Flicker (16 page)

“It doesn’t matter.” Jason
shoved the assorted bills and change into his pocket, then jammed the hat on his head
.

“It matters.” Still
gripping
Jason’s shoulder, Nasser started to walk, steering Jason alongside him. “It
matters
when you take off just because of a stupid argument, and I don’t see you again for three days. It
matters
when I have
to
go to
the
revels
just to look for you.”

“You went to the revels?” Jason’s
disbelief
stopped them both midstride.

“Yeah.”
Nasser bit his lip. “
While I was there,
I made a deal with a dryad. A trade.”

“What kind of trade?”

“A book for a girl.” He left out the whole name business. It wasn’t anything Jason needed to know. Not yet, anyway.

“A
gir
l?
” Jason
squinted
at his brother,
suddenly
suspicious. “Wh
at are
you leaving out
, Nasser
?”

Nasser shoved Jason to get him moving. “Nothing important.”

“Fine
,” Jason huffed. “Don’t tell me, just like always.
”

They didn’t speak the rest of the way home.

* * *

The air was October-sharp, smoky and cold. It smelled like Halloween. The scent filled Lee
with childlike excitement. The building
s and street names were
as
familiar
as her own breath
. She was in Bluewood. She was home.

“I don’t know my way around
,” Filo told her
, wh
en they climbed off the
bus they’d ridden into Bluewood
. “
So
you get to lead the way.”

“Lucky me.”

They walked in silence,
passing the supermarket and the vet’s office. When they cut through the elementary school playground, it was as desolate as it had been on that last day with Kendall, since all the kids were in class. But it was a cold bareness, as cold as the metal of the swing set and jungle gym. She hurried acros
s the gravel, shoulders hunched, unsure of what she was trying to outrun.

Then they
turned onto
Fair Wind
Avenue. Lee was
almost
jogging now. Filo matched her easily, looking bored. She could see her house, just up the street: number 92
6, painted a soft spring green.

When they stopped in front of the house, Filo gave her a sideways glance. “Is this it?”

“Yeah,” Le
e answered
.
“
This is
my house.”
She was giddy with anticipation, nearly bouncing with excitement.

“Huh. I thought it would be nicer.”

Lee rolled her eyes, saying nothing. She was about to dash up the driveway when s
he noticed something: The
blue
minivan
parked in the driveway didn’t be
long to her mother. The
flower garden near the edge of the lawn hadn’t been there before, and an unfamiliar sapling wit
h a few orange
leaves clinging to its thin bran
ches was planted near the house.

“What
…
?” Lee murmured.

“Something wrong?” Filo asked. He trailed slowly behind her as she hurried up to the house, gravel crunching under her sneakers.

The heavy drapes on the front windows were open, and it was easy to look inside. Lee paused before the windows, brushing the cold glass with her fingertips. Inside, the whole room was different. The far wall, which had once been
ever
green, was now dusty red. The floor was hardwood instead of carp
et
. All the old, comfortable furniture was
gone, replaced by cream-colored pleather couches
. The walls were lined with p
hotographs of people she didn’t recognize.

Lee
opened her mouth
, but nothing came out. She felt suddenly cold.

“I don’t understand,” she managed finally. “It’s all wrong.”

B
eside her, Filo chewed his lip
. Lee moved closer to the window, so close that her breath clouded the glass and she had to wipe it with her sleeve.

He nodded toward the
minivan
in the drivewa
y. “Looks like they’re home
.”
Before Lee could say anything to stop him, Filo bounded up the porch steps and started banging on the door.

“Hey!” she hissed. “You can’t just—”

He shushed her. “What’s your name, again?”

“Why do you—”

“Name!”

She
blinked hard, stammering, “Lee Capren.”

He nodded, then resumed his pounding. After a moment, the door swung open. A middle-aged woman with
masses of
dark, curly hair stood on the other side. She wore white slacks
and
a periwinkle sweater with a wolf on the front.

“Can I help you?”
Frown line
s were evident around
her
mouth
.

“Sorry to bother you so early, ma’am,” Filo said.
His voice was steady, polite—
nothing like his tone whenever he spoke to Lee. He sounded professional. “But would you happen to know anything about the family that lived here before you moved in?”

The woman looked startled, then suspicious. Lee thought she was going to ask why they weren’t in school at this time of day, or if they had something to sell. A frown pulled down the corners of her mouth.

Filo didn’t say anything more, just looked at the woman expectantly, his eyes bright with focus. For some reason, Lee felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
After a moment, the woman seemed to relax. Her expression softened, and her eyes lost their suspicious glint.

“Just one woman lived here when we bought the house,” she told Filo. Her voice was different now, dreamy and compliant. “About
five
years ago. I couldn’t tell you where she moved to, or an
ything like that
.”

“Do you remember her name?” Fil
o prompted, slowly and clearly.

“I’m not sure.”

“Try to remember.”

“I don’t—”

“
Try
.” Filo’s voice was firmer now. He leaned in toward the woman.

