MORTAL COILS (69 page)

He
felt as if he was getting away with something—a different, but not entirely
unwanted, sensation.

Julie
had such a sly grin on her face, he almost wondered if she had engineered
Ringo’s closing. That was nuts, though. The owners made those kinds of
decisions. If Julie’s family owned Ringo’s, she wouldn’t be living at the
Hillcrest Apartments complex. That place was a dump.

What
was it like at her home? She had tried to tell him the other day in the Pink
Rabbit, but couldn’t. It was selfish of Eliot to think he was the only one with
family problems.

“You
look so serious, honey.” She punched him in the shoulder. “Lighten up. It’s a
play day.”

“Just
a little worried, I guess.”

“About
Fiona? I couldn’t help notice you came alone to work. Is she all right?”

He
shrugged. In fact, Eliot hadn’t been worried about her, and that made him feel
guilty. He’d said he would stay with Fiona as long she needed him . . . and
then he’d left her this morning.

She’d
been asleep after a long night of sitting by the toilet puking. What was she
going to think when she woke up and he wasn’t there?

She’d
be okay. Probably.

“Fiona
has the stomach flu.”

Julie
crinkled her nose. “I should’ve told her yesterday to wash her hands. When you
hostess, you touch all those grimy menus that everyone else has touched. You
pick up some of the nastiest germs.”

Eliot
nodded. Great. Now he was thinking about Fiona and the next heroic trial that
would probably kill them both because she was sick.

“I
know what we need,” Julie said. “Play something.” She reached into his pack and
pulled out the rubber boot where he kept Lady Dawn.

Eliot
took the boot, a little annoyed that Julie had touched his violin.

Had
he told her about it? He didn’t remember. He took another sip of wine,
grimacing the stuff down. He must’ve told her.

He
stroked the grain of the wood. It looked like fire, and he remembered last
night and how the carnival had come to life. Was that because Mr. Millhouse had
thrown some master electrical switch? Or had it been his song? It was a crazy
thought, but that’s what it had felt like. And the way the calliope had
answered his music . . .

“I
better not.”

Julie’s
smile faded. “Oh, okay.”

They
both sat a moment, the only sound the hot breeze rustling eucalyptus leaves on
the ground.

Fiona
told him last night how Uncle Aaron had showed her how to cut. It must be scary
to know that you can cut through anything. Fiona had then started crying again,
thinking how creepy Mr. Millhouse had died—how she had cleaved him into two
pieces.

That
had been the grossest thing Eliot had ever seen.

He
couldn’t begin to imagine what his sister felt like.

He
set his wine down, suddenly not thirsty at all . . . and certainly not for
blood-red wine.

“Still
thinking about Fiona?”

“Kind
of. Weird family stuff.”

Julie
sighed. “I know how you feel. Sometimes even a perfect day, a bottle of wine,
and a cute guy can’t make me stop thinking about them.”

Had
she called him “cute”?

But
it was too late. He’d done it: ruined the picnic with his melancholy mood.

Maybe
that was okay, though. Maybe Eliot could turn this into a real chance to talk
with her. Help her.

“So
what’s it like for you? I mean, your family?”

Julie
stared at the leaves and bit her lower lip. She then opened her mouth . . . but
closed it and slowly shook her head.

He
should go first and share something about his family. “I know how you feel.
Sometimes I think there’s no one who’d believe half the stuff that goes on at
our place. Like my grandmother has this list of rules that are eight pages
long—typed! One hundred and six regulations.”

Julie
looked up, astonished. “Sounds like a prison. How can you even remember half of
them?”

Eliot
shrugged. Of course he remembered them. He’d lived with most of the rules since
he’d been able to read. It was as if he and Fiona had come with an instruction
manual.

“And
then there are my aunts and uncles.” What could he tell her about them? Even he
wasn’t exactly sure what they were. “They’re larger-than-life, but not in a
good way. It feels like Fiona and I are always getting shoved around by someone
in the family.”

Julie
looked away and blinked quickly. Without meeting his gaze she pulled her
T-shirt over her shoulder. Three finger bruises marked her pale skin.

“That’s
from my stepmom,” she told him so softly that he barely heard her. “I’m not the
only one that gets it. I had three brothers . . . one of them got pushed down
the stairs.”

She
didn’t speak for a moment and her face quivered. She was valiantly trying to
hold back tears, but they nonetheless tumbled down her cheeks. “The police
believed her when she told them that he fell.”

Eliot
gently set his hand on her back. You didn’t have to be involved with gods and
devils to have your life entirely messed up. All it took was one bad person.

She
turned to him and his arms folded around her. Julie cried against his chest.

He
wished he knew what to say to make her feel better. Or was this something even
the right words couldn’t fix?

“Hey,
I know, how about I play some music for you?”

She
sat up and nodded, wiping her face with the heel of her hand. “That would be
wonderful.”

