Envy (Fury) (27 page)

Em laughed as Mel scampered out of the room and they heard her footsteps racing upstairs. “I swear, that girl is going to be in PR,” she said. “She is constantly connected.” Em and JD had always agreed that Mel could enter the
Guinness World Records
for fastest texter ever.

“I know. . . . She just about makes up for my being a social hermit,” JD said.

“You’re not a hermit, JD. More like . . . more like Mr. Darcy.”

“Mr. Who?”

Em rolled her eyes. “You know, from
Pride and Prejudice
. At first everyone thinks he’s aloof because he isn’t into dancing and partying with the rest of them. But then, once you get to know him, you realize he has a heart of gold. And also a kick-ass mansion. And the only reason he didn’t want to dance was because he sucks at dancing.”

JD cracked a smile. “Sooooo, you’re saying I’m not a hermit, I’m just a bad dancer?”

Em laughed. “Well, that wasn’t really the point I was going for, but it’s not exactly
untrue
, either.” Without thinking, she reached out and poked him with a finger.

He swatted her finger away, and for a second it was like there was something warm in JD’s eyes—that old familiar look. In its glow she saw that he, like her, was recalling all those shared root beer floats and epic thumb wars on the couch. Or maybe New Year’s Eve in Boston, when he’d stood behind her during the fireworks, their bodies touching, his breath near her ear. Remembering it made a warmth spread through her lower belly, toward her heart.

But then his face went dark again. A lot had happened between then and now.

“So,” she stumbled on, grasping for neutral ground, “what are you writing your English paper about?”

“Asimov, I think,” he said. “Something about how humans tend to be their own downfall.”

“I guess I should have known,” Em said. JD had loved Isaac Asimov since middle school. She remembered a Fount-Winters family vacation in Cape Cod during the summer between seventh and eighth grades, when he’d summarized, in vivid detail, the plot of
I, Robot
to her on a walk from their cabin to the ice cream stand. It was the only time she’d ever cared about science fiction. JD, on the other hand, had been inspired. His love for all things technical—from computer graphics to stage lighting to car parts—made him fascinated by how humans interact with machines.

She looked at him, ready to share the memory, but found that he was staring at her intensely. He wasn’t thinking about
I, Robot
.

He spoke suddenly and seriously. “Listen, Em, I texted you for a reason. We can’t just avoid talking about what happened the other night. In the cemetery. What the hell is going on with you? People are worried.
I’m
worried.”

Em offered a weak smile, one that she hoped conveyed something like sheepishness. “You were right, JD, about me being more affected by Chase’s and Sasha’s deaths than I admitted,” she said, offering the answer she’d rehearsed at home. “I’ve been . . . a little off my rocker. I feel almost like I’m responsible.”

“Jesus, Em,” he said gently. “That’s terrible. You know you’re not, right? And you’re hurting yourself because of it? You need to talk to someone.”

“I know.” She nodded seriously. “I’m taking the right steps. I’m figuring it out.” That wasn’t a lie, per se.

He seemed to accept what she was saying. But he wasn’t finished.

“I have another question,” he continued. “Why did you get in a fight with Drea that day . . . that night she was studying at my house?”

“I . . . We . . . Well, Drea and I have been spending a lot of time together. As you may know. Because, well . . .” Em blushed, knowing she was hedging the question. She didn’t know how to tell him how jealous she was that night—ragingly, burningly jealous. She stared at the coffee stain on his shirt, trying to piece together a sentence that wouldn’t make her sound idiotic. “It’s kind of hard to explain,” she finished helplessly.

When she glanced up, she saw that JD, too, appeared to be blushing. Her mind leaped to the best-case scenario. Maybe, somehow, he got it. Maybe if she just told him . . .

“I was just wondering,” he said, with a shrug that was more like a jerk of his shoulders. “Seems like a lot of things are hard for you right now. So.” He cleared his throat. “What have you been up to during our, ah, as you so eloquently put it, Reign of Silence?”

Once again Em felt trapped. She wanted to tell him everything. All of it. It was infuriating to feel so powerless. No wonder people called it madness.

She took a deep breath and shrugged. “Just spending a lot of time with Drea’s crew,” she said.

