“I’ll see you Monday,” I said with false cheer.
After scrambling out of the car, I glanced over my shoulder. I’d been able to refrain when we were running from the Oracle but Kian offered more temptation than I could resist; the streetlamps painted him in gold and shadow, but it did nothing to mask the forlorn cast of his face. He raked a hand through his hair and then started the car. I hurried into the brownstone before he noticed I was watching. It was nuts that I could be so conflicted about him, but the merest hint of pain in his eyes and I wanted to race back and hug him so hard it hurt. The two of us were like magnets with the same charge. No matter how much I wanted to be close to him, circumstances kept shoving us apart.
Not surprisingly, my parents were still awake when I let myself in. My mom glanced up from her notebook, scrawled margin to margin full of complex calculations. “Did you have a good time?”
“Yeah. We went to see Enter the Dragon in Harvard Square.” I’d found that volunteering information was the best way to forestall more questions.
Dad glanced up. “Oh, that’s a good one. Did you know it was chosen as culturally significant and has been preserved in the National Film Registry?”
I grinned, relieved that some things never changed. Trivia was my dad’s thing, usually science related—did you know, Edith, that there’s a wasp that turns cockroaches into zombies and lays eggs in their living bodies? No, I did not. Upon learning that, I promptly Googled the jewel wasp and then spent the night shivering under my covers. Occasionally he popped up with interesting facts in other fields. Entertainment was a new one.
With a grin, I remembered how he used to run D&D campaigns for Mom and me when I was in junior high. Back then, I didn’t mind as much that my primary social interaction came from my parents. I was sure it hurt them when I withdrew, but it was hard to hang with them after I started high school and realized that no matter what I did, Mildred and Alan Kramer would be my only option for weekend and evening entertainment.
My mom noticed my expression, and her eyes crinkled into an answering smile. “You seem happier this year. I’m glad.”
Considering what I had to contend with, that was messed up in so many ways.
BEHOLD A PALE HORSE
Monday morning, I got up at five thirty and went for a run. The sky was still dark, but I stayed off the side streets; there were other fitness buffs out, and they nodded at me as we passed, though most of them had pedometers and special music players strapped to their arms, along with more expensive shoes and spandex pants. I ran in Converse, sweats, and a hoodie, feet pounding out my confusion and dismay against the sidewalk.
I wanted to trust Kian, but my nature wouldn’t let me take him on faith. Maybe I could take a field trip to Cross Point, Pennsylvania, and look for proof. If I saw his “before” picture, I could at least believe he was who he claimed. Sure, he could produce ID, but given the resources at his disposal, that wouldn’t prove anything conclusively. But I couldn’t keep up the back-and-forth dance, where I drew closer and then I pulled away. It wasn’t fair to either of us, and if he was being straight with me, if, then he deserved better.
Everyone needs one true thing. I want him to be mine.
As I ran, I heard the scrape of footsteps behind me, not running shoes, more like hobnail boots, heavy and uneven. When I turned, I saw nothing but the smoky shadows cast in the final hour before sunrise, only thin fingers of light clutching at the horizon. The street was empty, but still the footsteps drew closer, and as I spun, I caught the flicker of movement in my peripheral vision. My flight reaction kicked in, so I raced toward the apartment, listening to my heart thump out a warning.
Danger. Danger.
With pure relief, I tore around the corner onto my street and within screaming range of fifty families in the identical brownstones. If something happened, if I called out, someone would hear me. Still, I didn’t slow down, sprinting the last fifty feet to my front stoop. I was bathed in cold sweat when I bounded up the steps and into the foyer. The door shut behind me, meager protection from the forces arrayed against me. I skimmed the dark street one last time and just as I was about to write off the incident as my imagination, a stooped figure shuffled into view beneath a streetlight. He looked like an elderly man, dressed in garb more suited to the World War I era, right down to the hobnailed boots I’d heard. His mouth was sunken from loss of teeth and he had whiskers growing all over his face, not a beard, more like a human cactus. Over his left shoulder, he carried an empty burlap sack.
He stood across from my house, staring back at me with eyes like drowning, big and wet, and somehow hungry. Two children stepped out of the shadows behind him, flanking the old man, close enough to touch, but separate. They, too, were dressed in old-fashioned clothing; the boy in knee pants and socks pulled up high, the girl in a pinafore with a dirty ribbon in her hair. And their eyes were black as pitch. The little girl-thing stepped forward.
I whirled to retreat to my apartment and nearly slammed into Mr. Lewis. He peered at me with a somber expression. “Is it you they’ve come for?”
For a few seconds, I couldn’t speak. “Who?”
“The old ones.”
“Probably.” I couldn’t remember ever talking to Mr. Lewis before, but it seemed like he could see the creepy things. I wasn’t sure what that said about him. Surreptitiously, I glanced at his wrists, but they were unmarked.
“Do you hear the ringing?”
I gaped at him. The perspicacity of his question shocked all of mine right out of my head. “What, how did you know?”
“Means you’ve come into close contact with a powerful old one. My mum crossed paths with them, told me a story or two before she passed.”
Come to think of it, the tinnitus started after I met Wedderburn. Did that mean I had some kind of detection system for immortals now? That might be useful.
Mr. Lewis went on, “Be careful, missy. I’ll hang a horseshoe above the front door, but you should say your good-byes. It won’t stay them long.” With that dire pronouncement, he went into his apartment.
My legs were shaky as I ran up the flight of stairs, partly from the run and partly from the weirdness stalking me. Inside the apartment, I took a quick shower and got ready for school. My homework was done, but I had no extra credit so far this year. I imagined my teachers checking my assignments and saying, It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.
At school, people were gleeful, whispering wild rumors about Brittany. “I heard it was mono.”