Odin's Murder (22 page)

“How will I see you again?” I arch into his body again.

“Find Sonja’s mother. She’ll help us.” He kisses me, hard and fast and deep. Then he’s gone.

*

His lips carry an image of silver. Sharp and hard. The blade passes from his mind to mine like a whisper, and as he leaves the room, I try to shake the feeling that I’ll never see him again.

I check the time on my phone.  If Ethan is caught, he’ll be kicked out. I’ve hung out with Jeremy long enough to know he’d squeal the second Dean Burnett pinched him. And the dagger? Another one of his treasures, I’m sure, but it looks like it could cause serious harm. I don’t know why it was in his mind. I don’t want to know.

No time for a shower. I shove at the hangers in my closet until I find my sturdiest jeans. Tight, but they move with me, and my gut tells me I’m going to need to run. I toss my sneakers back in favor of chunky heel boots; they’re solid, and make me as tall as most men. My black t-shirt with the cherries. Just because.

When I see my reflection in the mirror I cringe, thinking that Ethan saw me like this, even though he probably helped turn my hair into this mess. I shove what hangs in my face into a messy ponytail, and run to the restroom. I wash my face, brush my teeth, and check the time on my phone when I get back to the room.

Seven minutes left.

I stare at myself in the mirror. Pale skin, long nose, wide mouth. Worried eyes. The face of a young girl, in over her head and scared. So I line my eyes with black, thick on the upper lids, and flick a coat of mascara on my lashes. My only non-gloss lipstick is dark red, and I carefully trace my mouth, and then rub my lips together to warm it up. The face in the glass is still a girl, but she’s older, a young woman who has it put together, ready to face whatever comes her way.

Ethan called it battle armor. I like that.

I look out the window. He’s not outside by the fountain or under a nearby tree. It’s four minutes too soon. The runes on the wall get under my skin, and I find the soft lead pencil that’s rolled under my bed. The plaster catches at the graphite, black dust drifting down the wall as I outline five of the markings, the ones that glow in my dreams.  

Under two, I sketch mirrored profiles, nose to nose exact, like the optical illusion of a vase, and then I add eyes, one with lashes, and one without. I glance out the window as I draw, but the quad is still empty. I turn to the next rune, the one that Faye called
perth
, and draw another face. My hands move fast: wide eyes peeking through dark bangs, a tiny heart shaped mouth. Over the rune shaped like an arrow I draw another portrait, a bare-headed boy with solemn brows. My phone says eleven minutes have gone by. Still no sign of him outside.

Sonja’s package stares at me, and I leaf through the pages of my dream, trying to understand what impulse made me reach for it in my sleep. I snatch it up, and run my thumbnail under the flap, where it looks like someone else has opened it. No need to guess who.

A heavy metal object slips from a loose paper wrapping and I pick both of them up, but the crows on the silver bracelet catch my attention. There are five, spaced between girlish charms and four pendants with runes and one broken link. They match my sketches on the wall, aside from the missing one.

The thief stole his own rune; probably not even aware of its meaning, and hid it away with the rest of his treasures. I wonder what he has of mine. I read the note that has fallen to the bed, and the breath is ripped out of my body.

“Oh, shit. Oh, no. No! Ethan, where
are
you?”

My mental sketchbook flips through images, to the last second I saw him, before he ducked out the door, icy eyes tearing away from mine, and then my vision shifts, like it does when we kiss, and I’m staring at Jeremy, his face mottled with bruises and anger, the doors leading out of the boy’s dorm behind him.

“No,” I yell. The image fades away as my shout echoes in my room.

Outside, past the quad, a police car, siren off but blue lights flashing, pulls into the visitors parking in front of the admin building. They had him. It was all up to me, now.

23.

Entreaty

I stand at the side door to the girl’s dormitory, watch the cops saunter into the administration office building. They’re taking their time, arms swinging as they walk, not halfcocked and ready to grab for the gun belt. They’re not looking for me yet, but I duck my head out of habit, as I scope out the digital lock to Memory’s dorm.

No way I can break in, and I’m late. She’s not waiting for me in the quad either. After I left her, I’d run back to my dorm, and it only takes me a minute to find what I need from my room. The silver letter opener, the charm, glass orbs, letters from my caseworker, my camera; they all go in my bag, the significance of them—their connection—slamming through my definition of what is real.

