The Lingering Grace (34 page)

“When will we find out?” asked Alice at last. She looked over her dad’s shoulder, not trusting herself to meet his eyes.

“Soon. They would have run the biopsy today, but the lab was closed by the time we got to the specialist’s office.”

“That’s why you were so late.”

“It’s been a long day,” her dad sighed. He grabbed her arm and asked seriously, “Alice, this trespassing … is this something we need to talk about?”

“I swear it won’t happen again,” she said. “It was … it was a mistake.”

“It doesn’t seem like you.”

“It isn’t,” she agreed.

He gnawed on the inside of his cheek, probably trying to decide whether he should give her a harsher scolding, but in the end he just shook his head and said, “I’m glad you’re okay. You should probably get to bed.”

She nodded, turned away, but turned back again. Her dad must have read her mind because he spread his arms wide and she fell into them, trying not to cry. They hugged for a long minute. He kissed her forehead.

“Goodnight, sweetie. It’ll be okay.”

The hug was comforting, but the words were not. They rang in her ears as she trudged up the stairs, hanging onto the railing for support.

Why does it matter?
she wondered. She was sure the right spell could heal even the deadliest of cancers.

But at what cost?

Would someone else become sick if she healed her mom? Her dad, maybe? Or Jeremy? How could she take that risk? How could she stand by and do nothing?

There were no good options, and in the end, there was only one choice to make. She couldn’t risk doing more magic, even to save her mom. She couldn’t take the easy way out. There
was
no easy way out. She had to choose which sacrifice, which risk, to take, but a sacrifice would be made either way and she couldn’t bear it. How could anyone bear it? Magic wasn’t power to escape reality. Magic only widened the choices—it didn’t change them. She wished she had never found that book in the library, that she had never met Eva.

Her legs got heavier with every step she took, and when she got to her room, she shut the door behind her and immediately collapsed onto her bed. Even though she hadn’t turned the light on, the room was quite well lit. She stared at the ceiling, puzzling over why it looked a little green. Suddenly she sat straight up.

The rosebush was still glowing in the corner, shedding enough green and red light to fill the whole room. It gleamed and twinkled, festive as a Christmas tree … deadly as lightning.

Somehow, Alice got back to her feet. She ripped open the curtain, and there in the darkness, exactly as she expected, the tree outside her window was half-dead. The leaves on the left side were green, but the limbs on the right were rotting. Some branches had fallen to the ground and lay in a growing tower of blackened sticks.

Eva had known—when she had closed the window so suddenly that morning, this was what she had wanted to hide.

Alice turned back to the plant, letting the curtain fall shut. Just moments before her heart had been achingly empty, too full of sadness to feel much at all. But now anger rushed in, a tumbling wall of lava, hot and heavy. Her lips curled and a scream clawed its way up her throat.

She fell on the plant, ripping it limb from limb. The thorns tore gashes in her bare skin, but she felt no pain, only a fury that was so strong it filled every space and every gap, pushing away the exhaustion, the sadness, and the fear. As she pulled the branches off, they crumbled to dust in her hands and slipped through her fingers, scattering across the carpet like ash. The light in the room flickered and dimmed until it was so dark that she couldn’t see her ash-filled hands.

Panting in the silence, Alice rubbed her palms on the carpet. The lava-like rage cooled and hardened into ripples of stone so heavy that she collapsed to the ground and lay spread-eagled on the floor.

Her breathing eased, but the weight remained. It was unbearable. She couldn’t lift it and so she cried quiet tears until she fell asleep curled up on the floor, dirty hands pressed to her heart.

The next morning was deadly silent. Alice wandered out of her room around eleven, her back aching from sleeping on the floor. She went immediately to her parents’ room, but the door was closed. When she knocked, her dad cracked the door open.

“Do you need something?” he asked.

“Just … wanted to talk to Mom.”

Her dad turned around briefly and Alice held her breath. What would she say when she
did
see her mom? What if she said the wrong thing and made everything worse?

But when her dad looked back at her, he shook his head. “Sorry, hon. Maybe a little later.”

Alice’s stomach lurched, but she nodded and tried to keep her voice cheerful. “That’s fine. Tell her … tell her I said hi.”

He gave her a tight smile and shut the door. She stood there blankly for a while before wandering back to her room.

She tried everything—television, homework, reading, surfing the Internet—but nothing could hold her attention. Her mind kept replaying the events of the previous night. And when it took a break from that, it nagged her to pick up the magic books that were still lying on the floor and figure out how to fix her mother.

She resisted for as long as she could, but only an hour after breakfast, she found herself kneeling over them, fingers inches from the bindings. Her hands stretched out to grab them, but she yanked them back at the last minute. Hugging herself, she jumped to her feet and frantically paced the room. If she so much as opened the books, she knew she wouldn’t be able to put them down. But she couldn’t stay here, couldn’t have them so close to her. She had to leave, even if it was just for a while.

