The Killing Jar (21 page)

I thought of the dozens of songs I'd written that I'd never shared with the Kalyptra. They were too joyless, and the Kalyptra were all about joy. I could see why Sunday kept these paintings to herself. I kind of wished I hadn't seen them at all.

“Okay, are you ready to get naked?” Sunday asked, jerking me from my thoughts like a fish on a line.

“What?”

“Take off your clothes,” she commanded.

My hands automatically crossed over my chest. “I thought you wanted to immortalize my face.”

“Yes. Face. Body. The whole you. Come on now, don't be shy, girl. You ain't got nothing I don't have.” She laughed—she was always laughing. I'd never met anyone who found so many reasons to laugh as Sunday did. God, I was going to miss her and all the rest of the Kalyptra. The idea of being separated from them after so many weeks of bonding made it hard for me to breathe.

“Kenna,” Sunday said, tapping her pencil impatiently. “Strip.”

I hesitated. I'd never been comfortable with my body, not because there was anything wrong with it, but because it had always felt like a secret, something I was supposed to keep hidden until I found someone I trusted completely to let him see it. Was Blake that person? My answer should have been an immediate
yes
, but it was Cyrus's face that swam into my mind.

Sunday sat at her desk with her pencil poised and a large piece of paper ready on her easel. I sighed and stripped off my dress. What could it hurt? We were both girls.

Sunday's sharp eyes scrutinized me a moment before she instructed me in how to pose. I ended up sitting on a stool with my back to her, my face turned toward the window so she could draw my profile and the lines of my shoulders. My hair lay long and loose on my back, my face bare. My skin and hair had become luminous since I started taking anima, and my body, which had always been scrawny and a bit brittle, all joints and angles, had put on muscle, giving me curving hips and leanly rounded shoulders and hard, smooth legs.

Sunday sketched in silence for several minutes, her focus complete and unwavering.

“How does it look?” I asked.

“Great,” she said, smiling up at me. “Thank you for doing this. I've sketched everyone else here about a thousand times. It's nice to have a new model.”

“Everyone? Naked?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Even the men?”

“If you're wondering how Cyrus looks with his clothes off, the answer is: he does not disappoint.”

“I wasn't,” I said, blushing.

“Okay,” she said, chuckling.

“No, really!”

“I believe you, honey.” She was still laughing.

Cyrus chose that moment to open the door and poke his head in. Sunday didn't even glance over to see who it was, just kept scratching on the paper with her pencil, but I scrambled for something to cover myself with, yanking the quilt off Sunday's bed and cocooning myself inside it.

Cyrus lowered his gaze until I had the blanket securely covering me. But the desire I saw in his eyes made a fever of echoed lust roll across my skin.

Sunday glared first at me, and then at Cyrus. “Kenna, you better be able to find that exact pose again or I'll have to start over. Cyrus, why are you bothering us?”

“I, um … I don't know,” Cyrus mumbled, then shook his head. “I mean, Rebekah wants to see you, Kenna.”

“She'll be along shortly,” Sunday said, and shooed him away.

Cyrus withdrew, and I released my breath and slumped into the chair. “I think I'm done for the day,” I said.

“No, no, I'm almost finished. Look how gorgeous you are.” Sunday turned her sketchpad so I could see what she'd drawn.

I didn't realize I'd stopped breathing until my lungs began to plead for air. Sunday's talent was undeniable. In the space of fifteen minutes, she'd brought a version of me to life on the page. The girl in the portrait was earthy and confident, even sensual. She was none of the things I was used to seeing. The girl in Sunday's drawing was some other version of me entirely.

And I liked her. I wanted to stay
her
.

*   *   *

“You wanted to see me?” I asked, hesitating in the open doorway of Rebekah's room.

Rebekah stood and came out from around her desk, her expression somber. “I've arranged a going-away party for you tonight. Nothing fancy. A small feast. A little singing and dancing afterward.”

“You didn't have to do that,” I said, even though I was touched.

“We wanted to see you off properly.”

I lowered my eyes and shifted from one foot to the other. “Maybe I can come back in a couple of months.”

