Page 41 of The Spider & the Storm

“Charlie.”

I had nearly reached the glow from the night-light in the kitchen when Melanie said my name.

I glanced over my shoulder and asked, “Huh?”

“She’s a bitch.”

It was my turn to scowl. “No, she’s—”

“Yeah, she is. And I’m sorry Luke ever got her number because you are too sweet to deserve someone as nasty and judgmental as her.”

It was the last thing I wanted to hear when I had just declared my love for the so-called bitch she spoke of. But Melanie continued speaking, and I was too angry, hurt, startled, and shocked to speak.

“There is nothingwrongwith being sensitive, Charlie. A lot of guys would benefit from showing their feelings more often. Like your brother,” she grumbled irritably and rolled her eyes in the light of the TV. “He could learn something from you.”

“But she’s not wrong,” I argued, finally finding my voice and crossing my arms. “I’m messed up. I don’t even go anywhere. I just … hang around here and do nothing all damn day.”

Melanie snickered and swung her eyes toward mine. “Yeah, maybe you could learn how to drive at some point, and, okay, you have some anxiety issues, and could you get a job? Sure, and eventually, you will. But you know what? You’re in college, you’reridiculouslytalented, and, like …” She lifted her hands from her lap and thrust them toward the ceiling. “You listened to your parentsdie, Charlie! God, the fact that you’re able to doanythingafter going through something like that is a freakin’ miracle. So many people would have let that completely destroy them. God, I mean, just look at your brother.”

I pretended to ignore what she’d said. About listening to my parents die, even as it replayed in my head as I asked, “What about him?”

“He’s a fucking wreck.”

I shook my head. “No, he’s not. He’s … he’s fine. He’s—”

“He’s far fromfine,” she cut me off, and at first, I thought she was mad, but … no.

She was worried. Hurt. Sad. “He wants us to think he’s fine, but … he’s so messed up, and he doesn’t talk about anything. He just …” She pressed her lips together and shrugged. “Clams up. Smokes his fucking cigarettes and acts like he’s all good. And I guess now, he stays out all night at the bar, getting completely fucking smashed, and—”

“Are you breaking up with him?”

She pinned me with her eyes and pulled in a deep breath before allowing her lips to twitch into a morose smile. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t want you to leave,” I admitted in a way that was probably too desperate, but I didn’t care.

“I don’t want to leave either. And I’m not, like, breaking up with himnowor anything. I just have to think, and … he needs to get his head out of his ass, and …”

She sighed and leaned back against the couch, returning her attention to the TV.

“I don’t know. Anyway, just promise me you won’t change, okay? You can better yourself and learn how to drive and whatever you want to do, but just … don’t become someone else. Don’t change.”

CHAPTER TEN

MASSACHUSETTS, PRESENT DAY

Nobody cared about the dead after the living they’d belonged to were gone.

When I had been a kid, I’d think about it sometimes while lying in bed. That, once Luke and I were also gone from this world, nobody would care about our parents anymore, as if they’d never existed. Even if he and I were lucky enough to have kids of our own, those children would never know their grandparents, and it was hard to truly care about people you’d never even met. It was hard to ever call them trulyyourswhen your memories of them were made up of nothing but stories.

It was something that had drawn me to Salem. Because while people might not have cared much about the ordinary dead, they undoubtedly cared about those with profound history, and Salem was certainly full of that.

Hell, people from all over the world flocked to this city to remember and pay their respects to those who had been wrongfully persecuted and killed hundreds of years ago. Maybe they, too, felt misunderstood for simply being who they were. Maybe they, too, had faced extreme punishment for something they’d had no choice but to be a part of.

I knew that was certainly the case for me.

So many people cared for Bridget Bishop, Reverend George Burroughs, Martha and Giles Corey, and Elizabeth Howe—among many others—and rightfully so. Theyshouldberemembered. Theyshouldbe exonerated and respected in ways they never had been in the final moments of their lives.

But nobody cared about Annabel Lee Croft Black. Nobody but me.

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