I didn’t dream about Twice-Killed Katherine, like I worried I might. I dreamed about my mother. I dreamed about the day I realized we didn’t move for fun, or because she was restless. That she didn’t do it to ruin my life, or on a superstitious whim because she didn’t like the way an old woman hovered a hand over my forehead on the bus, drawing a helix in the air before hustling off at the next stop.
I was ten, and it was our second move in less than eight months. I’d woken that morning in my trundle bed on the floor next to Ella’s, feeling a tightness in my scalp. When I reached up, my fingers found the coiled bumps of braids. My hair was wrapped in a tight crown of them around my head.
But I’d fallen asleep with my hair shower damp and falling to my shoulders in tangles. “Mom,” I said, patting at my braided crown. “Why’d you do my hair?”
Ella rolled over and blinked at me sleepily. Then a look came into her eyes: fear and a spiky anger that yawned open like an aperture before slamming shut into something worse—hopelessness.
“No school today,” she’d said, rolling out of bed and going straight to the closet to pull down her suitcase.
My rage that time had struck like lightning. While she was shoving our kitchen into boxes, I cut every pair of her jeans off just below the crotch, in protest over leaving town the day my fifth-grade reading teacher was bringing in Turkish Delight.
It wasn’t until we were in the car, my body splayed against the seat like a shipwreck survivor in the wake of my tantrum, that I’d told her about the candy I was missing out on.
“It’s not like you think it’ll be,” she said, the bungalow we’d spent half a year in shrinking in our rearview. “It’s chalky and it smells like flowers. You’d hate it.”
“You’re lying,” I replied, turning my head to the window.
Ella stopped the car dead, in the middle of the road. “Hey.”
The heat in her voice made me turn.
“We don’t lie to each other, you and me. Right?”
I shrugged and nodded. Her eyes were too intense, red in the corners like she’d rubbed them after chopping jalapeño.
And in a flash my tiny, self-centered world expanded outward: she hadn’t wanted to go, either. She’d put curtains up in the bungalow, and fixed the teetering ceiling fan.
I’d held on to that revelation and saved it to think about that night, turning it over in my mind like a worry stone while Ella snored softly in the next motel bed.
It scared me, but it also coaxed me closer to her. We’d been on two sides of a divide looking across at each other. Then I realized something that seemed so simple, but changed everything. It tilted the world so she and I were side by side again. There was us, there was the world.
And there was the fear, underneath it all, that the fault for our life was mine. Ella was easy to like, with a sweet, gravelly voice that hid a sharp sense of humor and an unforgiving eye for the ridiculous, and dark hair that grew out funny so it licked down her back like flames. I was irritable, prone to fits of rage, and had been told more than once I had crazy eyes. If one of us was the bad luck magnet, I was.
That fear was what kept me quiet, kept me from asking why. I was terrified the reason was me.
The dream played out in living color, before fading into a thin, restless sleep. I closed my eyes on moonlight and opened them on a sunlit collage of Lin-Manuel Miranda. The floor beside me was empty, and my phone was a blank—no messages from Ella, no missed calls.
Once I had a dream in which I walked room by room through an empty house, looking for my mom. Every room felt like she’d just been in it, every hall echoed with her voice, but I never found her. Now I felt like I was living in that dream.
I swiped at my hair and mouth, checking for cowlicks or drool, and slithered into my skirt beneath the comforter. I tried and failed to replicate the hospital-cornered perfection of Courtney’s made bed, before going to the bathroom to scrub at my teeth with a guest towel. My hair stuck up at odd angles, so I dunked my head under the tap.
Downstairs, Finch was tapping away at a laptop in a huge, open-plan kitchen, while David poured boiling water into a French press.
“You’re up!” Finch sounded like he’d taken a hit of helium. “I found it! I found a copy of Tales from the Hinterland!”
I squinted at him. “Found it like you’re bidding on it on eBay?”
“Found it like it’s here, in New York, and we can go pick it up now.”
The thrill that ran through me was as much fear as it was excitement. “No way.” I dropped onto the stool next to him. “How?”
“I called every rare book dealer in town. Not for the first time, but this is the first time someone’s actually had it.”
“I hope you like weird Scandinavian health toast,” David said, placing a plate of coarse brown rectangles in front of us, “because that’s all we have.”
I was too keyed up to eat, which made me drink more coffee than I should have, which made me even more jangled. But I didn’t care, because I was about to get my hands on the book that was haunting me. Possibly literally.
And drinking coffee was a good distraction from the sinking suspicion that this was a little too easy. That our sudden good fortune could be a trap.
I was rinsing my mug in the big farmhouse sink when something dark slammed against the window. I flinched away as a massive, raggedy blackbird flapped backward, then threw itself against the glass a second time.
“Whoa!” David hustled to the window. The bird was beating against it, a flurry of wings. “Hey! You’re hurting yourself, buddy!” He slapped his palm on the glass, jerking back when the bird’s motions became more frenzied.
There was something in its beak. I recognized its shape, an industrial rectangle that made my stomach lurch.
