Bleeding Violet (27 page)

I sat beside him, plucked the locket from inside his shirt, and opened it. The photo showed a young woman, but the picture was old, from the sixties, maybe, judging from the hairstyle. Words were engraved on the back, stark and deep:
Ojos que no ven, corazón que no siente
. “What does that mean?”

Wyatt plucked the locket from my fingers and closed it, stuffed it back inside his shirt. “What the eyes don’t see, the heart can’t feel. If you don’t see the bad things in the world, you won’t feel bad about them. It’s such a joke. If you knew my nana—” His voice broke, and he was silent a long time.

“She never felt bad about anything,” he whispered. “Not anything.”

“Why?”

“Nana was Mortmaine,” he said, as though that explained everything. I guess it did.

“She had to go to this guy’s house once,” Wyatt continued. “This guy who’d been killing people, except not on purpose. Nobody could understand it, but everybody the guy touched died within three days. So he needed to be dealt with, because
no one knew whether he was some rare kind of creature or had some weird disease. It could’ve been anything, so to be safe, the Mortmaine decided to send Nana after him.

“The man’s sons were home when Nana showed up, these two little boys, and they begged her not to hurt their dad. But she did it anyway, stabbed him right in the heart. And then she killed the little boys, just in case what the guy had was genetic. She died three days later. Died a hero. Do you understand? That’s what it means to be Mortmaine.”

He had started to cry, and though he tried to choke it back, he couldn’t. “Fuck.”

“Cry if you want.” I wrapped my arms around him. “Who cares?”

“I care! The Mortmaine care, Ma cares. I’m not supposed to be
this
. I just … keep waiting to feel cold or uncaring, but then I remember I ain’t supposed to feel
anything
. I just gotta get the job done.”

“How do you know your nana didn’t cry after she killed that family? Or when she realized she had only three days to live? Maybe she felt the same way you do. Maybe she just sucked it up and did what she had to do.”

A light went on in my head.

As Wyatt cried himself out against my chest, the best part of my brain found a solution to Rosalee’s problem. Maybe. I had to figure out one thing first.

“Poppa?”

He came in through Wyatt’s door, like he’d been waiting for my call. He sat at the foot of the bed, his ice-cream suit blending in with the bedspread. He waited patiently for me to speak.

“Is there a way to make wishes besides the Ortiga Key?”

“All five of the Keys grant wishes,” he said. “I told you that.”

“Which one has the quickest and”—I clenched my newly healed left hand—“least painful way to get a wish?”

I listened as Poppa explained what I had to do, but after he told me everything I needed to know, about Wet William and Evangeline Park, he frowned at me, albeit rather awkwardly—the chewed-up side of his face wasn’t as mobile as it used to be.

“You could call for me to talk,” he said, “and not just when you want something.”

Guilt hit me like a kick to the chest. “Don’t be mad at me, Poppa. You know you don’t have to wait for me to call you. Just come.”

He smiled and pinched my big toe. “It’s been better for us since we moved here. Hasn’t it?”

I wiggled my toes at him. “I think so too, Poppa.”

“What’re you saying?” asked Wyatt, startling me.

“Ah …” I looked down into his face where it rested against my breasts and had no idea what to tell him.

“All that Finnish,” he said, shamelessly using my bodice to wipe his tears, his eyes as bright and fresh as a street after a hard rain. “What does it mean?”

“I was praying,” I lied. “For forgiveness.”

“For me?” He seemed touched by the thought.

I looked at Poppa. “For all of us,” I said gravely.

Carmin’s birthday was Saturday, but he’d canceled his party the day after Petra died. “It’s stupid, I guess,” he explained as he, Lecy, Wyatt, and I drove way upsquare to Evangeline Park. “But what’s so great about turning sixteen? Petra made it to sixteen—and look how that shit turned out.”

Now it was two in the afternoon, and the four of us lay together on a blanket on the shore of the Nudoso River, tall spider lilies nodding over us, menacing and ghostly. I shivered, but not from cold.

From nerves.

“You okay?” Wyatt was warm beside me, wearing the green coat I’d made him.

“No,” I admitted. “I feel weird.”

“Pet made it weird when she left,” Lecy said on my other side. She had on a black peacoat with white buttons, and she’d pinned one of the spider lilies in her black hair. The effect was disturbing, as though the lily was swallowing her head. “She left a hole in the world. Can’t you feel it? The empty space?”

