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  “Why else do you think I’m standing here smelling like something at the bottom of Barnaby’s laundry basket?” Arla shouts.

  “Melinda Jaffe is my aunt.”

  So few statements that come out of my mouth render my friends speechless these days that I’m always surprised—and I must admit to feeling a tad bit pompous—when something does. I give Arla a moment to digest this awful truth.

  “Shut your wolf trap!”

  Okay, that’s a new one. I think I should be offended, but I kind of like it.

  “Even if I never opened it again, it wouldn’t change the facts,” I say. “Somehow Melinda and my mother are sisters, more than sisters actually; they’re twins.”

  “One good, one bad,” Arla cries. “Just like Nadine and Napoleon!”

  Exactly!

  I watch Arla pace back and forth mumbling to herself, and I marvel at how, once again, she’s diffused a foul situation. A few hours ago I was devastated by this news, and now, well, it’s a lot more palatable. She really has become a worthy successor to Jess in the best friend department. Actually, she’s much more than a best friend.

  “Can you imagine if my father and Melinda had gotten married?” Arla states, her words shocking her into a standstill. “Dom, this is something he can never find out about! He might think that if she’s related to your mother, she might be a good person and worthy of a second chance.”

  “My lips are sealed, Arla!” I say, pulling an imaginary zipper across my mouth.

  “Be serious, Dominy!” she says, getting even more agitated. “Promise me that you won’t tell my father about this!”

  “Tell your father about what?”

  Does everyone eavesdrop?!

  Slowly, the blood drains from Arla’s face until she looks like the feminine version of Archie. The two of us avoid looking at Louis, who’s standing in my doorway, and stare at each other like two kids who just got their hands caught in the cookie jar, because that’s basically what we did. Except we didn’t get caught holding onto a cookie, but to a secret.

  “I asked you a question, Arla,” Louis says. “Which means I want an answer.”

  Like daughter, like father, I suppose.

  A little more of the color drains from Arla’s face, and I seriously think that she might faint if I don’t do something. So without the faintest idea of what to say, I start talking.

  “Louis, I can explain everything,” I start.

  “So explain,” he replies.

  He crosses his arms in front of his chest, further proof that these two other people in my room are related by blood. Maybe it’s a sign that I should tell Louis the truth about Melinda and my mother. Maybe this is what Vera meant when she said it’s time Louis learned the truth. If all those maybes are correct, then why is the inner lining of my stomach acting as if it’s about to explode. My gut is doing its best to grab my attention, so I need to listen.

  “I bumped into Lars Svenson today,” I lie.

  “And?”

  Oh my God! Will the similarities never end?

  “And, well, you know how chatty he can get,” I ramble.

  “It’s as if communicating with the entire town on a weekly basis isn’t enough for him; he has to engage in long-winded conversations about things that he really shouldn’t be talking about.”

  “Like what?” Louis asks, interrupting me.

  I say the first idiotic thing that comes to my mind. “Officer Gallegos.”

  Excellent, Dominy! Lead the detective right to the scene of the crime.

  “What about Officer Gallegos?” Louis asks, and this time in his cop voice.

  “Well, Lars said . . . insinuated is more like it,” I stammer, “Lars insinuated that the medical examiner was mistaken about the human blood that was found in Gallegos’s system.”

  Once again Louis cuts me off. “That isn’t true.”

  “Oh, but Lars . . .”

  “Lars is an idiot who likes to spread gossip and rumor,” Louis replies flatly. “I can’t explain and neither can Quinlan, the medical examiner, but there was wolf and human DNA found in Gallegos’s body.”

  I’ve opened up this can of worms; I might as well continue.

  “Any chance he got bit by a feisty felon?” I ask. “Or a frisky girlfriend?”

  Crickets.

  “No,” Louis says. “They haven’t been able to trace or identify the human DNA beyond the fact that it’s female.”

  That would be correct.

  “Well, there was a fifty-fifty chance of that, right?” I ask.

  Ignoring my rhetorical question, Louis stares at Arla and then back at me. His eyes judging us the entire time. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?” he asks. “And before you answer me, there are two things you should know.”

