Always the same relentless questions. Sam feels disgusted by her mother’s active concern, now that she is an adult and no longer needs her mother to survive. Where was all this when Sam was a child? When has her mother ever opened up toher? Why should Sam? But guilt still sits heavy in her chest, all the same. Sam tells herself she’ll call her mother back tomorrow and apologize for her behavior, and they can schedule another night for dinner.
Later, not now. She can’t bear the thought of letting her mother listen to her voice. Her mother will see right through her to the rot underneath.
And is it rot? How did other people get money, anyway? Some of the wealthiest people in the world robbed and hurt their way to the top, and they’re hailed as inspirations. Hadn’t the people she’d executed deserved it? Weren’t they worse than her? Why does she have to be the only one who feels guilty? It’s so much easier, isn’t it, to just point your finger at all the moral failings of other people?
A week later, when Sam is washing her hands in the bathroom at the bottom of the estate’s hill, Diamond comes in. Sam is so focused on scrubbing her skin that she doesn’t even notice the woman at first. A rarity, for her. She is concentrating on washing away all the grime from under her nails, even that which she can’t see. She knows it must be there and needs to get it out. She’s been at it for ten straight minutes, and her skin is starting to bleed from the cracks.
Diamond washes her hands in the sink beside her, dries them with a paper towel, then stands there and waits. This is what finally pulls Sam out of her reverie, ripping her attention from her hands to focus instead on the woman beside her, watching her patiently.
“You’re clean, Sam,” Diamond suggests.
Sam feels a tide of shame. She turns off the faucet immediately and dries her hands on a towel, ignoring the feeling of blood that still seems to be on her.
Diamond nods at her hands. “Let me see.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Sam holds out her dried hands to the woman and is embarrassed all over again. Her hands are bright red, bleeding in a few places where she has scrubbed too long and too hard and opened the skin up, and only now does she feel the sting of it, realize that bits of blood dot the paper towel she’d tossed in the trash.
Diamond doesn’t react at the sight. “Put your hands down,” she says.
Sam does. The faucet she was using to rinse her hands is dripping; she hadn’t managed to close it tight all the way, and the fainttinkof water against porcelain clips at her mind, keeping her on edge. She stands stiffly before the woman and stares at the collar of her jacket, where the winged lion is pinned.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” she says.
Diamond gives her a pointed look. “Sam,” she says, “you’re a nice girl.”
Sam, unsure how to answer, nods along.
“The world is careless with nice people.” There is a crack in Diamond’s demeanor, although Sam can’t quite put her finger on the seam of it. Maybe it’s something in the woman’s eyes, a resurfaced memory. Or just a trick of the light. “No one ever worries about how nice people feel, because they’re always going to be nice about it. When they bleed, no one is going bother checking on them, because they’re always going to tell you they’re fine. Nice people are easily used and easily discarded. Minimal arguments, no fuss.”
Sam looks hopelessly at the woman through a film of tears. She doesn’t know why Diamond is telling her this—because she’s tired of seeing Sam moping around, or because she feels sorry for Sam? Maybe Diamond thinks Sam is a bad investment if she can’t get a handle on herself.
“Harden yourself, Mozart,” Diamond tells her. “Don’t give the world permission to be careless with you. Do you understand me?”
Sam swallows and pushes her tears down. “Yes, ma’am,” she answers.
The moment breaks; Diamond turns around. “And you’re an alchemist,” she says before she leaves. “So take better care of your fucking hands.”
Sam’s “Yes, ma’am” echoes in an empty bathroom.
She stays a while longer, staring at the sink’s faucet, itching to turn the water on one more time, before she finally forces herself to step out.
She stops washing her hands, puts on a look of stone-faced calm, forces herself to eat. All better, on the surface. But insomnia haunts her nights, and whenever she is alone, her mind spins in place, searching for help that doesn’t exist.
She dwells on Ari and his last words to her. The secret beach, the full moon. She finds herself thinking of him every night, until her memory of the place appears in her dreams.
Maybe she needs to see him in order to find some relief. But will he really be there on the next full moon? Most likely, it’s a trap. She reminds herself that he works for the enemy. They aren’t classmates sitting together in school anymore, and there are likely ulterior motives behind every word he speaks.
An enemy, through and through.
And yet.
It would be an easy lie, for her to go see him. The full moon falls on a night when she would typically accompany Hanover on business, but Hanover is always lenient with her, has often told her to take the opportunity to go visit her mother instead. Still, she tells herself it’s a fool’s errand. The night passes in a restless train of dreams and nightmares.
The next evening, she finds herself heading down to the bay alone, telling no one.
The beach is as she remembers, although more overgrown than ever, and in the darkness, it takes her the better part of half an hour to make her way down to the sand. The water is high, the ocean gray and moody.
She stands there for a moment, alone, letting the wind whip her hair back. Her eyes search the darkness of the familiar stone arches, where she and Ari had once leaned against each other and stared out at the sea. She doesn’t know what Grand Central might do to her if they find out where she went. Maybe she doesn’t even believe, not really, that Ari will come here tonight. Maybe she just wanted to come see the secret beach for herself. Maybe it’s her way of saying goodbye to a part of her past.
