Cold Spell

CHAPTER SIX

When we were small, Kai and I didn’t know all the tricks of the rose garden.

The thorns snagged our clothes; the uneven floor tripped us. Once we accidentally locked ourselves up there. We were able to signal to Ms. Snyder, who was coming home with her groceries, and she agreed not to tell Grandma Dalia if we’d take out her garbage and change the cat box for six weeks. We made the deal. It was worth it.

We cleaned up the garden as best we could, though, not knowing anything about gardening. Mostly that meant we hid Capri Suns in an old toolbox, swept off the bench, and cleared a path through the overgrown bushes. It took the better part of three weeks, but we treated it like a job, going up there immediately after school and not coming down until Kai had to go to dinner. There was an unspoken rule that neither of us ever went up there alone.

We didn’t know the trick to the door. It’s big, heavy, and metal, and it has one of those mechanisms that makes it automatically shut. One day, I opened the door on the way to get my beanbag chair from downstairs so we had something new to sit on. My fingers were curved around the door frame when I saw it—a bird’s nest, wedged under an awning. Inside were three tiny, perfect blue eggs; I stared. There was something so beautiful about them, nestled together, safe from the wind. I turned my head to Kai, who was just walking up behind me, and opened my mouth to tell him about the nest. I didn’t see the door swinging back. I didn’t realize my fingers were still in the jam.

Kai shoved me, hard—I almost fell down the stairs, and he tumbled after me. I looked up just in time to see the door slam against his ankle with a resounding crunch.

He tried to pretend it didn’t hurt, but eventually, he gave in and cried. It swelled up as if there was a golf ball lodged under his skin, and the spot turned dark purple and green. I helped him limp downstairs to my apartment, where we sat in my room with a bag of frozen peas pressed against his ankle for an hour.

I asked him why he didn’t just yell at me, or pull me toward him, or let me smash my own stupid fingers. He said it was because he didn’t think about it. He just did it.

“And besides,” he said, wincing as I removed the peas to inspect the damage. “It would have broken your fingers.”

“I think it broke your ankle,” I pointed out.

“One ankle. Four fingers. It was the better choice,” he joked, though his face was tense from pain.

He didn’t go to the hospital, and he forced himself to walk on the foot rather than limp in front of his grandmother. If she had found out what happened, she’d take the garden away. She’d put a new lock on the door. She might even tear down our rosebushes. The break eventually healed, though his left foot is still turned a little funny, if you look at it closely.

He said it was worth it.

I feel as if someone has pulled out an organ. One of those that doesn’t seem essential, to the layman—not my heart or my lungs, but rather my pancreas, or my spleen, or my gallbladder. Something that doesn’t seem as if it should matter so much, until it’s gone and your body can’t figure out how to operate and your heart won’t stop beating and just give up already. I sit on my bed, trying to figure out what’s just happened. Trying to figure out how he went from loving me to killing the roses.

I don’t turn on the lights as the sun begins to set. I want to be asleep, because surely, surely when I wake up Kai will be the Kai I love again. And we’ll be together, the way we’re supposed to be, and I won’t be so confused and lost.

“Is this yours?” my mom’s voice calls from the living room. I jump and realize I’m shivering from the cold—how long have I been sitting here? I rise, open my bedroom door, and see her peering down at Grandma Dalia’s cookbook.

“No,” I say. “It’s Kai’s.”

My mom looks up at me and her eyes widen, as if she’s seen something frightening. “God, Ginny, what’s going on?”

“I’m fine,” I say swiftly. I walk over and collect Grandma Dalia’s book. My mom is staring, unsure how to proceed. I head back to my room, eager to get back into the dark cold—

“Are you all right?” my mom asks. I turn in my door frame, a little startled that we’re still talking. “You don’t look all right.”

“Kai and I got into a fight,” I say, shrugging. “It’s fine.” I’m lying.

