I grabbed the remote and muted the sound.
“Oh, Rocky, I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me.”
“Crap,” Rocky said. “I didn’t mean to sound like I was blaming you or something. You could be talking about, I don’t know, bacon or something”—he held up another piece—“and I’d still end up thinking about her.”
“It must be so rough,” I said.
“You know what’s rough? When I don’t think about her. When I brush my teeth and rinse out the sink afterward, not because my mom will get on my case if I leave toothpaste in it, but because it’s just what I do now. I know I just said I can’t see myself getting used to not having a mother, but the truth is that I’m afraid that I will get used to it one day. I’ll just be another one of those kids who doesn’t have a mom and doesn’t ever give it a moment’s thought.”
“I’ve only known you two weeks, but I already know that’s not true. You’ll never forget your mom. But that doesn’t mean you have to feel sad every single day. She wouldn’t want that. She’d want you to be happy.”
“I almost hate to say it,” Rocky said with a little smile, “but I have been pretty happy lately. And I don’t feel like she would mind.”
I knew he was talking about me, and willed myself to keep calm. The last thing I needed to do was short out the entertainment system.
Rocky nodded at the screen, where Mum and Serena were finishing their warm-ups. “Turn it up. That’s what we’re here for.”
Before I turned the sound back on, I took his hand.
“Just so you know, I’ve been pretty happy too.”
• • •
And that was the last thought I had about Rocky for the next three hours and twenty-seven minutes, because my attention was completely absorbed by the match. I’d barely noticed we were holding hands. I had no idea for how long. And I was so keyed up I couldn’t speak—I just squeezed his hand and watched the screen. My heart was beating so hard that I might as well have been out on the court myself.
The women were screaming with each and every shot, and both of them were given fines for “audible obscenity” before the match was over. I couldn’t even describe what went on during the last set, it was so intense and I was so overwhelmed. But then suddenly Mum was serving a ball and Serena lobbed it back and Mum pounced on it, firing it past Serena, and then Rocky and I were both on our feet.
“Oh, my gods, she won! She won!” I screamed hoarsely.
“She won!” Rocky screamed just as loud and just as hoarsely. “That was unbelievable!”
On screen, Mum fell down on the ragged grass and lay there for a full thirty seconds, half stunned, half exhausted. When she sat up, she had a dumbfounded smile on her face. The camera flashed to Ivan in her box. He was jumping up and down, screaming.
Rocky and I sat back in our seats as Mum slowly stood up, using her racket as a cane. She walked on heavy feet to the net and shook Serena’s hand. Serena’s face was stony, but then Mum said something and Serena said something back and offered a flash of her trademark smile, and they walked together to shake the umpire’s hands.
“That’s class,” Rocky said. “I don’t know if I could look someone in the eye after they beat me in a match like that, let alone smile at her.”
I was still too dazed to reply.
“I can’t believe it,” I said. “I . . . I just can’t believe it.”
Mum made her way to her player’s box, where she gave Ivan a huge hug.
“That’s your mom,” Rocky said.
“That’s my mum,” I said, turning to Rocky. “That’s really my mum.”
Rocky turned to me. “You must be so—”
“Shhh,” I said.
“Huh?”
“Just come here.” I pulled him close.
Rocky resisted for a half a second, then fell against me. I put a hand around the back of his head and brought his lips to mine.
“This is a date, remember?”
“I never forgot,” Rocky said, and this time his voice didn’t sound hoarse as much as husky.
“It’s kind of a weird date, but maybe we can give it a more normal ending.”
“Are you kidding?” Rocky said after we’d made out for a couple more minutes. “This is the Best. Date. Ever.”
He looked up several minutes later. First he said, “Are you sure?” and when I nodded, he smiled and gave me a little nip on my lips. “Turn the TV off,” he said then. “I don’t want your mom to watch this.”
I was so caught up in what was about to happen that all I did was nod and wave a hand at the screen, which went black.
