The crow sweeps past me into the sumac branches over the creek. The water makes a narrow gray corridor into the brush, and I storm right into it, ignoring its icy bite soaking through my jeans, after the bird. It startles into flight as I approach but doesn’t go far—just enough to keep me following as it hops from branch to branch, with a guttural clucking like low-voiced laughter. Soon I’m knee-deep in the water, my feet and calves in screaming knots from the cold, and the street is lost behind me, the house vanished from sight. Civilization disappears so fast, and so silently.
“Well?” I yell up at the crow, into the treetops.
You took your time, Queen of Swords. The whisper buzzes past my ear like an insect. I almost put up a hand to swat it away.
“So what? You got what you wanted. I told them. That was my secret.” I falter. “And now they hate me. Now everybody will hate me.”
Did we really get what we want now, did we?
“You know you did!” Can they hear the frantic rabbit racing of my heartbeat? They can’t tell me now that I misunderstood. There’s nothing else they could have meant.
You can’t cheat us, Queen of Swords, we know you, that wasn’t the real secret, not the one that really costs, it’s cheap, barely any flavor
“What do you mean? That was the only secret I’ve got! It just cost me all my friends. I made sure it did! You were watching, you saw it!”
A shiver goes through the brush. The crow twitches its wings, flashing black feathers somehow reminding me of hair flipped over a shoulder.
“You don’t get to change the rules!” I shout. “You got your fucking present! Where’s my sister?”
So hasty, they murmur, so rude, you drag your feet till the moon is full and now you’re so hasty, is that any way to give a gift? Have some manners, show some respect
I want to scream. I want to hit something. But what am I going to fight, the crow? The trees? I don’t even have my sword. I can’t fuck this up, not now. I take a deep breath, fold my arms.
“Sorry.”
What do you say, come on now, what’s the magic word?
I grit my teeth. My feet are numb, my jeans clinging icily to my thighs.
“Please,” I grate out finally. “Please. I did what you told me to. Please give me my sister back.”
Giggles flutter down around me.
Aww, look at the Queen of Swords all alone without her friends, should we have pity on her? Let’s think about this, let’s consider
“Come on,” I cry. “I did my part! I did what you asked! Isn’t that enough?”
Ohhhh it’s a start. There’s a smile in the words, a predatory glee. It’s certainly a start.
“Fine.” My teeth are rattling now. “Great. So what is it I’m supposed to do next?”
Meet us in the castle, you’ll need to find the way, of course, you’ll need a guide
“What do you mean, a guide? What guide?”
So dull, Queen of Swords, sharpen up if you’re going to play this game, you already know how your sister did it
I open my mouth to protest, because that isn’t remotely true. I have no idea what Deirdre did to get us into this mess. Except for—
“So I…have to make one of those monsters. Is that it? How?”
Sharpen up, Queen of Swords, you’ll figure it out and you’ll have to pay for it, of course, everything has a price
“Like what, exactly, in this case?”
You’ll figure it out, they drawl. You should know what we like by now, you’ll figure it out, go figure it out now, go
“Perfect,” I mutter. The crow’s throaty chuckle rises up behind me as I turn and splash back the way I came, stumbling.
* * *
I’m not going home, not yet. My parents think I’m at school. I should have the whole day to deal with this, to put it behind me, and I’m not going to think about what will happen after that. My soaking jeans feel like they’re made of molded ice, but I’m not stopping to change, to risk getting mired in questions the second I walk in the door.
I push my way through the grass in the empty lot, around the looming heap of dirt, and through the slanting cedar doorway. Those last few bones haven’t moved from their hiding places in the grass. A skull, a long thighbone, little random bones. I line them up on the ground and crouch over them, hugging my knees to hold the warmth in, trying to think.
A few orange sprigs of fallen cedar make an impressive, feathery crest when threaded through the crack in the skull. Twinkling from the ground here and there are bits of broken glass, blue and green and dirt-smudged. I collect them, polish them with a corner of my sweater, spread them out on a rock. Two of them look about the same size as the eye sockets, which gives me an idea; I wedge them in place, grinding the sharp points against the bone, so that two mismatched eyes gleam up at me.
They ought to like that.
I scour the clearing for possibilities: pebbles, mud, long twiggy branches, and stouter pieces that might be good for building something. Pale, reaching mushrooms. Dead fern fronds. Wet, rocky clay dug from the ground.
But the clay proves ineffective at holding any but the smallest pieces together. I wince at the memory of Deirdre demanding I fetch her some string. String would be perfect right about now. After another flash of insight, I wrestle my sweater off, yank my T-shirt over my head—one of the ones I bought with Sophie—and pull the sweater back on by itself, shivering. There’s a hole starting in one of the shirt’s underarm seams. Cheap crap. But that makes it perfect. I dig my fingers into it and yank until it rips.
