Finale (Hush, Hush 4)

“Maybe they don’t want to be disturbed,” he spoke into my ear, his voice deep and gravelly. He pushed my dress higher up my leg, stroking his thumb over my bare thigh. The warmth of his caress overrode my bad conscience. Sensation shivered through me. I shut my eyes again, this time involuntarily. All the knots loosened. My breath came a little faster. He knew just how to touch me.

Patch lifted me onto the sink’s ledge, his hands splayed on my hips. I got warm and woozy inside, and when he put his mouth on mine, I could have sworn sparks went off. His touch seared me with passion. The fluttery, intoxicating liquid heat of being near him never grew old, no matter how many times we touched, flirted, kissed. If anything, that electric jolt intensified. I wanted Patch, and I didn’t trust myself when I did.

I don’t know how long the bathroom door stood open before I noticed. I jerked away from Patch, mouth gaping. My mom stood in the shadowy entrance, muttering about how the lock had never worked properly, and she’d been meaning to fix it for ages, when her eyes must have adjusted to the dimness, because she stopped mid-apology.

Her mouth snapped shut. Her face blanched . . . then flushed a deep, sizzling red. I’d never seen her look so enraged. “Out!” She flung her finger away. “Out of my house this instant, and don’t think of coming back, or touching my daughter again!” she hissed at Patch, livid.

I jumped off the sink. “Mom—”

She turned on me. “Not a word from you!” she sputtered. “You said you broke up with him. You said it—this thing—between you and him—it was over. You lied to me!”

“I can explain,” I started, but she’d swivelesquand him&md back to Patch.

“Is this what you do? Seduce young girls in their own homes, with their own mothers standing feet away? You should be ashamed of yourself!”

Patch laced his hand in mine, gripping it tightly. “Quite the opposite, Blythe. Your daughter means everything to me. Completely and wholly. I love her—it’s as simple as that. ” He spoke with calm assurance, but his jaw was as rigid as if cut from stone.

“You destroyed her life! From the moment she met you, everything fell apart. You can deny it all you want, but I know you were involved in her kidnapping. Get out of my house,” she snarled.

I clung to Patch’s hand fiercely, murmuring, I’m sorry, so sorry, over and over in mind-speak. I’d spent the summer locked away against my will in a remote cabin. Hank Millar was the mastermind behind my imprisonment, but my mom didn’t know that. Her mind had erected a wall around his memory, trapping in everything good and casting out the rest. I blamed Hank, and I blamed devilcraft. She’d worked it out in her mind that Patch had been responsible for my kidnapping, and it was as much a truth to her as the sun rising each morning.

“I should get going,” Patch told me, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze. I’ll call you later, he added privately to my thoughts.

“I should think so!” my mom snapped, her shoulders rising from the exertion of breathing heavily.

She stepped aside, allowing Patch to exit, but closed off the doorway before I could escape.

“You’re grounded,” she said in a voice like iron. “Enjoy the party while it lasts, because it’s going to be your last social event for a long, long time. ”

“Are you even interested in hearing me out?” I shot back, enraged by the way she’d treated Patch.

“I need time to cool down. It’s in your best interest to give me some space. I might be in the mood to talk tomorrow, but that’s the last thing I’m interested in right now. You lied to me. You went behind my back. Worse, I had to find you stripping off your clothes with him in our bathroom. Our bathroom! He wants one thing from you, Nora, and he’ll take it wherever he can get it. There’s nothing special about losing your virginity over a toilet. ”

“I wasn’t—we weren’t—my virginity?” I shook my head and made a disgusted gesture. “Forget it. You’re right—you don’t want to listen. You never have. Not when it comes to Patch. ”

“Everything okay here?”

My mom and I turned to find Marcie standing just outside the door. She held an empty cauldron in her arms and hitched her shoulders apologetically. “Sorry to interrupt, but we’ve run out of monster eyeballs, aka peeled grapes. ”

My mom shoved some hair off her face, trying to collect herself. “Nora and I were just finishing up. I can make a quick run to the store for grapes. Anything else we’re low on?”

“Nacho cheese dip,” Marcie said in this timid mouse voice, as if she hated imposing on my mom’s kindness. “But it’s ut youreally no big deal. I mean, it’s only nacho dip. There will be nothing to go with the chips, of course, and it is my favorite, but really and truly—no big deal. ” The tiniest sigh escaped her.

“Fine. Grapes and nacho dip. Anything else?” my mom asked.

Marcie hugged the cauldron and beamed. “Nope. That’s it. ”

My mom fished her keys out of her pocket and walked off, her every movement harsh and stiff. Marcie, however, stayed put.

“You could always mind-trick her, you know. Make her think Patch was never here. ”

I turned cool eyes on Marcie. “How much did you hear?”