“Wow,” Rocky said. “What are you, magic or something?”
“You’re about to find out,” I said, and I pulled him close again.
18
YOU’VE GOT ME FEELING EMOTIONS
Mardi-Overbrook-Journal.docx
The two weeks after Molly moved into Fair Haven and Trent dumped me and I started working at the Cheesemonger were the worst in my entire life.
Okay, first let me admit that I’ve led a pretty sheltered life. My family’s rich, and, you know, there’s a pretty good chance I’m going to live, well, forever. So any complaining I do comes with a pretty big asterisk next to it. And I’m not so self-involved that I don’t know that a breakup isn’t the end of the world. There’ll be other boys. Other Trents even.
Who knows, there might even be Trent again.
But screw that. Screw his This isn’t forever. Screw keeping perspective and putting a good face on it and making the best of a bad situation. When Trent told me on the beach that he couldn’t be with me, my first thought was that he’d reached inside my chest and ripped out my heart, and my second thought was that the ground had opened up and swallowed me, and my third thought was that if I didn’t put as much space between me and Trent as possible, I was going to reach inside his chest and rip out his heart and dig a hole on the beach and bury the body right there.
So I ran. And what made it all a hundred, a million times worse was that the only thing I could think of was running straight to Molly and telling her everything that had happened and crying on her shoulder and eating pint after pint of Ben & Jerry’s until even my divine body felt bloated with sugar and cream. But with each step I took away from Trent, I knew I was getting farther and farther away from Molly as well. She’d made it clear: she’d rather be with a mother she didn’t know than her own family. And somehow I knew that if I tried to explain any of this to Dad or Ingrid or Freya, they’d end up taking Trent’s side. For the first time in my life, I was alone.
Then, one afternoon, Molly walked into the Cheesemonger.
“Mardi!” she said, obviously surprised to find me working there.
I reached out a hand, and the door swung shut. I had never done anything like this before, but I could feel the energy surging through my body.
“Door, lock!” The dead bolt slammed in the door. “Shades, down!” The shades fell with a thump, plunging the store into twilight.
“Okay, sis,” I said, turning to Molly. “It’s just you and me. We need to talk.”
For a long moment, we stood there in semidarkness. Suddenly, the lights snapped on of their own accord. A half second later, they snapped off with a loud pop, and then I heard the motor power down on the refrigerated cases.
“Was that you?” I said.
“I guess.” Molly shrugged. “It’s been happening a lot lately.”
“You know what else has been happening a lot lately? I know things that I didn’t know I knew, or I think of something and it just happens?”
“Kind of?” Molly said, in a way that sounded like all the time.
“I think it has something to do with the Reawakening.”
“The Reaw-what?” Molly said, then waved a hand. “Okay, wait. First things first. What are you
doing working here?”
“Covering for you!”
“What do you mean, covering for me? I haven’t worked here since Marshall—ugh, Alberich—was here last summer.”
I explained to her about my run-in with Sal, and how he’d wanted her to work here with Rocky. “But since you and Rocky seem to have found each other without his help, he decided to ask me to work here instead.”
Molly laughed. “No offense, sis, but you’re not exactly the vision of a counter girl.”
“I figured if you could do it, it can’t be that hard.”
“Touché. It was kind of fun, but that was mostly because of the flirting.”
“Flirting would definitely make this more fun.”
“Ha! Trent would murder someone if he even thought you were flirting with him.”
I didn’t say anything, but suddenly the power kicked back on again.
“Whoa!” Molly said. “Was that you?”
“I guess.”
“Oh! Something happened with you and Trent, didn’t it? What?”
“Nothing,” I murmured.
“Bull! What happened, Molly? Oh no! Did he break up with you?”
“He said we’re just on a break.”
“Oh, Hel no. You do not Ross-and-Rachel my sister. When I see that little punk, I’m going to tear him a new one.”