“Shit, man.” David looked back at us, his face troubled. “Do you think it’s blind or something? Should I—should I let it inside?”
“Don’t,” I said, my voice hard and quick. “Please.” David frowned at me but didn’t move. We watched silently as the bird charged the window with the last of its strength, before dropping out of view. The thing it had been holding snagged into a corner of the frame. I moved to the blood-smeared window and eased it open, carefully, snatching the envelope before it could come loose. My name was written across the back in a hasty scrawl.
The envelope held another soft, worn page with a freshly ripped edge. I lifted it enough to read the top.
The Door That Wasn’t There
Hansa the Traveler
The Clockwork Bride
“What the hell?” breathed David over my shoulder. “That’s your name on the envelope, right? Is that for you?”
The coffee tasted gritty and burnt on my tongue. Finch tried to meet my eyes, but I couldn’t look back.
* * *
We didn’t talk on the way to the subway. I felt stunned and flayed, a nerve ending exposed to cold sun. I refused to let Finch hail a cab, fearing whoever might be behind the wheel. The bookshop was a straight shot up to Harlem, but it was the kind of slow and halting train ride that makes you think something evil is set against you getting where you’re going, even on days when you don’t have a really, really good reason to believe that anyway.
The shop was at the end of a homey stretch of brownstones, tucked into a bottom story. The lettering on its sign reminded me of an old-fashioned candy store: Wm. Perks’ Antiq. Books &c., in a looping font.
“Do you think he paid his sign maker by the letter?”
They were the first words Finch had spoken since he’d touched my elbow and said, “This way,” when we got off the subway. I mustered a close-lipped smile. I kept seeing the bird’s flat black eyes.
Finch rang the bell beside the wrought-iron door. Half a minute later, we heard someone undoing a series of locks on the other side.
The man who opened the door looked less like an antiquarian bookseller and more like a bookie. His tie was a loud yellow, his suit an exhausted brown. He had a napkin tucked into his collar that appeared to be covered in barbecue sauce.
He squinted suspiciously at Finch—all wild hair, unzipped jacket, one restless hand stuck out for a shake. “You Ellery Finch?” he said out the side of his mouth, like he was trying to sell us drugs in Tompkins Square Park.
“I am. William Perks?” The guy agreed and finally took Finch’s hand, giving it two good pumps. I held mine out, but he kissed it instead. I resisted the urge to wipe it on my wrinkled uniform skirt.
“Come in, come in. Would you believe I just got the book you’re looking for this morning? I knew it wouldn’t be long before the collectors started sniffing me out—it’s the first one I’ve ever had in stock, and only the second I’ve seen. I’ll be damned if the quality on this one isn’t high, high, high.”
His patter made him sound like a county-fair auctioneer, but at least he wasn’t treating us like children. I’d anticipated a tidy little bookshop, lined with leather volumes and looking a bit like Finch’s library, but what I got was a mind-boggling riot of bookshelves that started a few yards from the door, standing at all angles and punctuated by free-range stacks rising from the ground, in a room that smelled like paste and paper and the animal tang of vellum. And barbecue. Perks led us to a glass case in the back, full of books lying open like butterflies. Finch frowned. “Bad for the spines,” he muttered.
“So I’m gonna wash my hands real good, then I’m gonna bring you what you seek.” Perks put his palms together, bowed to us, and exited the room.
“Do you think he really got it this morning?” I asked Finch, low.
He shrugged. “Stranger things have happened. Like, recently.”
Perks zoomed back in before I could reply. I had the idea he was as eager to sell as we were to buy.
I was right, but not for the reason I thought.
“Here she is,” he said softly, slipping the book from a paper sleeve.
The sight of its embossed leather cover, dull gold on green, made my breath catch. It was the book at last, soft and inviting and perfectly sized for holding.
Perks saw my expression and laughed. “I thought you were just along for the ride. But it looks like you’re the one who’s buying.”
“Are there any missing pages?”
The bookseller made a show of looking horrified. “Not on your life.”
I relaxed, a little. “Did you really get it today?”
“I did indeed, and within the hour you all called me looking for it. You might think it’s strange, but you get used to those karmic moments in the book business. Books want to be read, and by the right people. There’s nothing surprising in it, not to me.”
“Who sold it to you?”
“Someone who said he bought it at an estate sale. But I can’t double-check everyone’s story.”
“What did he look like?” Ellery asked.
Say he had red hair.
Perks mulled it over. “He was young, almost as young as you. White kid, dark hair, mug on him like he’d sell you your own mother. And he was…” He hesitated, his eyes flicking between us.
“He was what?”
“An odd bird. A little shifty. He had that air to him, like a man out of time.”
“What do you mean?”
My voice must’ve had a warning note in it, because Perks threw up his hands and smiled disarmingly. “It’s the look these days—the train jumper look. That Brooklyn thing, girls your age must like it.” He beckoned our attention back to the book. “Want to take a look?”
