Ink and Bone(24)

“I don’t know,” Finley lied, looking down at her hand. She’d bitten her nails down short, and the black nail polish she wore was chipping. Really, Finley. Get a manicure, her mother’s voice chided.

“Look,” said Jones. He rose slowly, stiffly to his feet and then tested the table; it stayed solidly in place. “Seems like you two need to talk. And I have plenty of work to do on this one, lots of threads to pull, some gaps to squeeze into. Let’s just leave it that when and if there’s something, one of you will get in touch. No pressure.”

Eloise got up to see him out, while Finley nodded mutely and stayed seated.

“Should I leave it?” he asked Eloise, casting an uncertain glance in Finley’s direction.

“Why don’t you?” said Eloise.

He took a little crocheted change purse from his pocket, each row of stitching a different color of the rainbow. There was an applique cat on the front, with the letter A on its belly. Finley found herself reaching for it—even though she didn’t want to—and Jones handed it to her. She held it, staring. There was no denying that the sound was gone, that she felt that wave of relief Eloise had described. But Finley didn’t like being told what to do. She was like her father that way. Once he was expected to do something, once something was demanded of him—he made excuses, weaseled out, or just disappeared altogether.

She gave Jones a lackluster wave good-bye. Listening to him and Eloise talk quietly as they walked down the hall, she dropped her head into her arms. It grew quiet. The front door shut, making the plates in the sideboard rattle like they did. When she lifted her head, the little boy was standing in front of her with his train. She could hear the sound again, but just faintly.

“Not right now,” she said—to the boy, to the sound—rising and walking away. She passed Eloise in the hallway.

“Should we talk?” asked Eloise.

“No,” said Finley, too sharply. She was instantly sorry. More softly: “Later, okay? I have class in an hour.”

Her grandmother put a hand on Finley’s shoulder, then tugged her in close. Finley dropped into her, holding on tight. Amanda was not an affectionate mother, not with Finley. She was far more loving with Alfie. And over the years, as Amanda seemed to want more physical contact with Finley, the girl wanted less from her mother. In fact, now, she just endured Amanda’s embrace, almost shrank from it. But Finley had always been physically close to her grandmother—hugging, holding hands, sitting on her lap when Finley was smaller.

“I don’t think I’m ready for this,” Finley whispered.

Her grandmother released a breath. “I have bad news,” she said. “We almost never feel ready for any of life’s passages. And yet we often must move through them all the same.”

“You make it sound like I don’t have a choice,” she said.

Eloise pulled back and put a palm on each of Finley’s cheeks. “Life is an impossible twist of choice and circumstance, one rarely exists without the other.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

She headed toward the stairs, wanting the conversation to be over, Eloise let her go, didn’t try to hold her back.

“It means that we choose within the context of what happens to us,” she went on, even though Finley was moving away. “We don’t always choose who we are, or what we experience. We just choose what we do with it all.”

It sounded like resignation to Finley, like admitting that she didn’t have any true control over her life. She wasn’t sure she could believe that.

Faith Good stood on the bottom step, staring at the front door. Finley slipped past her quickly because she didn’t like to be close to Faith, her presence leaving a cold spot that leaked into Finley’s bones and that she’d have a hard time shaking all day.

Halfway up the stairs, Finley turned back to Eloise. Her grandmother looked up at her, smiling a little. It was a look that made Finley feel stronger, better. It was a look that said: I know you’ll do the right thing, even if you’re not sure yourself.

“When are you leaving for San Francisco?” Finley asked, a tingle of worry tickling at the back of her mind.

“Not quite yet,” said Eloise.

Finley tried not to show her relief. “You don’t have to stay because of me,” she said. “Really.”

“Oh, I know,” said Eloise easily. She waved a dismissive hand. “I just have a few loose ends I need to tie up.”

Outside, they heard Jones Cooper pull from the drive, his tires crunching on the gravel. Finley continued up the stairs, clutching the little change purse in her hand.


*

In her room, instead of getting ready for class, Finley lay down on her bed, looking at the change purse. It was light and insubstantial in her grasp. Eloise might be shunted into a vision by an object; Agatha could absorb all kinds of energy, thoughts, and intuitions that way, too. But Finley had never had that experience. On the other hand, she’d never had an opportunity to try. Most of her childhood, she’d just worked to ignore the people she saw. And it was only recently that she understood that they wanted something from her.

Only The Three Sisters had ever encouraged, sometimes pushed, her to actually do something. The first time, it was Patience, who told her what her grandmother was. That was how Finley learned about Eloise—not from Amanda, not from Eloise herself, and not from accidentally seeing something on television.