We caught a taxi to Lacey’s house. The driver muttered a startled oath as he pulled his car onto the very end of the long driveway. I had to admit the house did look magnificent; sunset’s kinder light softened the harsh edges and lent the rendered concrete a gentle glow.
I wonder if Lacey’s home? There was no way to tell; the house had a two-car garage so, if she was, her car was tucked out of sight. The idea of encountering her after she’d given us the cold shoulder at Olivia’s party created a tangled ball of anxiety in my gut, but I straightened my spine and squared my shoulders. Hopefully she could put her attitude aside for Olivia’s sake … but, if she wanted a fight, I was ready for one.
Mum paid the driver while I slid out, stomping along the path that ran across the front of the building towards the imposing entryway. Justin must have been watching from the dining room window, because he opened the door as soon I began to climb the long stairs.
“Thank god you’re here,” he said, clattering down to meet me. “Mum’s going wild!”
“What happened?” I gave him a quick hug. “Did they have a fight?”
“When don’t they fight?” Justin said, rolling his eyes as my mother joined us. I offered her a twenty for the taxi, but she shook her head.
“Okay, anything more specific than usual?”
He shrugged, leading us up the stairs to the double doors. “Not really. Olivia’s been quiet the last few days. Locked in her room even more than usual. We’ve barely seen her, but she’s got finals in the next few weeks, and a big art history essay due, so…”
We paused in the foyer. The family room, visible through an open door, looked different. It took me a moment to realise what it was: the ever-present halogen lights weren’t on, allowing a more natural pattern of light and shadow to fill the space. Lacey leaned against the back of one of the scarlet suede couches, which were less offensive than usual in the more subdued, fading sunlight spilling in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Backlit by those same windows, she stood out like a crow on the beach in her dark jeans and a black knit turtleneck—the plainest clothes I’d ever seen her wear. Her face was drawn, looking older than usual, and she hugged herself, arms wrapped around her stomach as if she was in pain. But her dark brown eyes were dry when she looked at us.
I tensed, waiting for her to say something, make some biting comment, but she didn’t. Huh?
“Come on,” Justin said. I followed him into the family room, Mum at my side. “They’re here,” he mumbled needlessly, keeping his gaze fixed on his Nikes.
“Where is she?” Despite the abruptness of the words, Lacey’s tone was measured. Either she wasn’t mad we were here or she was trying to keep her temper under control until she had what she wanted from us. Maybe both. Had she asked Justin to call me? Was she really too proud to do it herself, even though she was clearly worried? I knew the answer to the second question, of course. I’d have to be the one to make the first move here.
“I don’t know.” Suppressing an irritated sigh, I walked around Lacey to sit on the roomy three-seater couch. Mum and Justin followed, sitting on either side of me, but Lacey just turned on the spot. At least her hands dropped from that stomach-clenching hug to press into the back of the other empty seat. “When was the last time you saw her?” I asked.
“I saw her yesterday morning,” Justin said when his mother didn’t reply immediately. “She came out to get a bowl of cereal just as I was leaving for soccer.”
“I saw her a few hours later.” Lacey’s jaw tightened. “I think she snuck out last night, after we went to bed. I hoped she might’ve gotten in contact with you.” There was doubt in her voice. She thought I was lying about not knowing where Olivia was; I was sure of it.
Irritation flared. “You know she’s eighteen, right?” I narrowed my eyes at her. “She’s an adult. If she wants to stay out—”
“She hasn’t finished school,” Lacey snapped. “We’ve … that is, I’ve spent far too much on her education for her to waste it now, right when she needs to focus, by gallivanting around with boys and staying out all night.”
The words stung. I’d heard their ilk before; Lacey hadn’t approved of my decision to drop out of university after she and my uncle had paid for me to attend an expensive boarding school. Of course, by then I hadn’t lived with them and they hadn’t been supporting me financially, so they’d had no leverage over me.
I opened my mouth to snarl back at Lacey, but Mum spoke first, her voice calm. “Is that what you fought about?”
“No,” Lacey said. Mum raised her eyebrows. Although she didn’t speak, her scepticism was clear. After a moment, Lacey added, “Sort of.” Her gaze slipped away from us to study the garden outside.
“Have you tried to contact her on Facebook or her phone?” I said.
“Obviously.” Lacey flashed me a disdainful look.
“I have too,” Justin added quietly. “She’s not answering me either. I’m worried.”
Mum crossed her legs and leaned back into the couch, knitting her fingers together and resting them on her thigh. Her casual pose surprised me. I felt about as relaxed as a cat staring down the jaws of a snarling, drooling Doberman. “What was the argument about?” she asked.
“I told you,” Lacey said.
