This Monstrous Thing(21)

I stood, crossed the room in two strides, and ripped open the face of the first clock. I tugged a handful of gears from inside, pinching my finger hard in the process, and the clock froze, pendulum halting as suddenly as if I had seized it. I could have stopped the clock by removing a single piece, but I wasn’t looking to be delicate or kind, I just wanted it quiet.

I silenced the other two clocks, then dropped the gears on the desk. It was quieter than before, but I was still left thinking about Oliver. No chance of ripping him out of me.

I wondered what he would say if he were here with me. Not the Oliver I had now, but the Oliver from before, the one who sought out strange adventures because they’d make a good story. Being brought to a solitary house on the cusp of a snowstorm by a girl with white hair—he’d go wild for that. It could be the start of a horror novel, he’d say, the sort Mary claimed she’d someday write. When I closed my eyes, I could picture him as he had been before he died: dark hair tousled, eyes alive with excitement, his fingers scratching at his bottom lip, always thinking. “It’s never simple, Ally,” he would say to me. “Nothing’s ever the way it looks straight on.”

He’d said that to me in Amsterdam. The first time he’d been arrested. I remembered it suddenly, like a door opening inside me, and heard his voice in my head. The image of him in my memory shifted into standing in the police station while they took the irons off him, grinning at me like it was all a stupid joke.

I’d been the only one home when an officer came to inform us my brother had been arrested for punching out a man’s teeth, and instead of waiting for my parents, I’d taken one of the bill rolls we kept stashed around our flat and gone to fetch him myself so Father wouldn’t find out. I’d stood in the waiting room at the station, lamps bright as noon though outside everything was frosty and black, and watched as the cuffs came off. The officer handed him back his coat, and I didn’t even wait for him to put it on. I turned and left the station without a word.

I didn’t say a thing to him as we walked along the frozen canals. The only way I knew he was following was the sound of his footsteps in the snow. We were halfway home before he said, “You’re walking so fast.”

My temper flared against his voice like a struck match. “I want to get home.”

“Can we stop?”

“No.”

“Just for a moment.”

“No.”

“Ally, stop.” He caught my arm, and I whirled around so fast he took a step back. “What’s the matter?”

“Are you insane, or are you really as stupid as you act sometimes?” I cried, and I surprised myself with how loud and angry the words came out—I was usually so good at keeping my temper.

Oliver looked startled too. “What are you talking about?”

“I like it here! But if you go and do idiotic things like brawling in the street, we’re going to get caught and have to leave. Or worse. And it will be your fault.” The corners of my eyes were starting to pinch, and I scrubbed the back of my hand hard against them.

When I looked up, Oliver was watching me, his face tight. “I didn’t mean to get into trouble.”

“Well, somehow you always do.” The words came out more teary than I meant them to.

We stood for a minute on opposite sides of the street, our shadows made skeletal by the lamplight. I was so angry at him. The angriest I’d ever been. Angry that he could be so careless and selfish, like I didn’t matter to him at all.

Oliver turned away from me suddenly and took a few steps to the edge of the street until his toes were hanging over the short ledge above the frozen canal. He stood there for a moment, balanced, then eased himself down so that he was standing on the ice. His arms rose like a puppet on strings.

“What are you doing?” I called.

He grinned back at me, his smile a streak through the darkness—as bright as the frozen canal. “Come here.”

“I haven’t got skates.”

“Neither have I.”

“You’re mental.”

“Come on!” I didn’t move. Oliver pushed himself off with his feet flat and slid straight ahead. He wobbled, but stayed upright. “This is brilliant,” he called over his shoulder. “Can’t believe you’re missing it.”

I hesitated, watching him glide away from me, then made an abrupt decision. I sat down on the lip of the canal and lowered myself onto the ice after him. I tried to stand like he had but lost my nerve at the last minute and sat down hard instead.

Oliver laughed. “Get up!”

“No!” I pulled myself after him on my backside, fingers sticking to the ice through the holes in my gloves.

Oliver laughed again, spinning in a half circle to face me. “Come on, Ally, get up!”

“I’m going to fall!”

“You won’t fall! I’ll help you.” He held out a hand.

I pushed myself from my knees to my feet but stayed bent at the waist with my palms flat on the ice. When I did straighten, it was slowly, inch by inch, arms out at my sides and every muscle clenched. Oliver whooped encouragement.

I reached out for his hand, but as soon as I moved, my feet went in opposite directions. I tried to catch myself with a step but it turned to a stumble, and somehow I was sliding and running and falling all at the same time. I missed Oliver’s hand and instead smashed straight into him. He grabbed me under the elbows so when I fell, we fell together, all the way down to the ice.