The Blue Woods (9 page)

Jenny flopped onto her back. “Sometimes I wish I was a Benandante.”

“Why? 'Cause you see how much fun it is?”

“No, I know, it's stupid.” She reached her hand up and ran her fingers along the wooden bars of the bunk above her. “But sometimes I feel like I'm part of it already, because of my dad, but without the superpowers. And that kind of sucks, being on the fringe like that.”

“Oh, I don't know. There's a lot to be said for the fringe.” I should know. I'd been living on the fringe ever since we started moving around. “You can watch everything that's happening without risking your own neck. And sometimes you can see things more clearly than everyone on the inside.”

“Well, that's true.” She dropped her hand and looked at me. “For instance, I see that even though you like to keep yourself separate, you really want to be part of the big picture.”

I pressed my lips together. “Wow, Jenny. Psychoanalyze much?”

“Why else would you get involved with the Benandanti?”

“Um,
to save my brother
?”

She squinted at me in the dark. “What does your brother have to do with this?”

Holy crap, she didn't know. I had to hand it to Alessia for not spilling that secret. With a grunt, I hoisted myself up on my elbow. “Jonah is a Malandante. I figured Alessia told you.”

“Shit.” Jenny whistled long and low. “So
that's
why they broke up.”

“Yep. Nothing like finding out your boyfriend is actually your archenemy.”

“I warned her,” Jenny said in a disgustingly smug voice. “I warned her that he was a bad boy.”

“Yeah, yeah, you're smarter than the rest of us,” I said, then added, “He's not evil. He wants out of the Malandanti. Alessia and I are trying to figure out a way to do that.”

Jenny brushed her hair away from her face. “You can't just resign your post from the Malandanti. Or the Benandanti. My dad tried when I was born, but they wouldn't let him.”

“In it for life, baby.” I slid back down under my blanket. In some ways, there was not much separating the Malandanti from the Benandanti. Both sides required absolute dedication from their members. Both sides made you sign a contract for life. No exceptions.

Except . . .

There was an exception. I squirmed a little, trying to get comfortable. That thing I'd found, buried deep in the Angel Falls book, that thing that no one wanted to talk about. A Benandante could die and willingly gift his or her essence to a Malandante, turning one side into the other.

The bedroom door creaked open and Alessia's shadow stretched across the floor and the wall opposite. She shucked off her boots and tiptoed past me, obviously under the mistaken impression that I could possibly sleep.

“How's the new guy?” I asked when she'd put her foot on the bottom rung of the ladder up to her bunk.

“Jesus!” She stumbled off the ladder, her hand pressed to her chest. “You scared the crap out of me.” Taking a deep breath, she looked from me to Jenny and back again. “How'd you know it was a guy?”

I shrugged. “Just assumed, since Mr. Foster was.” Actually, that wasn't true. I'd sensed his maleness, just like I'd sensed his Calling. But I wanted to keep my sharpened senses to myself for a little longer.

“Yeah well, I'd be a lot happier if he was a girl.” Alessia pulled her sweatshirt off, padded out of the room, and returned a moment later with a glass of water. “This guy,
Cal
—he's been obsessed with the Benandanti since he was like a toddler. His mother had a vision that he'd be Called. A
vision.
” She gulped down the water so hard that some splashed onto the front of her tank top. “He's all like, ‘I've been to Friuli! I'm going to defer my acceptance to Yale because nothing's more important than the Benandanti! Don't you think nothing's more important than the Benandanti, Alessia?'
God!
”

Jenny started laughing. I leveled my gaze at Alessia and asked, “Does my brother need to be worried?”

Alessia stared at me. “What? No. Absolutely not. Cal is the most annoying person I've ever met.”

“And so starts every great romantic comedy ever made,” Jenny said.

“Oh, my God! Not even a little bit. Will you guys stop it?” She stomped over to the bed and hoisted herself up the ladder. “He's actually happy he got Called. He has no clue how much it's going to ruin his life.”

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” I said.

“Seriously, Alessia.” Jenny knocked on the bars of the bottom bunk, making Alessia jump a little. “You act like being a Benandante is the worst thing in the world. It's not.”

