Chapter Eight
EIGHT
When dawn hauls itself wearily over the horizon like a bruised lemon, Evander has written nine lists of murder theories and tacked his Suspect Index Cards to the wall.
The wallpaper fauns look reproachful as he spears thumbtacks through their foreheads.
His current plan is to shove all his crawling, spidery dread aside and stare at the cards until supporting evidence pops into existence and solves all of his problems.
So far, he has too many assumptions and hunches.
And sadly “is a prick” isn’t enough to put Laurie before a judge.
A gust of wind sends loose leaves pattering against his window and Evander jumps half out of his skin.
Paranoia has him by the jaw. Or perhaps it’s the lack of sleep and the new wave of hunger leaving holes in his stomach.
He could go downstairs and dig about for food if he wanted.
No locks stop him anymore. This is freedom, isn’t it?
He stares at the door until his eyes ache, thinking only of that looming wall of darkness, thick enough to sluice over his hands like a toxic oil spill. No, stop it. Daylight has come. He had a silly little nightmare and now he’s being ridiculous.
That’s what they’d say to him when he was screaming on the floor as a child, elbows burned from thrashing against the carpet.
Threads of black stitching unraveled from his surgery wounds next to deep red fingernail grooves from when he tried to tear himself back open.
But it felt as if they’d sewn him up inside out and upside down.
He could feel the wrongness inside him. They taped mittens over his hands and when he tore through them, they strapped his arms to his sides and put him to bed.
Stop being hysterical.
Stop it.
Instead of opening his door, Evander flattens himself on the carpet, his chin perched atop his stacked fists, and ignores the hunger stabbing hot knives through his middle. He stares at the open pages of the field guide.
Illustrations of furred poisonous leaves stare back at him.
Wolflock—known for its sharp-tipped leaves that resemble canine ears and bell-shaped flowers the color of charcoal. Toxins in the petals and pollen. Ingesting causes vomiting, nausea, split-vision, numbness in extremities, disordered speech. Symptoms may resemble a stroke.
King’s Sleep—identified by black trumpet-shaped petals with a single white berry grown in the middle. Toxic to the touch. Will cause rashes, swelling. Ingesting leads to permanent paralysis.
Bloodberry—bright red berries grow to the size of grapes and cluster within soft curling green vines. Entrancing to behold. Ingesting one will cause pleasant hallucinations, two will cause delusions of self-harm, three will grip the consumer with the need to self-amputate any limb they can reach.
An itch pulls at the underside of his feet, an urge to slip into the garden and look for these impossible nightshades. It walks two fingers down his spine, this feeling he’s never been allowed: curiosity.
Low murmurs make his head snap up, his eyes darting to his closed door as sounds grow louder from the hallway. Voices pile over each other, unfamiliar and staccato. Footsteps hit the carpet. His doorknob turns.
A small flicker of hope surges in his chest. It could be Carrington with breakfast and meds and normality restored—although he isn’t sure if he even wants that—but then the door is flung open with a dramatic shove and a terrifyingly tall woman strides into his room, with another smaller, more timid, woman hurrying in her wake.
Evander scrambles to his feet, his panic a living thing screaming through his skull. No one should be in his room. That was the one rule to keep him safe, to be sure he was never hurt again.
“This is him?” the tall woman barks. “I must say, I expected worse.”
Evander blinks, not entirely sure how to take that. He backs up until his shoulder blades hit the bookshelf, and he must look like a trapped thing, a terrified thing, cowering as his room is inundated with unwelcome guests.
The tall woman takes up the most space, her voice a boom with a smoky rasp and her leopard-print heels stabbing at the carpet.
She wears color like an eruption, like a punishment: bold red pants and voluminous blouse and heels of oozing mustard, her jewelry overstated and lavish with matched rubies in her bracelets and earrings.
A shock of styled white hair surrounds a face creased with age and heavy makeup, and she wastes no time in flashing white saber teeth at Evander as if she’s caught sight of her prey.
The second woman wears a dark, sensible pantsuit, her arms full of bags and an umbrella and car keys and a clipboard she appears to be attempting to take notes on while making a phone call. A thin sheen of panic lives in her eyes. Evander relates.
He catches sight of Laurie slouching by the doorway, looking as sour as ever as he wears a yellow button-down, soft as sunlight with the short sleeves cuffed, and white shorts in a curated look of expensive summer relaxation. Though he seems anything but at ease as he watches.
