The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, page 40
She is rewarded with a raised brow, the crooked upturn of his mouth, the green of his eyes shifting in surprise.
Then Luc looks down, turns the glass of port between his fingers.
“You told me once that we were alike,” he says, almost to himself. “Both of us … lonely. I loathed you for saying it. But I suppose in some ways you were right. I suppose,” he goes on slowly, “there is something to the idea of company.”
It is the closest he has ever come to sounding human.
“Do you miss me,” she asks, “when you are not here?”
Those green eyes drift up, the emerald even in the dark. “I am here, with you, more often than you think.”
“Of course,” she says, “you come and go whenever you want. I have no choice but to wait.”
His eyes darken with pleasure. “Do you wait for me?”
And now it is Addie who looks away. “You said it yourself. We all crave company.”
“And if you could call on me, as I call on you?”
Her heart quickens a little.
She does not look up, and that is why she sees it, rolling toward her on the table. A slim band, carved of pale ash wood.
It is a ring.
It is her ring.
The gift she made to the dark that night.
The gift he scorned, and turned to smoke.
The image conjured in a seaside church.
But if it is an illusion now, it is an exceptional one. Here, the notch where her father’s chisel bit a fraction too deep. There, the curve rubbed smooth as stone by years of worrying.
It is real. It must be real. And yet—
“You destroyed it.”
“I took it,” says Luc, looking over his glass. “That is not the same thing.”
Anger flares in her. “You said it was nothing.”
“I said it was not enough. But I do not ruin beauty without reason. It was mine, for a time, but it was always yours.”
Addie marvels at the ring. “What must I do?”
“You know how to summon gods.”
Estele’s voice, faint as a breeze.
You must humble yourself before them.
“Put it on, and I will come.” Luc leans back in his chair, the night breeze blowing through those raven curls. “There,” he says. “Now we are even.”
“We will never be even,” she says as she turns the ring over between finger and thumb, and decides she will not use it.
It is a challenge. A game, parading as a gift. Not a war so much as a wager. A battle of wills. For her to don the ring, to call on Luc, would be to fold, to admit defeat.
To surrender.
She slips the token into the pocket of her skirts, forces her fingers to let go of the talisman.
Only then does she notice the tension in the air that night. It is an energy she’s felt before, but cannot place, until Luc says, “There is about to be a war.”
She had not heard. He tells her of the archduke’s assassination, his face a mask of grim displeasure.
“I hate war,” he says darkly.
“I would have thought you fond of conflict.”
“The aftermath breeds art,” he says. “But war makes believers out of cynics. Sycophants desperate for salvation, everyone suddenly clinging to their souls, clutching them close like a matron with her finest pearls.” Luc shakes his head. “Give me back the Belle Epoque.”
“Who knew gods were so nostalgic?”
Luc finishes his drink, and rises. “You should leave, before it starts.” Addie laughs. It sounds almost as if he cares. The ring sits, a sudden weight in her pocket. He holds out his hand. “I can take you.”
She should have accepted, should have said yes. Should have let him lead her through the horrible dark and out again, and saved herself an ocean, a miserable week stowing away in the belly of a ship at sea, the beauty of the water tarnished by the unending nature of it.
But she has learned too well to hold her ground.
Luc shakes his head. “You are still a stubborn fool.”
She toys with staying, but after he is gone, she cannot help but conjure the shadows in his gaze, the grim way he spoke of the coming strife. It is a sign, when even gods and devils dread a fight.
A week later, Addie caves, and boards a ship for New York.
By the time she docks, the world is already at war.
New York City
July 29, 2014
II
It is just another day.
That is what Addie tells herself.
It is just a day—like all the others—but of course, it is not.
It is three hundred years since she was meant to be married—a future given against her will.
Three hundred years since she knelt in the woods, and summoned the darkness, and lost everything but freedom.
Three hundred years.
There should be a storm, an eclipse. Some way to mark the monument of it.
But the day dawns perfect, and cloudless, and blue.
The bed is empty beside her, but she can hear the soft shuffle of Henry moving through the kitchen, and she must have been gripping the blankets, because her fingers ache, a knot of pain in the center of her left palm.
When she opens her hand, the wooden ring falls out.
She brushes it off the bed as if it were a spider, an ill omen, listens to it land, and bounce, and roll away across the hardwood floor. Addie draws up her knees, and lets her head fall forward on them, and breathes into the space between her ribs, and reminds herself it is just a ring, and it is just a day. But there is a rope inside her chest, a dull dread winding tighter, telling her to go, to put as much distance between her and Henry as possible, in case he comes.
He won’t, she tells herself.
It’s been so long, she tells herself.
But she doesn’t want to take the chance.
Henry’s knuckles rap on the open door, and she looks up to see him holding a plate with a donut, three candles stuck into the top.
And despite everything, she laughs. “What’s this?”
“Hey, it’s not every day that your girlfriend turns three hundred.”
“It’s not my birthday.”
“I know, but I didn’t exactly know what to call it.”
