Thorn Jack (8 page)

Other than Reiko Fata and the young man beside her, Finn had seen very little glamour in Fair Hollow. She suspected that most of the people her age here fell into one of two categories: small-town and somewhat normal; or New York City teens and college students—emancipated and overindulged.

A few silent minutes later, they reached her house. She turned to thank him.

Jack was gone. For a wild moment, she thought she'd been talking to a ghost. Then she heard his voice, echoing back through the trees, “I'll see you tonight, Finn Sullivan, at our little revel.”

She trudged into her house and locked the door. She glimpsed herself in the hall mirror—her hair was flecked with leaves, her face scratched, her clothes twisted. She had a run in one black stocking. She slid from her shoes and tried not to think of the white-skinned girl at the chapel, who had either been crazy or high or a ghost.

Finn wandered down the hall. Her grandmother's house didn't seem familiar now. For one terrible moment, she wondered if she'd been led into a replica of the place that had become her home. The fake raven on the hall table watched her with a moist eye. In the front parlor, the antique rocking horse seemed to move slightly, and from the top of the wardrobe in the corner, the crocodile skull someone had given to her father cast crooked shadows.

Stop it,
she told herself.

When she tapped at her da's office door, then opened it, she found him asleep at his desk, his head on his folded arms. She gathered up one of the Navajo blankets and draped it over his shoulders before moving soundlessly upstairs. It was only seven o'clock. She had one hour before the Fatas' party.

She raided her closet, flinging everything she owned onto the bed. She upended her jewelry box. She had no idea how to dress for a Shakespearean costume party. Reiko Fata and her Fatas were sophisticated in a fashion Finn couldn't define. Reiko, in a way, reminded her of Lily.

Sitting on her bed, Finn thought of the night she'd awakened to find Lily sprawled in the rocking chair beside her bed. Her sister had been wearing a gas mask and a black, fringed flapper dress and Finn had thought she was a spirit. Then Lily had lifted up the mask and grinned.
It was a sort of World War I rave.
Finn had smelled incense and alcohol and frowned at her sister, who had been so adventurous. She had been so jealous.

AS FINN WAS TUGGING ON
a pair of Doc Martens, the doorbell rang. Finn's da answered it, and moments later Sylvie stomped up the stairs.

“I love it.” Sylvie walked around her, her gaze critical.

Finn had chosen a small, red dress embroidered with patterns of green Emory and a pair of red-and-black-striped tights. The Renaissance hoodie of green velvet completed her Shakespearean look.

Sylvie pointed. “Your hair.”

She slinked around the room, then picked up a wreath of fake leaves and red roses. She set it on Finn's hair, smudged her eyeliner, and chose pomegranate lip gloss. When she was done, Finn, glancing in the mirror, saw a fey creature. “This is not me.”

“You're Ariel. From
The Tempest
.”

The doorbell rang again and the sound was followed by her father's amiable voice. A light, loping tread creaked the stairs before Christie appeared in the doorway. Dressed in jeans, buckled boots, and a black Renaissance jacket laced at the sleeves, he looked like a modern Prince Charming.

“Did you play Romeo once?” Finn indicated the jacket.

“This? The thrift shops are full of this stuff. Ready?”

“Hold on.” Sylvie turned in a circle. “We need to find Finn's fairy wings.”

AS CHRISTIE STEERED THE BATTERED
Mustang carefully along a dirt road, Finn glimpsed the Hudson River, dark and ancient, snaking beyond the trees.

“There it is.” Christie nodded at the sinister silhouette of a mansion beyond a screen of oak trees. As he parked on the lawn with the other cars, they heard music. The house's windows were dark, and there was a notice on the door, which made Finn feel uneasy. The path to the stairway was guarded by statues—Greek fauns with slanting eyes and hooved feet, tiny horns peeking from their curls. Behind the silent house, lights were strung in the trees and the raucous noise of a large gathering came from there.

Christie led Sylvie and Finn to the back, where the pillared veranda had been made into a stage and a banquet table was scattered with hot plates warming food and beverages in tubs of ice. A group of girls, glitter swirling from their gossamer wings, passed them. Young men in horns or grotesque masks rambled around the lawn. There were lots of ribbons. A boy wearing a tin crown strode past, and two others were thrusting fake swords at each other. A girl in a rose-red dress was serving punch from a bowl.

