"Damien!" moans Emmy against Hieronymous' school uniform. Her arms are tight around his neck, hands clenched in his purple hair. She clings there, making sounds that could be sobs, and could be bursts of relieved laughter.
As Emmy continues to cling, I glance at Kip, who's still by the sink. I meet his eyes, and I don't read much good in them. He remains silent, though, and lets Emmy finish her display of emotion without moving to intervene.
When Emmy pulls away, the front of Hieronymous' school uniform is soaked, and rather sticky looking. Emmy looks up into his face, and I hold my breath, waiting for her to notice that this Damien isn't quite right.
"You're not dead!" she says, then deliberately pokes him in the chest with one finger. She looks back up, waiting for a reaction. Hieronymous only gives her a puzzled stare.
"Nope," she concludes. "Not dead. Ghosts hate it when you poke them." Then she gives Hieronymous a dazzling grin. "You found me!"
"Ah. Yes," Hieronymous says, looking far more flustered than Damien would in this circumstance, I imagine. "I've been looking for you."
In spite of my shock, I have to bite my cheek to keep from laughing out loud at Hieronymous' attempt at an American accent - it's dreadful. He darts a glance at me and I have to look away, or else I really will burst into giggles. My grip on the back of my chair begins to relax, and I realized how cramped my joints have gotten in the minute or so I've been standing.
"And now you found me!" Emmy says, gleefully throwing her arms around Hieronymous' neck once again. He's beginning to look a bit shellshocked at her enthusiastic greeting, so I clear my throat.
"Do you two want to sit down?" I ask.
"Please," Hieronymous says, and starts to drag Emmy toward the table. She follows somewhat reluctantly, gripping his arm in a tight clench.
"You can live here," she's saying as she drags a chair so they can sit, knee to knee, at the table with me. "You can stay in my room. It'll be so - so perfect," she gushes.
"Right. Yes. Well," Heironymous says, "I came because I needed to talk to you about something."
"Okay," Emmy says, her face turned up to him, open and trusting.
Watching Emmy, I begin to feel a squirmy sensation in the pit of my stomach, but I do my best to ignore it. This is what you wanted, I remind myself. A way to get Emmy to remember her time at school without freaking out. And as far as plans go, I have to admit that it's pretty genius.
"I need you to remember back to the day you were expelled from school," Hieronymous continues. "Can you do that?"
Emmy blinks a few times. "I was helping you," she says. "You told me not to, but I did anyway. Because I love you!" At this last, she throws her arms around Hieronymous's neck again, forcing him to pry her off and sit her back in her own chair.
"Yes," Hieronymous says. "How were you trying to help me?"
Emmy's eyes go vacant, and she is still and silent for a moment. She says slowly, as though in a trance, "You said you were sick. That cambions - anyone half demon and half human - got sick. And that you needed someone's soul if you wanted to get better."
Hieronymous takes this in, his brows knitting, a faint trace of disgust in his expression. "Did I ask for your soul, Musette?" he asks.
"Don't call me that any more," Musette says. "That's my old name. I have trouble remembering it. When Kip found me, the only thing I could remember was the em. Emmmmm," she repeats, a little dreamily. "So we decided on Emmy, you know?"
"That's very… inventive of you," Hieronymous says. "But we were speaking of my… ah… disease?"
"Oh! Right," Emmy says, seeming to snap back into the moment. "You didn't ask for my soul, not exactly, you just kind of hinted that you wouldn't mind if I, you know, offered it to you. But I told you, that's silly. If you love me, you'd want me to be with you, not give up my soul or something." She laughs as though this were the most obvious thing in the world, but I feel chilled. That's what he said to Ahmed, I think. To get him to give himself up. Had Ahmed been so starved for someone to understand him that he'd say yes - knowing all it would mean? The thought makes me feel nauseated. Please don't let him be dead, I think. Please.
"I thought there had to be some kind of other way, but I couldn't find anything in the school library, so I…" Emmy trails off, seeming distracted. "I started looking. For another way. Because I thought there had to be more… books. And I looked and I looked and-"
"And you found them?" Hieronymous asks.
"Yes!" Emmy's faced splits into a huge grin. "I found them!"
"How?" demands Hieronymous, sounding dangerously close to his own imperious tone. "How did you find them?"
"The door opened!" Emmy says with a bright grin. "I was so happy. All the books I could want! Not kids' books either, real ones. But..." she trails off again, then begins more slowly. "I didn't know which book. There were so many. And before I even had a really proper look… I…." Emmy's voice trails into silence, and her eyes lose focus.
"You were caught?" Hieronymous prompts.
"There was the man," Emmy says, then she squinches her face up. "He was so mean. I told him it was my mother who was sick, I knew he wouldn't believe me about you. And even if he did, you'd only get into trouble. I didn't want you to get in trouble because of what I did." Emmy pauses to snuffle, and to wipe her nose with the back of her hand. "But he said - he said-"
I lean closer across the table as Emmy struggles with the words.
"He said he didn't care!" Emmy bursts. "That he didn't care who was dying, even if it was my mother." She shakes her head. "He was awful."
