Lament - Мэгги Стифватер

Standing outside the car, shivering for no reason, I punched the redial button and pressed the phone to my ear. Luke stood behind me and crossed his arms over my chest, pressing his cheek against mine while I listened to the phone ringing.

"Deirdre? Where are you?" Mom's voice had a strange edge to it that I didn't recognize.

"At the Sticky Pig. We--" "You need to come home. Right now."

I hadn't expected that. Maybe her chastity radar had gone off. "We just finished getting dinner.

The party--" "Deirdre, just come home. It's important."

The phone clicked and I stared at it for a few moments before relating the call to Luke. He released me abruptly. "Okay. Get in."

I got into the passenger seat, unhappy with the turn of events. "I don't want to go."

"I don't either," Luke said. "But something's happened. We need to go."

We made the short drive from the Sticky Pig to my parents' dark driveway in record time. Every light in the house was on, and I saw silhouettes in the kitchen window. Luke took my hand tightly and we went in together.

Mom was inside the dim yellow kitchen, pacing as restlessly as a caged tiger, her face curiously mottled. Beyond the kitchen door I could see Dad talking on the phone. Mom froze in her steps when she heard the door open, and her eyes fixed on me. "Deirdre." Her eyes traveled down my arm to the hand that Luke held and then stopped, hardening. She took two steps across the room and snatched my hand out of Luke's.

"Mom!" I snapped.

But Mom kept my hand in a pincer grip, lifting it to stare at my fingers. "You're wearing Granna's ring. This is her ring."

The look on her face scared me; I snatched my hand back. "She gave it to me on my birthday."

"You're wearing her ring," Mom repeated. "You've been wearing it all along. Since before the coma."

I shrank back from this wild-eyed creature that had taken the place of my mother. Luke's hand on my back steadied me. "She gave it to me, Mom. In the driveway."

Mom pointed at it wordlessly, her finger shaking, and then made her hand into a fist. Finally, she formed the words and spat them at me. "She's dead."

Strangely, I thought of the emotion I ought to feel without feeling it, as impartial as a National Geographic field researcher, carefully watching the events and chronicling them in a notebook.

Deirdre finds that she is saddened by the news of her grandmothers death, and moreover, suddenly fears for the rest of her family and friends.

But I didn't actually feel those things. I knew that I ought to, but I felt absolutely nothing at all, like I'd just walked into the kitchen and Mom had told me off for being late.

"Did you hear me?" Mom didn't even seem to notice that Luke was there. "She's dead. The hospital called us. Your father's on the phone with them now."

"How?" I finally managed.

Mom's voice shook. "Does it matter?"

"Terry?" Dad's voice, deep and calming, called from the other room. "Could you come here a second?"

Mom whirred to the other room; the kitchen seemed empty and mute without her frenzied presence. I didn't want to look at Luke. I didn't know why. Maybe because he would look at my face and see that there were no tears, that I was a terrible person. In my pocket, my phone beeped a text message; it didn't realize that this wasn't an ordinary night, and that a moment of silence was called for.

Luke reached out and caught my arm, turning me toward him. "You can cry later, Dee. The tears'll come later." He looked at me, eyes narrowed. "I have to go find what she was working on. Something to protect your family. I'll bring it back here."

Fear rose up where grief wouldn't. "Don't go. Please don't go.

"You say that now, but how would you feel if the hospital called and it was your father?" He tipped my chin up with his finger. "That's what I thought."

I felt tears prick my eyes, but for the wrong reasons. I let him kiss my mouth gently and hug me before he let himself out the kitchen door.

In the other room, I heard my parents fighting; Dad talking in his low voice, and Mom screaming at him. I stood alone in the dim yellow kitchen and took my cell phone from my pocket. One unread text message.

It was from James, and like half of my messages, it had been delivered late--it was sent three hours previously. The subject line was that of all our epic texts--the line we used for things too serious to talk about in person: deep thoughts.

I opened it. d. i love u.

I sank down onto the tiles and put my head in my hands, listening to my mother screaming at my father and wondering when it would all start to hurt.

Finally, I worked up my courage and dialed James' number, trying to plan what to say when he picked up. It rang and rang, until I heard his voice: You've reached James' cell phone. By dialing this number you've increased your coolness level by ten points. Add another ten by leaving a message after the beep. Ciao.

I hung up. I'd never gotten his voice mail before--no matter how crazy the time was or where he was, he'd always picked up.

I felt alone.

BOOK FOUR

The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone-In the ranks of death you will find him.

-"The Minstrel Boy"

SIXTEEN

 I was having one of those dreams. Where I wasn't sure if I was awake or not. It felt like I was awake, lying in my bed. But my head was still fuzzy as if I was sleeping, and the voice that sang to me was vague and dreamy.