T
he woman sucked her lower lip into her mouth. “I’m n
ot sure,” she fretted
, shaking her head. This fact seemed to bother her immensely. “Copper. Cappa. Something like that.”

“Capren?” Lee supplied.

The woman smiled. “Yes, that’s it.”

“Do you know why she moved?” Lee asked, willing her voice not to quaver. Fear gnawed at her spine. “Dana Capren, I mean.”

The woman knit her brow
, searching her memory
. “I think it was something about her daughter. She went missing—no, no, she died. They found her body in the woods.
Terrible thing.
”

“H-how?” Morbid curiosity overcame Lee. “How did she die?”

“It looked like animals killed her,” the woman recalled. “Rabid dogs or something.
The body was all torn up
, almost unrecognizable
.
It was in the papers for a while. They picked up all the strays in town and made some new leash laws.”

L
ee’s mouth fell open. H
orror paralyzed her, and she stood rooted to the spot. She felt as if she had just swallowed a huge, bitter pill without water.

Filo took the initiative. “Thank you for your time, ma’am,” he
intoned
. “You can go inside now. Go inside.”

The woman smiled contentedly. “All right.”

When the door closed, Filo took Lee’s arm, tugging her down the driveway and onto the sidewalk. Leaves crackled
across the street, disappearing
behind
the adjacent
house
. Lee wondered if the old woman still lived there, if her cat still sat on the edge of th
e lawn and watched traffic
. She realized she was shaking.

“I told you so,” Filo
sighed.

Lee rounded on him and slapped him across the face. Once again, while her skin touched his, her vision flashed brightly and her eyes stung. She balled her hand into a fist, blinking burning spots from her eyes.

Without warning, Filo grabbed Lee’s forearms and jerked her close. Her feet were
nearly lifted
off the ground; only her toes were still in contact with the sidewalk.

She was level with Filo’s eyes now, and she saw something in them that wasn’t there before: a feverish, almost unearthly blue light that made her skin crawl. She was seized by a sudden, powerful desire to get as far away from him as possible.

“If you do that one more time, I
will
hit you back,” he growled, then released her rather hurriedly, as if he’d only just realized w
hat he was doing
.
For a moment, when his voic
e was raw and husky with anger,
there had been an
Irish
lilt to his words,
an
accent like
Neman
and Morgan’s
.
“I mean it. I’m not above hitting a girl.”

“I’m not scared of you,” Lee muttered, her eyes brimming with tears. The tears weren’t all Filo—they weren’t even half Filo, truth be told—but she still didn’t want to cry, not in front of him. She ducked her head to hide her eyes.

Filo checked his watch
pointedly
. His cheek was bright red where she’d slapped him
, but she didn’t re
gret it. “Eleven-fifty
.
Next
bus
leaves at two.”

It occurred to Lee that Filo must’ve been completely dead inside, if he could make such an announcement just moments after her whole world had come crashing down around her ears. How could he be so cold?

“Come on,” he said,
softer
. “Where to?”

Lee took several deep breaths to clear her head. Her need to remain upright gave her a calming focus. “Phone booth. I need to check something.”

“Okay.” Filo sounded wary, like maybe he thought she’d just had some sort of psychotic break. Maybe she had. Was there a way to tell?

Lee walked quickly, mechanically, trying not to think as her feet carried her to the nearest phone booth, the one by the supermarket. She rushed into the booth and grabbed up the phone book, which hung on a flexible metallic cord below the phone.
Filo stopped the
door from closing with his foot
, watching her closely.

Lee flipped furiously through th
e thin pages
. After a minute’s intense scanning, she found what she was looking for. With a great sigh, she sagged against the wall of the booth. Finally, she turned to Filo. “Do you have a pen?”

* * *

“Kendall Fond,” Lee announced, checking the scrap of paper in her hand, just to be sure. “Phone number: 555-1107. Address: 1010 East Crescent Court.”

Lee tucked the paper into her pocket. For a moment, she hesitated. She wasn’t like Filo; she couldn’t just march up to a stranger’s door and start asking questions. Not that Kendall was a stranger. It was just
…
different.

Though Lee had recalled a great deal yesterday, there were still
gaps
in her memory, dark corners into which she couldn’t see. Whenever she tried to explore them, all she dug up were feelings. When she focused on the
night
she entered the revel, she felt cold and angry
and hurt
.

Something had happened, something Lee suspected she might rather forget. She worried that seeing Kendall could trigger the memory. But there was no turning back now.

The duplex was modest in size, painted a tasteful pastel yellow. Carved pumpkins crowded the small porches, and leaves were scatter
ed across the lawn.
A purple SUV
, scratched and dented in places, was parked in the driveway. This
duplex didn’t
look like the sort of place Kendall might live—she’d
always
dreamed in the extreme, chattering of
studio apartments in New York
City
or ro
mantic cottages in
the middle of
Montana—but the poor, abused car
certainly looked like it could
belong to Kendall.