“Oh,” my mom says. “Well… maybe it’s not the worst thing for the two of you to spend a little time apart—oh, don’t look at me that way, Ginny; I don’t mean it like that. I’m just saying, I married my first boyfriend, and look where it got me—”

“That’s not it,” I say, glowering. I don’t mean to slam my door, but I’m not sorry when I do.

My mouth is in a firm line and my hands are stiff as I open Grandma Dalia’s cookbook on my bed so roughly that I tear the first page a little. I picture her disapproving glare as I begin to flip through the middle section, through her spells, her charms, her beasts. Was that your final plan, Grandma Dalia? Die just as Mora arrives, so Kai ends up with her instead of me? I want to scream at her, even though I know it’s mostly because I can’t scream at Kai.

I pull the stack of recipes bookmarking the Snow Queen page out and toss them aside, far more careless than I’ve ever been with the cookbook. When I do, the end of the paperclip sticks under my nail, far enough to sting. I yank my hand back, wincing, and watch as a drop of blood swells, spreading out in a perfect crescent shape just beneath the white part of my nail.

I cuss loud enough that I hear my mom make a disapproving noise from the next room, but I don’t care. The paperclip is rusted, old—I should probably get a tetanus shot. I tear the clip off the recipes and toss it onto my desk angrily, as if I’m banishing it. When I do, the clippings slip from my fingers and slide apart as they fall onto the open snow beast page. A recipe for cherries jubilee is on top, but underneath it is something strange—something skin colored. I brush the recipe aside to reveal a picture of a cheekbone, glossy and torn from a magazine. Beside it, a ripped-out picture of a nose.

It’s when I see two ice-blue eyes that I understand.

My fingers race across the book, assembling pieces. There are several noses, several eyes, and it takes me a dozen tries before I finally, finally assemble the clippings in the right order. In the right face. Mora’s.

The clippings weren’t a bookmark. They were the Snow Queen page. No text, no details, just Mora’s face.

I rise and back up. No, no, this is crazy. Crazy—Mora is just a girl. Just a girl who stopped to give us a ride. She may be beautiful, but she’s not the queen of the beasts. It’s a stupid idea, you’re just emotional, you’re just angry with Kai. She’s just a girl.

Don’t go with the girl.

Grandma Dalia’s last words are screaming in my brain, the magazine-clipping eyes staring at me. I shut my own eyes, try to ignore the rising panic. You’re looking too far into it, I tell myself. Besides—she pointed at me. Right at me. I remember the way her eyes narrowed, the crook of her finger, the way her hand shook—

I swallow.

I remember where Mora was standing, outside her parked car. Directly behind me.

I run for the apartment door, cutting my mother off when it slams behind me. I pound down the steps and through the courtyard—the cold is worse, the wind is worse. In the back of my head is a voice telling me this is silly. But then I think of Mora, of her slick words and icy eyes, of the costume man in the parking lot she reminds me of. Of the beasts in Grandma Dalia’s stories.

I reach Kai’s door, grit my teeth, and rap on it.

Silence.

I knock again, my breathing slow, controlled, as if I’ll be able to stop myself from panicking if he opens the door and she’s standing over his shoulder.

Silence.

“Kai?” I call softly, almost inaudibly. Still nothing. I knock again, louder this time, then again, and I finally hear movement—from the apartment across the hall. I wheel around to see Mr. Underwood, wearing a painfully see-through white shirt and chewing on a thick cigar. His hair is so white it makes the hall look especially dingy.

“You’re interrupting my news stories,” Mr. Underwood says crossly.

“Sorry,” I say. “I was looking for—”

“Kai, obviously. He’s gone. So you can stop knocking.”

“Gone?” I ask, voice catching.

“Hours and hours ago, with some pretty girl. Good for him, if you ask me. Better than sitting around moping over Dalia.”

“Where did they go?”

“Hell if I know—point is he isn’t here, so stop the commotion,” Mr. Underwood says, waving a hand at me before he shuts the door.

