The Melancholy Waters
an excerpt

Chapter 6

The snack bar is unimpressive. For a top-secret agency that hunts supernatural phenomena and houses paranormal orphans, I’d like to think they could manage something more than vending machine goodies, crumbly doughnuts, and bottled water.

Declan warns me not to drink the coffee, so I go for the tea. It’s about the only thing that actually tastes like what it’s supposed to, to my surprise. Earl Gray can be hit or miss, I’ve found.

I munch on a candy bar and sip my paper cup of tea, waiting for Declan to retrieve my father. Seems we killed enough time, or something.

Looking around the small break area, there are a few other faces. None which I even vaguely recognize. I’d half hoped that Zlata would have been in here.

Now that Declan isn’t distracting me with thoughts of baby dragons and merfolkish children and interspecies politics, I keep hearing that woman’s voice in my head. Oh, you were too little to remember, she’d said when we first met. And then my father had whisked me away to fill me in on everything.

Everything. Ha! Hardly. There are way too many questions left. Even if I grilled every one of the PIA’s agents for the next year, I don’t think I’d be satisfied.

All right. So here I am. In the windowless snack bar, with its stale coffee smells and its long-faced employees taking five minutes out of their day, like regular folk. Father’s going to be here any minute, and he’s going to ask me if I think he’s crazy. Or maybe I’ll ask him if I’m crazy. And then if I don’t think I can keep my mouth shut, he’ll probably pull out some little flashy device and erase my memories of the past five hours. I guess thinking I was too sick to attend Mother’s funeral might not be a bad memory to have. Sure beats that line of people telling me how sorry they are, and my feeling bad about the whole thing, and then having to listen to Erik Iverson’s smug conversation about how he’s going to study abroad if he doesn’t get early acceptance from Yale.

What a jerk.

Oh, what the hell am I thinking about? The world as I know it has exploded and turned on its head, and I’m bitching to myself about Erik’s pretentiousness?

I toss out my candy bar and down the rest of my tea, scalding my tongue as I do so.

When I get back to my seat, there’s a girl watching me from across the room. She doesn’t look much older than I am, but I can’t imagine that this place hires minors. I sit so that I can see her out of the corner of my eye but still have a clear view of the entrance.

She’s not malicious, I can tell. It’s almost as if maybe she’s wondering if I’m older than I look, if I’m an agent here too.

Then again, she could be someone’s daughter hanging out waiting for mom or dad to get off work and take her to the mall. Some people might actually tell their kids about this place for all I know!

The girl has a good tan for April and short-cropped hair the color of oak wood, with splashes of copper throughout. She has on a jacket that seems too large for her, as it extends down past her wrists and covers her hands. And in her ears are several hoops looping up and down the lobes.

She stands.

I suddenly find myself very interested in the napkin dispenser in the middle of the round table. I turn it over in my hands, looking for the place where it opens.

Clink!

Ah. There it is.

The brown paper sheets spill out, ejected by the spring I just messed around with by opening things. I gather the sheets back up and stuff them inside the black metal box.

As I do so, the girl with the hoop earrings helps herself to the seat across from mine.

Must be my day for making friends.

“So,” she says, voice curt, “you’re the Raines’ kid.”

I flick my gaze up to meet hers, but it’s not there. Her eyes are downcast; she’s fiddling with her hands beneath the sleeves of the jacket.

I say, “I’m one of them. My sister’s at college.”

The girl gives a sharp nod.

I study the girl, but even with me practically burning holes in her she doesn’t look up. It’s not shyness, that much is obvious. Her back is too straight, shoulders thrown back, and her voice isn’t the least bit soft. She’s confident without having to prove it to me.

And that’s scary as hell in this place.

Then I hear the girl saying, “I heard about your mom.”

My guts begin to twist. It’s not that I haven’t had Mother on the brain all day, or all week even. It’s that everyone here seems to know her and that she’s gone.

And Father hasn’t mentioned to anyone that she got killed over me it seems.
I think that’s the part that makes me the most nervous about everyone offering their condolences: they have no idea what they are talking about.

