The Raven King
Page 23
It had been hot when he died.
He was in a forest of wooden sticks, of birds. The brass instruments muttered; the flutes screamed. Wings buzzed and hummed and shivered around him. He could feel the hornets in his ears.
They aren’t there
But that big insect whirred by him again, circling.
It had been years since Malory had been forced to stop halfway through a hike to wait as Gansey fell to his knees, hands over his ears, shivering, dying.
He had worked hard to walk away from that.
They aren’t there. You are at Raven Day. You are going to eat sandwiches after this. You are going to jump-start the Camaro in the parking lot after school. You are going to drive to 300 Fox Way. You will tell Blue about your day you will
The insects pricked into his nostrils, moved his hair gently, collectively seethed. Sweat ran straight down his spine. The music shimmered. The students had become spirits, brushing past him and around him. His knees would buckle; he would let them.
He could not re-create his death here. Not now, not when it would be fresh on everyone’s minds at the fund-raiser – Gansey Three lost it at Raven Day, did you hear; Mrs Gansey can we have a word about your son? – he would not make it about him.
But time was slipping; he was slipping. His heart ran with black, black blood.
“GanseyMan.”
Gansey couldn’t quite focus on the words. Henry Cheng stood before him, all hair and smile, his eyes intense. He took Gansey’s raven from him and instead pressed something cool into Gansey’s hand. Cool, and getting colder.
“Once, you got me coffee,” Henry said. “When I was losing my mind. Consider the favour returned.”
Gansey was holding a plastic cup of ice water. It should not have done anything, but something worked: the shocking temperature difference, the ordinary sound of the ice cubes knocking against one another, the eye contact. Students still milled around them, but they were once again students. The music was once again merely a school orchestra playing a new piece on an incredibly hot day.
“There he is,” Henry said. “Toga party tonight, Richard, at Litchfield House. You should bring your boys and your child bride.”
Then he was gone, ravens flapping where he had been.
Adam had thought there was something in his eye. It had begun while he stood in the over-hot theatre. Not so much an irritation as a fatigue, like he’d been staring at a screen for too long. He could have lived with it until the end of the school day if it had stayed like that, but his vision was getting a little blurry now. Not a troubling amount on its own, but combined with being able to feel his eye, it seemed like he should take a look at it.
Instead of returning to one of the academic buildings, he slid down the stairs to the theatre’s side door. There were bathrooms in the area under the stage, and it was those he headed to, passing many-legged animals made of stacked old chairs, strange silhouettes of stage-set trees, and depthless oceans of black curtain hung over everything. The hallway was dark and close, the walls horrors of chipped green paint, and with one hand cupped over his eye, Adam found it distorted and unnerving. He recalled again the picture of his skittering hand.
He needed to do some work with Cabeswater, he thought, and figure out what was going on with that tree.
The bathroom light was switched off. It was not an obstacle at all – the light switch was just inside the door – but still, Adam didn’t quite want to put his hand into the blackness to find it. He stood there, his heart a little too fast, and he looked behind himself.
The hall was close and dark and unmoving under sickly fluorescent light. The shadows were inseparable from the stage curtains. Big swaths of black connected everything.
Turn on the light, Adam thought.
With his free hand, the one not covering his eye, he reached into the bathroom.
He did it fast, fingers pressing through cold, through dark, touching something —
No, it was only a Cabeswater vine, only in his head. He slammed his hand past it and turned on the light.
The bathroom was empty.
Of course it was empty. Of course it was empty. Of course it was empty.
Two old stalls made of green-painted plywood, nowhere near up to proper accessibility codes, nowhere near up to proper hygiene codes. A urinal. A sink with a yellow ring round the drain. A mirror.
Adam stepped in front of the glass, his hand over his eye, looking at his gaunt face. His nearly colourless eyebrow was pinched with worry. Lowering his hand, he looked again at himself. He saw no pinkness around his left eye. It didn’t seem to be watering. It was —
He squinted. Was he slightly walleyed? That was what it was called when your eyes didn’t point in the same direction, right?
He blinked.
No, it was fine. It was just a trick of this chilly green light. He leaned in closer to see if there was any redness in the corner.
It was walleyed.
Adam blinked, and it was not. He blinked, and it was. It was like one of those bad dreams that was not a nightmare, not really, that was just about trying to put on a pair of socks and finding they suddenly wouldn’t fit on your foot.
As he watched, his left eye slowly sank down to look at the floor, unhitched from the gaze of his right eye.
His vision blurred and then focused again as his right eye took dominance. Adam’s breath was uneven. He’d already lost hearing in one ear. He couldn’t lose sight in one eye, too. Was it from his father? Was this a delayed effect of hitting his head?
The eye rocked slowly, like a marble sliding in a jar of water. He could feel the horror of it in his stomach.
In the mirror, he thought the shadow of one of the stalls changed.
He turned to look: nothing. Nothing.
Cabeswater, are you with me?
He turned back to the mirror. Now his left eye was travelling slowly around, wandering back and forth, up and down.
Adam’s chest hitched.
The eye looked at him.
Adam scrambled back from the mirror, hand smacked over his eye. His shoulder blade crashed into the opposite wall, and he stood there, gasping for air, scared, scared, scared, because what kind of help did he need, and who could he ask?
The shadow above the stall was changing. It was turning from a square into a triangle because – oh God – one of the stall doors was opening.
The long hallway back to the outside felt like a horror gallery gauntlet. Black spilled out of the stall door.