For coffee. To a movie—are the theaters open in all this snow? Maybe for dinner. I feel sick hoping that they’re just on some sort of date, but it’s better than the alternative—I’m sure of that, even without fully knowing what the alternative is. Still, all I can think of is what I heard on the roof, Mora’s voice all hypnotic and smooth. Come away with me.

He can’t have left. Not without me. Not with another girl.

I fumble with my key chain till I find the spare Kai gave me and slide it into the lock. The door creaks open; the apartment is pitch-black. Even though I know he isn’t here, I call his name again before reaching over and flicking on the kitchen lights.

The kitchen looks like it always does. There are dishes by the sink, and a loaf of bread sits on the counter. I see one of Grandma Dalia’s sweaters is still on the back of the armchair, and Mora’s thick fur coat is laid across the couch. Everything looks right here… I’m overreacting. I close the front door behind me and move through the house. Shoes in the hall. Toothbrush by the bathroom sink. They haven’t left yet; there’s still time to understand what’s going on, to get Kai away from Mora and whatever… spell she has on him. I round the corner to his bedroom just in case and grope for the light switch. It springs on, revealing his bed—unmade, like normal—and a pile of dirty laundry on the floor, including a shirt I recognize from Grandma Dalia’s funeral.

And then my eyes fall on the spot.

The spot where his violin is supposed to be. The spot where his violin always is. It’s a void, an empty space on the otherwise cluttered carpet. I stare at it, unsure what to think, what to feel, what to do, because I know that this means he’s gone. With her.

I call the police. It’s the only thing I know to do.

“So wait, the violin is worth how much?”

“Thousands,” I explain, brandishing Mora’s fur coat at him, as if it’s evidence. “But it’s not that. If it’s gone, he’s gone.”

“Is it insured?” he asks, ignoring the coat.

“I’m not worried about the violin!” I shriek. “He didn’t steal it, it’s his!”

“All right, all right, calm down,” the officer says. We’re standing in the courtyard, and I can see neighbors peeking out from their curtains to see what the noise is about. It’s late—the police were so inundated with snow-related calls that it took them hours to get here. My mom stands beside me, arms folded, irritated not only that I called the police, but that, as far as she can tell, I’m being immature. Upset over a fight with my boyfriend. Childish.

She doesn’t understand that I’m afraid.

“This, to me, looks like a kid freaking out over losing a relative,” the officer says to my mother, as if I’m not standing right beside her, shivering. “Has his aunt shown up?”

“I don’t know—” my mom begins.

“No. She isn’t here. I don’t even know if she’s coming,” I say dismissively. My tears have dried, but my voice is still stuffy and thick.

“Well, he’s eighteen, so he’s not a runaway. I wager he’s taken the cello—”

“Violin,” I hiss.

“I wager he’s taken the violin,” the officer says, looking weary. “To hock. Fast cash to hold him over till the will gets executed.”

“That’s not—”

“Honey,” the officer says. “I have been driving through the snow for days now. Tomorrow it’s supposed to let up. I get that this boy broke your heart and ran off with some blonde, but he’s a legal adult and can make his own decisions. Most of downtown’s without power. Water pipes are frozen over. A few streets over, we’ve got a girl your age, murdered. Ripped to shreds. You really think I should be tracking down some boy instead of finding the monster who did that to her?”

“The girl who took Kai, I think she’s done something to him,” I plea. “He didn’t just leave me. I think his grandmother—”

“He’s a bum, Ginny—you’ll meet someone else,” the officer says firmly, and gives me a pointed stare. We’re silent for a moment, still, him daring me to say another word.

“He’s not a bum,” I grumble, and spin around. I slip on the ice, a final indignity, before I stomp back inside. My bedroom is cold; I’m so tired of the cold. I turn the radiator on high, even though it fills my room with a sticky, plastic smell.

