Chapter 29
Even from inside a jail cell, it was easy to see that Crowson, Massachusetts, was a tiny little town.
Based on the terrain they’d seen since the train wreck and the two small towns they’d passed through, this part of the state reminded Malcolm of rural Indiana.
In the back of the police car, they’d driven by farms and homes and thick forest, and then past the sign that read ENTERING CROWSON—A SWEET LITTLE TOWN.
The “sweet” part seemed to spring from it being the home of a company called Sundrop Taffy.
Malcolm had never heard of the candy, but based on the size of the shop they’d passed on the main street, he figured it must be a local favorite.
It was also just about the only thing worth noticing on Crowson’s main street, which in the pale light just before sunrise had looked like the perfect slice of American pie.
The kind of thing Malcolm had always been told he’d be fighting for in the army.
Aside from the police car that brought them in, the only other vehicle on the street had been the milkman making his rounds.
He wished they could stay here, but he and Jennie—and Violet, wherever she was—would certainly not be welcome.
“What’s with these people?” he muttered. “Do they think we caused the train to derail?”
Jennie didn’t reply. She’d sat against the wall with her knees drawn up beneath her chin.
Now her breathing had deepened and he thought she might be asleep.
They were sharing a jail cell—one of three in a row—at the back of the building.
Calling it a police station seemed generous, but Malcolm supposed it was accurate.
There was a foyer with a reception desk and some chairs.
A corridor led past a few doors, one of which had stood open, revealing a clean, organized office inside.
There were stairs going down to some kind of basement, and then in the back, the cells. That was it.
Not much of a jail, not much of a police station, not much of a town.
“How did you find me?” he asked his sister.
Jennie’s breathing didn’t change. Malcolm went and slid down the wall to sit beside her. Either she’d been faking or just not sleeping very deeply, because her eyes opened and she shot him a sidelong glance that did not invite conversation. Malcolm figured he didn’t need an invitation.
“Jen.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“We’re locked up.”
“Yeah. And we’ve gotta get the hell out of here. The sun’s up. Even if we get out of here in an hour, we’re not gonna make Shediak by dark.”
Malcolm shrugged. “As long as we’re there in time to bury her by sunrise tomorrow.”
“It would’ve been a lot safer to make it before the sun goes down again.” Jennie banged her head softly against the wall. “That’s impossible now. But the faster we get out of here, the more time we’ll have to get through whatever trouble gets in the way.”
The monsters were sleeping now, or at least hiding from the sun.
Jennie had confirmed that, or at least that it was what she’d been taught.
Every hour of sunlight they could use for traveling would be that much more of a head start, so he felt the same urgency to get out of jail.
But something about Jennie’s words and tone implied a different kind of trouble. It worried him.
“You want to elaborate on that?” he asked.
Jennie answered his previous question instead. “You asked how I found you. Truth is, I wasn’t looking for you. I knew what train you were on, checked the schedule and route, and figured out the earliest point where I could meet up with you.”
“I haven’t seen you in years. Haven’t heard from you.” Malcolm bit back the hurt and resentment that came from being abandoned by the older sister he’d loved. They were in danger, and such feelings were for later, if ever.
“That couldn’t be helped.”
“Because you had to see the world,” he said.
Jennie sniffed derisively. “I wasn’t taking a holiday, Mal. I’ve been everywhere. I’ve studied and I’ve trained. Educated myself about the true things that were the seeds for so many myths, including witchcraft.”
“Including vampires.”
“Them, too. That was a little harder. There aren’t many people alive who’ve met one. In this country, there isn’t anyone, now that Maggie’s dead.”
Malcolm knew they needed hours to have this conversation, maybe days, and they didn’t have that kind of time. He’d resented her for a long while, even as he’d missed her.
“Why?” he asked. “I know what you said to Violet, that Maggie didn’t pay attention to you, but that was just Maggie.”
“I know it’s hard to understand.” Her smile had sharp edges.
“But we had a bond. She made me feel like I was the sun in her sky—when she wasn’t making me feel like shit.
She told me folktales and stories about witches and monsters and tricksters and women in love.
