Chapter II #2
“Why?” he asks—and that right there, the wall he puts up, protecting her —it’s the final fucking straw.
“Why?” she snarls. “Because she did this to me.” Alice’s throat tightens around the words. “She ruined my life. She made me this way. And then she just left. ”
Ezra frowns and shakes his head. “That doesn’t sound like her.”
Alice stares at him, aghast, anger rising like bile in her throat. She wants to sweep the cups from the table, to say it doesn’t fucking matter if it sounds like something she would do, because she did, she stole Alice’s life, right when it was starting.
But before she can lash out, Ezra holds up a hand.
“Tell me what happened.”
The anger in her does a strange thing then. It hardens.
Catty always burned hot. But now, Alice feels herself go cold. Cold enough it hurts her skin, her bones, her throat as she forces the words out, tells him about the party, and the aftermath, the Post-it Note, and the bottomless hole in place of answers, or explanation.
Alice tells him everything, And Ezra listens, arms folded and eyes cast down, until she’s done, or at least until the story catches up with where she is, right here and now, and there’s nothing left to say.
Then he runs a hand through his hair. “Something doesn’t add up,” he says, “but it’s not your story.” He shakes his head. “The Lottie I knew would never do something like this.”
“Yeah, well,” mutters Alice. “People change.”
“They do,” he says, his voice dipping as he adds, half to himself, “all things wither in the end.” He sighs and sits forward. “We need to find Lottie.”
“Great.” Alice is already on her feet. “Let’s go.”
He cocks a brow. “Where exactly?”
“You know her. Lottie. Charlotte. So then, you know where to find her. Lead the way.”
Ezra shakes his head. “I don’t know where she is.”
Alice feels her spirit start to buckle again. Until he raps his knuckles on the table and stands, adding, “But I know someone who might.”
Alice follows Ezra across the coffee shop, picking past sofas and chairs to a back corner, where a Black girl in a BU sweatshirt sits cross-legged in a booth, large pink headphones clamped over her ears, blasting hard rock loud enough for Alice to hear the reverb.
She’s typing furiously, empty espresso cups and a small pile of philosophy textbooks spread in a half circle across the table, like a barrier that says Keep out.
Ezra leans his arms on the side of the booth.
“Melody,” he says in a singsong voice.
“Studying,” she singsongs back, her fingers never slowing on the keys.
“I need a favor.”
“I need good grades.”
“I haven’t charged you for the last three—” He glances back toward the counter, and the barista holds up four fingers. “— four espressos. And I’m feeling generous enough to clear your tab. For the week.”
The girl—Melody—sighs, fingers hovering until one twitches and taps a key. The music cuts off in her ears, and she plucks the headphones off, and settles them around her neck. “What do you want?”
Ezra smiles. “I’m looking for someone.”
“I take it they don’t have a phone?”
Ezra shakes his head. “Afraid not.”
Alice watches them volley, wondering how the hell this girl is going to help them find Lottie—this girl, who smells like cinnamon and soda bread, whose heart is a steady rhythm in her chest, who is undeniably, unmistakably human, until she rolls her neck and cracks her knuckles and says, “I’ll need something she’s touched. ”
At which point, Ezra nudges Alice forward.
Melody studies her. “I see.”
“I don’t,” says Alice.
“I told you,” says Ezra. “White Thorn Black Roast caters to a varied clientele. My favorite customer, Melody, in addition to being a reliable patron, has certain sensitivities.”
She rolls her eyes and shoots a look at Alice. “He means I’m psychic.”
Alice stares, unsure if this is another joke. In her defense, it’s been a long few days, and the girl doesn’t exactly look like she spends her free time staring at a crystal ball.
“Yeah, well,” says Melody, with a withering stare. “You don’t look like a vampire.”
Alice recoils as if struck. The girl’s mouth twitches in amusement. “Take a seat.” She glances at Ezra. “I’ll need a large coffee. Black. And a plate.”
He gives a small salute and strides away, one hand in his pocket, as Melody starts to clear the semicircle of cups and books out of the way.
“Philosophy?” asks Alice, trying to fill the awkward silence.
“I wanted to go into law,” she says. “But it’s hard when you already know who’s innocent and who’s guilty.”
“So you read minds? See the future? Speak to the dead?”
“I’m not a medium,” says Melody, nodding toward the barista, whose lips are still moving, pausing now and then as if listening. “I don’t speak to the dead—present company excluded.”
That word rings through Alice like a bell.
“I’m not—” she stammers.
“Sorry,” Melody says quickly, “didn’t mean to offend.”
Then Ezra is back, depositing the cup of coffee and the plate on the cleared space between them.
Melody takes a sip, then promptly upends the rest onto the dish. The dark liquid spreads, running edge to edge, but doesn’t go over the sides. It settles into a shining black pool.
“All right,” she says, as if steeling herself. “Give me your hands.”
