“I don’t want to push you. I know you’re doing this… experiment, or whatever, for yourself, and I want to support that,” Incy said kindly. It reminded me of the time I’d decided to study ballet, in Paris, in the late forties. He’d gently pointed out that most successful ballerinas began their studies at early ages, five or six, maybe seven. And I was… you know, already more than four hundred. But he’d still been supportive, had gone with me to get my leotard and shoes. Even came to a recital, before I finally wised up and dropped the whole thing.
“But I’m just saying, if you wanted, you could come hang out. You don’t have to stay with us, or me, if you need more space,” he said quickly. “You do what you want to do. You could fly out of Boston tomorrow, go anywhere else. But of course you’d be welcome to stay with us. I’d love for you to come on the cruise. Who else could truly appreciate the cross section of humanity that one sees on cruises? Pretty much only you.” He and I were always merciless, dissecting wardrobes and hairstyles of fellow passengers while we sat at the bar, slugging back gin rickeys. Ha—like I should talk about anyone else’s clothes or hair, right?
That was the coup de grâce: The cruise sounded like heaven. Sixty days of people-watching and seeing fabulous things and not having to think at all. Not having to work, or learn, or prove myself worthy in any way. Not having to look at Reyn, to see Amy’s face shining up at him. Not having to see River, giving me chance after chance.
I’d run away from Incy before. I’d become convinced he was evil and dangerous.
And I’d run away from River before.
I was quite the runner. Never the soldier-on-through type. For some reason I pictured Reyn being disapproving of my cowardice, unable to respect my need to flee. He would think I was being a sissy, a big baby.
Good thing I didn’t care what Reyn thought. That whole situation was impossible, anyway. I knew that.
Nothing seemed certain, rock solid. No decision, out of my three choices, seemed like a good idea.
I truly did not know what to do, but whatever I decided would have a huge effect on me, on my life.
Give me a sign, I pleaded silently. Goddess? Universe? Anyone? Anyone? Give me a sign. Tell me what to do.
Please, someone tell me what to do….
“Nas?” Incy’s voice was gentle. “Come on and get in the car. I’ll take care of you. Okay?”
CHAPTER 18
Three hours later we were facing the million bright lights of Boston. We’d stopped a while back and bought wine and some Twinkies—and let me say that they are two great tastes that taste pretty vile together.
Every once in a while Incy would look over at me and smile.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m so happy to see you,” he said. “I know it was stupid. You’re a big girl, after all, but I just couldn’t shake my worry. And also, you know, it was hard on me.” He gave a wry laugh. “I mean, enough about you. Let’s talk about me. I’d gotten so used to doing everything with you that I was out of balance for a while.”
I took another swig of wine—the finest that a 7-Eleven on Highway 2 had to offer—and felt my first tingle of alarm since I’d gotten in the car. How out of balance had he been? Was getting into this Caddy the stupidest thing I’d ever done? Well, yes. I mean besides the general stupidity of it. Had I blithely gotten into a car with a killer?
“What do you mean, out of balance?” Here was some personal growth: pursuing something I might not want to hear but should probably know. It was something new and different for me, all of this lesson-applying. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, in case he suddenly became visibly insane or started morphing into a werewolf or something. Again, werewolf = deal breaker.
Instead he chuckled sheepishly. “I hadn’t realized how dependent I’d gotten on you,” he said frankly. “I was so used to consulting you, planning stuff with you, thinking of us doing things together. With you gone, I wandered around bleating pathetically until Boz slapped me and said, ‘Pull yourself together, man!’ ”
He said the last bit in an English accent, as if quoting a movie, and laughed.
“Huh,” I said, still watching him.
Incy shrugged. “I always missed you—didn’t stop missing you—but I did figure out how to dress and bathe myself.”
No, I had not done that for him. For God’s sake. He was exaggerating.
“Oh.”
