Chapter Nineteen #2
Virginia is shaking her head, and the words she’s saying now aren’t actually words. Just garbled noises. But Jack doesn’t
quit.
“What did Amelia know? What did she sacrifice?”
Cleo stands, putting herself between Jack and the chair. “That’s enough.”
“What if it helps us understand?” Jack replies, but he’s gentle with it. As gentle as I’ve seen him. Pleading, almost. “What
if it connects? She said we’re not safe, Cleo. That they’ll separate us in the dark. We have to figure out what it all means.”
Cleo shakes her head. “Come on, Jack. It’s dementia. She’s remembering old Feeds.” Cleo’s voice is quiet and Virginia isn’t
reacting to anything we’re saying. Her eyes are closed. “Do you hear any slurping?” she asks of him.
No one asks me. And I don’t hear any of it right now, so I don’t get involved.
“She doesn’t remember who I am half the time,” Cleo continues, her voice getting fiercer and more raw. “She has, more than
once, thought she was living through the Feed back when she was a kid. Whatever she’s claiming to see is only going to confuse
the now. You can’t take it seriously.”
I can see he does, though. And I have to admit I do, too, slurping or not—but Cleo isn’t in the emotional place to hear that. It’s also clear as day Jack is going to push, but I know that isn’t the right tack to take. Not when Virginia looks so wiped and lost, and Cleo right there with her.
“What can we do to help?” I ask before Jack can ask Virginia another question.
“Nothing,” Cleo says with a sharp finality.
She’s wrong, obviously. She needs help, but maybe it’s not the kind Jack or I can give. Maybe she isn’t ready to accept it,
even if she needs it. And maybe, just maybe, this is a family affair.
But that only reminds me we are family. Maybe she isn’t ready for help, but that doesn’t mean this will be the last time I offer it. I promise myself that,
even as I manage to smile reassuringly at Cleo.
Because Virginia knew me. Maybe Cleo is right and Virginia is confused, but what if my grandmother did sacrifice herself to bring me here? To bring me here not only to fulfill my role as harbinger—but to help?
Virginia is snoring softly now. She’s not the answer Jack wants her to be. Not in this moment anyway.
“Okay, we’ll get out of your hair.”
“She said we’re not safe, Cleo,” Jack insists. “You need to come to town with us. We need to all be together. That’s what
she said.”
I’m a little surprised Jack is so certain. That he’s so . . . good at believing people. I have spent my life learning not
to trust much of anyone, even those with good intentions. But he trusted me. And now he’s trusting the words of a woman struggling
with dementia.
“Come on, Jack.” Cleo sighs, looking back at her grandmother.
“Even if I thought you were right, I’m not leaving her.
You saw what happened when I did a little office work for all of twenty minutes—the neighbor saw her from the road.
” She shoves her hair back from her face.
“Besides, no demon activity has ever happened out here. I’m safe at the airport.
The four of you . . . That’s fine. You guys gather.
Stay together in the dark or whatever, if you want to take what she’s saying at face value. But I have to stay here.”
Jack opens his mouth to argue, but I can see Cleo is as worn out as her grandmother. She needs rest. A break. And us poking
at her isn’t that.
So I physically pull Jack out of the room, down the stairs, and back out of the house. Of course, he could refuse to be pulled
if he really wanted to stay. But he wasn’t moving on his own, and he makes me work to get him out the door.
We step back into the autumn afternoon. The sun is hiding behind a fluffy white cloud that might have seemed cheerful if I
didn’t feel so . . . uncomfortable. Shaky and worried.
About Cleo and demons, beginnings and ends.
Jack glares at the house, standing resolutely in place while the breeze ruffles his dark hair. I stand in front of him, blocking
him from heading back inside. Not that he couldn’t bulldoze right past me if he wanted to.
He clearly doesn’t want to. He wants to fight something, but not me. Not Cleo. Not Virginia.
His green eyes meet mine, flinty and frustrated. “She’s being willfully ignorant. Virginia was lucid for parts of that. She
knew you. There is danger. It’s here. Early.”
I can feel his frustration, just as achingly as I felt Cleo’s grief. It’s this horrible mix of emotions with no relief. Because there
are no answers here. Everything kind of sucks.
I am so familiar with dealing with that, I can’t help myself.
I move close to Jack, reach out and put my hands on his chest in a kind of comfort I know he doesn’t want—at least not from me—but he needs.
“Cleo’s hurting,” I tell him gently. “It’s not willful.
It’s the kind of hurt that means she can’t carry anything else. ”
He grunts, which is as close to acknowledgment that I’m right as I’m likely to get. There’s a dichotomy here. A man desperate
to get answers—maybe even at the cost of others on one side. On the other, there’s the man who helps, no matter the danger.
But also, he doesn’t move my hands off him. We stand there, in the breeze, in a maze of emotions, just looking at each other.
My hands are still on his chest. We’re closer than we need to be, and there’s a band of something around my lungs I don’t