The girl’s eyes flash up to mine briefly. Long enough for me to catch how dark they are in comparison to her light hair. I get the feeling that anyone else in the room seeing us would think how opposite we seem. My hair is practically black and reaches just past my shoulders, contrasting with my lighter eyes. Mother had always called them “stormy”, but I just think they’re plain old blue.

Where the girl across from me has that nice glow to her skin, mine is naturally fair and covered with freckles. No matter how much sun block I put on, I always come home from a day at the coast as red as a lobster.

Even though she’s got herself covered with that jacket, she doesn’t look the least bit flat chested. And then there’s the fact that this girl isn’t some freakishly tall giantess. I can’t be sure, but I’d hazard a guess that I have about half a foot on her.

She also has seem to have normal-looking limbs beneath her jacket. She’s a bit broad and maybe a little heavier than most girls would consider ideal, but I’d take that any day over looking like a wraith.

Of course, I probably could stand to eat more than a few bites of chocolate and a couple sips of tea at the moment. But I’ll have to forgive myself this once; it’s been a weird day, and normally I’m what Avi affectionately-slash-spitefully calls her little trash compactor.

About the only thing this girl and I have in common is that we both look really out of place at the snack bar.

She says, “If it makes you feel any better, I lost my mom when I was little.”

I sigh. She’s only trying to be friendly, after all. I should really work on tearing down that whole wall I’ve been putting up all day.

“Yeah, thanks. I mean, well, sorry.”

“I know what you meant. I’m Ingrid,” she says and sticks out her hand.

The sleeve of the jacket keeps her hand covered.

Ingrid notices after a second, when I don’t immediately move to make contact. She shakes the sleeve back, revealing a delicate collection of silver rings on her fingers.

We shake our hello. Her grip is firm, and I can feel the calluses on her palm. Which means she probably knows I don’t exactly spend my days toiling the earth or doing hard labor. I do my fair share of rock climbing on the weekends, but that’s in the safety of indoor simulation sites. Ingrid’s hand feels like she’s done the real deal since birth or something.

To mask my surprise, I straighten up and shake her hand with confidence. “Allora.”

Ingrid nods and pulls her hand back into the jacket’s sleeve. “What do you think of this place?”

I shrug. “S’different. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all. It’s been getting easier to think about, though. How about you? You… work here?”

Ingrid smiles, laughing a little. “Naw,” she says. “Not really. I’m a rat, but that’s about it.”

“All right,” I say after a moment, “you’re going to have to explain that one to me.”

“I’m in on the freak circuit,” Ingrid says. “The, uh, paranormals I think these guys call them? Anyway, I hang with a couple groups down in the City. I come back every few weeks to let the suits grill me and I spill everything they want to know. Hence, rat.”

I snicker. “Sounds like you love it.”

“It’s better than flipping burgers. This is your first time here, isn’t?”

“Am I obvious or am I gossip?”

“Gossip.”

“Good to know. So what are they saying about me?”

“Nothing really. That you’re in the building.” Ingrid’s eyes meet mine again. “there’s talk about your mom, mostly. I hadn’t known until a couple minutes ago. She was a real cool lady. What happened anyway?”

“Uh…”

Words fail me. Along with breathing. Is it possible for the brain to flat-line and keep the ears and eyes functioning?

While my brain is frying, I hear Ingrid saying, “It can’t be worse than what I’ve got. My mom spontaneously combusted.”

Beeeeeeeeep. Nurse, I’m afraid we’ve lost the patient.

I stammer over my words and Ingrid’s laughing again, full on now.

“Yeah, I’m not kidding either.” She says, “Why do you think I work the freak circuit? My only hope is that it’s not something in my genes. So, come on. What happened to Maddie?”

My mind returns all at once. I blink a couple of times to get the image of Ingrid’s almost sheepish smile to process.

“How am I supposed to follow that one?” I slide my fingers through my hair. “I mean, seriously! No, you have to go first, because mine isn’t nearly so… unusual.”

“Have it your way. There’s not much to tell.”

I’m starting to pick up on traces of her New York accent, but it’s been subtle so far.

Ingrid gives the room a quick once over and then leans closer across the table.

I bend to listen.