Finn looked back at the dark house. “Is
that
where the Fatas live?”

“No one knows who owns SatyrNight. It's been empty forever. Look—caramel apples.” Christie, easily distracted by food, wandered away.

Finn warily regarded the carvings of leafy faces strung up in the trees with the tiny lights. Then the fragrances of fried dough and barbecue drifted over her. She said to Sylvie, “I forgot to eat today.”

Sylvie handed her a tiny skull made of pink sugar. “All Souls' night is only a few weeks away. Eat these and honor the dead.”

Finn looked down at the candy and wondered how death could be treated so lightly.

Christie returned and gave them each a candy apple on a stick.

He plucked at Sylvie's costume. “Why're you wearing raven wings instead of butterfly wings? Shakespeare wrote about fairies, not angels.” In jeans and a black corset, with bracelets on her bare arms, she looked pretty and barbaric. Her dark hair was plaited with loops of ebony beads that draped her brow.

“I'm not an angel. I'm a Juliet of the afterlife. Or maybe Lady Macbeth in hell.”

“You look like a crow harlot.”

“And who're you supposed to be?—Did you just call me a harlot?”

Christie raised a tiny sugar skull. “ ‘
To die: To sleep, no more, and by sleep to say we end the heartache—'
”

“Stop showing off, Hamlet.” Sylvie took a bite from her caramel apple.

A pale-haired boy in tight, striped trousers approached and held out a tray scattered with plastic cups containing a luminous green drink. “Try some fake absinthe?”

Christie and Sylvie each accepted a cup. Finn sipped cautiously. It tasted like licorice and lime and alcohol, and it made her mouth water.

She scanned the costumed creatures around her, looking for Jack as they went past a fountain decorated with candlelit pumpkins. The burned-squash smell of the jack-o'-lanterns made her nose wrinkle. Musicians with pale hair and dark tattoos had taken the veranda stage, and electric guitars and the singer's howling voice soon became deafening.

Finn lost Christie and Sylvie in the crowds when she stopped to watch a magician in a striped black suit and no shirt pulling snakes from his sleeves—she recognized him as one of Jack's friends, Atheno, the man with silver-and-black hair. As he draped what looked like a boa constrictor around his neck and let a pouty girl pet it, he met Finn's gaze and grinned. His eyes reflected light like an animal's.

“Hey.”

She whirled to find an orange-haired boy in jeans and a jacket of checkered black and red standing before her. He wore a jester's cap. His pretty face was painted with red tears. “Don't go near the woods. They're roaming tonight.”

“Excuse me? I know you . . .”

“Everybody knows me. Aren't you going to ask me who's roaming?” The firelight seemed to glow in his topaz eyes, as if his irises were flames themselves. She took a step back as he murmured, “So it's to be you, is it?”

He was definitely on something, and she didn't trust people not in their right minds. “Okay. See you.” She turned to slip away and heard him say, “It's the restless dead that are roaming. Why d'you think none of us are wearing our true faces?”

Finn was distracted from his question when someone called her name. She turned her head to see Nathan Clare from her literature class walking toward her. As he drew closer, he flicked a wary look at the youth in the jester's cap. “Absalom.”

“Nathan.” Absalom bowed and vanished among the revelers.

Finn looked after him. “He's . . . odd.”

“Did he say anything to you? Anything disturbing?”

“Well, no . . . was he supposed to?”

“It's just that he's . . . a dealer.”

“A drug dealer?” Finn wondered how Nathan knew that. He was dressed in black jeans, a jacket with laced sleeves, and Converses. There was a flower in his curls. “You've got a flower in your hair.”

He grimaced, plucked it out. “Are you sure you're okay? You look a little confused.”

“I just got dizzy.”

“You didn't eat any of those sugar skulls, did you?”

She must have looked dismayed, because he said, “Let's get you some coffee.”

“What was in those skulls?” she demanded as they threaded through the crowd. The music was pulsing and extra loud now and she almost had to yell. He bent toward her and said in her ear, “Pixie dust.”

