Now Kane couldn’t look away from Adeline. She stared at him, past him, and for a moment he felt like he had her power and could see a person’s memories dancing deep in their depths.
“My grandmother,” she said.
The room went too quiet. Ursula pushed herself up and began pulling pans into the sink. Elliot might as well have turned himself invisible. Adeline and Kane were locked in a staring match.
“People get hurt when we mess up this bad,” Adeline said.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know.”
He flinched. “Yeah? And whose fault is that, Adeline?”
She snorted, then addressed the room with patronizing cheer. “So when are we going to talk about how, on his first official mission back, Kane went ahead and smuggled an entire-ass drag queen sorceress into a reverie, and it cost an old lady her life?”
“She’s not dead,” Kane said, heat rising to his cheeks.
“Well then what is she, dream boy?” Adeline spread her fingers toward the small kitchen. “Where is she?”
Hadn’t they seen what Kane had seen?
“She’s in her reverie. She was happy in there, before we messed it up.”
“Happy?” Adeline shoved back her chair, standing. “You think she’s living happily ever after, locked into a fake world on the wrist of that glittering maniac? Jesus, Kane, you’re as delusional as ever, but at least you used to know the difference between right and wrong.”
“I know wrong.” Kane stood, too. “Unlike the three of you when you destroyed Helena’s love story. If any of you stopped for a second and looked at her, I mean really took a look, you would have seen what I saw. She was a person, not a plot.”
Adeline’s knuckles turned tan as she grasped the back of her chair, and her voice went low. “Exactly. She was. She no longer is, all thanks to you and that witch.”
A commotion broke the tension as two small boys raced into the kitchen, pursued closely by Ursula’s father. He was a gargantuan man—like a lumbering cottage, really—but he deftly swooped the two kids over his shoulders. They screamed and reached for Ursula.
Mr. Abernathy laughed, a boisterous and booming noise. “All righty, we’ve had enough heroes and monsters for one night. Time to wash up and head to bed, right boys? Sorry, Urs, sorry, guys.” Then he spotted Kane. His face was craggy and hard, but in that moment of recognition a sweetness shone in his eyes as tender as his grip on his children. He let the boys down and scooted them toward Ursula and Elliot, who had retreated into the hall.
“Kane,” Mr. Abernathy said. “Haven’t seen you around here for a little bit. I’m glad you’re feeling better. Ursula and I—we’ve been praying for you before dinner. Mason and Joey, too, and Gail even, although she doesn’t believe in that.”
“Thanks,” Kane said quickly. “I appreciate it.”
Mr. Abernathy put his hands on his hips and surveyed the kitchen as though seeing the mess for the first time. “Ursula’s been pretty busy, I guess. More for the poker club, am I right? They’ll be over in a bit, if you’d like to join. I’ve been showing Elliot the basics, but to be honest I think he’s gonna be better than all of us. You two interested in sticking around?”
“Sorry Mr. A., but we were actually just heading out,” Adeline said. She grabbed her jacket. “Kane, I’ll drive you home.”
Mr. Abernathy went off to find Ursula and Elliot. Adeline pushed Kane from the house before he could protest.
“We need to talk. Alone,” was all she said.
But instead of talking, a heavy silence fell as they pulled out. She drove with smooth turns that went on and on, never nearing Kane’s house. She was waiting on him to start.
“I’m sorry about your grandmother,” Kane offered.
“It’s okay. That wasn’t your fault. She was fading anyways. Alzheimer’s. It runs on my mom’s side. I like to think I gave her some peace once all her good memories left her, and the bad ones became their own kind of reverie.”
“Still,” Kane said.
“Still.”
He wasn’t sure how to ask this next thought. “You said a person needs their reverie, that they’re not the same without their dreams. How are you sure this isn’t better for Helena?”
Adeline thought about this at a stoplight. “Because it wasn’t a choice she made for herself. We can’t be sure, because she can’t be sure. She doesn’t know any better, and she never will. We have no idea what Poesy does with those reveries.”
“She said she would help Helena fix it. Maybe she’s like a reverie doctor.”
“Or maybe she crushes them into bronzer? Why are you so confident she knows best, Kane? How did she win you over so quickly, when we can’t get a word out of you for two whole days?”
Kane wanted so badly to respond, but he couldn’t find the words. A new, burning agony brimmed behind his eyes. He didn’t know why he was about to cry, or why the question felt like such an invasion.
Adeline pulled to the side of the road and parked the car.
“Kane, you need to know something, and I couldn’t tell you with Ursula and Elliot there. They know what happened the night of the incident, but not everything.” She turned to face him. “You asked me to do what I did. When that crown was taking over you, you grabbed me and begged me to destroy your memories. Told me to destroy everything. And I didn’t know what to do, so I listened to you. And it worked. The crown let you go, and you survived.”
She looked at Kane, something like hatred in her big, brown eyes.
“And it kills me that I listened. I think of the person you used to be, and I hate myself for destroying him, too.”
The air thinned to nothing. To poison. Kane died upon each word, sure he couldn’t take another breath of whatever Adeline was saying. This wasn’t his fault.
This wasn’t his fault.
“Poesy is manipulating you,” Adeline went on. “Can’t you see? She’s setting you up and breaking us apart. Again. You need to forget about that crown. I’m sure she’s the one who gave the crown to you, to trigger your blowup. And maybe she stole away Maxine Osman’s reverie, too. And now she’s back, to finish what she started, to finish—”
Kane grabbed his backpack and bolted. He left Adeline in her idling car, passenger door swung wide. He left her like he’d once left Ursula: running away, determined to take the long way home.