The wary look again. “Snooping on who?”
“Who do you think?”
Imogen’s eyes went to her laptop, which sat closed on her desk. “Tell me you didn’t read my diary, Darcy.”
“Don’t be silly. I’d never do that!” A pause. “You keep a diary?”
Imogen groaned and flopped back on the bed, her legs flung across Darcy’s. “Just the notes on my phone. They back up onto my computer, and they’re very private.”
“Of course.” Even in her worst depths of snooping, it had never occurred to Darcy to pry open Imogen’s laptop. “I wouldn’t spy on your writing, Gen. You know that, right?”
Imogen tiredly turned her head, raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”
“Of course,” Darcy said. “I was just looking at your match collection.”
A laugh bubbled, low and sleepy, as Imogen turned to face the ceiling again, her eyes half closing. “That’s your confession? You really need to get out more.”
“Your old yearbook was in the closet.”
A sigh left Imogen, and she pulled herself back up to sitting. “Okay, that is snooping. What’d you find out?”
“There was a picture of Imogen White.”
“Oh.” Imogen Gray rubbed one side of her face with an open palm.
“And one of you two onstage together. She wrote a note saying you look stupid in dresses, but I don’t think that’s true.”
A half smile. “Me neither. But I think she meant frilly ones. We were in that ridiculous play.”
“You both looked beautiful.”
“So you must have figured out my real name.”
Darcy shook her head. “You didn’t have a picture, and Imogen’s was the only note in the whole book.” It was so strange, saying that name to mean someone else. “Didn’t you have other friends?”
“Lots, but I wasn’t there the week they handed out yearbooks. I skipped the last month of school, pretty much. Early admission to an Ivy, so I was untouchable.”
Darcy breathed relief. For the last few hours, she’d kept imagining Gen spending her high school years friendless and downtrodden. But instead she’d been untouchable.
“Firecat brought that yearbook home for me. I didn’t find what she’d written till a long time later. . . .” Imogen’s voice faded, then she cleared her throat and said, “So that’s what you needed to know? Whether I had friends in high school?”
“Why did you take her name?”
Imogen turned away and stared at the closet door. “Because she inspired my protagonist. She liked to light fires. I told you that.”
“Sure. But that’s different from naming yourself after her. Isn’t ‘Imogen Gray’ your whole new identity? The one you’re protecting by not telling me who you really are? Are you trying to become her, Gen?”
“No.” Her voice had gone soft again. “Just to remember her.”
For a long moment, Darcy listened to the sound of Imogen breathing. It was heavy with weariness and alcohol, and something else.
“Holy crap. Did she die?”
Imogen nodded, still staring at the open closet. “Suicide. We think.”
“Shit.” Darcy sat up. “I’m so sorry.”
“It feels like a long time ago.”
“It still totally sucks.” Darcy wrapped her arms around Imogen.
“I was away at college and couldn’t afford to fly back, which made it a lot worse. I kept forgetting, somehow. In the morning, I’d go five minutes before remembering she was gone.”
“I didn’t mean to bring all this up, I swear.”
Imogen shook her head. “I don’t mind you knowing. I wasn’t hiding her, really. And I kind of love it that you want to know everything.”
They drew each other closer and the room was silent for while, except for the rumble of traffic starting up below. The light was shifting as morning approached. Darcy felt her body shifting as well, fitting itself against Imogen’s. The bite of alcohol and smoke softened into more familiar scents.
When they parted, Darcy said, “On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most insecure, how shitty a girlfriend am I?”
“You’re not a shitty girlfriend. You’re hard work sometimes, is all.”
Darcy looked away. “When I saw her picture, I was jealous. Not because you were in love with her. Because she made you want to write books.”
“Lots of things make me want to write books. But yeah, she did.” The hint of a smile crept into Imogen’s expression. “And that made you jealous?”
“Of course.”
Imogen keeled slowly backward onto the bed, like a drunken tree falling. Her laugh was throaty and raw. “Like that night with Kiralee, when you were jealous about my Phobomancer idea. You’re hilarious.”
“No, I’m not. I’m horrible!”
“Yeah, right. I just got home from six hours of drinking, dancing, and talking mostly about sex with a half-dozen beautiful, dauntless, smart-as-shit women. And what are you jealous about? Where I got my nom de plume!” At the sound of her own French accent, Imogen bubbled over with raspy laughter again. “And because you didn’t get to hear my pitch before anyone else. That’s just hilarious.”
Darcy stared down at her girlfriend, wondering if she should have waited for sobriety to have this conversation. But when Imogen’s laughter finally subsided and her eyes opened again, they held a look of absolute clarity.
She reached up to tuck a stray lock of hair behind Darcy’s ear. “You’re amazing.”
“I’m a mess, Gen. I don’t know how to stop being this way.”
“At least you care about the right stuff.” Imogen gave her a slow, catlike blink. “Do you really need to know my real name?”
“Do you want to tell me?”
“It won’t kill me, I guess.”
