“YOU’RE A QUEER LITTLE THING,” Jesse Dittley decided. “LIKE ONE OF THEM ANTS.”
She tipped her head back to look at him. “How do you reckon?”
“THEM ANTS THAT WAS ON THE TELEVISION. IN SOUTH AMERICA OR AFRICA OR INDIA. CARRY TEN TIMES THEIR OWN WEIGHT.”
Blue was flattered, but she said sternly, “All ants can carry ten times their own weight, can’t they? Normal ants?”
“THESE DID BETTER THAN NORMAL ANTS. WISH I COULD REMEMBER HOW THEY DID BETTER. SO I COULD TELL YOU.”
“Are you trying to say I’m a better sort of ant?”
Jesse Dittley blustered. “DRINK YOUR WATER.”
He retreated indoors. With a grin, Blue got back to work. Noah mucked about in the trunk of the car; she’d put a few bags of mulch and some bedding plants in there, and some more in the backseat. He pulled a bag of mulch out halfway, tore it, and exploded wood chips across the driveway.
“Whoopsie.”
“Noah,” Blue said.
“I know.” He began to painstakingly pick up each sliver of mulch as she continued tidying the junk.
It was hard work, but satisfying, a little like vacuuming. It was nice to be able to see the effect right away. Blue was good at sweating and ignoring singeing muscles.
As the sun lowered, the yard darkened, and the sparse trees seemed closer. She couldn’t help but feel watched in their presence. Most of this, she knew, was because of Cabeswater. She would never forget the sound of a tree speaking, or that day when she’d discovered that intelligent, alien creatures completely surrounded her. These trees were probably just ordinary trees.
Only she wasn’t sure anymore if there was such a thing as an ordinary tree. Perhaps in Cabeswater they were able to be heard because of the ley line. Perhaps out here, trees were robbed of their voices.
But I am a battery, she thought. She considered how she’d pulled the plug on Noah before. She wondered if it was possible to do it the other way.
“Sounds tiring,” Noah commented.
He wasn’t wrong. Blue had been exhausted after the church watch in May, when dozens of spirits had drawn from her. Maybe a middle ground, then.
So were these trees speaking, or was that just the wind?
Blue paused in her patting of mulch and rocked back on her heels. She lifted her chin to look at the trees that enclosed the Dittley property. Oaks, thorns, some redbuds, some dogwoods.
“Are you speaking?” she whispered.
There was precisely no more or no less than what she’d felt and heard before: a rustle in the leaves, a movement in her feet. As if the grass itself was shifting. It was hard to tell precisely where it was coming from.
She thought she heard, faint and thin …
tua tir e elintes tir e elintes
… but maybe it was just the wind, high and impending between slivers of branches.
She tried to hear it again, to no avail.
They were going to lose light soon, and Blue wasn’t thrilled about the idea of driving slowly back in the dark. At least they were finally doing the truly pleasant part — the planting of the flowers, making it look done. Noah had enough strength to help with this, and he knelt beside her in a friendly way, pawing holes in the dirt for the root balls.
At one point, though, she glanced over in the failing light and caught him placing an entire plant into the hole and knocking dirt over all of it, blossoms included.
“Noah!” she exclaimed.
He looked at her, and there was something quite blank about his face. His right hand swept another clump of dirt over petals. It was an automatic gesture, like his hand was disconnected from the rest of him.
“Not that,” Blue said, not sure what she was saying, only that she was trying to sound kind and not horrified. “Noah, pay attention to what you’re doing.”
His eyes were infinity black, and fixed on her face in a way that rose hair on her neck. His hand moved again, crushing more dirt over the flowers.
Then he was closer, but she had not seen him move. His black eyes were locked on hers, his head twisted in a very unboylike way. There was something altogether Noah-less about him.
The trees shivered overhead.
The sun was nearly gone; the most visible thing was the dead white of his skin. The crushed hole in his face where he had first been hit.
“Blue,” he said.
She was so relieved.
But then he added, “Lily.”
“Noah —”
“Lily. Blue.”
She stood up, very slowly. But she was no farther from him. Somehow he had stood at the same moment as her, perfectly mirroring, eyes locked on her still. Her skin was freezing.
Throw up your protection, Blue told herself. And she did, imagining the bubble around herself, the impenetrable wall —
But it was as if he were inside the bubble with her, closer than before. Nose to nose.
Even malice would be easier to handle than his empty eyes, mirror black, reflecting only her.
Suddenly, the porch light came on, flooding light over and through Noah’s body. He was a shadowed, checkered thing.
The front door banged open. Jesse Dittley slammed down the stairs, porch thundering, and strode hugely up to them. His hand shot out — Blue thought he was going to strike her, or Noah — and then he held up something flat between her face and Noah’s.
A mirror.
She saw the pebbled back of it; Noah was looking into the reflective side.
His eyes darkened, hollowed. He threw his hands up over his face.
“No!” he shouted. It was like he had been scalded. “No.”
He stumbled back from Jesse, Blue, and the mirror, his hands still pressed over his eyes. He was making the most terrible wailing sound — more terrible because now it was beginning to sound like Noah again.
He tripped backward over one of the empty pots, landing hard, and he stayed where he fell, his hands over his face, his shoulders shaking. “No.”
He didn’t remove his hands from his eyes, and Blue, with some shame, realized she was glad he didn’t. She was quivering, too. She looked up (and up, and up) at Jesse Dittley, who loomed beside her with the mirror, the object looking small and toylike in his hand.
He said, “DIDN’T I TELL YOU THERE WAS A CURSE?”
24
Jesse heated up two bowls of SpaghettiOs in the small kitchen while Blue sat on a piece of old furniture that was both a stool and a chair. He seemed even more like a giant in this small room; all of the furniture was doll furniture beside him. Behind him, the malevolent dark pressed against the window above the kitchen sink. Blue was glad of this yellow-toned oasis. She wasn’t ready to drive home through this night, especially now that she’d be doing it alone. Noah had vanished, and she wasn’t honestly certain if she was ready for him to reappear again.