The voice went up and down the scale, not unpleasantly, singing in no fixed measure, whispering to me that the name Deirdre meant "sorrow." In the foggy way of dreams, I recognized the story of yet another Deirdre. This third Deirdre was betrothed to the King of Ulster, even though she was in love with someone else. Deirdre eloped with the hot young thing, Naois, who was her true love, thoroughly pissing the king off in the process. The king pursued her, had Naois and his brothers killed, and then stole Deirdre away to be his wife. Deirdre, stricken with grief, threw herself from his carriage and smashed her head on a rock, killing herself. The breathy voice of my dream sang that all Deirdres come to bad ends.

At least Naois' Deirdre was clever enough to kill herself before it got any worse. All these old Irish legends ended in tragedy; what did I expect now that I was living one? Come away, human child, whispered the voice in breathy timbre, come away from the pain of the world.

It was like some kind of supernatural version of those "stop smoking" mind-control tapes you listen to while sleeping.

I opened my eyes. I felt like crap--I ached like I'd been lifting trains the night before. My grandmother had been killed by the faeries, my best friend was in love with me, my boyfriend was a soulless assassin for an otherworldly schizophrenic, and my pillow was wet.

Ew. Why is my pillow wet? I sat up hurriedly, looking at my surroundings with distaste. Oh, ten kinds of gross. My sheets were wet. My pillowcase was wet. The bedside table was covered with perfectly round beads of water. Everywhere I looked, I saw a layer of dew, coating every surface with scented condensation. My eyes lifted to the window, which stood wide open, and I lifted my wet fingers to my nose. They reeked of thyme.

What the heck is going on? I looked down at Rye, who still lay on the floor by my bed, morning light from the window reflecting brilliantly in the dew on his coat. "Some friggin' guard dog you are. So, are you on Their side or miner Outside, very close, I heard a laugh, high and light, halfway to a tune. I leapt out of bed and leaned out the window so fast that the sill heaved the breath out of me. The morning sun forced my eyes into a squint, but I thought I saw a smudge of darkness blink out of the corner of my vision, far below my window, gone too fast for me to say if it had really been there or not. I lifted my hands from the windowsill and looked at them; petals were stuck on my palms. Poppies, maybe.

Friggin sketchy faeries. I was going to smell like a bag of potpourri left in an Italian restaurant for the rest of the day. Picking petals off my skin, I knocked the rest of the blooms to the ground outside, frowning at the empty yard. I retreated back into my room and retrieved my phone from the bedside table.

James still didn't pick up, and his voice mailbox was full, so I tried Luke's number. It rang and rang before making a strange static sound and disconnecting.

I stared at the phone in my hand and observed how white my knuckles were, pressing out against my skin. There could be a thousand reasons why neither was picking up, but about nine hundred of them made my stomach roll unpleasantly.

Feeling distinctly unsettled, I turned to go downstairs, and found myself looking directly into a pair of enormous green eyes.

"Holy crap."

It took me a moment to realize that the eyes were Delia's, and that they only appeared enormous because they were so close. Of all Delia's talents, I hadn't thought the ability to be soundless was one of them.

Delia handed me the phone. "Phone for you."

I tried not to look too hopeful as I took it, but she'd turned before I had time to look too pathetic and closed the door behind her. I lifted the phone to my ear. "Hello?"

I didn't immediately recognize the voice, but the fact that it wasn't Luke depressed me hugely.

"Hello? Is this Dee?"

Then the voice clicked in my mind; it was one I hadn't heard in a while: Peter, James' older brother. "Peter? Yeah, it's me. I didn't expect you to call."

There was a pause. "I didn't call. Your aunt called me."

I frowned at the closed bedroom door, wondering if I'd open it to find Delia crouched on the other side. "Okaaaay. That's weird... how did she have your number?"

"I'm not in California. I'm at my parents."

There was something off in the way he said it that made me realize I hadn't been listening properly to his tone until then. "Hey. Is something wrong? When did you get in?"

"I flew in from California last night. God, Dee, you haven't heard? Mom and Dad didn't call you?"

Every so often, I know what someone's going to say before they say it. This was one of those moments, and I sank down on the edge of the bed, gripping the comforter with one hand. I knew I was going to need to sit down to hear what was coming. "Heard what?"

"James--" The word was strangled. Peter paused to regroup, and when he continued, his voice was back in control. "He had an accident on the way back from his gig last night. He--uh--he hit a tree."

I bowed my head down, one hand squeezed into a fist so tight my nails bit into my palm, and the other pressing the phone against my ear. I made myself ask, "How is he?"

"The car is totaled, Dee. The left side's just... gone. The police, they had dogs out last night, they're still looking for the--for James."

I knew what he stopped himself from saying--"the body." So it was bad, then. I felt suddenly sick at the idea of James' car, his life, crushed beyond recognition. How many times had we parked in the very-farthest-away spot in a lot so that no one would open their car doors into his paint? All for nothing.