It takes a surprising amount of time and effort to tear the shirt up further, but between the sharp points on the remaining bits of glass and a desperate strength, I manage it eventually. Still, getting the component pieces lashed together in some configuration that will stand turns out to be a serious pain in the ass. When I think about Deirdre’s creations, though, I can’t imagine they’re especially sturdy. The one I hit collapsed easily enough. Whatever’s animating them must be holding them together too. I resort to leaning my creature against a tree, hoping the woods will do me the same favor.
I’m trying to figure out how to get the skull mounted as its head when it dawns on me that the voices yelling in the distance are familiar. They’re shouting my name. When I pull my phone from my bag, I have thirty-five missed calls. All from home.
It’s not even noon. Sophie’s frightened face flashes through my mind. She was calling her parents. Who must have marched right down the hill to demand justice from my parents. And the police are still camped out in our driveway.
Shit. Shit.
I take a last, hurried stab at hanging the skull from the long, zigzaggy branch I propped up as the creature’s spine, and the whole thing falls over with a crash. I smack my fist into the nearest tree in frustration, but I can’t stay here any longer. They can’t find this place. God knows what they’ll think if they see this. I shoulder my bag and duck out through the cedars, running through the grass to the road.
I’ve reached the driveway when Mom comes around the corner of the house, catches sight of me. She staggers a little, like I’ve hit her. And then she comes running toward me, flings her arms around me so tightly, I can barely move my arms. For a moment, the only sound is her shaky breathing.
“You,” she says, in a leaden voice that promises the direst consequences, “had better get inside.”
* * *
It’s bad enough that my friends—my former friends—reported my transformation into a raving lunatic, my unprovoked attack at the bus stop. But then I went and disappeared. And surfaced again soaked and filthy, my lips blue-tinged with cold, and my shoes caked in mud and pine needles. It doesn’t take a detective to surmise that I’d gone looking for Deirdre again.
Not only am I confined to the house, I’m confined to my room.
“I can’t go out at all?” Dad, standing over me, shakes his head. “But—I’m working on—I have to! It’s important! I won’t go far, I promise!”
He just looks at me with a beaten, incredulous expression that says Really? “Forget it, Skye.”
“You don’t understand.” I can’t keep the tremor out of my voice. “I—it’s important. What about school?”
“With everything that’s going on? Are you kidding? You’re obviously not coping as it is.” His voice goes oddly pointed, his lips thin. “It can wait. Some things are more important.”
Mom, standing behind him, lifts her chin. They don’t look at each other, but tension quivers between them. If I got up and left, would they come after me, or would they just start yelling at each other?
Dad’s weary lecture is followed by one from Mom that’s ranting and tearful—I have to pay for Sophie’s phone; they’re never signing me up for martial arts again—and a brief, stern one from Officer Leduc. I’m lucky I didn’t seriously hurt someone. I’m lucky I’m not facing charges.
I nod through it, staring at my feet, waiting for the killing blow. But it never falls.
There’s not a word about Tyler.
They don’t bother taking my phone away, so in the bright quiet of my room, with muffled voices arguing overhead, I sift through the online wreckage of my attempt at being someone else. A raft of people I barely know are suddenly invisible, having blocked me. Sophie has disavowed me with capitals and exclamation marks, though not by name.
TFW someone you TRUSTED shows you what they’re REALLY like!!!
Kevin has chimed in too.
uh yeah! told u so, maybe listen to me next time!
His response is followed by a clamour of exclamations and questions from Sophie’s handmaidens and ominous replies of DMing you!! And William, absurdly, is trying to play peacekeeper.
Come on guys her sisters missing of course shes freaking out
JFC William I know you like her but WAKE UP this is NOT OK.
I didnt say it was ok, just saying theres context is all
in denial much
sucks that yr gf is a crazy bitch but srsly
^This. You’re TOO NICE you can do better!!!
I puff out my breath in a ghost of a laugh. I’m tempted to post a comment agreeing with her. I scan the exchange again. I know you like her. Yr gf. Well. Whatever. That’s all about a different person. I’m the Queen of Swords. I’m steel inside. The words bounce off me without impact.
Why the hell is he still defending me? It’s either sad or hilarious, I can’t decide which. But they haven’t told anyone about Tyler yet. How is that possible? Why wouldn’t they?
A text message flashes across the top of the screen. It’s from William—three letters: wtf?????
I toss the phone aside. WTF indeed. Welcome to my life. If he has any sense, he’ll stay out of it from now on.