Inside Out. Amy Lee Burgess

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СКАЧАТЬ white purse—a counterclockwise twist and unwind followed by a clockwise twist and unwind. Silver hoops dangled from her ears and matched the bangle bracelets laddered up her bare left arm. The short sun dress she wore was multi-colored with wide swirls of black. Her flat sandals were black and studded with silver rings and beads. I’d seen the same pair for twenty bucks at Target the last time I’d shopped there for throw pillows to match the cinnamon red of my living room walls. I’d seen the dress too—twenty-nine ninety-five.

      I’d been spoiled by Murphy’s money and by my own—earned as an Advisor to Councilor Allerton. I used to buy Target shoes and clothes, but I was more upscale now. Department stores for clothes and trendy shoe stores for designer name shoes. I despised myself for a moment and wondered if I’d forgotten my roots.

      Before I’d left the condo, I’d slipped my bond pendant around my neck and called myself a fraud as I did it. I hadn’t worn it for five weeks, but I had to if I wanted to avoid questions from Faith. I drew the line at the pack ring, though. Paddy O’Reilly was a fucking liar and I was damned if I’d wear his ring, even though I technically was still a pack member.

      I couldn’t think what to say when she abandoned her purse straps and looked at me without a smile. The naked worry on her face scared me so I murmured an awkward hello, pointed at the store and dodged inside for an iced chai latte—anything to buy me a few moments to sort myself out.

      Mayflower. Just the name conjured up a thousand, jumbled memories, and most of them weren’t good.

      My mouth tasted sour, so I sucked a mouthful of chai latte through the straw as I walked back to Faith’s table. Faith had still not touched her water, but she’d set her purse aside and now played with the bangle bracelets on her wrist. She didn’t look up when I pulled out the wrought iron chair opposite her and took a seat.

      “Nice shoes,” she said. I followed her gaze beneath the table to the black tar sidewalk and my feet.

      My sandals were flat as well—tan leather gladiator style. Cocobelle Safari. A hundred and fifty bucks. Sometimes I got tired of the paint fumes in my condo and went shoe shopping. Of course each time I walked out of a store with a new pair of shoes for my ever-expanding collection, I thought of Allerton and his comment at the Paris Great Gathering. He believed I bought shoes to fill the hole inside me. Lately, I conceded he might have had a point.

      Sometimes it seemed the more my shoe collection expanded, the bigger the hole inside me became. Not smaller. But that didn’t stop the mindless acquisition. I could only take so much redecorating and I had to keep busy and on the move. Otherwise I would curl up in a defeated ball and cry. Screw that.

      “Why Boston?” Faith reached out for her water but didn’t take a sip. Her brown eyes were inquisitive. “After you were exiled you could have gone anywhere in the whole world. Why Boston? Why so close to Mayflower? None of us ever acknowledged you were here. Didn’t that hurt?”

      “Why Starbucks? Why wouldn’t you come to meet me at the condo?” I countered.

      A small smile quirked the corner of her mouth and I was reminded of my mother. Lauren had the same smile when she thought something was funny. For Lauren, this specific smile made a rare appearance.

      “I asked first, Stanzie.”

      Faith had dubbed me Stanzie. She couldn’t wrap her tongue around Constance when she was little and somehow she’d come up with Stanzie. Soon everyone in the pack had called me that and it had stuck. I’d made sure of it because I’d never liked Constance. The name was too formal and old-fashioned.

      My father, of course, had despised the nickname. He’d taken it as a personal insult because he’d chosen my name. Supposedly, there had been a girl named Constance on the Mayflower when it had arrived in Plymouth Harbor one cold November day in 1620. Constance had had a twin brother, a father and a mother. They, and another young couple aboard, had had an inside secret. They weren’t Others—they were Pack.

      Paul had spun stories for me about this Mayflower Constance when I was a little girl—about her voyage and her family and what it was like to be in a pack in Colonial Massachusetts. Whenever I was bad, he would throw this Mayflower Constance in my face and tell me how she would never have cried like a baby or begged for such an expensive toy or talked back to her father the way I did. By the time I was seven, I hated the Mayflower Constance with a passion. She was the main reason I insisted on being called Stanzie. The Mayflower Constance would never have shortened her name and would have been horrified by anyone who’d tried to give her a nickname.

      I played with my straw for a moment and Faith waited, her eyes thoughtful and wary.

      “Every summer the mothers would take all of us kids to Faneuil Hall for a daytrip. We’d eat lunch at Quincy Market and walk through the stalls and vendors. We’d go outside and eat under the sun. Take walks to Paul Revere’s house and the Old North Church. Go sprawl on blankets by the river. I’d fall asleep in Lauren’s lap.”

      A reminiscent smile tugged at Faith’s mouth.

      “Boston was always a magical place for me. Full of potential and mystery. Joy. Plus it was one place that I’d never shared with Grey and Elena, so there were no memories here with them.”

      Faith’s smile faltered and she stared at the sweating bottle of water on the table for a moment.

      “I’m pregnant,” she announced, but it didn’t seem as though she expected grins and congratulations. “So maybe this is all in my head. Paranoia caused by raging pregnant-woman hormones, but I don’t think so. I didn’t want anyone to think I’d come here deliberately to see you. If someone from Mayflower spied us together, I could always say I saw you sitting here on the corner and had to stop. But if I went to your condo, they’d know I sought you out deliberately.”

      It was a two-hour drive from Willoughby, the small town where Mayflower made its home. Willoughby backed up to the Wendell State Forest where the pack ran. When the pack had first formed, it had been much closer to Boston but as the land had been built up and cities and towns founded, the pack had moved toward the state forest.

      “What are you afraid of?” I leaned across the tiny table and put my hand on her arm. Her skin was slightly clammy with perspiration, but it was her pulse rate I wanted to feel. It raced.

      “I don’t know,” she confessed in a low, confused voice. She began to pick at the label on the water bottle and tore small strips of paper away which she rolled into little balls with her thumb and forefinger then deposited on the table.

      She stared straight into my eyes. “What did Councilor Allerton tell you?”

      “Not much. He wanted you to tell me. I had the feeling he wasn’t quite sure himself what the problem was, only that he believed you needed help.”

      “And that’s what the Great Council is for, right? Help?” Faith didn’t sound convinced.

      “Among other things,” I agreed.

      “Like tribunals?” Faith watched my reaction closely and I tried not to shudder. Nearly two months had passed since my tribunal had ended and I’d been cleared of all charges. Almost three years since the first tribunal when I’d also been cleared of all charges.

      “That was a low blow,” she said before I could answer. “Sorry.”

      “Why? You’re right. The Councils, both Regional and Great, are responsible for enforcing our laws СКАЧАТЬ