Alice hesitates.
It’s not just the fact that, an hour ago, she didn’t know psychics were real, or that two days ago, she was a first-year student whose biggest concerns were keeping up with coursework and trying to make friends.
It’s that the last time she let a stranger in, she woke up dying ( Dead.
) and now her life has been turned upside down, and she’s sitting in a coffee shop she found by following a song too soft for human ears with some girl who can read her mind, and Ezra made jokes about angels and demons, too, and how is Alice supposed to know what’s real, what’s right, what’s happening to her, when every door that should have answers opens onto questions and who knows what anyone would even see if Alice let them look into her mind and—
“Alice.” Melody’s voice is steady, but kind, somehow in the booth and in her head at once, calling her back into her body. “Trust me,” she says. “I’m not looking for anything I don’t need.” And then, in a lower voice, “And don’t listen to Ezra, he’s full of shit.”
“I heard that,” he mutters, leaning against a nearby post.
Alice manages a brittle smile, then swallows, and reaches out, and lays her hands on top of Melody’s.
Cold on warm, and she can feel the heartbeat through the other girl’s skin, and she clenches her jaw as the hunger stirs again, like a beast waking from a shallow sleep, and forces her gaze to the still, black surface of the coffee on the plate where Melody is staring, too.
“Okay,” says the psychic. “Think of the last time you were with her.”
Alice tries to meet Melody’s gaze, but her brown eyes have taken on a kind of fog, pale wisps curling over the irises, and it makes her think of standing in the yard back home, when the moon was bright enough to light the low clouds so they looked like they were glowing, Finn’s small voice calling to her from the doorway and—
“Focus,” urges Melody, squeezing her hand.
Alice swallows, forcing herself to remember.
She looks down at the still black surface, and lets her vision blur as she thinks back, retracing her steps until the other girl’s pulse becomes the beat of the music through the walls, and then she’s coming out of the bedroom, and there she is, as if she’s been waiting there all night, just for Alice.
She stands, and drifts forward, until she’s close enough to kiss, and that’s when Melody’s hands vise around hers.
The memory gutters, going murky in Alice’s mind, a black-on-black ripple before Lottie springs back into her line of sight, only now the party is gone, the violet dye is gone, her curls glossy and dark, the short silver dress replaced by black slacks and a black-and-white-patterned blouse, a silk bow cinched at her throat.
She’s striding up a spiral staircase, heels sinking into a plush blue rug, and fingers trailing a blue-patterned wall, and Alice’s heart lurches as Lottie looks back over her shoulder, right at her, with those eyes like strong tea, and that coy smile, dimple flashing in one cheek.
And in that moment, Alice wants to surge forward, grab her and pin her to the wall, but she can’t.
This isn’t her mind, this isn’t her memory, and Lottie isn’t looking at Alice, because Alice is someone else.
Their fingers are tangled, and the hand that isn’t her hand is darker, the nails painted autumn shades of gold, and amber, and red, and as Lottie leads her up the stairs, she does the only thing she can.
She follows.
The two of them walk up and up, past gilded sconces to a landing, and down a hall to a room, where Lottie grabs her—not her—by the waist, pulls her—not her—back against the door with a breathy laugh, the same sound that made Alice’s knees go weak the night she killed her.
And Alice tries to say something, to say No, to say Wait, to say Run, but the two of them are already tumbling back into the room, and the last thing she sees is the number—139—etched into a gold plate on the door, before Melody lets go of her hands, and the vision crumbles, and Alice is left feeling like someone slammed the door in her face.
She recoils, back in her body in the coffee shop booth, Lottie lingering like a camera flash behind her eyes, repeating every time she blinks. She sits there, caught between the two places, two selves, shivering with anger.
“Well?” asks Ezra, who’s perched backward on a chair.
Melody rubs her eyes, as if clearing away sleep. “She’s at a hotel.”
“Oh good, there are so few of those around.”
Alice shakes her head, locks her hands in her lap until her knuckles ache.
“There was blue,” she says, trying to force the tremble from her voice. “On the stairs. Blue runner. Blue walls.”
Ezra’s expression brightens. He snaps his fingers. “The Taj.”
Alice feels her chest tighten, not with panic, but hope. “You know it?”
He nods, already on his feet. “It isn’t far. Thanks, Mel.”
“Anytime,” she mutters, pushing the now-cold coffee aside and settling the headphones back over her ears.
“Really?”
“No,” she says dryly, hitting a key so the wall of bass guitar springs up between them. Alice feels like she should say something, thank her for her help, but Ezra’s already shooing her toward the door.
“You don’t have to come with me,” she says as he shrugs on a coat.
“I could use the fresh air. Besides,” he adds, “I meant what I said. The Lottie I knew wouldn’t do this.”
But she did, thinks Alice as they leave the café, the little bell chiming in their wake.