What sympathy I had for these two as-yet-unclassified creatures was fast running out.
“Be good, Sissy.” Alderose, always adept at holding her emotions in check, never called me Sissy. That was Beryl’s special nickname for me. If my oldest sister was trying to convey a message, I wasn’t in on the secret. At least it gave me something to think about while Jadzia marched her away.
I tried the breathing and meditating thing.
I tried to be positive, but the only positivity I could muster was that Alderose and I were in the crappiest situation we’d ever found ourselves in and surely nothing would ever top this.
Or maybe she’d encountered worse and hadn’t told me. Because the fact that there was a whole lot more to Alderose Brodeur that I didn’t know was really sinking in, and it sucked that it took us being in a life-threatening situation for my sister to come clean.
Keeping my ears tuned to Jadzia’s return meant I missed the first part of my demon’s arrival. I didn’t miss the second part, when he clamped his hand over my mouth, brought his lips right to my ear, and whispered, “It’s Laszlo.”
I wiggled, trying to shake off his hand.
“Shh, Clementine, shh.” He pressed his mouth closer, kissed the side of my head through the rat’s nest of tangled hair and matted threads, and relaxed his grip.
“Go along with whatever they ask. I’ve got a plan. I’ve got you covered.” The demon left, taking his reassuring strength with him. Shaking overcame my limbs.
The missing charm meant my body wanted to follow Laszlo. My brain shrieked at me to use one of the knives stashed in my coveralls. I could slash at my bindings, grab the demon—kiss the demon—get my bearings, rescue my sister. And go back to kissing the demon.
I drew a long breath in through my nostrils, held it in my lungs, then pursed my lips and let the breath out slowly.
“We’re fucked,” I said to the roof of the cavern. “Completely fucked.”
The thread coiled near my heart disagreed, calling on other thick threads to pull away from the inner part of my coveralls’ waistband. Its intentions were unclear—the threads were lining themselves up vertically along my ribs—front, back, and sides. They stopped when Jadzia strode close and announced it was my turn to let her play tour guide.
Her voice was strong. Confident. Her words must have carried to Laszlo. I tensed, expecting him to burst out of his hiding place and initiate a dramatic rescue. I flexed my knees and bounced. I was ready. Ready for the drama, ready for the rescue, ready for a hot shower and a—and I was wrong.
Jadzia led me away. She was a terrible guide, completely forgetting to describe points of interest along the way. I stubbed my toes and scraped the sides of my feet on rocks, wincing every few steps. The texture of the ground changed as we walked, moving from fine river sand to sharp-edged pebbles that hurt the sensitive spots on the bottoms of my bare feet.
Though I couldn’t see much of anything, the quality of the air in the space around me changed, freshened. Jadzia jerked me to a stop. Alderose waited to my right. We both held our breath.
My sister was right-handed and wanted to be on my left side. I leaned against her, made as though I had stumbled, and managed to position myself so she could access her blades. She whispered, “Sissy,” before Jadzia shushed her and made us face forward.
Gosia stood in front of a wide-open vista with her back to us. The night sky was visible high above the sheer rock walls in the distance. The water I knew was out there smelled metallic. We had to be in an abandoned quarry, one of hundreds scattered throughout Massachusetts and the rest of New England.
In high school, quarries had been awesome places to face my fear of heights and practice holding my breath as friends and I dove for treasure. Old cars, battered trucks, and retired mining equipment never yielded much other than supplying our imaginations with stories of all the things that might have been tossed into the quarries’ watery depths.
Including bodies.
I shivered. Alderose did too.
Gosia turned, said, “It is time,” and bent to pick up a two long pieces of rope. She handed one to Jadzia and went to her knees behind me. She wrapped the rope around and between my ankles, then checked the ropes binding my wrists at my lower back.
I caught on to what they were doing and what they likely intended. “Don’t do this, Gosia. We can protect you. Like our mother protected you. You and Jadzia.”
Gosia looked right through me. Her irises had gone as dark as her pupils. She stepped to the side, allowing Jadzia to lead Alderose forward. My heart hammered at the inside of my chest when I saw that weights had been added to the rope binding my sister’s ankles. Gosia pushed me forward until Rosey and I were side by side. I shifted enough that my butt bumped hers and she could reach for one of her blades if her fingers happened to be free enough.
Before I could make a wish upon a star or utter a game-changing protest, Gosia and Jadzia walked us to the edge of the
