I leave these words in the margins of a book most people will never think to open. It is my hope you’ll never need them because I will be able to tell you all of this in person. But Ms. Asura wants me back and I can’t risk her knowing of you. Not when your gifts are like mine.
—R.
Meridian held out the phone, but Rumi quickly pressed the speakerphone button so we could all listen.
“Juliet?” Kirian’s voice sounded scared and determined.
My head pounded. My stomach rolled. I wanted to curl up and try to assimilate all the information. My mother loved me. As much as I’d prayed to know that, it was hard to believe it was real. She loved me.
Kirian repeated, “Jewel, talk to me.”
“How did you know I was here?” I asked. Meridian was holding the question up on a piece of paper. I was grateful she was able to think. I didn’t have the strength to do this alone.
“I don’t know where you are. Ms. Asura dialed the phone. You need to come to me. I can explain everything.”
“So explain. I want to talk to Nicole. Put Bodie on the phone. Or Sema.”
“Not on the phone. I can’t. Please, Jewel? I love you. I’ve always loved you. We can be together. Live the rest of our lives. Travel the world. Just like we talked about. Don’t you remember?” His words rushed together in excitement or desperation, as if he too was being told what to say.
I remembered a lot of things, and if I’d trusted myself more I would have realized the little boy who had loved me was gone. I didn’t know this Kirian at all. “Where are Bodie and Sema? Nicole?”
“Who’s Nicole?” he asked.
He sounded genuinely puzzled. “Where are they?” My voice cracked at the top.
“Calm down. Bodie and Sema are fine. You can see for yourself.”
Meridian touched my arm. The paper said, Where?
“Where?” I asked.
“Follow the Wildcat from DG to where it merges with the Wabash,” he said.
“Can’t we meet at DG? Or the coffee shop Ms. Asura took me to?” I asked, hoping for something more public.
“Hold on.” It sounded like Kirian put his hand over the receiver and talked to someone. We all exchanged looks. Tens and Meridian whispered over the paper. I waited.
Finally, Kirian said, “No, you have to meet me along the creek where the waters meet.”
“Let me talk to Bodie,” I demanded.
“Juliet, trust me. I’ve never done anything bad to you. Meet me at midnight.” Kirian clicked off.
“Why midnight?” Tens queried.
I shook my head. I didn’t even know what day it was.
Meridian ran to the calendar hanging on Rumi’s fridge. “They think tomorrow’s your birthday.”
“But it’s not,” Rumi said.
“They don’t know that, though.”
“At least we know something they don’t,” Tony said.
Rumi’s phone rang again. This time it was Joi, saying Enid had been released from the hospital and was coming home with her.
“Where’s the bathroom?” I asked. I needed to throw cold water on my face and gather my composure or cry. Whichever came first, the other was sure to follow.
Meridian said, “I’ll show you.”
I followed her down the hallway. I heard the men start talking about plans and strategies. I felt as if I were hovering above the whole scene as a spectator.
Meridian flipped on the light switch and moved out of my way. The light felt harsh as I leaned over the sink. Bruises ringed my eyes and a bloody scratch ran down one cheek. Meridian hesitated, then backed away.
“Wait.” I turned to her. “Stay? Please?”
She nodded and sat down on the lip of the bathtub.
I had never been alone, not really. There was always someone needing something. Since Mini and Nicole had arrived, the brief moments of alone under the stairs or by the creek were golden gifts, but only because I knew they were there. “I don’t know how to—what to do.” I leaned against the sink, turned the water to cold, and splashed my face, hoping the chill might ease the ache in my head.
She stayed silent.
I stared at my face in the mirror. The bruises turned my eyes into hollow sockets. My hair was lank and dull. My skin looked as if I’d never seen the sun. Vanity was never something I clung to—I’d have been eaten alive by the need—but I certainly looked as bad on the outside as I felt on the inside. “What am I again?”
She blinked. “A Fenestra. You help the dying get to heaven, the afterlife.”
“How?”
“We look human until someone is dying and then we are the light they see and move toward, through us, to transition.”
“I’m not human?”
“Not all of you. It’s like a recessive gene that only works if you’re born on the solstice or equinox—I used to think only the winter solstice, but now I guess all the seasonal midpoints are possible.”
Pieces of my life started to fit together. All those times I’d held the hand of a dying person and saw things, knew things I shouldn’t have. “Then it wasn’t my imagination, was it?”
“What?” She leaned against the wall like she was afraid I’d spook again. Couldn’t really blame her for the caution.
“I’ve started to fall asleep and daydream when they’re dying. I taste things, know recipes and foods that I shouldn’t. Do you?”