“Before you judge him too harshly, listen.” And as briefly as I could, I explained to her about the Reawakening.
“So what?” she said in a bemused voice. “I don’t care. No one dumps my sister.”
“Too late,” I said.
“Okay, whatever, I’ll deal with him later. So you think this Reawakening thing is happening to us?”
“I guess you’d have to call it an Awakening, since this is our first time around. But yeah. I mean, how else do you explain all these strange surges of power that have been coming out of our bodies, or, I dunno, dreams and whatever.”
“Dreams?” Molly said. “What kind of dreams?”
“I’ve been having this crazy dream about Fair Haven. Where it’s all, like—”
“Ruined?” Molly interjected.
“Yeah! How did you know?”
“And the front yard is like this icy swamp, and there are trees growing through the roof, and this weird light—”
“In the east wing?”
“Yes!”
“You’ve been having the same dream that I’ve been having!”
“I have.”
I should say this wasn’t totally unprecedented. When Molly and I were little girls, three and four, we often had the same dreams, and even sometimes talked to each other in our sleep—from different bedrooms. But it hadn’t happened in well over a decade.
“So you saw the silhouette?”
“The what?”
“This woman’s silhouette. In the east wing, by the green light.”
“Ew, no.” I paused, then said cautiously, “Do you think it’s Mum?”
“I don’t know,” Molly said. “Before I can get close to her, I always wake up.”
“But you think it’s her?”
“I don’t know,” Molly said again, but I could tell that she thought it was—that she was afraid it was.
“How is she?” I asked now. “How are things between you two?”
Molly frowned at me. “Wait, you don’t know?”
“Don’t know what?”
“That she’s been in England for the past two weeks?”
“No, why would I know that? And why’s she there?”
“Seriously?” Molly said. “You don’t know?”
“Um, that’s why I asked what she’s doing there.”
“Mardi, she won Wimbledon yesterday!”
“She did?” I asked incredulously. “How do I not know this?”
“I don’t know. It’s been everywhere. She’s even going to be on Jimmy Kimmel tonight.”
“Oh, my gods, I have got to get out of this sandwich shop! But wait. If she’s been in England for the past two weeks, what have you been doing?”
And . . . snap! The lights went off again, and the refrigerator powered down.
“Molly! What—holy crap! No! You—you and Rocky?” My voice was practically squealing. “And you didn’t tell me first? Or call me right after?”
“It just kind of happened,” Molly said, blushing.
“I can’t believe this. And you didn’t call me?”
“Are you mad?”
“At you? No. I mean, I’m still mad about Mum kicking the Gardiners out of Fair Haven, and you taking her side, but of course I want you to be happy.”
“I am happy,” she said.
I was jealous that she knew something I didn’t, but I was glad we were talking again. I missed her.
The power began blinking on and off.
“Is that you?” I said.
“I think it’s you,” Molly said. “Maybe it’s both of us.”
I told myself to calm down, and I could see her doing the same. Eventually the lights stopped blinking and everything went dark.
“Wait, do you think we can leave the power on? I have a couple thousand dollars of food that’ll go bad otherwise.”
“Let’s do it together,” Molly said. “On three. One. Two. Three.”
I willed the power on, and even as I did, I felt a kind of energy moving through me, and realized it was Molly, and the lights popped on.
“Did you feel that?” Molly said.
“That was you, wasn’t it?”
“I think I’ve felt that before,” she said. “I just never realized it.”
“Maybe it’s because we’ve been apart for the past two weeks.”
“Ugh, it was terrible.”
I laughed. “You don’t sound like you’ve been having that bad of a time.”
“You know what I mean. Rocky’s great. But without you it just didn’t feel the same.”
“I know.” I bumped her shoulder. We weren’t the sentimental type. For most of our seventeen years, all we did was fight and compete for our father’s attention. But we were sisters. Twins. We were each other’s closest companion and fiercest enemy.
There was a knock on the door.
