He leaned in closer.
“This is none of your business,” he said in a savage whisper. “I’m tired of listening to you. I’m tired of looking at you. Go home.”
“Go to hell,” Mae said.
Maybe she should have insisted on keeping him company and offering him comfort no matter what he said, but she wasn’t the ministering angel type, and she didn’t appreciate being talked to like that.
She went home. She walked all the way back and was basically clinging to the banister as she made her way up the stairs, putting hand before hand and foot before foot as if she was climbing some steep and terrible mountain. Jamie emerged from the shadows of the landing above, passing the stairs with a set look that said he was determined to ignore her, and then he saw something on her face that stopped him.
“You haven’t been home for two days,” he said, his voice strange and stilted, making it clear he was still angry. “Been having fun?”
“Not really,” Mae said, dragging the words out. “It’s all a bit …”
Talking broke the equilibrium she’d had going, the steady march to her bedroom and oblivion. She ended up collapsing on the stairs with her elbows on her knees, and for a moment she was sure Jamie would pass on regardless.
She should have known better. He came down the stairs at once and was kneeling on the step below her, brown eyes warm and unguarded.
“Mae,” he said. “Mae, what is it?”
Mae didn’t know. She found herself humiliatingly close to tears. She wanted to spill out the whole story: Alan actually considering Gerald’s bargain, Daniel Ryves standing over a cradle with a knife, Liannan whispering about demons and what Mae wanted. She didn’t know how to fix any of it, or even how to fix herself and Jamie, make certain that things were as they always had been, him and her against the world.
Jamie took her hand in his and held on, looking slightly horrified and so concerned.
“I love you,” Mae said, stumbling over the words, trying ferociously hard not to actually cry. “I know you’re mad at me, but I need—I need things to be okay.”
“Things aren’t okay,” Jamie said, and then he leaned in and eased himself up, tucking her cheek against his thin shoulder, and said in her ear, “You have the worst taste in men in the world. But I love you, too.”
It was that simple, and she felt stricken at the thought of how awful it must be for Alan, never to have this warm human contact, the certainty of someone saying it back. Mae closed her eyes and held on to Jamie’s soft T- shirt with clenched fists, and did not let go for a long time.
That night the demons whispered outside her window in Jamie’s voice, small and beseeching, asking for help. But she knew Jamie was safe in bed, and she put her head under the covers when the low, terrible sobbing began.
13
Bargains at the Gallows
Mae’s Monday morning was slightly brightened when Jamie came downstairs wearing the purple LOCK UP YOUR SONS T-shirt she’d given him, which he usually only wore to bed.
“Nice,” she said as Jamie fished around for the purple knit cap in the cupboard where they kept their hats. Nobody really knew where the purple knit cap had come from. It was a purple mystery. “Do you want me to put some eyeliner on you?”
“No, Mae. We’ve had this discussion.”
Jamie spoke lightly, as if everything between them was fine, but if that were true, Jamie wouldn’t be dressing this way. Mae had told him Seb was going to be polite to him from now on. Jamie was clearly determined to be defiant in purple.
“Hang on a second,” said Mae, and she dashed upstairs and changed out of her black HEATHCLIFF HAD IT COMING shirt and into a matching purple LOCK UP YOUR SONSd shirt.
Unlike Jamie, Mae wore hers quite often.
Today it was a uniform, something that said
They walked to school, talking about how much they were longing for the summer holidays.
“Oh, I am planning things,” said Jamie. “Great, great things. I could join a band.”
“You gave up the guitar after two lessons.”
“Well,” he said, “I could be a backup dancer.”
“Backup dancers have to wear belly shirts and glitter,” said Mae. “So obviously, I support this plan.”
“The answer to glitter is the same as the answer to eyeliner,” Jamie told her. “In fact, put all forms of makeup into the big box of no.”
“You’ll never make it as a backup dancer with that kind of attitude.”
“Well,” said Jamie, “maybe I’ll learn a new skill.”
They were drawing level with the school when Jamie did something very unexpected: He smiled.
It was a particular smile, warm and slow as sunrise, that he used when he saw Mae, Annabel, boys he had usually disastrous crushes on, and friends he no longer had at all.
“Hi,” Jamie said, happy and a little shy. “Um—what are you doing here?”
