Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

GRETA

M y butt grew numb from sitting on the concrete steps by the back door of Bernadette’s house. Imogen, completely re-energized by her sugar high, remained standing, watching through the window at absolutely nothing happening inside.

We’d been here for hours, left to eat, and come back for what felt like hours more. The sharp guilt from the morning had long ago faded into the usual sense that there was a strong possibility that I was not a good person.

“The fact that this house has a garage bothers me,” I said.

“Because of the zero-cars-on-the-entire-island thing?” Imogen asked.

“Exactly.”

“Maybe it’s for a golf cart. Or a moped.”

I hadn’t considered that possibility.

“Ooh, Greta, I think I see...” Imogen nearly glued her eye to the window. “Oh, never mind. It’s just a cat.”

“A cat or a fox?” I pried myself from the steps, sore all through my hips, and made my way over with her.

“Cat,” she said, pointing to where a round orange tabby sat splayed on the carpet. The cat ran its tongue down its leg at a leisurely pace. “There sure are a lot of them in Nevermore, huh?”

There were.

Imogen popped another piece of candy corn into her mouth. When she offered, I accepted one as well. I chewed through the waxy coating, ignored the overwhelmingly artificial flavor, and let the sugary mash slide down my throat.

“Do you think it’s Bernadette, pretending to be a cat and taunting us?” I asked. “She can appear as anything she wants, right?”

“I don’t think that’s her,” Imogen said.

“Bodysnatch her and find out.”

“It won’t work if it’s really a cat.”

“Do it.”

Imogen gave a half-shrug, then narrowed her eyes in the direction of the cat.

“If it works you’ll collapse.” I moved a little closer to her. “Try to lean into me so you don’t break your face on the window sill.”

“It’s nice to know you’d try to catch me, friend.” She beamed at me. “We’ve come so far. I love it. Imagine this same scenario happening over the summer. You’d be all dead-eyed glaring and telling me how my appearance would improve after I smashed my face.”

Her words hit me like a fist to the throat.

I said, “I wouldn’t have wanted you to disfigure yourself even when I hated you.”

“Aww.” She snapped her arms around me, trapping me in an unwanted hug.

I felt like captured prey. She was surprisingly quick when she wanted to be. I squirmed to free myself from her grasp, and after a moment, she let me go.

But then she froze there, with her arms out, her mostly-eaten bag of candy still held in her left hand, and a wide grin stuck to her face.

“What are you doing now?” I asked.

She didn’t answer. She didn’t even blink.

If she was waiting for me to come back in and initiate another embrace, she’d have to wait an eternity and still be disappointed.

“Stop it. You’re creeping me out.”

Nothing.

My stomach twisted with concern.

“Imogen?”

She still wasn’t moving, not a single twitch. She didn’t even blink. Something was very wrong.

I reached a tentative finger out to poke her cheek. But halfway there, I caught movement from the corner of my eye.

I turned just in time to catch the glimmer of the long blade slicing through the air right at my head. A number of things occurred to me in that moment.

One—even if I was a clone, entitled to nothing, I really did not want to die.

Two—there were way more people intent on murdering me in the past week than in my entire forty-five years prior, including the man who’d entered my personal space without me noticing and was currently swinging what looked like a samurai sword at my skull.

Three—the shock bursting through my veins carried with it something more than fear. This was the fourth time I had felt this exact sensation, but only the first time recognizing it. Beneath the spike in emotion, there were bubbles floating around in my consciousness. Each time prior, I had reached out and grabbed them without realizing.

I could do the same thing now, but this time with purpose.

I was going to die.

But I was also going to live.

In a fraction of a second, inside my head, I latched on to this new realization and grabbed two bubbles.

Two Marnies appeared, one at each of my sides.

The Marnies shot their hands up in unison, as I thrust my leg straight at the apex of my attacker’s legs.

Grunts mingled in the air with a howl of pain.

The grunts belonged to the other two Marnies, whose full strength was required to slow the blade so it landed with a slice of my skin instead of a complete slice through my neck.

The howl belonged to my attacker, whose testicles I’d kicked straight back up into his body.

He had a thin black mustache, a wild mane of chestnut hair, and a set of rat eyes that were set an inch too close together. I didn’t recognize him.

His blade dropped from his hand. And the three of us were on him at once.

It turned out I wasn’t going to die today, which was a pleasant surprise. But I was most definitely going to save my friend.

“What did you do to Imogen?” I said between gritted teeth as the three of us pinned him to the ground.

He wrinkled his nose, adding to the rat-like effect of his beady eyes.

“I’ll never talk. I’m not afraid of you,” he said, as pee soaked through his jeans.

“You’re a pathetic liar,” the Marnie to my left said.

He pressed his lips together.