And just like that, the voice rises like smoke inside her head.
Happy anniversary, my love.
“Make a wish,” says Henry.
Addie swallows, and blows the candles out.
He sinks onto the bed beside her. “I’ve got the whole day,” he says. “Bea’s covering at the store, and I thought we could take the train out to…” But he trails off when he sees her face. “What?”
Dread claws at her stomach, deeper than hunger. “I don’t think we should be together,” she says. “Not today.”
His face falls. “Oh.”
Addie cups his cheek, and lies. “It’s just a day, Henry.”
“You’re right,” he says. “It’s a day. But how many of them has he ruined? Don’t let him take it from you.” He kisses her. “From us.”
If Luc finds them together, he will take more than that.
“Come on,” insists Henry, “I’ll have you back long before you turn into a pumpkin. And then, if you want to spend the night apart, I understand. Worry about him in the dark, but it’s hours until then, and you deserve a good day. A good memory.”
And he’s right. She does.
The dread loosens a little in her chest.
“Okay,” she says, one little word, and Henry’s whole face lights with pleasure. “What do you have in mind?”
He disappears into the bathroom, reemerges in a pair of yellow swim trunks, a towel cast over one shoulder. He tosses her a blue-and-white bikini.
“Let’s go.”
* * *
Rockaway Beach is a sea of colored towels, and flags planted in the sand.
Laughter rolls in with the tide as kids make castle mounds and people lounge beneath the glaring sun. Henry stretches their towels out on a narrow patch of unclaimed sand, weights them down with shoes, and then Addie grabs his hand and they run down the beach, the soles of their feet stinging until they hit the damp line of the tide and plunge into the water.
Addie gasps at the welcome brush of the waves, cool even in the heat of summer, and wades out until the ocean wraps around her waist. Henry ducks his head beside her, and comes back up, water dripping from his glasses. He pulls her to him, kisses the salt from her fingers. She slicks the hair from his face. They linger there, tangled together in the surf.
“See,” he says, “isn’t this better?”
And it is.
It is.
They swim until their limbs ache, and their skin begins to prune, and then retreat to the towels waiting on the beach, and stretch out to dry beneath the sun. It’s too hot to stay there long, and soon the scent of food wafting from the boardwalk is enough to draw them up again.
Henry gathers his stuff and starts up the beach, and Addie rises to follow, shaking the sand from her towel.
And out falls the wooden ring.
It lies there, a fraction darker than the beach, like a drop of rain on a dry sidewalk. A reminder. Addie crouches down before it, and sweeps a handful of sand over the top, before jogging after Henry.
They head for the stretch of bars overlooking the beach, order tacos and a pitcher of frozen margaritas, savoring the tang and the sweet-salted chill. Henry wipes the water from his glasses, and Addie looks out at the ocean, and feels the past fold over the present, like the tides.
Déjà vu. Déjà su. Déjà vecu.
“What is it?” asks Henry.
Addie glances toward him. “Hm?”
“You get this look on your face,” he says, “when you’re remembering.”
Addie looks back out at the Atlantic, the infinite hem of the beach, the memories spooling out along the horizon. And as they eat, she tells him of all the coasts she’s seen, of the time she ferried across the English Channel, the White Cliffs of Dover rising from the fog. Of the time she sailed the coast of Spain, a stowaway in the bowels of a stolen boat, and how, when she crossed to America, the whole ship fell ill, and she had to feign sickness so they wouldn’t think she was a witch.
And when she gets tired of talking, and they have both run out of drinks, they spend the next few hours bouncing between the shade of the concession stands and the cool kiss of the surf, lingering on the sand only long enough to dry.
The day goes by too fast, as good days do.
And when it’s time to go, they make their way to the subway, and sink onto the bench, sun-drunk and sleepy, as the train pulls away.
Henry takes out a book, but Addie’s eyes are stinging, and she leans against him, savoring his sun-and-paper scent, and the seat is plastic and the air is stale, and she has never been so comfortable. She feels herself sinking into Henry, head lolling on his shoulder.
And then he whispers three words into her hair.
“I love you,” he says, and Addie wonders if this is love, this gentle thing.
If it is meant to be this soft, this kind.
The difference between heat, and warmth.
Passion, and contentment.
“I love you too,” she says.
She wants it to be true.
Chicago, Illinois
July 29, 1928
III
There is an angel over the bar.
A stained-glass panel, lit from behind, with a single figure, chalice raised and hand outstretched, as if calling you to prayer.
But this is no church.
Speakeasies are like weeds these days, springing up between the stones of Prohibition. This one has no name, save the angel with its cup, the number XII over the door—twelve, the hour of midday, and of midnight—the velvet curtains and chaises that lounge like sleepers round the wooden floor, the masks given to the patrons at the door.
It is, like most of them, only a rumor, a secret passed from mouth to liquored mouth.
And Addie loves it.
There is a wild fervor to this place.
