Page 63 of House of Hearts
All my bad luck has manifested into a single person: gray hair swept tightly to her scalp, overplucked brows, and a monochrome beige pantsuit.
“It’s about Violet,” Birdie says, and I instantly forget how to breathe. Headmistress Lockwell listens intensely, her body rigid as Birdie continues. “I followed her last night into the chapel and overheard her with Calvin—”
The rest of the conversation is hushed to an indiscernible whisper, but I don’t need to hear any of it to know what she’s about to say: that if I don’t figure this out ASAP, I’m joining the Lockwells’ long list of the dead.
A phantom slips through the veil and rips my attention away from the trio. It’s Emoree. She is all consuming, her auburn hair cascadingdown her back and her gap-toothed smile transcendent even in death. She cranes her neck to look at me before beckoning me to follow with a slight incline of her head.
Common sense would sayGirl, for the love of God, don’t follow your dead best friend again around campus…And the key word there would be “again” because the first time didn’t go so hot. But since I’m not in my right mind and I haven’t been for quite some time, I go scampering off at her heels as she leads me around the back of the building.
We cut through the campus, and thankfully the final destination isn’tFinal Destination. She instead leads me to a house I’ve been in only once before. Headmistress Lockwell’s campus residence sits empty, and when Emoree turns to me next, she fades through the door.
Unfortunately, the odds for quantum tunneling are one in a hundred billion, so I can’t follow her that way. I’m left with the only mortal route available: breaking in. The front door boasts an impressive key-code panel, and it’s going to alert someone if I screw this up.
I can’t have that. I’m already in hot water; I don’t need to switch the temperature to boiling. C’mon, think,think. I know the code is Percy’s birthday because Calvin wouldn’t stop griping about it the whole way over to her office.“At least make it a little less obvious you have a favorite.”What the hell is his brother’s birthday again?
I squeeze my eyes shut, concentrating with everything in me on all the inane conversations I had with Em about him. She was relieved he was a Taurus, wasn’t he?
“I got lucky, he was on the cusp. Two days away from being a Gemini.”
“And that’s a problem?” I asked, failing to see the importance of astrology.
“Obviously!”
Two days from the cutoff. That would land him…when? I do the math in my head, running along the dates she prattled off before rushing to punch in the four-digit code. Gemini begins on May 21, so that would place him on the 19th.
0519
The half second stretches achingly long before the green light flashes and I can push the door open. It’s bizarrely normal to see Emoree waiting for me inside.
She’d always hang outside my last class once the bell rang. Totally lost in her own head until the moment our eyes met; then and only then would a smile explode on her face, and it was like seeing someone’s soul from the inside out.
“Thank God for the zodiac,” I tell her, and my heart pangs as she doesn’t smile now. “I’ll never make fun of it again.”
She’s entirely blank-faced as she turns, gliding across the familiar hallway and toward the headmistress’s private office. I’m ditching class and breaking into the headmistress’s house—both things that would’ve given me a stress rash before Hart. Now I’m relieved that the study door is unlocked so I don’t have to kick it in.
Emoree floats over to the curio cabinet, and I follow her eyeline to the knife perched behind the glass. It was ominous before, but seeing it today has me wanting to crawl out of my own skin. The baser part of my brain recognizes what the rest of me refuses to. I’m in danger and Calvin’s right. There will come a time when Anastasia gets her wish and the curse has me perilously close to death…a time when I’ll need to fight back.
“Is this what you wanted me to find?” I whisper, but she disappearson the heels of my question. Her image blows out like candle smoke and fades into nonexistence. I’m all alone as I unlatch the frame and free the blade from its prison.
The weapon is blackened with a century’s use, and it reminds me of the redcap fairies in Emoree’s stories. The ones who would dip their hats in the blood of those they’d slain, wearing the ichor of the fallen like a war trophy. The leather hilt is beautifully engraved with the letterO.
I’ve only just cradled it in my hands when I hear the click of heels striking against a hardwood floor. I hadn’t heard the door open, but there’s no mistaking the sound. I only have seconds to sheathe the blade and tuck it away in my pocket before taking cover beneath the headmistress’s clawed desk.
“You know what needs to happen.” Headmistress Lockwell’s voice permeates through the silence, noxious and thick with faux understanding. The door hinges open, and I hear the shuffle of two other bodies entering behind her. Through the narrow crack in the opening of the desk, I recognize the pair as Sadie and Calvin. “There’s no use in delaying it further.”
The headmistress approaches her son like he’s rabid, inching toward him as if one wrong move will spell disaster. He’s darkened with sleep loss, and when she dares to get too close, he darts back with a sharp gleam of his teeth.
“Calvin!” Sadie cries, but her mother only shushes her with a lifted hand.
“Your brother isn’t well, Sadie. He is in the throes of the curse. I know the feeling.” The desk shifts faintly as she lowers her body onto it and crosses her legs against the Persian carpet. “It consumes you fromthe inside out and makes you feel like a spectator in your own skin. Isn’t that right, Calvin?”
He doesn’t need to say a word because it shows in every aspect: the mismatched buttons of his dress shirt, the stubble spreading across his jaw, the frantic darting of his eyes in every direction. Even his signature cologne is traded for the sharp bite of espresso.
“I wasn’t vigilant enough when it came to Percy. I should’ve overseen that night to make sure he did what was necessary. Now look where we are! Two deaths in a single year? Tsk. The optics will be horrendous.” Headmistress Lockwell paces in frantic circles before turning to one of her many shelves and freeing a bottle of bourbon and a Swarovski crystal glass. She fixes herself a drink and takes a sip. “We’ll be proactive this time. Hide the body and call her a teenage runaway. We can say Violet was troubled and came here out of grief and—”
My name sends Calvin to the floor. He buries his face between two shaking palms and mutters a long nonsensical whisper through his teeth. “I can’t…Don’t make me…Violet, Violet, Violet…” He reminds me of a wild animal locked in a cage—hissing and gnashing its teeth—or perhaps it’s more like a boy who knows his fate is sealed.
Sadie grimaces, horrified. “Mom, this isn’t like you.”
