Love Fortunes and Other Disasters (23 page)

“What's wrong?”

Sebastian wriggled out of his blanket cocoon to reach into his pocket. He pulled out a snakelike paper. Ticker tape. He rubbed his eyes and his fingers came away wet. “Here. Read it.”

Fallon gingerly took the love fortune from his hands. After she smoothed down the tangled, curly paper, the red letters proclaimed:
You will die if you fall in love. Your sweetheart will cause it.

*   *   *

The words printed on Sebastian's fortune taunted her, ghosting through her mind with possibilities. The next few months unfolded like an accordion, revealing all the ways in which she could blow out his life like a candle. Her homemade food could poison him. He might push her out of the way of a moving car. She might ask him to do something stupid for her, like find her lost golden bracelet at the bottom of a well, where he would drown while searching.

“Fallon,” he said gently. He uncurled her hands and pocketed the fortune.

Slowly, she felt herself breathing again. “Why?”

“I don't know.”

“How long?”

“Since freshman year,” he said.

She looked up at him and discovered that her heart was still a steady engine in her chest.

Sebastian played the calm one badly. His eyes were red with unshed tears. “I don't want to die,” he choked.

This was all too painfully real. She had the irrational fear that someone, like Zita, would open a trapdoor, sending Sebastian spiraling out of her life as quickly as he had come. Fallon opened her arms. “You won't die,” she said. “I won't let you.”

Her arms tightened around him as he nestled into her embrace, resting his cheek against her chest. Fallon's body shook with his muffled cries. She rested her chin on top of his head and squeezed her eyes shut. Eventually, the storm of emotion died down and Fallon reached out to pour the tea. Her hand shook and droplets of tea missed the mugs. “I don't think these mugs have been washed before,” she said, finding a fleck of cat hair stuck to the outside.

Sebastian laughed weakly. “Only you would think of saying something like that.”

Her lips twitched with a smile. “Ms. Ward doesn't own cats, and yet they find their way into her villa, just the same.”

“They know a friendly person when they see one,” he said. “I met cats like that at the clinic, always looking for the hands that offer treats and a good scratch.”

“Like you?”

“I get along better with dogs.” Another smirk appeared on his lips like a gift. “I am one. You said so yourself.”

“Please don't hold that over my head.” She took a sip. The tea torched its way down her throat, touching every nerve. The sudden heat caused her body to shake. “Tell me about the fortune.”

Sebastian took a generous gulp of his own tea and hissed when it burned his tongue. He rested his arm on the back of the couch, just behind her neck. “I thought it was a joke at first. A prank that Grimbaud plays on its outsiders. But then I noticed that everyone trusted the fortunes they got. And I couldn't argue, since my fortune had been spit up from the same machine as everyone else's.

“From that day, I decided to protect my heart. I swore I'd never give it to anyone. Nightmares of dropping dead on the street after falling in love kept me up at night, so I wandered Grimbaud and started collecting quiet.” Sebastian shrugged. “I could have hid among the other would-be bachelors and accepted a safe, loveless life, but I was stubborn. I began to study the boys around me and figured out what made girls like some but not others.”

She saw where this was going. “Then you became handsome.”

Sebastian winked. “That's right.”

He started teasing death. A girl wouldn't kill him, because he'd never surrender his heart … but he wanted as much love as he could experience along the way. He began by dating the bored girls who floated between boyfriends. Then the girls who sought out flings. Sebastian explained his dating rules, sometimes writing it down for them to carry in their purses, and kept his thoughts and emotions as detached as possible. When he received love—a kind smile, a warm hand to hold, or a kiss before the first bell—he absorbed it like a weed dying for sunlight.

“Deep down, I started hating people for following their kinder fortunes. They had the luxury of picking themselves back up again after heartbreak, while I would have died if I tried doing the same. Breaking up with the girls grew easier as time passed, because I knew from their fortunes that they'd recover. But the threats from unhappy girls started to worry me. I needed to find a girl strong enough to handle the rules.”

