"There is no curse," he said softly and convincingly. "Let the idea go before you really
do
harm your psyche."
"Fine," I agreed, primarily so I could end the discussion and unlock my eyes from his. "Whatever you say."
However, I wasn't convinced. Not convinced at all. If only I 27
could have really confided in him, told Dad about that evening I'd been with that girl by the river. And that night in London--the
rest
of the story about Grandfather and what I suspected ...
Of course I couldn't, though. That last secret--it would have to go with me to my grave.
Slipping his glasses back onto his narrow nose, my father shifted in the booth, reaching for his wallet. "I need to return to campus," he said. "Will you be all right?"
"You're going to back to work
now?"
I asked. "It's nearly eight o'clock."
"This fellowship is important," Dad reminded me. "I didn't suspend my practice in London--and your education at one of England's best academies--in order to sit in a rental house in the Pennsylvania countryside. I need to prepare lectures and conduct research that will impress my American colleagues." The suspicion that I kept fighting off crept back yet again. I could understand that the fellowship at the prestigious Severin College of Medicine was a good chance to introduce Dr. Frederick Hyde to an even wider, international audience, but lately his hours had been getting longer and longer. How much research could he do?
Dad summoned our server with an imperious wave, signaling for the check. As they settled the bill, I again watched out the window. And who should walk into my line of sight but Jill Jekel and Becca Wright, the two unlikeliest of friends.
One wore a short denim skirt and tight T-shirt, the other a lacy blouse. Not sexy lacy. Virginal, wedding-veil, Victorian lacy. One gestured actively with fuchsia-tipped fingers. The other struggled to keep her small pale hands wrapped around a huge artist's portfolio.
28
One sometimes showed up in my nightmares, falling into my arms, feeling the prick of a blade against her skin ... One was ...
"Interested, Tristen?" Dad asked, jerking me back from my reverie.
I realized that he was watching me as I followed Jill and Becca's progress down the street. "No." I shook my head. "Not at all." As the words came out of my mouth, I was certain that I told the truth. Yet I felt, for some reason, like a liar, because both of those girls, they did intrigue me, in very different--sometimes disturbing--ways.
Chapter 5
Jill
BECCA WRIGHT
was stretched out on my bed kicking her tanned, pedicured feet in the air as she flipped through
Foundations of the Chemical World
like it was
Star
magazine and she was looking at photos of beautiful people, not molecular models.
I stood in the corner at my easel, adding a bright sun to my canvas but keeping one eye on Becca's halfhearted attempt at studying, wondering how long she'd keep up the charade.
After about two more minutes the book slammed shut and Becca sat up, twisting her long legs into a pretzel, the same way we used to sit together on a rug in our kindergarten classroom. Why had we stayed friends for so many years, long after Becca had gone on to be popular? Was it just because we still lived on the same block and ended up walking to school together every day? Or
29
did she really just need me even more than like me? That was probably the truth ...
Outside, lightning flashed as a late-summer storm blew closer, and no matter how Becca felt about me, I was glad she was there while Mom worked an evening shift.
"Jilly?" Becca ventured when the thunder faded away. "I was just thinking."
"Yes?" I dabbed more chromium yellow on my canvas. "About what?"
"The stupid way Messerschmidt grades us," Becca said. "You know, how he only gives two real tests the whole year, so if you flunk one, you're doomed."
"I'll help you study," I promised.
Like always...
"Yeah, and you'll end up trying to teach me everything at the last minute," she said matter-of-factly, like neither one of us had any choice in the matter. "It'll take hours."
I shrugged. "I don't mind."
"Well... what if you just helped me during the test?" Becca asked. The suggestion startled me so much that my hand jerked,
messing up my painting. But I gave her a wobbly, uncertain smile in case she was joking. "Becca, you don't really want to ...
cheat?"
She untwisted her legs and hopped to the edge of the bed. "Just think about it, Jill," she said in a way that told me she
wasn't
kidding. "You practically give me all the answers anyway. What does it matter if I memorize them right before the test or if you text me under the table
during
the exam?"
