Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

GRETA

A t the crack of dawn, Imogen’s and my first stop was for breakfast. The second stop landed us on the reaper’s doorstep.

No answer. Bernadette was either a super-stealthy hider, or she wasn’t home.

Either way, I had way too much agitation pulsing through my veins to sit around and wait, so I dragged Imogen back across town to follow up on a loose end.

The last thing I wanted to do was sit with my thoughts. Focusing on Levi and my regrets about our kiss would be a mistake. I wasn’t even the one who’d kissed him. I was the clone. The unnamed emotion churning in my gut—that was best left ignored.

“Ooh, Greta, Brock just sent the background check stuff on Guy Jones.” Imogen waved her muffin in one hand, her phone at me with the other.

“Let me see.” I snatched the phone and flipped through the documents.

Reports on animal neglect—already knew about that.

Noise complaint—inconsequential.

Disorderly conduct charge. This was apparently due to crying and kicking over an ice cream cart when they didn’t have his preferred flavor—unsurprising.

“There’s nothing here,” I said.

“It’s so many pages. That’s not nothing.”

“Nothing helpful.”

“You’re in a mood.” Imogen nibbled a bird-sized bite off the top of her muffin, chewed, and swallowed.

I was tempted to slap the muffin right out of her hand.

Yes, it seemed I was in a mood.

I shoved her phone back at her, which she happily accepted.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Okay.” Her tone made clear she did not believe me. “What are the chances this whole murder thing has something to do with Halloween?”

“Why would you think that?”

“It’s just that yesterday was Halloween,” Imogen said. “It’s spooky season. There are all these monster and slasher films in theaters for all of October.”

“It’s November now.” I found myself picking at the sleeve of my favorite sweater, and stopped.

“But it wasn’t November when all of this started, right? It just seems like too big of a coincidence. Maybe.”

“People murder each other every day of the year.”

“That’s true.” She took another nibble of her muffin. “What do you think the deal is with Halloween though? And scary movies for that matter?”

“People like to pretend. They like to be scared while still knowing they’re completely safe.”

“I don’t like to be scared. Not ever.”

“I know.”

“When you’re scared you get a whole extra you. If that happened to me, maybe I’d like being scared, too.” She squinched up her face. “No, still probably not.”

“I’m not her.” And I never said I liked to feel fear. People made assumptions about me based on my black clothes, but I wore them because I liked them. I liked how people reacted to them, assuming I was unfriendly. They left me alone.

Imogen stared at me, her eyes extra wide. “You seem to be as Marnie-y as Mar does to me.”

Everything that had happened to Mar felt like my life. I remembered it all happening, to me.

But I was new, a freshly spawned copy.

“I don’t think there is an original when you split. I mean the first time you guys split, there was Keys Marnie and Wallet Marnie,” Imogen said. “They both ended up with stuff from the pockets of the original Marnie.”

That was true. But this time when we split, Mar was the one in Levi’s arms, not me. It may have felt like I’d lived through Nie’s kidnapping, through Levi’s gentle care as he’d bandaged my foot, through our first kiss.

But Mar and I were separate people now. The kiss, and whatever could be with Levi—those things belonged to Mar, not me.

I stewed on that thought and kept it to myself until we reached our destination, the general store.

Inside, Imogen beelined straight for the aisle of repaired ancient technology. Did anyone actually want to buy a VCR anymore? I headed for the counter.

No one was standing by the register, but two male voices carried back and forth from somewhere beyond. I leaned over to get a better look through the doorway and spotted a set of stairs to the building’s second story.

“Be right there,” one of the voices called.

Footsteps carried down the steps and out into the shop. Imogen hummed behind me, in the shop’s small aisles.

“Greta, look.” Imogen stepped up beside me.

She held a black t-shirt over her chest. A white graphic filled the center, with a large bird and the words: Quoth the Raven: Nowhere’s better than Nevermore.

“Isn’t it delightful?” Imogen beamed at me.

It was horrid.

“I’m buying one for each of us,” she said.

“Thank you, but I’m good.”

“Commemorative souvenirs. We need them. I know the circumstances that led to our trip are less than stellar, but it’s special to share an adventure together.”

How was I supposed to shut her down after she said something like that?

“Sorry for the wait, how can I….” As Caspian entered the room, he spotted me. His words died on his tentacle lips.

I slammed my palms on the counter and leaned forward. “Hello, Caspian. You’ve been less than forthcoming. That changes now.”

Imogen waved. “Um, excuse me, before we get into what I’m sure will be a perfectly lovely conversation, can I pay for my finds now, please? Just in case.”

In case I went feral.

“Uhh.” Caspian glanced at her before turning his concerned stare back at me.

Imogen set two t-shirts on the counter, along with a bag of candy corn.

