from me, but wary.
“Where are you?”
“My apartment.”
I closed my eyes, wincing. I could walk over there, bound up stairs I’d once sat on sobbing as if my soul was being hacked in two, slowly and with a chain saw. She’d open the door.
And instantly double over, puking, because even if she really was my sister, I couldn’t hug her, because I was anathema to her now.
“Want to come over?” she said hesitantly.
“So I can make you puke some more?”
“Your boyfriend—”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Okay, the man you love,” she said flatly, “brought me some pages photocopied from the Sinsar Dubh. He said you used them to learn to manage the discomfort. I’m practicing. I don’t like puking any more than you like making me puke.”
Working with those pages had helped me only to a point. But unlike the corporeal Book—which had enjoyed tormenting me—I had no desire to hurt Alina. If she really was. And if she practiced enough with them, maybe one day I’d get that hug. If she really was. “When did Darroc give you the engagement ring?” It was bothering me, a nagging detail.
She made a soft sound that was equal parts irritation and acceptance. A so we’re going to play this stupid game? coupled with I love you, Mac, and I know you can be totally neurotic, so I’m going to humor you. “A couple of weeks before I lost time. Or whatever happened.”
“The body I buried wasn’t wearing it.”
“That makes sense,” she said pointedly, “because it wasn’t mine.”
If the Book was trying to trick me, it might have made that mistake, putting a ring on her finger that hadn’t been on her when I’d buried her, skimming my acknowledgment that they’d been in love and embellishing it with a perfectly human touch. I doggedly pursued my line of questioning. “Were you wearing the ring in the alley?”
“No. I’d taken it off that afternoon. I’d discovered some things about him. We’d had a fight. I was angry.”
“What kind of things?”
“He was into some stuff I didn’t know about. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“When did you put it back on?”
“When I went home to change. After the alley, the next thing I knew, I was standing outside the Stag’s Head, wearing the most bizarre outfit. I didn’t even bring it with me to Dublin. I have no clue how I ended up with it on. Remember the dress I wore my last Christmas at home? The one I hated but you thought looked so good on me? The one that made my ass look flat.”
I pressed a suddenly trembling hand to my mouth.
“That’s what I had on with the ugliest shoes. I’d never even seen them before, and I was freezing. And pearls. You know I haven’t worn those things in years. I wanted to find Darroc, so I went home to change and go hunt for him but when I got there my place had been totally trashed. Did you do that? Did you freak out when you thought I was dead?”
I cleared my throat. Still, it took me two tries to get words out and when I did I croaked like a frog. “Why did you put the ring back on? According to you it was what—like only ten hours earlier that you’d taken it off?” I knew why. I’d have done the same thing with Barrons.
She said softly, “I love him. He’s not perfect. I’m not either.”
So, my sister had the same epiphany I did when it came to relationships. Not surprising. But my inner Book knew I’d had that epiphany. She’d spoken in present tense about Darroc, refusing to believe he was really dead. Again, like me. If someone told me my fiancé was dead and I’d never seen his body, I’d have a hard time believing it, too. I was intimately acquainted with the stages of grief: denial being the first.
“Tell me exactly what happened again. Every detail you remember from the night in the alley to the precise moment you were…here again.” I was struggling to stay focused on logistics when my heart was pounding so hard it felt like it might rupture.
“Why? Have you figured something out, Mac? What do you think’s going on? Oh, God, are you finally starting to believe me? Jr., I’m scared! I don’t understand what’s happening. How could I lose a whole year? How did I end up in that stupid dress?”
I closed my eyes and didn’t say: Well, gee, sis, it’s like this: