CHAPTER 13
Soon no one was in their proper seat. Cheeks flushed and laughter reached a wild pitch.
They passed a mint around the table, mouth to mouth.
Two of the girls lost a forfeit and had to swap underwear.
Emma was pitted against Julia to race down the table.
Their high heels dodged the crystal and silver, evading the grasp of the Turnbulls who tried to catch their ankles as they ran.
But she’d made a mistake, somehow. The world warped as she ran.
Faces shouted up at her, red and leering, like a nightmarish carnival.
That punch. Had it been stronger than it tasted?
Ahead, Julia wobbled, about to tread on the head of one of the Turnbulls.
He had passed out in grand style, forehead down on the table.
Emma knew with awful certainty that if she stopped running, she would fall.
So she leapt past Julia and on to victory, dropping into Richard’s arms at the end of the table.
The room roared with applause. Emma stood, turned, raised her arms in triumph.
She was a marvel. How had she never realized that?
She was going to curtsy. But the floor got away from her.
It shifted under her feet and she staggered, arms windmilling.
Something solid hit her back. A table. It was tilting, a heavy object sliding past her—
The Turnbulls’ bowl fell through the air, smooth and whole. Then it hit the floor. A crash in her ears, a grenade explosion of shards. Chips of stone skittered across polished wood.
Then silence. She knelt. The pieces, could they go back together? They were sharp. Dots of pain on her fingers.
She looked up. They were staring at her, the people. Deadly still. What was in their faces? She lifted her hands to block out the room, but they had blood on them. A long, angry slice on her palm, dripping red.
“My God.”
The voice was a snarl. Emma flinched from the frightening man stalking toward her. But then he was close, and how silly she was, because it was only Jasper. She swayed to her feet, reaching for him.
Richard was herding people from the room. “No problem here, just go on out to the drawing room.” He closed the door on the last of them.
Jasper pushed Emma away, his face hard. “No—stop, get off me. How could you? God, Emma, this was important and you—”
He was shouting. The room was spinning. Why was she so dizzy? The drink. What had been in the drink?
Richard stepped between them. “Jasper! Stop.”
“What am I going to do? Rich, couldn’t we use another bowl? I mean, does it matter for the ritual if—”
Richard was silent.
“It does, doesn’t it? It has to be this one. Oh, God. My father’s going to—”
“Calm down. Jasper, we don’t have to do the ceremony tonight.
We get the bowl fixed and do it next time.
God’s sake, man, what do you think they did in World War I?
Or the Civil War, for that matter? Do you think they worried about getting together on the right date with a war on?
That bit’s not the tradition. You won’t be letting anyone down. ”
Jasper was hugging Richard. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to get it right—”
But it wasn’t right. Something was wrong. She was. She was wrong all over. Her stomach pushed itself up through her throat. Sick spattered her shoes.
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
“Patch her up, Jasper. Some plasters or something, for the hands. I’ll sort it all for next time.”
Emma stood, shivering with shame. The retches kept coming.
“Come on, mate. I’ll clean up over here. Don’t be too hard on her.”
Someone was helping her over to a chair. It was Jasper, wonderful Jasper, come to rescue her. His warm hands on her back.
She was so sleepy. Emma wriggled her head against the back of the chair and let her eyes drop shut. She was just going to have a little rest. She heard Jasper moving. Sparks of pain flared and died on each fingertip. She jolted up. Jasper jumped and darted a look at her.
“It’s just the bandage. Sorry if it hurt. Lie still. You’ll feel better soon.”
His expression seemed important, somehow, but the reason why drifted beyond her reach. Somewhere far away, a door closed. Emma sank into black nothingness.
“Oh, Emma.”
Jasper was gone. It was Julia kneeling in front of her.
“I didn’t know you drank the punch. I should have warned you, I never touch it. I don’t know what they put in it. I should have been looking out for you. After what happened to Imogen—oh God, your hands. Do they hurt?”
With Julia’s support, Emma lurched out of the dining room. The world was still unsteady.
“I was so wrapped up in my own night, and me and Richard—”
“You and Richard?” Emma repeated, sliding into a wall that seemed to have moved since she last looked at it.
“Oh, well.” Julia negotiated Emma around a tricky corner. “It turns out he’s not quite as indifferent to me as I thought.”
Julia was smiling, so Emma smiled too. Then she had a thought.
“Wait—stop. We need to get Jasper. I can be with him, and you can be with Richard.”
She wondered why the smile was slipping from Julia’s face.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea right now.”
“Not a good—why?”
