“Noted,” I said.
“We’ll go shopping tomorrow.”
Aunt Arabella and I exchanged a glance. Ordinaries went shopping. My only store-bought clothes were technical synthetics—for climbing, stealth, wicking away sweat. The rest of my wardrobe had descended upon me from the family stores, mended, washed, and softened by other Morton hands.
“Nowthisis perfect,” Garrett said. He held Sebastian’s skull. “Do you have a chain for it?”
“It’s not a necklace.” Or part of a costume—it was a ghost of Peter.
Except everything was a costume now. I was Jessica Anderson, gallery assistant, and bones were my art. Peter’s collection had traveled with me to New York, wrapped in protective paper and wool.
“I’ll find you a leather strap,” Garrett said. “Wear the skull tonight, and the kilt. And dye your hair—blue.”
“Tonight?”
“The Xenakis opening. Didn’t I mention it?”
Sophomore year, legacies took a class in disguise, and on the estate we kids were encouraged to play dress-up, answering to made-up names for days on end. One summer, Sebastian and Gertie pretended to be twins who spoke their own invented language, and no English.
Sebastian had tried to play the twins game with me, but the make-believe had fallen flat. I was always Jessica Morton.
That had to end now. My lurking in Hiromi’s socials, my afternoons onstage in Uncle Wolfie’s class, my arrangements of Peter’s bone collection—all of it had to become real.
Jessica Anderson had started as a sculpture major, but when her work showed no particular promise, she switched to an arts business program. She still wanted to be in this world.
Garrett lent me a black leather jacket, scraped down one side in some long-ago accident. Motorcycle boots would’ve been perfect, but all I had in black were ballroom shoes. My hair almost matched the blue of the kilt.
To make the crow skull a necklace, Garrett’s leather strap was threaded through the eyeholes, a worm in the grave.
The overall result was certainly chaotic—half art student, half Scottish road-witch. It felt unMorton to be so striking.
I wondered what polished, elegant Hiromi would make of me.
“Memorable,” Garrett saidwhen I presented myself.
“In a good way?”
He only shrugged. Aunt Arabella sipped her tea.
I sat down with them at the wrought-iron table. My chair was unsteady on the uneven stones.
The backyard was the size of a small greenhouse on the estate, with stunted trees and bushes in pots. Ivy spilled across the wooden fences. It felt crowded, partly by the centuries of bones beneath the flagstones.
Garrett poured me tea.
“Will Hiromi Kennedy be there tonight?” I asked.
He smiled. “You’re excited to see her.”
“She knows we’re related. What about my new last name?”
“I told her about our little pretend. Said you’re afraid of being accused of nepotism.”
“So my cover story has a cover story. Uncle Wolfie would not approve.”
“You two sharing a little secret—it creates intimacy.”
“With a struggling artist?”