This is crazy. This is crazy, crazy, crazy. The magazine clippings are still assembled on my bed. I stare at them, trying to see someone other than Mora, but it’s so clearly her. Her, on the Snow Queen page. Her, in Atlanta during a blizzard. Her, here the day Grandma Dalia died.

Mind the beasts.

I have to leave tonight.

The first week after taking a new boy was always the worst. The boys had questions, they clung to who they were, and they got scared. Mora looked over at Kai as she pulled the car under the awning of the hotel drive. She knew what they were going through, almost exactly, and she also knew it would pass. And when it did? Things would get so, so much easier.

“Come on,” she called to Kai as the valets came to open their doors. Kai stepped out, looking dazed as Mora walked around the back of the car to meet him. She frowned—he’d need new clothes, and soon; he looked shabby next to the car, the hotel, and Mora’s silk dress. One of the doormen hurried to offer her his woolen coat—her shoulders were bare and exposed to the snow that was falling hard, clinging to the hotel windowsills like strips of icing. She waved the doorman off, pretending to shiver, and cursed herself again for leaving the white fur coat at Kai’s house. Another could be bought, of course, but it was the convenience of the thing. She nodded for Kai to follow her, and they pushed through the dark oak doors and into the lobby.

Mora stopped, her knees locking as the memory hit her. Memories were strange for her now—just as she thought she had them all gathered up, under control, a new one would appear like a ghost from her former life. This time it was brought on by the smell of this particular hotel—like wine and floor wax and years of perfumes and cigars passing through. Kai stopped obediently beside her, waiting for her direction. He’s coming along nicely, she thought.

“I stayed at this hotel when I was a teenager,” Mora told him as the memory took shape in her head. She looked across the lobby. It reminded her of vintage dresses, pearl jewelry—pale pinks and creams and golden accents. There were pillars every few yards along the wall, leading up to a coved ceiling with inlaid carvings and stained-glass skylights. Someone played a grand piano at the far end of the lobby, classic songs that cut over the hum of conversation, the people in suits shaking rocks glasses, women with dangly earrings laughing. “It was for a wedding, I think,” Mora continued, staring at a woman in a white cocktail dress. “Perhaps. Sometimes I can’t tell what I’ve imagined and what’s real.”

“Why can’t you remember?” Kai asked. His voice was hard, and if Mora were being entirely honest with herself, she’d admit she preferred the softer version, the one he used with Ginny. She rolled her eyes for thinking that, then answered.

“Because that life is long gone. It’s like trying to remember something that happened when you were a baby. I remember… I remember that they made me go to the wedding with one of my father’s friends. He was older than me, but he was rich. He was going to be a congressman, they said. I’m not sure if he became one or not—it was after I left. But oh, they wanted me to marry him so badly. I think my father would have paid him to give me a ring.”

“But he didn’t?” Kai asked. Mora shook her head, regretting saying the memory aloud.

“He knew I didn’t love him. There was another boy I wanted….” Mora’s eyes lingered on the piano player for a long time. “He played the piano.”

“A musician,” Kai said a little coyly, mistaking the seriousness in her voice for teasing. “I see why I’m here now.”

Mora laughed a little, the sound broken and cheap. “Yes. He was brilliant, though, better than this one.” She waved a dismissive hand at the pianist in the lobby as they passed him, moving toward the front desk. “But musicians aren’t stable. Musicians aren’t good choices. Musicians become poor drunks, whereas politicians become wealthy ones, according to my father. I loved him, though, loved him like he was air or water or the sun—”

Mora swallowed. It was easier, back when she didn’t remember him. She stopped, turned to Kai, and ran her fingers along his cheekbone for a moment, a tender gesture that made a few people at nearby tables giggle in amusement. Kai was like the other boy, the one she loved. Talented. Beautiful. But the difference, the biggest difference, was that Kai would never stop being hers. The thought helped dull the ache of what happened with the other boy.

The boy she loved. The boy who broke her heart.

