“None of you will remember this. She’s going to erase your memories, too.” He looked at the Others. “If you come near my family again, I’ll kill you.”
The bells clattered as Kane ran from the diner. They rang again as someone followed.
“Kane!”
It was Ursula.
Despite his rage and fear, Kane halted. “I’m going.”
“You can’t. Not with those things out there. At least let us give you a ride.”
“I’d rather take my chances.” It was true; he would rather face the horrors of the night than spend another minute with these three.
Ursula shrugged off her flannel.
“Here. It’s cold.”
Kane took it. The warmth that seeped into his fingers felt intrusive. It smelled like her smell of soap and deodorant, and that felt intrusive, too. A million Trojan horses, a million betrayals trotting through his senses.
“Kane, before you go—”
He stalked off, listening for the bells that meant Ursula had left him behind. They never came, which meant she was still in the cold, watching his back, watching him forget her again. Hating himself, he slipped on the flannel.
Because Ursula was right. It was cold, and it was a long walk home.
• Thirteen •
THE FEMALE ANGLERFISH
When Kane slipped through his kitchen door it was two hours later. His feet ached from the six-mile walk. His shoulders hurt where his backpack dug in. His hand was swollen, his bruised knuckles split and seeping as though punching Elliot had curdled the bright magic hidden just beneath his skin. Now it rose through him darkly, like oil pushing up through layers of pressure and rock. Kane shook his hands again and again as he walked in tight circles in his kitchen, listening to the still house for any sound of his family. It seemed impossible that Sophia would have kept a lie going for him this long, yet he’d arrived home to peace, darkness, and quiet. Too much quiet. The way things had been, Kane was surprised the police weren’t here waiting for him. Yet his phone sat sleeping in his pocket. He had vanished from this world for an entire afternoon, and it hadn’t inspired so much as a text.
Kane was too relieved to question it. Being in his own room wasn’t an option, so he made for the living room couch. Right before he dove onto it, a lamp snapped on, and up stood Sophia from the recliner.
“Late night at school, I see.”
Kane hid his bloody knuckles behind his back while his sister studied him sleepily, pushing her glasses up her nose and adjusting her blanket. She must have nodded off waiting for him.
“I covered for you,” she said finally. “Mom and Dad think you’ve been asleep since you got home right after school. Made me bring dinner up to your room. I dumped it out the window and brought back the plates. Make sure you clean that up.”
Kane pursed his lips. He knew he should thank her, but it hadn’t exactly been his choice to be abducted into a rogue nightmare. He stopped himself from saying anything at all, knowing it’d be used against him.
With a curt nod Sophia dragged herself off the recliner, her blanket sweeping behind her like a rich cape. Halfway up the stairs she stopped. “In the morning, you’re going to tell me where you’ve been. If you lie, I will expose you to Mom and Dad. I’d rather have you in jail than lost again, Kane. Those are my conditions.”
And then he was alone again. His backpack slumped to the floor, and soon he was there alongside it, just sitting in the pool of golden lamplight.
He was still there an hour later, and an hour after that, too afraid to sleep, to dream. He was too afraid that if he looked away his house might dissolve into the ether, like the arena. He felt like he did whenever he glimpsed the Cobalt Complex through the thin forest that hid it from the roads; like he was flirting with a hidden vastness folded into the fabric of reality, like if he stared for too long, he’d lose himself within it, belong to it, and he’d never find his way back out.
What the hell was he going to tell Sophia?
Oh, I put on a magical device in a dreamworld and it caused my powers to go haywire. Oh, also, I have powers.
He kept his hands decidedly clenched.
When morning arrived, it arrived in fringes, just a rosy nuisance tickling Kane’s bloodshot eyes. Then the light was somehow everywhere. Soon the house would be awake.
Kane stretched his stiff legs, then flopped back onto the carpet, crushing his backpack in the process, and that’s when he remembered the red journal.
It took only a second to dig it out of the bag. He eyed it like it was edible, like he was about to flay it open and devour its pages. In the rush of escaping the Others, Kane’s mind had kept itself purposefully blank. Now the memories of Dean Flores burst like fireworks, one after the other. Boom, boom!
“‘You must never tell your friends about me,’” Kane recited. “‘If you do, they will hurt you, then they will hurt me.’”
Well they had already hurt Kane, which meant half of Dean’s prophecy was already true. And Dean was not simply a civilian. He had been lucid, like Kane. Like the Others. Yet he was not one of the Others. He was the one constant of Kane’s first day, yet he was the one thing that had yet to fit.
Drawings of shoes danced across the journal pages. What he now knew were Elliot’s sneakers and Adeline’s flats. Kane flipped, looking for another clue. Another photo. He was sure Dean had guided him this far. Kane was desperate to go farther.
An alarm went off somewhere in the house. His parents. Sophia rose second. She’d want answers. Kane needed to think of more lies.
Something in the pages flashed. Kane flipped back but it was gone. He shook the journal upside down, and it fluttered out.
It was a card of heavy paper, bordered in golden filigree. The font was elegant and sparkling. It said:
TO: Kane Montgomery
WHAT: You are cordially invited to attend tea for two.
WHERE: 147 Carmel Street
There was no signature, but scrawled at the bottom was a line of glossy black ink. When Kane brushed his thumb over it, the looping letters smudged.
It read:
Kane shot down Carmel Street on his bike, zipping past Victorian houses converted into boutique offices and salons. As he approached downtown, the thick foliage broke apart to admit denser developments that lost their character and melded together like braced teeth. He was sure the invitation was Dean’s next clue, just like Dean had passed him the photo in the same journal. The address on the invitation was the library. He wondered if Dean liked books. Maybe they liked the same books.
Right now.
Kane had left in a rush, but not before dirtying some dishes and penning a note about some early morning tutoring. He knew Sophia would see through this, so he’d texted her. Don’t worry. I’m fine. I’ll tell you everything.