A beckoning, below.
Felicity / FELICITY
Chapter 83
Tress
Piles of people. Hands and arms and legs. Slick skin, pale faces. Hot breaths, warm and vacant, fill the air. There is no more laughter. All are silent.
Hugh, in his throne, suddenly small, bleary, barely there, a question not asked yet on his lips. Ribbit, naked, collapsed on the floor, the zigzag scar on the back of his calf bright and angry, fresh like only yesterday. The clock ticks, backward, the only thing moving in the room.
I’m down again, more blood out than in, crawling over people, but they are wrong, too small, hands and faces and feet, and the boy in the concert T-shirt is too young to be here, is only a child, who thought I was his mother in the stairwell; why are we all children again?
On the stairs, the clock stops.
Chapter 84
Felicity
Shadow. Shadow and light. Something in the dark. Something on my chest. Something is near me. Something is here.
Chapter 85
Cat
Another girl
different now
almost gone
her blood has spilled
mixed with my girl’s
together they are
Fel—Tress—icity / FEL—TRESS—ICITY
Chapter 86
Felicity
My hair it floats tangles with Annabelle’s we float bubbles from her mouth bubbles from Lee’s nose eyes flat and dead and fish take a nibble there is a weight on my chest, half of a heart. I am pulled angry words (no don’t can’t shouldn’t won’t LISTEN TO ME!). Hair dangles swinging with my hair and the heart it tangles I am carried out of the water I am carried onto the bank I am carried I am dripping I am wet I am
carry me take care of me
not the raven flashing tattoo black it is an angry Z red slash of skin not healed stitches like small mouths held tightly shut hands on my face hands wanting me to be okay this boy always wanting to help always wanting to make it better always wanting to make up for the thing that was so wrong Oh Tress oh Tress oh Tress they are dead and I knew but I didn’t know that I knew and he KNOWS he KNOWS—not me. Oh Tress you are in danger and you will not stop I know you and you will know and I cannot help you I am going I am going I am going
Chapter 87
Felicity
I am gone.
Chapter 88
Tress
I am helpless, and there is no one to help me. I will do it myself, like always. I grit my teeth, spit, come to my feet. Behind me, a shadow, some movement. I turn in time to see a black tail slip out the front door.
“Run,” I tell it. “Go far.”
Back to the kitchen, I unscrew a light bulb, propping myself against the table for a second to catch my breath, watching as a glimmer of sunlight reaches through the grime on the window.
“I’m coming, Felicity,” I say, making my way to the door.
The steps are hard, my good hand clutching the light bulb, my bad one holding the rail as best it can. I follow the glow of my phone, find the empty socket, screw in the light bulb.
“I’m back,” I tell Felicity.
She doesn’t hear me.
Felicity is dead.
Chapter 89
Tress
There is no movement upstairs as I finish my work, the trowel heavy in my hand, the bricks impossible, but made possible, by dint of my will. I began something, I will finish it. Slowly, I entomb the body of Felicity Turnado.
My best friend.
Chapter 90
Tress
Upstairs again, my bad hand, purple and numb. I pick my way through the people, children no longer, my head clear now. Too clear. I know what I did.
I wake Ribbit, who smiles at me as soon as he opens his eyes. Naked. Trusting. A child. He sees my arm and wants to help, wants to fix it, wants to make everything better. I tell him it is unfixable, and he nods, still drunk, but seeming to understand the finality of unfixable.
We move through the yard, past what used to be William Wilson.
We put the Allan house behind us.
A house that will soon be torn to the ground.
Chapter 91
Felicity
I ask for the boy, as always.
“Hugh?”
His name bounces back to me. Echoed. Rejected.
“Hugh?”
There’s no answer but my voice, saying the same thing. Again.
“Hugh?”
I reach for him, because he always reaches, too, and we touch, and then everything is okay. Because touching Hugh is how I know I’m back. But he’s not here.
There’s no one here.
I open my eyes to find him, but they are already open, and I cannot open them more.
There is nothing to see.
But I can feel.
And all I feel . . .
. . . is bricks.
Chapter 92
Cat
No metal no fence no bars
no girl no man no Almost Human
no old meat, only fresh,
many, many last / bests
and where once there was a house
and a boy swinging
and a woman sobbing
and a baby screaming
and the smell of my girl.
Those things are gone now.
And instead I hear, quietly,
under rock and dirt
The sound of crying.
Acknowledgments
First, thanks as always goes to my agent, Adriann Ranta Zurhellen, who has yet to tell me that I’ve finally run off the rails. Secondly, to my editor, Ben Rosenthal, who probably assumes by now that I don’t know how a calendar works or what the base ten number system is, but we both trust my copy editors to catch all my issues with logic and linear time.
There are so many people (and animals!) in a person’s life that lend a hand in the writing of a book. I must thank fellow writer Kamerhe Lane for the stream of consciousness series of texts that she received from me over the course of a single day as I cooked this book and weighed the possibility that I couldn’t deliver it, and trusted in her assurances that I could.
Kate Karyus Quinn and Demitria Lunetta are invaluable to me as sounding boards in both my professional and personal life, which I’m sure they may regret someday—if they haven’t already. Thanks (as always) goes to Lydia Kang for not blocking my email yet, as I tend to send her fairly gruesome questions about just how much damage I can do to a fictional human while reasonably expecting them to stay alive. And finally, a big thank-you to Tiffany Ruhmer, my on-call zookeeper who was a tremendous help to me while writing this book.
About the Author
Photo credit www.amyparrish.com
MINDY McGINNIS is the author of several young adult novels, including Be Not Far from Me, Heroine, The Female of the Species, and A Madness So Discreet, winner of an Edgar Award. She writes across multiple genres, including postapocalyptic, historical, thriller, contemporary, mystery, and fantasy. While her settings may change, you can always count on her books to deliver grit, truth, and an unflinching look at humanity and the world around us. Mindy lives in Ohio. You can visit her online at