Hopeful, I raised my eyes to find my grandmother shaking her head. “I thought I made myself clear. You can't live in two worlds, Kenna. You have to choose one.” Her tone was laced with bitterness. I wondered if my mom had made the same request.

“Fine.” My cheeks flushed with anger. What Rebekah was asking of me wasn't fair. I couldn't write off Erin and my mom and Blake like they meant nothing to me. I couldn't simply say goodbye to the world. It wasn't that cut-and-dried.

I turned my back on her. “If you ever want to see me again, you know where to find me.”

*   *   *

Stig was in charge of the “small” going-away feast, which turned out not to be so small. When I entered the dining room that evening, I found it packed with so much food there was barely room for plates and silverware on the table.

Rory, her dreads bound up in a scarf on top of her head, thrust a goblet filled with scarlet wine into my hand and tilted the glass to my lips. The wine went from my belly to my bloodstream fast, and I immediately started to feel looser and more relaxed. I glanced around and saw that Cyrus was nowhere to be found. He'd been MIA ever since he walked in on Sunday sketching my nude portrait. I wasn't sure I could look him in the eye now, and maybe he felt the same way about me.

“Do you know where Cyrus is?” I asked.

Rory shrugged, the spaghetti strap of her camisole slipping off her shoulder. “I'm sure he'll turn up.”

For once Rebekah arrived before everyone was seated, while we were still mingling. She glided into the dining room then, and poured herself a glass of wine. She raised it in a toast. The room, which had previously been filled with chatter, quieted in an instant.

“To my granddaughter, Kenna,” Rebekah said. She met my eyes, and smiled. “Who is welcome to return to Eclipse anytime she wants.”

My lips parted and a silent breath escaped. Murmurs sounded throughout the room.

Then Rebekah raised her wine glass a little higher, and the rest of the Kalyptra said, “To Kenna!” Everyone drank except for me. I couldn't take my eyes from my grandmother.

Rebekah set her goblet on the table, stepped close to me, and wrapped me in a warm hug. For a moment I was too stunned to hug her back.

“I can really come back?” I asked.

She nodded against my hair. “Just promise me one thing: no more questions. Not until you choose our world and our way over all others.”

“I promise,” I said without hesitation. It was an arrangement I could live with if it meant I got to return to Eclipse.

She held me back and took my face in both of her hands. Her skin carried the most minute charge, and I felt it sink into me and galvanize my brain so I wanted to jump up and down and whoop with joy. I could come back to Eclipse anytime I wanted. Rebekah loved me. She wanted me to be with her.

I had never felt such elation. I wanted to dash into the yard and run with abandon like Bully did, and sing at the top of my lungs.

Instead, I ate, and ate, and ate. Each bite was more delicious than the last. There was so much food, it took almost two hours to eat it all. Spicy carrot soup. Salad with peaches and goat cheese. Rosemary bread and roasted turkey, sautéed mushrooms over mashed potatoes, flaky, lemony trout, and asparagus and zucchini slathered in butter. For dessert there was lemon cake with blueberry sauce. Throughout the meal, someone kept refilling my goblet when I wasn't looking, so by the time I took my last bite I wasn't sure how much I'd had to drink, and I wasn't sure I cared. My head was swimming. I was dizzy with love and acceptance and a happiness so pure it was thrilling.

I was young and alive and free. Free to return to the place where I belonged.

Rebekah announced that cleanup could wait until the morning. The Kalyptra piled from the house and congregated around the fire pit. Rebekah brought out a culling jar wrapped in a colorful scarf, and one by one the Kalyptra took from it, strands of vena sipping at the effervescent energy that sparkled around the lid. When it was my turn to take, I opened my mouth to ask what kind of anima it was, but Rebekah gave me a warning look.

“No more questions, remember?”

I nodded, and took.

And the life inside me amplified to a hundred. The world around me lit up with night colors, vibrant indigos and lavenders and emeralds, and the stars became shattered crystal fireworks. Yuri and Diego had built up a raging bonfire that reached toward the moon, flames dancing to the music that filled the air. And the Kalyptra danced too. I joined in the fray, the night whirlpooling around me, a swirling mixture of navy blue sky and orange firelight and streaks of white stars.