A warm droplet ran down my cheek. I touched it and found blood.

“Fix Imogen or die,” the Marnie to my right said.

He squeezed his eyes shut, flinching like he awaited death.

All three of us Marnies waited in hopes that our scowls were threatening enough to make him fix our friend. If not, what lengths would we go to?

The morning had left a sour taste in my mouth, but there was no way this guy was innocent.

I glanced to my right, then to my left, finding the other mes sharing the same uncertainty. This guy had tried to kill me, but I wasn’t sure that we had it in us to purposefully cause him serious injury in return.

I punched his kneecap. He hissed. I guessed I was okay with some level of violence at this time.

The Marnie to my left pulled his ear.

The Marnie to my right did the same to his other side.

His eyes flew open and flicked right past me.

“Whoa,” Imogen said.

Relief flooded my veins. She was all right. I guessed all we needed was a little violence.

“There are three of you,” Imogen said.

“And here I thought he was going to make us stab him before he complied,” the Marnie to my left said.

“I didn’t comply,” the guy said before snapping his mouth shut again.

Was he being obstinate simply for the sake of obstinance?

“Who are we torturing and why don’t I remember there being three of you?” Imogen asked.

“He froze you,” I told her.

“And tried to kill Greta,” the Marnie to my right said.

“Ooh exciting. I’m pretty sure Andrew makes potions that can freeze people. Remember that story about how he froze Wendy when they talked at a bar to make sure Rose was cool with Wendy knowing her secrets?”

I did not remember that story. I was fairly certain I hadn’t heard it before.

But, I considered the petrification potions Mar had in her possession, the ones that Rose had given her. I’d assumed petrification meant the potions would turn the target to stone, but perhaps what had just happened to Imogen was their true purpose.

“So this guy is an alchemist,” the Marnie to my right said.

“Maybe. If so, the potion doesn’t last for long,” Imogen said. “He probably tried to freeze me so he could kill you. And he expected to be long gone when the potion wore off. Just a guess. Only one way we can find out for sure!”

Imogen looked to me for permission. There was no need.

“I trust you,” I told her.

“He deserves it,” the Marnie to my right said.

Imogen rubbed her hands together, knelt on the ground, and glared at the bad guy the other two Marnies had pinned.

Imogen crumpled as her consciousness traded hosts. I caught her and eased her body to the ground.

“Okay, let’s take a look around,” Imogen said in the man’s voice, with his mouth.

It was unsettling to watch, and likely would be every time she bodysnatched anyone in the foreseeable future.

The other two Marnies released the Imogen-controlled bad guy.

“His name is Alden,” Imogen-controlled Alden said. “He’s an alchemist. He came to Nevermore for their supernatural Halloween celebration, which apparently is a big thing. And then he got cursed?”

I reached for my phone and messenger bag, but I didn’t have either one. Mar did.

“I’m going to take your phone, Imogen, all right?” one of the other Marnies said.

“Sure,” Imogen-controlled Alden said, with a very Imogen-esque grin. “Have at it.”

The same Marnie pulled Imogen’s phone out of her pocket, used Imogen’s sleeping face to unlock it, shone the purple light of the black light app on the Imogen-possessed bad guy’s face.

Imogen blinked his eyes at the light.

Swirling marks appeared on his skin.

“It’s the same curse,” the Marnie with the phone said.

“Who cursed him?” I asked.

Imogen-controlled Alden said, “He doesn’t know.”

“Why did they do it?” the third Marnie asked.

Imogen-controlled Alden said, “He doesn’t know that either.”

“What does he know?” the third Marnie asked.

“Does he know why he tried to kill me?” I asked.

“He has to,” Imogen-controlled Alden said. “Whoa. He’s getting really feisty in here. Anyone have any rope?”

The third Marnie ran off, likely to retrieve the rope Bernadette kept on the side of her garage. She returned a few moments later, carrying it.

“Tie me up real good,” Imogen-controlled Alden said. “I don’t think I can hold him much longer.”

We tied him up.

“Did he kill Nie?” one of the other Marnies asked.

“No,” Imogen said.

“Does he know anything about a glowing stick?” I asked. “It’s from Nie’s memories and has to do with the curse.”

“Magic wand. Someone knocked out a group of people…and…yellow? All I’m getting now is yellow,” Imogen said. “And I really should have eaten two bags of candy whoa?—”

Imogen returned to her own body.

That was it, that was all we were going to get. But, it wasn’t nothing this time. Yellow was one of the flashes I’d gotten in Nie’s memories, too. Since Alden had the same memory, with the same lack of context, that meant my memory wasn’t broken because of the damage to Nie’s body.

Something else was going on. Maybe something to do with the application of the curse, or why someone was cursing a group of people who kept ending up dead.