Adam said, “Cabeswater, I need you.”
He was in a forest of wooden sticks, of birds. The brass instruments muttered; the flutes screamed. Wings buzzed and hummed and shivered around him. He could feel the hornets in his ears.
They aren’t there
But that big insect whirred by him again, circling.
It had been years since Malory had been forced to stop halfway through a hike to wait as Gansey fell to his knees, hands over his ears, shivering, dying.
He had worked hard to walk away from that.
They aren’t there. You are at Raven Day. You are going to eat sandwiches after this. You are going to jump-start the Camaro in the parking lot after school. You are going to drive to 300 Fox Way. You will tell Blue about your day you will
The insects pricked into his nostrils, moved his hair gently, collectively seethed. Sweat ran straight down his spine. The music shimmered. The students had become spirits, brushing past him and around him. His knees would buckle; he would let them.
He could not re-create his death here. Not now, not when it would be fresh on everyone’s minds at the fund-raiser – Gansey Three lost it at Raven Day, did you hear; Mrs Gansey can we have a word about your son? – he would not make it about him.
But time was slipping; he was slipping. His heart ran with black, black blood.
“GanseyMan.”
Gansey couldn’t quite focus on the words. Henry Cheng stood before him, all hair and smile, his eyes intense. He took Gansey’s raven from him and instead pressed something cool into Gansey’s hand. Cool, and getting colder.
“Once, you got me coffee,” Henry said. “When I was losing my mind. Consider the favour returned.”
Gansey was holding a plastic cup of ice water. It should not have done anything, but something worked: the shocking temperature difference, the ordinary sound of the ice cubes knocking against one another, the eye contact. Students still milled around them, but they were once again students. The music was once again merely a school orchestra playing a new piece on an incredibly hot day.
“There he is,” Henry said. “Toga party tonight, Richard, at Litchfield House. You should bring your boys and your child bride.”
Then he was gone, ravens flapping where he had been.
Adam had thought there was something in his eye. It had begun while he stood in the over-hot theatre. Not so much an irritation as a fatigue, like he’d been staring at a screen for too long. He could have lived with it until the end of the school day if it had stayed like that, but his vision was getting a little blurry now. Not a troubling amount on its own, but combined with being able to feel his eye, it seemed like he should take a look at it.
Instead of returning to one of the academic buildings, he slid down the stairs to the theatre’s side door. There were bathrooms in the area under the stage, and it was those he headed to, passing many-legged animals made of stacked old chairs, strange silhouettes of stage-set trees, and depthless oceans of black curtain hung over everything. The hallway was dark and close, the walls horrors of chipped green paint, and with one hand cupped over his eye, Adam found it distorted and unnerving. He recalled again the picture of his skittering hand.
He needed to do some work with Cabeswater, he thought, and figure out what was going on with that tree.
The bathroom light was switched off. It was not an obstacle at all – the light switch was just inside the door – but still, Adam didn’t quite want to put his hand into the blackness to find it. He stood there, his heart a little too fast, and he looked behind himself.
The hall was close and dark and unmoving under sickly fluorescent light. The shadows were inseparable from the stage curtains. Big swaths of black connected everything.
Turn on the light, Adam thought.
With his free hand, the one not covering his eye, he reached into the bathroom.
He did it fast, fingers pressing through cold, through dark, touching something —
No, it was only a Cabeswater vine, only in his head. He slammed his hand past it and turned on the light.
The bathroom was empty.
Of course it was empty. Of course it was empty. Of course it was empty.
Two old stalls made of green-painted plywood, nowhere near up to proper accessibility codes, nowhere near up to proper hygiene codes. A urinal. A sink with a yellow ring round the drain. A mirror.
Adam stepped in front of the glass, his hand over his eye, looking at his gaunt face. His nearly colourless eyebrow was pinched with worry. Lowering his hand, he looked again at himself. He saw no pinkness around his left eye. It didn’t seem to be watering. It was —
He squinted. Was he slightly walleyed? That was what it was called when your eyes didn’t point in the same direction, right?
He blinked.
No, it was fine. It was just a trick of this chilly green light. He leaned in closer to see if there was any redness in the corner.
It was walleyed.
Adam blinked, and it was not. He blinked, and it was. It was like one of those bad dreams that was not a nightmare, not really, that was just about trying to put on a pair of socks and finding they suddenly wouldn’t fit on your foot.
As he watched, his left eye slowly sank down to look at the floor, unhitched from the gaze of his right eye.
His vision blurred and then focused again as his right eye took dominance. Adam’s breath was uneven. He’d already lost hearing in one ear. He couldn’t lose sight in one eye, too. Was it from his father? Was this a delayed effect of hitting his head?
The eye rocked slowly, like a marble sliding in a jar of water. He could feel the horror of it in his stomach.
In the mirror, he thought the shadow of one of the stalls changed.
He turned to look: nothing. Nothing.
Cabeswater, are you with me?
He turned back to the mirror. Now his left eye was travelling slowly around, wandering back and forth, up and down.
Adam’s chest hitched.
The eye looked at him.
Adam scrambled back from the mirror, hand smacked over his eye. His shoulder blade crashed into the opposite wall, and he stood there, gasping for air, scared, scared, scared, because what kind of help did he need, and who could he ask?
The shadow above the stall was changing. It was turning from a square into a triangle because – oh God – one of the stall doors was opening.
The long hallway back to the outside felt like a horror gallery gauntlet. Black spilled out of the stall door.
Adam said, “Cabeswater, I need you.”
