Luminosity (Gravity Series #3) (The Gravity Series) Read online

  Claire rushed out of the room, like an irate teenager herself, and disappeared up the stairs. I turned back to Hugh, who was gripping the back of the recliner and staring off. I could almost see the gears in his head grinding.

  “Why would Thornhill even consider her, anyway?” I asked. Most of their members were wealthy and influential, neither of which described our little family. “We’re not lifestyles of the rich and famous.”

  “Claire knows a lot of important people.”

  “How so?”

  “They went to school together. We all did, back at the old Hawthorne. Picture it, if you will. Late seventies, bell bottoms were just going out of style. She was friends with many of the women who now hold high ranks in Thornhill—Deana Ford in particular.”

  “She was friends with Lainey’s mom? I never knew any of that.” I had to admit I felt a little sickened, imagining Claire sniping at other girls and strutting around like our school’s resident bitch queen, Lainey.

  “You probably just never thought about it,” Hugh said. “You know we’ve all lived here since we were born. There were a lot of social cliques back then, and they carried over into adulthood. People don’t change as much as they want you to believe. Claire was in all kinds of clubs, invited to parties as their guest of honor. I was on the chess team, before it became ironic.”

  I could tell he was approaching the cut-off line of not wanting to talk about it anymore, but I wanted to squeeze as much information out of him as I could.

  “Why now?” I asked.

  “The meeting that Deana invited Claire to is apparently the start of some kind of vetting process. Thornhill approached a few women. She’s just trying to fill her time. She’s mad at me for working at the gallery so much, but I have no choice now that Gwen is pregnant.” Gwen was his assistant, who usually ran the show at Erasmus. Hugh ran his hand through his messy hair. “Let’s just drop it. I don’t think it’s something we’ll have to worry about. She’ll go to the meeting, get irritated by everyone talking over each other with their high and mighty opinions, and forget all about it.”

  “But if they approached her…?”

  “I think they only did it because of past loyalties,” Hugh said. “She’ll come to her senses, hon. She has to.”

  He distracted me by involving me in dinner preparation, but I didn’t stop thinking about the words they’d hurled. We set out vegetables and several chicken breasts on the counter for chicken noodle soup. While Hugh busied himself cutting up celery and carrots, I felt safe in bringing up the subject.

  “Hugh, can I ask you about something?”

  “Go ahead,” he said, but his tone was guarded.

  “What prayer group were you and Claire talking about?”

  He didn’t even pause in his movements, scooping the vegetables up and placing them in a boiling pot of water.

  “It was just something stupid from high school,” he said flatly, tossing a dish towel over his shoulder. “One of the clubs I told you about. Kids are idiots, just looking for circles to fit in, you know that. Can you strain those noodles for me?” He checked his watch. “I still need to run back up to Erasmus before the night is over. Callie is supposed to drop off some boxes of business cards she printed up.”

  I didn’t have the guts to confront my father directly. Instead, I poured the noodles into the colander and kept myself occupied so I wouldn’t blurt out more—like an accusation about Callie.

  The relationships in our household had been strained in recent weeks. After months of secret phone calls and odd behavior, I’d caught Hugh in the gallery flirting with our school nurse, Callie Hernandez. He’d told me she was just a friend, but it seemed very sketchy and I legitimately suspected he might be having an affair. The thought made me anxious.

  My dad, a lover of lame jokes, supporter of my ideas and the man who sewed my toy bunny back together when the neighbor’s dog tore it apart, wasn’t a bad guy. But the possibility of his straying made me furious towards him.

  Dinner turned out well for being cobbled together at the last minute, especially with me being co-chef, since I was a world renowned bad cook. True to his word, Hugh slipped out the instant the last noodle in his bowl had disappeared.

  Lying on my back with my hands over my stomach, I stared up at my star-decorated ceiling. A blue and green lava lamp beside me cast colorful shapes, obliterating the dark. I couldn’t stay in total darkness anymore; there were too many possibilities lurking in the shifting shadows.