“Don’t say anything about it, Greta,” she said when she spotted me eyeing her choice in candy. “I don’t care if it makes me a pervert. Those corn syrup and food dye filled nuggets are a Halloween tradition.”

“It’s not Halloween anymore,” I said.

“Yeah, but—” She started.

“So you deserve a discount,” I said.

“Oh.” Imogen beamed. “I always appreciate a good deal.”

“Sure, right,” Caspian said, clearly flustered.

For someone of such an immense stature, he was clearly nervous about the two of us, who happened to be tiny by comparison. It seemed Caspian wasn’t dumb.

Caspian bagged up Imogen’s purchases and accepted her money, all the while watching me.

With that distraction over with, I jumped back into my interrogation.

“Why didn’t you tell me you’d seen me in Nevermore before, Caspian?” I asked.

“Shouldn’t you know where you’ve been, Marnie?” He took a step backward.

“I know my clone was here. And I know you’re hiding the truth from me,” I said.

“I don’t…people don’t ask questions in Nevermore. No one likes the answers they find here.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Imogen asked. “Sounds ominous.”

Yes, it did.

“What happened to the other me?” I asked. “You know something.”

“I don’t.” Caspian lifted his hands in defense and took another step back. “I swear.”

“Hey, Cas, I need help opening this peanut butter. The jar is stuck like you left your tentacle juice in the grooves again.”

A bubble of laughter burst from Imogen’s lips. With the words tentacle juice lingering in the air, I couldn’t blame her.

“Cas?” A man approached Caspian from behind.

The man had buzzed salt-and-pepper hair, round bare cheeks, and dice-sized and shaped eyebrows. Recognition smacked the air right out of my chest.

This man was Guy Jones.

“Run,” Caspian said.

Guy’s lips curled into an O. He squeezed the plastic peanut butter jar so hard the lid popped off. Then he twisted on his heel, abandoning the jar all together. The jar clattered to the floor and cracked.

Guy lunged downward, putting his hands on the floor.

He raced back up the stairs on all fours.

It reminded me of those night vision cryptid videos where one idiot records their other idiot friend loping around like an animal in the dark to pretend they’ve captured evidence of a rare monster. Why anyone would choose to behave this way while fleeing, I had no idea.

Caspian reached for the shotgun stashed along the back wall. I shoved him the other direction and climbed over the counter.

“Ahh,” Imogen squealed, as she climbed after me.

“Guard him,” I told her and gestured toward Caspian as I raced toward the stairs.

Imogen said, “Look, octopus guy, you have to be good or you won’t like what I have to do to you.”

Her words faded as I tore up the stairs, adrenaline surging through my veins. I reached the top of the stairs, my eyes locking onto the back of the fleeing suspect. Guy weaved through piles of junk. He knocked over a cardboard box and sent a cascade of papers under my feet.

My boot slipped, but I caught my footing just as Guy reached the room at the end of the hall. I ran faster, as fast as my legs would carry me.

He slammed the door in my face with an ear-pounding bang.

My shoulder crunched against the paneled wood, leaving a dent in both the door, and if the pain was any indication, my bones.

I thrust my fist onto the door. “Open up.”

A high-pitched squeal came in response.

Could I knock this door down? I didn’t love my chances of plowing through it since I’d already hit it at full speed with my shoulder and the door looked more or less fine. I’d have to kick it down.

I prepared to do just that when it occurred to me that I should at least try the handle first.

With a quick turn of the knob, the door creaked open.

Small forms wriggled all over what I assumed was meant to be the living room of an apartment, based on the fur-covered sofa at one end.

More boxes were stacked up along the walls and jutted out over the space. Crawling all over those boxes were cats. More than I’d ever seen in one place. If anyone needed to have his adoption application denied, it was Guy.

At least all of the animals appeared healthy at a glance.

Newspaper and nuggets of cat chow lay scattered all over the floor.

A particularly friendly feline rubbed itself against my ankle.

“Come out here right now,” I demanded.

“What do you want from me?” a meek voice called back.

I followed the sound around a corner and found Guy holding a fly swatter like a baseball bat.

Exhilaration left my fingers twitching. I was getting my answers, now.

“If you think that’s going to squish me, you’ve vastly overestimated the strength of your weapon,” I said.

“Who are you?”

That one caught me by surprise.

“You want to pretend you have no idea who I am?” I asked. “You think I’m stupid?”

“No. I really don’t know.”

I crossed the floor between us and grabbed him by the collar. He swatted me in the arm.

I barked a laugh.

His expression transformed from fear to a veil of faux devastation.

And he dropped.

It wasn’t a graceful movement to kneel or sit on the floor. No, Guy let his legs drop out from under him, flopped down onto the newspaper like a piano from the roof of a three-story building.

He thrashed, kicking his legs and pounding his fists on the ground, while wailing at an ear-piercing volume.

My adrenaline-fueled high crashed into sheer bewilderment. What was wrong with him? The absurdity of his behavior left me speechless.

