Audition (North Security 4)

??Your body is nothing special. You can turn in your music box all you want, but you’ll never be anything more than the sister of a criminal. A poor little wretch, clawing for scraps. That’s you, Bethany. That will always be you. And there’s not a fucking thing you can do about it.”

I can’t believe I’m still drawing air into my lungs. I can’t believe the universe hasn’t struck me down. I can’t believe I’m still standing.

Bethany swallows hard. The moon shines brighter than a floodlight, so I get a front-row seat to every moment of the pain I’m causing her. Her fists shake against her belly. For a terrible moment I think she might really have a knife sprouting from her skin. I would believe it if my barbed words had become barbed metal.

It’s fucking unbearable. This is it. This is the thing that breaks me. That shatters my spine and leaves me broken at her feet. I’ve survived all this time only to tear myself apart in the name of some fucked-up need to remain invulnerable.

Bethany straightens up.

It’s slow and painful. It’s all I can do not to reach out to her.

Even in her agony, she can’t shed her inherent grace. When she’s at her full height, she looks up at me. It doesn’t matter that I’m bigger and stronger and mean to the core. The look she levels me with is beyond all of that. It’s the look of a queen passing final judgment on behalf of her realm. The wind goes silent around us. The babble of the creek in its low bed ceases. Everything on the earth bows before her.

Everything except me.

She doesn’t seem to notice that I’m the heretic. I’m as much under her command as the clouds above us and the grass below. So it feels worse than exile when she pronounces my sentence.

One word, and one word only. She delivers it looking deeply into my eyes. Bethany lets her silvery tears run free down her cheeks, but her jaw doesn’t shake, and her voice is clear. The penalty for what I’ve done is nonnegotiable. There is no room for interpretation. No going back.

“Leave.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The dancing plague of 1518 was a case of dancing mania that occurred in modern day France. Around four hundred people, mostly female, danced for days without rest, some of whom died from heart attack, stroke and exhaustion. Modern theories for the mania include food poisoning or stress-induced psychosis.

Bethany, five years ago

The swing creaks underneath me while I sway back and forth in the dark. The rusty chains dig into my palms. This thing is a death trap. I could get tetanus or something. But it probably doesn’t matter, because I already feel dead.

Dead for days. Dead for the rest of my life. Dead, dead, dead.

Or at least empty, which is as good as dead. Time doesn’t care. It’s hurtling forward without any regard for the fact that my world spun off its axis.

Josh left days ago. A lifetime ago.

So did my brother.

They were here, and then they were gone.

The family liaison at the army base won’t tell me a goddamn thing. They confirm that Caleb is still on leave, like it’s some kind of script. How can they lie like that? That’s what I want to know. How can they take my calls and feed me some line about record keeping and checkpoints when they have to know?

Overgrown weeds tickle the tops of my feet. I used to be afraid of weeds like this growing up. I thought something might be lurking in there that would reach up and grab me. Now I know better than to waste my emotions on weeds. The real terrors in the world are up here in broad daylight, bringing you beignets. I take a deep breath of the night air. I’m going to have to head in soon, though being in the house makes me feel like a bird trapped in a cage. I have to be more careful, now that Caleb’s gone. Mamere is more sensitive to when I’m gone. I don’t want her to worry.

Well, maybe she doesn’t have to worry now.

The worst thing has already come through our yard with a fistful of pebbles to throw at my window. It’s turned in my brother to the US Army and sent him packing down the road to his death. I know Josh did his duty. That’s the one thing I have no doubt about. He did the right thing, even if it killed me. No matter how hard I try, I can’t scrub his face that night from my mind. Or his words.

“I tried,” I whisper down into the weeds.

Lightning bugs wheel lazily through the grass, tracing a haphazard path to the oak tree. They disappear behind the Spanish moss and reappear moments later. In and out of sight. Sooner or later they’ll be gone for good.

Like everything else in my life.

Everything is in ruins. I’m Pompeii. Another place we learned about in history class. They couldn’t save themselves, either. A layer of ash that suffocated them.

“Bethany.”

I must have imagined the low voice behind me.