We digested this in silence, listening to the river trickle behind us.

“Pet liked coming up here,” said Wyatt softly, watching the sky. “She was born near a river. The Rio Grande, I think. The sound of the water spoke to her.” He grabbed my cold hand and squeezed it, his skin oven-warm. “Did you know she liked to come up here?”

I hadn’t thought about it one way or the other, even though coming here had been my idea, but now that he mentioned it …

“I remember her saying she liked to come to Evangeline when she was scared,” I said. “I thought we could all use the closure.”

Lecy shifted beside me. “Where are they, Carmin?”

Carmin sat up, braving the wind, hair aflame against the cold gray sky. He removed a bundle of flowers from his toggle
coat and passed one to each of us. The flowers were a lighter, gentler shade of blue than Carmin’s glasses.

“These were the only fresh forget-me-nots I had on hand,” he said. “I already processed the others.”

I held the flower to my nose. “What are these for?”

“To remember Pet,” said Carmin. “You eat the petals off it, and it helps you remember the people you loved who died.”

It seemed mean to say I hadn’t loved Petra, so I only said, “I hardly knew her, except that she had a mouth on her. And she was a coward.”

“Not at the end,” Wyatt exclaimed, turning to me. “You saw. Petra was badass at the end, holding on to Frankie’s foot so he couldn’t get away.”

“Everybody’s got some kernel of bravery,” Lecy said. “Even somebody like Pet had a little.” She turned to Carmin. “You should have made pills. Fresh flowers wear off quick as spit.”

“I did make pills.”

“Well, share, baby!”

He removed a handful of blue, liquid-filled capsules from a plastic bag and handed two each to Lecy, Wyatt, and me. “The pills last a long time. Maybe a little too long. About an hour. So only take one at a time.”

Wyatt gave his two to Lecy. “Who wants to be unconscious out in the wild for a whole hour?”

“So take ’em at home, genius,” said Carmin.

“I’m on call twenty-four/seven, smartass.”

“Nobody’s forcing you to take the pills! Why do you think I brought the flowers? Excuse me for being thorough.”

“So we’re going to be unconscious?” I said, interrupting their bickering.

“For a little while,” said Lecy. “Like dreaming awake.”

I had planned to sneak off under the guise of needing the restroom, and once out of sight, I would do what I had to do. But this forget-me-not thing was perfect.

Carmin lay back down, and they all ate the flowers. I only pretended to eat mine, holding the petals in my cheek. The flowers affected everyone almost immediately, and in minutes they were out of it, staring dreamily at the sky.

I passed my hand over Wyatt’s open eyes. When he didn’t blink, I spat out the petals and leaped to my feet, removing my indigo coat as a rush of anticipatory heat swept me. I trod through the cold spider lilies to the edge of the dark, colorless river, where I knelt and pricked my finger on the safety pin I pulled from the pocket of my violet pencil skirt. Remembering
Poppa’s instructions, I used my bloody finger to spell out a name in the cool, gently flowing water: William.

The name hung redly in the river before slowly dissolving. I waited, gazing into the water as the wind rustled through the oaks, but for the longest time, all I saw was my reflection staring back at me, waiting impatiently.

And then my reflection came to life. Instead of lying still on the water, my image arose rippling and wet from the river, like something from a funhouse mirror. I stared at myself, and my self stared back.

Damn, I was pretty.

But then the water fell away in a great splash to reveal an older boy standing on the water, staring down at me.

He wasn’t as pretty as I was, but he was all right. Eighteen or nineteen, with skin as brown as river silt. He had sad eyes, like a lost dog, and he was looking at me expectantly, like I could tell him the way home. I opened my mouth to speak.

“Hanna!”

I looked back … into Wyatt’s eyes. He sat wide awake on the blanket, but before I could reassure him, Wet William snatched me into the river.

I went down streaming bubbles in the dusky blue water as
Wet William, his arm circling my chest, dragged me to the river bottom, the laces of my violet oxfords trailing in the cold water like sea worms. By the time Wet William set me on my feet, my chest had begun to burn with the effort of holding my breath.

Wet William was much taller than I was, his shirt billowing in the current. “I guess you know the drill,” he said almost playfully, despite his sad eyes, his voice as clear as a bell. “Just take a deep breath and ask. But just so we’re clear, you’d better look down.”