Fallon's mouth ran dry. “You don't mean me.”

“You were the one,” he said with a rush of emotion. “Orientation established your reputation. It was just as widespread as my own. Fallon Dupree would never be interested in someone like me. That was a comfort. When I found out that we were involved in the rebellion together, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to get to know you.”

“So you were secretly happy that I kept rejecting you,” she said, scarcely able to believe it.

“I tried being obnoxious,” he said, counting off with his fingers, “and reminded you as often as I could how rotten and callous I was. But I never considered how badly
I
wanted to be with you.”

Fallon recognized that tug-of-war now that she understood where it came from. All those times he grew panicky and distant were moments when he'd almost forgotten Zita's fortune. She didn't agree with how he'd handled dating, but she understood now. And no matter his actions, she couldn't begrudge him for trying to change, or at least bend, such a horrible fate.

Sebastian couldn't belong to her. He was destined to die after finding his true love. She would become a spinster. Tonight shouldn't have happened: her torn nightgown, the frost on her feet, the almost kiss in the courtyard. The rebellion had already worked miracles, but the ending remained to be seen.

“I'm scared to give you my heart,” Sebastian said nervously. Hanging on to his quilt, he left the couch and stared at the bookshelves.

Fallon thought of several responses to that, but none of them matched the severity of what he had just confessed. She pushed back the tray, sloshing more tea, and tiptoed behind him. His back was narrow and tense. She walked around so that she stood in front of him. “I know,” she said, “but I'll take good care of it.”

“Like ironing your uniform or vacuuming your apartment?” he teased.

Fallon frowned. “Exactly.”

“I believe you,” he whispered.

The heater sputtered and clicked. They stayed awake until morning, drinking the rest of the spicy tea and listening to the villa's silence.

*   *   *

Fallon and Sebastian left the Spinster Villas without breakfast. The washer and dryer back at the apartment could get rid of the mothball scent, but she'd need to toss in everything she'd brought, including the duffel bag. This Sunday felt like any other November day, except that Fallon battled a new heaviness that made the rebellion's goal so much more critical for her. Zita's fortune had sentenced Sebastian to death. That wasn't something she could easily forget, no matter how satisfying it had felt to know what he thought of her and to hear his secrets.

On the way back, Fallon made sure Sebastian walked on the inside of the sidewalk. She held his hand when they crossed traffic. She grabbed his coat sleeve when a bicycle whizzed by, close enough to clip them.

Sebastian smirked and whispered in her ear, “That's enough.”

Fallon's cheeks burned. “You're the one who cried last night about dying.”

“Protecting me from the dangers of Grimbaud's traffic is a kind sentiment,” he said, “but if I remember correctly, you're the one who fell in a puddle, princess.”

“Maybe you should lock yourself in a tower until this is all over,” she snapped.

“I could die anywhere,” he said thoughtfully. “Imagine how gruesome a tower death would be.”

She didn't want to.

They stopped at a fruit stand. Sebastian bought a grapefruit and asked her if she wanted anything.

“Do you actually eat fruit or are you just trying to cheer me up?” Fallon asked.

“I'm disappointed that you think I eat grease for breakfast,” he said, his mouth curling into a smile. He said that his grandmother ate nothing but grapefruit in the mornings; like recording pockets of silence, he found starting his day the same way comforting. “You know, Grandma Marion helped push me to find you,” he said.

“How do you mean?”

He tossed the grapefruit in his hands as they walked. “I never told my grandmother about my fortunes. After I broke up with you,” he grimaced at the phrase, “I sulked long enough to realize that she'd be able to pull me out of it. At first, it was so hard to start. I didn't know how to tell her, so I just read the fortunes into the phone and waited.”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing, for a long time,” Sebastian said. “I knew she was listening, though. That's just her way.”

Fallon wished she could have been there for that conversation. She was curious about his grandmother. She also wondered what it would feel like to truly confide in someone—she did that with her friends, but family was different. Lying to them hadn't been as hard as she'd thought it would be.

