Black Bird of the Gallows(52)
“Then why not let me live with my dad?”
“Well, paranoia is one of the key ingredients in the Beekeeper venom cocktail. In her troubled mind, she believed she was keeping you safe.” Hank lowers his head. “It was selfish of me to let you stay with her for as long as I did. You belonged with your dad—he’d been searching for you for years—but I knew once you were gone, she’d have no reason to fight any longer.” He drops his head and lets out a shuddering sigh. “My heart died with her.”
His words hit me like a fist. I’m breathless, winded as if I just sprinted a mile.
My mother was protecting me. From herself.
I feel dizzy just trying to digest this, to change my point of view, after so many years of thinking I knew what happened. Now, following the grotesque lines of Hank’s face, I see the stark realization of the harbingers’ reality, and it is far more bleak and lonely than I want to admit.
It makes me rethink Reece’s every grin, every easy laugh. This is an existence of inescapable despair. There’s no way I can cure him of that. I’m not even sure I can stop it from infecting me.
I weakly brush damp hair from my face. “Why did Reece lie to me about Rafette stinging my mother? He knew.”
“He didn’t know,” Hank says.
“How could he not?” I demand. “You all live in a family unit.”
Hank stretches out his wing, folds it on his back. “I knew my actions were wrong, Angie. I didn’t tell anyone about Rafette’s offer or that he stung your mother. To this day, all they know is that I tried to save her and was punished by the ancient one for it. They are waiting for me to request the mortouri—death by the murder of crows.”
It feels like invisible bands are wrapped around my chest. Squeezing, squeezing.
“He cares for you,” Hank murmurs. “Reece Fernandez—as he’s named himself this time around—cares for you very, very much.”
“So that’s why you’re here? To warn me about how Reece and I are doomed.” I stagger back heavily against the tree. I sense I’m going to need its support. “You didn’t come here to reminisce.”
Hank rubs his chin. “Angie, you heard what Rafette had to say about his existence. Harbingers of death can eventually request the mortouri by their murder, and their souls are released. The curse finds another human. It’s not like that for Beekeepers. Rafette believes the only path to freedom from his curse is for him to coerce a weak harbinger into taking the Beekeeper’s curse. He claims to have heard this from one of the ancient ones, but no one can prove it.”
“Rafette thinks Reece is weak?”
“Reece is weak,” he says. “He has feelings for you. He has all but pinned a target on himself.”
“No way. We just started dating. Whatever ‘feelings’ he has aren’t something that would weaken him. He’s even told me he’s leaving after…after whatever is supposed to happen in Cadence, so I don’t get too attached.” I frown at my lap. “I’ve been trying not to.”
“Angelina.”
I look up.
Hank’s wing sags to the ground. The long black feathers brush the soggy mud. “This thing between you didn’t just begin. You were friends as children. You probably don’t remember. He’s grown a lot since then, has a different name. Reece used to come with me on visits to you and your mom. You were six or so when he stopped. The last time, we spent the day at a park. You wore a blue sundress with little white flowers. I brought you crayons and a Sesame Street coloring book. You shared them with him.”
I dig through the dirty boxes of my memories, searching through piles of anxious days and hungry nights for this one day he described. I remember the dress—it was my favorite. I wanted Hank to see me in it—and there it is! The prize on the bottom of an otherwise stinking pile of moldering crap. A golden-haired boy with a pretty smile and dark, sparkling eyes. A bright spot amongst all those rotting things.
“His name was…” I think hard. There were so many people around back then. “Steven. Shawn? Something with an S.”
“Troy.”
“Oh. Well.” I swallow hard, trying to piece it together. To connect the boy from my past to the boy I know now. “I remember you set us up at a picnic table. My mom was in the van, and you went to see her.” I sound faraway to myself, lost in this memory. “Reece—or Troy—colored Cookie Monster green and didn’t understand why I got upset about it, but then he laughed and told me we can use any color we want. I thought he was…” Cute. Sweet. He’d accompanied Hank on a few subsequent visits to us. How many times did my heart leap at the thought of seeing that kind, handsome boy when Hank would knock on the van door? My mind didn’t remember Reece as that boy, but something in my heart must have.
“Reece fell for you back then, and that’s my fault, too. When, by awful coincidence, the group found itself in Cadence, he couldn’t stay away from you. They couldn’t deny him the chance to be happy for a little while, but no one anticipated Rafette’s interest in him.” Hank’s expression turns pleading. “Angie, please. Allowing this relationship to continue could destroy both of you. Reece will do anything to protect you from harm.”
“You mean he might…”