Dead of Winter (5 page)

“Do you want to go tonight?” I asked Matthew.

He shrugged, like I'd asked him to go grab a slice. “Got stuff to do.”

“Like what?”

“Stuff,” he answered, sounding like such a teenage boy.

“Will you tell me about the Lovers? Anything at all?”

“Duke and Duchess Most Perverse.” He lowered his voice even more. “Their card's upside down. Reverse. Perverse.”

“But what does that mean?”

He rocked forward and back. “Animus, animal passions, disharmony, conflict, jealousy. When they say
love
, they mean
destroy
. They want retribution because they chronicle and remember.”

“What are their powers?”

His rocking slowed. “They don't use them as they have.”

“What did you mean about smite, fall, mad, and struck?”

He nodded. “Sometimes the world spins in reverse. Sometimes battles do too. The word
carousel
means little battle.”

I nodded back as if that made sense. “Matthew, what will they do to Jack if I fail? Will they mesmerize him? Control his mind?”

“They are vain. They practice their craft. With sharp tools, they remove things, discard them, transform people. You begin as one thing and die as another.” A gust punctuated his low words.

Chills skittered over me. Here we sat in a tree-house type structure, telling scary stories by lantern light. As kids used to.

Post-apocalypse, all the stories were real.

“You don't want to know more about their craft.” Matthew shivered. “
I
didn't. Power is your burden; knowledge is mine.”

“What power?”

“You have more abilities now.”

Though I grew weaker overall from lack of sunlight, I had learned a new skill.

When I'd been in the gardens beneath Death's home, preparing for the Devil's attack, I'd unwittingly taken the knowledge of those plants into me—along with all their relatives.

Before, I'd revived and controlled plants and trees, but I'd never
known
them. Now I could recreate them without seed; I could generate differing spores to make one sleep for a time—or forever. The same with the toxin on my lips.

“Phytogenesis,” I said.

“Phytogenesis,” he echoed solemnly.

“Did you plan for me to fight Ogen? So I'd be among all that green as blood was spilling?”
Trusting him is a free fall.

“Claimed your crown yet?”

My hundredth frown of the night. “Like on my card?” The Empress tableau and Tarot card depicted her/me with a crown of twelve brilliant stars. “Is that what you meant?”

He stared at his hand. Subject closed.

Okay . . . “Even when I fought Ogen, I spared Death and Lark. I controlled the red witch.” Matthew should give me props.

“You can muzzle her, but can you invoke?” Or none at all.

Invoke the witch? “She comes out when I'm under attack.” Pain drew her in a hurry. Fury as well. “It's kind of automatic. Why would I invoke her?”

“Jack is missing.”

I sighed, resigned to letting him steer our conversation. “Yes, he is.”

“Your heart aches again. His does too. Hopes. High. Dashed. Love. He reflects over his life.”

“Like what?”

“Crossroads and missed opportunities. He has more regrets than the very old. Wishes he'd never lied to you.”

“So do I.” He'd lied with as much skill as he read people. I rose and walked over to the lookout slot, scanning as if I could see him.

Even though I feared I could never trust him again, I still loved him.

“He wishes he could have seen you just one last time.” Matthew's tone turned sly. “I could show you his reflections.”

Trespass in Jack's mind? But then, he had listened to the tape of my life story—without permission. “What he's thinking about right now? Show me.”

“From his eyes,” Matthew whispered.

A vision began to play, so immersive that the world around me faded away. As Jack's memory became my own, I was transported into
the ramshackle cabin he'd shared with his mother. Through an open doorway, I could smell the bayou, could hear frogs and cicadas.

His mother was smiling down at him. She'd had stunning good looks, with her tanned skin, high cheekbones, and long raven hair. Jack had gotten his coloring from her.

But shadows laced her gray eyes as she introduced him to two visitors.

Maman calls me over to meet them: a middle-aged woman and a girl around my age, maybe eight or so. Everyone says Maman and I are dirt poor, but this pair doan look like they're doing much better.

