jacket pocket.

But something else she’d done — or rather, not done — was much worse than losing an expensive book. She hadn’t said a word to him about Nick. Nick was Lord Poole’s grandson, the only one he had left. He hadn’t seen or heard from him in years, and it was pretty obvious that he was miserable about that. Miranda could have told him that Nick was alive, and right here in York. But she’d said nothing. At the house, she’d been too surprised, too confused. And then she’d made the promise to Nick.

Tomorrow, Nick was leaving town; it would be too late. Maybe tonight she could try and reason with him. Maybe Nick could be persuaded to write to his grandfather, even if he refused to meet with him in person. Lord Poole was all alone in that big, cold house in the country. And Nick was all alone in the world, too.

That was it, she decided, clapping when a bony woman from the University of Leicester ended a long-winded presentation by dropping her papers all over the floor. Her father, sitting at the table of panelists, was getting ready to read now, shuffling the pages of his talk together. He looked pale and a bit queasy. His tie was askew, and Miranda wished she could send him some kind of psychic message, telling him to straighten it, reassuring him that his talk was going to be awesome.

When his name was announced, and he stood up to move to the lectern, Miranda clapped so loudly that the man sitting in front of her turned around. Tonight, she promised herself, whatever else happened, she would talk to Nick about his grandfather. Your family was your family. You couldn’t turn your back on them, or pretend they didn’t exist. Families loved each other, and stuck together, no matter what. She hoped that Nick wouldn’t get angry with her for interfering. She hoped he would listen. She hoped he would kiss her again.

“You must be Miranda,” said Linda, who was obviously Sally’s mother: They had the same curly hair and
bright blue eyes, though Sally’s hair was a vivid yellow, and Linda’s was skeined with gray. “I’m sorry we haven’t had a chance to meet properly yet, with everything that’s been … going on. It’s been a terrible week.”

“I’m glad you could come to the concert tonight,” Miranda said, resisting the urge to hop from foot to foot with cold, or excitement, or a combination of the two. They were standing on the steps of York Minster, bundled up against the winter’s night. Around them, people hurried up from the street and through the big doors. It would be a large audience, according to Lord Poole, who’d been in and out several times, to the detriment of the traffic flow through the revolving doors. Hundreds of people, he’d said.

“Your brother’s been a great help to us today,” said Linda, smiling at Rob, who was brazenly holding Sally’s hand. “He’s such a hard worker.”

“Doesn’t sound like anyone
we
know,” Jeff whispered to Miranda, handing her a ticket.

“Aye, we’ll have it all cleaned up soon enough,” said Sally’s father, Joe. One of his hands was bandaged, and the tips of his fingers looked blue with cold. “No thanks to the police. They want everything left, just to sit there for days on end while they poke around. I’ve got a business to run.”