A Murder of Magpies (14 page)

He was such an ass.

Without cracking a hint of amusement, he snorted, “Your small talk sucks.”

“Gee, thanks.” I crossed my arms over my dress. “You’re hardly Mr. Congeniality.”

“I never pretended to be. I don’t lead people on.”

I looked at his mouth. The mouth that kissed me and was now thin with flushed lips
contrasting his pale skin. I wanted to touch his cheek, to rub the sandpaper of his
stubble, which tinted more brown than red like the sweat-wet hair curling near his
jaw. He would be scratchy and rough. Real. He wouldn’t be the dream Ward whispering
of things he knew about me. I wanted the real Ward.

I circled him, one finger tracing across from his left shoulder to his right. My skirt
rippled near his boots, and then I stood over him.

“I don’t know how to act around you,” I confessed.

He raised his head but only enough to stare at my hand. He grabbed for it and placed
it against his cheek. He placed it exactly the way I would have, and his skin was
sharp and jagged, as I had imagined it would be. He was also soft and warm against
the iciness in my fingers. His breath shuddered.

“Don’t act. Just be Vayda.”

I dropped my hand from his face and dragged myself over to the wall. I felt bare,
so exposed to him, and slipped behind a dressing screen in need of repair. Ward’s
fingers crept around the screen’s edge. We hid together, not speaking, and then he
pushed my hair off my neck, sending shivers down my spine while he drew down the curve
to my shoulder, my arm, before he very simply held my hand. A nest of quiet built
around the two of us. I wanted that quiet. I wanted more.

“I thought about everything that happened that night,” he said. “I wanted to know
what I did wrong, but I don’t know. It’s not that I’m
gadje
, as you call it. But I know that’s part of it.”

I took a deep breath, nodding. “It’s some of it, Ward. I’m trying to figure out things.”

“Okay then. I have a hard time believing that’s all it is, but I can be patient, if
it’s for you. You’re not easy.”

“You were hoping I’d be easy?”

“That came out wrong.” He gave a true laugh and took my chin between his thumb and
forefinger. “I like you, Vayda. I mean,
really
like you.”

I liked him, my
gadjo
, too. Not only because of the quiet.

I listened to his breathing. Our noses touched, and I tilted my face to bring our
mouths closer. There would be no running this time. His lips skimmed mine as if testing
my temperature before his mouth opened the kiss wider. I draped my arms over his shoulders
and slid my fingers through his hair. He leaned back against the wall and swung me
in front of him so that I pinned him to the old brick. We kissed until our mouths
ached and our lips were exhausted, but even then, we didn’t stop.

***

By seven, the shop was closed. Ward hugged me goodnight as Chris arrived.

“You ever have something happen that you can’t explain?” I asked.

His chin rested against the top of my head. “Not every little thing is meant to be
explained.”

Except what I hid from him wasn’t some little thing, and I had no idea how to tell
him. If I could ever tell him.

An hour later, my head ached from working too long at the computer, and my mind wandered
away from editing photos for the shop’s website. Cardinal rule: Idle hands do the
devil’s work, and Dad made sure that, if nothing else, we found ways to keep busy.
I was starved, and we wouldn’t eat until nine, though that didn’t stop me from daydreaming
about food. Fresh herbs. A tangy vinaigrette.

“Will you stop thinking about food?” Jonah asked as he checked off items on an inventory
list. “I’m so hungry I could eat this paper.”

“I’ll give you five bucks if you actually do,” I said.

“Got some salt?”

He sat in his favorite chair, a horseshoe-shaped number he and Mom restored. Together,
they covered the cushions with a patchwork of reclaimed leather. Fate smiled when
Jonah kept his chair at Antiquaria instead of home and again when Rain shipped it
with the first load of inventory to Fire Sales.

He swiveled toward me. “Don’t think I don’t notice you eyeballing my chair. You best
not put an evil eye on it.”

“I don’t care about your chair,” I said. “It’s yet another thing you and Mom did together.”

He wrapped his hands around the back of his head. “Whatever you think Mom taught me
about Mind Games, you’re way off-base.”

“Am I?”

My brother’s lips were a grim line as he examined the inventory list, but I glared
at him harder. He rubbed the back of his neck and pretended it didn’t bother him.
Except the pulse in his neck told me otherwise.
Tell me I’m wrong about Mom, that she didn’t pick a favorite from the two of us.

