ALICE #2
Twenty pages in, past a long stretch of bloodline work that put a prickle at the back of my neck, the writing changed shape. The lines went short and they were numbered.
Candles set at the compass points. The stones that go between them, and what was to be cut into each one.
The words to open a barrier. The words to hold it open. The words to put a thing back through.
It was there. All of it. Suddenly sitting open in my lap on an ordinary afternoon in my aunt's guest room with a lawnmower going two streets over.
My hands were shaking, and this time it had nothing to do with fear.
I wasn't the door.
I was the one who could open the lock.
I sat back against the headboard and put my hand over my mouth, laughing and crying at the same time.
Tell him.
My stomach dropped at the thought, but I was right. I needed to tell Dae about what I found tonight. He wouldn't like it, but it's not like he didn't know what he was getting himself into with me. And he already knew about the book.
My Alice.
I smiled at that.
And then the smile fell, because it hadn't been in his voice.
Not quite. Dae says my name low, in the back of his throat with the slightest touch of his Korean accent. What just moved through my head was different. Fond. Pleased with me, the way you're pleased with a clever child.
No. It couldn't be. He's gone.
Panic tried to rise inside of me, but then I made myself think about it properly instead of spiraling off into the dark.
"You're not in here," I said out loud to the bright empty room. "I'd know if you were."
And I would have. When he'd been inside me before I'd felt him, like I was a hand in a glove. The pressure of him. The feeling of being watched. My own thoughts shoved over to one side to make room for his. But there was none of that.
Besides, the djinn wards were holding. He couldn't get in. There's no way he'd get past Judy's wards.
Calmer now, I went back to the book. It was probably just all my imagination. I was still reading when the floorboard outside my door creaked.
The book was under the quilt before I'd finished registering the sound, both hands flat on the lump, my heart slamming into my ribs.
Judy knocked and opened the door, then stood in the doorway.
"I was thinking I'd start dinner early," Judy said, leaning against the doorframe. "Figured you could eat before Dae gets here."
I nodded, my pulse still fluttering in my throat. "Need help?"
Her gaze drifted past me, slow and searching. The window. The closet. The corner where my bag sat. Like she could sense that something was off, but she couldn't place it.
I cleared my throat. "Aunt Judy?"
She blinked, coming back to herself. "Sure," she said, absently. "That would be great."
Then she left, and I listened as her footsteps retreated down the hall. I sat there, my hands clutching the quilt, and told myself she was just unsettled after agreeing to allow a vampire to stay in her home. That was all.
The sun went down at 5:52.
I know because I'd looked it up after my shower that morning like a fifteen-year-old, and then laughed at myself, and then looked it up again after lunch.
By half-past five I was up on the window seat in the living room with my knees pulled into my chest, searching the street in front of the house for the familiar shape of Dae walking down the street.
Or would he drive? Did he even have a car?
Vampires could easily walk or run wherever they needed to go faster than any vehicle on the road.
I noticed movement to my left and leaned forward to see better. But it was only Aunt Judy on the sidewalk right in front of the house, kneeling beside the good copper bowl that only came out for special occasions. The fading light turned everything blue and thin around her.
I watched as she made a quick cut on her thumb with the bone-handled knife, letting droplets fall into the water while her lips moved silently.
This wasn't ward work. I knew that ritual too well. No, this was something else entirely.
She was scrying.
Aunt Judy remained kneeling long past when her knees must have protested until the streetlight flickered on and cast a second reflection in the bowl's water. When she finally sat back, her shoulders were rigid as she studied whatever visions the water showed.
I couldn't see her expression from where I was, just the set of her shoulders before she finally rose, poured the contents at the camellia's roots, and carried the bowl inside.
A pang struck my chest. My aunt was searching him. Searching for the djinn.
My phone lit up on the sill.
awake. did you sleep
I got it open so fast I dropped it once.
Like the dead. Sorry. Bad phrasing.
disrespectful. i'm telling everyone
how do you feel
I looked out the window and smiled.
Good. Really good.
good.
alice i've been up for eleven minutes and i've already picked up my keys twice. elias is counting. he's writing it down. he says he's going to put it on the wall
i'm fine though. very normal. totally fine
I pressed my hand over my mouth to hide my smile.
In the kitchen I could hear the tap running, and the copper bowl going into the sink, and my aunt's slow footsteps on the creaky floorboards.
Come to the front door.
There was a pause. A long one, for him.
say again
She said you can stay here with me if you want. Front door only. You knock politely and you don't feed in her house.
she said yes
She said gods help me. Which from Aunt Judy is a yes.
yeobo.
i'm going to bring her something. what does she like. flowers? do i bring flowers. is that stupid
don't answer that i'm already walking
I sat there in the growing darkness grinning at nothing at all, while down the hall on the bed the quilt lay flat and innocent over the shape of a book that had opened itself to me like a lover.
Then I was off the window seat, through the living room, and into the kitchen. Aunt Judy had changed her cardigan. The buttons lined up where they belonged this time and she'd put a comb through her hair.
"He's on his way," I said. "He's bringing you something, I think, I couldn't get him to stop—"
She raised her eyebrows.
"—and would you please let him finish a sentence before you start on him? I don't want him to hate coming over—"
"Alice—"
There was a know at the door before she could finish her sentence.