Rachel Caine: Fall of Night

‘I did,’ Claire said. Right now, she was missing Shane with an intensity that made her shaky. And not just Shane. She missed Eve and Michael, and the easy way they all fit together as friends. She already felt that Elizabeth, as positive and funny and energetic as she was, intended to push her to be something she wasn’t, and that Liz wouldn’t take no for an answer. Eve would have just made me feel comfortable , she thought. And welcome. We haven’t even made it to the apartment and Liz is already trying to make me speed date .

‘So forget about your Cowboy Hottie and let’s just start out two fun single girls, ready for anything. Right?’

‘Elizabeth—’

‘Right?’ Elizabeth took her eyes off the road long enough to give her a commanding stare.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Just – just drive. You’re making me nervous.’

‘You’ve gotten all serious, did you know that? What did they do to you out in the sticks?’ Liz pouted a little, but she started humming along with the radio in a few seconds, and the clouds cleared. ‘I hope you like blue. I gave you the blue room.’

Elizabeth hadn’t been kidding. It was blue , this room. The apartment was in a run-down building that had probably once been a big house, but had been sliced into four narrow sections, each with three stories. Claire’s room was at the top of a creaky, flaking staircase, and it was really … blue.

The walls had been painted an unfortunate, shiny dark colour, that made everything look even more cramped than it really was (which was pretty small). There was room for the battered twin bed, a broken-down dresser painted a distressed pale blue, and a mirror old enough to have dull flecks all over it. Vintage would be one word for it.

Claire tested the mattress. Vintage would be a word for that, too.

‘It’s great, right?’ Elizabeth demanded, having wheeled her larger suitcase in behind her. With the two of them and the two suitcases, there wasn’t room to walk. ‘Cheap, too. The rent’s only two thousand a month, plus utilities.’

That brought Claire bolt upright from the sagging bed. ‘ Two thousand? ’

‘Not each ,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I mean, split, so a thousand for you.’ She laughed outright at the expression on Claire’s face. ‘What, you didn’t think living here would be cheap, did you? Come on. The reason prices are low in Texas is nobody wants to live there!’

I do , Claire thought, and swallowed hard. She hadn’t counted on paying that much in rent, but she could manage it. Eating anything but Ramen noodles and peanut butter was pretty much off the table, though.

Elizabeth was looking worried now. ‘It’s not a problem, is it?’

‘No,’ Claire said. ‘It’s okay. I just—’ She swallowed the words, hate this room , and said, ‘just didn’t expect it to be quite that much. I should have asked.’

‘I should have warned you,’ Elizabeth said. She sat down on the bed next to Claire and bounced up and down, which strained the old springs to their limits. ‘Sorry, I just thought – I guess I was scared you’d say no. And I couldn’t stand it if you said no, Claire. I just – it’s so nice to have somebody from the old life, you know? Someone who knows me. Really knows the real me.’

‘Isn’t this the real you now?’ Claire gestured at – all of it. The outfit, the hair, everything.

‘I guess so. I just – sometimes it feels so strange, and I wish I could go back to being … a kid, you know? A kid at home, with nothing to worry about.’ Elizabeth sighed and stopped bouncing. ‘I spent so long wanting to be on my own and now it’s – it feels weird. And pretty frightening, to be in charge. Right?’

Claire didn’t answer this time. She put her arm around her friend, and they sat together in a suddenly comfortable silence for a few long seconds, before Elizabeth – practically a Ritalin kid, with all her energy to burn – wiggled free and grabbed Claire’s hand to haul her to her feet. ‘You have to see my room!’ Elizabeth said brightly. ‘You’ll love it, we can fix yours up too, make it really yours …’

She kept talking as she pulled Claire toward the door, and to be honest Claire wasn’t really listening until Elizabeth, midway down the stairs, finished up a sentence with, ‘and the ghost.’

‘Wait.’ Claire pulled her to a full halt. ‘What did you just say? Ghost ?’

‘Sure! The house is haunted; isn’t that the coolest ever?’

Claire waited a second. She had always been able to tell, in Morganville, if something paranormally weird was going on around her, but here it just felt like a draughty, creaking old house. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Well, yeah, of course! I’ve seen her. It’s a lady in white, I think, and she drifts around on the stairs sometimes. Cool, right? I think she probably died here. Maybe she was gruesomely murdered !’

Maybe it was a Morganville thing, but Claire was reasonably certain she’d never thought of someone being horribly murdered with quite so much enthusiasm. She’d seen too many examples of it in real life. That, she realised, was the real gap between her and Elizabeth now … life experience. Elizabeth still lived in a world where the worst that could happen was a stolen wallet or a minor accident. She didn’t know how fragile things were, or how hard you had to fight to hold them together when the world spun out of control.

Claire felt ancient, even though she was a full year younger. She said, ‘Um, can I see your room now?’

‘Creepy talk creeping you out?’

‘Little bit, yeah.’ Shane would have had a brilliant comeback, or Eve, but Claire couldn’t come up with one, suddenly. It didn’t matter. Elizabeth pulled her down the rest of the twisting flight of stairs to the second landing, and opened up the door and flicked on the lights.

‘Ta da!’ she sang, and did an extravagant sweep of her arm. The room was as orange as Claire’s was blue. To be fair, only one wall was painted that colour, but it was the far one, and it practically glowed in the dark. So did the bedspread with its profusions of ruffles, and the piles of pillows. It was nice, though, even if it was unsettlingly bright … Elizabeth had taped up band posters and some kind of fantasy art featuring winged, half-naked male angels. Her dresser was practically covered with make-up and piles of jewellery. It was the girliest room Claire had ever seen, actually, and that included Eve’s. At least Eve’s was dark .

‘It’s really … cheerful,’ Claire said. That was true. It also gave her a headache. Maybe that was the incense, which smelt like freshly peeled … oranges. That seemed a little bit too much theme for sanity. On the plus side, she was suddenly grateful that Liz had chosen blue for her bedroom. ‘Well, let me get unpacked, and you can show me the rest of the place, okay?’

‘Not much else to see. There’s a tiny little living area and a crappy kitchen. No TV; I figured we could stream something if we wanted to watch it, but I’m not really into that stuff anyway.’

‘What stuff?’

‘You know, TV, books, films, all that kind of stuff.’ Liz dismissed it with a wave of her hand. ‘I like the real world. Besides, only geeks go all nuts over made-up stories.’

That was a shock, because Claire clearly remembered squealing with Liz over the latest Harry Potter book, and excitedly chattering about what Snape would get up to next. This Elizabeth – this platinum blonde, carefully made-up, fashion-conscious young woman – this one was a stranger. ‘I still like it,’ Claire said. Not defensively, because she really didn’t feel a need to defend it. She was just stating a fact.