![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yogurtvoreOf course, Gansey was not on time for his reading. The appointment time came and went. No Gansey. (There had been a drop-in reading earlier in the afternoon, a man in his mid-twenties who insisted on anonymity and whom Persephone, Calla, and Maura were insistent Blue should avoid in the future.) And, perhaps more disappointingly, no phone call from Adam, the strangely nice raven boy Blue had met the night before at her weekend-and-summer job as a waitress at Nino's, the local pizza parlor--along with his friends, one of whom was one of the most raven boy raven boys Blue had ever met, and another of whom was either Ronan from Fandom High or a dead ringer for him. He hadn't recognized Blue, so she couldn't be sure. She was privately calling their leader President Cell Phone.
Just as the local psychics had just about concluded that maybe Maura had told him the wrong day, and Persephone had begun to consider making a pie (and Blue had concluded that Gansey had blown it off, Orla howled fro the Phone Room, her wordless wail eventually resolving itself into words:
"There is a 1973 Camaro in front of the house! It matches my nails!"
Blue's stomach dropped to her feet.
Gansey. That's all there is.
The doorbell rang.
"Are you ready?" Calla asked Blue.
Gansey was the boy she either killed or fell in love with. Or both. There was no being ready. There just was this: Maura opening the door.
There were three boys in the doorway, backlit by the evening sun as Neeve had been weeks ago. Three sets of shoulders: one square, one built, one wiry.
"Sorry that I'm late," said the boy in front, with the square shoulders. The scent of mint rolled in with him, just as it had in the churchyard. "Will it be a problem."
Blue knew that voice.
She reached for the railing of the stairs to keep her balance as President Cell Phone stepped into the hallway.
Oh no. Not him. All this time she'd been wondering how Gansey might die, and it turned out she was going to strangle him.
Gansey. This was Gansey.
And that meant that the journal she'd been given to find the owner of at the end of her shift, full of dead Welsh kings and ley lines and magic, belonged to him.
That meant that Adam belonged to him.
"Well," Maura said. "It's not too late. Come into the reading room. Can I get some names?"
Adam. Gansey. Ronan, after all, but, she supposed, a different Ronan. Younger. Still in high school. They were 'noisy,' Maura complained, and the only way to deal with it was to do one-offs, have each of them draw one card from the deck, no more. It was decided Blue should draw the cards. Adam, they concluded, was avoiding a hard choice. Ronan refused to draw a card until the psychics told him "something true," so Calla did:
"A secret killed your father and you know what it was."
The room went deadly silent. Both Persephone and Maura were staring at Calla. Gansey and Adam were staring at Ronan. Blue was staring at Calla's hand.
Calla pulled her hand away; she'd reached to touch Ronan's tattoo right where it met his collar. His face was turned just slightly, looking to where her fingers had been. He was a head taller than her already, but he looked young beside her, like a lanky wildcat not yet up to weight. She was a lioness.
She hissed, "What are you?"
Ronan's smile chilled Blue. There was something empty in it.
"Ronan?" Gansey asked, concern in his voice.
"I'm waiting in the car."
After he'd slammed out, rattling the dishes in the kitchen, and Gansey and Calla had faced off--Adam somehow persuading Gansey to smooth things over; Blue didn't hear what he murmured in his ear--they got back to business. As Blue moved to where Gansey sat, she caught a glimpse of his car at the curb, a flash of impossible orange, the sort of orange Orla would definitely paint her nails.
Gansey drew the wrong card twice, or so Maura claimed. First, he asked Blue to draw for him, and she drew the page of cups--which always, in her mother's readings, represented Blue. So Maura made him draw for himself, and he drew...the page of cups. Finally, Maura took the card out of the deck, insisting it had Blue's energy on it, and made him draw again.
"Death," Gansey read the bottom of the card. He didn't sound surprised or alarmed. He just read the word like he would read eggs or Cincinnati, because it turned out Gansey didn't care about that. He was interested in the ley lines, because psychics worked in energy. And while it was obvious he was talking about the corpse road, Maura didn't offer any information. So he paid and left, and Maura told Blue,
"I don't want you to see him ever again."
