The girl sees it too, because she slides from the bed and offers him a glass of water from the top of the dresser. He knocks the glass away hard and it shatters, the sound little more than a crackle. His fingers dig into her arm. She pushes him away a few times before he loses his grip and stumbles back into the bed frame. She turns, runs. He’s up, swiping a large shard of glass from the floor. It cuts into his hand as he lunges for her. She’s at the door when he reaches her, and they tumble into the hall.
I drag my hand along the floor until I can see them through the doorway, and then I wish I couldn’t. He’s on top of her, and they are a tangle of glass and blood and fighting limbs, her slender bare feet kicking under him as he pins her down.
And then the struggle slows. And stops.
He drops the shard beside her body and staggers to his feet, and I can see her, the lines carved across her arms, the far deeper cut across her throat. The shard pressed into her own palm. He stands over her a moment before turning back toward the bedroom. Toward me. He is covered in blood. Her blood. My stomach turns, and I have to resist the urge to scramble away. He is not here. I am not there.
You killed her, I whisper. Who are you? Who is she?
He staggers into the room, and for a moment he breaks, slides into a crouch, rocking. But then he gets back up. He looks down at himself, the glitter of broken glass at his feet, and over at the body, and begins to wipe his bloody hands slowly and then frantically on his bloody shirt. He scrambles over to the closet and yanks a black coat from a hook, forcing it on and pulling it closed. And then he runs, and I’m left staring at the girl’s body in the hall.
The blood is soaking into her pale blond hair. Her eyes are open, and in that moment, all I want is to cross to her and close them.
I pull my hands from the floor and open my eyes, and the memory shatters into the now, taking the body with it. The room is my room again, but I still see her in that horrible light-echo way, like she’s burned into my vision. I shove my ring on, tripping over half the boxes as I focus on the simple need to get the hell out of this apartment.
I slam the door to 3F behind me and sag against it, sliding to the floor and pressing my palms to my eyes, breathing into the space between my chest and knees.
Revulsion claws up my throat and I swallow hard and picture Da taking one look at me and laughing through smoke, telling me how silly I look. I picture the council who inducted me seeing straight through the worlds and declaring me unfit. I am not M, I think. Not some silly squeamish girl. I am more. I am a Keeper. I am Da’s replacement.
It’s not the blood, or even the murder, though both turn my stomach. It’s the fact that he ran. All I can think is, did he get away? Did he get away with that?
Suddenly I need to move, to hunt, to do something, and I get up, steadying myself against the door, and pull the list from my pocket, thankful to have a name.
But the name is gone. The paper is blank.
“You look like you could use a muffin.”
I shove the paper back in my jeans and look up to find Wesley Ayers at the other end of the hall, tossing a still-wrapped Welcome! muffin up and down like a baseball. I don’t feel like doing this right now, like putting on a face and acting normal.
“You still have that?” I ask wearily.
“Oh, I ate mine,” he says, heading toward me. “I swiped this one from Six B. They’re out of town this week.”
I nod.
When he reaches me, his face falls. “You all right?”
“I’m fine,” I lie.
He sets the muffin on the carpet. “You look like you need some fresh air.”
What I need are answers. “Is there a place here where they keep records? Logs, anything like that?”
Wesley’s head tilts when he thinks. “There’s the study. Mostly old books, classics, anything that looks, well, like it belongs in a study. But it might have something. It’s kind of the opposite of fresh air, though, and there’s this garden I was going to show—”
“Tell you what. Point me to the study, and then you can show me whatever you want.”
Wesley’s smile lights up his face, from his sharp chin all the way to the tips of his spiked hair. “Deal.”
He bypasses the elevator and leads me down the flight of concrete steps to the grand staircase, and from there down into the lobby. I keep my distance, remembering the last time we touched. He’s several steps below me, and from this angle, I can just see beneath the collar of his black shirt. Something glints, a charm on a leather cord. I lean, trying to see—
“Where are you going?” comes a small voice. Wesley jumps, grabs his chest.
“Jeez, Jill,” he says. “Way to scare a guy in front of a girl.”
It takes me several seconds to find Jill, but finally I spot her in one of the leather high-backed chairs in a front corner, reading a book. The book comes up to the bridge of her nose. She skims the pages with sharp blue eyes, and every now and then turns her attention up, as if she’s waiting for something.
“He spooks easily,” she calls behind her book.
Wesley runs his fingers through his hair and manages a tight laugh. “Not one of my proudest traits.”
“You should see what happens when you really surprise him,” offers Jill.
“That’s enough, brat.”
Jill turns a page with a flourish.
Wesley casts a glance back at me and offers his arm. “Onward?”
I smile thinly but decline to take it. “After you,” I say.
He leads the way across the lobby. “What are you looking for, anyway?”
“Just wanted to learn about the building. Do you know much about it?”
“Can’t say I do.” He guides me down a hall on the other side of the grand stairs.
“Here we are,” he says, pushing open the door to the study. It’s stuffed to the brim with books. A corner desk and a few leather chairs furnish the space, and I scan the spines for anything useful. My eyes trail over encyclopedias, several volumes of poetry, a complete set of Dickens.…
“Come on, come on,” he says, crossing the room. “Keep up.”
“Study first,” I say. “Remember?”
“I pointed it out.” He gestures to the room as he reaches a pair of doors at the far side of the study. “You can come back later. The books aren’t going anywhere.”
“Just give me a—”
He flings the doors open. Beyond them, there’s a garden flooded with twilight and air and chaos. Wesley steps out onto the moss-covered rocks, and I drag my attention from the books and follow him out.
The dying light lends the garden a glow, shadows weaving through vines, colors dipping darker, deeper. The space is old and fresh at once, and I forget how much I’ve missed the feel of green. Our old house had a small yard, but it was nothing like Da’s place. He had the city at his front but the country at his back, land that stretched out in a wild mass. Nature is constantly growing, changing, one of the few things that can’t hold memories. You forget how much clutter there is in the world, in the people and things, until you’re surrounded by green. And even if they don’t hear and see and feel the past the way I do, I wonder if normal people feel this too—the quiet.
“‘The sun retreats,’” Wes says softly, reverently. “‘The day, outlived, is o’er. It hastens hence and lo, a new world is alive.’”