Fifteen

At ten forty-five, thirty minutes after Ben and Jenny had gone to bed, Eleanor shoved the book into her backpack. She held her shoes in one hand and hurried down the steps in her socks so she’d be quiet, and even managed to dodge the creakiest floorboards. When she was almost at the back door, she stopped and backtracked. She ducked into the living room, where the giant fireplace stood, the staircase leading into shadows at the back of it. A heavy set of iron fire tools sat next to the fireplace, untouched for years. The kids in “The Graveyard Dog” had used an iron shovel to drive the dog off. Hopefully an iron fire poker would do just as well.

She stuck it into her backpack, closing the zipper around it to hold it in place, and ran to the back door.

There was no bus to take her to Otto’s. She couldn’t run that far, and even if she knew how to drive, she thought stealing Ben and Jenny’s car would probably wake them up. But she’d seen some old bikes in the shed, so she sprinted across the scrubby grass, ignoring just how spooky the orchard looked at night.

She pulled open the door. It groaned and whined but gave. The old car was under a cloth to keep the dust off. The bicycles shoved against the wall next to it didn’t get the same protection, and they were practically one big cobweb. Eleanor picked the smaller of the two and wheeled it out. It wobbled a little, and the wheel made a whine of its own, but she didn’t have time to oil it. She did her best to swipe the dust off the handlebars and the seat, then flung her leg over.

The pedals were stiff at first, and as she worked her way up the dirt track to the road, she thought she would have gone faster at a brisk walk. But they loosened up as she pedaled, and the effort kept her warm even though she’d forgotten a coat. Soon she was sailing down the road in the dark.

The wind bit at her, but it was worth it for the speed. She pedaled as fast as she could, her legs already aching. She had to get to the others. It was all she thought about. Her plan, her list: Get to Pip. Get to Otto. Stay safe. Stay free. Find the answer.

She was wheezing for breath by the time she saw the lights at the end of Otto’s drive—and the black car parked just down the road, its lights off but a figure in the driver’s seat. She wrenched the bike to the side, careening off the road before they could spot her, and pulled herself and the bike behind a big pine. She peered around the trunk, hoping she hadn’t been seen. The car didn’t move. Neither did the person in it. From the way their head was tipped down, she thought they might be asleep.

Mr. January? Did Mr. January drive a car? No—it had to be someone from the January Society. She couldn’t make out the person’s features, or even if it was a man or a woman, and she didn’t want to stick around to find out. She couldn’t ride the bike through the trees, so she walked it beside her, staying low over the handlebars in the hopes that she wouldn’t be spotted.

She didn’t really know where she was going, but the old truck where they’d agreed to meet up was easy to find even in the dark, a white beacon. It was weird—she’d seen plenty of abandoned cars and trucks before, but never one that looked so perfect. There wasn’t a single chip in the paint or crack in the windshield, and the tires looked in pristine condition. She’d have thought the truck was brand-new if it wasn’t old-fashioned—and if a tree hadn’t begun to grow around the back bumper.

“Hey,” Otto whispered, stepping out from behind the truck. “You made it.” He bounced from foot to foot with nervous energy.

“There’s someone in a car by your driveway,” she said.

“I know. He’s been there for like an hour,” Otto replied.

“What’s with the truck?” she asked.

“Huh?” Otto looked confused.

“How does it look so good?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s been there all my life.”

“So shouldn’t it be all rusted and stuff?”

“I guess, but—”

“Things don’t rust in Eden Eld,” Eleanor guessed. He nodded. “It’s the deal. Everything is so perfect because of the deal. And no one thinks it’s strange, for the same reason they don’t notice the wrong things.”

“I guess that explains why I never have to mow the lawn,” Otto said. Otto’s phone chirped in his pocket.

“Turn that on silent!” Eleanor chided as he pulled it out.

“Sorry. It’s Pip.” He showed her the screen and the text displayed on it.

SOS JAN AT HOUSE

JAN had to mean January Society. “They’re at her house,” Eleanor said. “Or she’s stuck at the house?”

“Either way, we have to go get her,” Otto said, data and caution thrown aside with his friend in danger.

“We can’t take the roads if the Society’s out. They might see us,” Eleanor said.

“There’s a back way. A path through the woods. It’s a bit rough, but the bikes should be okay.”

There was no time to waste. They set off on their bikes, bumping over the uneven ground.

