“Oh my. How very clever.” Roza chuckled. “Anyone else?”
Silence. No one—besides Keira—wanted to disagree with Roza.
“I appreciate your thoughts, Keira dear, but I think we can do better.” Roza tilted her head, studying me. “Did you have any other ideas, Alex?”
It was all I could do to keep the tears of embarrassment and frustration tamped down.
“A lot,” I managed to say. “All of them terrible.”
Everyone chuckled weakly. Roza smiled.
“What about Daphne?” Taylor said. “Weren’t you looking at those books in the library?”
“Like, historical fiction?” Wren’s voice held distaste.
“Some history, but a whole lot of fiction too.” Taylor straightened, excited. “Because no one really knows how Daphne and Horace died. How it all went down, I mean.”
“Well.” Roza’s lips curved into a warm smile. “Perhaps Alex will be the one to solve the mystery.”
“How so?” I choked out, still panicking.
Roza tapped her head. “The writer’s mind is a channel, dear. When we open, glorious truths can flow in. Rather like Daphne channeling her demoness, wouldn’t you say?”
And that was it. The conversation moved on, and Roza was now reminding us of her instructions—3,000 words printed out by midnight and placed under her door—and it had been decided that I was going to write about Daphne.
My entire body felt icy to the point where I had to clench my teeth to stop them from chattering. It felt like I’d fallen into a void, that the scene was continuing to go on around me, but that I’d suddenly become absent. A dark, blurry shape.
Everyone started getting up, so I got up too.
Then Roza’s hand snaked out and clenched my forearm. “We’re going to meet today, dear. For our one-on-one.”
I tried to focus on her face. “Yes. Okay. That sounds great.”
“Come up to my room at four. We’ll discuss further.” Her emerald eyes filled my vision like bright, bottomless pools of poison.
Chapter 12
I knocked at the red door an hour later. After we’d finished the group session, I’d spent the next half hour in my room, panic-reading the stack of books about Daphne.
I’d finally given up. Wren was right: it was basically historical fiction. Something I’d never been interested in writing. Maybe it was a lifeline: Daphne’s story was captivating, and I was surprised no one had novelized it before. But as with Keira, it didn’t speak to me.
At Roza’s door, I tried to steady myself, taking a few deep breaths. If I could just fake it through this meeting, I could go back to my room. I could figure out how to force myself to do this, even if it felt like I was writing in a language I didn’t know, even if it felt like torture.
But I had the feeling that faking anything in front of Roza wouldn’t be easy.
Roza pulled open the door. “Hello, dear!” She leaned in and gave me an air-kiss, as if we hadn’t just seen each other in the library. “Come in.” She ushered me inside and I followed her through a short hall that opened up into an expansive suite. To the left, there was an enormous stone fireplace with a roaring fire, flanked by an oxblood leather couch and several velvet chairs resting on an oriental rug. To the right was a large canopy bed, its red covers mussed and unmade. Polished black furniture including two huge wardrobes completed the space.
The painting above the fireplace caught my attention and I walked closer. I could tell whose it was by the style: scratched images in black and red, almost human, almost body part–like but too abstract to completely make out.
“That’s Daphne’s,” I said.
Roza was bent over a gilded bar cart. “It is.” She strode over and handed me a sherry glass. “One of her sketches.”
“Interesting.” I took a sip and it burned—not wine, but some kind of fiery liquor.
“It’s Unicum.” She beamed. “Hungarian liqueur.”
“I’ve heard of it. I’m actually Hungarian too.” I tried to smile back. “On my mom’s side.”
“Oh yes? Wonderful. Have a seat.”
I sank onto the couch and Roza sat in a chair across from me. Her cheekbones looked sharp as arrows in the warm light. “What’s going on, Alex?”
“Oh.” I forced a casual tone. “I don’t know. Not much.”
She stared at me, expressionless, until I looked down.
“You’re clearly flailing.” Carefully, she set her glass on the coffee table. “I wasn’t expecting this from you, dear.”
My breath disappeared and my lungs crumpled. Tears filled my eyes, and to my horror they spilled over onto my cheeks. “Damnit,” I muttered, wiping them away. Roza jumped up and came over, pressing a delicate silk handkerchief into my hands. I took it but felt guilty and disgusting using it to wipe up my tears and snot.
“What’s the matter?” She settled next to me, a warm palm on my shoulder. Her jasmine perfume enclosed me.
I chanced a look, and for once there was soft compassion in her eyes.
I couldn’t lie to her. I might as well be honest.
“I have writer’s block,” I said. “I haven’t written anything in a year.”
“Ah.” She exhaled. “That’s what it is.”
“I probably shouldn’t have even come,” I went on. “But how could I not? You’re my favorite writer. I’ve been obsessed with you since I was twelve. So when this all happened, it was just so magical that it felt like it was meant to be, you know?”
“What happened a year ago?” She rested an arm along the back of the couch. “What caused the writer’s block?”
I opened and closed my mouth, unsure of how to answer.
“Something to do with Wren?” She raised her eyebrows.
I sniffed, relieved that she’d guessed. “How’d you know?”
“I’m a writer, dear. I can sense these unspoken tensions.” She smiled. “Also, Taylor may have mentioned it.”
“Oh.” I could see that; Taylor didn’t seem like the best keeper of secrets. “Well, yes, it was that. Wren and I were best friends for a long time, and then we had a falling-out.” I felt nothing as I spoke the words. The liquor had relaxed my body and made the flames of the fire sway and undulate.
“Well.” Roza crossed her legs. “There must be more to the story than that.”
It struck me, distantly, that this was what Roza really wanted. She liked stories, particularly those that were dark and off-putting. She wanted to gaze at them directly, to hold them in her palms like newborn kittens covered with caul.
By telling her, it felt like giving her something, or entering into a kind of pact. With a sliding feeling of resignation, I launched into the story: how I’d seen her at a party after she’d moved out. How I’d been so drunkenly determined to talk to her. How she’d jerked away from me in disgust—Don’t touch me—and I’d reached out again and she’d fallen back over that step, wobbling in her stilettos. How I’d just stood there, frozen, watching her crash to the ground, blood suddenly spurting from her hand in pulses.