  By now the color has returned to Arla’s face, and she’s actually found her voice again. “What would those, um, two things be?”

  “First, regardless of what you tell me it will remain confidential, and if necessary I will do everything I can to protect you.”

  Once again I’m reminded why my father chose Louis to be our guardian.

  “And the second?” Arla asks.

  “I don’t believe a word you just said, Dominy.”

  Ditto to what I just said before.

  Before I realize it, the tears start to well up in my eyes, because I’m no longer looking at Louis or listening to him talk; I’m looking at my father and hearing his voice. I’m hearing him tell me that he will always protect me, that I will never have to be afraid as long as he’s alive. Even in death, my father has kept his promise; he put my life in the hands of a man who has sworn to protect me as well, and how do I repay Louis? With constant lies and deception. Vera was right about having to work with Luba, and I think she’s right about having to confess to Louis.

  “There is something else that you should know,” I say.

  We’ll never know what I was going to say because just then Barnaby starts screaming from somewhere downstairs.

  “Barnaby!”

  Scrambling, Arla and I follow Louis as he races downstairs to find Barnaby on the kitchen floor with blood pouring out of his thigh.

  “What the hell!” he screams. “Barnaby, what happened?”

  “I . . . I don’t know,” my brother replies. “But it hurts!”

  “Stay with him!” Louis orders before racing back upstairs, presumably to get the first aid kit out of the bathroom.

  Barnaby uncomfortably shifts his weight, and I see that he’s sitting on a knife. Before he knows I’ve seen it, he sits back down and tries to cover the blade with his hand. Too late! I grab my brother’s shoulder and practically lift him off of the floor so I can pull out the knife and wave it in his face.

  “You did this to yourself,” I state, then ask, “Why?”

  “I don’t know what’s going on with you two,” Barnaby spits. “But leave Louis out of it.”

  His voice is so forceful and protective that I can only stare at Barnaby and the man he’s become. When Barnaby looks deep within my eyes, I realize he’s not just growing up; he’s aged well beyond his years. And it’s all thanks to me.

  “Whatever secrets you have, Dominy, keep them to yourself,” Barnaby says. “Because I don’t want Louis to end up like our father.”

  Chapter 22

  Erase everything I previously said. Pregnancy does not become Nadine. When she opens the door I feel like I’m looking at a girl who’s about to die instead of one who’s about to give birth.

  Her round face isn’t rounder, but puffed up, swollen, and her skin is not beautiwhite like Archie’s, but pale with whisks of gray on her cheeks, and underneath her eyes are blotches so dark they’re black. A crumpled forehead and glassy eyes complete the picture of a girl caught in the throes of pain instead of one who should be expecting joy. I guess the intrusion of not one, but two foreign objects in her body has taken its toll.

  Yet, beneath this soiled exterior, the real Nadine
remains. When her eyes focus on me and she sees exactly who’s standing on her front steps, I notice a change. Some of the darkness underneath her eyes slowly climbs up until it latches itself onto the bottom lid and hoists itself into the sockets. Like a chemical reaction, the glassiness disappears, disintegrates, and is replaced by clear-eyed malice. The rest of her body might be in agony and desperately in need of a rest, but her eyes look ready for a fight.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Her voice isn’t drastically distorted, but it’s still alarming. It sounds old.

  “I want to see Luba,” I reply.

  Nadine’s eyes bore into me, scrutinize my intentions, but the rest of her can’t remain motionless. She places one hand on her back, right above the hip bone, and twists her body, lengthening it, so the huge mound protruding from her belly seems to rise and float in the air. All attempts at being sinister and dangerous and strong have fled her body along with her innocence, and what remains is a tired crone. If I didn’t know that Nadine had brought all of this on herself, I’d feel sorry for her, but this is her doing; it’s what she’s wanted, so she has no one to blame but herself.

  “She isn’t at The Retreat,” I say. “So I know she’s here.”

  “My grandmother doesn’t accept callers without an invitation,” Nadine snarls.