The dorms for resident students were on the other side of the athletic fields, but Pip stayed in her family’s house, and that was a little farther away. Down a road through the trees, tucked just out of sight.

When they were still a little ways out, they hid the bikes and crept forward on foot, staying well away from the road.

The ground-floor lights were on, but the curtains were closed. There was a small gap where the light leaked through, and Eleanor pointed at it. “I’m going to go get a look inside,” she whispered.

“Careful,” Otto urged her.

Careful had gone out the window when she’d left Ashford House, she thought, but she stayed low and slow as she approached. She crept up to the flowerbeds out front—packed with the purple flowers, so thick she could barely find a clear place to step—and listened. There were voices inside. Ms. Foster and someone else—Mr. Foster, she assumed.

“Seventeen minutes,” Ms. Foster said.

“You can’t make time pass faster by checking your watch,” Mr. Foster replied.

A sigh and the click of heels across the floor as Ms. Foster paced. “I just want to get this over with. The others are in position?”

“Or close to it. It needn’t be on the hour, Delilah. The children are asleep. Philippa is locked in her room. Twelve oh one or twelve fifteen won’t matter very much.” He sounded a bit exasperated.

“And Jennifer Barton and that big lunk she married won’t be a problem? She’s having contractions. She won’t be sleeping well.”

“It’s a big house, and the girl is on the third floor. I’m sure the team can handle the extraction,” he replied.

Eleanor sucked in a sharp breath between her clenched teeth. Pip was right, then. Her parents were evil. But at least Ben and Jenny didn’t know. She hoped Pip’s father was right, and they wouldn’t wake up. They’d be safe, as long as they stayed asleep.

She crept back to Otto and relayed what she’d heard. He looked queasy. “I gave her such a hard time,” he said. “I never really believed her. I thought her mom was just mean. Who would sacrifice their own daughter?”

Eleanor didn’t have an answer for him. “Where’s Pip’s bedroom?” she asked instead.

“This way.”

They crept around the side of the house. The bedrooms were on the second floor. Eleanor peered up. There were three windows, and she could tell which one was Pip’s without Otto’s help. The one on the far left had sports trophies lined up on the windowsill. Soccer, field hockey, horseback riding. A trellis covered in vines, withered with the fall, stood against the wall beside it. Eleanor tried it. She didn’t weigh much. It would probably hold her. Or it would break and dump her on the ground and make a ton of noise, but they didn’t have time for caution.

“I’ll go up. You keep a lookout,” Eleanor said. Otto nodded. Between the two of them, she was marginally more athletic, but that wasn’t saying much. They really could have used Pip right now. But then they wouldn’t need to be rescuing Pip, she supposed.

She hauled herself up one step at a time until she could lean out and knock on the window.

Nothing. She knocked again.

Pip’s face appeared in the window, pale and confused. When she saw Eleanor, her eyes widened. Eleanor gestured frantically. Pip opened the window a crack. “You came! Where’s Otto?” she whispered. “Is he okay?”

“He’s right below us,” Eleanor replied. “I heard your parents talking. You’re locked in?” She wobbled on the trellis.

“And they took my phone. I managed to delete the text first, at least,” Pip said.

“We’ve got to get you out of here.”

“The window doesn’t open any wider. It’s stuck,” Pip said.

Eleanor peered at it. There were nails driven into the frame, blocking the window from opening more than a couple inches. They’d been painted over a few times—they must have been there for years. Eleanor shivered, and not from the cold. The Fosters had been planning this a long time. “If I can get these nails out, maybe we can get the window open,” she said.

“Nails? Hold on,” Pip said. She ducked back inside. Eleanor leaned farther to watch. Pip’s room was a mess, covered in clothes and half-finished art projects. Pip stuffed some things into her backpack hastily. Stairs creaked somewhere deeper in the house, and she wrenched the zipper shut, then grabbed something from a drawer. She handed it through the gap. Pliers.

“Jewelry-making phase,” she explained.

It took several minutes of prying and pulling and it left her fingers cramping, but Eleanor managed to prize both of the nails out. The window was stiff, and it took both of them to force it up, but it opened all the way. Eleanor scrambled back down the trellis.

With her backpack over her shoulder, Pip flung herself over the windowsill, balanced for one moment with her feet dangling, and then kicked out and dropped.

