Page 40 of Persephone's Curse
Dad was already there, making a pot of coffee in his flannel pajamas and an old ratty T-shirt he’d managed to save, so far, from my sisters. He raised an eyebrow when he saw me.
“Crack of dawn, there, daughter,” he said.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Everything okay?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Literally not a single thing.”
“Can I offer you the first cup of coffee? A deep and meaningful hug? A penny for your thoughts?”
“One and two, please,” I said, walking into his arms. He smelled like coffee beans, and he kissed the top of my head. I wanted to disappear, in that moment. I wanted to disappear like Henry had. I wanted to wink out of existence altogether.
By the time Evelyn and I set out for school I was so tired I was hallucinating; I couldn’t tell if there were real ghosts outside or imaginary ones, hordes of them, an army of the undead. I keptblinking, trying to clear my vision, as if my eyes were the problem and not my sleep exhaustion, my guilt, myguilt. Somehow through my blinking, somewhere halfway across the park, I realized Evelyn had stopped walking; when I turned around to look at her, she was bright red and glaring at me, her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flaring.
“What?” I said.
It was the wrong thing to say, I quickly realized.
“Oh, like you don’t fucking knowwhat,” she hissed, her mouth barely open, the words forcing their way through clenched teeth, bared lips.
Evelyn didn’t swear easily, and it was more powerful when she did, it was sharper, it made my heart speed up. I would just pretend I didn’t know what she was talking about, I would just lie, it was fine, it would be fine. “Is this about Vermont?”
“You know this is not about Vermont,” she said.
“Can you give me a hint here, Evie? Because I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“WHERE IS HE?” she screamed—and her scream was so sudden, so unexpected, that I actually jumped backward, landing awkwardly on my ankle, catching myself before I fell. A man walking his very large standard poodle shot us both a dirty look and quickened his pace.
I couldn’t do this, I was terrible at lying, I was drowning in my guilt, but then I remembered Henry, his face rising in my memory unbidden, the way he looked when he told me I had found somegumption,and the guilt was replaced by anger, and resolve (I had done the right thingI had done the right thing), and I swallowed and steeled myself against Evelyn.
“I have no clue what you’re talking about, but can you stop screaming, please?”
She closed her eyes. Her hands were balled into fists so tight I could see her knuckles turning white.
“I swear togod,if you did something…”
“If I did something? If I didwhat?You’re not makingany senseand I’m going to be latea-fucking-gain!”
“You didn’t care so much about missing school when you went to Vermont WITHOUT ME!”
“SO THISISABOUT VERMONT?”
“NO IT’S NOT ABOUT VERMONT, I DON’T CARE ABOUT VERMONT.”
Evelyn’s face was so red I wouldn’t have been surprised if she burst into flames.
But she didn’t burst into flames.
She burst into tears.
And she collapsed on the ground, her legs buckling, her body plummeting like a stone.
I ran to her, kneeling in front of her, cradling her face in my hands.
“Evelyn, Evie, Evie, what’s wrong? What’s happening? Please tell me what’s going on.”
I felt like a monster.
