Chapter 59
Finding her was simple.
Crystal was a native New Yorker—no car, no license—and only three hotels were within walking distance of Helshire. The fanciest, Alum, didn’t admit guests without a college affiliation.
This left the Holiday Express, traditional starting point for Gallows Night, and the Motorway Inn near the old highway, the home of an Adderall-dealing townie named Shuriken.
The next morning, I skipped my Behavioral Econ seminar to watch her room from across the road. Dark clouds to the east shimmered with lightning. The promised smoke-clearing storm was near at last.
I wouldn’t confront Crystal here though. The trick was to let her run into me.
She emerged eleven minutes before noon.
I trailed her from a distance, anonymous in my smoke mask, rain hat, and black jacket. She bought a sandwich at the diner next to the motel, then headed for the northwest gate.
She was wearing a Hellions sweatshirt from the campus store, a stab at blending in, but her haircut was too chic, and she was breathing the smoke unfiltered, which we Hellions hadn’t done for weeks.
At the campus gate she turned toward Dewitt, heading to the parking lot in back. Nothing remained of Peter’s memorial except a squiggle of graffiti—a black heart, like Bianca’s and Arabella’s Hefnd tattoos.
Crystal had always suspected I was related to Garrett. Hiromi had told her about Peter’s funeral, which had led her to Helshire. Convincing her we’d never met would be impossible.
Except I was a different person now. Faraday knew it. Even Tom suspected.
And what Crystal believed didn’t matter: the purest form of intimidation is creating your own truth.
She took a few pictures of the spot where Peter had fallen, then headed toward the Quad.
I moved quickly now, along the forest path around the corner of Ridermore, ditching my jacket, hat, and mask. But I did nothing to disguise myself. My clothes, hair, nose were different. Even my stance was less confident, less upright.
Crystal almost didn’t see me walk by. Her eyes were on her phone, flicking through the pictures she’d just taken. But a moment after we passed each other I heard a hesitant call.
“Jessica?”
I turned, giving her nothing but an empty smile.
“Jessica,” she repeated.
“That’s my name. And you are?”
“We met in New York.”
“No,” I said. “I’d remember you.”
She took a half step back, looking me up and down. The well-worn Oxford shirt and jeans, completely different from my art student persona.
I ran my fingers through my hair, letting her glimpse the scars on my scalp.
“I’m Crystal Dennings. And you’re Jessica Anderson.”
“I’m not.”
“Jessica Morton, then.”
“That’s my name. But I don’t know the other one. Does she go here?”
Crystal didn’t answer, gazing at my nose, my scars, my clothes, the way I stood. “Stop it, Jessica. I’m not an idiot. Just tell me what you know.”
“About what?”
“Why did you disappear when Hiromi—” Her voice caught. Sometimes, I couldn’t say her name either. “Why?”
Last summer, Crystal had imperiously navigated every gallery opening, every conversation about theory or technique, mocking my cluelessness, my gaucheries. Now there was only grief and confusion.
She’d lost Hiromi too.
The air hummed around us. I could smell the coming storm.
“You were out there in the Catskills. She said she was taking you! Tell me what happened.”
I took a step closer, straightening, letting my old self shine through. Crystal was taller, but she wasn’t a Morton, not even a broken one.
She stepped back. “Why don’t you just talk to me?”
“Because we’ve never met.” At the heart of all power is that facts don’t matter. We, the strong, can substitute our reality for yours.
“That’s insane,” she said.
“You have the wrong Jessica.”
“You’re her. What happened in the Catskills? Why did you disappear?”
“I’m sorry if someone ghosted you, Crystal. But hounding random people isn’t going to bring her back.”
“She only went to that party because you—”
In a flash, I closed the space between us. Her skin was dry, the shadows deep under bloodshot eyes. I stared, giving her all my doubts, my nightmares, my pain. Dangerous parts, put together from scrap.
Crystal shivered. Water leaked from her eyes.
She could find nothing more to say.
“You should really wear a mask,” I said. “The smoke is toxic.”
“I know you’re her,” she whispered. But her confidence was depleted.
“Sorry I can’t help you.” I turned from her. “But leaving skulls for people? That’s kind of weird.”
Crystal didn’t say anything as I walked away. I’d never seen her look so small.
She had become a different person too.