East

East | Chapter 31

Chapter 31

HOME TAKES A WHILE to get used to again.

We find Parker, unbound and unconscious, slumped over on the back porch. "She must've knocked him out, and just left him here," Ash tells me as Callia and Andrew carry him upstairs to his room. When Parker wakes, the first word he says is "Rosie."

He brings us to a girl, about ten or eleven but small for her age, in a hidden corner of the lab. Her whole body is encased in a glowing, yellow, sarcophagus-like structure. My heart stops when I see it, but then I realize that she's still breathing. Long eyelashes flutter against her cheeks.

"She was saving her for later," Parker says grimly. "In case Maggie was too young, and it didn't work."

Idris had killed Rosie's parents and all of their close relations. We break the seal on the sarcophagus, but no one wants to call child services. Finally, Ian gets in touch with a distant cousin. Callia flies out with her, then back; Rosie's family pays for the whole trip. "I think she'll be okay," Callia says upon her return, skin tanned, looking more relaxed than I've ever seen her.

We have take down most of the photos by the staircase. To everyone's disgust, Idris seems to be in almost every one of them.

Ash and I spend forever repairing the loft study. I try to fix the leaks, kind of, tightening the water molecules to seal the openings; but eventually, he calls a plumber. The man stares at the wreckage in total bewilderment, looks at us warily, and says, "I'm going to have to bring in some help."

Ian's ankle takes a while to heal; he picks out a bright blue cast. "I'm tired of all the—the other damn colours," he says.

To my relief, his fire and Andrew's seem to have returned as soon as Idris died. Simmering red and deep orange. Yet Ian seems more wary of it; I catch him one day with a small flame on his hand, no more than you'd see atop a candlestick, staring at it. He closes his palm as soon as he notices me.

"If it helps, I doubt she ever touched you," I blur out to him. "You're too skilled..."

"Thanks, East," Ian says. "But that's not what I'm worried about." I shut my mouth.

If anything, Andrew is the opposite: each morning, I wake to orange fireworks outside my window. He gets up at six o'clock, stands on the lawn, and works through all of his exercises before coming in for breakfast. One afternoon, Ian grabs him by the shoulder, and says, "Don't overdo it. You don't know how much you have left."

I see Parker's lips pinch. Someone must've told him what Idris said.

It's hard for him to be in the same room as Maggie now. Everyone skirts around her at first, but her eyes remain a clear, pale green, and she doesn't speak as much as she used to. At first, even Callia came to me, asking if Maggie had been aware of what was going on. I looked at Ash; he shrugged helplessly.

"I doubt it," I said at last. "She would've said something—I would've been terrified if I felt my body being taken over..."

"She used to tell me she couldn't remember things," Parker admitted hoarsely. "I didn't take her seriously..."

Sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night, crying. For over a week I see Callia walking around with dark shadows under her eyes. Eventually Ash says that he's talked to his aunt, and that she's happy to watch over Maggie for a while. She comes to Edgecliff, all the way to the house, to pick up the little girl.

Parker has to bring her downstairs. By the door, he gives her a long hug, rubbing her back. Then he begins to talk to her softly.

Ash's aunt recognizes me. She, too, is blond, but her eyes are brown, not grey. "East," she says pleasantly. "How have you been?"