But I lose time looking for the book. It’s not in Julian’s bag, or under his bed, and I groan when I realize my roommate has filed it in the collection that covers every flat surface on his side of the room. I scan the spines, trying to remember what it looks like.

“C’mon, dude, where did you put it?” They’re in alphabetical order, and with some amusement that I don’t have time for, I notice that quite a few have library stickers. I’m not the only one who takes his trophies. I can’t remember the name of the author. John Olivann? Guardivander?

Cursing, I dig for my camera, hoping one of my candid shots of the girls might show the book, and my instincts are right, there’s a shot of Faye at lunch, and next to her is Julian, half cropped out of the frame, holding a green hardbound with yellowing pages.

Searching all the books with the same color, I finally find it, stash it in my bag and on another impulse, I reach for my camera again. I imagine the girl with the sharp tongue and soft mouth, and I look through the lens, and I see her looking back at me. She raises her hand to her mouth, draws it with red, and rubs her lips together, then flashes a fierce smile into the mirror.

War paint. You’re fantastic, Cherry.

In the lobby, I stop at the public phone and dial. I’m not surprised when the call goes to voicemail. I glare the one potential eavesdropper out the door before I leave the message.

“Okay, Mary. So I have no idea why you brought me to this place, or what the hell is going on. I’ve got maybe one shot to figure it out before they have the law haul me off. But whatever happens, I’m taking the heat for this. All of it. It goes on me and me alone, okay? I don’t know what you set me up for, but these kids, there’s no way they’d survive the system.” I take a deep breath, and don’t ask the questions burning in my mouth. “Full charges if you have to, maximum time, maximum security. But Julian and Faye. Memory. They have futures. Keep their records clean.”

A computerized voice says I’ve reached my time limit, and would I like to hear my message played back. I hang up the phone.

“You missed curfew last night, Tyrell.”  Jeremy leans against the wall by the desk in the dorm lobby, with his arms folded over his chest. “Want to explain yourself?”

“Not particularly.”  I smile at his attempt to stare me down. His face looks
much
worse than mine.

“I reported you, y’know. The cops will be here any second. There’s no way you’re getting out of this and don’t even think for a minute I’m taking the fall for you or that little slut.”

“Do what you have to do,” I tell him, not even rising in defense of Memory, because I’ve already won. “Just get out of my way.”

I step close, and rise up in my shoes a little, forcing him to crane his neck and take a step backward. I turn, and walk out the door, the first fight I’ve ever willingly walked away from.

But now I’m stuck, staring at the buttons on the keypad to Memory’s dormitory, with cops already on campus. For once there are no girls coming in and out of the building. I have my hand raised to knock when the door opens from the inside and I find myself face to face with a pretty blonde in a pink t-shirt.

“What on earth happened to your face?” Danielle asks.

“I, uh, got in a fight.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Who was it?” She smirks. I don’t want to say, because it proves her right, but her eyes widen. “Not Julian?” she gasps. “No way. I didn’t think he had it in him.”

I roll my eyes, and try to catch the door as it closes behind her, but I’m not fast enough. The clock tower reads 8:45. Dammit.

“Oh, right,” she says. “Of course not. It was Jeremy.”

“Look, Danielle, I—”

“You’re going to get kicked out, you know. I hope she’s worth it.” She sighs, shakes her head, but turns and punches numbers on the keypad. “Room 113. On the left.”

“Thank you,” I mutter, because she hasn’t said I-told-you-so, and telling her I’d already been in Memory’s room, hell, I’d been in her
bed
, well, she didn’t need to hear that. I slide past her, and inside. The silver letter opener is heavy in my pocket, tapping my thigh with every stride. The door is locked. I knock, wait, knock again, but there is no answer.

I swear, and wave to a girl in the hallway, as if it’s okay for me to be where I am. She has a towel on her head and a shower caddy in her hand. I ask, “Have you seen Memory? Or Faye?”

She stares at my battered face and says, “Memory ran down the hall, like two minutes ago. I haven’t see Faye since yesterday.”

