Two weeks into my return, Tom came into my room with a huge smile. His roommate, Thomas, had signed. Another family for the pyre.
“You know, I thought this was going to be a terrible year. Mary’s curae. Finding out Gertie had a cult. Sebastian running away. You and Grandma arguing—so unMorton! All of it.”
Tom waited a beat for me to say something. I didn’t.
“But you’re back. You’re one of us again.”
“Yes. And I’m sure you’ll ace your finals, Tom.”
“I will. Without needing to scream.”
I smiled, as if I didn’t either.
I dropped Legacy Bronze Age in Question and went back to Archery, where I hit the bull’s-eyes that I’d missed with Tom.
The Senior Uncommons was empty, with four of our number gone. (That Xavier would return seemed unlikely; the other three, unthinkable.) I went there sometimes, hoping Regina Lindqvist would appear. But she never did, and elsewhere treated me exactly as she always had—like a boring girl with whom she shared friends. She dropped no words containing those four letters lightly into conversation. We were two careful islands, an ocean between us.
I stayed away from Gertie for her own good.
It was easy now, playing the true Morton. Music felt further away, a buzzing from someone else’s headphones. Maybe the empathogens were still fading from my system. Or maybe I’d cut out the weakness inside me with the price of my escape.
Not with Ziggy though.
With a hug. A snap.
Faraday and I metone afternoon in the Lesser Tea Room.
She was wearing one glove. It was made of black felt, on her left hand (Grandmother, merciful and kind), and covered with silver sequins. She had two more left gloves in her handbag, in case she was struck with the need to change her look.
“I have an entire drawer of them, dear.”
“What do you do with the right-hand ones?”
“I keep them for when it gets cold.”
“Ah, of course.” Winter hadn’t settled in yet, though it was early December. “Do people ever guess why you’re only wearing one?”
“Never.” Faraday moved her hand to demonstrate—the pinkie was sewn to the ring finger; it flexed convincingly.
“Didn’t your family say something at Thanksgiving?”
“Not a word. One benefit of lifelong pretentiousness—new affectations barely register.”
“How lucky,” I said. “Grandmother likes you, by the way.”
Faraday blushed a little. “I didn’t even scream.”
“Well done.” I still cared for her, with the parts of me that had survived Elizabeth’s last test. “I’m so, so sorry this all happened, dear.”
Faraday reached out her good hand. “What matters is that you’re back. And I hope Sebastian isn’t far behind.”
“Does he owe you rent?”
“Don’t be tiresome, darling. Gertie’s letter solved all that. But we miss Bazzy so much.”
I missed him too. It was one thing, being separated from him in my family’s hidden room. But Helshire was the real world, where I needed real air to breathe.
His absence marked every tree, every stone.
