I see my mother’s shoulders stiffen, like my voice was a cold, hard slap against her skin. Like she had to physically brace herself from it, protect herself, from me. Her fingers tighten around the coffee mug, hard enough for me to see the whites of her knuckles appear beneath the skin. She lifts her head up slowly.
“Where’s Margaret?” I ask, but suddenly, I have a feeling that I don’t want to know the answer. My mother’s expression makes that perfectly clear: the haggardness of her eyes, glassy and red, like that night in my father’s office. Like she’s been crying again. Like she’s afraid.
“Your sister had an accident.”
I look at my dad. His speech is steady and smooth, the way it always is.
“What kind of accident? Is she okay?”
My mother shoves her chair back violently, and I jump at the screech of legs against tile. Then she stands up and pushes past me, eyes straight ahead, and walks up the stairs before slamming her door shut.
“What’s wrong with Mom?”
My dad sighs, drops his head again. Then he pushes his palms into his eyes, hard, and I watch as he lifts his neck and forces himself to look at me.
“Isabelle, the police are on their way. I think it would be best if you went to your room.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
NOW
“Izzy has always had… problems. With sleep.”
Dr. Harris, leaning forward in his chair, studying me like a lab rat. Ben, to my side, his hand on my knee.
“Even before the insomnia. Kind of the opposite problem, actually.”
The memories fill me up slowly, like I’m drowning in them: blinking my eyes—three, four times—my father’s face materializing up close in the dark. His hands on my shoulders, eyebrows bunched.
Standing in the grass, my palm clasped in his, the orange glow of flames as they traveled up our house as we slept. The warmth on my cheeks like an infection, eyes ablaze.
Waking up in the kitchen, all the lights off. A puddle of milk spilt on the floor.
My mother, that hazy confusion. The kink in her neck as she stared at me, trying to determine if I’m awake. If I’m real.
But most of all: Margaret.
“How long are you going to keep doing this?”
I remember the footprints in my bedroom; the way I had tried to hide them, rubbing my feet against the dirt, smearing them into the carpet. Begging them to disappear. That stone statue, eyes wide,retching up something dark. My parents had taken me to a doctor, of course. But according to him, it was nothing to be concerned with. He said it was common, harmless. Most kids grow out of it by the time they’re teens.
“Isabelle?”
I hear the voice, but my mind is still elsewhere. Somewhere far away. It’s on Margaret, the way her little body felt as it was pushed up against mine. A mess of slippery limbs and the smell of sweat in the sheets.
“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”
Waking up the next morning, that mud smeared on my neck like little fingers reaching up, pushing me back.
“If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
“Hey, Isabelle.”
I blink a few times, turn my head. Waylon is standing above me, looking concerned. I forgot he was here.
“Did you stay up all night?”
I blink again, look around. I’m in my dining room, sitting at the table, my laptop dead in front of me and case file papers strewn across the floor. I glance at the wall, at all those eyes staring me down, and suddenly, it no longer feels like I’m studying them; it feels likethey’restudyingme.Like that audience at TrueCrimeCon,they’re looking at me expectantly, just waiting for me to slip. To reveal something dark and dangerous, likeI’mthe one with the secret. LikeI’mthe one with something to hide.