“No, you didn’t. You said it was sort of about her gallivanting. I’m asking you for details.”
“Why?” Lacey said. To my surprise, a faint blush coloured her cheeks, and I realised what Mum had seemingly already figured out. Lacey didn’t want to talk about the fight.
“Because it’s obviously relevant.”
“I don’t see how.”
Mum sighed, a soft, resigned sound, and stood. “I don’t expect you to like us, Lacey, but we both care for your daughter. I know you do too, so I expect you to be able to find the decency to be polite. We just want to make sure she’s safe. Why did you ask Justin to call if you don’t want our help?”
Lacey glanced at me but didn’t say anything.
“I expect calling me was Jat’s idea.” I looked up at Mum. “But she probably agreed to it because she thinks I’m a troublemaker, and all of us troublemakers run together.”
“I thought she might reach out to you.” Lacey looked as if she’d swallowed a slice of bitter lemon. “As family. That she might be looking for somewhere to stay.”
“She hasn’t,” I said. Olivia and I got on well enough, but we weren’t close. “Have you tried her school friends?” I recalled how happy Olivia had been at her party; she’d almost seemed to glow, and not just when we’d given her our gift. The expression of a girl in love? “Or does she maybe have a boyfriend?”
“She broke up with Sam almost a month ago.” Justin picked at a loose thread on the hem of his jeans.
“A new boyfriend then?”
Justin shrugged, and Lacey shook her head, the motion stiff. “She didn’t have a new boyfriend.”
“Are you sure? She might not have—”
“I’m sure,” Lacey said. If the words had been any harder they’d have serrated her lips on the way out.
Mum spoke, her voice gentle but her gaze intent on the older woman’s face. “What was the fight about, Lacey?”
“She’s pregnant, alright?” Lacey blurted. My mouth fell open, slack with shock. Beside me, Justin inhaled sharply. “The stupid girl got herself pregnant. That’s what we fought about. After I paid for her birth control and everything!”
Mum didn’t look surprised; she simply nodded as if she’d suspected as much. “And you pressed her to have an abortion?”
“I…” Determination tightened Lacey’s jaw and pride lifted her chin. But shame also coloured her cheeks. “She wants to keep the baby. I told her not to be foolish.”
I stared at her. “No wonder she took off. It’s her decision!”
“It’s not just me saying it.” Lacey balled her hands into fists on her hips as she glared at me with all the fire she could muster. “Sam wants her to get an abortion too.”
“Jesus, Lacey.” I leapt to my feet, glaring right back at her. “You’re such a robot!”
“Better a robot than a deadbeat girl or her layabout mother. The last thing I want is for Olivia to turn out like Davina!”
The oxygen went out of the room … or at least that was what it felt like as I gasped for breath. My hands clenched into fists, and I might have launched myself across the empty couch at my aunt, but Justin intervened, jumping up and looking between me and his mother.
“Stop it!” he yelled, his voice breaking. “Both of you, stop it! Olivia is missing, and I don’t care if she’s pregnant. She’s my sister. I want her to come home!” He sobbed once, a strangled, choking sound, and then stumbled down the corridor towards his room.
Lacey looked like I had punched her after all. I knew how she felt, because I felt the same way, my chest aching and my stomach churning. “Jat…”
“Leave me alone!” His bedroom door slammed, and I flinched. Lacey was as pale as parchment.
“Justin is right. Our priority right now has to be Olivia’s wellbeing,” Mum said. How can she be so forgiving when Lacey just insulted us both? But I could see the hurt, the anger, in the way her hazel eyes flashed and her nostrils flared with a slowly drawn breath. She just kept those emotions on a leash with a steely control I wished I shared.
Lacey seemed to deflate against the back of the couch, weary beyond her years. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m just frustrated and worried, and it makes me want to scream.”
“Well, now you’ve gotten it out of your system, why don’t we go put the kettle on and talk about this like grown-ups?” Mum gave Lacey a small smile, and the other woman winced, but turned towards the kitchen.
“I’m going to go poke around Olivia’s room,” I told Mum as she started after Lacey. “See if I can figure out where she might have gone.”
Mum nodded, understanding in her eyes. If I had to spend any more time with my cousins’ mother right now, I really might hit her. One grudging apology didn’t make up for her behaviour.
I hurried down the corridor, hesitating at Olivia’s closed door before heading farther down to Justin’s. I knocked tentatively. “Jat?” No answer. “Justin?”
“I said leave me alone.” The words were muffled, barely audible through the bedroom door. I imagined him on his bed, his face stuffed into a pillow to muffle his sobs, and I ached to hug him the way I would have when he was younger and he’d scraped his knee. The feeling was made even worse by the fact that his tears were partly my fault. But I knew he wouldn’t want me to see him crying. He had my uncle’s stupid machismo bullshit to thank for that.