I shook my head, not believing that Becca was honestly
suggesting that we should cheat. "We could get caught," I reminded
30
her. "It would go on our records! And we'd probably get in-school suspension!"
Not to mention the embarrassment... Not to mention that cheating was WRONG.
"No," I said more firmly. "I couldn't do it." Outside, rain began to fall, and I dabbed a new brush into azure, convinced that the talk of cheating was
done.
"Hey, Jill?"
I glanced up to see my friend staring at my feet, and I looked down, thinking I must have dropped paint on my ballet flats.
"What?"
"Don't those goody two-shoes ever feel a little tight?" My cheeks flamed. "Becca ... I'm just afraid ..."
"Oh, just forget it," she muttered, standing up and walking to the window. "I'll just fail."
I dragged my brush against the canvas, trying to fix my mistake and wondering if Becca had any idea how unfair that comment was. She was smart enough to do the work on her own ... but pretty enough that she'd never really had to do anything for herself.
"I should get going," she said, "but this storm is awful."
"Just hang out until it's over," I urged, wincing as lightning struck close by.
Okay, so I was definitely using her a little, too. "Look." I sighed.
"I'll help you with the test somehow, okay? I'll make sure you pass."
Becca turned to me, smiling again, like she'd already gotten what she wanted. "Thanks, Jilly."
But I
wouldn't
cheat.
As I put more blue on my brush, Becca started to wander around my room, absently picking up the stuff on my dresser, then setting things back down, obviously bored. "You wanna do something?" 31
"We could keep studying," I suggested.
"Or better yet, we could pierce your ears," Becca announced like she'd been struck by a brilliant idea. "That would be fun!"
"What?" I looked up to see her staring at my naked earlobes.
"You're not serious," I said, picturing blood, and infection, and my mom's expression when she saw that I'd violated her rule against piercing anything before I was eighteen.
"Why not?" she asked, grinning more broadly. "I did Angela Sloan's last summer, and she didn't even cry. The ice--and the vodka--numbed everything."
"Vodka?" I kind of yelped. I knew Becca parried but...
vodka?
And needles going through
flesh?
"I don't think so," I said, dipping my blue brush into a waiting jar of turpentine. The liquid swirled greenish black, like pus from an infected ear. "No!" Becca sighed--a "you're so boring" sigh--and plopped down at my desk, shaking the mouse to bring my laptop's screen to life. Opening the Internet, she started typing, and I watched warily, hoping that she wasn't going to call up sites I wasn't supposed to visit.
Cheating, piercing, porn ... it would be too much for one night. And if Mom came home early and walked in ... "What are you looking for?" I asked, wiping my paint-spattered hands with a rag.
"I'm going on my MySpace," Becca said.
I felt a moment of relief--until she added, "I'm checking out Tristen Hyde's page."
I didn't know why I wanted to object to that, too. Why I didn't want to look at Tristen ... especially not with Becca.
But even on a computer, Becca was socially adept, and of course it took her only a second to get to Tristen's page, and before I could say anything to stop her, she announced, with triumph in 32
her voice, "Well, well, well... here's something interesting about the mysterious Mr. Hyde!"
Chapter
6
Jill
"TRISTEN IS, LIKE, A
COMPOSER,"
Becca said, sounding impressed. "He writes
classical
music." I left my easel and sank down on my bed, surprised and maybe skeptical about a MySpace boast. "Really?"
"He has audio links," Becca confirmed. She clicked a lacquered nail against the mouse, and my bedroom filled with the sound of a piano. "He says it's his stuff."
I wasn't sure what I expected to hear as the file opened. Maybe something that was so good that I'd know Tristen hadn't really written it, and was, like most people, exaggerating online. Or maybe a simple, decent song like a teenage guy might actually write.
But the melody that came forth ... it was incredible. And yet I also believed that Tristen Hyde really did create it, because it somehow reminded me of Tristen himself.
I cocked my head, listening closer and easily picturing him. Confident, kind of enigmatic ... and comfortable at the edge of a grave. Although my computer's speakers were cheap and tinny, the song was undeniably powerful. Dark and ominous, yet...
majestic,
like the storm that had finally broken in earnest outside.
