Anna Dressed in Blood - Kendare Blake [72]
“I don’t think you made a mistake, Cas,” she says gently.
“But the knife.”
“We’ll get the knife back. I’ll call that boy’s mother, if I have to.”
I groan. She just crossed the mom line from cool and comforting to Queen of Lame.
“But what you did,” she goes on. “With Anna. I don’t think it was a mistake.”
“It was my job to kill her.”
“Was it? Or was it your job to stop her?” She leans back from the table, cradling her coffee mug between her hands. “What you do—what your dad did—it was never about vengeance. Never about revenge, or tipping the scales back to even. That’s not your call.”
I rub my hand across my face. My eyes are too tired to see straight. My brain is too tired to think straight.
“But you did stop her, didn’t you, Cas?”
“Yes,” I say, but I don’t know. It happened so fast. Did I really get rid of Anna’s dark half, or did I just allow her to hide it? I shut my eyes. “I don’t know. I think so.”
My mom sighs. “Stop drinking this coffee.” She pushes my cup away. “Go back to bed. And then go to Anna and find out what she’s become.”
* * *
I’ve seen a lot of seasons change. When you’re not distracted by school and friends and what movie’s coming out next week, you’ve got time to look at the trees.
Thunder Bay’s autumn is prettier than most. There’s lots of color. Lots of rustle. But it’s also more volatile. Frigid and wet one day, with a side of gray clouds, and then days like today, where the sun looks as warm as July and the breeze is so light that the leaves just seem to glisten as they move in it.
I’ve got my mom’s car. I drove it up to Anna’s place after dropping Mom to do some shopping downtown. She said she’d get a lift home from a friend. I was glad to hear that she’d made some friends. She does it easily, being so open and easygoing. Not like me. I don’t think it was quite like my dad either, but I find that I can’t really remember, and that bothers me, so I don’t push my brain too hard. I’d rather believe that the memories are there, just under the surface, whether they really are or not.
As I walk up to the house, I think I see a shadow move on the west side. I blink it off as a trick of my too-tired eyes … until the shadow turns white and shows her pale skin.
“I haven’t wandered far,” Anna says as I walk up.
“You hid from me.”
“I wasn’t sure right away who you were. I have to be cautious. I don’t want to be seen by everyone. Just because I can leave my house now doesn’t mean I’m not still dead.” She shrugs. She’s so frank. She should be damaged by all of this, damaged beyond sanity. “I’m glad you came back.”
“I need to know,” I say. “If you’re still dangerous.”
“We should go inside,” she says, and I agree. It’s strange to see her outdoors, in the sunlight, looking for all the world like a girl out picking flowers on a bright afternoon. Except that anyone looking closely would realize she should be freezing out here wearing just that white dress.
She leads me into the house and closes the door behind like any good hostess. Something about the house has changed too. The gray light is gone. Plain old white sunshine streams through the windows, albeit with a hampering of dirt on the glass.
“What is it that you really want to know, Cas?” Anna asks. “Do you want to know if I’m going to kill more people? Or do you want to know if I can still do this?” She holds her hand up before her face, and dark veins snake up to the fingers. Her eyes go black and a dress of blood erupts through the white, more violently than before, splashing droplets everywhere.
I jump back. “Jesus, Anna!”
She hovers in the air, does a little twirl like something’s playing her favorite tune.
“It’s not pretty, is it?” She crinkles her nose. “There aren’t mirrors left here, but I could see myself in the window glass when the moonlight was bright enough.”
“You’re still like this,” I say, horrified. “Nothing’s changed.”
When I say