“Um, I think I know better—”

“No, you don't.” Jenny jumped out of bed and stood in the middle of the room, her hands on her hips. “Look at my dad. He's been in the Clan since he was twenty-six. I was still a baby. He was going to go back to grad school. Instead he settled here to protect the Waterfall. He made a different life for himself than what he thought he wanted, but that doesn't mean he's not happy.” She jabbed a finger in Alessia's direction. “There isn't a day that goes by when he doesn't tell my mom and me how blessed he is. You should be so lucky.” She blew a long, hard breath out. “So quit your bitching.”

I dragged myself up to sitting and clapped, whistling loudly. Alessia glared at me. Jenny turned slightly pink and slid back into her bunk. “Shut up,” she told me. “You'll wake the house.”

“I have to find Jonah,” I told Alessia the next morning while Jenny was in the shower and we had the room to ourselves. “I can't stand lying around here without knowing what's going on with him.”

“I know,” Alessia said. “Every minute that I don't hear from him is a minute that he could be . . .”

“Don't say it.”

“I wasn't going to. He's okay. I have to believe that.” Alessia tugged a thick blue sweater over her head. “Maybe I'll see him at school today . . .”

“He's not going to be there. I don't think the Malandanti will let him out of their sight.”

“Unless the Malandanti have a Clan member at the school watching him.” Alessia pulled on her beat-up UGGs and sat in the swivel chair at Jenny's desk. “I mean, if he doesn't show up at school, that's going to raise suspicion, isn't it?”

“Maybe.” I stretched my arms overhead, testing to see how far I could go before the pain kicked in. Stabbing pain arced across my ribs. Not far, it seemed. “Look, I know you and your perfect GPA are dying to get back to school, but do you think you could skip today? I need to get out of this house and do some snooping, but I can't do it alone.”

Alessia grinned at me. “Wow, Bree. I think that's the first time I've ever heard you ask for help.”

I pointed at her. “You'd better not screw up and make me regret it.”

She chewed her lip. “The thing is, I'm not really talking to Lidia right now, so I can't ask her to call in for me.”

“Get Nerina to call. She has an Italian accent. No one in the office will know the difference.”

Once half the house went out either to school or work, and Nerina had made the call, Alessia and I slipped out the front door. “We'll go to my house first,” I said. “No use trekking all the way to Bangor if Jonah's just around the corner.”

Alessia shot me a look. “Do you think he is?”

I shook my head. “But it's worth a shot.”

“What if your dad is there?”

“That's why I needed you to come with me.” We took another residential side street to get to my house, rather than take Main Street and risk being seen by all our classmates on their way to school. “We'll have to sneak in through the second-story bathroom in order to avoid being seen.”

“Wait,
what
?”

I didn't say anything else until we reached my block. Sure enough, both my parents' cars sat in the driveway. I tried not to think about the last time I was in that driveway, when the Harpy dumped me into her trunk and hauled me away. My bruises ached with the effort of not thinking about it.

“This way.” I led Alessia around the side of the house, careful to skirt the outside of my dad's office. “I just need a boost up this tree,” I said, pointing to the long, sturdy branch that stretched out beneath the bathroom window.

“Are you kidding me?”

I raised my eyebrows. “What's the problem?”

“Don't think I didn't notice how much you huffed and puffed on the way over here. You winced with every step, Bree. You can't go climbing up that tree.”

“Well, every other way into the house is way too obvious. The back door opens about four feet from my dad's office. So what do you suggest?” I moved to the tree and reached up toward the lowest branch, careful to keep from scrunching up my face in pain.

“Oh, fine. Here.” Alessia knelt down and cupped her hands for me to step into. I hoisted myself onto the branch with a grunt, gritting my teeth as my ornery ribs protested. But from the lowest branch, it was an easy climb to the window ledge. I waited at the top for Alessia to clamber up behind me. “Hope it's not locked,” she said when she reached me, a little breathless.