Alden was the exception, because he was the killer? Was he actually the cloaked figure from the train and the Mournmore basement?

Alden tried to stand, but we’d hogtied him, so he fell back onto his face.

The Marnie with Imogen’s phone laughed. It was pretty funny.

Alden didn’t try to get up a second time.

He lay completely still.

A little too still.

I began to wonder if it was possible that Imogen had startled him so badly that she’d caused permanent brain damage. Or perhaps he’d inhaled too large a piece of mulch and it had gotten lodged in his skull.

He still wasn’t moving.

I noticed then that something was sticking out of his neck. It was a dart. I reached down and put two fingers to his artery. I couldn’t find the right spot….

My throat tightened. I had the right spot. There was just nothing to find.

I said, “No pulse.”

“None of you did this, right?” Imogen asked, pointing to the dart, as if one of us Marnie’s had kept a secret weapon stashed in our pocket.

Maybe it was something I would do. But I hadn’t. None of us had.

“No,” I said.

There was no blood. The dart was deadly from poison or some magical equivalent, and whoever had lobbed it at Alden could have another. And they were close enough to kill any of us right now, without warning.

“Then we need to find cover, like now.” Imogen started running in her slow-motion way.

The rest of us hurried after her.

We left Bernadette’s house.

We left Alden, the dead alchemist.

We kept moving until we all made it back to the hotel.

By the time we got there, the sun had set. Upstairs, Mar and Levi were in my room waiting for us. Something was different between them, and not more tense because Mar had utterly rejected him the way she should have.

I pushed away those thoughts and the unpleasant feelings that came with them.

“There are four of me,” Mar said, with an air of disbelief.

“How many nicknames can you guys come up with for Margaret?” Imogen asked.

Names implied permanence. When I’d seen the blade coming for my neck, I hadn’t wanted to die. But what I wanted for us now wasn’t death, it was a full life. It was efficiency and complete understanding.

I looked to the two copies I’d created and found a look of certainty in their eyes. We all wanted the same thing.

“There’s no need,” I said. “We’re going to rejoin.”

“How?” Mar asked.

“Bubbles,” one of the other Marnies said.

I nodded.

Mar frowned, not understanding.

“You’ll get it soon enough,” I said. The best thing for all of us was to return to one. After that, we’d be able to be as many or as few as we needed. And we’d seamlessly share the information we’d discovered without worry that someone would leave a key detail out.

I clasped hands with the copies I’d created.

The contact showed me the patch of bubbles, just like before when I’d created them. Only this time it wasn’t only a blank field of translucent blue spheres. They were there, the Marnies who could be.

But I needed to find the Marnies who already were.

I took a breath and squeezed their palms.

Two new bubbles formed, bright and shimmering purple spheres.

These were the two who had saved me, and now as they were meant to, they were a part of me.

Their physical hands faded from mine. A wash of memories flooded through my head, each a slightly different version of what I had experienced myself.

And then it was over.

“What happened to you guys today?” Imogen asked Levi. “We found Guy Jones. That was a bust except for these cool t-shirts I got. Oh, but I only got two. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Mar said, eyeing Imogen’s bag with suspicion.

“We fought an alchemist, too,” Imogen said. “Someone else killed him.”

I reached a hand for Mar. She stared at it but made no move to accept. There was no reason for conversation when we could share everything.

“We didn’t find the fox,” Levi said.

“Mar,” I said, with a shake of my offered hand.

She glanced at Levi, then back at me. Her expression was blank.

I could feel her hesitation as surely as I could feel my own frustration.

Mar was quiet a moment.

Finally, she licked her lips and took my hand. “Yeah, okay. Let’s get this over with.”

Her arm was tense. Her whole demeanor was tense. She didn’t want to do this, but we had to. We were the same person and being one meant all future Marnies could begin on the same page, with all of the experiences and information required to move forward fully informed.

I closed my eyes and found the field of blue bubbles. They weren’t close like they’d been before. They felt distant, and pale, almost like they weren’t there at all.

And even though I held onto Mar’s hand, no new bubble appeared.

I waited for the purple sphere, for Mar to appear with me in the field.

She didn’t.

Something was blocking us from reaching each other. Or maybe she was blocking me.

I opened my eyes and released her hand.

“You don’t want to rejoin,” I said.

She flattened her lips together. She said, “I’m trying.”

I believed her. But she couldn’t do it. She wasn’t sure that this was what she wanted. Something happened today in our differing experiences that changed the way we thought and felt.

“It’s all right,” I told her.

I could create as many of us as we both needed. And when she was ready, she’d rejoin the fold.

“Okay, well, I want more details than we didn’t find the fox,” Imogen said. “And I can tell you all about the dead guy we left at Birdie’s house.”