“Then I started, you know, just planning for one.” Another sheepish shrug. And he seemed so freaking normal. Incredibly normal and healthy, even more than when I’d left. Maybe my leaving had been good for him? Broken a bad pattern between us? Maybe I had been radiating darkness even then, and it had affected him, affected all of us. With me gone for the longest period of time in a hundred years, he’d been able to detox. In which case it would all certainly happen again—I was still dark. But I was aware of it now. Would that help? I didn’t know, and thinking about it made my head hurt. I didn’t want to think about it, analyze everything to death. I just wanted to… feel better.
Even if Incy was better off now, standing more on his own ice floe.
I guessed it would eventually become clear. Either things would be okay, or my life would become a much more treacherous atrocity than I could possibly imagine. One or the other. Somehow I’d deal with it, like I’d dealt with everything else—450 years of famines and plagues and floods and wars and crashing economies.
I stared out the window at the busy Boston streets, pleasantly fuzzy from the dreadful wine, wrapped in the warm cocoon of Incy’s Caddy. I had uncountable memories of being in a car with Incy, from the very first Model Ts to today’s Caddy. Between us, he and I had totaled something like eight or nine cars, prompting multiple newspaper headlines like “Miracle Survivors in Serious Collision.” I remembered us driving on the Autobahn in Germany and across a dark, empty desert at night. We’d had fabulous sports cars and old tin buggies with wheels like bicycle tires. Incy and I. So many memories.
My mind conjured River’s face, and I drank deeply from the bottle to blot it out. Would any of them be surprised that I had done this, that I was with Incy again? Or would they shake their heads and think that they’d always known I would screw up spectacularly? Would they look for me? Had they looked for me? And Reyn… he’d wanted something from me. And true to form I’d run away from him like a rabbit from a fox.
For less than one second, the merest flash of a blip of time, I imagined the relief of Reyn coming to get me, Reyn storming in, wresting me away from Incy, saving me from—myself.
Then I was furious that I’d had that thought, that I was so weak I needed someone to save me from myself. Screw that! They didn’t know better than I did! Their lives might work for them, but it had been torture for me! I wasn’t made for that. It hadn’t worked out. I berated myself for picturing Reyn as the strong one, stronger than me. I was plenty strong enough. I could absolutely take care of myself, like I’d done for the past four and a half centuries. I didn’t need him or anyone else to remake my life or save me from anything.
I was fine.
And I was more than ready to have a good time, after two long months of drudgery and frustration.
“Here we are,” Incy said, pulling under the overhang at the Liberty Hotel. We’d stayed here several times before; it was one of Boston’s best and spiffiest. The fact that the building had once been the city jail raised its coolness rating to at least an eight. The designer had referenced that in various ways—one of its restaurants was named Clink, for example.
A valet ran up and opened the door for Incy, and a bellhop opened my door.
“Welcome to the Liberty, madam,” he said. “May I get your luggage?”
“I don’t have any.” I swallowed, thinking of what I’d left behind. My amulet. My mother’s most precious thing. My family’s tarak-sin.
Plus all my ugly work clothes. Good riddance. I had a safe-deposit box here in Boston with money, passports, etc. See? There are no proble
ms. Only solutions.
“Ah. Very good,” he said, trained to not notice that I was wearing a fabulous coat too big for me over dirty jeans and work boots. Smiling, he hurried over to open the heavy hotel door for us.
I stepped through the door and back into my old life.
It was horribly bright. Light hit my eyelids and I pushed my head under my pillow. I was on a big, deliciously comfortable bed, arms and legs out like a throwing star.
Light?
I bolted upright, regretting it immediately as my stomach lurched and my head bobbled on my neck like one of those dashboard dogs.
It was light outside! I must have way overslept! I must have—
I wasn’t home. I was at the Liberty, in Boston, with Incy. I blinked groggily at the clock. It was 8:13. I assumed AM. I hadn’t slept this late in months. I leaned toward my side table and clawed for the phone, then punched the room-service button. Moving slowly, I piled up my four fluffy down pillows and lay back very carefully.
I ordered a bunch of pastries, a couple of mimosas, and some Alka-Seltzer, then let the phone flop out of my hand onto the bed.
