Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
“Your Mom had a lot of weird stuff,” says my cousin, Nora.
Her voice is tinny through the speaker. I lean against the headboard, my back to Aleo, who is also on the phone, this time with his mother.
His conversation is far more animated than mine, although to be fair, it sounds like she’s reminding him that she’s the one paying his tuition, and he’s about as thrilled as can be expected.
It’s weird that I’m a landlord now. Seeing money come into my account every month from my mom’s house is…
surreal. I’m glad that it’s Nora, if it has to be anyone, but I’m still tense at the mention of my mom’s stuff, even though that’s part of the deal.
I don’t really expect Nora to live with boxes and boxes of junk, do I?
OK, fine, maybe I do, a little bit. I haven’t had a chance to go through everything yet. Even though I know I can trust Gretchen to make decisions on my behalf, I’m worried about letting go of the wrong things.
Which is exactly how Mom became a hoarder. And exactly what I’m not going to do.
“Like what?” I ask, hoping it isn’t anything embarrassing.
“I keep finding this symbol,” says Nora. In the background, Jolene meows, loud and insistent, like she knows I’m on the other line and wants to know where I’ve been and when the fuck I’m coming home.
Guilt cuts through me. I try to focus. Jolene is fine. Bruce is fine. I don’t need to worry so much. This conversation could be important. “What kind of symbol?”
“Well, it’s like… Kind of hard to describe. It’s like a circle, with some waves and, like, some curly lines? I keep finding it everywhere.”
Nora sleeps in my mom’s bed now, underneath her window, with her cat and dog. I can’t stop thinking about that.
There’s a reason I never bother checking in.
That, and I’m terrified that one day she’s going to ask me to call a plumber, and I’m going to have to make a phone call like an adult.
I hate professional phone calls. I’d rather live in an apartment with no lightbulbs, no A/C, and a broken toilet than call maintenance. Jeremy dealt with all of that, which is absolutely not why he cheated on me, I tell myself, even as my gut twists.
My mind flashes back to the weird stone pendant I found in Mom’s stuff.
Was it the same symbol? It sounds like it, but I’m hesitant to leap up and paw through my suitcase like I really want to.
Aleo’s going to notice and I’m loath to explain.
We’re almost friends, and I’d like to keep it that way.
If he finds out how weird I am, he’s not going to want to hang out anymore. I’m already lonely enough.
“Huh,” I say, like this is the first I’ve heard of it. I’m cool as a cucumber. Absolutely not jealous that she’s found something in the house that I should be living in.
Cool as a cucumber, I remind myself and add, “Where are you seeing it?”
“All over the place,” Nora groans. “Johnny and I moved the stove, and it’s scratched into the side of the counter. I found a drawing taped up inside the linen closet—same thing. It’s even on the garage floor. It’s like she was in some freaky cult or something.”
Instinctively, I want to snap at Nora. The words, She’s not in a cult! rise in my throat. I swallow them down, tap my fingers on the mattress. “I, uh, don’t know about any cults,” I say instead. “But that’s really weird. Could you send me a picture?”
“Seriously? You lived here and you never noticed?”
My heart gives a spasm. How did I miss this? “I guess not.”
“It’s just so weird,” Nora says.
In the background, there’s clattering sound. A male voice says, “Are you telling him about the weird-ass symbols?”
“Yes,” Nora shouts. “He says he’s never seen them!”
“How? Is he blind?”
“Maybe,” I say, and Nora stifles a laugh.
“I’ll send you pictures,” she promises.
An hour later, Aleo finally leaves to go take a shower. I dive under my bed and locate the pendant just as my phone buzzes. True to her word, Nora sent a picture of the garage floor.
My heart stutters. In the photo, dozens of plastic bins and cardboard boxes have been moved to the side to make room for what I assume is a car.
The cement floor is dark, oil-stained, dusty, but beneath the debris, there’s an outline.
At first, I think it’s chalk, then I realize it’s probably spray paint.
I look down at the pendant in my hand.
My blood runs cold.
It’s the exact same symbol.
By morning, I’m thoroughly convinced that the symbol is one of two things: a sigil, like I’d originally suspected, or it’s representative of some kind of deity. Maybe a god. Maybe something worse.
Admittedly, these theories are supported by sleep-deprivation and a dash of tequila, not any actual research.
Aleo and I spend the morning at the gym. It’s a good thing he’s spotting me, because I’m so tired I can barely see straight, and nearly drop two-hundred pounds on my face. Aleo’s quick reaction time is the only reason my brains aren’t splattered on the floor.
“Holy shit, dude!” he cries. People are already looking at us—a crashing barbell is nothing short of a spectacle—but others turn to stare as I sit up, rubbing my forehead, jolted back to life by a rush of adrenaline. “Watch out!”
