“You already are.” The smile returned to her face. “I bumped into a certain former business partner the other day.”
The events of two weeks ago reassembled in my head: Thomas’s first wrack, Bianca following me, Gertie’s anger, Uncle Max launching out the window—all of it clear and shiny, from the time before the dark swirl of the accident, when everything made sense.
“He popped up at a christening.” She gave a smirk. “I knew he’d be there.”
“Did he behave?”
“He positively scurried.”
“Good.”
Faraday leaned closer, her voice dropping. “But you must explain, dear. Is that all it really took?”
I shook my aching head. “What?”
“His little finger was in a cast—thetiniestcast, with a Velcro contraption to keep it straight. Like a mouse with a broken leg!”
“Faraday.”
She ignored my tone. “Seriously, all you did was snap his pinky? Isthatthe fountainhead of the Mortons’ awesome power?”
I gave her my stare, empty behind the eyes. “Don’t ask about this again.”
Faraday held my gaze, her smile unwavering.
For the first time, my mother’s stare wasn’t working. My head was too addled, too swollen with stray thoughts.
“It’s not what we do, but how,” I said.
“Well,I’mnot going to spill your terrible secret.” She tugged at her own pinky, till the joint gave a littlepop.
For a moment, she looked like Grandmother—the ashen shadow, the upside-down eyes, that cool and ancient smile.
Then she shimmered back into Faraday.
“Are you okay, dear?”
“Sometimes I don’t know where I am.” I’d been thrown through the windshield into some other world.
She patted my hand. “You’re right here, with me.”
“But it’s different now.”
“They’ll fix you,” Faraday said. “And if they can’t, you’ll fix yourself.”
I woke up late that night, or some other night.
The windows were pitch black, the room lights dimmed. At last, Icould open my eyes without pain. The hallway was quiet, and the machines around me lay in peaceful slumber. The cannula in my arm was gone.
When I sat up, my rib cage hurt, but it was a simple, honest ache—like I’d been punched. I could deal with punches.
I shoved aside the thin hospital blankets and swung my feet out.
The mass of my body was jumbled, my head weightless, my limbs full of sand. The floor of the hospital room seemed too far away. On my unsteady path to the bathroom, gravity pooled unevenly.
At last I was peeing, grateful for how little coordination the paper robe required. Hanging inside the door was my dressing gown from home, and I’d spotted slippers back by the bed.
Maybe I could take a walk.