It all stokes Evander’s panic from bonfire to inexhaustible inferno.
“What a small thing.” The tall woman turns to Laurie and snaps, “Does he speak?” Without waiting for an answer, she whips back to Evander and bears down on him in an overwhelming cloud of saccharine roses and bergamot. “Do you speak?” She slows down each word, her eyes flared wide.
Evander tries to slither away, but she catches his jaw with her red-polished talons and squishes his cheeks until his lips pucker. “There isn’t much we can do about his appearance except tidy it. Jessica! Write that down. Have the cleaners responded yet?”
“Uh, no, ma’am.” Jessica looks like she’s fighting for her life to not drop everything. “But I did place the call only a few minutes ago…”
“Unacceptable. Call again. And a barber. I can barely see his face under this ghastly mop.”
This has to be Oleander Lennox-Hall, sister to Byron and Laurie’s dreaded great-aunt. Sixty seconds with her seems like an overdose and Evander is paralyzed by sheer, undiluted anxiety.
“Those eyes,” Oleander muses, “are far, far too green. Such prettiness wasted on a boy. Laurence!” She snaps this last word so loud that Evander jumps.
“I have no idea how many of your grandfather’s horrible relations are coming for the funeral, but they will not sniff out any weakness here.
All my things need to be transported to Byron’s primary suite and I shall need all the keys.
Those shrews won’t get a dime when they realize who they’re up against.”
Laurie hasn’t moved from the doorway, but his arms cross and his sourness seems directed only at her. “It’s not actually your money. As soon as Evander turns eighteen, you won’t have a dime either.”
Oleander looks like she’s been slapped and rears to her full, intimidating height with nostrils flaring and a hand clutched to her chest. But it means she releases Evander.
He bolts to the corner of the room and flattens himself into the narrow space between the wardrobe and another bookshelf, breathing so fast he’s about to hyperventilate.
He doesn’t want to be touched. He never wants to be touched. The hot sting behind his eyes is less embarrassing and more infuriating; how he is seventeen years old and still can’t keep himself together.
“I will have none of the usual disrespect from you, young man.” Oleander’s voice cuts cold as ice. “Byron may have let you run amok and speak back to him, but I will not tolerate it.”
Laurie matches her gaze, his jaw tight and that mocking smirk playing with one corner of his mouth. “Okay.” But even agreement from him sounds like a sarcastic joke.
Oleander narrows her eyes. “I have waited decades to take my rightful place in Hazelthorn and I will be damned if I let anyone snatch this from me. I will put this decrepit estate in order and keep the boy in hand. Come here.” She snaps in Evander’s direction.
He just gapes at her.
“He’s not,” Laurie says flatly, “a dog.”
Oleander glares at Evander in a way that says she’d like to fix him to a board, pins through his wings and chloroform pressed to his mouth. She rakes a long dissecting look over his trembling form and then turns abruptly, snapping her fingers at her skittish assistant instead.
“Have my staff installed in their new quarters.” Her eyes gleam and she seems lost in her own scheming.
“Anyone who arrives for the funeral shall be put in, shall we say, the most subpar guest rooms. Just as a reminder of their temporary place on this estate. We will need to hire maintenance to fix up these dour halls. Write that down, Jessica.”
Jessica scribbles madly, the phone tucked between her chin and shoulder as hold-music drifts from the speaker. “Of course, ma’am. A brilliant idea.”
“I have so much to do.” Oleander sighs loudly. “Byron’s selfishness has allowed this estate to fall apart, but I shall have tea before I commence fixing everything.”
The instinct is primal, the way Evander pushes from the wall with panic flooding his eyes, his tongue frozen to the roof of his mouth. Only Laurie notices. Evander assumes he’ll get a mocking smirk, since no one believes him about the poisoning anyway, but instead Laurie clears his throat.
“You might want to avoid the tea,” he says. “It’s got … weevils.”
Oleander is stabbing her way to the door and she waves him off dismissively. “I brought my own. As if I’d touch the tea leaves here anymore. Jessica, I feel like matcha.”
“Right away, ma’am.” Jessica tucks her head low and scurries out after her tornado of an employer, who is currently pounding down the north wing hallway and complaining about every darkened nook and mold-furred painting and how they desperately need to modernize.
Tension leaks out of Evander, his bones watery and his chest aching from breaths held too long. But the shock of what she said has settled.