“Just let him cool off. Give him a few days. He’ll see it’s not your fault.”
Julia didn’t understand. Jasper wanted to be with her. He’d asked her to be here. He’d looked after her hand. But Julia was guiding them through the front door, and they were already outside, and it was too hard to argue.
“Come on. Hop in the cab.”
Emma moved obediently. The top of the car wobbled and caught her head as she sat down, but she didn’t complain. Julia was talking to the driver. Emma twisted in her seat. The Turnbull Clubhouse was right behind them. The curtains in the dining room were open. And he was there by the window.
Waiting. He was waiting for her.
“Julia, look. He wants me—”
But when she turned back, Jasper was not alone. Framed in the light of the window were two silhouettes. Emma watched as Jasper pulled Lady Alice Blount to him, slender and yielding. As she swayed in his hold. As he captured her lips with his.
It didn’t make sense.
“But—”
There was a hole in her chest. It was roaring.
The engine was starting.
“Wait—”
The clubhouse shrank to a dollhouse in the rear window.
Julia’s hand was tight around hers. It hurt.
Her hand hurt. All of her hurt, all the way back to Gabriel College and up the steps to the tower.
She sat on the bed watching Julia hunt pajamas out from drawers.
It felt like ice, the pain. It sat in her chest, in her lungs, in the hollow place where her stomach used to be.
The pain thawed, just for a moment, when Julia leaned over and tucked the coverlet around Emma’s neck. “Sleep tight,” she said.
But then Julia was gone.
And it dawned on Emma that something was wrong.
The darkness beyond her bed was shifting, bending over her.
She vaguely remembered being too cold. A moment before, an hour before, what did it matter?
Now she was blazing hot, a furnace beneath her skin.
The walls were warping. Pressure building against her eardrums. Hissing.
It was the whispers.
They cascaded from the corners of the room. And at last they took off their masks of raindrops and tapping branches. They separated out into voices. As they always had been, underneath.
They muttered and pleaded and cried, these whispers. Frantic scraps of poetry, lists of numbers. A high, cracked laugh ran fingernails over Emma’s neck. She hugged her face into her knees and rocked.
… and did he not the hero’s way on trembling step incline?…
… fourfivesixseven, in the thousands, the thousands…
… please, i’ll do anything. take it, just leave me, please leave me…
… from what is owed on said bargain’s contract. the terms were indicated…
… and with his heart’s blood dripping from his mouth, he sings still…
… so ripe for the draining, poor little mortal all lost and alone…
She jerked. The room was still and dark. She had been dreaming.
Somewhere, far off, her hand throbbed. But her head was thick and sweat chilled her chest. She lay with her gaze trained on the inky square of her window, careful not to close her eyes.
Sleep had declared itself her enemy, and she would not visit its camp.
She counted each cloud blowing across the moonless sky.
Something laughed. Her heart gave a terrible wrench.
A figure loomed at the end of her bed. Darkness hooded Jasper’s features, but the chill in his fine blue eyes was clear. His mouth twisted.
“Oh, Emma. Why do you ruin everything?”
His smile was horrible, a knife-edge.
“It’s like you want to make me hate you.”
She struggled backward, but her limbs wouldn’t move. They pinned her to the bed. Fear bloomed in her stomach, and—
Jasper wasn’t there. Now her father loomed above her, wearing Jasper’s tailcoat.
Cold loathing radiated from him. She squeezed her eyes shut to block him out.
Opened them, and the figure at the end of her bed was a shadow, pulling any light from the air.
The tinny orange streetlamp outside the window faltered.
Her breath was being driven from her chest.
“No,” she whispered. “No, please, no…”
The walls were squeezing in. Emma sobbed with the pain, the pain—
And woke again. Gray light filtered in, scraping over the college spires. Four in the morning, her phone said. Outside, something screamed. A fox, probably. But in the dim confusion of the dawn hours, it almost sounded like a woman.
She pushed herself up. Pain pounded through her hand. Someone had tied a square of white fabric around it. Wincing, she pulled open the knot and stared at the cut on her palm. It glared back, livid and accusing.
She remembered a bowl. A smash. Jasper’s face, turned from hers. And against a window’s glow, the dark outline of his body, entwined with a shadow girl.
She flexed her fingers. Bright new drops of blood beaded the line on her palm. The pain felt cleansing. So she did it again.
The next day, she decided to send Jasper a message. Just a little one, to say hello.
She waited.
It took a week for her to admit that, in fact, the silence between them might just be permanent.
November was cold.
The end of November was even colder.
Emma stopped checking her phone for messages.