“Mom never excluded you,” Jonah said. “You avoided her.”

It was true. I couldn’t change the past. Jonah missed what he had with Mom. I missed
not only what I didn’t have but also what could never be.

He combed his fingers through my hair. His big hands weren’t quite dexterous enough
to be relaxing, but he tried.

“Think what you want about Mom,” he said. “It’s not like she can prove you wrong.
I don’t know what else you want to hear.”

I wanted to hear what Jonah remembered, how the night Mom died haunted him.

Because I remembered.

I remembered the frost nipping at my skin, the acidic smell of burning peach trees,
and gravel digging into my bare feet as we staggered along the country road to Rain’s
house, the only safe place we knew. My godfather charged down the steps of his farmhouse,
and with ashes stinging our noses, we gazed over the treetops in the direction of
our house where the night glowed amber.

The heel of my palm blotted away tears before they slipped down my cheeks. Mom was
gone, and I was angry. Angry at her favoring Jonah, for recklessly using her Mind
Games. Angry at her for dying.

“Ready to call it a night?” Dad asked before his final lock-up of the shop.

Jonah passed off the inventory list to Dad. He allowed our father’s arm to wrap around
his shoulder. Warmth filled my chest as they stood so close. Though Jonah still reveled
in the attention from Chloe, whatever came over him unclenched him from its grip.
That gave me hope.

Glass shattered in the showroom.

Before I could make sense of what happened, my chest smacked the ground. Jonah pushed
me down and shielded me with his body. My breath rushed out in a single, hard punch.
Dad crouched beside us. Dazed and numb, we held still while a hush fell over Fire
Sales except our breathing and the soft tinkle of tiny glass shards raining on the
floor.

Jonah rolled off me and whispered, “What the hell was that?”

Ignoring the cold dread stalking me, I sent out my feelers and stumbled through the
panic trailing out of my father.

“Stay here,” he ordered.

The hairs on my forearms prickled. I couldn’t sit by doing nothing and snuck over
to the door to the showroom, trying to glimpse between the furniture and darkness.

“You there, stop!” Dad yelled. The bells by the entrance jingled. “What the hell are
you doing?”

I raced into the showroom, working on instinct instead of thought. Dad was gone. Glass
shards scattered over the floor by the window. A hole smashed the glass, fissures
cracking to the corners, and my gaze fell to a rock on the floor. This felt too vicious
to be a prank.

Running, I made it outside seconds after Jonah. Dad was halfway down the block, chasing
someone. Two storefronts were behind me when the heel on my right shoe snapped. Knee-first,
I hit the sidewalk, concrete biting my palms. “Shit!”

Jonah whipped around. “You okay?”

My skirt was torn, and I hiked up the fabric to examine my bloody knee. Every beat
from my pulse rattled my bones. Jonah put my arm around his waist and helped me walk
a few steps toward the shop. Dad’s footfalls slowed as he gave up the chase, retreating
to join Jonah and me.

“I couldn’t keep up,” he panted.

“What are you gonna do?” I asked.

He shook his head, not ready to talk, and noticed the blood running in a hot trail
along my shin. “Hang tight. I’ll get the first-aid kit from the shop.”

Unable to put much weight on my leg, I let go of Jonah and slouched with my back to
the brick wall. The scrape wasn’t deep, but my knee would swell something fierce.
Dad halted in front of Fire Sales, one hand covering his mouth. Jonah went to his
side, and a moment later, a frightened blast shot from him. I raised my barriers to
hold off the anxiety and pushed through the pain to walk.

Dad clutched Jonah’s shoulder. “Now, boy, we can’t jump to conclusions.”

“Someone knows about us!” Jonah shouted. “You swore you handled it!”

“Quiet!” Dad massaged his temples. His fear whizzed over my skin, flickering and sick.
“Let’s get your sister taken care of.”

I edged closer, cringing from the fire in my knee, when more glass shattered. My arms
covered my head as the window of some stranger’s car parked curbside blasted apart.
Blue fragments of glass glittered under the streetlight, and then the window of another
car cracked into a spider web.

“Jonah, stop!” I screamed.

