I took a whiff of my own glass, but all I got from it was an almost overpowering smell of strong alcohol. “Is it expensive?”
“Before the world fell apart, I’d never have been able to afford it. Now? Considering that the country it came from doesn’t exist anymore?” He rolled the glass around in his hand, watching as the whisky caught the light. “I’d say it’s damn near priceless.”
Oh. I took another careful sniff. When I looked up, Amos was watching me, his own glass raised high.
“To Alicia,” he said.
“To Alicia.”
The whisky burned all the way down.
CHAPTER 59
It was close to midnight by the time I started back to the dorm, the campus swimming unsteadily around me. First time I’d ever been totally sloshed. First time I’d let myself be, to be honest. Guess that was one upside of being the least impressive Low-Three Crow in existence; self-control no longer seemed all that necessary.
After twenty minutes of searching for the dorm, I gave up and found the nearest bench. The night was far warmer than it would have been in Bakersfield, but the aged concrete was cool even through my suit. I lay back and watched the stars slowly spin above me.
At the orphanage, Christmas had been some kids’ favorite holiday. While Remembrance Day had involved Cape vids and presents, Christmas was Mama Rawlins’ one attempt at making us feel like a family. Ten to twenty of us down in the living room, sitting in a circle on the floor and eating a double portion of synth-meat, the older among us telling bullshit stories about the good life, about the sort of foster parents we’d all end up with. One year, Mama Rawlins even put aside enough of her money to buy a bottle of sparkling cider. Another year, I talked Alicia into pouring out a big bucket of strawberry slushy, and before you knew it, there were twelve little kids—Nyah among them—with bright pink lips and tongues, every one of them sprinting around the house like Jitterbugs.
Maybe it was the whiskey, or maybe it was Amos’ talk about his own Alicia, but for the first time in a while, I found myself missing those little shits, some of whom I’d actively bled for. Even found myself missing Mama Rawlins and her eye-watering perfume that was at least half tobacco and stim-weed. At least in Bakersfield, I’d belonged. It was hard to feel that way at the Academy, where I was useless as tits on a bull. Hard to feel like I wasn’t alone when the only other person on campus was snoring on his couch. Dinner had been nice, but all the whiskey in the world couldn’t change reality.
Maybe I used my power as I was lying there, feeling sorry for myself. Maybe I didn’t. Given how drunk I was, it’s hard to say for sure. All I know is that when I finally dragged my eyes away from the night sky, Mom’s ghost was standing next to the bench.
I hadn’t seen her since that summer night with Sally, but Mom didn’t look any different for her absence. Same faded sundress. Same blissful smile under empty eyes. Sally had told me ghosts like Mom and Shane weren’t people anymore… that they were just empty shells of energy that my power animated like puppets. Sally had told me a lot of things, but given that she was a ghost herself, at least some of it had to be bullshit. I focused my blurry vision on Mom, and for the first time in years, spoke to her directly.
“Why are you here, Mom? Why did you come back when I was nine? There’s no way I could have called you, not at that age. I didn’t even know how my power worked!”
She stayed silent, still smiling, and a little bit of the old anger got me to my feet.
“Why won’t you answer me? What do you want? Are you just here to see how I’m doing, with you gone and dad rotting in the Hole? Because the answer is not fucking great! That’s what happens to orphans in this shit-stained world!” I clenched my fists and spun away. “You had to know what Dad was. Why the fuck didn’t you run?”
When I turned back, Mom was right in front of me, and for just a moment, for one fraction of a heartbeat, that smile was gone, and those eyes were dark and filled with something halfway between sorrow and rage.
Then her ghostly hand swept up through my chest, and the world fell away.
•—•—•
I had just put the third and final pie into the oven when the front door banged open. “Damian, sweetie, is that you? I thought you were going to play with Mary a little bit longer?”
It was David, not Damian, who came through the door, his tie loose and dark hair a mess. If his coming home at two in the afternoon on a work day hadn’t told me something was wrong, the wild look in his grey eyes would have.
“Is everything okay, dear? Did something happen at the office?”
He brushed past me without answering, marching through the kitchen and into our master bedroom. I wiped my hands on my World’s Greatest Mom apron and followed him in to find his head and arms buried in the closet, pulling out boxes and tossing them aside.
“David? Love?” I took a careful step closer. “You’re scaring me. What’s going on?”
His frenzied motions stopped suddenly, like a switch had been thrown, and I watched the tension drain from his shoulders. When his head came into sight, he was smiling that dopey, slightly crooked smile I’d fallen in love with on our very first date, so many years ago. “It’s alright, Elora,” he said, “Everything is going to be fine.”
That’s when I saw the knife.
“David, where
