"Um...right, it's okay!" Eve called back, as Miranda practically yanked her arm out of its socket. "She just wants to do some tarot or something. It's okay! I'll bring her back down! Just a sec!"
Shane, Michael, and Claire just looked at one another for a few seconds, and then Shane made a loopy gesture at his temple and whistled.
Michael nodded. "She didn't use to be that bad," he said.
"I guess it's this Charles guy she was talking about," Shane said grimly. "Should have known that if anybody would hook up with a bloodsucker for troo wuv" - Shane made it sound ridiculous - "it'd be some ditz like Miranda. I should have made her walk home. She'd probably get off on another bite."
"She's a kid, Shane," Michael said. "But the sooner we get her out of here, the better I'll feel. She gets Eve a little - nervous."
Eve? But Eve didn't really believe all that crap, did she? Claire had become convinced that it was just costuming, that underneath, Eve was just a normal girl after all, all the Goth stuff just posturing. But did she really believe in visions and crystals and tarot cards? Magic was just science misunderstood, she reminded herself. Or, on the other hand, just crazy talk.
The two boys looked at Claire. "What?" she asked. "Oh, by the way, I'm fine, thanks for asking. Got chased by some vampires. Business as usual."
"Told you not to go," Shane said, and shrugged. "So, who's going to get Miranda to leave?"
They kept looking at her, and Claire finally understood that somehow, it had become her job. Probably because she was new, and didn't know Miranda, and she was a girl. Michael was too polite to ask her to go. Shane - she couldn't tell what Shane felt about Miranda, except that he wanted her the hell out of the house.
"Fine," Claire said. "I'll go."
"That girl's smart," Shane said without smiling, to Michael, as she started up the steps.
"Yep," Michael agreed. "I like that about her."
The bedroom doors were all closed except for Eve's, which was casting a flickering light out onto the polished wood floor. Claire smelled the bright flare of matches. They were lighting candles.
Oh, she really didn't want to do this. Maybe if she just kept walking, went to her room, and locked the door...?
She took a deep breath and looked around the doorway with a smile that felt totally forced. Eve was lighting the candles - and boy, she had a lot of them, sitting basically everywhere. Big tall black ones, purple ones, blue ones. Nothing in the pastel family. Her bed was black satin, and there was a pirate flag - skull and crossbones - hanging above it like a billowing headboard. Little Christmas lights strung everywhere - no, not Christmas lights after all. Halloween pumpkins and ghosts and skulls. Cheery and strange.
"Hey," Eve said, not looking up from the black pillar candle she was lighting. "Come on in, Claire. I guess you haven't really met Miranda exactly."
Not unless screaming and fleeing counted. "Hi," she said awkwardly. She didn't know what to do with her hands. Miranda didn't seem to notice or care, and her hands were up and in the air, petting some invisible cat or something. Weird. The longer that Claire was around the girl, the younger she looked - younger than Eve, for sure. Maybe even younger than Claire herself. Maybe it was all make-believe for her...except the bite. That was deadly serious stuff.
"Um...Eve? Can I talk to you for a sec?" Claire asked. Eve nodded, opened a black-painted dresser, and took out a black lacquer box. When opened, it had a bloodred interior. There was a black silk package inside, which, as Eve unwrapped it, proved to be a deck of cards.
Tarot cards.
Eve held them between her two palms for a few seconds, then cut the deck several times and handed it to Miranda. "I'll be right back," she said, and went out into the hall with Claire, closing the door behind her. Before Claire could say anything, Eve held up her hand. She wouldn't meet Claire's eyes. "The guys sent you up?" At Claire's nod, she muttered, "Pansies, both of them. Fine. They want her out, right?"
"Um...yeah. I guess." Claire rocked uncomfortably back and forth. "She is a little...weird."
"Miranda's - yeah, she's weird. But she's also kind of gifted," Eve said. "She sees things. Knows things.
Shane ought to get that. She told him about the fire before - " Eve shook her head. "Doesn't matter. If she came all the way over here in the dark, something's wrong. I should try to find out what."
"Well...can't you just, you know, ask her?"
"Miranda's a psychic," she said. "It's not that simple - she can't just blurt it out. You have to work with her."
"But - she can't really see the future, right? You don't believe that?" Because if you do, Claire thought, you're crazier than I thought you were when I first met you.
Eve finally met her eyes. Angry. "Yes. Yes, I do believe that, and for a smart kid you're pretty dumb if you don't understand that science isn't perfect. Things happen. Things that physics and math and crap that gets measured in a lab can't explain. People aren't just laws and rules, Claire. They're...sparks.
Sparks of something beautiful and huge. And some of the sparks glow brighter, like Miranda." Eve looked away again, obviously uncomfortable now. But not half as uncomfortable as Claire felt, because this was...wow. Space cadet city. "You guys just leave us alone for a little while. It'll be fine."
She went back into the room and shut the door. It wasn't quite a slam. Claire swallowed hard, feeling hot all over and wishing she hadn't let the boys push her into that, and slowly went back down the stairs.
Michael and Shane were sitting on the couch and playing a video game with open beers on the table in front of them. Elbowing each other as their on-screen cars raced around turns.
"Not exactly legal," she said, and sat down on the steps. "The beer. Nobody here's twenty-one."
Michael and Shane clicked bottles. Honestly, it was juvenile. "Here's to crime," Shane said, and tipped his up. "Hey, it was a birthday present. Two six-packs. We're only one down, so give us a break.
Morganville's got the highest alcoholics per capita of any place in the world, I'll bet."
Michael put the game on pause. "Is she leaving yet?"
"No."
"If she starts trying to tell me I'm going to meet a tall dark stranger, I'm leaving," Shane said. "I mean, the kid's a head case, and I don't want to be mean, but jeez. She really believes this stuff. And she's got Eve half-convinced, too."