“Calyx, aged seventeen, was last seen yesterday at the Blaine's home on Holly Street.She'd been doing homework and preparing for school.It is believed she was abducted sometime in the night.The assailant broke into her second-story bedroom window…”
It was all I could do not to scream as I tuned out the story that had been concocted.Calyx had not been doing homework.She hadn't been alone.I was with her all night, in her bedroom, eating Chinese and watchingCharmed.I don't know if she cast a sleeping spell on me before she'd trashed her room, or if she'd put something in my food when I wasn't paying attention, but something about her disappearance wasn't right.
And there was only one person who could have done it.I didn't know how she did it, but each time I ran through it in my head, there was one thing that was absolutely, crystal clear: Calyx had not been abducted.
When we realized this morning she was gone, I tried to explain to Mother that nobody had broken in.I tried to suggest that Calyx could have left on her own, that maybe things had gotten serious with her new boyfriend… the one none of us had met, the one that we'd only heard about.
The one that Calyx, for all her talk about him, kept secret.
I mean, at the very least we should try and find him, talk to him, right?
Mother glared at me, her chin set and the lines around her mouth showing strain.“No.Notmydaughter.”She sniffed.“And I resent the implication, Marigold, that your sister was unhappy in any way.Just because you feel that you don't fit in with this family does not mean that you should make Calyx out to be deviant as well.”
Deviant.I pictured myself flipping my mother the bird with both hands.But all it did was make me angry that I couldn't do it in real life.I rolled my shoulders, trying to release some of the tension.I realized I was clenching my jaw and grinding my teeth.
But I knew.Iknew.
The fact that my sister had killed the spell on our necklaces gave Calyx away.With the spell intact, I would be able to sense her.It wasn’t a spell anyone else would know about, so there was no reason for anyone else to sever the tie to hide my sister.No.The fact that the spell was broken spoke volumes, and the story it told was that my sister, for all her immature and dramatic leanings, left of her own free will.
If I was being totally honest, it felt like a kick in the gut.I thought Calyx and I were close.Our necklaces had been a constant reminder of that, despite the fact that I'd moved out and she'd pulled away recently.
The more I thought about it, the more grateful I was she'd insisted we hang out here, at my parents' house instead of my place.That showed she cared a little bit, even as she'd taken off with no thought of the consequences.Whatever her plans, it would have been worse had this happened anywhere else.I couldn't imagine what Mother would have done if Calyx had disappeared while she was staying at my apartment.So, I guess a part of me should thank my sister.No wonder she pushed so hard to have me come to her.I shuddered as I imagined the scene had this happened at my place.The horror of it made me break out in a cold sweat.
When I was her age I was petrified of breaking the rules and facing Mother's anger.While all my friends were sneaking out at night, going to parties when they shouldn't be and getting wild with boys, I stayed home, trying to be a good girl, doing what was expected.I wish I had known then that it was hopeless.Nothing I could have done would ever be enough to get Mother's approval.
But even if I had done all of those forbidden things, I would always have come back to Calyx.I knew that she was there for me, and when nobody else did, she cared.Trouble was, now that she was out doing all the wrong things, instead of touching base and coming back to me, she'd turned away and grown secretive.
So when I woke up this morning and my necklace had fallen off—something it could have never done before—my mind went instantly to that boyfriend she'd been seeing.He was just bad news.It was almost laughable.He was such a cliché with his black leather jacket, jeans, and tight T-shirts, slicked back hair.God...poor Calyx was in over her head.
Mother thought Calyx was above reproach and better than all the rest when in fact she was just like every other seventeen-year-old girl on the planet, whether human or witch.A teenage girl was drawn to the bad boy like a moth to the flame.But screw it.If Calyx thought she could just walk away, fine.That was her choice.But there was no way I was going to sit back and let them think she was just abducted.Let Mother milk this for all the airtime she could get.
Right now, everyone was focused on poor Calyx, stolen away by a horrible kidnapper.Someone looking for a quick payday, looking for ransom from the Blaine family, who would do anything to get their precious baby back.
But my parents wouldn't be getting a ransom call.They wouldn't be getting anything.And they wouldn't be getting Calyx back because there was no way she could return now.Not after this press conference.She'd be mortified.
What would happen then?Whatever I thought of her running away, Calyx deserved to be able to come home.I knew how it felt to not feel you had a home to come back to.I didn't wish that on anyone, especially my little sister.
The only thing to do was to find her.Whatever happened after that, I couldn't control.
The police inspector had stepped aside, motioning for my mother to take the podium.I watched from the back of the room, where I'd been told to wait for my turn to be interviewed—for the fifth time today—by the police.
Mother so clearly loved the attention, it was sickening.Anything was an opportunity for publicity, and what better kind of publicity was there than the pity and concern after your daughter had been kidnapped?Mother's gaze swept across the crowded room, stopping on me momentarily.Nothing in her face shifted as we made eye contact.The complete lack of anything in her expression, the cold, detached, emptiness–it made the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
It was like I didn't register with my mother at all.
And that was probably exactly the case.Where Calyx was like a pebble, tossed into the lake of Mother's attention, causing ripples that wafted in waves as they moved through her, I was the pebble that struck the frozen ice, lacking the ability to make any impact.Because of that, or maybe because the only pebble that counted was Calyx, I was ignored.
Mother's gaze moved on as though I hadn't taken even a moment of her attention.Ignoring the tightness in my chest and the lump in my throat, I slid off the wall and edged around the corner.It annoyed me beyond measure that her disinterest still got to me.As I left the room, I bumped into an old man who'd been standing in the doorway behind me.He jumped when I made eye contact, almost dropping a small wooden box he carried.He stepped toward me.
I backed away.I didn't want to talk to anyone.The tears were barely held back as it was.I made my way to the stairs, planning to make my escape.
“Excuse me.Miss Marigold?”The elderly man's voice was soft but firm.
I paused and turned, but stayed on the stairs, unwilling to be totally rude to the old man.“Yes?”
“You are Marigold Margareta Blaine?”he asked, rolling the 'R' in my middle name in a way nobody ever got right.He smiled briefly and his face warmed up.“I wonder if I may have a word with you?”He glanced into the living room as if making sure we weren't being watched.Mother was still in full press conference mode.
“I don't have a lot of time.”I waved at the press conference and the police, as though all of it were being managed by me personally and I wasn't attempting an escape up the stairs.