"That's amazing," I said, forgetting that I'd been reluctant to look at Tristen's online persona, as his composition continued to play.
"Really beautiful."
33
Becca wrinkled her nose, though, and ended the music with another quick tap of her fingernail. "Kind of gloomy, I think." Wishing we'd heard more, I watched as Becca navigated to some photos of Tristen, and my stomach got ticklish again, like when she'd first announced her intention to check out his page. Although obviously MySpace was public, I felt like we were trespassing, spying on him.
Becca clearly didn't feel the same way. She clicked on an image, making it bigger, and whistled under her breath. "Wow ... He is so hot, don't you think?" she asked, eyes trained on the screen. I didn't say anything. I just stared at Tristen's photo, feeling even more uncomfortable, like he had actually joined us in my bedroom, although the picture had clearly been taken at a concert. Tristen was seated at a glossy black piano, his thick hair falling over his forehead, and he wore a tux, which made him look much older than a teenager--even more so than the tie I'd seen him wear. He must have been playing, but the photographer had captured a moment when Tristen had glanced up from the keys, his brown eyes directly meeting the lens, and the intensity I saw there ...
I felt myself blushing again, and I was glad Becca was also looking at Tristen and not at me.
"It's not just how he looks, but the way he talks, with that accent," Becca added over her shoulder. "You know he went to this super-exclusive school in England, right?"
"No, I didn't know that," I said, although I wasn't surprised by the news. Tristen spoke more like a teacher than ... well, most of the actual teachers at Supplee Mill. I peered harder at the photo, thinking that Tristen definitely was intriguing, in a way. Suddenly Becca swung around to face me, laughing. Maybe
at
me. "You
know
you think he's hot, Jill," she teased, like that would 34
be the funniest thing in the world--if it had been true. "I saw you checking him out in chem!"
"No, I wasn't!"
I wasn't...
"But a guy like Tristen," Becca said, twisting one of her curls around her finger. "He wouldn't be good for somebody like you, Jill--no offense!"
My cheeks caught on fire then, both at the unfair accusation that I liked Tristen ... and at the insult I was perceiving. "What does
that
mean?"
"You're sweet," Becca said in a way that didn't exactly sound like a compliment. "And Tristen ... Well, he talks really smooth, but he's got a rough side, too."
I sort of rolled my eyes. "Come on, Becca..." I honestly couldn't believe Tristen Hyde would be anything but well-mannered, maybe even kind of... proper.
"Well, he beat Todd Flick to within an inch of his life!" Becca defended her assertion. "That's pretty rough!" I jolted, nearly slipping off my mattress. "Tristen
beat up
Todd?"
"Yeah." Becca seemed genuinely surprised by my ignorance.
"Didn't you hear?"
"No." Jill Jekel was last on the gossip phone tree. "What happened?"
Becca dismissed motive with a wave of her pink-tipped fingers.
"Something about Tristen hitting on Darcy, which is ridiculous, because she is
not his
type."
I studied Becca's delicate, pretty face, wondering how she knew Tristen even had a "type." I also fought against a terrible urge to take twisted delight in Todd Flick, who'd teased me for years, getting a beating. Nobody deserved violence. I hated violence.
"Tristen didn't really hurt Todd, did he?"
35
Becca had clearly been relishing the gossip, but the smile she hadn't quite been able to hide slowly disappeared, and her eyes clouded. "Tris broke Todd's arm."
"No ..." My eyes darted to Tristen's photo.
He couldn't, could he?
When I looked back to Becca, I saw that she'd gotten not just solemn but almost... spooked. And although we were alone, she lowered her voice, so I could barely hear her above the rain pounding the house. "I... I kind of know a secret about Tristen, too," she added. "Something from last summer. A story that I never told anybody."
"Really?" I swallowed thickly, suddenly not sure I wanted to hear any more. Not from Becca. Not about
Tristen,
who'd once held me. "Um, maybe you shouldn't..."
But Becca continued confiding in me, with a strange expression that I'd never seen before, not in all our years as friends. "I kind of...
saw
Tris, over the summer," she said. "And this
thing
happened ..."