She'd never heard of that drug, but then she didn't know much about drugs. As he guided her, he cupped a hand beneath her elbow in a nice, old-fashioned gesture and continued, “Don't worry . . . the effects will wear off after an hour. Just don't stray.”

She wanted to ask him what life was like with the Fatas when three black figures in demon-crow masks stepped before them.

“Rooks.” Finn halted. “I don't like them.”

The tall one who called himself Trip approached, tilting his head. “Nate, Nate. You got yourself a girl. That's against the rules.”

“It's
that
one,” the girl, Hip Hop, said. The black feathers on her coat rustled.

Trip's masked gaze slid to Finn. “Nate, Reiko's going to be
pissed
.”

Nathan spoke calmly, “I'm just helping her. We're exchanging
words
. Conversation. Like civilized people do.”

“You saying we're not civilized?” Trip took a step forward.

Nathan didn't back down but faced him like a prince confronting a villain. “Go away, Victor.”

Trip actually flinched. “That wasn't nice.”

He spun on one booted heel and stalked off with his siblings.

“I liked that,” Finn said, her eyes following them. “I like what you did there.”

Nathan looked at her. “You really need that coffee.”

“WELL, WHERE
DID YOU LEAVE
her?”

“Christie. Settle down.” Sylvie was beginning to feel a little funny and noticed that the Shakespearean romp was becoming a little wilder. The two bands had been replaced with a mini orchestra, all in glittering white, like fairies from
A Midsummer Night's Dream
. “Listen carefully . . . I think there was something in those candy skulls.”

A sweeping wave of drums and violin music drowned out Christie's “f”-shaped reply, but she was pretty sure he hadn't said “fairy.”

Sylvie pulled on Christie's arm as she said, “We'll find Finn, then get some caffeine—there's an espresso machine near the Emory.”

“I knew we shouldn't have come.” Christie followed her through the gaggles of ribboned and flower-crowned revelers. “I saw Absalom here, so is this really a surprise? At the homecoming dance, he spiked the punch with tequila.”

Sylvie wished he'd stop bitching. She was trying to concentrate. “Christie . . . d'you remember what Finn was wearing?”

He described nearly every detail of Finn's costume. She halted to look at him. She said, “Okay. Now close your eyes and describe what
I'm
wearing.”

He closed his eyes. “You . . . black. You're in black . . . and . . . are you wearing sneakers or . . .”

“Never mind.” She wanted to swat him as she hitched up the strap on her fake wings. “Christie, are you crushing on Finn?”

“What? No!”

Oh, he was. She could see the symptoms. She sighed and glanced at the orchestra as the cello music turned sinister. “Don't you dare, Christie Hart, mess with her. You hear me?”

“I wasn't going to—”

“I think you were. I think you saw something new and got all intrigued and decided to charm her, then do what you usually do—be nice and wander away from her after you've stomped all over her heart with your big, stupid feet.”

“Hell, Sylv.” He looked stunned. “Is it the creepy music or the drugs that are making you say that?”

She was a little surprised at herself, but she'd lost friends because of his Casanova complex. Finn seemed so fragile and lost despite her smiles and clever words, and Sylvie felt worried for her.

“So, if you feel that way”—Christie was moving back from her—“maybe you can enjoy this little soiree on your own.”

“Christie—”

But he'd already vanished into the crowds of punk Romeos and sexy fairies.

Turning away, Sylvie nearly ran into a young man in a velvet half mask and a vintage soldier's greatcoat. Beneath, he wore nothing but a pair of jeans. His bare chest was tattooed with silvery Celtic spirals.

“What a pretty fallen Juliet you make.” His smile sent a shiver through her. An earth-scented wind fluttered the tiny bones in his shoulder-length, satin-white hair.

As she took a step back, he took a step forward, still smiling. Boldly, she said, “And who are you supposed to be?”

He flung out his arms. “Caliban from
The Tempest.
Don't I look the part?”

He looked savage and unnaturally attractive. She felt a little flare of heat and, before she knew what she was doing, she was reaching up to touch his hair.