At the end of the argument that ensued, Maura said again, "I've never told you to do anything before, Blue, but I'm telling you now. Stay away from them."
((Yeah, Maura, that's going to go great. Adapted and abridged from Chapter 15 of The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. NFB due to distance.))
Just as the local psychics had just about concluded that maybe Maura had told him the wrong day, and Persephone had begun to consider making a pie (and Blue had concluded that Gansey had blown it off, Orla howled fro the Phone Room, her wordless wail eventually resolving itself into words:
"There is a 1973 Camaro in front of the house! It matches my nails!"
Blue's stomach dropped to her feet.
Gansey. That's all there is.
The doorbell rang.
"Are you ready?" Calla asked Blue.
Gansey was the boy she either killed or fell in love with. Or both. There was no being ready. There just was this: Maura opening the door.
There were three boys in the doorway, backlit by the evening sun as Neeve had been weeks ago. Three sets of shoulders: one square, one built, one wiry.
"Sorry that I'm late," said the boy in front, with the square shoulders. The scent of mint rolled in with him, just as it had in the churchyard. "Will it be a problem."
Blue knew that voice.
She reached for the railing of the stairs to keep her balance as President Cell Phone stepped into the hallway.
Oh no. Not him. All this time she'd been wondering how Gansey might die, and it turned out she was going to strangle him.
Gansey. This was Gansey.
And that meant that the journal she'd been given to find the owner of at the end of her shift, full of dead Welsh kings and ley lines and magic, belonged to him.
That meant that Adam belonged to him.
"Well," Maura said. "It's not too late. Come into the reading room. Can I get some names?"
Adam. Gansey. Ronan, after all, but, she supposed, a different Ronan. Younger. Still in high school. They were 'noisy,' Maura complained, and the only way to deal with it was to do one-offs, have each of them draw one card from the deck, no more. It was decided Blue should draw the cards. Adam, they concluded, was avoiding a hard choice. Ronan refused to draw a card until the psychics told him "something true," so Calla did:
"A secret killed your father and you know what it was."
The room went deadly silent. Both Persephone and Maura were staring at Calla. Gansey and Adam were staring at Ronan. Blue was staring at Calla's hand.
Calla pulled her hand away; she'd reached to touch Ronan's tattoo right where it met his collar. His face was turned just slightly, looking to where her fingers had been. He was a head taller than her already, but he looked young beside her, like a lanky wildcat not yet up to weight. She was a lioness.
She hissed, "What are you?"
Ronan's smile chilled Blue. There was something empty in it.
"Ronan?" Gansey asked, concern in his voice.
"I'm waiting in the car."
After he'd slammed out, rattling the dishes in the kitchen, and Gansey and Calla had faced off--Adam somehow persuading Gansey to smooth things over; Blue didn't hear what he murmured in his ear--they got back to business. As Blue moved to where Gansey sat, she caught a glimpse of his car at the curb, a flash of impossible orange, the sort of orange Orla would definitely paint her nails.
Gansey drew the wrong card twice, or so Maura claimed. First, he asked Blue to draw for him, and she drew the page of cups--which always, in her mother's readings, represented Blue. So Maura made him draw for himself, and he drew...the page of cups. Finally, Maura took the card out of the deck, insisting it had Blue's energy on it, and made him draw again.
"Death," Gansey read the bottom of the card. He didn't sound surprised or alarmed. He just read the word like he would read eggs or Cincinnati, because it turned out Gansey didn't care about that. He was interested in the ley lines, because psychics worked in energy. And while it was obvious he was talking about the corpse road, Maura didn't offer any information. So he paid and left, and Maura told Blue,
"I don't want you to see him ever again."
At the end of the argument that ensued, Maura said again, "I've never told you to do anything before, Blue, but I'm telling you now. Stay away from them."
((Yeah, Maura, that's going to go great. Adapted and abridged from Chapter 15 of The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. NFB due to distance.))
