Chapter Thirty-Nine This Is How We Un-Roll
Idon’t know how much I’m supposed to say about what Jude did—or even about the tattoos that he keeps hidden from everyone—so I try to keep it as vague as I can.
Neither Eva nor Luis appreciates that, though, so I try distraction and finally ask, “What do you guys know about oneiroi?”
“Not much.” She shoots me a knowing look. “What happened to hating Jude and hoping he’d choke on a kumquat?”
“I—we— It’s…” I give up when they both start laughing.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“It’s been a very weird day,” I tell her.
“Oh, please.” Luis waves a dismissive hand. “This day left weird in its rearview hours ago.”
“True, but you don’t even know what else has happened.”
His eyes go wide. “There’s more?”
“Waaaaaay more,” I answer. And then I tell them everything that’s happened since Ember burst into flames in the hallway, which feels like days ago.
Their eyes get bigger by the second. But when I get to the root cellar and how one of the Jean-Jerks, and maybe even Jude, literally disappeared once they went inside, Eva loops her arm through mine and starts dragging me toward the other side of the island. “You have to show me this place.”
“She has to show us this place,” Luis corrects.
“Now?” My stomach grumbles in protest. “But I’m starving.”
Eva rolls her eyes and fishes in her purse for her emergency pack of MM’s. “Eat these. Because you are definitely taking us there right now. What if the hurricane floods it while we’re evacuated?”
“Then I’m pretty sure no one else will be disappearing inside it anytime soon.”
“Seriously, Clementine?” she huffs. “I swear, you have no sense of adventure.”
“I do, but I’ve had too much adventure today.” But I open the bag of candy and stop protesting. The truth is I’ve been dying for another look at the place myself. Just to see if I missed something. Because I had to, right? Even fae don’t just disappear into thin air—especially when they don’t have their powers.
Besides, Eva’s right. What if the storm does flood it? It didn’t exactly look like it was in the best shape to begin with.
When I say as much, Luis’s eyes go wide. “How bad a shape are we talking? Because I haven’t had a tetanus shot in a while—”
“You’re a wolf,” Eva huffs in exasperation. “Can you even get tetanus?”
“I’m a human, too,” he says with a sniff. “And humans can definitely get it. By the way, when was your last tetanus shot?”
“Worry about your own damn shots and leave mine alone,” she shoots back. “For all I know, you could be overdue on rabies, too. You’re definitely overdue on distemper.”
“I’m pretty sure distemper doesn’t mean what you think it does,” Luis tells her.
“Yeah, well—”
“Stop!” I tell them both with a laugh. “None of us is getting tetanus from the place! Or rabies or distemper or tuberculosis. So chill out or this pack of MM’s and I are going back to the dorm. Alone.”
They both grumble a little under their breath, but the bickering finally stops—at least for now. It is their favorite bonding activity, after all.
We walk the rest of the way talking about tomorrow’s evacuation. But when we get to the cellar, there’s a giant padlock on the door that definitely wasn’t there earlier.
“How’d you get in last time?” Eva asks.
“It wasn’t here then.” I stare at the lock. Did someone really just lock it up because I went in there? And if they did, who was it? Jean-Luc? Or Jude?
Her eyes light up. “The plot thickens.” Then she starts searching the ground around the cellar.
“What are you looking for?” Luis starts scanning the ground. “Maybe we can help.”
“Hopefully, a key.” She keeps searching while I just stare at her incredulously.
“You don’t actually think whoever did this went through all the trouble of padlocking the place just to then hide the key in plain sight, do you?” I demand.
“People have a lot less imagination than you might think,” she shoots back.
“Especially the Jean-Jerks,” Luis concurs.
Less than two minutes of concerted searching later, she lets out a crow of triumph as she bends down and picks up an actual hollowed-out rock. “I told you! No imagination.”
“So definitely Jean-Luc and not Jude,” Luis comments as she pushes the top of the rock open and pulls out a key.
“Apparently.” Eva slides the key into the padlock and lets out another happy exclamation as it pops right open. “Ready?”
I eat the last of the MM’s and shove the wrapper in my front pocket. “As I’ll ever be.”
The way this day is going, I wouldn’t be surprised if a banshee came flying out at us. Or a leviathan. Or, even worse, my mother.
But the cellar is dark and quiet as we carefully make our way down the rickety steps, flashlights on.
“Geez, how deep is this place?” Eva asks when she’s halfway to the bottom. “This is a serious amount of really scary steps.”