She dances—sometimes alone, and sometimes in the company of strangers. Loses herself in the jazz that rocks against the walls, rebounds, filling the crowded space with music. She dances, until the feathers of her mask cling to her cheeks, and Addie is breathless, and flushed, and only then does she retreat, falling into a leather chair.
It is almost midnight, and her fingers drift like the hands of a clock up to her throat, where the ring hangs on a silver cord, the wooden band warm against her skin.
It is always within reach.
Once, when the cord snapped, she thought it lost, only to find it safe within the pocket of her blouse. Another time, she left it on a windowsill, and found it hours later at her neck again.
The only thing she doesn’t lose.
She toys with it, a lazy habit now, like curling a lock of hair around one finger. She skims the edge of the band with her nail, twirls it, careful to never let the ring slide over her knuckle.
She has reached for it a hundred times: when she was lonely, when she was bored, when she saw a thing of beauty and thought of him. But she is too stubborn, and he is too proud, and she is determined to win this round.
Fourteen years she has resisted the urge to put it on.
And fourteen years he has not come.
So she was right—it is a game. Another kind of forfeit, a lesser version of surrender.
Fourteen years.
And she is lonely, and a little drunk, and she wonders if tonight will be the night she breaks. It would be a fall, but it is not so great a height. Perhaps—perhaps— To occupy her hands, she decides to get another drink.
She goes to the bar and orders a gin fizz, but the white-masked man sets instead a Champagne glass before her. A single candied rose petal floats among the bubbles, and when she asks, he nods at a shadow in a velvet booth. His mask is made to look like branches, the leaves a perfect frame for perfect eyes.
And Addie smiles at the sight of him.
She would be lying if she said it was nothing but relief. A weight set down. A breath set free.
“I win,” she says, sinking into his booth.
And even though he folded first, his eyes are bright with triumph. “How so?”
“I didn’t call, and yet you came.”
His chin lifts, a study in disdain. “You assume I’m here for you.”
“I forget,” she says, sliding into his smooth, low cadence. “There are so many maddening humans around to swindle out of their souls.”
A wry smile tugs at perfect lips. “I promise, Adeline, few are as maddening as you.”
“Few?” she teases. “I’ll have to try harder.”
He lifts a glass, and tips it toward the bar. “The fact remains, you have come to me. This place is mine.”
Addie looks around, and suddenly, it is obvious.
She sees the markings everywhere.
Realizes, for the first time, that the angel above the bar has no wings. That the curls rising around his face are black. That the band she took for a halo might as well be moonlight.
And she wonders what it was that drew her here the first time.
Wonders if they are like magnets, she and Luc.
If they have circled each other for so long that now they share an orbit.
It will become a hobby of his, these kinds of clubs. He will plant them in a dozen cities, tend them like gardens, and grow them wild.
As plentiful as churches, he will say, and twice as popular.
And long after the days of Prohibition, they will still flourish, catering to many tastes, and she will wonder if it is the energy that stokes him, or if they are a grooming ground for souls. A place to ply, and pry, and promise. And in a way, a place to pray, albeit a different kind of worship.
“So you see,” says Luc, “perhaps I win.”
Addie shakes her head. “It is only chance,” she says. “I did not call.”
He smiles, gaze falling to the ring against her skin. “I know your heart. I felt it falter.”
“But I didn’t.”
“No,” he says, the word nothing but a breath. “But I was tired of waiting.”
“So you missed me,” she says with a smile, and there is the briefest glimpse in those green eyes. A fracture of light.
“Life is long, and humans boring. You are better company.”
“You forget that I am human.”
“Adeline,” he says, a shade of pity in his voice. “You have not been human since the night we met. You will never be human again.”
Heat flushes through her at the words. No longer pleasant warmth, but anger.
“I am still human,” she says, voice tightening around the words as if they were her name.
“You move among them like a ghost,” he says, his forehead bowing against hers, “because you are not one of them. You cannot live like them. You cannot love like them. You cannot belong with them.”
His mouth hovers over her own, his voice dropping to nothing but a breeze.
“You belong to me.”
There is a sound like thunder in the back of his throat.
“With me.”
And when she looks up into his eyes, she sees a new shade of green, and knows exactly what it is. The color of a man off-balance. His chest rises and falls as if it were a human thing.
Here is a place to put the knife.
“I would rather be a ghost.”
And for the first time, the darkness flinches. Draws back like shadows in the face of light. His eyes go pale with anger, and there is the god she knows, the monster she has learned to face.
“Suit yourself,” mutters Luc, and she waits for him to bleed into the dark, braces for the sudden, reaching void, expects to be swallowed up and spit out on the other side of the world.
But Luc does not vanish, and neither does she.
He nods at the club. “Go on, then,” he says, “go back to them.”
And she would rather he had banished her. Instead, she rises, even though she’s lost her taste for drinks, for dancing, for any kind of company.
It is like stepping out of sunlight, the humid room gone cold against her skin, as he sits there in his velvet booth, and she goes through the motions of her night, and for the first time she feels the space between the humans and herself, and fears that he is right.
