Лиза Смит - The Return - Midnight

Elena was truly frightened now. She didn’t want to hear whatever was coming.

She could taste bile, and she was glad that she’d only had toast for breakfast. If only there had been someone to take care of, like Bonnie, she would have felt better.

“I give up. So what is wrong?” Matt asked bluntly.

Meredith was staring into the distance again.

Finally Stefan said, “At the risk of sounding like a bad soap opera…Meredith had, or has, a twin brother.”

Dead silence fell over the group in the parlor. Even Mrs. Flowers’s Mama didn’t put in a word.

“Had or has?” Matt said finally, breaking the silence.

“How can we know?” Stefan said. “He may have been killed. Imagine Meredith having to watch that. Or he could have been kidnapped. To be killed at a later time — or to become a vampire.”

“And you really think her parents wouldn’t tell her?” Matt demanded. “Or would try to make her forget? When she was — what, three already?”

Mrs. Flowers, who had been quiet a long time, now spoke sadly. “Dear Meredith may have decided to block out the truth herself. With a child of three it’s hard to say. If they never got her professional help…” She looked a question at Meredith.

Meredith shook her head. “Against the code,” she said. “I mean, strictly speaking, I shouldn’t be telling any of you this, and especially not Stefan. But I couldn’t stand it anymore…having such good friends, and constantly deceiving them.”

Elena went over and hugged Meredith hard. “We understand,” she said. “I don’t know what will happen in the future if you decide to be an active hunter—”

“I can promise you my friends won’t be on my list of victims,” Meredith said. “By the way,” she added, “Shinichi knows. I’m the one who’s kept a secret from my friends all my life.”

“Not any longer,” Elena said, and hugged her again.

“At least there are no more secrets now,” Mrs. Flowers said gently, and Elena looked at her sharply. Nothing was ever that simple. And Shinichi had made a whole handful of predictions.

Then she saw the look in the mild blue eyes of the old woman, and she knew that what was important right then was not truth or lies, or even reckonings, but simply comforting Meredith. She looked up at Stefan while still hugging Meredith and saw the same look in his eyes.

And that — made her feel better somehow. Because if it was truly “no secrets” then she would have to figure out her feelings about Damon. And she was more afraid of that than of facing Shinichi, which was saying quite a lot, really.

“At least we’ve got a potter’s wheel — somewhere,” Mrs. Flowers was saying.

“And a kiln in the back, although it’s all grown over with Devil’s Shoestring. I used to make flowerpots for outside the boardinghouse, but children came and smashed them. I think I could make an urn like the ones you saw if you can draw one for me.

But perhaps we’d better wait for Mr. Saltzman’s pictures.”

Matt was mouthing something to Stefan. Elena couldn’t make it out until she heard Stefan’s voice in her mind. He says Damon told him once that this house is like a swap meet, and you can find anything here if you look hard enough.

Damon didn’t make that up! I think Mrs. Flowers said it first, and then it sort of got around, Elena returned heatedly.

“When we get the pictures,” Mrs. Flowers was saying brightly, “we can get the Saitou women to translate the writing.”

Meredith finally moved back from Elena. “And until then we can pray that Bonnie doesn’t get into any trouble,” she said, and her voice and face were composed again. “I’m starting now.”

Bonnie was sure she could stay out of trouble.

She’d had that strange dream — the one about shedding her body, and going with Elena to the Island of Doom. Fortunately, it had seemed to be a real out-of-body experience, and not something she had to ponder over and try to find hidden meanings in. It didn’t mean she was doomed or anything like that.

Plus, she’d managed to live through another night in this brown room, and Damon had to come and get her out soon. But not before she had a sugarplum. Or two.

Yes, she had gotten a taste of one in the story last night, but Marit was such a good girl that she had waited for dinner to have any more. Dinner was obtained in the next story about the Dustbins, which she’d plunged into this morning. But that contained the horror of little Marit tasting her first hand-caught piece of raw liver, fresh from the hunt. Bonnie had hastily pulled the little star ball off her temple, and had determined not to do anything that could possibly get her on a human hunting range.

But then, compulsively, she had counted up her money. She had money. She knew where a shop was. And that meant…shopping!

When her bathroom break came around, she managed to get into a conversation with the boy who usually led her to the outdoor privy. This time she made him blush so hard and tug at his earlobe so often that when she begged him to give her the key and let her go by herself — it wasn’t as if she didn’t know the way — he had relented and let her go, asking only that she hurry.

And she did hurry — across the street and into the little store, which smelled so much of melting fudge, toffee being pulled by hand, and other mouth-watering smells that she would have known where she was blindfolded.

She also knew what she wanted. She could picture it from the story and the one taste Marit had had.

A sugarplum was round like a real plum, and she’d tasted dates, almonds, spices, and honey — and there may have been some raisins, too. It should cost five soli, according to the story, but Bonnie had taken fifteen of the small coppery-looking coins with her, in case of a confectionary emergency.

Once inside, Bonnie glanced warily around her. There were a lot of customers in the shop, maybe six or seven. One brown-haired girl was wearing sacking just like Bonnie and looked exhausted. Surreptitiously, Bonnie inched toward her, and pressed five of her copper soli into the girl’s chapped hand, thinking, there — now she can get a sugarplum just like me; that ought to cheer her up. It did: the girl gave her the sort of smile that Mother Dustbin often gave to Marit when she had done something adorable.

I wonder if I should talk to her?

“It looks pretty busy,” she whispered, ducking her head.

The girl whispered back, “It has been. All yesterday I kept hoping, but at least one noble came in as the last one left.”

“You mean you have to wait until the shop’s empty to—?”

The brown-haired girl looked at her curiously. “Of course — unless you’re buying for your mistress or master.”

“What’s your name?” Bonnie whispered.

“Kelta.”

“I’m Bonnie.”

At this Kelta burst into silent but convulsive giggles.

Bonnie felt offended; she’d just given Kelta a sugarplum — or the price of one, and now the girl was laughing at her.

“I’m sorry,” Kelta said when her mirth had died down. “But don’t you think it’s funny that in the last year there are so many girls changing their names to Alianas and Mardeths, and Bonnas — some slaves are even being allowed to do it.”

“But why?” Bonnie whispered with such obvious genuine bewilderment that Kelta said, “Why, to fit into the story, of course. To be named after the ones who killed old Bloddeuwedd while she was rampaging through the city.”

“That was such a big deal?”

“You really don’t know? After she was killed all her money went to the fifth sector where she lived and there was enough left over to have a holiday. That’s where I’m from. And I used to be so frightened when I was sent out with a message or anything after dark because she could be right above you and you’d never know, until—” Kelta had put all her money into one pocket and now she mimed claws descending on an innocent hand.