It was astonishing that I was with Incy again, in Boston again. We’d gotten in at around ten last night. Incy had been so cheerful, taking me to the top floor and grandly opening the door to the hotel’s biggest suite. Inside, Boz and Katy, vividly alive, and Stratton and Cicely were arguing about something from—I swear to God—Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
They had looked up in shock as I followed Incy in, and Katy physically drew back when she saw what I was wearing: olive green jeans with mud-stained knees, a thermal undershirt, and a plaid flannel work shirt.
“Oh my God! She was kidnapped!” Katy exclaimed. “Incy, you were right! Look at your face! Nas, were you being held on a work farm?”
“Kind of,” I said.
“Good to see you, Nasty!” Hugs and air kisses all around.
“We’ve missed you!” Katy especially looked genuinely excited to see me. I scanned her carefully but saw nothing of the furious, fed-up Katy of my vision. Also? Totally not in pieces or on fire. So that was good. “But seriously, what are you wearing? Did you come from a costume party?”
“Kind of,” I said again, accepting the chocolatini she pressed into my hand.
I had taken a deep sip, which was fabulous, then grinned at Incy, beaming at me from across the room. Let the party begin!
This part of Boston was great for walking, and after I’d borrowed some clothes and dabbed makeup on my eyes and nose, we’d gone from pub to bar to club to bar. I’d been gone for two months but didn’t want to recap the highlights of my work-farm fiasco. Instead they had talked, telling stories about getting kicked off of planes, thrown out of parties, and an unfortunate incident where a heavy hotel table had ended up getting pushed over a balcony in an attempt to hit the swimming pool below. It had missed by only four feet. Boz had lost a thousand dollars on that bet. And Cicely had accidentally spooked a horse in Central Park, causing it to rear, almost overtip its carriage, and race off down a path while the top-hatted driver tried to get it to stop before they ran over someone.
I started off smiling and laughing at some of these stories. Katy in particular was hilarious, and her descriptions of outraged people were sharp, biting, and incredibly funny. But as the night went on, they became less interesting. I didn’t perk up again until Boz told me about a citywide art installation in Barcelona. I wished I could have seen it; it sounded crazy and ambitious, statues everywhere. And throughout the whole evening we had drunk and eaten everything we could think of. Everything was available, whether it was locally grown or in season or whatever. I didn’t have to prepare any of it or clean up afterward. I loved that.
We’d stumbled home around two-ish, somewhat early—bars actually have a closing time in Boston—but continued to party in our suite of rooms until management came to ask us to keep it down a bit. Good times.
It was just… I had forgotten about the inevitable afterparty effects. Now I felt really terrible. Like I had the plague. What I imagine the plague to feel like, having seen its effects. (Quick aside: The Black Death, which killed maybe a third of all Europeans over the course of a century, can nowadays almost always be cured with a course of standard antibiotics. I mean, antibiotics. Wiping out the bubonic plague. Knowing stuff like that freaks me out, makes me so wish I could go back in time. I’d let the mold grow on the bread, invent penicillin, and make a fortune.)
Plague-victim me couldn’t manage getting the door when room service knocked, but he let himself in and set up a cunning little doily-clad breakfast tray on the bed next to me.
“Could you pull the curtains more closed, please?” I asked, reaching for the first mimosa. Mmm. Hair of the attractive, purebred, champagne-drenched dog. Plus vitamin C from the orange juice: We were in cold and flu season.
The waiter subdued the morning sun, creating a blissful, dim interior.
I got down half a Danish, the other mimosa, and an Alka-Seltzer chaser. I realized I was exhausted and had no reason to get up yet. So I pushed the tray out of the way, punched some pillows into submission, and snuggled down into the cushy, enormous mattress. Cuddling the down duvet around my chin, I thought I had never been more physically comfy in my entire life. Clearly the life I should be living. What. A. Luxury.
“Come on! Rise up, you sleepyhead!”
I felt someone thwacking my back with a pillow. Cautiously I pulled my head out from beneath the duvet. The curtains had been pulled wide, and the room was full of bright winter light that was assaulting my eyeballs again.
“Ugh, stop,” I mumbled, holding out a hand.
Incy perched on the side of my bed. “It’s two o’clock,” he said. “In the afternoon.”