“Okay.” I hesitated, resting my head against the door and closing my eyes. “I’m sorry, Jat.”
He didn’t reply, so I trudged back to Olivia’s room, feeling about an inch high.
I’d been familiar with Olivia’s bedroom in my aunt and uncle’s previous house, but by the time they’d bought this huge place Olivia had been in her teens and intent on maintaining her privacy when possible. So I wasn’t sure what to expect when I cracked open the door.
The room was huge—not as big as the palatial master bedroom upstairs, but closer to a good-sized master bedroom in a regular house. A double bed sat against one wall, under a high window, a pastel pink and cream bedspread tucked in with military precision and mounded with pillows.
Beside the bed loomed a dresser backed by a mirror, bearing makeup, a small number of hair-styling products and a red leather jewellery box. The dresser too was pastel pink, but Olivia had seemingly tried to moderate the saccharine Disney-princess look by painting the front of each dresser drawer with blackboard paint and sketching pictures in chalk on them. On one, a Chinese dragon twisted in a sinuous knot, surrounded by cartoon flames. On another, a sun beamed down on a field of grass, dotted with smiling daisies and dancing butterflies. A heart in one corner had been smeared as if by an angry hand; maybe it used to contain someone’s name. Her ex’s?
The space on the opposite wall was dominated by an easel bearing a half-finished painting: the stylised silhouette of a tree wavered against a riotous background. The floor on that side of the room had been covered with a clear plastic protector. A second chest of drawers—this one less dainty and bearing pots of paint, brushes and an expensive stereo—sat near the easel. Beside it was a door; a quick peek confirmed that it led to a tiny ensuite that smelled of a citrusy shampoo.
The entire room was orderly; even the small bottles of nail polish and the tubes of paint were arranged in rows, coloured soldiers on parade. Olivia had never struck me as a neat freak—but then, Lacey had a cleaner come once a week. Maybe Monday was their day. If they’d tidied up in here, my odds of finding any handy scraps of paper bearing hastily scribbled names or addresses were greatly reduced. Even the waste paper basket was empty.
I looked in the closet. It was hard to judge, but it seemed as if Olivia had packed before leaving rather than just fleeing the house in tears: there were no jeans, and a conspicuous space gaped in the row of T-shirts on one shelf, as if she’d grabbed a stack to shove them in a suitcase. It was hard to tell from the shoes on the floor whether a significant number of pairs were missing; unlike me, Olivia owned more than one pair of boots and sneakers.
I closed the closet door and turned to the dresser. Maybe she kept an old-school paper address book? I doubted it, given she owned a smart phone, but you never knew. It was more likely that she’d have a diary or bullet journal, but if she did it would be well hidden.
The dresser was full of hats, accessories and undergarments. After confirming nothing was buried underneath, I didn’t look too closely at the profusion of satin and lace. The chest of drawers by the easel was more interesting: it contained sketch books and old canvasses. The top drawers were full of her older work. Based on the date painted or written underneath her name in the corner of each, it was from around when she’d started art classes in high school. I wasn’t artistic, but it was interesting to see the difference between the stylised, almost cartoonish people in those early drawings and the more-realistic depictions in her later works.
When Mum came looking for me, a cup of coffee in hand, she found me sitting on the floor with my back to the wall, a large watercolour notebook from the bottom drawer splayed open on my lap. “What on earth are you doing?” She set the cup down on the carpet protector beside me.
“Looking for clues.” I turned the page carefully. A big-eyed girl that was at least half kitten stood there, one hand on her hip. She looked as if she’d just stepped out of an anime. Damn, Olivia’s good.
“Avoiding Lacey, you mean.” Mum drifted over to the dresser, lifting the jewellery box’s lid.
“That too,” I admitted, glancing at the doorway to make sure my aunt wasn’t lurking there. All clear. Still, I lowered my voice. “Sorry I abandoned you with her. She does bad things to my blood pressure.”
“Mine too.” Mum shrugged, poking through the jewellery, which clinked softly. “That ring we gave Olivia for her birthday isn’t here. She must be wearing it.”
“I’m glad she likes it.” I put the sketch book to one side so I could safely take a sip of coffee. It was good: faintly nutty, strong and smooth. It was lucky I never had trouble getting to sleep, or having caffeine at this time of night would be a bad idea, and I never could resist the opportunity to try expensive coffee. “I hope she’s okay.”
“I’m sure she’s with one of her friends. Lacey rang around those whose numbers she has and they all deny it, but I expect one of them is lying.”
