Page 101 of The Initial Insult

Everyone around her spreads outward, along with the spatters of Gretchen’s dinner. Except for, of course, Ribbit, who only crosses the distance between them more quickly and immediately begins cleaning up Gretchen.

“Lightweight.” David Evans is half laughing, half trying to control his own gag reflex when he says it. Next to him, Hugh is shaking his head.

“Gretchen wasn’t drinking,” he says. And that’s when David loses his own battle, pushing Hugh aside as he dashes for the door. He’s not quick enough, and everyone tries to make a path as David comes charging, puke spraying through his fingers.

And that is a distraction.

Everyone in the kitchen is spilling out, curious about the yelling. I go against the traffic, forcing my way through with elbows until I find Felicity, pink and purple and jingly and gorgeous, waiting for me by the door to the cellar.

“What’s going on?” she asks.

“Gretchen just puked. And David,” I add, opening the door and motioning for her to go ahead of me.

“Are they okay?” she asks, but she’s not worried enough to go check for herself, or actually offer any assistance. It’s more important that she get high. She pauses for a second, hands in front of her as she feels for the banister. “Tress? I can’t see.”

“Sorry,” I tell her, flicking my phone on. We go forward by its pale light, Felicity carefully picking her way. I wait for her to get a few steps below me, then turn, and flick the hook-and-eye lock on the basement door. It’s shiny against everything else. Bright and new. Because I put it there an hour ago.

“Tress?” she calls again, her voice higher and a little panicked since I turned my back and took the light with me.

“Sorry,” I say again, and follow behind her, holding the light above her head so she can see.

It’s dank in the basement, two hundred years of mildew gathering together like a blanket in the air. Tress coughs, and it almost turns into a gag as she gets to the bottom of the steps, the bells on her little slippers jangling merrily as she wanders out onto the dirt floor.

“Tress?” she says again, her voice small and lost, trusting, like it had been when we were kids. “I don’t feel so good.”

She’s got her arms crossed in front of her, goose bumps rising even though I can see bright spots on her cheeks. She hasn’t seen what’s behind her yet; the hole in the wall and the pile of bricks beside it, the chair facing it, or the pail of mortar.

Felicity hasn’t seen any of that because she’s looking right at me, eyes wide. “Did you say Gretchen puked? Was she . . . like from drinking, or was she sick?”

I shrug.

“Because there were some people upstairs, just kind of lying there. I thought it was a little early for them to be passed out but . . . oh my God, Tress. What if everyone has the flu?”

Then more importantly, she adds, “What if I’ve got the flu?”

“It won’t be what kills you,” I tell her.

Then I hit her with a brick.

Chapter 10

Felicity

I wait for the boy’s voice.

It’s always there, after. A nice low, soothing thread that I follow up to consciousness. He’ll talk about his grandma, who he lives with, and how he does this with her, waiting patiently for her to come back around after a seizure. I sometimes can’t remember his name, and he’ll tell me, pinging my memory until I say his name back to him, and he’ll help me up, brush my clothes off, and smooth down my hair.

He is a nice boy, that boy . . . Hugh.

Memory is slippery for a few minutes after, and I’ll wander, confused inside my own head, not knowing where I am or how I got there, who I am with or if I am safe. But when I hear Hugh’s voice I know that I am okay. But this time, something is different. I don’t hear Hugh, and there’s something wet running down my neck. I move to brush it away, but I can’t. My arms won’t move. There’s a jangling noise, the sound of tiny bells but also something lower, more sinister.

“Hugh?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer, and something is very wrong. My head hurts terribly. My hands, too. There is a heavy smell in the air, and I’m slumped forward, hung by my arms, wrists straining against . . . chains.

I open my eyes.

I did not have a seizure.