The Madness Underneath: Book 2 (THE SHADES OF LONDON) (22 page)

Devina went to the fridge and pulled out a big blue casserole dish. I was staying for lunch, apparently.

“You cannot go back to Bristol,” Jane said, putting her hand on the table to mark her pronouncement. “You cannot go back to America. You need to be with people who understand, and people who can teach you. No one’s even taught you about your ability, have they? No. You must stay here. There’s another empty room upstairs. That one will be yours.”

“I can’t,” I said. “My parents…”

“Don’t know and won’t understand. They certainly won’t give permission for you to stay in a stranger’s house after you’ve
been asked to leave school. You need to do something a bit bold and brave. You need to take things into your own hands. You need to leave.”

“You mean, like, run away?”

“I mean precisely that. It’s the only way. These are exceptional circumstances, and this is the answer to your problem. Thank goodness you came here in time.”

“It really is,” Devina said, nodding in agreement.

When you hear about people running away, I always imagined it just like that…like, they take off physically running into the night. I hate running, and I never really wanted to leave home, so the concept was entirely foreign to me.

“I know this is quite a lot to take on board, Rory, but if you’re brave and do this tonight, tomorrow will be the start of a wonderful new life. A life without lies. A life that makes sense.”

“Tonight?”

“It has to be tonight,” Jane said. “It sounds like they’ve already set the wheels in motion for you to be returned to your parents. It will be much harder after that. They’ve given you a night of freedom to think. You need to take advantage of it. And you’ll have us helping you. You’re not the first person I’ve helped.”

“She helped me,” Devina said. “Saved my life, coming here.”

“It doesn’t have to be permanent,” Jane said. “But, Rory, believe me, it’s easier when you’re part of a group. When you’re with people who understand. And we understand. It’s up to you, of course, but I speak from experience. So does Devina.”

It’s possible that I have a higher tolerance for crazy talk than most people because of my background. I’ve channeled multi-colored angels with my cousin and gone for discount waxes
with my grandmother. I know
two
people who have started their own religions. One of my neighbors was arrested for sitting on top of the town equestrian statue dressed as Spider-Man. He just climbed up there with a few loaves of bread and tore them up and threw bread at anyone who got near him. Another neighbor puts up her Christmas decorations in August and goes caroling on Halloween to “fight the devil with song.” That’s just what things are like back home. While there were certain to be people back home who would fully accept my tales of seeing ghosts, they were also the same people who tended to see Jesus in their pancakes.

I could see this version of my future all too well. I would be fully absorbed into the crazy wavelength of Bénouville. Left to my native kind, I would get strange. But Jane was well-adjusted. She clearly had a happy and successful life. I didn’t know much about Devina, but she looked happy too. They looked
normal.
And nothing, nothing was sweeter than that. Jane was right—there was no other solution. This was the juncture, and I had to make a decision. Home, where my brain would go soft and I would forever wonder about what I was…or here, where I could at least learn something. And I could stay around Stephen and Callum and Boo.

I could even join them, on their own terms.

The light seemed to grow warm around us at the table.

“How?” I said. “I don’t know how to run away here, I mean, I know that sounds stupid, but…do I just not go back?”

“You don’t go back,” she said, “but we muddy your tracks. Who knew you came here?”

“Just Charlotte.”

“Good. Now, did you use your Oyster card to get here?”

“Yes.”

“Did you buy it with a credit card or cash?”

“My debit card…”

The Oyster card was the Tube pass. You put money on the card and then you just had to tap it on the reader when you got on and off at your stations so it knew how much to deduct. I saw what she was saying. It tracked your journey, and if you bought it on a credit card, there would be a record.

“I’ve done this before,” Jane said. “Just a few commonsense steps we need to take. Here’s what we will do…”

The plan crafted over the table was simple, and thorough. I would walk to the South Kensington Tube station and use the nearest ATM to withdraw all of the money in my account. It had to look like I needed it all. I would also be seen on the camera at the machine. Then I was to drop the Oyster card in front of the station. Someone would pick it up and use it, leaving a confusing trail on the Tube.