“Can you check the bathroom?” I ask. “See if she’s in there?”

She frowns. “What are you doing here?”

“Dean Burnett sent me to find her,” I improvise. “News about her brother.”

“Oh, sure, of course!” She sets her caddy down by a door and goes back the way she came. I step close to the door, slip the knife from my pocket and wedge the slim blade between the door and the jamb, with a much-practiced bend of my wrist. The knife flexes and slides against the tongue of the lock. I pop the knob with one twist, and the door opens.

The room is empty. She even made the bed, smoothed sheets erasing my presence there. There’s a note on the end, on top the package from Sonja’s mother. I pick both up. The bracelet is gone, but this time, I read Miriam’s letter.

Sonja- Give Constance a hug for me when you see her. Sorry I was gone before you went to register for SHP, the judge granted the custodial release at the very last second.

I wanted to give you this before you left but there wasn’t time. You’ll have to finish the binding. Clasp all together to make an unbroken chain. Once bound, the links will align and never separate. I’ll see you soon.

Remember: Some things are set in motion before time ever began. Be careful. I love you, Mom

I stare at the words, and the M that makes a distinctive peak at the top of the letter. Swallow when my throat goes dry. Sonja’s mother didn’t know her daughter wasn’t here.

The girl in the hallway calls into the bathroom. I hear no reply.

Memory has added to her nightmare drawings: A girl’s face, dark eyes, long nose and perfect lips, and a boy, same nose, eyes stubborn, mouth thin. Herself and Julian.

A tiny girl with huge eyes and a pixie mouth, like the Japanese comic books, hovers underneath another symbol and the arrow shaped rune points to a guy with a not-quite straight nose and no hair. Under the last, drawn in less detail, rougher, faster, is a girl with braids and a wide button nose. I don’t know who she is, but I can guess. Miriam’s daughter, who has been missing for over a week. I take a picture of the wall, working the camera with one hand.

Glancing once more at the writing on the note, I shove it in my bag with the Nikon, and slide out of the room as the girl checking the bathroom rounds the corner. She shakes her head at me. I nod once, and leave.

*

Memory isn’t at the fountain, or under any of the trees nearby. I twist the zoom lens onto the camera body, pan over the quad, and this time I’m not surprised when the scenery changes. Fuller trees fill my vision, and the chapel. A hand with glittered fingernails twists an ancient ceramic doorknob. I don’t question what I see or even the strangeness of it anymore.

This girl, with eyes that let her brother see through them when she is asleep and me when she is awake, is magic. No, not Magic. Faye is the one who believes in mysterious things. And Wisdom is
Sophia
in Greek, the same meaning as Sonja, Anders told me a week ago. My brain tumbles. I push the stray thoughts aside, refocus on what I know is real.

The door doesn’t open for Memory. I watch through her eyes as she picks her way around, toes of her boots careful on the dirty stairs down into the cellar doorway. This time the knob turns, and the door opens.

“Cherry, wait!” I glance back at the cop car, and then casually walk across the quad, hands in my pockets, calling no attention to myself, an easy pace toward the trees that shield the tiny church. No one calls my name, and no sirens wail over the campus. When I round the bend in the tree line I break into a sprint, one hand on my camera bag to keep it from banging my side, following her boot prints in the grass, and I’m halfway there when I slow to breathe. I look up, see the front door through the trees, closing shut behind a tall figure.

“Mem!” I call, but it’s too late.

I run the rest of the way, duck below a tree branch, and up to the church. I tug on the handle, swearing when the door doesn’t budge. My eyes are pulled to the top of the door. The symbol, Faye’s
perth
rune, isn’t visible, but I know it’s there. I move around the outside and down the cellar steps, to the one I saw Memory open. A mark is carved high on the door, and I grab my camera, pull up the last picture I took. It’s from the girls’ dorm room wall, Memory’s profile under the same rune, the one she called Muninn. It’s the same one that’s been etched behind my eyes since I kissed her.

The door is locked. I wrench on the knob, but it’s tougher than it looks, and the frame has a lip too deep for me to jimmy a blade into. I leap up the stairs, to the window I’d popped open the other day, and shove it open. “Memory,” I call into the dark, but there is no answer.