JD made a sound in the back of his throat, a cross between a “Hm” and an “Ah.” Then, definitely red-faced now, he asked, “Anyone specific?”

Em raised her eyebrows. “No. I mean, Drea, obviously. . . . But no, definitely not anyone specific. . . .” Did he know about Crow? Her heart was beating fast now, pitter-pattering in her chest.

“I see.” He didn’t say anything more. Just sat there, looking at her intently, waiting for more. His hands were interlaced in front of him like a therapist’s.

Em felt herself blushing all over. This was it. This was her chance. He was finally ready to talk, to forgive her, and move on.

“Listen, JD,” she said. “I know things between us have been . . . weird over the last few weeks. But there are some things happening to me lately that don’t make a lot of sense. I can’t explain them. But I want you to be in my life. I need you there. I want to just bury the past and move forward.”

Em couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out of her mouth. She had the powerful urge to hold JD and never let him go—to make everything right between them. She felt their knees touching. Every nerve in her body was on alert.

But then JD jerked away from her. He looked confused—and not exactly on the verge of absolving her sins.

“I’m sorry that you’re struggling, Em, I really am,” JD said.
“And I’m glad we got to talk things over. But I’m not sure I can just ‘bury the past.’ Honestly? It doesn’t sound like we want the same thing.”

Em’s joy morphed into mortification. Oh god—he didn’t feel the same way. She was wrong. But how wrong? Had his feelings never existed in the first place, or had they dried up completely? A heavy smoke of anger started to billow inside her. This was all the Furies’ fault. Had they planted false feelings in her, or erased them in him? Either way, they were doing their best to ruin her love story. And it was killing her.

“I’m sorry, JD. I thought . . . I guess I thought that things . . .” She was grasping at straws, and it was starting to seem like there was nothing here to rebuild—like what they’d had together had all been in her head in the first place. She looked at the cowlick over his left temple, the scruff on his cheeks, and she felt lost. She wanted him, but she could see that he was spinning further and further away from her. Or maybe she was spinning away from him.

“I guess I should take off,” she said. “Thanks for listening.”

“Good luck, Em,” JD said, avoiding her eyes. “I’ll see you around.”

•  •  •

Back in her own room, she ran through the various ways in which the night had been a complete disaster. She’d basically confessed her love for JD, and he’d responded with repulsion.
He’d rebuffed her renewed attempt at reconciliation. He’d ended their conversation with “See you around,” which basically meant “See you never, I hope.”

She listlessly opened her laptop even though she knew she wouldn’t get any homework done. Tears were welling in her eyes.

Almost instantly a chat message from Drea popped onto her screen.

Hey,
Drea wrote, and barreled on without waiting for Em to write back.
Need to tell u something.

It seemed, lately, that those words were always followed by horrifying news.

What?
she wrote. Curt. Disengaged.

The police found Mr. Landon by the pond in the Haunted Woods
, Drea told her.
I heard it on the news.

The messages kept popping up, and Em couldn’t look away.

They found something near him.

An orchid.

A red orchid. You know what I mean.

Em’s breathing got shallow.

Em? Are you there? Are you reading this?

So the Furies had gotten him, too. An adult. Someone almost completely disconnected from Em, her life, and her circle. The weight of it hit Em like a wave, pummeling her with a horrible realization: The Furies wouldn’t stop with Chase, or her, or even JD. They wanted to infect all of Ascension.

With frantic fingers, she typed out:
I need to tell you what I’ve learned over the past few days. Have you found out more about the banishment procedure? How to get rid of them?

Drea’s words came back almost immediately.
I’m on it,
she wrote.
Trust me.

The garlicky smell of Aunt Nora’s seafood risotto—steaming, salty, fresh—was wafting through the old Victorian, making it next to impossible for Skylar to keep her eyes on her textbook. She was starving. Her appetite had been insatiable over these last few weeks—it was like she was trying to eat away, or maybe bury, all of the stress and lies that were building up inside her. She’d barely slept last night after calling in the anonymous tip to the police station. . . . Instead, she’d crept downstairs and eaten pretzels dipped in sour cream. One of the few things she and Lucy had ever agreed on was that pretzels and sour cream were the perfect combination: salty, crunchy, creamy, tangy. Thank god her coping mechanism hadn’t resulted in extra pounds—yet. Skylar reminded herself not to chow down too much risotto. She had to fit into Lucy’s dress a week from Friday.