“Give your mobile to Devina,” Jane said. “She’ll take it and use it in a few locations around the city. Just drive around with it, D, then dispose of it.”

Out of all of this, not having the phone made me the most uncomfortable. I didn’t actually know anyone’s phone number—not my parents in Bristol, not Jazza, not Stephen. They were on the phone.

“I won’t be able to reach anyone,” I said.

“You can’t talk to anyone,” Jane replied. “Not at first. You’ll want to, but that puts the whole thing in jeopardy. We need the mobile.”

I’d left my coat in the vestibule. The phone was in the pocket.

“I’ll get it,” I said, getting up from the table. I made my way through the dark hallway, my eyes struggling in the change in the light, my heart slamming in my chest. I had to do this. Jane was right. She was the one person with an actual plan. And doing this—terrifying as it was—was the right decision. It was the only thing that would make my life make sense again.

The room spun gently, and I realized I was smiling. I didn’t feel happy, did I?

I knocked into the silver leopard as I fumbled for my coat and retrieved the phone. Boo’s number was still on the display. Boo’s was a good number to keep. I stared at it, committing it to memory. At least, trying to…seven, seven, three, four…

“Here.”

Devina was behind me, and her hand was already on the phone.

“I’ll take care of this now,” she said. She grabbed a set of keys from a bowl on a little shelf by the door. And then my phone was gone.

I continued chanting the number in my head and reached into my coat pocket again. I’d shoved a colored lip gloss in there the other day. I rolled up my sleeve and used the sticky gloss to write the number on my arm. It was messy, but I had it. I had one link.

It felt like cheating, but Jane didn’t know about Stephen. I still had secrets to keep, even now, as my life collapsed around me and re-formed into something new and very unfamiliar.

And strangely, for the first time in what seemed like a very long time, I felt like I knew what the hell was going on.

NEW DAWN PSYCHIC PARLOR,
EAST LONDON
DECEMBER 9
11:47 P.M.

P
AUL WAS A CHEATING BASTARD. HE WAS THE KING OF cheating bastards. He should wear a crown.

Oh, everyone had warned her. Her sister. Her friends. Her horoscope. Everyone said Paul was trouble, but Lydia had believed him. She had believed the stories of his weekends away with his mates, his overtime at Boots doing stock inventory. She believed him when his car didn’t start and when he had a toothache. She was a trusting person, and everyone had warned her, and now it had come to this. The voice mail. The voice mail from some random slag that she heard when she accidentally but kind of on purpose got into his voice mail.

Okay, mostly on purpose. Paul was such an idiot. Only one password for everything. She’d seen him key it in dozens of times. All she had to do was ring the voice mail externally and put in the numbers, and there it was, the message from someone who just
sounded
orange. She was giggling away on his voice mail like a
Big Brother
reject.

Lydia wobbled on her heels as she hurried. It was hard to speed walk and cry.
Bastard!
Dawn would fix it. Dawn would tell her what to do. Dawn always knew what to do.

Dawn operated out of a third-story flat, which served as both home and office. She was there day and night. All you had to do was buzz up. It didn’t matter what time. Dawn dozed between clients. And even at this hour, there could sometimes be a wait—people would sit on the floor of the hallway by the door. Everyone who went to Dawn knew she was good. But there was no one else there tonight, and Lydia was able to go right in. Dawn was sitting in her easy chair, dressed in a pair of jogging bottoms, a red jumper, slippers, and a dressing gown. Lydia carefully made her way over, her heels catching in the thick salmon-colored carpet.

“Hello, my love,” Dawn said, setting down her magazine. “Come to see Dawn? Problems? I see all kinds of problems. Your aura is very dark, not like normal.”

Lydia took a seat at the small card table Dawn used for business. Dawn got up from her easy chair and took a seat on the folding chair on the opposite side.

“I think my boyfriend is cheating,” Lydia said tearfully. “What do I do?”