She landed with a grunt and a thump, but the soft dirt absorbed most of the noise. She crouched beside Eleanor, panting a little, and she and Otto gave each other a hasty high five.

“I knew you guys would come for me,” Pip said. “How’d you get here?”

“Bikes,” Otto answered.

Pip nodded. “Mine’s by the garage. Hurry!”

They scuttled along the back of the house and darted across the grass to the garage, which stood apart from the rest of the house. In the gap between rested a shiny blue bike. It looked expensive. More importantly, it looked fast.

A light went on upstairs in the house. And then Ms. Foster shouted, the words indistinct but the tone furious.

“Run!” Pip said, but Eleanor grabbed her arm.

“No! Slow. Sneaky,” she said. She pulled Pip around the side of the house, Otto following close behind, and into the woods, deeper in the shadows where they couldn’t be seen from the house. Pip and Otto walked the bike between them, staying crouched as low as possible, as all the rest of the lights went on one by one.

They’d reached the spot where Eleanor and Otto had stashed their bicycles when an engine roared to life. They froze. They dropped to the ground at the same time. Eleanor grabbed Pip’s dark blue backpack and yanked it up to cover her bright red hair, then pressed her own face to the ground as the headlights of the car reached them. The car rolled forward slowly, like whoever was driving was searching the trees. Eleanor counted her breaths instead and forced herself to keep them slow.

Finally, the lights swept past them. Eleanor kept her head down until the sound of the engine faded. Then she sat up gingerly.

“They didn’t see us,” Otto said.

“I think we’re in the clear for now,” Eleanor agreed. Pip nodded. Her cheek was smeared with dirt, and there were tear-tracks running through it. “Are you okay?”

“I was hoping I was wrong,” Pip said, and burst into tears.

Eleanor wrapped her arms around Pip, and Otto did the same from the other side. Pip put her head on Eleanor’s shoulder and cried great hiccupping sobs that shook her whole body. Eleanor just made soothing noises and patted her back, meeting Otto’s eyes and feeling as helpless as Jenny and Ben must have felt all the time since they took her in. “Hey,” she said. “Hey, now.” You couldn’t hold in sadness like that. It made you sick. But Eleanor only cried when no one could see.

She was glad that Pip, at least, wasn’t alone.

Pip straightened up, scrubbing at her runny nose. Even in the dark Eleanor could see her splotchy cheeks. Pip gulped down a breath of air and shoved her hair back behind her ears. It tangled in a scraggly mess around her face, but that suited Pip. “Aren’t you going to say everything’s going to be okay, or something?” Pip asked.

“No,” Eleanor said. “People say that a lot to me and it never helps. It just makes me mad. Because everything isn’t okay. Even if it turns out better in the end, it’ll never be okay that this happened.”

“I just didn’t say anything because I have no idea what to say,” Otto confessed.

“That’s a first,” Pip said, and bumped her shoulder against his. He bumped her back. Pip took a deep breath. “Enough crying. Let’s get going,” she declared, and got to her feet.

Otto’s phone chimed. “Uh-oh,” he said “That’s the alarm. One minute to midnight.”

The air grew colder around them. The wind stirred through the trees. And Eleanor heard it: the tick tock tick of a clock. The clock, though they were miles away, though it was tucked inside the halls of Ashford House.

Thirty seconds. The wind howled, sending leaves scattering furiously around them, whipping at their hair and their clothes. Otto yelped in alarm. And then—everything went still. The wind ceased. The branches stopped their creaking. The leaves settled.

Ten seconds. There was only their breathing and that steady tick tock tick tock . . .

Tick . . .

Tock.

And then the chiming of the clock. One. Two. Three. Eleanor whispered, counting each of them out. Nine. Ten. Eleven.

Twelve.

A soft wind sighed through the trees, setting everything shivering. And the color went out of the world.

It happened slowly at first, and then in a rush, with Pip’s hair losing its coppery shine, Otto’s blue jacket sinking into dull gray, even the light of the phone in his hand turning spectral and wan.

The red-orange leaves of fall—gray.

The yellowish moon—gray and gleaming.

The green pine boughs above them—so dark a gray it was black, melding with the darkness of the sky.

“Happy Halloween,” Otto whispered.

“And a very happy birthday,” Pip replied, voice wavering with a poor attempt at humor.

None of them laughed.