Eternity

Drea had often mused about how lost her father would be without her around to cook and clean. It wasn’t that he was lazy, she’d said, or even selfish. Just that he wasn’t used to having to do things for himself. He needed someone to look after him.

“It was my fault,” Mr. Feiffer said, his voice breaking. “My fault she went after them, my fault she died. It was my fault they both died.”

“It’s not your fault,” JD said automatically. That was what you were supposed to say. Mr. Feiffer was shaking his head. JD took a tentative step toward him. “It’s going to be okay,” he said.

With unexpected force, Drea’s dad reached out his hand and swiped his arm across the side table, knocking over a couple of bottles. JD watched as stale beer seeped onto a pile of photos. He took a step back, wondering if he should call his parents, or someone else. He wasn’t equipped to deal with this.

“No it’s not. Nothing is okay,” Mr. Feiffer countered. “If I’d just gotten to them sooner . . . they wouldn’t have gotten their claws in our baby. And now, no one will listen to me. No one will listen. Because I’m a drunk. Did you know that, boy?”

JD shivered, as though the temperature in the room had dropped. He tried to focus on the paisley pattern of the Feiffers’ couch. “No, sir. I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”

Mr. Feiffer squinted his eyes. “The Furies,” he whispered.

“Sir?”

“The Furies!” he yelled. “I’ve been whispering their name for twelve damn years. I don’t care if I scream it. I don’t care if they hear me. They’ve taken everything anyway. ?There’s nothing left for them to steal. Nothing left for them to kill.”

JD couldn’t believe it. There was that word again: “Furies.” He felt like he had swallowed metal. There was a knife of fear lodged in his gut.

“I knew . . . I knew the moment I laid eyes on Edie,” Mr. Feiffer said. “I had to protect her. It was my duty. I saw it.” He convulsed into another coughing fit and the blotches on his face went white, then red.

“Let me get you some water, Mr. Feiffer,” JD said, stepping toward the kitchen. He needed any excuse to get away. What did it mean? The Furies. Who were they?

“Crazy—they said I was crazy,” Drea’s dad said as JD began backing into the hall. “They said I’d get what was coming to me.”

It reminded JD of what Ali had said about the man in the pizza place. . . . He’ll get what’s coming to him.

“I’ll be right back, sir,” JD said, but Mr. Feiffer kept talking even as JD went into the other room and filled up a water glass from the tap over the overflowing sink.

“The things I see . . . the things I’ve dreamed. It’s enough to drive anyone crazy. That’s why . . . ” He trailed off as JD came back into the room.

“Drink this,” JD said, handing him the water and clearing some photos off a spot on the recliner so that he could sit down and face the couch. As Mr. Feiffer took a few thirsty sips, JD took a moment to glance at the photos strewn about the room. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that while many of them were personal snapshots of Drea and her mother, others were images ripped from magazines—creepy pictures of flowers, fire, snakes. Like his snake pin . . . the one that had burned Ty. JD felt like he was swimming through murk. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying, Mr. Feiffer.”

Mr. Feiffer laughed. A laugh without humor or hope, it seemed to say: What could you possibly understand about my misery?

“She thought she could keep secrets from me,” Mr. Feiffer said, and for a moment JD didn’t know if he was talking about his dead daughter or his dead wife. “She didn’t know how much I knew. That she’d conjured them. That we were all in danger. She didn’t know I was trying to protect her, and protect Drea. I loved her. I loved them both.” A cry gurgled from his throat, and JD looked away, uncomfortable.

“I’m sure you did,” JD said softly, helplessly. “Drea loved you, too.” Conjured them. Em’s book was called Conjuring the Furies. Was that why she’d been so weird lately? Had she been messing around with this all this crazy stuff?

“I didn’t know they’d come back,” Mr. Feiffer said. “I thought I’d gotten rid of them. . . . That they’d gotten what was coming to them for a change. But then . . . that boy off the bridge. The flowers. My girl . . . It must not have worked. Not permanently.”

“What didn’t work?” JD repeated, hoping for a further explanation.

Creak.

They both heard it. A footstep. And was that the sound of laughter, from the other side of the living room window?

Walt’s eyes widened in terror. “We can’t talk here,” he whispered. “It’s not safe. I’m being watched.”

“By the Furies?” JD ventured.

“They’re killers. Once I break my vow . . . They’ve killed before, and they are going to kill again. I have nothing to lose.”

Killers. The Furies. The flowers. It was all connected. Somehow.

Then Walt was on his feet as well, lunging forward and grabbing the collar of JD’s flannel shirt. JD stood frozen, breathing in the man’s fetid breath and trying not to look into his watery eyes.

“They’re here,” Walt said menacingly. “Get out of here, while you can. We have to meet in the open. In public. For your sake.”

For his sake. JD racked his brain for a meeting place. “How about the football field at AHS? First thing tomorrow morning?”

“I’m an early riser,” Walt warned.

“I’ll be there by eight,” JD said.

Walt nodded in assent and JD was secretly relieved. He’d rather meet Walt in a place where, if he had to, he could call out for help. He still wasn’t really sure what he was getting himself into. . . .

CHAPTER TWELVE

The stream water slid around Em’s feet, cooling them as it rippled around moss-fuzzed rocks. Eventually it would reach the ocean. With her face turned toward the sun, Em wondered if she would ever see the beach again.

The Furies always win. She’d replayed that conversation in the greenhouse over and over, but nothing came of it except more questions.

She was glad to be out of the house—here with Crow, sitting in the grass at the edge of the stream at Devil’s Run, a small park off a back road where water had cut a deep canyon through rocky banks over the years. He’d called her there. ?Another vision to report. His yellow-green eyes were intense and serious, like a cat’s. Against his torn gray T-shirt, they somehow looked even greener.

“I’ve been . . . feeling the Fury in me,” Em said. She slouched forward, looking at her hands. “The anger. And also—the strength. It’s growing.”

It was terrible to say it all out loud. Every part of her wanted to scream and beg and hurt something the way she was being hurt. Birds flew from branch to branch in the trees nearby, oblivious.

She wished he’d put his arm around her, or scoot closer, or do something to act like he cared—like he’d protect her the way he said he would. Instead, he was just staring at her, biting his lower lip as though holding himself back from speaking. He couldn’t sit still, kept shifting his weight and fidgeting like he were a little kid.

“Thank god I’m out of that house,” he said finally.

“Were your parents really pissed?” she asked. Em had never known Crow’s parents to punish him—when there were no rules to break, it was impossible to get in trouble.

“They’ve been watching me like a hawk,” he said. “They know something’s up. I think they’re . . . I think they might be scared for me. Or of me. Who knows. The only reason I was able to