“Cheating? Well, we’ll ask the cards, love. They never lie. We’ll ask the cards and see what they say.”

Dawn reached over and took a small blue velvet drawstring sack from the windowsill and pulled it open, exposing the tarot deck. She held the deck for a moment in both hands and closed her eyes. This part always calmed Lydia—you could almost feel Dawn reaching out, pulling energy closer. Dawn opened her eyes very slowly and, without another word, began laying the
initial spread. When the spread was complete, she leaned back and examined it like a surgeon evaluating a complex injury.

“All right, all right. Let us see. I’m looking back now, here’s your past. And right away, I’m seeing trouble with love. It’s right there.”

She pointed at the cards, and Lydia nodded.

“Present is the same. But the past…you’re an honest person. That’s what these cards are saying to me. You always try to tell the truth.”

“That’s true,” Lydia said, nodding.

“But not everyone does. Because honest people, sometimes they are taken in by liars. And I’m seeing that here, even in the past. I don’t think there was a lot of truth here.”

Lydia started crying again.

“So he
is
cheating,” she said.

“The cards say someone has not been telling you the truth for a long time.”

“Do they say who he’s cheating
with
?”

“Cards don’t talk like that, my love. Cards speak bigger truths.”

Dawn rocked to the side to adjust her dressing gown and continued.

“All right, my love. The cards are going to tell us what to do. The cards don’t lie. Let’s look and see what the future holds, yeah? Let’s see.”

Dawn laid down the remainder of the spread, topping it off with one final card. She placed the Tower down on the table and rocked back in her chair a bit.

“The cards are clear today,” she said, her voice grim. “Tower always mean big change is coming. Look.”

She pointed at the image of a tall stone tower being struck by lightning, causing it to explode and crumble.

“Always,” she said. “Look at the people falling. Everything falls apart with the tower. Everything has to change.”

“So, I have to…break up?”

“Something going to happen, love, something big. And I see lies. Someone was lying, and now everything going to change.”

“So you’re saying I should break up with him?”

“The cards say what they say. Somebody lying. Something is about to happen, something big.”

Lydia paid Dawn her twenty pounds and thanked her profusely. Everything was always clearer after she talked to Dawn. She took the phone from her pocket and walked down the street, her steps firm and full of purpose. Paul was going to answer some questions. Paul was going to feel her wrath right now. He didn’t pick up the first time she called, so she paused when she was almost at the corner and dialed again. And again. It took four tries before he answered.

“You cheating bastard,” she began. “I know…. Yes, I know. I heard the message…. What do you mean, what message? Her voice mail. Yes, I listened to your voice mail…. Well, if you didn’t do anything, then what’s the problem with me listening, yeah?”

“No! No!”

Someone was screaming—it sounded like Dawn. Lydia spun around just in time to see Dawn leaning out of her window much, much too far. And then in the next, unreal moment, she tumbled from the open window, headfirst, toward the pavement.

THE
FALLING
WOMAN

In a motion of night they massed nearer my post.

I hummed a short blues. When the stars went out

I studied my weapons system.

—John Berryman,
Dream Song 50,
“In a Motion of Night”

20

A
CTUALLY, I HAD RUN AWAY ONCE BEFORE.

I must have been nine or so, and my parents wouldn’t take me to some event at the mall or something, and I got mad. I ran out of the house and went to Kroger. Our family friend Miss Gina, the one my uncle Bick has been “courting” for the last nineteen years or so, is the manager. I had this idea that she might let me live in the office or something. She let me sit in there and gave me some juice and carrot sticks. After about two hours, I got bored and went home. My parents must have known—Miss Gina probably called them the minute I showed up. She walked me home, and I went inside, right up to my room. I kept expecting my parents to come to the door and start yelling, but they never said one word to me about it.

My parents are clever like that. They knew I would do a better job of berating myself for being an idiot than they ever could and that waiting for the punishment was much worse
than the actual punishment. The
tick tick tick
is much worse than the
boom
.