He shook his hands free of energy. I felt his anger. His terror. It crawled up me
and burrowed into my veins. His face appeared gaunt and wary. “Why won’t they leave
us alone?”

“Because we don’t know who ‘they’ are,” Dad answered. He tried to sound firm, but
his voice shook. “We’ll figure it out. Calm down.”

Dad scooped me into his arms and carried me down the cobblestone toward Fire Sales.
My lips parted, and I jerked my head from side to side, searching for someone in the
shadows. Someone spray-painted bright red letters on the bricks below the broken window,
the paint still wet and dripping like blood.

Freaks

Vayda

Mom slices cucumbers in the kitchen while Rain sips a beer and places his hand on
the slope of her back. Her head swivels toward him, amused, and his fingers move to
her shoulders for a one-armed hug.

From the vegetable garden, I can’t make out much through the cloudy window over the
sink, but I see enough. He says something that doubles her over with giggles. She
peeks over her shoulder, and I drop a clump of basil leaves into my basket. A moment
later, the backdoor clatters with Mom scurrying down the steps. She has the body of
a retro pin-up girl, even dresses like one with her cigarette pants and kitten heels.
With a flick of her wrist, the basket of herbs leaps from my hands to hers.

“Vayda, baby,” she intones, “Rain don’t mean no harm. That fella’s buttering me up
so I’ll be in court tomorrow. I gotta put a feeler on the jury for him.”

I yank a zucchini off the vine. “
Dati
said you were done meddling.”

“It ain’t meddling if you’re opening up people to the truth. A freed mine is a sound
mind.”

***

“Not going out tonight?” I hollered over Frank Zappa’s winding rock on Jonah’s stereo.

He muted his music. His history textbook was open beside him, but a Wordsworth biography
was in his hands.

“Chloe asked, but whatever. If she wants to come by Fire Sales after I close, well,
I’m not gonna stop her.” He broke into a lusty grin.

“She’s not a game, Jonah.”

“Sure, she is. Twister.”

I crossed my arms over my black dress. “That’s not funny. You shouldn’t be playing
her like that.”

“I’m kidding. Geez.” He glanced at the lamp on his nightstand, the bulb switching
on by his will alone. “Lighten up.”

“Chloe likes you. A lot.”

“Yeah, so much she ditched me in front of our entire algebra class last year. She
called me a loser. You know what it’s like to have even the nuns laugh at you?” He
smiled and shut his textbook. “It’s in the past. She’s done with letting other people
control her. Right now, I’m having a good time with her. I won’t hurt her.”

The way he said it, he was promising. I hoped like hell he’d keep it.

His energy boiled under his skin as he stretched. He gestured to my black tea-dress
with a plum-colored cardigan. I’d paired it with knee-high boots. “You look pretty,
Sis. How’s your knee?”

I’d nearly forgotten about the scrape and swelling. In two weeks, I’d healed pretty
well. Still a little bruised on the outside. On the inside, I felt like I was still
bleeding. At the shop, the window had been repaired, but Dad, Jonah, and I knew it
wasn’t the same. Real or not, the cracks remained.

“I’m okay,” I replied.

Jonah cocked his head. “Vayda, did you try searching out whoever did it?”

I hadn’t. I couldn’t. Any time I even got close to where the bricks were painted,
such fear came over me that I wanted to run away screaming.

Jonah understood even without me answering. “Then we won’t know who did it unless
someone confesses. Dad said the police think it was someone screwing around.”

“But we know it’s not true.”

“Believe it’s true. At least for tonight.”

The doorbell rang. I descended the stairs in time to find Dad fixing the collar of
Ward’s black oxford shirt. I’d noticed he didn’t have many clothes, but I hadn’t ever
seen his dark trousers paired with this unbuttoned vest. With the sleeves rolled to
his elbows, his scars were darker than usual, and, of course, he wore his boots—now
artfully mended with electrical tape. He handed me a single green-white rose. “For
you.”

Like a gentleman, Ward led me outside to Chris’s Jaguar and opened my door. The engine
made hardly a sound as he started the motor. An acoustic ballad by Iron & Wine greeted
my ears. Sparks crackling over my skin, he kissed me, teeth grazing my lip before
he drew back.

“I like kissing you,” I murmured.

He wet his lips. “I’d do more if you wanted to.”

His words hung in the air, expecting a response.