Caspian stepped up beside me, with Imogen asleep in his arms.

“You had to bodysnatch him,” I said.

“Yeah,” Imogen said through Caspian’s mouth, in Caspian’s voice. “He’s too big to wrestle and guns make me itchy.”

That was fair.

We both stared at Guy as he thrashed and screamed.

“You seem to have an interesting situation of your own happening here,” Imogen-controlled Caspian said.

“I barely touched him,” I said. “I didn’t even get to ask him anything yet. That’s fine, I guess, since you can take all the answers out of both of them. It’s less satisfying than getting them myself though, you know?”

“Makes sense.” Imogen-controlled Caspian gently set Imogen down. “This place is gross.”

“Yes, it is.”

Guy continued his shrieking tantrum.

“I should be getting the whole run-down right now from inside this purple guy’s head, but it’s like no one I’ve ever been inside before.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s quiet. Like he doesn’t think anything at all.”

Silence? A stark contrast to the awful noise filling the apartment.

“Can you try him?” I pointed to Guy.

It was difficult to tell with the tentacles blocking Caspian’s mouth, but I thought she made him frown. Imogen-controlled Caspian sighed. “I’ll do it.”

Caspian dropped down to the floor almost as quickly as Guy had, only he didn’t flop. He curled into a ball and covered his head.

Imogen blinked on the floor, before closing her eyes again.

And the screaming stopped.

Guy lay still, limbs spread like a starfish, nose flattened against the floor.

“Guy Jones doesn’t remember you,” Imogen-controlled Guy said. “He thinks he’s never seen you before. He’s not Nie’s killer.”

Well, that was disappointing.

“He doesn’t know anything helpful?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“So we came in here and attacked these guys and they didn’t even know anything?” I asked, feeling way less awesome about myself.

“Pretty much. We should probably leave.”

I pointed at Caspian, still curled up on the floor. “You saw Nie. If you’d have told me, I wouldn’t have come back here.”

“Nothing,” he said, shaking. “Nothing.”

Clearly, intimidation wasn’t going to work. Bodysnatching wasn’t going to work. If he did know something, which I was seriously starting to doubt, he wasn’t going to give it up.

“This sucks,” I told Imogen-controlled Guy.

“Yeah. I’m going to go back to my body now.”

Guy’s head flopped to the side, his eyes closed, his mouth open. A snore came out of him.

Imogen stirred, grabbed her head, and moaned.

“That was too much,” she said.

Caspian scrambled over to his friend or partner or whatever they were to each other. He looked at us like we were monsters.

“Give me your phone,” I told Imogen.

She handed it over. I downloaded the black light app, then shined it on Caspian and Guy. Neither of them had the Anchorbriar Chains curse.

We really needed to go.

I helped Imogen to her feet, gave her phone back, and steadied her as we headed down the stairs.

“Sorry,” I called back up after we reached the bottom.

I’d thought diving into the mystery would distract me and make me feel better. I guessed it had worked for a little while. But I wasn’t feeling any of that positivity anymore.

Imogen’s phone started ringing in her pocket, so she pulled it out and answered.

She mouthed to me it’s Rose. Then she nodded a couple of times. “Uh-huh, uh-huh. Aww fiddlesticks, that’s too bad. Thanks for calling. You, too. Toodles.”

That didn’t sound like our day was about to get any better.

Imogen stuck her phone back into her pocket and swayed on her feet as she snatched her bag from the counter. “Rose says there aren’t any trains coming to or out of Nevermore at all.”

“How is that possible?”

“The Nevermore station is closed down. I don’t know.”

“Did she find anything else in the security footage?”

“Nope.” Imogen frowned.

Another dead end. I sighed.

“Are we going back to Birdie’s next?” Imogen asked.

“Yes.”

“I don’t think I can make it. You might have to leave me behind.”

I sighed again. “I’m useless without you, Imogen. Leaving you behind is not an option.”

“Aww, you’re not useless. But that is super sweet.”

I frowned at her.

“Okay, carry me,” she said.

“No.”

“It’s the only way. I’m so tired, Greta. Bodysnatching takes all the energy out of me. It used to make me fall asleep for days. And even though that’s not going to happen now, if you want me to be able to control Birdie when we get there, I’m going to need to conserve what little strength I have left.”

Her expression was entirely earnest.

I had no choice.

“Fine.”

She climbed onto my back, and we headed back the way we’d come.

Halfway down the first road, I heard crinkling behind my ear.

I asked her, “What are you doing?”

“Restoring some energy. I’m happy to share.” She held a piece of candy corn over my shoulder so I could see.

“I don’t?—”

She shoved it into my mouth.

I sighed, chewed, and let the gross chalky candy make its way down my throat. “Bleh.”

Imogen chuckled. “We’ll be energized perverts together. Go Team Reaper.”