Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

MAR

O n the way to the address written on the passenger list, there was no bounce in Imogen’s step. She looked increasingly agitated the closer we got to the reaper’s house. I wasn’t sure if that agitation was because Imogen hated the possibility that the friendship speech she’d delivered to the reaper hadn’t landed the way she’d hoped, or if she was afraid the reaper would once again take the form of a sheep. Probably both.

The house looked just like all the rest—stone, dark, Victorian. We went up to the door. Imogen steeled herself then knocked.

“Just a moment,” a light voice said from somewhere inside the house.

A moment later the door opened.

Bernadette was a living ice sculpture. Her skin was unnaturally pale and as inhumanly smooth as her expression. Her hair looked so much like snow that if I reached a finger out and touched it, it might melt. Her eyes made up for the lack of color elsewhere, like two black holes, threatening to suck all life out of the world.

The only thing human about the reaper was her clothes—gray loungewear, completely at odds with everything else about her.

As soon as recognition flashed in her dark eyes, her expression soured, as did her tone. “Ugh. It’s you.”

She closed the door all but a sliver.

“Hi,” Imogen said, with a tight smile.

“What do you want?” Bernadette asked through the crack.

“Where is she?” I asked. Then louder, I yelled, “Nie!”

“Rude,” Bernadette said.

I didn’t care. I listened for any sound or hint that Nie was on the other side of this door.

Imogen flattened her lips into a line. “We were hoping you could tell us if you’ve seen?—”

I couldn’t wait for politeness, not with Nie’s life on the line. Through the crack in the door, I called, “Nie, are you in there?”

Bernadette slammed the door in my face.

“Have you seen someone who looks just like my friend Marnie? She’s the one beside me who keeps yelling,” Imogen called through the closed door.

No answer followed.

“You should bodysnatch her,” I said. “Make her let us in. It’s the quickest path to the truth.” The quickest path to finding Nie, before something worse happened to her.

“I can’t,” Imogen said.

I tried not to be angry, tried to remain nice and calm and not even a touch sarcastic.

“I know you want to be friends with everyone,” I said. “But some people are not friendship material.”

“No.” Imogen licked her lips. “I mean, I can’t bodysnatch someone when I can’t see them.”

Oh. There was no glass on the door to see through, so I looked around and spotted a window behind a flowerbed.

I pulled Imogen through the dirt. “Peek through the curtains.”

Imogen made a pathetic attempt at it, only half-looking at the window. Most of her attention remained on me. She never intended to bodysnatch the reaper at all.

“Try harder,” I said.

“I’m trying. I swear I’m being a huge creeper peeper right now.”

I took a breath and a look around. There was a small driveway, which meant there might be a garage.

“You keep creeping,” I told Imogen. “I’m going to check around back.”

“Don’t die.”

“You, either.”

I left Imogen wiggling around in the flowerbed and headed around the side of the house. Sure enough, at the end of the driveway was a small garage. I tried it, but the door wouldn’t lift.

Having an outbuilding wasn’t suspicious, but it was strange for there to be a driveway in a town where I had yet to see a single car. If the only way on or off of Nevermore was by train, the entire island was probably vehicle-free.

So again, why a driveway and why a garage?

Hanging from the side of the small outbuilding was a rope and a few gardening tools. All of it felt out of place given how little of a yard there was to garden.

I caught a glimpse of movement on the ground between the building and the fence. Curious, I approached the crack and peered around the corner.

A fuzzy orange backside and long, flicking tail greeted me before the animal disappeared into the next yard over.

It seemed Bernadette, or one of her neighbors, owned a cat.

“There she—oh wait,” Imogen said from the other side of the house. “Fiddlesticks.”

I hurried back to the front of the building.

When she spotted me, Imogen turned to me and slumped her shoulders. “Birdie popped away.”

Imogen had seen the reaper, but hadn’t bodysnatched her. What if this was our only chance?

I would not be mad about this. I would remain calm and kind.

If we broke in and the reaper wasn’t our enemy already, she sure would be then. No deal between the reaper and Imogen would protect us if we destroyed the reaper’s property.

“Nie could be in there,” I said.

“I don’t think so,” Imogen said. “Even if Birdie was our bad guy, which I still don't think she is, I don’t think she’d have left Nie in there to tell us all about it. She’s not stupid.”

I looked at my friend, at the certainty on her face, and I trusted her. It was hard to trust anyone, but I knew I wasn’t thinking as rationally as I could be. I had to put my trust in Imogen.

We needed a plan. Imogen suggested we go to the Mournmore and see if we could reach Wendy and Rose to “chat things out.” Since I had no better ideas, we headed back toward the hotel.

Just before we turned the final corner, I spotted something dark on the ground in the alley beside the hotel. I stopped and looked.

Behind a blue grocery bag, along the gravel, were long, black strands of hair.

Fear flooded my veins.

“What is it?” Imogen asked. “Mar?”

I felt the change in her as she saw it, tension and fear striking like a tidal wave.

I left Imogen standing there and ran. I shoved the bag to the side and found Nie’s head, unmoving. Something was off about it, like her closed eyes were slightly off, one a little higher than the other. I fought the urge to reach out.

“Nie?” I said, my voice barely a whisper.

A crack formed in the center of her face. The split widened. It felt like time slowed as the left and right halves toppled in opposite directions.

Pieces that were never meant to be seen were exposed.

She fell into two pieces.

So did my heart.

There was no reviving her again.

I’d lost. Nie was dead dead.