“You’ll be fine,” Sebastian said. “But we need to discuss Mary.”
“It’s that name,” Gertie murmured. From beneath my bed, Uncle Max answered with a low moan. He was different since his tumble down the airshaft. Quieter, and he walked with a twitch.
“She’s a Morton now,” Sebastian said. “Slay the rabbit, spare the child.”
The moment Trotzky died, Mary had completed her curae. I should have called a halt, summoned Grandmother, and detailed the disrespectful—chaotic, unhinged—performance. But I was too busy collapsing.
“I’m fucked.”
“Don’t be silly,” Gertie said. “Uncle Merwin passed Peter, after all.”
“And look how that wound up,” Sebastian said.
A fresh wave of nausea hit. The memories that had spilled out of Trotzky’s veins were still with me. No longer in the hallway, nor under the Barrow Marsh.
They were here, in this room.
I had killed Hiromi.
Her frantic breathing at the end, like she’d just run a long, long way. The faltering light in her eyes. Our last words to each other, simple and quick, as if she were stepping onto a train.
“Mary named her rabbit, what, eight months ago?” Sebastian was saying. “Delayed her curae till all four of us were home. She even tried to dress like him. She’s obsessed.”
“They all are,” Gertie said. “Haven’t you heard their little song? ‘Uncle Max, took an axe, gave the cousins forty whacks.’ ”
Sebastian scoffed. “That’s just the Lizzy Borden song.”
“But one must appreciate the internal rhyme.”
“They’re still afraid of him,” I said.
They both looked at me.
“We killed Max. We erased him.” I turned to Gertie. “And you and Tom watched him die. But for the younger kids, he’s still out there. Behind every tree, every door.”
“A boogeyman for little Mortons,” Gertie said.
Sebastian frowned. “So Mary wants tobethe bogeyman?”
“She’ll tell everyone,” I said. “How I puked, because a rabbit got its head cut off.”
“Don’t be silly,” Gertie said. “Decapitation is banal. It was thethemethat was unsettling.”
“Mary’s too smart to tell anyone.” Sebastian put a hand on my forehead, reassuringly cool. “She doesn’t want any questions about tonight. Her little show was just for us.”
“Aspirin?” Gertie asked.
Strange, how they both wanted to protect me, when I was weak and broken. Because I’d protected them once, long ago.
I love you too, Mary had screeched at Trotzky.
A gentle knock came at the door. We exchanged glances, like children with a guilty secret, but it was Tom.
“She’s home safe, still ecstatic. Still laughing at everything.” He hesitated, staring at the vomit stain on my shirt. He looked as sick as I felt. “There was a message from your mother. She wants to see you tomorrow morning.”
I fell back against my pillows, dizzy again.
I hadn’t visited my mother since the crash. Her eyes were too sharp. Her memories of the way I used to be too exact.