“You’re probably fainting from the strain of the energy trying to use you. But you’re not a full window until you’re sixteen. So souls probably push. Have you been standing at windows?”
“No, nothing like that. I dream of my mom, or cities. Mostly I can taste their favorite foods and know how to make them.”
“Has it always been like that?”
“No. I mean, I’ve always cooked, but only in the past year, since Mini showed up. It got worse when Nicole came, but I thought that was because I could relax more—”
“Minerva is more than just a cat. I think she transitioned the souls with you to keep you safe.”
I sat down on the toilet, my legs turning to jelly. “Is Nicole dead? Could she have died in the tornado?”
Meridian handed me a fluffy towel. “I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t think she’s with Ms. Asura and Kirian, though.”
“She believed in angels,” I said, thinking about Nicole’s necklace.
“You don’t?”
“It’s hard to believe in anything that let that place exist.”
“You’re part angel. And you’re real. I know it’s a lot to take in, but do you think maybe Nicole was your—”
I waved her off. “So Ms. Asura wants to trade me for the little kids. Or Kirian wants me to leave with him? Why are they doing this?”
“There are Aternocti—Nocti for short—that take the dying to hell. They want to turn us into them, or kill us. They think that tomorrow is your birthday and it will open the window. They may try to convince you to join them nicely, but if that doesn’t work, then they’ll probably try to take you someplace and force you to transition.”
“And you’re saying that Ms. Asura is one of those Nocti?”
“Yes. And I think Kirian—”
I put my head between my knees, trying to breathe.
Meridian scooted over onto the floor, at my feet. “I know this is a lot to take in. I’m sorry, I wish I could make it easier for you. I really do. The good news is that your window won’t open until March, so we have time. If we, you, can make it through this, then there’s time.”
“If we get through this?”
“Right,” Meridian whispered.
“What if I go with Kirian?” I asked. “Will they let Bodie and Sema go?”
“You have that choice. We can’t stop you.”
“I have to protect Bodie and Sema.” Thoughts and images swirled in my head, whirling me around until the dizziness was too much to bear.
“I know.”
Does Kirian really love me? Or is it a trick? There was a time before he left that we lay wrapped in blankets by the creek in the wee hours of the morning and talked about our futures, the family we’d make together. Places we’d travel to and see. He’d been the one person that made my world feel less scary. “He loves me.” Until Nicole and Mini, he was the only person I could count on.
“Sure.”
“No, he has to love me.”
Meridian seemed to hesitate. “I heard a woman talking to a young man one day by the creek.”
“When?”
“I was on my way to see you. Minerva tripped me. The woman—I think it was Ms. Asura—told the man he had to do whatever it took to be ‘Romeo.’ ”
I gasped. I had called Kirian “Romeo” quietly, when no one else was around.
“I think Kirian was that man. I think maybe he’s changed.” She offered each word cautiously.
“Is Tens your boyfriend?” I asked.
“He’s more than that, he’s a Protector.”
I nodded, as if that made sense. “Have you and Tens—?”
“What?”
I blushed, but I needed to know. “Um, you know, yeah?”
“No, not yet.” She shook her head and bit her lip.
“Why not?”
“I think—” She shrugged. “I don’t know. We haven’t known each other long enough. I don’t think we’re in a rush. He goes above and beyond to not pressure me.”
“Why not? It’s what you do when you love someone.”
“Maybe, but it needs to be right.” She shredded a piece of toilet paper. “So you’ve—”
I swallowed. “Yeah, once.”
“Mmm.” He was leaving the next day, his sixteenth birthday. His meager belongings were packed. That night, we crept into the vacant Train Room. In the dark, we groped and undressed. It wasn’t the first time we’d made out. I wanted him to stay. I wanted to go with him. I wanted to give him a reason to stay with me. “It’s pretty common for kids to hook up at DG. Sometimes it was the only thing that felt good. I loved him.”
“I get it. How old were you?”
“Thirteen.” Saying it aloud it made it sound young, too young. Kirian wasn’t inexperienced, not like me. I gave him my virginity. “It felt right at the time.”
“Now?”
“He still left without me.”
“That hurts?”
I nodded.
Tens knocked on the door. “Ladies? We have a plan to go over, when you’re ready.”
I stood, knees shaky.
“Can you do this?” Meridian asked. “We can go without you.”
“Kirian told me to come alone.”
“Well, you’re not alone and you’re not going alone. We’re a team and we’ll get the kids and then maybe you can talk to Kirian. Maybe he does love you and he’s not working with the Nocti.”
I nodded. Or maybe he used me, too.