“Deep,” I answer, because she’s not wrong. “Probably to hide the vegetables from the Texas heat.”
“Or kill any intruders who aren’t expecting such a big drop,” Luis suggests as he starts exploring the cellar. “So where do you think they disappeared to in here? There aren’t a lot of places to hide.”
“There’s nowhere to hide,” I answer him. “Which is what I was telling you.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t believe you,” Eva joins in. “I figured you missed something, but you really didn’t.”
“I really didn’t,” I agree.
But as he and Eva keep searching for someplace, anyplace, they could have disappeared to, I fixate on the tapestry. Because gone is the happy beach scene from earlier today. In its place is a lone man standing on a stormy beach as a huge wave threatens to crash right over him.
“Ooooh, cool rug,” Eva says as she follows my gaze. “Depressing, but very cool.”
“It didn’t look like this earlier,” I tell her as I step closer, trying to get a better look at the individual threads. Is this some kind of joke? But why would someone—even one of the Jean-Jerks—go through the trouble of padlocking the place while playing a childish game of bait-and-switch?
When I say as much to Eva and Luis, she just shrugs. “Maybe it’s a different tapestry. Someone could have changed it out.”
“Maybe,” I answer doubtfully. “But somehow I don’t think so.”
“So what, then?” Now Luis sounds downright intrigued. “You think the tapestry actually changed on its own?”
If it had, it wouldn’t even be the second strangest thing that happened to me today.
“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out,” I finally answer. Then I grab the tapestry and pull it straight off the wall.
“Hell, yeah!” Eva cheers. Then she stops and asks, “What exactly are we doing?”
“What does it look like? I’m taking it with us.”
Her brows shoot up. “Don’t you think that’ll piss off the Jean-Jerks?”
“Do I look like I give a shit about pissing off the Jean-Jerks?”
I lay the tapestry on the floor and start rolling it up. It’s heavier than it looks.
Luis stoops down and helps me roll.
Once the tapestry is rolled up, Eva steps closer to the wall it was hanging on and runs her hands over the rocks.
“I was kind of hoping it was hiding a secret passage,” she says after a few moments of searching. “But there’s nothing.”
“I know. It’s the strangest thing.”
She moves to the next wall and searches it as well. “And you’re sure they were in here?”
“I saw Jean-Luc come in with my own eyes. And there were wet footprints all over the floor that led absolutely nowhere that I could see.”
She shakes her head. “Weird.”
Thunder rumbles across the sky, and Luis sighs in disappointment. “We should probably head back if we don’t want to get caught in the next rainband. Especially with that tapestry.”
I nod in agreement, then bend down and prepare to heft the huge-ass tapestry into my arms. But the heavy weight of it is gone. Now it’s lighter than my backpack.
“Here, let me help,” Luis says, grabbing the end closest to him. His eyes widen as he registers the same thing I already have. “Umm, Clementine, are you way stronger than I think you are?”
I shake my head.
“Then what—” He looks as mystified as I feel.
“I’ve got no idea. Maybe whatever magic makes it change images has decided that it likes us.”
Eva looks skeptical. “Or it’s lulling us into a false sense of security so that it can kill us.”
“Trust a witch to blame black magic,” Luis teases as we carefully climb the steps out of the cellar.
“It’s not pessimism if it’s true,” she answers with a grin.
“Well, let’s hope it’s just pessimism this time,” I tell her. “For all our sakes.”
But we barely get the cellar door closed and locked behind us before a gust of wind slams into us and sends the tapestry flying out of my arms. It hits the ground, edge first, and the impact forces it to partially unroll.
“I’ll get it,” Luis tells me, bending over to roll it back up. “The mud—” He breaks off. “Holy shit.”
“What?” Eva asks, rushing over to him. “What’s wrong?”
I’m right behind her, terrified that we’ve somehow ruined the tapestry.
But what I see is even worse. “Finish unrolling it,” I tell Luis as I grab the other end to help.
“Out here?” Luis asks.
I know he’s right, know the rain stands the risk of damaging it, but right now I don’t care.
There has been one too many creepy things going on since this storm showed up, and I can’t take the damn suspense for one second longer.
Eva must feel the same way, because she’s already grabbing the roll and walking backward with it so the tapestry unfurls.
And that’s when I freak out. Because in just the last couple of minutes, the tapestry has changed again.
Gone is the ominous beach scene, and in its place is one giant, dripping, bloodred word.
BEWARE.