I look up at Hieronymous, alarmed. He only cuts his now violet eyes at me, gives me a curt nod, and turns back to Emmy. The squirmy feeling in my stomach seems to double up on itself.
"And then he expelled you," Hieronymous prompts. "What happened next? What do you remember? Did you remember school?"
"I went home," Emmy says, and this time her voice is clearer, steadier. "I went home and went to school when the semester started. Regular school. My parents acted weird around me, like, trying to be extra nice to me, but it was so fake." Her voice takes on a tone of rage as she continues. "They ate, and they drank, and they talked - mah mah mah - just like they were people, but they were just cardboard cutouts of parents, they weren't real." Her voice goes softer, gentler. "And I kept dreaming about you."
"How is that possible?" Hieronymous asks, equally quiet. His voice shakes slightly in a way that - I think - only I notice.
Emmy shrugs as though this question is completely absurd. "I'd never forget about you," she says, glancing up mischievously from under her eyelashes. "And the more I dreamed about you, the more I remembered you, and the more I remembered you the more I knew that I - I couldn't stay. With them. Because there was something out there - more. More than that life. So I left."
"Where did you go?" Hieronymous asks.
"Just places," Emmy says with another shrug. "I remembered something about Vermont so I decided to try to go there first. On a train. But I couldn't find it - the place I remembered - and it was so cold, and I was running out of money."
"When was that?" I interrupt, and the sharpness on my voice causes everyone in the room to turn to me. "I mean what month?" I say.
"January," Emmy says. "After Christmas. I got a parka for Christmas and it helped some."
Even with a Christmas parka on hand, the thought of running around the Vermont mountains strikes me as horribly dangerous. And then, if Kip's calculation was right, she had stayed out there for two entire months before being taken in.
"Did get to Vermont right away, then?" Hieronymous asks, and I can see the happy relief in Emmy's eyes , when she focuses on him again.
"Nah. It was a long way from Ohio and I ran out of money real quick. I had to start sneaking onto trains. It was fun, but a little scary. I had to hide a lot, but I'm good at hiding. And seeking!" she adds with a bright smile. "I was looking for you."
"You didn't find me," Hieronymous says.
Emmy sighs. "No," she says. "It found me first."
"What found you first?" asks Hieronymous.
"The thing," she says. "The thing with no shape."
There's a long silence before Hieronymous asks "what thing with no shape?"
Emmy gives a high, silvery peal of laughter, and presses herself against Hieronymous' chest. "Don't be silly!" she says, "you told me about it!"
"I-" Hieronymous starts, then recovers. "What did I tell you?"
Emmy laughs again, then winks at me. "Boys," she says. "They love to tell you scary stories and take you to scary movies and stuff, so you get scared and snuggle them. Well I like being scared. And anyway, you don't need to trick me into snuggles." This she makes evident by pressing herself harder into Hieronymous's chest.
"Happy day," Hieronymous mutters through gritted teeth.
"Will you tell me the story?" I ask.
"I don't remember it all," Emmy says. "He tells it better. You can tell her," she adds, addressing Hieronymous, "but no trying for snuggles, got it?"
"Heaven forbid," Hieronymous says, giving me an unhappy look.
"Are you sure you can't tell me, Emmy?" I say.
Emmy looks off into space for a moment, then slowly shakes her head. "I don't remember," she says. "It was a fairy tale. A scary one. But-" she says, lifting her head from Hieronymous' shoulder to give him an accusatory look, "it's not a fairy tale, is it? It's real. I saw it in that book."
"What book?" Hieronymous snaps.
"The book on demons in the little library," Emmy says muzzily, as though she hadn't heard the sharpness in Hieronymous' voice. "The library that had all the real books in it. I laughed when I found it - I thought you'd just been using it to scare me and snuggle me, when all the time it was real. That all the stories about the demons you told me were really real! I was going to ask you if you knew - next time I saw you." She frowns, her face melancholy. "Only I didn't see you again."
"He's here now," I prompt, and Emmy's head snaps up again, a brilliant smile on her face.
"Right!" she says, then turns back to Hieronymous. "Did you know? That the story was real, I mean?"
"Ah." Hieronymous says, "Ah - no. I did not know it was real. You said that it related to stories about demons?"
"It doesn't matter," Emmy says, snuggling happily into Hieronymous' shoulder. "Just some big book."
I clench my fists tight, holding back a shriek of frustration. It's not her fault, I think to myself. Remember, it's not her fault. "Okay," I say, "Let's skip the book for now. What was the thing with no shape? How did you find it?"
"I told you," Emmy says, "I didn't find it, it found me. It likes finding things when they're lost. Especially little girls. That's what it told me."
A shudder runs through me as I recall my late father-in-law's voice. You know the stories, don't you? he'd said. Even a wildseed like you knows them. Little girls who fall down the rabbit hole, or get lost in the woods, or run three times around the church widdershins. His hands digging into the soft skin on my cheeks, bruising it, enjoying himself.
"Are you all right?" Hieronymous says to me, his voice sharp - and back to British. I look up and force myself to nod.
