It felt good to finally tell someone about everything that had been going on. Someone I knew wouldn’t judge me, because she’d succumbed to the strange supernatural pulse too, albeit in a different way. It made me feel less alone; less of a monster. That sensation of being tainted, compromised . . . it eased off, if only for a moment.
Then she told me about the ritual; the book in the library, the missing pages, the wooded glade filled with ingredients – her description matched the one I’d been imagining perfectly.
‘So, to sum up,’ I said, ‘we’re fucked.’
Alice grinned.
‘What?’ I retorted. ‘It doesn’t seem particularly funny.’
She snorted, taking a long sip of black coffee. ‘No, it’s just nice hearing you be negative for once. The whole sun-shines-out-of-my-butt thing gets old.’
‘I’m not positive all the time,’ I replied, folding my arms.
Alice fixed me with an amused glare. ‘Name one thing you dislike.’
After a long pause, I said, ‘Cola bottles.’
She arched a villainous brow. ‘You ate a bag of cola bottles literally yesterday.’
‘Okay, I dislikesomecola bottles.’
‘All cola bottles taste the same.’
I shook my head vehemently. ‘Not the one my friend Frankie dared me to eat when I was fourteen. It had been stuck to the bottom of her shoe all day.’
‘So let me get this straight. Of all the people, places and things that exist in past, present or future, the only one you actively dislike is a specific cola bottle you ate half a decade ago?’
I nodded sagely. ‘Sounds about right.’
Alice shook her head, and a lock of red hair fell into her eyes. ‘Unbelievable.’
‘Anyway, back to the life-threatening situation at hand. How do you think any of this fits in with Poppy’s death?’ I mused. I was warming up now, thanks to the toast and the coffee and the conversation. ‘Like, could she have performed the ritual? Or did the North Tower have Poppy in its grasp too?’
Alice shook her head. ‘I don’t know. As awful as it sounds, I’m more focused on how the fuck I’m going to fix this. I can’t . . . god, what happened last night can’t happen again. It wasn’t just the pain, it was . . . what if you hadn’t helped me? What if the darkness had won before I could take the tincture, and I hurt someone? What if I’d hurtyou?’
Somehow, I got the sense that she was holding back. There was something she still couldn’t tell me. Was it about Poppy? Had she done something awful in the throes of monstrosity?
‘Well, first of all, you’ll never be in that situation again,’ I said. ‘Now that I know, I can be on the lookout for signs of the transformation. We can be prepared with the tincture ready to go as soon as it starts happening. And we’ll find a way to restrain you while it’s happening so you can’t hurt anyone – or yourself. You’re not in this alone any more.’
Alice looked as though she might have been touched by this, if she were in any way a normal person with normal emotions. Something seemed to bob in her throat, but she swallowed and looked away. ‘Second?’
I drained the final dregs of my coffee, laid down the mug and got to my feet. ‘We have to find those missing pages. I think they have our answers.’