  My friend Jenna strolled in and sat down on the edge of my bed. I didn’t move, and being incorporeal, she didn’t disturb the mattress. She had come back to me as a ghost last year after I’d destroyed a sacrificial symbol she had been bled on. Not your usual test of friendship, but at least we’d passed.

  I’d figured out how she was killed, but I’d also promised to get to the bottom of why she was killed, and I hadn’t reached an answer yet. My plan was to identify the bigger picture. In the past few months, however, Jenna had acted blasé about the whole thing, even making jokes about her death. School and life had gotten in the way of investigating.

  “You look like you had a rough day,” she said. I’d grown used to the fact that she was always dressed in the summer outfit she died in, despite the chill of the basement.

  “Rough isn’t really the word. Frustrating is more like it.” I tried adjusting my pillow under my head, but I could still feel every lump.

  “Feel like talking about it?”

  “I met Theo’s dad.” I had previously explained about Theo to Jenna although she didn’t seem to completely grasp the concept of my having a new best friend. Sometimes our friendship appeared to make her jealous. “He’s a total jerk to her, and to me, although I wasn’t nice myself.”

  “You, not nice? How is that possible?” Jenna joked, smirking at me.

  “Meh. It’s possible. I wish you could have been there; you would have told him off properly. Then I come home and I find my parents ready to jump into a cage match. Get this—Claire’s got it in her head that she’s going to join Thornhill.”

  Jenna frowned, looking bewildered. “Why would she do that?”

  “Well, supposedly it’s only a first meeting. But I know how my mom works; if she wants to get in, she’ll find a way. The one thing I don’t understand is why they approached her.”

  “That’s really weird,” Jenna agreed.

  I rubbed the back of my neck, my muscle strained with tension. “What do you think? Do you think that they’re headed for a divorce or something?”

  Jenna surprised me by giggling her high-pitched, eerie ghost laugh. It sounded so unlike the guttural guffaw she’d had in life. “What, do you think that by dying I got a degree in marriage counseling at the pearly gates?”

  “No, I’m just asking someone whose parents were having trouble,” I said. “Someone who is supposed to be my best friend.”

  She shrugged noncommittally. “Believe me or don’t, but I think the sand is running out of the hourglass on that one, chica.”

  “I can’t even think straight,” I said, rubbing both of my temples with my fingertips.

  “Probably didn’t help that you didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, trying and failing to sound like I didn’t know what she was talking about. I dropped my hands and stared at her.

  “You were tossing and turning like crazy,” Jenna said, peering at me curiously and tilting her head to the side. Her curly hair tumbled over her shoulder.

  “Must have been something I ate.”

  She continued to stare at me suspiciously, as if expecting a better answer. Then she got up and went to the door. “Sweet dreams,” she said, and left me alone.

  In reality, I was frightened of going to sleep, in case I woke up in front of the Dexter Orphanage again. Being drawn inside by its force, towards the flames eating away at the roof and heat scalding my skin, terrified me. It didn’t seem like a rational fear when I was ar
ound other people at school. But now, alone in my room, it seemed inevitable and dangerous.

  I didn’t want to vocalize this to Jenna. Why make her worry when I didn’t know if there was a reason behind it?

  I wrote in my science notebook for a little while, trying to concoct a theory about the birds for Golem’s class. I came up dry; the cold front really did seem like a logical explanation. My eyes were getting blurry, the lids heavy, and I told myself I’d just rest them for a moment.

  The next thing I knew, I was waking up to my alarm. I had passed out without knowing it, my sleep devoid of burning buildings and pointless card games. Maybe the first dream had been a fluke. Maybe the villains were staying buried.

  CHAPTER 3

  WHEN I CAUGHT glimpses of Henry at school, my heart would race, and I found it harder to speak. The mere sight of his slender but strong frame, the swoop of hair across his forehead, and especially his smile, made it hard to breathe.

  It didn’t help that seeing him made my imagination run like crazy. I could feel his lips as he was talking to someone else, see his expressive hands touching me as he gestured during conversations.

