A Lesson in Vengeance(86)

“You don’t have a cell phone,” I croak.

“Don’t I?”

She slips a hand into her pocket and draws out a slim device. Not the newest model, but it doesn’t need to be new. It just needs to work.

Ellis’s mouth quirks in half a smile. “I did warn you about the dangers of technology.”

And now that I think back, I realize Ellis never told me explicitly that she didn’t own a phone. I’d just assumed from the way all the Godwin girls eschewed computers and social media and texting; I’d figured they were taking a leaf from Ellis’s book. I had thought she started that trend.

Perhaps she did. Perhaps she’d planned this far earlier than I realize.

“But you don’t need to worry about any of this, as long as you do the right thing,” Ellis says. “Don’t go to the police, and I won’t plant that note. I won’t tell the cops where to find the gun. Or Clara’s body.”

Clara’s body. God. I’m going to be sick.

Only I can’t show Ellis that kind of vulnerability. She’ll tear open my underbelly the moment it’s exposed.

I must look as awful as I feel, because Ellis offers me a rueful smile and catches my wrist, her fingertips pressing in over my pulse point. “Why do you think I chose you for this?” she says. “It wasn’t to ruin your life. I wanted to help you. Don’t you feel better now? You’re standing here arguing with me because you know you didn’t kill Clara Kennedy. And you didn’t kill Alex, either. Not with magic, at least.”

“It doesn’t matter if you turn me in,” I say. My voice sounds as if it’s coming from somewhere distant, echoing across the expanse of time and space to reach my ears. “You said it yourself: they’ll think it was me anyway. They’ll have me on the cameras at the rental spot. My cell phone…in Kingston. The moment they realize the grave has been disturbed…”

Ellis shakes her head. “Why would anyone even think to check a graveyard miles away? Clara could be anywhere.”

Only she isn’t anywhere. She’s in that coffin. If they do find her body, it will look like I murdered her in cold blood. Or in a psychotic rage.

Sickness lurches up the back of my throat, and I pull out of Ellis’s grasp, hunching over one of my potted plants with a hand clasped to my mouth. But nothing comes up. I’m gasping by the time Ellis helps me straighten upright, my tongue coated in a metallic taste.

“God,” I say. “If they suspect me, if they find even a shred of evidence…”

“You could have been in Kingston for any number of reasons. Besides, cell phone records require a subpoena—they’d have to have other reasons to suspect you in order to even look into that. As long as you play along, they won’t have those reasons.”

“Get out.”

“Felicity, I promise you won’t—”

“Get out!” I shove at her with both hands, knocking her a stumbled half step back.

Ellis moves out of reach, dragging her fingers through her already-tousled hair. “All right. All right, I’ll go….Be careful, Felicity. Remember what I said.”

I’m not likely to forget.

She leaves, taking her manuscript, and I’m alone again. I don’t want her to come back. I wish I had never met Ellis Haley.

But in her absence the walls close in on me. I’m left alone with nothing but the watch ticking on my wrist and the inescapable knowledge that sooner or later, my time will run out.





         I have a huge and savage conscience that won’t let me get away with things.

    —Octavia Butler


Beware, for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.

    —Mary Shelley, Frankenstein





Two and a half weeks ago—one week before Thanksgiving break, two weeks and approximately two days before Clara’s death—Ellis and I were in the library, ostensibly finishing our Art History project but really just procrastinating. The rare books section was too quiet at night: the kind of quiet that didn’t suggest the absence of voices so much as their silence, watchful eyes and wordless mouths. I’d had Ellis commandeer several books from the occult collection, the pair of us shut away in the mustiest part of the stacks, breathing the smell of dust and old paper.

“Give me your hand,” I’d demanded.

Ellis glanced up from the text she’d been reading. “Did you know some people claim they can read the future in animals’ entrails? It’s called extispicy.”

“Yes. Give me your hand.”

She obeyed. I turned her wrist so her arm rested palm-up across my lap.

“What are you doing?” Ellis said, leaning in and peering over my shoulder at the book I had laid open by my knee.

“I want to read your palm.”

Ellis’s lips quirked up. “All right, but…why?”

“Because I’m curious. Because I want to know more about you. Do I need a reason?”

She was still looking at me like I was a particularly interesting science project, which I took as tacit permission.

“You’re left-handed, right?” I’d watched her practice forgery often enough to know, and we lefties have a bit of a radar for one another.