  A hint of a smile appears on the corner of her mouth, but it doesn’t have enough strength to claim ownership over her face, so it just hangs there like a lone bee clinging to a flower, defiantly sucking on a petal that contains no pollen. Finally the bee gives up and flies away, the small slice of a smile leaving with it, and she slams the door in my face.

  Just as I raise my hand to knock on the door once more, it opens.

  “Now that’s no way to treat our visitors,” Luba purrs. “I raised you better than that, Nadine.”

  Side by side the physical difference between Luba and Nadine is startling; it’s like the demonic version of Freaky Friday . Luba looks youthful and refreshed, while Nadine’s old and haggard.

  “Come in, Dominy,” Luba says. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  She waves her hand in front of her to welcome me into her home. It’s a normal human gesture; I don’t see any trail of black smoke emanating from her fingertips, but I still feel as if her stained fingernails have just reached inside of me to drag me into her house. I have to remain on guard not because I’ve entered enemy territory, but because I’ve entered my family’s home.

  Sitting on the couch, Melinda Jaffe is reading a book. Her eyes remain fixed on the page, and although I’ve never read Jackie Collins, I can’t imagine her fiction could be more interesting to Melinda than the unexpected arrival of her niece. She’s trying so hard to appear unaffected by my presence that she looks artificial. Legs tucked underneath her, her free hand clutching her ankle, her thumb absentmindedly tracing circles on the flesh around the bone, her overly glossed lips sometimes mouthing words like she’s some oversized kindergartner just learning how to read. She looks positively disgusting.

  Next to her is a china cup filled with tea that must have just been poured from the kettle because little whiffs of smoke are still rising from the liquid. The pattern on the cup is actually more disconcerting than Melinda herself. Along the front and curving around the side is a small collection of pink roses, robust and dew-kissed and the landing strip for a butterfly, whose unfurled orange wings look as if they’re trying to flutter away, but have lost the power of flight. I can’t help but think of poor Napoleon. He was stuck in this family, like the butterfly is stuck there on the roses in the pattern on this cup, both held captive, prisoners forever, unless the cup smashes to the ground and breaks into tiny little pieces or his sister covers his mouth with her hand to stop him from breathing. Either way Melinda would be so unbothered by the mess that she wouldn’t look up from her book. Not even when her daughter asks her to intervene.

  “Mother!” Nadine cries. “I don’t want her here. Do something!”

  I don’t know where Nadine’s been living these days, but action doesn’t come quickly to her mother. Melinda may set things in motion, she may plant seeds, she may spend her day thinking terrible and horrible and homicidal thoughts, but rarely is she the one to act on those thoughts. It’s always someone else, Winston, Luba, or even Nadine, while Melinda watches like a mildly interested spider as a ladybug wanders into its web. She knows that the end result will be the ladybug’s death, but she’s in no hurry to make that death speedy. And now she’s in absolutely no rush to ease her daughter’s discomfort from having me in her house.

  “Quiet, darling,” Melinda says, her eyes moving left to right reading what must be the scintillating prose on the page. “You’ll trigger labor pains, and I’m not in the mood to be interrupted. This book is far too juicy to put down.”

  If I didn’t despise this woman so much already, I’d force my fangs to appear so I could scoop out her eyes and spit them across the room. But a better fate for my aunt—oh, how I despise that word already!—is for me to ignore her so when the time comes she’ll have her vision intact and have no excuse not to serve as her daughter’s midwife.

  Seriously, I can’t believe the apathetic liquid masquerading within Melinda’s veins is connected to the blood that’s pumping through mine. This revelation that she is my mother’s twin may be the sickest one of all. And one that demands further explanation.

  “Don’t stop reading on my part,” I snark. “I’ve come here to talk to . . . Grand-mère.”

  Sorry, I couldn’t help myself; the French version of the word just slipped out, two seconds before the book almost slips out of Melinda’s hands.

  “What did you say?” she asks.

  Her voice is so low and the words spoken so slowly and deliberately that I know she heard what I said, and she knows why I chose that particular word. So does Luba.