Kai turned his head to kiss Mora’s fingers, a scandalous look in his eyes. She withdrew her hand just before his lips touched her skin; the act made Kai follower even closer behind her as she continued walking, hungry for her attention.

“My sister was here, too,” Mora said. The memories of her family were less paralyzing, easier to talk about. “We shared a room. She had her own date, with some other rich man. My sister liked it, honestly. She wanted a house and a baby and dinner parties and boats. Maybe that’s why she was the one who got killed. She hadn’t learned to fight like I had.” Mora shook her head and looked at Kai’s raised eyebrows. “That’s the way it works. Twins are two bodies with a shared soul. One of us had to die.”

“Who killed her?” Kai asked, voice raspy—perhaps he was too new to hear this tale.

Mora stopped by an enormous arrangement of red roses, tilting her head to the side. “Have you ever had nightmares, Kai? About men who are monsters? Monsters who are men?”

He nodded faintly.

“That’s what killed my sister. They’re called Fenris. They’re monsters, demons, creatures who eat girls—”

“Beasts,” Kai said breathlessly—his voice was softer now. “My grandmother called them beasts.”

“Ah,” Mora said, sounding impressed, though she wasn’t exactly shocked—every few years she ran into someone who knew about the Fenris. “Well, the Fenris killed my sister, so the single soul she and I shared was fractured. It’s easier to turn someone broken like that into something dark, like them.” She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was quiet. “I could feel myself changing, forgetting my old life with my family. So I went to this beach we used to vacation at, because I was sure the ocean was the only thing big enough to make me remember. To make me feel again.” She shook her head and looked up at the stained-glass ceiling, imagining for a moment that the watercolor-like swirls of glass were waves above her. “That’s why all girls like me wound up there. We were ocean girls, adopted sisters, waiting to become as dark as they are. The Fenris waited until I was a shell, barely a living thing, then pulled me out of the water. They made me theirs.” She forced her eyes back to Kai, gritted her teeth, and pleaded with her head to make the memory stop. It didn’t work.

“What did they do to you?” Kai asked in shock.

“They kill their mortal lovers,” Mora explained delicately. “So they need girls like me. They make us monsters, like them. They make us theirs. But you have to understand, Kai—I thought it was a curse, what happened to me, but it was a blessing. I was freed. Just like I’m freeing you.”

“From what?” Kai asked, rubbing his temples as if he was waking up. Mora glanced at his arms and noticed chill bumps rising, then followed his line of sight over her shoulder. The roses in the vase, bright red and fully bloomed. He was staring at them, squinting now. Mora reached forward, grasping his hand forcefully. It was hot and sticky to her, and it was all she could do not to grimace at the feeling.

“From being mundane,” she whispered, standing on her toes to bring her lips close to his ear. “From being ordinary.”

“From Ginny. Where’s Ginny?” Kai lifted his eyes to meet hers, and they were gold—too gold for comfort, too gold for Mora to overlook them. She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. Kai’s mouth was soft and gentle against hers; it felt as if she could crush him. She kissed him, licked at his lips, and slid her hand along his thigh until she finally felt his skin grow cold. When she pulled away, his eyes were dark, his skin fairer, a shade that matched her own.

“Come on,” she said, motioning toward the front desk. “Michael and Larson have probably finished circling the building. I want to be in the room once they get here.” She’d asked them to check the area for signs that the Fenris were nearby, that they’d followed her. They were in Atlanta, closer to her than she would have liked—she was almost certain they were responsible for the body found by Kai’s building. If she hadn’t taken Kai when she did, they’d probably have smelled her, if not seen her….

Mora swallowed the thought and took Kai’s hand and tried to pull him forward, but his feet were planted, a look of shock on his face.

“Mora,” he gasped, squeezing her fingers. “I think I love you.”

Mora smiled and wrapped her fingers underneath Kai’s chin tenderly. “Of course, darling.” She turned, pulling harder until he followed her. “You all do.”