Page 53 of Persephone's Curse
“I don’t have great service down here,” Bernadette said, figure-eighting her phone through the air.
“The service is not the problem,” Clara said.
If there were five stages of grief, there must be at least that many stages for losing one’s sister, except I was bouncing around all out of order, swinging wildly from denial to anger to depression to bargaining (skipping acceptance altogether, of course, it would just never be my thing), and inventing some new ones for good measure: blaming-myself-horribly, disassociating, turning every girl vaguely Evelyn’s age into a facsimile of her, doing double- and triple-takes until they shot me rude looks, turning back into themselves, becoming firmly not-Evelyn.
Why hadn’t Henry answered?
I found myself wishing there was a ghost manual somewhere, a forum people could join where they could discuss the ghosts that lived in their own attics, where we could share tips and tricks and manifestation techniques and advice on what to do when your sister fell in love with a dead boy.
I tried to conjure up, if not Henry himself, then the last time I had seen him, five weeks ago when I’d banished him to who-knew-where. The way he had flickered in and out of existence, the way he had looked like he was about to cry. (On the forum I would have asked,—Can ghosts cry?) The way he had disappeared in front of me and then hadn’t come back when I’d called. (On the forum:—If I could make a ghost go away, surely there must be a way for me to make a ghost come back?)
“Should we tell Mom and Dad?” Clara asked suddenly, halfway through her veggie burger, a bit of ketchup on her chin, and I remembered the way she had called our parents when Bernadette had appeared with the black eye. That felt like ages ago; that felt like years ago; that felt like another lifetime. At least she had asked this time, and Bernadette and I said, in unison, firmly, “No.”
“She is being horrible,” Bernadette said. “The fact that she didn’t tell us where she was going, that she won’t respond to my email, that she just left. Oh, fuck. I forgot to take my medication.”
Bernie dug around in her bag for her prescription bottle, popped a pill in her mouth, and dry swallowed it.
I stared deep into Clara’s soul. “You promise you won’t call them, right?”
“I won’t,” Clara said sullenly.
“I’ll smash your phone into a thousand pieces if you do,” Bernie promised.
Clara bit her bottom lip and shrugged and Bernie winked at me. It felt almost normal, that moment. But of course it wasn’t. It wasn’t normal at all. Because Evelyn was gone, and even though I’d taken the fourth chair away, there was still a gaping space at the table where it had been. I hadn’t fooled anybody.
I put the crumpled note from Evelyn on my bedside table.
I know why you did it and I
And youwhat,Evie? And you forgive me? And you hate me? And you’re leaving home and never coming back? And you’re brokenhearted and have renounced yourself as a Farthing sister?
And youwhat?
And you—
“I’m not going to be able to sleep,” Bernadette said, interrupting my thoughts, bursting into my room without so much as a knock or a hello.
“Ditto,” I said.
She had a journal with her, like she’d been upstairs, writing in it, and decided mid-sentence to come and find me.
“This is so fucked,” I whispered.
“I’m so mad at her,” Bernadette responded. “Usually I would find Henry and talk to him about it and he’d say something so infuriatingly level-headed.”
“I can try.” I cleared my throat. “‘Bernadette, who are youreallymad at here? Evelyn, or yourself?’”
She snorted. “That does sound like him.”
“I’m mad at her, too,” I admitted. “Although that’s probably ridiculous, because I’m the one who—”
“No, thanks,” Bernadette said. “We don’t have to revisit all that sad-sack bullshit. Clara and I are going to watchPractical Magic.”
“I think I might go for a walk.”
“Bring pepper spray.”
I did bring pepper spray, slipping it into my coat pocket even as I felt fairly confident that, should I actually attempt to use it, the only person I would be incapacitating was myself.
