I’ve got my mom’s car. I drove it up to Anna’s place after dropping Mom to do some shopping downtown. She said she’d get a lift home from a friend. I was glad to hear that she’d made some friends. She does it easily, being so open and easygoing. Not like me. I don’t think it was quite like my dad either, but I find that I can’t really remember, and that bothers me, so I don’t push my brain too hard. I’d rather believe that the memories are there, just under the surface, whether they really are or not.
As I walk up to the house, I think I see a shadow move on the west side. I blink it off as a trick of my too- tired eyes … until the shadow turns white and shows her pale skin.
“I haven’t wandered far,” Anna says as I walk up.
“You hid from me.”
“I wasn’t sure right away who you were. I have to be cautious. I don’t want to be seen by everyone. Just because I can leave my house now doesn’t mean I’m not still dead.” She shrugs. She’s so frank. She should be damaged by all of this, damaged beyond sanity. “I’m glad you came back.”
“I need to know,” I say. “If you’re still dangerous.”
“We should go inside,” she says, and I agree. It’s strange to see her outdoors, in the sunlight, looking for all the world like a girl out picking flowers on a bright afternoon. Except that anyone looking closely would realize she should be freezing out here wearing just that white dress.
She leads me into the house and closes the door behind like any good hostess. Something about the house has changed too. The gray light is gone. Plain old white sunshine streams through the windows, albeit with a hampering of dirt on the glass.
“What is it that you really want to know, Cas?” Anna asks. “Do you want to know if I’m going to kill more people? Or do you want to know if I can still do this?” She holds her hand up before her face, and dark veins snake up to the fingers. Her eyes go black and a dress of blood erupts through the white, more violently than before, splashing droplets everywhere.
I jump back. “Jesus, Anna!”
She hovers in the air, does a little twirl like something’s playing her favorite tune.
“It’s not pretty, is it?” She crinkles her nose. “There aren’t mirrors left here, but I could see myself in the window glass when the moonlight was bright enough.”
“You’re still like this,” I say, horrified. “Nothing’s changed.”
When I say that nothing’s changed, her eyes narrow, but then she exhales and tries to smile at me. It doesn’t quite work, what with her looking like goth-chick Pinhead.
“Cassio. Don’t you see? Everything’s changed!” She lets herself down to the ground, but the black eyes and writhing hair stay. “I won’t kill anyone. I never wanted to. But whatever this is, it’s what I am. I thought that it was the curse, and maybe it was, but—” She shakes her head. “I had to try to do this after you left. I had to know.” She looks me right in the eye. The inky dark seeps away, revealing the other Anna underneath. “The fight is over. I won. You made me win. I’m not two halves anymore. I know you must think it’s monstrous. But I feel — strong. I feel safe. Maybe I’m not making sense.”
It’s actually fairly easy to get. For someone who was murdered the way she was murdered, feeling safe is probably top priority.
“I get it,” I say softly. “The strength is what you hold on to. Kind of like me. When I walk through a haunted place with my athame in my hand, I feel strong. Untouchable. It’s heady. I don’t know if most people ever feel it.” I shuffle my feet. “And then I met you, and all that went down the shithole.”
She laughs.
“I come in all big and bad, and you use me for a game of handball.” I grin. “Makes a guy feel damn manly.”
She grins back. “It made me feel pretty manly.” Her smile falters. “You didn’t bring it with you today. Your knife. I can always feel it when it’s near.”
“No. Will took it. But I’ll get it back. It was my father’s; I’m not letting it go.” But then I wonder. “How do you feel it? What do you feel about it?”
“When I first saw you, I didn’t know what it was. It was something in my ears, something in my stomach, just a humming below the music. It’s powerful. And even though I knew it was meant to kill me, it drew me somehow. Then when your friend cut me—”
“He’s not my friend,” I say through my teeth. “Not really.”
“I could feel myself draining into it. Starting to go wherever it is that it sends us. But it was wrong. It has a will of its own. It wanted to be in your hand.”
“So it wouldn’t have killed you,” I say, relieved. I don’t want Will to be able to use my knife. I don’t care how childish that sounds. It’s
Anna turns away, thinking. “No, it would have killed me,” she says seriously. “Because it isn’t only tied to you. It’s tied to something else. Something dark. When I was bleeding, I could smell something. It reminded me a little of Elias’s pipe.”
I don’t know where the athame’s power comes from, and Gideon has never told me, if he knows. But if that power comes from something dark, then so be it. I use it for something good. As for the smell of Elias’s pipe …
“That was probably just something you were frightened of after watching yourself be murdered,” I say gently. “You know, like dreaming of zombies right after you watch
“
“No. I dream about penguins doing bridge construction. Don’t ask why.”
She smiles and tucks her hair behind her ear. When she does I feel a pull somewhere deep in my chest. What am I doing? Why did I come here? I can barely remember.
Somewhere in the house, a door slams. Anna jumps. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her jump before. Her hair lifts up and starts to writhe. She’s like a cat arching its back and puffing its tail.
“What was that?” I ask.
She shakes her head. I can’t tell whether she’s embarrassed or frightened. It looks like both.
“Do you remember what I showed you in the basement?” she asks.
“The tower of dead bodies? No, that slipped my mind. Are you kidding me?”
She laughs nervously, a fake little twinkle.
“They’re still here,” she whispers.
My stomach takes this opportunity to wring itself out, and my feet shift underneath me without permission. The image of all those corpses is fresh in my mind. I can actually smell the green water and rot. The idea that they are now roaming through the house with wills of their own — which is what she’s implying — doesn’t make me happy.
“I guess they’re haunting me now,” she says softly. “That’s why I went outside. They don’t frighten me,” she’s quick to add. “But I can’t stand to see them.” She pauses and crosses her arms over her stomach, sort of hugging herself. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“I should lock myself in here with them. It’s my fault, after all.” Her voice isn’t sulky. She’s not asking me to disagree. Her eyes, focused on the floorboards, are earnest. “I wish I could tell them that I’d like to take it back.”
“Would it matter?” I ask quietly. “Would it matter to you if Malvina said she was sorry?”
Anna shakes her head. “Of course not. I’m being stupid.” She glances to the right, just for an instant, but I know she was looking at the broken board where we took her dress out of the floor last night. She seems almost scared of it. Maybe I should get Thomas over here to seal it off or something.
My hand twitches. I gather all my guts and let my hand stray to her shoulder. “You’re not being stupid. We’ll figure something out, Anna. We’ll exorcise them. Morfran will know how to get them to move on.” Everyone deserves some comfort, don’t they? She’s out now; what’s done is done, and she has to find some kind of peace. But even now, dark and distracting memories of what she’s done are racing behind her eyes. How is she supposed to let that go?
Telling her not to torture herself would make it worse. I can’t give her absolution. But I want to make her forget, even just for a while. She was innocent once, and it kills me that she can never be innocent again.