She’d talk to me about the power a woman could wield.
She was proud of me, Mal. Right up until the day she wasn’t. ”
Malcolm knew the way their mother could turn off her love, as easily as twisting the knob on the kitchen faucet and stopping the flow of water. But this seemed like something even more than that.
“Maggie told me I didn’t have witchcraft in my blood, so I should figure out a way to be useful,” Jennie went on.
“Can you imagine a mother saying that to her daughter? Put aside the witchcraft—she dismissed me and told me to find a way to make myself worth her attention. I’ve spent years trying to do that, and now here I am, taking care of Momma’s special boy. ”
He bristled. “I never did anything to you aside from being an annoying little brother when we were kids. But half the time, the way I remember, it was you and me against Elias. I thought we were close.”
Jennie closed her eyes again, as if she didn’t want to look at him while she spoke.
“I was her daughter and firstborn,” she said. “What she could do … I told you, it’s more than words. Anyone can sing the lyrics to a song, but some people are born with a beautiful voice and an ear for music. If you don’t have those gifts, no amount of training will change that.”
Malcolm watched the way his sister’s eyes moved beneath her lids, and the twitch of her upper lip. No matter how hard she’d become, how formidable, there were deep wounds inside her. This hurt.
“She thought it would be me,” Jennie said again.
“When she realized I didn’t have the … the harmony with the secret world, which is how she sometimes referred to it, I don’t have to tell you what her disappointment felt like to me.
You know how much she could hurt us just with the way she spoke, the way she looked at you … or looked past you.”
Malcolm feared she would flinch, but he reached out and took her hand. Jennie allowed it, but a moment later, she extricated her fingers from his grasp. Whatever spite she felt, she didn’t want to surrender it.
“That’s why you said I was her golden child.”
Jennie opened her eyes and turned to him, gaze sharp. “She thought you were. For a month or so, she concentrated on Elias. Little tests he never noticed. I guess he had a trace of it, but she decided it had to be you.”
She gave a quiet, brittle laugh. “I hope like hell she was right.”
Malcolm thought of the blood and the screams from that night.
He’d seen far more killing, far more death in the war, but this was much worse.
That had been combat, terrifying and heartbreaking, but eventually, the two sides would always put their weapons down, mourn the dead, and rebuild.
These creatures were obviously incapable of that.
“If she was wrong,” he said, “I’m pretty sure we’re going to die.”
Jennie laughed again, this time a bit more brightly. “Let’s hope you’ve got the stuff, then, little brother.”
“I hope Violet figures out how to get us out of here,” he said. “Or it won’t matter.”
Jennie exhaled, relaxing a bit. “You really love her, huh?”
“Since the day we met,” he said, then realized the implication.
“I’d never have let it go anywhere. Swear to God.
But Elias abandoned her—cast her off like garbage—and we grew close.
We sort of held each other up, took care of each other, and Maggie at the same time.
She knows me like nobody ever has. She—”
“Okay, lover boy. You can shut up about how perfect she is. If you’re worried about me judging you or taking up against you on behalf of Elias’s honor, don’t fret.
Elias has grown up to be an alcoholic whoremonger, and I wouldn’t wish marriage to him on my worst enemy.
As for Violet, she’s gorgeous and has some real backbone.
If I’d been left alone with her for a year or so, I’d probably have fallen in love with her, too. ”
“Oh,” Malcolm said, blinking. He cocked his head. “Oh!”
Jennie narrowed her eyes. “I’m going to do my best to put aside the bitterness I’ve been nursing all this time, at least until we put Maggie in the ground. I don’t know what that’ll mean when it’s done, but I don’t think you and I are gonna be best friends.”
“I’ll settle for a sister.”
Jennie bumped the back of her skull against the wall again. “I’m always that. Even when I want to toss you off a bridge.”
Malcolm was fairly certain she was joking, but he didn’t want to probe any further, just in case. “Fair enough.”
She stood up and crossed to the bars of their cell, peered out into the corridor, then turned to face him. “Any ideas about getting out of here, soldier?”