“Rocky!” we both said at the same time, and Molly ran to the door, unlocked it, threw it open.
“Hey,” he said. “Am I interrupting? I was tired of waiting in the car.”
“No,” Molly said soothingly, patting him on the back. “We’re done. You remember my sister, Mardi.”
“Hey, Mardi.”
“Hey, Rocky,” I said. He wasn’t like the preppie monsters Molly often dated, and I immediately decided I liked him.
“So did you get your coffee?” Rocky asked her. He curled his fingers into hers, pulled Molly close to him, and kissed her softly.
“Uh, yeah,” Molly said, then kissed him back.
Then he kissed her back.
Then she kissed him back.
Get a room, people!
“So I guess we should be heading out to the Inn,” Rocky said. “Dad texted. He said he’s got some lunch for us.”
“Right,” Molly said. She turned to me. “So I’ll see you around?” she said, and in that moment, I realized she was going to go back to Fair Haven. To Mum. Somehow I’d just assumed that she was going to come back to Ingrid’s with me.
“Sure!” I said with false brightness. “We’ll totally see each other around!” I could feel the power surging in me again and had to tamp it down before one of the coolers blew a motor. “Bye!”
But Molly was already out the door. A moment later, a bright yellow Maserati flew down the street, with Molly at the wheel.
“Molly? Driving? The world really is coming to an end.”
19
&
nbsp; CHANDELIER
From the Diary of Molly Overbrook
I woke up the morning after I saw Mardi to an empty bed. I’d made Rocky go back to Sal’s because I wasn’t sure when Mum was getting in. She might have been trying to win the Coolest Mom of All Time award, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t flip her wig if she came home to find her teenage daughter in bed with a boy.
I had to smile at the thought. Here I was, the goddess of strength, worried about what my mortal mother would do if she caught me in bed with my boyfriend. But I had a lot more experience being a teenager than I did being a goddess, and like every other teenager, I had a pretty good instinct for just how far I could push it.
I hopped in the shower, washed quickly, then pulled on a pair of shorts and a tank top—the AC was cranking inside the mansion, but it looked blisteringly hot outside. Then I headed downstairs. I’d been living there for two weeks, but really, I’d been at Rocky’s every day and hung out with him until I went to bed. The only substantial amount of time I’d spent there had been the day before yesterday, and, well, I hadn’t been paying too much attention to my surroundings, if you know what I mean. But now as I walked through the wide empty hallways, I was struck anew by the abandoned nature of the place. Not abandoned exactly, but invaded I guess. Even though virtually every trace of the Gardiners had been removed, the place still oozed their presence—in the ghostly outlines of paintings and pictures and rugs, in the paint colors and wallpapers, which reeked of the Georgian aesthetic that Trent’s mom favored. Yet swirling around that was a second, more modern presence. The gadgety appliances in the kitchen. The sectional sofa in the drawing room, which had shown up last week and remained the only piece of furniture on the ground floor, aside from a couple of chrome barstools around the kitchen island. The shiny new Maserati. Slowly but surely, Fair Haven was being dragged into the twenty-first century.
And yet, underneath both of these feelings, deeper than them, older than them, was that strange swirling cool energy that emanated from the ballroom. It was almost imperceptible. If the phone rang or I was watching TV, I forgot all about it. But when I first woke up in the morning and my mind was clear, I felt it as clearly as a draft coming in through an open window. I made my way to the ballroom now, thinking about what Mardi had told me yesterday: that she’d been having the same dream I’d been having. Did that make it more significant? More ominous? She seemed much less bothered by it than I was, but that’s Mardi: always putting a brave face on everything. Part of me thought that we’d been sharing the dream just because we missed each other, and this was our minds’ way of reaching out for each other. But a bigger part of me told me that was too simple. That we wouldn’t be having such a detailed dream over and over again if it wasn’t trying to communicate something specific. Something about Fair Haven, and about some kind of danger that it faced, or maybe that came from it. But what?