Page 156 of The Pansy Paradox
Ophelia
King’s End, Minnesota
Saturday, July 15
Ophelia trails Jack around King’s End. She’s his invisible shadow as he ducks into alleys and peers into shops. She’s curious about what he’s doing and why. Jack is Pansy’s best friend, more so than even Mortimer. She wonders what he knows about both her and King’s End that no one else in the Enclave does.
Under different circumstances, she’d be curious about how Jack Ling goes about his work, the rapport with his umbrella—which is startling, but perhaps not surprising. After all, Jack thrives on a blend of data and intuition.
It’s a sunny, sultry Saturday, and King’s End is readying itself for an influx of visitors. Jack is so single-minded that he seems not to notice that an unusual number of day tourists carry their own umbrellas on this July day that promises to be both clear and hot.
Or perhaps he does. His eyes narrow. Abruptly, he swings around and heads back toward the residential part of town. He marches past Pansy’s house without a glance. Mortimer doesn’t come rushing through the front door, although Ophelia half expects him to. Jack continues his single-minded trek all the way to the housing development and through the gate.
There, he does pause, and raises his chin. His umbrella shudders. Within moments, they discover one of the devices Henry planted. Jack turns it in his palm before switching it off. Then he crouches as if he can track Pansy and Henry by the scuffed footprints they’ve left behind in their rush to safety. Perhaps Jack can, because he heads straight for the showcase home.
It’s locked, of course, because Henry always locks the door behind him.
“Well, hell,” Jack mutters, and lets out a sigh. Yes, he’s an analyst, not a field agent, and his lock-picking skills are rudimentary at best. However, his motivation makes up for this lack of skill. He unfurls his umbrella to guard his back and gets to work. Ten minutes and a bloody thumb later, Jack stands in the foyer of the showcase home.
The house is so still, so deserted, that Ophelia feels herself congeal. She can barely push her way inside. Jack is a statue, his steps halting the moment he crosses the threshold. It’s so quiet that when a single drop of blood slips from his thumb, they both hear it land on the tile.
Then the floor swallows it up.
“Jesus.”
Jack is on the verge of spinning around and leaving, not that Ophelia blames him. If she could, she’d give him a good shove out the door. This space is preternatural. Granted, so is she, in a way. But this space also wants something, craves it with a deep and abiding hunger, the sort that takes out its frustration by ripping holes in the surrounding fence.
Jack’s gaze lands on the coffee table. He squints, then rushes forward, his hands pawing the burner phones, the field packs, and the umbrellas. He dumps everything onto the floor, sorts through all the items as if that will give him the clues he needs.
He rummages and rummages, so obsessed that Ophelia worries he’ll never stop. She can sense the shock that tightens his chest, the despair that clogs his throat, the full-body anguish that washes through him.
There, on the floor, are things that should be in Henry’s pockets, assuming he and Pansy left everything else behind. A roll of twenty-dollar bills, another of fifties. A pocket knife. Pansy’s emergency tinctures. The cash, though, is the most disturbing. Henry, she knows, would never leave without that.
Which means what? Ophelia doesn’t know. Or rather, she’s too scared to contemplate the possible answers.
Jack’s umbrella is a blur of gray and silver sorrow. It flings itself forward onto the table, its strap covering Pansy’s umbrella as if in an embrace. But Pansy’s umbrella is silent; Henry’s is silent.
Jack is on his knees, face in his hands. His body shakes, but not with sobs. Truly, he’d find solace in that. No, this is a man beyond devastation. This is a man who is channeling that righteous anger.
He raises his head, and the flint in his gaze has Ophelia skittering backward. Haphazardly, he shoves items back into the field packs, scoops up both umbrellas and bursts out the door, leaving it wide open.
He is far ahead of her, already past the entrance when she manages to leave the showcase home. Jack is heading straight for Pansy’s, straight to confront Mortimer.
No, the Sight doesn’t deign to show her that outcome, but Ophelia does know this:
It’s the absolutely worst thing he could do.
Chapter 67
Pansy
I wait for my father, for Max, to elaborate on how things are “sticky.” The house around us is gray and empty, so at odds with how it was in Henry’s fantasy. My heart thumps with longing, because it wasn’t simply his dream.
It was also mine.
Conflicting emotions war in Max’s expression. Reluctance, yes. Regret? Possibly. He rubs his face, pushes hair back from his forehead, and exhales like a man who believes he’s ruined everything.
“Botten knows the incantation,” Max says. “He no doubt has enough fresh blood from both of you, and?—”