I knew it wouldn't be; Jonah and I never locked it, in case something just like this happened, and Mom and Dad didn't use this bathroom. I slid the window up and eased into the bathroom. I spied my tube of mascara on the sink and stashed it in my pocket. In the mirror, I caught Alessia rolling her eyes at me. “What? I need long eyelashes to distract from the bruises.”

We tiptoed out into the hall and straight down to Jonah's room. It was cold and empty, the bed neat and unslept in for who knew how many days. His messenger bag sat filled with his schoolbooks on the floor next to his desk. Alessia pointed to it at the same moment I spotted it. “He hasn't been here in a while,” she whispered. I tried not to notice how pale her face had become. Sometimes I forgot that I wasn't the only one affected by Jonah's absence.

“He probably hasn't been back since he was at the Guild with you guys,” I murmured back. “They must still be keeping him there.”

Alessia ran her hand over a sweatshirt that hung on the back of the desk chair. “We can't go back there to look for him. There's no way we'll get out alive this time.”

“I know.” I hugged myself and turned in a slow circle, taking in the room like one of Jonah's uber-pretentious posters was going to help us. I glanced back at Alessia, who had brought the sweatshirt to her face, breathing in deep.
Oh, for Chrissakes
. “He's not dead, Alessia. Stop wallowing.”

She looked at me. Her eyes were shiny. “I'm sorry. I just . . .” She trailed off and sniffled.

I crossed the room and pulled the sweatshirt out of her grasp. “I know I make a big show about being the older twin and looking out for Jonah and all, but the truth is he's not helpless. He can take care of himself, you know. Whatever it is the Malandanti are doing to him, he's figuring out a way to get out of it.”

She dried her wet cheeks on the sleeve of the sweatshirt. “You're right. He's stronger than you give him credit for.”

“Gee, thanks.” I tugged her arm, nudging her out of the room. Without Jonah, it was too gloomy in here. “Come on. Let's not have this trip be a total waste.”

We headed back into the hall. I popped into my room to grab a few things I'd forgotten the last time we were here, other than the mascara, and shoved them into my backpack. On our way toward the stairs down to the kitchen, I stopped. The sound of a morning talk show drifted from the crack beneath my parents' closed bedroom door. “Wait here,” I told Alessia.

Gently, I pushed the door open.

The lights were off inside the bedroom, giving the impression of dusk when it was actually nine in the morning. The light from the television flickered across the bed, where my mother lay, staring at the screen without seeing.

“Mom?” I whispered.

She didn't answer. I crept closer. An empty bottle of pills lay on its side on the nightstand, next to a half-f glass of amber liquid that I was certain wasn't iced tea.

“Mom?” I asked again.

The covers surrounding her rustled a tiny bit. She blinked, moving her gaze from the television, across the bedspread, and onto the sheepskin rug on which I stood. Her eyes widened when they saw me. “Bree?” she croaked. Then, like she used to do when I was little and had had a nightmare, she held up the covers as an invitation for me to climb in.

A tiny sob escaped me. I crossed to the bed in two aching strides and slid into bed with her. Beneath the covers, I felt her frail arms come around me. I buried my head in her pillow, hiding from her the tears that spilled down my face. “What happened to you, baby?” she murmured, stroking my hair. I sniffled and looked up. Despite the pills, her eyes were surprisingly clear. “Where's Jonah?” she asked.

I stared at her. The sound of the television fed into my consciousness, and I became aware of what it was playing. MSNBC was running a special program about the fallout from the revelations about the Guild. Mom followed my gaze to the television and tightened her arm around me. “It's finally happening. All your dad's chickens are coming home to roost.”

I could swear there was a note of glee in her voice. I turned away from her and watched the television for a few minutes. A news ticker scrolled along the bottom:
Mysterious illness grows worse in Asia . . . Doctors are stymied as the death toll climbs . . .
God, the world really was fucked up. I shifted away from all the bad news on the screen and faced Mom fully. “Mom, I can't explain, but Jonah and I are involved too. I have to stay out of the house for a while. It's not safe for me to be here, so I'm staying someplace where I can be protected. Okay?”