  Occasionally, I felt him watching me. I would sense it, then turn and catch his amber eyes trained on me. He would break away, realizing he’d been caught. We never talked about it, but it was like an unspoken game.

  I noticed other couples interacting in school a lot more now, that I was one half of one. In fact, they seemed to be wherever I looked, mocking me as they made out in front of lockers and held hands in the hall. While I was never a PDA fan, I wished I could at least stop pretending like Henry and I were doing something wrong.

  It ached, not being able to reach out and touch him when we passed in the hall. We shared several classes, but I didn’t dare acknowledge his presence. For all anyone else knew, we despised each other.

  ###

  I was lounging at home a few days later. A string of dreamless nights had calmed me down a little. I had stopped being so afraid of seeing the burning building when I shut my eyes.

  Hugh, Theo and I had cleaned out the basement and rearranged the furniture to make a hangout space. Though I normally didn’t have many people over, it was nice to have more space and not be sequestered in my dinky bedroom.

  Claire had gone out to her Thornhill meeting, skipping dinner and dressing up in her finest. She and my father had barely exchanged a word as she flew out the door.

  I was currently sitting up on the couch with a book propped up between my knees, eating an orange. I heard a knock on the French doors and looked up, sliding my finger between the pages like a bookmark. Henry let himself in and smiled at me, giving me a little wave as he shut the door. I smiled back in surprise and dropped the book on the couch, rushing over to him.

  He greeted me with a kiss, his lips warm and soft. The faint scent of him slid into the room around me, making it seem like he belonged there. “You taste like oranges,” he said, his breath caressing my face.

  I gestured to the bowl on the table. “Snack time.”

  “I like it,” he said, and joined my lips with mine again. We stayed that way for a few minutes. His presence made my insides tremble, every cell ignited, but I tried not to give away the intensity of my excitement. He pulled away and swept his eyes up and down, taking in the fact that I was only wearing a long t-shirt and little sleeping shorts.

  “I like the outfit. Is that for my benefit?”

  “It is now,” I said, smirking. Usually I was self conscious of my legs, but I felt myself blushing at the thought that he would want to look at them.

  He picked up the book and tipped it to see the cover. My dream had inspired me to pull it out of the bookcase: a woman wearing a long white dress, a gothic mansion burning in the background. “What are you reading? Rebecca? I think I’ve heard of that, what’s it about?”

  “Woman marries a widower and moves into his creepy mansion,” I explained. “Then she finds out the maid, Ms. Danvers, is a total nutjob.” He nodded and set the book back down.

  “Sounds good. Sorry, I was going to be here earlier,” Henry said, sitting and getting comfortable. He pushed back damp hair, and stretched his arms out on the back of the couch. “I got a window of opportunity to leave my parents’ clutches and I jumped on it. Then I had to find a good spot to mask my car. I can only stay for an hour or so, but I figured that was at least a little time together.”

  “Oh, whatever will we do to fill the time?” I teased.

  He smiled and then kissed me again, quickly this time. “So, you don’t mind? I didn’t interrupt any important plans?”

  “I don’t mind. This is a nice surprise,” I said, sitting next to him and leaning my head on his chest. “I’m guessing your parents are at the meeting.”

  “How did you know?”

  “My mother’s there, too. She’s apparently trying to join up.”

  He raised his eyebrows towards his hairline. “Really? I didn’t realize she was interested in joining. I thought your parents were wise to Thornhill’s ways.”

  “That’s what I thought, too. But apparently they approached her. Have you heard anything about this vetting process?”

  Henry nodded. “There’s a trial period a few times a year in which new members can join. They always invite a few people that they feel could be a good fit. Kind of like pledging a frat-house or sorority.”

  “Ariel! Can you come up here please?” Hugh called from the top of the stairs, causing me to jump. Feeling anxious, I hopped off the couch. I hadn’t heard Hugh come down to the main floor; I’d thought he was up in his studio. He could be as silent as a mouse.

