Neverworld Wake(18)

—

We were shipwreck survivors in a raging sea. Now they were forcing me to let go of their hands so they could sink into the waves and drown.

I was going to be stuck here forever.

Here, in the Neverworld, where I’d never grow old.

Never have a family.

Never fall in love.

I was an immortal vampire without any perks. No bewitching beauty, no golden eyes or shimmering skin, no ability to run three hundred miles an hour and flip cars over.

I was a ghost with no haunt. I couldn’t turn TVs to static or swivel porcelain doll heads 360 degrees, causing normal humans to have nervous breakdowns. I couldn’t make toddlers stand in zombie trances in living rooms, captured in shaky found footage in the dead of night.

I was a ticking clock in a timeless world.

Without time, nothing had meaning. Never before had I understood how crucial the passage of time was to caring about something. It gave it an expiry date, a wick, a rush, a burn. Without it, everything sat in place, dumbly waiting.

In my darkest moments I thought of Jim.

I’d come to Wincroft to find out what happened to him. Now even that question, the one I’d spent the past year turning over and over in my mind, shriveled and flattened in the face of the Neverworld, like a little worm on the driveway in the beating sun.



* * *



—

The night of the fight, I’d just returned from the Dreamland. Letting myself into Wincroft, I heard screaming coming from upstairs. I sprinted up the staircase, realizing they’d locked themselves in E.S.S. Burt’s bathroom in the master suite.

I knocked. “Is everything okay?”

There was no answer but snickering.

“It’s almost time for the vote.”

This was met with more laughter.

“Hello?”

The door was flung open. Whitley stood there wearing an oversized red-sequined evening gown. Her eyes were bloodshot and smudged with eyeliner. Kipling was draped like an exhausted panther over the edge of the tub. Cannon was sitting on the counter, bandana tied marine-style around his forehead. It was obvious from their flushed faces—and the array of empty Dom Pérignon bottles scattered across the tiles—that they were wasted.

“Sister Bee, charmed to see you,” Whitley said primly. “We won’t be joining you. Ever.”

“What?”

“We aren’t voting. We’re staying at Wincroft until the end of time. So there.”

She rolled her eyes at the look on my face.

“Oh, God, Bee. Stop mothering everyone. Your good-girl nun act is never getting you chosen. In fact, it’ll be over my maggot-infested body that I ever allow some Mother Teresa type to triumph on to life. No way. It goes against my very life philosophy that one must get filthy to live. You must get down in the dirt or you’ve done nothing.”

“I’m not Mother Teresa. I’m not a nun. I’m not even that good.”

She waved her hand as if shooing a fly and turned, idly surveying her reflection in the mirror.

“It’s not about the vote,” I went on. “It’s about staying together. We could lose ourselves forever in this place. Remember what Jim used to say about friendship? About us? What we have is a loyalty that can see us through anything.”

Whitley bit her bottom lip, trying not to laugh.

“You still love him. Wow. He was the only person you ever saw in a room. And it’s still true, even though he’s dead. By the way. Did you ever wonder why he chose you? Out of all the girls at school?”

She rubbed some lipstick off her chin. I braced myself, because I knew what was coming. Her tantrums always began this way: she made some grand opening statement like a veteran prosecutor holding a jury rapt, the perfect set of words to slice her target in two.

“He chose you because a plain setting makes the diamond sparkle brighter.”

I said nothing, willfully reminding myself to ignore whatever Wit said when she was angry. Yet I felt my face flush, a nervous voice in my head chattering It’s not true.

“I disagree,” said Cannon, frowning. “The problem always was that you loved Jim.”

“He’s right,” muttered Kipling. “It was obvious, child. Like a wart on a lifeguard’s big toe at a public pool.”

“Oh, please.” Whitley glared at him. “You were obsessed with him. Admit it. Don’t think we didn’t see you ogling him, your Southern accent going all syrupy around him, like you thought you could seduce him with some third-rate community-theater impression of Truman Capote. And you.” She turned to Cannon. “You were happy when he died.”

“I was gutted,” he answered in a clipped tone.

“Gutted with glee, maybe.”

Cannon glared at her, his face implacable. “You hate the Linda? Well, too bad. You’re her to a tee. All that’s missing are the face-lifts, the cankles, and the army of men who have fled you like a storm warning for a Category Five hurricane. But don’t worry, angel. That will come in time.”

“There is no time,” noted Kipling, holding up a finger, half asleep. “Not anymore.”

Whitley stared at Cannon, mouth open, shoulders trembling.

“Cannon didn’t mean that,” I whispered, touching her arm.

She threw off my hand, seizing a bottle from the floor. Cannon ducked as it exploded against the mirror behind his head.