She grabbed a bag, stuffed her homework in it, and rushed downstairs. She considered telling her parents where she was going, but when she saw that their door was still closed, she couldn’t face it and hurried to the garage. If they noticed she was gone, they would call her.

Alice drove automatically, almost without thinking about her destination. But when she pulled up in front of Tony’s house, she wasn’t surprised. Where else could she have gone?

Nora answered the door. She looked ages older, bags under her eyes, hair limp and tangled. Alice instantly regretted coming here. How could she have forgotten about Danny? Surely Nora had been informed that Danny was back in prison, that he had attacked Tony, of all people. She looked like she hadn’t slept all night. She probably hadn’t.

And here Alice had shown up at her doorstep when the only thing Nora wanted was some privacy, most likely. Alice was about to apologize and turn around when Nora did something that she was not expecting.

With tears in her eyes, Nora rushed onto the porch, wrapped her arms around Alice, and held her tightly. Alice inhaled a shuddering breath of relief; Nora smelled like vanilla—a scent her mom liked as well—and Alice struggled to keep her composure.

Nora didn’t say anything when she released Alice and gestured to her to enter. As she stepped inside, Alice felt the same immediate relief that she usually felt walking into her own house—the relief that she couldn’t find there at the moment.

Although she had been planning to ask Tony, Alice turned around and said, “Nora, can I talk to you about something?”

“Of course,” Nora said, her voice scratchy. “Alice, I’m so sorry about everything. I’m sorry you were involved.”

“Is Danny—”

“He won’t be home for a while,” she said, dropping her gaze to the floor.

“I’m sorry,” said Alice softly.

Nora nodded, swallowed hard, and looked up. “Have a seat. I’ll grab Tony—” she paused, thought about this, then added, “Unless you don’t want me to. Is this a girl thing?”

“No, no,” Alice sighed. “It’s just … I just need … ”

She didn’t know what exactly she needed. The only reason she had come here was because she couldn’t be home and she couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.

“Then you came to the right place,” Nora assured her. “Whatever it is you need … you can always come here.”

Nora put her hand on Alice’s shoulder, and this time Alice couldn’t help herself. She started to cry.

When Nora and Tony found out what was going on, they insisted Alice stay the night. Her dad sounded almost relieved when she called to let him know, and he was more than happy to drive some of her things over. He was gone almost as quickly as he had come; when Alice asked him about the test results, he only scratched his neck and muttered that they were still waiting for the doctor to call. They’d encouraged Jeremy to stay at his friend’s house for now, figuring there was no point in telling him what was going on until they had the facts themselves.

Tony drove her to school the next morning, as usual, but the closer they got to the campus, the more Alice wished that she would suddenly come down with the flu. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead and she cracked open the window. What would she do if Eva was there? What would it mean if she wasn’t?

“I could just keep driving,” Tony said, as he pulled into the drop-off lane. “We could be in San Francisco by noon.”

Alice tried to laugh. “You’re only saying that because you know I’ll say no.”

“Seriously! I’d do it.”

She shook her head. “It’s sweet of you, but let’s face it—neither one of us is any good at being irresponsible.”

“And yet we both got police citations last night,” he said with a forced grin; the memory was too fresh for either of them to laugh.

“If I don’t go in today, I have no idea how I’ll force myself to go tomorrow.”

“And if you see Eva?”

Alice’s chest constricted and she didn’t answer. Tony grabbed her hand. “You know you don’t have to talk to her. Just ignore her. It’ll be easier.”

“Yeah,” Alice agreed. She felt like someone had knotted a rope around her ribs and was slowly pulling it tighter. “Yeah, I’ll ignore her.”

“And if you, you know, get sick or something, you can always call me or Mom.”

She kissed his cheek. “I’m pretty lucky to have you two.”

“You bet you are,” he said, eyes twinkling. When she didn’t laugh, his smile disappeared in an instant.

“I’m sorry,” he said

“For what?”

“You probably aren’t in the mood for teasing.”

“No, no, it’s not that at all. I was just wondering … ”

“Wondering what?”

“Who Eva has.”

The question haunted her as she walked through the gates and down the hallway. She scanned the crowds of students for Eva, ready to bolt if necessary, but Eva was nowhere to be seen. Luck was with her.

She tried to take the most obscure route possible to her first class, feeling guiltier with every step. Although she kept reminding herself of what Tony had said—that she had every right to avoid Eva—she couldn’t escape the gnawing shame that was eating her alive.

If Alice avoided her, what friends would Eva have left? Would she have any? Who would stop her from doing something stupid?

There were five more minutes until the bell would ring, and Alice, feeling shaky, ducked into a bathroom. As the door shut behind her, she saw a familiar backpack on the floor and a girl huddled against the wall next to it.