“I hope it’s that simple.” I nibbled my lip, setting the cup to one side and picking up the sketch book. “I wonder if she has one of those apps that let you find your phone? Maybe we could use that to track her down?”
Mum turned to me, eyes wide. “You can do that? I thought that only worked in cop shows.”
“Not with my crappy old phone, you can’t. But Uncle Ian got Olivia a new handset last Christmas. Jat was crazy jealous. I don’t know exactly how they work, though.”
“I’ll check with Lacey. She might have already tried.” Mum strode from the room, and I returned to looking at the pictures. I loved the soft colours in this notebook; some of the other sketchbooks had been done with bold inks, but these were gentler. A few seemed to be life sketches, while others were more imaginative. I didn’t know whether she’d invented the characters herself or was painting from a reference, but the technique looked good to me.
Towards the back of the notebook, there was a two-month gap, and then the paintings took a darker turn. A face, tear-streaked, in profile. Wind-swept winter streetscapes. A darker version of the bright painting on the easel, one where the tree was gnarled and strange, the background muted. Looking at the dates, I felt a pang of sadness. They had been done in the four months after Uncle Ian passed away.
Guilt gnawed at me. I should have made a bigger effort to be there for Olivia and Justin after their father died. At first, I’d been so caught up in my own fear, knowing he’d been murdered, believing an Oneiroi was hunting me, sending a warning. And after we’d saved Mum and neutralised Ikelos, I’d been busy helping her transition out of the nursing home and into a normal life, as well as dealing with the lack of an office in which to run my business. Still, those seemed like pathetic excuses now.
“I’ll do better, Liv,” I whispered to a painting of a strange dreamscape, twisted and gloomy. A single bright butterfly looked lost amidst the jagged rocks and clawing trees. “I promise…”
I turned to the next page and my blood froze, leaving me glued to the spot. The figure was a silhouette, the shape of the shoulders and hips distinctly male. Hair curled around his face, which was all in shadow except for a pair of amber-bright eyes. Wings fell down his back, orange smudged with black. Like those of a Monarch butterfly.
With my fingers numb with terror, I turned back to the previous picture: that lost, lonely butterfly. A memory surfaced: Olivia’s sheer delight at the girly ring we’d given her, despite it being cheap compared to what she was used to. That had been a butterfly too.
Oh shit. I leapt to my feet, clutching the notebook to my chest, and bolted down the corridor, looking for Lacey.
I found her and Mum in the kitchen. Lacey looked a little less haggard than before as she wiped down the kitchen bench. She looked up as I thundered into the room, my boots raising a racket on the hardwood floors. “What is it?”
“Before, when you said you didn’t want Olivia to grow up like Mum, what did you mean?”
Lacey hung the dishcloth over the faucet and straightened her spine as if facing a disciplinary committee. Head high, soldier. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Uh-huh.” I waved the apology away. Mum crossed her arms, her expression disapproving. “What did you mean when you said it? Was it just the pregnant teenage single-mother thing, or was there more to it?”
Lacey blinked. “There needs to be more?”
“What’s this about, Melaina?” Mum asked.
I slapped the notebook down on the granite benchtop. The book’s leather exterior stuck to the slightly damp surface. Olivia would have yelled at me for that, but I didn’t care. I flipped it open to the picture of the Oneiroi. Because that was what it was. I couldn’t tell for sure whether it was the Morpheus or his brother, but the tremor in my hands told me which one my subconscious thought was more likely. The king of the Oneiroi had never shown an interest in my human family. Ikelos, though… “Look at this.”
The two older women clustered around me, leaning in to examine the picture. Mum’s eyes widened, and her hand flew to her mouth. Lacey frowned. “That’s just one of Olivia’s little paintings. She’s going through a surrealist, fantastic art phase. She has such a vivid imagination. She always has, since she was a little girl. She wants to do art at university, you know.” Her expression turned sour. “Or she did, until now. It’s such an impractical choice, but I’d rather she did that than not study at all—”
“What about her dreams?” I demanded.
Lacey’s eyes narrowed. “What about them?”
“She always has crazy dreams,” Justin said from the door. His eyes were red and his fringe was mussed. “What’s going on?”
“Does she always remember her dreams?” I looked between him and his mother.
“She says she does,” Lacey said, shrugging. “And she certainly seems to prefer sleeping to getting up and being a productive member of this household.” She darted a glance at Mum. “But it’s nonsense. No one always remembers their dreams.”
“I do. So does Mum,” I said. “It must be genetic.”
“Oh no,” Mum whispered, her gaze fixed on those burning Oneiroi eyes.
I nodded, agreeing with the despair in her tone as much as with the words. “Olivia is a lucid dreamer. She’s pregnant. Ikelos is alive. And Ewan is missing.”