"How did it find you, then?" I ask, hoping Emmy hasn't noticed "Damien's" change of accent.
Emmy still looks obliviously dreamy as she says "I don't know, it just did. One minute I was trying to get some sleep under a bridge-"
Kip interrupts this disclosure with a loud sigh, but doesn't say anything.
"And the next minute, I was somewhere else. Well - it was like being in nowhere, really. But it was there with me."
"And what happened?" Hieronymous asks.
"It asked me if I was lost, and it told me it was lonely. And I looked lonely too, and would I like to play a game? It told me if I won, he would give me whatever I wanted." She gives Hieronymous a look that manages to be shy and sly all at once. "You can probably guess what I asked for."
"But you didn't win," Hieronymous says.
"Well," says Emmy, "I did win, but I realized that if I didn't have any magic, I wouldn't be able to stay with you. Like permanently stay. So it didn't take me to you. I asked for my magic back, and I got it back, but it gave me something else too."
"What, Emmy?" I ask, mouth dry around the words "What did it give you?"
"My new eyes," she says. "Now I can see it."
"Emmy," I wail, almost at my brink, "see what?"
Emmy gives a laugh, as though I've just asked her what color the sky is on a cloudless day. "All of it!" she says, reaching an arm above her head as though she's about to grasp some invisible rung there. She twists her hand, wrist and arm, and suddenly I feel a gust of warm air across my face - a breeze spell.
"Musette," Hieronymous says, "what game did you play?"
She turns to him with a huge smile. "Monopoly!"
Try as we might - and we do try, mightily - neither Hieronymous nor I manage to get anything more out of Emmy. She snuggles closer into Hieronymous' shoulder, yawning. I'm tired too, so it's an enormous relief when Hieronymous says "I'm afraid I need to be going."
Suddenly Emmy is all attention. "What? No!" she says. "You can't leave, you have to stay with me!"
"The - the nature of my illness renders it impossible for me to leave the Otherworld for any significant amount of time," Hieronymous says, improvising as smoothly as he can.
"Yeah," Emmy replies. "And it sure makes you talk funny."
I look at her, alarmed, but there's no guile in Emmy's voice - just resignation.
"Can't I go with you?" she asks.
"Muse - Emmy - you know why you can't."
She sighs. "I know," she says, "but when I get older, I'm coming to find you. You can't stop me."
"So it would seem," Hieronymous mutters, then stands. "Goodbye, Emmy."
Emmy stands too, sways for a moment, then throws herself into Hieronymous's arms.
"Don't forget," she says, "I'm coming after you." And before he can step back, she takes his face in both her hands and kisses him straight on the mouth.
I start, about to protest, but then snap my jaw shut just in time. I don't dare break the illusion - I can only watch in what feels like agonizing slow motion as Emmy continues to kiss my husband. Hieronymous holds himself perfectly still, though Emmy doesn't seem to notice that he isn't exactly returning her ardor. It goes on so long that I finally drop my gaze to my hands on the table. When I can bring myself to look up again, Hieronymous has disengaged his person, and is striding to the door to the hallway, Emmy looking after him forlornly. When he's gone, Emmy moves to follow, but I quickly stand to stop her.
"Hey," I say, grabbing her shoulders and gently steering her back towards the kitchen table, "will you sit with me for a sec?" I have her in the chair before she can protest, then sit facing her. I don't have to be told to know what's coming - the memory spell that Hieronymous will cast to ensure that Emmy doesn't remember any of our conversation.
When the spell comes, I can't feel it, but I can see it. Emmy's eyes lose focus, then gradually regain it.
When they go clear, I say "Emmy?"
"Hmm?" Emmy says. Then she shakes herself a little. "Oh," she says. "Sorry. I spaced out a little. What did you want to ask me about?"
Even though I was expecting it, the sudden change in Emmy from despondent to cheerful is disconcerting. "Uh - Damien, I guess," I say.
"Damien?" she says. Then her face falls. "He's-" she says, then stops. She blinks once, twice. "Not dead," she says, and her voice fills with awe at the pronouncement.
"What?" I ask.
"He's not dead!" she says, exuberant. She claps her hands together, bouncing in her chair.
"How do you know?" I ask.
"I don't know how I know, I just know!" she says, her face lit from within. "He's alive, and I'm going to find him!"
"Would you like a slice of cake first?" says a voice from the corner. It's Kip - I'd forgotten he'd been standing there.
"Yes please!" sings Emmy, beaming up at him. Then she turns back to me. "Eliza, do you want cake?"
I glance back to Kip, and he stares back at me, his face stony. Suddenly I remember the terms of our deal - now that we've spoken to Emmy, we're to leave the house of our own free will. I start in sudden panic, wondering whether Kip will toss us out now, but he speaks up.
"I think Eliza wants to go to bed," says Kip. "She and her… husband… have a journey ahead of them tomorrow."
I'm dismayed at Kip's flat tone of voice, devoid of all the friendliness it had held the night before. "Kip's right," I say, "I - I have to go to bed. Hope you like the cake." And with that, I race out of the kitchen, through the foyer, and up the stairs as fast as I can go.