  “Okay!” I yelled up the stairs. To Henry, I whispered, “I’ll be right back.”

  My heart beat furiously as I raced up to the dining room. Did he know Henry was there? Maybe Henry’s hiding job hadn’t been good, and Hugh had recognized the car.

  Hugh was reading through a stack of mail at the table, looking distracted.

  “What’s up?” I asked him.

  “Here.” He handed me a few letters. I waited for him to continue speaking.

  “This is it? Just letters?”

  “What were you expecting? Or should I ask, what have you done to make you expect something more serious?” He searched my eyes for a sign of self-incrimination.

  “Nothing, Hugh. Don’t be so suspicious.”

  “I’m only suspicious because it’s part of a parent’s job description,” he said, setting down the rest of the mail.

  “I’m just reading a book,” I bluffed. “Not even a scandalous one—no four letter words. You need to stop trying to make me less boring.”

  Hugh shrugged and walked to the recliner, settling down in front of a Red Wings game. He didn’t like many sports, but anyone touching the remote during a hockey game was asking for trouble. I watched him stare at the screen; he looked distracted and a little sad. I knew Claire’s attendance at the meeting was worrisome to him.

  I almost sat down beside him, but I knew the conversation would be long, drawn out and get us nowhere. I took the junk mail and went back downstairs.

  “False alarm,” I said, getting my breathing back to normal. Having him upstairs just above us freaked me out; there was every chance he would hear Henry’s voice. I switched on the TV, turning it up just loud enough to hide our voices.

  “I wish I could take you out on an actual date. Movie theater, a meal at a restaurant, the basics,” Henry said as I settled back down next to him.

  “The basics are overrated,” I said, shrugging. “It really doesn’t bug me. At least we’re more creative than that. I like just being alone with you.”

  He played with a strand of my black hair. “You don’t want candles or flower petals or slow, annoyingly mopey guitar music with a whiny singer?”

  I scoffed, ticking the responses off on my fingers. “I have my own candles, flower petals are cliche, and you know my taste in music. I’m not the traditionally romantic type.”


  “Could’ve fooled me,” Henry said sarcastically, snickering. “I’ve never met a girl who preferred chainsaw-wielding murderers in a movie to a couple falling in love.”

  “That what’s you like about me, though,” I said, grinning.

  “That I do. Beautiful, brave and loves blood and guts. Definitely a unique combo.” He kissed my forehead.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this forever,” I said. “Assuming we stay together after we graduate, we’ll be out of your dad’s grip. We can eat at a different restaurant every night, if you wanted.”

  “Assuming we stay together?”

  “I don’t want to jinx it,” I said gently.

  The hour passed on fast-forward, as it always did when we were together. At the end, we embraced for a long time, standing together, neither of us wanting him to leave. I stood at the door and watched him creep back around the house, pulling his hood up.

  Five minutes later, I heard Claire’s heels click into the kitchen. I knew it was lucky that she had missed Henry’s departure. I took my plate of orange peels upstairs as an excuse to talk to her.

  “How did your meeting go?” I asked as casually as possible as I washed my dish.

  “Just fine, if you’re genuinely asking,” Claire said, hanging her coat on the rack. “They had a lot of interesting things to say and a lot of information on their ideas for Hell.”

  I stared at her tired, dolled-up face, ready to assess her reaction. “Are you going to join Thornhill?”

  “I’m going to take it one step at a time,” Claire said. She wouldn’t elaborate more than that. I glanced at her sidelong, wanting to ask her more, to tell her what I knew, but unable to get the words out.

  ###

  When I went to bed that night, I either ran out of luck or let my guard down. I was so exhausted that I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow, full of swirling thoughts regarding Claire and Thornhill.

  I woke up sucking in my breath as if to scream. The nightmare had almost started but my brain had awakened me, sensing my impending fear. Shivering, I clutched my covers up to my chin, eyes sweeping the room. I could see the orange-red fire burning when I closed them, even with the blue of the lava lamp beside me.