Eliot
pulled out Lady Dawn and the bow and experimentally strummed his thumb over her
strings. Microscopic vibrations ran along her length.

A
corner of his mind whispered that this was precisely what Julie had wanted in
the first place—that all this was a trick to get him to play.

How
could he even think that? Julie had real problems. A nice girl like her would
never manipulate him to get something so trivial. Eliot flushed, ashamed at his
suspicions. Dealing with the Council was making him paranoid.

He
set the violin under his chin and brought up the bow. He started with the
familiar “Mortal’s Coil” singsong nursery rhyme.

The
key, however, shifted under his fingers to something dark. The shadows cast by
the eucalyptus tree deepened, and Eliot found himself in a tiny circle of dim
light.

Only
Julie remained, kneeling next to him.

This
isn’t what he wanted. He was trying for something light and fun to cheer her
up.

He
gazed at her tearstained face. That’s where this darkness was coming from. It
was as if when he was around her, his music became a magnifying glass on her
soul.

The
words Eliot always imagined he heard along with the nursery rhyme came:

   
Now you’re dead and buried long. Is there light or is it gone?

   
Flames and pain for all your wrongs. Spirits lost and all alone.

He
pressed hard with his fingers and forced Lady Dawn to play what he
wanted—bridging her back to a major key. He forced the song to become a light
jig. He tapped his foot and felt alive again.

The
sun emerged from behind clouds. Wind stirred and a thousand slender eucalyptus
leaves took to the air and danced about them in time to the song.

Julie
laughed with delight.

   
Children get their just rewards. Welcome light or point of sword.

   
Kind or cruel life’s too brief. Dead or not there’s no relief.

Eliot’s
stomach turned. Something wasn’t working with the song; light and dark notes
mixed in a way he didn’t want. Even though the sun had come out, he could have
sworn he saw stars as well now in the sky.

The
ground thundered. A deeper power stirred and tried to accompany him, a rumble
too deep to be felt . . . but nonetheless triggering an instinctive reaction to
run away and hide.54

Eliot
finished the jig with a quick flourish.

Julie
clapped and cried, “Wonderful!”

The
stars in the sky faded. The earth fell quiet. The leaves and wind settled.
Eliot exhaled. It was almost as if the music had fought him, running away from
him again, alive, with a mind of its own.

Julie
sat closer and stared into his eyes. “You’re the most amazing boy I’ve ever
met,” she whispered.

Eliot
didn’t have a clue what to say. Things like “I like you, too” came to mind, but
how dorky did that sound? Instead he just smiled. Maybe being stoically silent
would work for him.

“Listen
. . .” She scooted closer. “I’ve been planning something for a long time. I
wasn’t going to tell anyone, but, well, then I met you.” Julie sat up
straighter and her face scrunched in concentration.

“You
can tell me.” He set aside Lady Dawn and took Julie’s hand.

“I’m
leaving,” she sighed. “Ringo’s. Del Sombra. My stupid stepmother. Everything.”

Eliot
didn’t understand how a person could just leave. “When?”

“I
know some people in Los Angeles. I’m going tonight before my stepmother gets
drunk and pushes me down some stairs, too.”

Julie
closed her eyes. Tears squeezed out from under her eyelids. She withdrew her
hand from his and quickly wiped them away.

“I
understand,” he whispered.

“You
do?” She looked genuinely surprised. “I thought you would try and talk me out
of it.”

“The
last thing I want is to see you leave, but if you think it’s the right thing to
do, then it probably is. I’d do the same thing if I could get away with it.”

54.
The Oro Recycling Plant was spared the fire that razed Del Sombra, however, it
closed soon thereafter when the Environmental Protection Agency cited it for
numerous pollution violations. Interviewed workers claimed the plant was
clean—that nearby Franklin Park was the source of increasingly strange
phenomena: mutated lizards, cracks in the earth, and expelled sewage. Many
claimed that ghosts dance every night in the park to some unheard song, but
this has never been confirmed as the EPA quarantined the region and declared it
a Superfund cleanup site. Gods of the First and Twenty-first Century, Volume
11: The Post Family Mythology, 8th ed. (Zypheron Press Ltd.).

She
grabbed his hand. “You can come with me. I’ve got a job lined up. A place to
stay. We can do it together.”

Only
in Eliot’s daydreams did things like this happen. He didn’t know how to answer.
Naturally he wanted to run off with Julie, the prettiest and nicest girl he’d
ever met. And, sure, there was nothing more he wanted than to get out of Del
Sombra—away from the rules and restrictions and Grandmother.

But
some microscopic portion of him would actually miss Grandmother, and Cee, and
of course Fiona.

Who
would help his sister? How was she going to get through the last heroic trial
without him?

Did
Fiona really need him, though? If she could cut through anything, what was
going to stop her?