“Jack, this is Eula and her daughter, Clotile. Clotile's your half sister.”

She'd been tiny, all skinny legs and big soulful eyes. Sadness filled me because I knew Clotile's ultimate fate.

Less than nine years from that day, she would survive an apocalypse—only to be captured by Vincent and Violet.

Clotile had escaped them, just long enough to shoot herself. Jack still didn't know why. Had she committed suicide to give him a chance to get free? Or because she couldn't live with what the Lovers had done to her?

I tell Maman, “I doan have a sister.” I got a younger half brother though. Earlier this summer, Maman had driven us all the way to Sterling to show me my father's mansion. She said it should've been ours. We'd watched Radcliffe and his other son, Brandon, tossing a football in the front yard.

My half brother kind of looked like me. But this girl's scrawny with light brown hair and pale skin.

“You two got the same father. Radcliffe.” Maman can barely say his name.

“Maybe, Hélène.” Eula snorts. “I'm giving it one in three.”

Clotile gazes at the ceiling. I get the sense she's embarrassed that she can't pin down who her père is—but kind of used to it too.

Eula strides toward me and grasps my face in a way I hate. “Oh,
ouais, you got his blood, for sure. Not that it matters anyway. You'll never get a dime out of him.” She drops her hand. “You and Clotile go play. Your mère and me are goan to have a couple of drinks.”

When Maman drinks she turns into a different person. I give her a look that says,
Doan do this.
But she gazes away. What'd I expect, me?

Clotile takes my hand with a wide smile, and we head outside. She's sweet enough, I suppose. And she can't help being my sister.

I take her out onto the floating pier I've pieced together, showing her how to check traps. She watches in amazement, like I'm turning water into wine or something.

Out of the blue, she says, “I think you
are
my big brother.”

I doan know how I feel about that. She's not bad company, doan talk a lot. Her stomach's been grumbling, but she woan admit she's hungry. At least I've learned to feed myself, can hunt and fish and cook my take. I could help her out now and again.

“Maybe I am.” Then I scowl, kicking a trap back in the water. Just what I need—another mouth to feed!

A loud truck rumbles down our muddy track of a driveway, parking in front of the cabin. Two men stomp inside, hailing greetings, making our mothers laugh.

I can hear a metal opener tinking against beer bottles, can hear the throat of a bourbon fifth against a shot glass. They turn up music on a radio I “found” a couple months back and pair off.

The zydeco doan disguise what's happening inside. For the first time, Clotile looks upset.

I figure I'd do just about anything to keep this scrawny little fille from crying. “We can borrow a pirogue and paddle out farther. I got more traps, me.”

She latches on to this like a bass on a line, and we doan get back for hours.

Near sunset, we creep up the cabin steps. “Stay behind me, girl,” I whisper. When Maman's beaux get drunk, they always need to swing their fists—usually at her or me.

Inside is all a mess. Eula and a man are naked and passed out on the
couch I got to sleep on. Clotile shrugs at that sight like she doan care, but her cheeks are red, her eyes glassy.

Maman's door is open—I hear a man snoring from the bed—but I know better than to glance in that direction.

Beside the couch is my stack of library books; liquor's spilled over them. It makes me so angry, like
I
need to swing my fists.

Clenching my jaw, I snag a few beers out of the icebox. Clotile doan miss a beat, grabbing the bottle opener. We head back out to the pier. As we watch the sun set between two cypress trees, she pops open beers for us, like she's been doing this for a while.

I never have, but figure,
Why not?
I sip, not sold on the taste. I suppose it'll grow on me.

By the second one, I feel great, relaxed in my own skin. “Clotile?”

“Hmm?” She looks mellow, buzzed herself.

“Everybody says we got no hope of goan anywhere. You ever think we deserve better than the Basin?”

Without hesitation, she says, “Non.”

I ponder it over another sip. “Ouais, me neither.”

