Conjured

Sarah Beth Durst Conjured

For Andrea

Chapter One

“Your name is Eve. Remember that.”

She was supposed to call him Malcolm. Pressing her forehead against the cool glass of the car window, she stared at the house. Yellow and narrow, it loomed over the lawn. She traced the outline of the house on the window: a peaked roof, two windows with shades drawn, a front door dead center. “It’s a face,” she said.

The man and woman in the front seats checked their phones and then their guns. “You can’t give her kiwis,” the woman said to the man. Malcolm. And she was Aunt Nicki. “She’ll think they’re mice.”

“Kiwis are nutritious,” Malcolm said. Twisting in his seat, he leveled a finger at Eve. “I walk first, you second, Nicki last. Understood?” He didn’t wait for her response, and she didn’t give him one. He stepped out of the car and stretched.

“Start her on apples,” Aunt Nicki said, opening her door and stepping out into the street. “Or bananas. Oranges.”

“You could have shopped,” Malcolm said. “Besides, it is impossible to eat an orange without it spitting at you. It’s a hostile fruit.”

“Oranges are classic. For centuries soccer moms have been carting orange wedges to refuel their charming tykes on the field of battle.”

Outside, they shut their doors. Eve let the blissful silence wrap around her for three seconds until Malcolm yanked open her car door. “You push the red button to release the strap.” His voice was kind and soft, as if he expected her to cower or bolt. He pointed next to her, and she located the red button. It clicked, and the seat belt snapped out of her hands and flattened onto the seat behind her. “It’s going to be okay,” he said, and she was certain he wasn’t talking about the seat belt. Not wanting to see pity in his eyes, she stared at the seat belt contraption for a second before she climbed out of the car and followed Malcolm toward the house.

The sky was a matte gray that washed out all shadows. She couldn’t tell where the sun was—or if this place even had a sun. A single brown bird perched on a scraggly tree in the middle of the front lawn. Eve watched the bird warily until her toes hit the front stoop. She looked up at the house. She still thought it looked like a face, intent on swallowing her whole.

“Inside now,” Malcolm said. “Gawk later.”

Aunt Nicki ushered her in.

“Wait here,” Malcolm instructed. Gun drawn, he disappeared through a doorway. Eve strained to listen to his footsteps as he moved from room to room. She felt Aunt Nicki’s hand on her elbow, as if the woman expected her to bolt. As if I had anywhere to bolt to, Eve thought.

The hall was as dreary as the outside world. It had faded, brown-striped walls and a worn carpet. A picture of a dead tree by a canyon hung on one wall. “Homey,” Eve commented.

Aunt Nicki squeezed her elbow, and Eve fell silent.

She waited until Malcolm reappeared. He holstered his gun. “Clear,” he said. “I like clementines. Easy to peel. But you can only buy them in crates. No other fruit comes in crates. What the hell do I need with a crate of fruit?” He tapped Eve’s arm and then pointed. “Living room. Kitchen. Bathroom. Your room. Hers.”

She memorized the layout. “Which is yours?”

“I won’t be staying.”

A sudden wave of panic crashed into her, and she wanted to grab his arm and say, Stay! But she didn’t. Instead, she pushed the wave back, back, back, and said, “Oh.”

“Clementines are a wussy fruit,” Aunt Nicki declared.

“So says the champion of soccer moms.”

“I’d rather face six drug dealers and an irate bookie than one overtired soccer mom with a screaming toddler in a mini-van who has just been denied her parking spot.”

“Point taken,” Malcolm conceded.

He had been with Eve every day at the agency. She hadn’t imagined that he’d abandon her with a woman she barely knew. Not wanting to listen to more banter, Eve left them in the hall and wandered into the living room. Green couches lined the walls. The cushions were worn with indents shaped to strangers’ bodies. The coffee table sported rings from dozens of glasses. She stood in front of the cold fireplace and studied the photos on the mantel.

Her by a lake.

Her with Aunt Nicki at a restaurant.

Her in front of this house.

She had the same hair and makeup in each photo, but at a glance you wouldn’t know that they’d all been taken the same afternoon inside a studio. She’d never stood in any of those places, never been here, never met Aunt Nicki before today.

Or at least she thought she hadn’t.

Closing her eyes, she called up the memory of taking these pictures. She’d waited in a cold room with a few metal chairs and a magazine full of pictures of women with parted lips. A photographer had arrived with Agent Harrington—Malcolm—and they’d set up a screen behind her…. Yes, that felt like a real memory.

“Lake Horace,” a woman said behind her. Aunt Nicki, she reminded herself. “You spent summers there as a kid. Maybe you loved to canoe. Or swim. Or catch tadpoles. Whatever. You decide. That one, that’s Mario’s. Brilliant pizza.”

“I like pizza,” Eve said. She’d had it at the agency. Also, chicken lo mein.

Malcolm smiled at her warmly, approvingly, his eyes crinkling. She thought about smiling back, but then the moment passed. “You moved here …” Malcolm paused so she could fill in the blank.

“Three weeks ago,” Eve supplied. “My parents had a job transfer to South America, but they’re not ready to move me yet, so Aunt Nicki offered to take me in for the summer.”

“South America, how interesting,” Malcolm said. “Where in South America?”

Eve bit her lower lip. He’d drilled her on this. She should know it. Began with a P … Two syllables … “Pernu?”

“Peru,” Aunt Nicki said. “And don’t phrase it like a question.” To Malcolm, she said, “I’ll work with her. Stop mother-henning us.” Her face brightened with a smile, and she wrapped her arm around Eve’s shoulder. Eve stiffened. “Eve and I will be just fine. We’ll be buddies. Rent movies. Pop popcorn. Flirt with the pizza delivery boy.”

Eve held as still as stone. She reminded herself that she trusted them, sort of. Or at least she had no choice but to trust them, which was close enough.

Aunt Nicki released her.

Eve staggered back. “Do you mind if I just … I’d like to see my room.”

“I’ll show you—” Malcolm began.

She held her hands up, palms out to stop him. “You don’t have to. I remember.” She skirted around the coffee table and then backed out of the living room.

In the hall again, she felt as if the striped walls were leaning in toward her. She hurried to a plain white door and put her hand on the knob.

“Eve.” Malcolm.

She didn’t move.

“Eve, you’ll be safe here.”

She looked at him.