I did, still holding my breath. Below my feet were several bones, gleaming white in the murky water.

“Those are the bones of the last girl who thought she really believed this would work.”

I took a deep breath. Because it was either breathe, or faint and then drown. “Oh, I believe it all right,” I told him.

Wet William’s mouth dropped open, the sadness in his eyes mixed with admiration. “Son of a bitch.”

“It’s Hanna, actually,” I said, “and I know what I want. I want you to please remove Runyon from my mother’s body,
without
it making her sick.”

“No problem.” He cracked his knuckles. “Nice to get somebody down here with some balls for a change.”

“Thank you,” I said, amused that not even death could stop boys from flirting. I took another breath of water. I felt oddly congested, like I had the worst chest cold in the history of the world. My deep inhalation drew Wet William’s head toward me.

His head, not his body, which Wyatt kicked to the side.

Wet William hit the river bottom, brown silt poofing around his butt in a cloud, his hands frantically patting the space above his neck where his head should have been, but wasn’t.

Wyatt’s machete sliced through the bloody water as he swam toward me and caught me around the waist.

“What did you do to Wet William?” I screamed, bringing Wyatt up short to gape at me in wonder, and while he gaped, Wet William’s severed head chomped his arm.

Angry bubbles streamed from Wyatt’s mouth as he knocked Wet William’s head away.

“Wait!” I yelled, wanting to swim after Wet William’s head but tethered by Wyatt’s iron grip on my elbow. “What about my wish?”

“Bitch, what about my body?” screamed Wet William as the current carried him away, “You know how long it’s gone take to grow a new head? Shit on your wish!”

Wyatt hauled me up through the water, and I screamed the whole way. I would have continued screaming once we were back on shore, wet and shivering on the blanket as Lecy and Carmin fussed over us, but I couldn’t even breathe, not until I’d vomited all the water from my lungs. After that, it was smooth sailing.

“You all right?” Wyatt asked.

“No, I’m not!” I said into his wet chest as he held me tight. “I can’t believe you killed Wet William. I can’t believe you ruined everything!”

“You can’t kill Wet William,” said Wyatt calmly into my ear. “He’s already dead.”

I shoved him away. “You ruined my wish! You
ruined
it!”

“Later, guys,” Carmin said, prying us apart. “Let’s get in the truck before y’all turn into Popsicles.”

Lecy and Carmin herded us into Wyatt’s truck and cranked the heat. “What happened?” they asked, crowding into the front seat with us.

“I got Wet William to grant my wish,” I said, huddled in front of the vent in the dashboard, “and then Wyatt had to go and cut his head off, and now he won’t grant it!”

Wyatt at least had the decency to look miserable. “What did you wish for?”

“For my stupid boyfriend to realize I can take care of myself. I’m not Petra, okay? I don’t need to be rescued!”

“I’m sorry.” But as he brushed my hair from my face, he didn’t look sorry. Sorry he’d pissed me off, sure, but he had no idea of the extent to which he’d screwed me.

“I can’t believe you actually breathed underwater like that,” Lecy marveled. “I’d be too scared to even try it.”

“Fat lot of good it did me!”

Lecy gave Wyatt a stern look. “
You
oughta give her a wish. To make up for the one you messed up.”

Wyatt’s misery deepened, as though he
did
understand how he’d screwed me. “I can’t. Wet William already granted it, technically. You can’t make the same wish twice.”

“But he took it back!”

Wyatt slung his arm over my shoulders. “You can have another wish. Any wish you want. Just ask me.”

“I can’t use your Key. Your mother swore that if I made another wish on it, she’d cut my hand off.”

“And you believe that?”

I threw his arm off me.
“Yes!”

Lecy nodded in agreement, and Carmin said, “You couldn’t pay me enough to cross Miz Sera.”

“Shut up,” Wyatt told him.

“You shut up.” I climbed into the backseat so I wouldn’t have to sit next to him.

“Hanna, wait—”

“If you’d really like to grant my dearest wish, you will take me home and then never speak to me again.”

“Hanna—”

“Ever!”

When stupid, interfering Wyatt finally dropped me home, I was more than ready to take on Rosalee. After being MIA for two days and skipping school, I was definitely expecting a scene, but I got squat. Typical. I’d spent the past two days worrying and scheming and trying to help her, and she didn’t even have the decency to be home to yell at me for making her worry.