“Sorry,” I groan, massaging my temple. “Holy fuck, I’m sorry.”
“Everything OK?” calls a guy from a treadmill.
I nod. My face heats. I’m drenched in sweat, suddenly shaky. “I think, uh, I’m just gonna use the StairMaster today,” I tell Aleo, who shakes his head at me.
“Do you think you can manage that? Did you even sleep last night?” He gesticulates wildly. People continue to stare.
“I think so,” I lie. I’m not actually sure if I slept. But I’m pretty sure I can manage the stair machine, and it’s blessedly empty right now, so I start toward it.
“Dude, you’re a mess,” says Aleo, following me. “You should go back to bed.”
“Naps don’t get results,” I say, aiming for cheeky.
He doesn’t fall for it, just stands at the base of the Stairmaster with his arms spread. “I’ll catch you when you fall,” he snaps.
I roll my eyes. Aleo eventually wanders off to use another machine. Ten minutes later, I get my shoelace caught in the machinery and have to hit the emergency stop button. From a treadmill, I catch him mouthing, I told you so.
The rest of the morning passes without incident, but Aleo ribs me all through breakfast while Jane and April shoot me concerned looks. I’m desperate to show Jane the symbol, but it isn’t until lunch that I manage to get her alone.
“Hey,” I mumble, when we’re finished with our plates. “Do you, um, wanna look at something weird?”
She blinks at me, startled. She’s attempted a cat-eye today, but one side is already smudged. It’s pretty rare that Jane wears makeup, and I’m immediately suspicious. Have I forgotten something? Is this a glow up?
Or does she have a crush?
“Weird as in…?” She frowns at me.
“Apparently this symbol’s all over my mom’s house.” I pull out my phone and open my messages, scrolling until I find the photo of the garage floor.
Jane glares at my screen. “What the fuck? What do you mean it’s everywhere?”
“My cousin says it’s all over. In cabinets, under the stove.” I shrug.
“And you never noticed?”
“Nuh-uh,” I say.
“Is this the reason you almost died this morning?”
I flinch. “Maybe.”
Her gaze is too knowing. I want to look away, but she has me pinned.
“OK, fine, I was up all night. Happy?”
She shakes her head, then murmurs, “I might’ve seen this before.”
My stomach lurches. “What? Where?” Instantly, I imagine waves scrawled across stalls in the women’s restroom.
She chews her lip, contemplative. “I’m not sure.”
While she frowns some more, I silently (and therefore politely) crash out. What if it is a cult? What if I’m the result of some freaky ritual?
What would happen if I went into the ocean?
Tentacles. Definitely tentacles. Fuckfuckfuck. OK, but people are into tentacles. Maybe I can start an OnlyFans. Wait, are there laws against that? Am I technically a sea creature? Is my entire existence some kind of legal gray area?
I remind myself that I don’t know anything yet, which only spikes my anxiety. Not knowing is the worst part.
Seconds pass. Jane is still chewing her lip.
Finally, I say, “OK. Let me know if you remember it later.”
Later turns out to be dinnertime. Outside, it’s gray and drizzly, but the dining hall is cozy, warm, well-lit. Raindrops slide down the windows, distorting my view of the trees. And while I’d love to pretend I’m not affected by the weather like everyone else, my mood has gone sour.
Some of this is Duncan Stirling’s fault. He won’t stop sitting behind me in history class. Every time I see him, my stomach lurches. Unnervingly, I still want to stuff my face into his hair and inhale obscenely.
Worse, sometimes I kind of want to bite him, but I tell myself that’s a perfectly normal manifestation of my disgust and not some kind of weird, possessive impulse that has needled its way into my very bones, an animalistic instinct that I can’t fight because I don’t understand it.
It’s distracting.
My phone buzzes. April has gotten ahold of a copy of The Blessed Fates of the Cursed, an ancient paperback with a Fabio-eqsue model on the cover, reaching his hands through the bars of a prison cell.
She, Aleo, and Collin are enthusiastically acting out a prison riot scene.
April as the illustrious Fiona throws herself back in her chair and lets out distressed moans.
Aleo and Collin argue over who deserves her more, playing the roles of the prison guard, Harry, and her cellmate, Reggie.
It’s not a piece of classical literature so much as a bodice-ripper, but I don’t fight them too hard when they thrust a copy at me and order to play the part of Hot Rob, the island barbarian who bursts into the prison with a quiver of arrows on his back, wearing a loincloth made of sharkskin, intending to rescue the still tragically moaning Fiona.
My phone buzzes on the table. It’s Jane.