Darcy held Imogen’s gaze for a moment. Was this the sort of thing that normal people argued about? Names and noms de plume and novel pitches? Surely not. “Keep it secret. You’re Imogen to me.”
The resulting smile was beautiful. “Okay, but just for now. Do you want to come on tour with me?”
Darcy only stared at first, because the words didn’t parse. They were too far from this conversation to make sense. But then their meaning fell into place, and she smiled back. “That would be nice. Maybe someday we’ll have a book out at the same time.”
“I don’t mean someday. I mean next month.”
Darcy blinked.
“Hotel rooms don’t cost more for two people,” Imogen went on. “And Paradox is paying for them, and for the cars that pick us up and stuff like that. And food’s cheaper outside of New York, so we’d save money there. All you’d have to pay for is your plane tickets, which I could help you with.”
“Wait. You mean go on tour with you . . . and Standerson?”
“Right—we should ask him first, to be polite. But he likes you, and I already talked to Nan about it. She said that prepub tours are great, especially when they don’t cost Paradox any money.”
Darcy nodded, her mind focusing at last. She’d been unmoored since finding the picture of Imogen White, but solid ground had suddenly appeared beneath her feet. Imogen was talking about publishing, a subject that always cleared Darcy’s head.
“A prepub tour? Is that a real thing?”
“Sure. You travel around meeting booksellers and librarians, and charm them so they’re all excited when your book comes out.” Imogen’s smile grew. “And we’ll be with Standerson, so his rock-star glow will rub off on us.”
“And Nan really said it was okay?”
“She loved the idea. But like I said, we’ll have to split your plane fare.”
“I’ll pay for my own planes, silly.”
“What about your budget?”
“Fuck my budget.” Darcy threw her arms around Imogen again. “I get to go on tour with you and Standerson? That’s amazing!”
“You are kind of lucky, aren’t you?”
Darcy pulled away, laughing. “This isn’t about my luck, Gen. It’s because you don’t want to leave me alone for a week!”
“God only knows what you’d get up to.”
“I promise I won’t ever snoop again.”
“Take it from a half-assed expert in obsessive-compulsive disorders: you can’t stop yourself. But it’s okay, as long as you don’t look in my diary.” Imogen’s face went serious now, her voice suddenly sharp and ragged. “My mom used to read my notebooks when I was little, and I hated it more than anything. So don’t do that.”
“Never. I promise, Gen.”
The hard look on Imogen’s face turned swiftly back into a smile; her moods were oiled by the alcohol in her veins. “I’m glad you like my name.”
“I love your name. Her name. I’m sorry you lost her.”
“Me too.” Imogen’s eyes drifted toward the closet. “Even if she could be a total pain sometimes.”
Darcy followed her gaze. “Are all those matches for her? For Firecat?”
“At first, but then I realized how useful they could be.” Imogen reached for the half-full plastic box at her bedside. She turned it, looking at the matchbooks pressed up against the sides. “Whenever I need a location or a random job, I use them. See? I’ve got pawn shops and yarn stores and shoe repair places in here. Locksmiths and carpet cleaning and tattoo parlors, and look . . . roof restorations!”
“They’re for writing?”
“All my collections are.” Imogen reached toward the windowsill for more stuff, let it fall onto the bedcovers. “These paint samples are for colors. They have the best names: Candy Apple, Metal Smoke, Stone-Washed Surf.”
“And the polaroids?”
“What people wear, what they look like. People who aren’t in magazines.” Imogen shrugged, staring down at the scattered pieces of her collection. The spark in her eyes was fading now, weariness taking over.
Darcy said softly, “I love you like crazy, Imogen Gray.”
“Love you, too.” Her smile was slow and soft, and then her eyes closed, and Imogen curled around herself, wrists pressed together beneath one cheek.
Darcy took the paint samples and matchbooks and placed them back on the windowsill. By the time the bed was clear, Imogen’s breathing was slow and even, and Darcy reached carefully into the pockets of her jeans, sliding out keys and a crumpled wad of money . . .
. . . and Imogen’s phone, a diary wrapped in black glass and slivers of titanium. When Darcy flipped the mute button to silent, the screen lit up expectantly.
“Never,” she whispered to it, and placed the phone carefully beside the keys and cash. Then she curled up next to Imogen Gray, her Imogen, and closed her eyes to sleep at last.
CHAPTER 26
THE SCHOOLHOUSE WAS EASIER TO see tonight. My flipside eyes had grown sharper. Every tile on the roof glimmered, clear and distinct in the gray moonlight.
I crossed the parking lot, hardly noticing the transparent hulks of school buses around me. I could see only the past, luminous and real. The first time I’d come here, the school’s front steps had looked smooth and featureless, but now they were chipped and mottled with chewing gum stains.
Yama was right. Every time I crossed over, every time I traveled the river, the ghostly world laid a stronger claim on me.
But what did it matter? According to him, I’d been born to this. I wasn’t even sure if he wanted me anymore, or if that fight on his ocean-swept island had been our last.
The front door of the schoolhouse was open, inviting me in.