Page 71 of Persephone's Curse
“What did you get up to while we were gone?” Mom asked.
“We mostly just sat around and stared at each other,” Bernadette said.
“Same,” Dad said.
“Anything more interesting to report?” Mom pressed. She was slightly obsessed with fried rice and was steadily making her way through a mountain of it.
“No,” I said firmly. “It was a very boring weekend.”
“Same,” Dad said.
“Oh, stop it,” Mom said, ignoring me, hitting Dad playfully on the arm. “We had a lovely time. We went snowshoeing!”
“Same,” Evelyn said.
“Did you?” Dad said, perking up.
“No,” Evelyn said, apologetically.
“Ah,” he said. “I love snowshoeing. What a workout! Right, honey?”
Mom made a sound of agreement through a mouthful of fried rice. We slipped back into amiable silence.
Later, we brought bowls of green tea ice cream to the attic and sat eating it, some of us on the couch, some of us on the floor, Evelyn on her piano bench, legs crossed primly, every inch of her an undead queen.
It felt weird without Henry there.
Usually Henry would join us, pretend to eat, pantomime the actions of being alive, sometimes stare at our food mournfully.
(Do you miss eating?Clara had asked him once.Clara,he had replied,I misseverything.)
“Do you know how you’re going to do it? How you’re going to try and bring Henry back?” Evelyn asked quietly, tentatively. She had finished her ice cream and was holding the bowl almost reverently, staring into its depths like trying to see something beyond its ceramic glaze (if it was scrying she was after, she needn’t have wasted her time; the leftover dairy would have made everything cloudy and unclear).
“No,” Clara admitted.
“But wewillbring him back,” Bernadette said. “We’ll figure it out.”
We sat in silence for a while. I thought of the Pevensie children, opening a wardrobe and stepping through to a snow-covered wonderland. I thought of Alice, stumbling down a rabbit hole. I thought about the girl in Dark Magic. I didn’t know her name. I kind of wanted to ask her on a date. Either that or become her best friend. Either that or make a concerted effort never to see her again (I contained multitudes).
“I’m sure you will,” Evelyn said finally, with no conviction in her voice whatsoever. “I’ll take these bowls downstairs.” She got up and collected the bowls and started down the stairs, her footsteps getting quieter and quieter until we couldn’t hear them anymore.
Clara got up from the floor then; her left foot was asleep and she sort of half-hopped over to the window, pulling the curtain aside, craning her neck to look up at the sky.
“It’s still there,” she said. “It kind of glows a little, in the moonlight.”
“What do you think itis?” I asked.
“Well, it showed up when Evelyn came back,” Bernie said.
“And it’s right above our house,” I added. “So maybe something happened when she went through the doorway the second time? Like she… broke something?”
“Broke the sky?” Bernadette asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe? If there are these doorways between universes, Persephone’s footsteps, you know, and we’re not really supposed tousethem, then maybe it was like… like she forced her way through an entrance that wasn’t big enough for her. It widened it, warped it. She went there and came back and pushed her way through, and now this doorway has beenopened,really… I don’t know; this is stupid…”
“No, no,” she said. “I think that actually makes sense…”
“A tear,” Clara said slowly. “Between the universes.” She was still at the window, still looking up at the sky, at the black mark. “It’s like… pulsing.”