What I wanted was to know for sure if the boy who’d sold him the book was the same one I’d seen outside of Whitechapel, and again in the diner. And whether it was a different copy from the one I’d seen at my café, in the hands of the red-haired man.
Perks slipped on white gloves that made him look like an off-brand Mickey Mouse. “The binding is in near mint condition.” He deftly flipped the book over and back again. “No foxing on the pages. Some discoloration, of course, but that’s to be expected.”
As he opened the book, a scent rose from its pages, the homey must of old print and something else—something sweet. It was there and gone in an instant. Some yearning part of me wanted to believe it was Althea’s perfume.
“This title’s first print run was quite small, as you probably know—” Perks began. He stopped talking as the book fell open to a Polaroid photo stuck between its pages. It was flipped so we could only see the white of its backing.
He grinned. “Didn’t see that before. You wouldn’t believe the things you find in old books. When it’s a photo, odds are ten to one it’s an arty one, if you know what I mean. The young lady had better avert her eyes.”
He flipped the photo in his Mickey hands and examined its front. Then frowned. His eyes flicked up to us, and back down to the photo. He shoved it over the counter. “What the hell is this?”
It took a moment to understand what I was seeing. The photo was of us.
Me and Finch, lying side by side in Courtney’s room—me on the bed, him on the floor. Judging by the angle and the thin, spangled light, it had been taken early that morning by someone standing at our feet. We were both asleep, Ellery’s arms thrown loosely over his head and mine pillowed beneath my cheek.
My blood turned to ice water. Someone had been in that room with us, watching while we slept.
Finch got his voice back first. “Sir, we have no idea how that…”
“I don’t think so. What is this shit? You have your friend sell me this book, then you come back to buy it? Smells like day-old fish to me.” Perks picked it up roughly. “Is this even a real Proserpine?”
“Please,” I said, my voice unnatural in my ears. “I’ve never seen that photo in my life, I swear, but please just sell us the book.”
Perks shook his head, spastically. “This is too fuckin’ weird. Either you and the seller are in cahoots, or something else is going on, but either way you can march yourselves right outta my place.”
“Look, we want to give you money.” Finch pulled out his wallet, opened it. “What you told me on the phone, plus an extra grand on top. I’ve got a blank check, we’ll wait while you cash it.”
The old bookseller’s face flushed a dangerous red. “I never should’ve bought that book in the first place, not from that shady kid. I was glad to be getting rid of it so quick, but now I don’t care. You know the copy I saw, that first time?” He thrust a finger in my face. “Torched. And my buddy’s car along with it. Maybe by people like you.”
“But sir,” Finch said. “We’re trying to buy it.”
“I’d rather take it as a loss.” Perks shoved the Polaroid at Finch and jammed the book into its bag. “Get out, and don’t even think about trying to come back to steal this. It’ll be out of my shop in an hour. Someone else can deal with the cursed thing.”
“You think it’s cursed?” I said, and Perks looked at me with something close to pity.
“You seem like a nice girl,” he said, shaking his head. “Why do nice girls hang around with scummy boys like this? I’ll never understand it.”
He wasn’t that tall, and for one mad moment I thought of pushing him aside and taking the book by force. But he ushered us out onto his stoop before I got up the nerve.
“Dammit,” Finch said when the door had slammed behind us. “Why didn’t I grab it?”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” Someone was in the room with us last night.
“Who the hell took this photo?” Finch stared at the crumpled Polaroid in his hand.
“No chance it was David, right?” Someone stood over us while we slept.
“Guy can barely put on pants. He’s not up to planning this level of mindfuckery.”
We were walking fast down the street, both of us looking every which way and not trying to hide it.
“They broke in, took our photo, put it into the book, then sold it to this guy … so he could sell it to us. Why? Why not just…”
“Just face you?” Finch’s hair seemed to have gained another inch in the last few minutes. Clearly it expanded with stress.
“Take me. Like they did my mom. Why not just take me?”
“Maybe…” He put his palms together like Sherlock, breathed out loudly. “Maybe it’s a fairy-tale thing.”
“How so?”
“Maybe they can’t touch you. Because you’re Althea’s granddaughter!” He was getting excited. “Maybe, like, since her blood runs in your veins…”
“I’m not a fan theory, Finch! And they took Ella. They touched Ella. She’s more Althea’s than I am.”
I turned my head sharply. I couldn’t look at him anymore. The day was overbright, thrumming with menace. I blinked at a girl across the street, wearing a long peasant skirt and walking a pot-bellied pig on a braided leash. On the other side, moving toward us, a man in a baseball cap carried a bouquet of white roses. As he got closer, I could see how they glistened with fake raindrops. An old woman watched us through the second-floor window of the nearest building, her underbite telling us to get off her lawn. The flower man had a camera in one hand. The girl looked at me as she unhitched her pig from its lead. The man lifted the camera to his eye.
They were the Hinterland. They were all, all the Hinterland.
A migraine exploded like a bottle rocket inside my skull. My knees went woozy and my teeth and knuckles ached. I smelled the dusty perfume of the book again and my vision went green, before a black crow’s wing obscured my sight.