Aunt Nora was hollering up the stairs, “About half an hour more, Sky. Come down when you can and set the table.” Just then the doorbell rang. “Could you get that? I’m in the middle of making supper,” Nora yelled.

Skylar padded down the stairs in socks and her hideous holiday-themed pj’s, which she’d put on the moment she got home from school. Those senior girls had invited her—along with Gabby, Fiona, and the rest of the crew—to some party, but she’d turned them down. She really did have to get some homework done, plus Gabby had been distant since the dance committee fiasco. Skylar wanted to give her a few more days to cool off.

She was shocked to see Em Winters on Nora’s stoop. Were unannounced drop-bys, like, a thing in Ascension? She opened the door a crack, mortified to have been caught looking like this. It was like announcing that she had no plans on a Friday night.

“Um, hi?” She didn’t open the door any wider.

“Skylar, hey, thank god you’re home,” Em said, smiling awkwardly and biting her lip. “I’ve been trying to talk to you ever since the night of the your party. It’s so hard to catch you alone—you’re like the Ascension cruise director or something!” Skylar could hear the false notes of enthusiasm in Em’s voice. She’d never heard Em talk like this—like she was
trying
so hard. And still Skylar detected Em’s usual darkness, her intensity, running underneath the words. She thought of the picture of the
beaming, giggling girl in Gabby’s key chain photo.
What had happened to that girl?
she wondered.

When Skylar didn’t say anything, Em kept going. “There were . . . some things we talked about. That night. About some—friends we have in common?” Em looked at her pointedly then, trying to communicate something without saying it out loud. “I think we need to talk more about them.”

Not only was it bizarre that Em, who had barely given her the time of day before this, had shown up on her porch . . . it was also uncomfortable that Skylar could barely remember anything about the conversation they’d had in front of the bonfire. All she remembered, foggily, was that Em had freaked out about the orchid and Skylar had said something about Lucy. Which was something she absolutely never did.

But Skylar couldn’t exactly tell Em Winters to leave . . . not when she was Gabby’s best friend (albeit a bit of a whack job) and still considered part of the A-list.

“Do you . . . want to come in for a minute? We’re about to have dinner, but . . .”

Em was already halfway in the door. “Yes, thanks,” she said, taking off her sweater as soon as she crossed the threshold. “It’s warm in here . . . and it smells amazing.”

“My aunt’s making risotto,” Skylar explained.

“Who is it?” Aunt Nora called from the kitchen.

“It’s my friend Em,” Skylar shouted back, glancing over at
Em to see how she reacted to the word
friend
. But Em was too busy looking around Nora’s living room, which was cluttered with dusty antiques and nautical knickknacks.

“Well, bring her in here so I can meet her!” There was a clattering of pots as punctuation.

Shrugging, Skylar led Em into the kitchen. If Skylar was really lucky, maybe tonight would be the night Aunt Nora decided to really “get to know” her friends. But as soon as they walked in, Nora’s eyes got wide and she dropped the lid she was holding, tripping over herself as she bent down to retrieve it, mumbling under her breath. She looked . . . terrified—much as she had when Meg had appeared on their doorstep. Was acting batty around her friends another one of Nora’s charming quirks?

“Are you okay?” Em instinctively moved toward Aunt Nora.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” Nora whispered. “I’m . . . I’m not feeling very well. I’ll have to ask you—Skylar—I’ll have to ask you to wait a bit on dinner.” She went to push past Em.

“Wait,” Em said, her voice ringing out in the steamy kitchen. Nora stopped.

Em and Nora—one young, pale, vibrant; the other older, gray, shaking—stared at each other. Skylar didn’t know what to do. She felt like she’d stepped into a bad dream.

Nora spoke with misgiving. “You’re the one Hannah told me about.”

“Hannah—you mean Ms. Markwell? The librarian?” Em asked.

Nora nodded slowly. “I have to . . . talk to Hannah,” she whispered as she left the kitchen. A few moments later Skylar heard a door slam. It was obvious that Em was dying to go after her, but Skylar wasn’t going to let this situation get even stranger than it already was.