When the anima wore off, I slipped away from the group to find something else to cull, though I wanted more of whatever was in that jar. I hungered for it in a way that reminded me of the days after Jason Dunn's death.

I didn't realize someone had followed me until she spoke at my back.

“Did you find it?”

I spun around to find Joanna standing a foot behind me. I clutched my chest. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

I'd nearly forgotten about Joanna and my promise to Rebekah not to talk to her. Rebekah was big on asking for promises, it seemed. I glanced toward the fire to see my grandmother watching me, eyes narrowed as though in warning.

“I should get back to the fire,” I said, easing away from Joanna.

She grabbed my arm and held me in place. “Did you find it?”

I shook my head. “I don't know—”

“In the guitar,” she broke in. “Your mother's guitar.”

“You put something in there?” That could explain why the sound had never been right.

Her fingers tightened on my arm until they dug in, and I saw her teeth were clenched behind her lips. “Don't come back here, Kenna.”

I pulled gently away. “Look, I understand that you don't like outsiders—”

Again, she cut me off. “You think you know us after a few weeks, but you don't. You'll never be one of us, and it's better that way. Believe me. Your mom was smart. A lot smarter than me.”

I felt like the ground had dropped out from under my feet. “Look, I don't know what I did to make you hate me. Whatever it is, I'm sorry.”

“I don't hate you. I'm trying to help you.” She stepped back from me, searching my eyes. “But maybe it's too late for that.”

She stared at me for a moment before saying, “Tell your mom something for me, okay?” Her voice began to tremble with emotion. “Tell her she was right, and I was wrong, and … tell her I wish I'd come with her. I wish it more than I can ever say.”

Then she turned and walked quickly toward the house, leaving me standing on the grass, staring after her. I forgot about finding something to cull. My brain was buzzing with uncertainty and bewilderment.

When I felt a hand on my shoulder, I startled and whipped around.

“Did I scare you?” Cyrus stood behind me, holding a piece of rope that was tied to a leather collar around Bully's neck.

“A little.” I blew out a breath and laughed off Joanna's cryptic words. She didn't like me, that was all. She was trying to scare me into staying away from Eclipse because of whatever had happened between her and my mom. And something had definitely happened. All that stuff about my mom being right and her being wrong … about wishing she'd come with her. There was history there. Maybe I could get my mom to tell me what had happened between her and Joanna.

“I wanted to show you something,” Cyrus said, breaking through my distracted thoughts. He crouched behind Bully and motioned for me to do the same.

“Look.” He turned the leather collar on Bully's neck so I could read the word embossed on it: BULLY. “Now everyone will know who he belongs to.”

“Thank you.” My heart swelled like an inflating balloon, and I threw my arms around Cyrus's neck. He hugged me back, burying his face in my hair, and I thought how amazing it was to be able to touch other people. This person in particular. I let my body relax into the embrace. Cyrus's body was warm as an oven, and his hair was soft as rabbit fur against my cheek.

“Do you want to dance?” he said close to my ear, lips brushing my skin, making me shiver.

“What about Bully?”

Cyrus released me and tied Bully's makeshift leash to the nearest fence post. Bully immediately began chewing through his leash.

“Yeah, that's not going to hold him,” I said.

“Not forever, but it'll last long enough for a dance. Come on.” He took my hand and led me toward the fire.

The music slowed to an undulating, sultry rhythm, and Cyrus pulled me snug against him. My chest pressed to his as we rocked side-to-side; Cyrus's hand branded the center of my back, his breath warm on my ear.

“Eclipse isn't going to be the same without you,” he said. “I forgot what it was like to get to know someone I've never met.”

Before I could stop them, the words that had been balanced on the tip of my tongue all day fell.

“I'm not ready to go home,” I told him. “I want to ask Rebekah if I can stay a little longer.”

Suddenly the music was replaced by a shout of alarm as two neon-bright high beams cut through the night, headlights moving fast toward Eclipse.