“You and your mom aren’t close?” I asked.
“Not even in the same galaxy.”
Sadness or anger drew down the corners of her mouth. Then I realized it was grief.
“She called me a couple of weeks ago, dropping a bunch of hints, and that’s one reason why your revelation at Lafitte’s didn’t surprise me. I’d heard of the Infinityglass before. I used to get bedtime stories, too.”
Another thing we had in common.
“At first, I thought she was just looking for something that Chronos had retrieved. But she used one of the few soft spots I have for her against me, reminding me of the stories, and told me I was the Infinityglass. I wanted to call her a liar, but … things have changed for me. Recently. Another reason you didn’t surprise me.”
“You have symptoms beyond the ripple sightings?” I asked. “Besides the possession?”
She nodded but didn’t elaborate. “Any answers I get from her now will have to be bargained for, and it’s not worth it.”
“She knows what you are, and she won’t help you? How could a mother do that?”
“Because she wants something from me.” Hallie picked up her toast. “She always does. I don’t know what it is this time, and I don’t really want to find out. It won’t be good. It won’t be loving, or in my best interest. Nothing she does ever is.”
“Then don’t get answers from her. Get them from me.” It was the boldest I’d been about the Infinityglass since the night at Lafitte’s.
She exhaled. “I’m ready when you are.”
“Then let’s take it upstairs.”
I put my plate in the sink and exited the kitchen, leaving her with a curious expression and a mouth full of toast.
I set up my laptop, an external drive, and notebook on Hallie’s vanity.
It was the first time I’d actually been in her room. A confection of pastels, it was huge and relentlessly neat, with toe shoes hanging from pegs on the wall. I didn’t understand why she needed so many different pairs. There were also wigs and tutus.
She had every game system known to man, including a couple of throwbacks, like an Atari console and a Sega Genesis. A tall wooden shelf held hundreds of movies in various forms, Blu-rays, DVDs, even some VHS tapes. I tapped one and raised an eyebrow.
“Not everything has been released in the most modern formats. If you think that’s a lot, my digital collection would blow your mind.”
“I collect music the way you collect movies.” I opened the minimized window on my laptop screen and showed her.
“Seven thousand songs?”
“My physical collection would blow your mind. It’s a sickness. But I like to read, too.”
“So do I. Real books. When I was younger, my dad used to take me to the bookstore on Saturdays. Garden District Book Shop at first, but then Octavia Books.” Melancholy sneaked into her voice. “I could spend hours in that place; it was so open and full of light. They even had a pet dog that lived in the store. Those were the good old days.”
Now when she wanted to leave her house, she had to climb down the side of it.
“Maybe you could take me there sometime.”
“Maybe.” She shook off the sadness and leaned over my shoulder, her hair swinging forward, so close it brushed against my cheek. “All right, wise one. Enlighten me.”
I had two thoughts. One, if I turned my head a fraction of an inch, my lips would line up directly with hers, and two, she knew it.
I scooted the stool closer to the vanity to get myself out of the reach of her lips before clearing my throat.
“Here we go.”
Hallie
Dune was easy to tease. The good kind of easy, though. He felt safe and right. I saw how a pattern could form, the push and the pull between us. Not where my brain should be.
“Let’s start with the basics,” he said, scrolling through a list of documents. “Tell me what you know.”
“Right now I’d prefer that you tell me stuff, not that I tell you stuff.”
“We both have information.” He turned around, too big and too ridiculous, perched on the tiny stool that matched my vanity. “I thought we were going to engage in an exchange.”
“So you’re going to just blindly open up and give me anything I ask for?”
“I don’t have time to have trust issues, Hallie, and neither do you.”
“There’s always time for trust issues.”
“If we’re going to help each other, we have to put everything on the table.” He rubbed his hands on the knees of his jeans and stood. “I’ve met Poe. Last fall, he came to the Hourglass, to give us an ultimatum from your mom.”