It was so strange to see him again, after wondering if I would ever see him again in my life. After the huge wall of fear I had built up around him, for whatever reason. He still looked… fine. Clear-eyed, not crazy, and we were on Day Two, so yay. How many times had I woken up in some hotel or some apartment with Incy there? A million? Quite a lot. True, he’d often ended up at someone else’s place. Or sometimes I had. But we’d spent a lot of time together in the last hundred years. Much more time than I’d ever spent with any one person in my entire life.
And here we were again.
“I see you’ve breakfasted,” he said, using a quaint phrase to be funny.
“Yes,” I said, sitting up and pushing my hair out of my face. “Somewhat.”
“Well, you need to get up now.” Incy tossed the pillow toward the headboard and stood. “We’ve got a lot to get done today.”
“Like what?” It wouldn’t be gathering eggs from hell-chickens or mucking out stables. Thank, thank, thank God.
He kicked at my old clothes on the floor with distaste. “Your clothes are awful, and you can’t keep borrowing. Your hair is a disgrace. If you hadn’t worn Cicely’s Miu Mius last night, I couldn’t have been seen in public with you. So let’s get you fixed up. Come on! You have seventeen minutes!”
I smiled. Incy was fun. Bright and vivacious. He could be incredibly annoying, but he was also fun. Mr. Excitement. The party began when he walked in the door. He was a catalyst—he made things happen. And I got to be by his side when he did.
“What?” he asked.
“You care about what I wear,” I said. The only times Reyn had mentioned my appearance, it hadn’t been to compliment it.
“Yeah.” Incy sounded indignant. “You’re a beautiful girl. You should be draped in satin and velvet. Only the best for my bestie.”
I smiled again. It had been such a long time since anyone had called me beautiful. I realized that Incy really did make me feel like beauty was attainable. After having no one impressed with my looks for ages—certainly not at River’s Edge—it felt fantastico.
I grabbed a leftover pastry and went to the shower. The hot water felt wonderful. I kept one hand outside the door and took bites until the Danish was all gone.
Then I just washed off the sugar and stickiness. Very efficient.
Incy had thrown away my clothes by the time I got out, so I went clothes shopping wearing the hotel bathrobe, with my scarf around my neck.
“I’m thinking magenta,” the stylist said, pinching her lip in concentration. Once again she ran her hand through my hair, letting it slide through her fingers. “It’s in amazingly good shape, considering how you bleached the hell out of it.” Then she frowned and rubbed some strands between her thumb and forefinger. “Oh my God, it’s not bleached. This is your real color. Wow.”
“That’s your real color?” Incy got up from his chair and came over. “You’re kidding.”
“No,” I said, remembering when River had done the spell that revealed the real me. Now I was covering me up again. And so what? That was how I felt comfortable, okay? “I guess you haven’t seen it.”
“Yeah,” Incy said, seeming bemused. He touched it, smiled, then sat down again. “I mean, even ancient Romans dyed their hair.”
He smirked at me, and I made a face. I wasn’t that old.
“Anyway, you need a huge change,” he directed. “I agree that magenta would be fabulous. And maybe a short razor cut? That would be amazing with your eyes.”
I looked at myself in the mirror, seeing the deceptively simple black cashmere sweater, the buttery-soft tan suede pants from Comme des Garçons. I didn’t even know how much I’d spent today. My definition-of-perfection Ann Demeulemeester black ankle boots alone had cost three times as much as I’d spent on myself the whole time I’d been gone. I looked sleek and expensive; clothes fit me much better now that I wasn’t a scarecrow.
I held out my hands: Incy had bought me a gorgeous Hoorsenbuhs gold-link “friendship” ring, set with emeralds big enough to choke a small dog. It flashed in the salon’s lights, and I turned my hand this way and that. Incy saw what I was doing and smiled at me.
Meanwhile the stylist played with my hair, flopping it over, parting it in the middle. I guess waiting for the muse of hairdom to strike with inspiration. I hadn’t had a haircut in ages. Even before I’d gone to River’s Edge, my shaggy cut had been growing out because I was too dysfunctional to keep it up.