“Enough to know you’re in deep crapola. ”

“I’m not going to mind-trick my own mom. ”

“If you want, I could talk to her. ”

I breathed a laugh. “You? My mom doesn’t care what you think, Marcie. She took you in under some misguided sense of hospitality. And probably to prove something to your mom. The only reason you’re living under this roof is so my mom can throw it in your mom’s face: She was the better lover, and now she’s the better mother. ” It was a horrible thing to say. It had sounded better in my head, but Marcie didn’t give me time to amend my statement.

“You’re trying to make me feel bad, but it won’t work. You’re not going to ruin my party. ” But I thought I saw her lip wobble. With an intake of air, she seemed to collect herself.

Suddenly, as if nothing had happened, she said in a bizarrely cheerful voice, “I think it’s time to play Bob-for-a-Date. ”

“Bob-for-a-what?”

“It’s like bobbing for apples, except every apple has a name of someone from the party attached. Whoever you draw is your next blind date. We play it every year at my Halloween party. ”

I frowned. We hadn’t gone over this game idea beforehand. “Sounds tacky. ”

“It’s a blind date, Nora. And since you’re grounded for eternity, what have you got to lose?” She pushed me into the kitchen, toward the giant tub of water with red and green apples floating in it. “Hey, everyone, listen up!” Marcie called over the music. “Time to play Bob-for-a-Date. Nora Grey goes first. ”

Applause broke out across the kitchen, along with catcalls and a few shouts and whistles of encouragement. I stood there, mouth moving but emitting no words, cursing Marcie fluently in my mind.

“I don’t think I’m the best person for this,” I yelled at her over the noise. “Can I pass?”

“Not a chance. ” She gave me what looked like a playful shove, but it was forceful enough to send me stumbling to my knees in front of the tub of apples.

I shot her a look of pure indignation. I’ll make you pay for this, I told her.

“Pull your hair back. Nobody wants nasty stray hairs floating in the watingthis,

In agreement, the crowd roared a collective “Booo. ”

“Red apples are matched to boys’ names,” Marcie added. “Green to girls’. ”

Fine! Whatever! Just get this over with, I told myself. It wasn’t like I had anything to lose: Starting tomorrow, I was grounded. There were no blind dates in my future, game or no.

I dipped my face into the cold water. My nose bumped into one apple after another, but I couldn’t sink my teeth into any of them. I came up for air, and my ears rang with boos and jeering hisses.

“Give me a break!” I said. “I haven’t done this since

I was five. That should say a lot about this game!” I added.

“Nora hasn’t had a blind date since she was five,” Marcie said, misinterpreting my meaning and adding her own commentary.

“You are so next up,” I told Marcie, glaring at her from my knees.

“If there is a next. Looks to me like you might be sucking face with apples all night,” she returned sweetly, and the crowd howled with amusement.

I plunged my head into the tub, snapping my teeth at apples. Water sloshed over the rim, drenching the front of my red devil costume. I came this close to grabbing an apple with my hand and pressing it into my mouth, but figured Marcie would disqualify the move. I wasn’t in the mood for a do-over. Just as I was about to come up for another breath, my front teeth crunched into a bloodred apple.

I surfaced, shaking water out of my hair to the sounds of cheering and applause. I chucked the apple at Marcie and grabbed a towel, patting my face dry.

“And the lucky guy who gets a blind date with our drowned rat here is . . . ” Marcie pulled a sealed tube from the center of the cored apple. She uncurled the scroll of paper inside the tube, and her nose wrinkled. “Baruch? Just Baruch?” She pronounced it like Bar-ooch. “Am I saying that right?” she asked the audience.

No response. Already people were shuffling away now that the immediate entertainment had ended. I was grateful that Bar-ooch, whoever he was, appeared to be a fake entry. Either that, or he was too mortified to own up to a date with me.

Marcie stared me down, as though expecting me to admit I knew the guy.

“He’s not one of your friends?” I asked her as I scrunched the tips of my hair in the towel.

“No. I thought he was one of yours. ”

I was on the verge of wondering whether this was another one of her bizarre games, when the lights in the house flickered. Once, twice, then they shut off completely. The music faded to eerie silence. There was a moment of stupefied confusion, and then the screaming started. Baffled and jumbled at first, rising to a hair-raising note of terror. The screams preceded the unmistakable thud of bodies being thrown against the living room walls.

“Nora!” Marcie cried. “What’s going on?”

I didn’t have a chance to answer. ce h? JusAn invisible force seemed to smack me back a step, rendering me paralyzed. Cold, crisp energy coiled up my body. The air crackled and flexed with the power of multiple fallen angels. Their sudden appearance in the farmhouse was as tangible as a gust of arctic wind. I didn’t know how many there were, or what they wanted, but I could feel them move deeper into the house, spreading out to fill every room.

“Nora, Nora. Come out and play,” a male voice singsonged. Unfamiliar and eerily falsetto.

I drew two shallow breaths. At least now I knew what they were after.

“I’ll find you my sweet, my pet,” he continued to croon in chilling tones.

He was close, so close. I crawled behind the family room sofa, but someone had beat me to the hiding place.