They only let me out of my room for long enough to sit through a painfully silent dinner, all of us picking at our food—meatballs, this time, and potatoes—while evening seeps into the room. I don’t know why they even bother. I pass the hours alternately pacing and staring at the ceiling, trying to formulate some sort of plan. I’ll have to sneak out tonight, after they go to bed. I’m not looking forward to doing this little arts-and-crafts project in the dark. But it’s not like I have a choice.
I wait, and I wait, and I wait. I can’t jump too early and give myself away. Three o’clock ought to do it. Surely that will leave me with an hour or two. I grab Mom’s good sharp scissors, the ones we’re forbidden to use in case we ruin their edge, which are stowed in a drawer beneath the sewing machine, waiting patiently in the laundry room for her to come back around to that particular project. I take safety pins too. Embroidery floss. Contact cement. A roll of copper wire and cutters from Dad’s workbench. I go back to my room and pull the sheet from my bed, use the scissors to slice it into hasty, uneven strips. I yank on an extra sweater—I can’t risk the creak of the front hall closet opening to get my coat. Finally, I pull the sword out from under the bed. It doesn’t really make sense to take it; I’m pretty sure the woods won’t try to hurt me if I’m working for them. Still, the weight of it in my hand makes me feel better.
The rasp of my bag zipping up slices through the night. The furnace clicks on and whirs to life. In the merciless light—every room stays lit up all night since Deirdre disappeared—the house will never feel truly asleep. Now is as good a time as any. I have to try.
I creep up the stairs as soundlessly as possible and pad through the front hall, the silence straining in my ears.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
I startle so badly that I stumble, clutch the railing to keep myself from falling. Mom is sitting on the stairs going up to the living room, hunched over an empty coffee cup, glaring at me.
“Jesus, Mom.”
“I asked you a question.”
“I’m—I’m going—” Sudden inspiration strikes. “I’m going to see William.”
“At three in the morning.”
“I have to apologize. He probably hates me now.” I make my mouth go thin. It’s not hard to summon tears when they’re not all fake. “Please just let me go tell him I’m sorry.”
Mom’s expression softens at the edges, but her eyes travel to the sword.
“It’s for protection.” I sniffle. “I’m not going to walk around in the dark without some way to defend myself. Not after Deirdre—”
I let the tears rise up, and Mom sighs, capitulates, sets the mug down to hug me wearily. I’m no different than Deirdre at all, in the end. I’m as good at this as she is.
“I was so happy to see you making friends,” she whispers. “Go back to bed, Skye. You can invite William over to talk in the morning. Okay?”
That’s as far as I’m going to get. I nod, wipe my eyes, and retreat for now.
It wasn’t wasted. That gives me my opening. An excuse they’ll accept, because they want to believe it so bad. I was so happy to see you making friends. They’ll bend their rules if they think I’m trying to undo the damage, make nice, piece the new me back together.
IOU an apology, I text William. Three a.m. is a good time for a text like this. Please come over tmrw so we can talk.
There’s no response, but I’m not expecting one, not really. He’d be stupid to show up. I mostly hope he doesn’t. But if he doesn’t… I won’t think about what I’ll do if he doesn’t. I’ll figure it out.
I lie in bed with the phone in my hand. It stays still, inert, like the bones waiting for me in the woods. Waiting to be brought to life.
* * *
“What do you mean?” Mom’s voice starts dangerous, grows shrill. “You can’t call off the search! You can’t do that!”
Officer Leduc, leaning earnestly across the table, draws a breath like he’s bracing for her to scream or hit him.
“I know,” he says, “I wish there was—”
“My little girl is still out there! She’s still in those woods somewhere! You haven’t found a single sign of her, and you’re just going to leave?”
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” he says. “I wish I had answers for you. We stayed out here longer than we usually do in this sort of situation. The amount of water back there makes it a challenge, but still…honestly, it’s strange as hell we haven’t found more leads. We just don’t have anything left to go on. Given the temperature, and how far she could have gone barefoot…I promise you, we have done everything, everything in our power to find her.”
To one side of her, Dad sinks forward, props his forehead up on his hand. On the other side, Janelle, the social worker, clasps Mom’s hand, glances up at me to measure how I’m doing. I look back at her without blinking, regal, unassailable. You’d never know my crown is grinding into my temples with every heartbeat.
“You think she’s dead,” Mom says flatly. “You’re giving up.”
“We’re not assuming anything. The file’s still open. I mean, if we were looking at a kidnapping or something…it doesn’t really add up that way, with her boots back there where we found them, but we can’t totally rule it out either. We’ve talked to people all through the neighborhood, and we’ll do it again, just to be completely sure we don’t miss anything. The second there’s any new information, we’ll be all over it. But right now, from the woods? We just don’t have any answers. Sometimes there aren’t any. That’s the truth, and it’s terrible, and I’m just…so sorry. Truly.”
That’s when Dad starts to cry, his rugged reserve crumbling, his shoulders jerking with silent sobs as he buries his face in his hands, and I shove my chair back and wheel from the room, my own hands in fists at my sides.