  “I was wondering how long it would take you to figure it all out,” Luba interjects, her voice in stark contrast to her daughter-in-law’s. She’s practically giddy, her hands clasped in prayer motion, her long fingers bouncing joyfully against one another. A joy that lands like a thud in the laps of the others in the room.

  “What are you talking about?” Nadine demands.

  “Our little friend here is smarter than the average . . . beast,” Luba replies. “Or she simply stumbles upon information like a wolf stumbles upon unsuspecting prey.”

  Colorful imagery may be a bit much for Nadine at the moment.

  “Stop speaking in riddles!!” she screams. “Tell me what you’re talking about!!”

  A flick of Luba’s head sends streams of jet-black smoke in Nadine’s direction. Either Nadine is too weakened by her pregnancy or Luba is too infuriated by how it’s making her granddaughter act, but whatever the reason, Nadine can’t duck in time, and the smoke slices across her cheek, leaving a trail of burned flesh behind it after it evaporates into the air.

  Crying out in pain and shock, Nadine clutches her face and stumbles clumsily into the door. No one in the room rushes to her side, so she has to grab hold of the doorknob and a small table to stop from falling to the floor. The only response she gets from Luba is a warning.

  “Never speak to me that way again.”

  As delusional as any petulant, self-entitled child can be, Nadine ignores the venomous sound of Luba’s voice and asks her mother for help. She might as well direct her request to the couch her mother’s sitting on; she’d get a more enthusiastic response.

  “Mother!” Nadine shouts. “Did you see what that witch did to me?!”

  “No, darling, I did not,” Melinda replies. “I might have been momentarily distracted by our smooth-talking visitor, but I really am thoroughly engrossed in my book.”

  Once again, despite his unnecessary and untimely death, I can’t help but feel Napoleon is the luckier twin.

  “So if you will excuse me,” Melinda says, rising from the couch, “I think I’ll continue reading where I won’t be disturbed
.”

  Melinda doesn’t bother to look at her daughter, still clutching her cheek in apparent pain, but she can’t take her eyes off of me. I stare right back; there’s no way I’m going to give her the pleasure of backing down. I have no desire to speak with her or have any sort of family reunion, but if that’s what she wants, I will not run from it. Naturally, when faced with a far-superior opponent, Melinda reacts like her boyfriend, Winston, and cowardly slinks away from confrontation. But before she leaves the room, Melinda turns to her daughter and adds, “I really do want to finish this book, so please keep that unborn child you’re carrying quiet until the morning.”

  Child? So Nadine hasn’t even told her mother that she’s expecting twins. Obviously she wants to keep it a secret until they arrive, kicking and screaming and hissing and bathed in their mother’s foul witchblood. Fine with me. That’s one secret that can remain unspoken. I’ve come to hear the details of another.

  “Speaking of privacy, Luba,” I announce. “Is there anywhere you and I can talk without this one overhearing?”

  Even burdened by pain and the loss of physical strength, Nadine still manages to overpower the space with her voice. “This is my house! How dare you ask me to leave!”

  Both annoyed and amused, Luba shakes her head. “No one is asking you to leave, Nadine.”

  “Good!” she shouts back. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Of course you aren’t,” Luba replies. “We are.”

  Luba raises her hand, and once again black smoke appears, this time rocketing to the floor and swirling around our feet. The smoke slowly starts to ascend, encircling our calves, our knees, then our thighs, as if mummifying us with its intangible presence. When it reaches our waists the color begins to shift from ebony to gray, but the change isn’t coming from the source; it’s coming from another visitor.

  “Vera!” Luba cries. “Leave us alone!”

  “How can I, Luba,” Vera replies, her body still unseen, “when you know how much I love to get inside that demented brain of yours.”

  The last thing I hear before everything goes silent and black is Nadine’s bloodcurdling scream. I think she actually hates Vera more than she hates me. That or she really just doesn’t want to be left in the house alone with her mother, and for that I can’t blame her. At the moment, however, I have more urgent matters to focus on, like how not to give in to the claustrophobia I’m starting to feel cramped inside Luba’s memory alongside Vera.