He had told his grandmother everything he could, talking until his voice grew hoarse. By the time he returned to the phone with a glass of water, his grandmother was ready to impart her wisdom. “She called me an idiot,” he said, “and told me to stop wasting my time and yours by moping.”

Fallon laughed at that.

Sebastian ran his fingers over the grapefruit's bumpy skin. “Before she hung up, she told me that she needed to see me directly. Grandma's usually calm, but I could hear her agitation through the phone. She says that she knows something about Zita. It's not safe for me to hear about it in Grimbaud, though.”

Her pulse quickened. “When are you leaving?”

“I want you to come with me.”

Her rational brain kicked in. “It's November, Sebastian. We have exams in a few weeks. I have a paper that needs to be written by next Thursday.”

“I could be dead before then,” he said carelessly.

“Or you could live and fail all your classes! Need I remind you that being left back a year is bad?”

“I could stay behind a year. We could graduate together.”

“That's unromantic.”

Sebastian almost dropped his grapefruit, laughing. “Okay. So. What's the plan?”

“Whatever she has to say must wait until we're done with our exams,” Fallon said firmly. They didn't know what kind of lead his grandmother had, but Glastonberry was half a day's bus ride away. They'd be cutting it close trying to squeeze that trip into a weekend. “I'll tell my parents that I'm staying at school for winter break.”

“Good plan. We can see my grandmother for a day or two and not miss class.” He sighed. “Final exams, huh? It seems pointless to think about real life again.”

“I find test taking relaxing,” she said.

“I'm not surprised. You probably study.”

 

chapter 19

TINS

When Ms. Ward asked Fallon to stay after school on Monday, she wasn't surprised by the request. The library grew busier this time of year. Procrastinating students hunkered down in study groups. The card catalog was in full use, though usually messed up by students shoving cards back in the wrong drawers. During the month of November, the school library's hours extended until dinnertime. When Fallon arrived after the last bell, the library was as noisy as the cafeteria.

“Form a neat, orderly line,” Ms. Ward yelled from the circulation desk.

Fallon set to work on reshelving the encyclopedias someone had left on the floor. She saw a few familiar faces from her classes. The most entertaining students to observe were the study group leaders: they conducted the sessions like maestros, hands flapping, guiding the fold. Thankfully, couples kept their hands to themselves; they were no match for the majority of students roaming the stacks, not for stolen kisses, but for secondary sources.

Ten minutes later, Bram De Groote entered the library with a guest pass clipped to his suit. He looked like he came straight from the accounting office. His eyes narrowed when he saw Fallon, but she stared right back. What was he doing there?

Ms. Ward wore a polite smile when he approached the desk. “Excuse me, who are you?” she asked.

Bram flinched as if slapped. “You asked me to come here,” he growled.

“Oh, of course. You must be Mr. De Groote. Just a moment.” She finished stamping three books and called Fallon over. “Mr. De Groote and I are going to have a chat in my office. Please take care of things until I return.”

Fallon's mouth dropped open. “O-Okay.”

She wanted to follow and listen in, but the library transformed into a turbulent sea. Fallon quickly took over the circulation desk and faced the snaking line of students waiting to check out. The ink dried out on the green pad, so she switched to blue. By the time she had finished, some study groups had left. The tables were covered with eraser marks and candy wrappers. Fallon tucked her hair behind her ears and grabbed the cleaning spray from under the desk.

She worked on every empty table. The paper towels turned gray with grime and dust. The headphones boy occupied his usual table against the window. Since she didn't eat cafeteria food, she'd never been able to pick out which lunch lady his mother was. Or why he wasn't in middle school with other kids his age. Maybe he was homeschooled.

“I need to clean here,” she said, smiling. “I hope you don't mind.”

The boy shrugged and bopped his head to the music.

Fallon wiped the table to the beat of the tango blasting from the headphones. As she worked, she caught sight again of the key hanging from his neck. The key blade was cracked up the middle. “What door can that possibly open?” she asked before thinking.