Sometimes there aren’t any answers. Sure. But this isn’t one of them. The Queen of Swords makes a bad enemy. I will find a way out of the game they’re playing, the trap they think they’ve set for me. I will smash their bony faces in. I will make this stop.
I glance up in the middle of thumping down the stairs and find I’m looking right at William, who’s standing outside the front door, one hand lifted to knock. I freeze, and we stand there staring at each other through the glass. Behind me, Mom is brokenly trying to comfort Dad, and their tearful voices drive me forward, outside, slamming the door to block them out. It works, mostly.
William, shaken, looks at me in alarm. “Is there news?”
“They’re calling off the search.”
“Oh. Wow. I’m—oh my God. I’m really sorry.”
I shrug, fold my arms. The silence stretches. His arms are folded too. He keeps a safe distance between us, but he watches me in obvious consternation. If he had a script prepared, this wasn’t in it.
“Look,” William says eventually, “this is obviously a bad time. I should—”
“No.” The word escapes more desperately than I meant it to. “Please. Please stay.”
He doesn’t answer, just looks at me. But he doesn’t leave.
“I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.” The words are wooden, dead as leaves in my mouth. “For freaking out on you. On everyone.”
He acknowledges this, the inadequacy of it, with a twist of his lips. “It’s Kev and Sophie you should apologize to. I mean, all you did to me was twist my arm.”
“I don’t think they’d listen.”
“That’s not really the point.”
“Well. You’re listening. You’re here. I…I appreciate that.” He shrugs, studiously neutral, and I lift my chin. “I get that you don’t want to be friends with me anymore. That’s okay. That’s probably smart of you.”
He shifts a little, as if he wants to say something, but instead he just looks out toward the road, then meets my eyes again. Still silent.
“Listen. I’ll leave you alone forever after this if that’s what you want, but I…I need your help with something. Please.” He opens his mouth to reply, but I push forward. “I know, I know—I know I can’t ask you for anything after the other day—”
“Are you going to tell me what that was, exactly?” he interrupts, a glow of anger in the words. “I mean, aside from fucking scary. Was that true, all that stuff you said?”
I sink onto one of the garden stones, rest my head on my knees, and nod.
“You get that we kind of have to tell someone. I mean, I convinced Kev and Sophie not to. It’s not like we have a ton of information. But that’s probably assault, what you were talking about. At least.”
“Yeah. Probably. Do you know what he was like afterward? Tyler, I mean.” The words come marching out. “He was a mess. I didn’t need to defend Deirdre any more after that. He took over the job. Because I told him to.” He took it up, in fact, with a fervor that bordered on hysteria. I swallow. “But a little while later—people were saying—well, he was on a swim team. And he couldn’t even do laps anymore. He had these…total panic attacks anytime his face was in the water.”
“Jesus—” William says, looking sickened.
“He quit, obviously,” I continue in a heavy monotone. “He quit a lot of sports. People said that started happening, all of a sudden, any time he was out of breath.”
“God, enough!” William holds his hands up in surrender, turns away from me and then back again, a helpless little circle. “Why would you tell me that? I mean, that’s a hell of a secret to keep, I get that, but—what the fuck, Skye? Why? You know I have to tell someone!”
“What good do you think that would do?” I snap. “He never reported it. It was months ago. And what evidence is there, besides your say-so?”
“I don’t know, okay? It’s the right thing to do!”
“Sure it is.” Right. Because everything’s that simple. “Go ahead. You totally should. Just…not yet. Okay? Please. I had no choice. She’s my sister.”
“That’s a pretty big fucking favor,” he says tightly. And then, “Look. I’ll give you a week, all right? A week. And if you haven’t said anything about it by then, I’m going to have to.”
“That’s fair,” I say faintly. He sighs. “But that’s not what I need your help with.”
“You—seriously? You can’t be serious.”
“I can’t explain this to you, okay?” My voice is fraying. That’s fine. That’s great. “There’s something I have to do. I don’t want to. I don’t have a choice. It’s the same thing all over again. She always does this to me. And I mean, if you hate me now, that’s fine, you’re supposed to. But I really, really need your help. I wouldn’t ask if I weren’t desperate, all right? I don’t have a choice. I don’t—”
His hand on my arm startles me, a brief, warm, awkward clasp, quickly withdrawn. He sits beside me.
“I don’t hate you,” he says.
“Oh,” I manage. And then I burst into tears. I do it right on cue, my face hidden against my knees. I cry for Deirdre, I cry for my family, I cry for all my awful manipulative bullshit.
It’s so easy. And I don’t have a choice.
* * *
All I have to tell them is that William came by. That we talked. That we’re going for a walk tomorrow, after school.
“I can do that, right?” I plead, and Mom hesitates, but Dad shrugs, brokenly, all resistance gone.
“Sure,” he says. “Fine. Take your phone with you, is all.”
“Brent,” Mom protests, but he’s already disappeared down the hall. She rubs her eyes, gives a little huff of a sigh. “You tell us when you’re going to be home. Got that? If you’re thirty seconds late, I will call the police back here so fast—”
“I won’t be.”
Even now I’m still the reliable one, the one they trust. After that, all I have to do is smuggle my backpack and the sword out to the garage. And then I wait.