My eyes blurred with tears.

Yet Jack
had
made plans to get out of the Basin and fight for a better life. He'd intended to fly in the face of everything he'd grown up believing.

That struck me as unimaginably brave.

Did he still feel he didn't deserve better? If Clotile had ever dared to hope for more, she'd been punished with something much, much worse than Basin life.

With me as a lingering witness to his thoughts, Jack's mind turned to another sliver of time.

He and I were walking hand in hand, just after we'd had sex for the first and only time—and right before we'd gone into battle against the cannibals.

'Bout to face shittier odds than I ever have, stone-cold sober, and I never felt so good. Is this what being at peace means? No damn wonder everyone wants to feel this way.

Evie glances up at me with those blue eyes, and she's so fucking beautiful I nearly trip over my feet. Her scent is honeysuckle, which means she's all but purring. Her lips curve, and that smile hits me harder than any punch. She's got no regrets.

Good. 'Cause I'm never letting her go. I might reach too high to have her, but
she
doan think so. I want to say something, to tell her how I feel about what we just did. Everything I think to say could be taken the wrong way.

So I squeeze her hand and keep it simple. “Â moi, Evangeline.”
Mine.

She promises me: “Always.”

And I believe her.

“Hey, blondie!” Finn called from below. “Is this a no-boys-allowed tree house?”

I jerked my head up, my tie with Jack severed.

“You're early,” I told the Magician as Matthew and I climbed down. We still had twenty minutes.

“Wanted to avoid the midnight-hour traffic.”

The three of us hurried into the first floor. Metal sheeting made up the walls. Moldy hay covered the ground. A rough-hewn table and a couple of benches furnished the area.

Finn sat on one, raising his leg along it. Matthew took a seat next to him.

When Cyclops padded over hesitantly, Finn grumbled, “Free fort, sit where you want.” But he kind of grinned when the wolf plopped down right beside him.

“We could've come to you,” I told him. Maneuvering through this camp must be hell for him.

Sweat beaded his lip, and he was out of breath. “The closer I am to you guys, the better for the illusions.”

The watchtower wasn't that far from his tent. How close were we cutting it?

He situated his crutch over his lap. Aged stickers of cats decorated the metal parts. Who had it once belonged to? “So an Empress, a horse, and a wolf walk into a fort. . . .”

“If this is a dirty joke, I'll pass.” I'd missed the Magician's humor. Tilting my head at him, I said, “You don't look so good, Finn.”

Was there even a spare Advil to be found? Selena's arm had to be hurting her too, but with her extensive training, she probably knew Jedi tricks to limit pain.

“I feel like a bucket of fuck, but I'll be ready,” he assured me. “Right, Matto?”

“Ready Magician!”

I sat on the other bench. “I heard you took a header off a ridge.”

“H to the Azey. That army blows Baggers. My bear-trap injury never quite healed up. Didn't take much to rebreak my leg. Selena was worse off, though. She broke her arm in two places, cracked her ribs, and fractured her collarbone.”

Just a week ago? I'd suspected she had accelerated healing.

“Somehow she dragged me back to the fort.”

For Selena to refrain from killing Arcana was one thing. Quite another for her to save another card. She'd shown loyalty to someone other than Jack.

I guessed she and Finn had smoothed over their animosity.

“Good thing I'm dying young,” Finn continued in a nonchalant tone, “or I'd be shit out of luck with this bum leg.”

“Dying young?” He
wasn't
kidding.

“Made peace with it.” He shrugged. “Kind of think we all should.”

“Because of the game? We don't know that yet.” As I spoke, another gust howled, drilling horizontal rain against the metal walls.

Finn looked up warily. “Not just because of the game.”

After three months of near constant downpours, the weather was shifting. Occasionally, we'd get hurricane-force winds—and a fog so thick it bordered on tangible. “Have you guys gotten snow here yet?” I thought I'd spied a single flake the night I'd left Aric.