I DON’T SLEEP the rest of the night, listening for the rain. Around seven, my phone chimes with a text from Delphine.
Come upstairs. I need to talk to you.
I scale the steps with trepidation. I’m extra meticulous with the procedures. It’s not like I was going to gamble with Delphine’s health before, but now it takes on new importance. I dry beneath my fingernails and tuck every strand of hair up beneath the plastic cap before I walk upstairs.
Delphine is on the couch, reading. The title of the book is in French.
“Are you reading that for a class?” I ask.
“Just for myself,” she says.
“Are you really French?” I blurt out, remembering Veronica’s long-ago accusation.
Delphine’s eyebrows raise slowly. Then she laughs, shaking her head. “No. But Maman has always been enamored of France,” she says, overemphasizing the French word. “Her real name is Janet Murphy. She changed it when she started acting.” She sets the book aside, closing it without marking her place.
There’s a camera up in the corner I didn’t notice before. It’s white and blends in with the walls, but the black eye is pointed straight toward us. Delphine follows my gaze.
“In case I have an episode. They’re monitored by an outside company,” Delphine says. “They can’t hear us, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Can your mother watch you through there?” I ask.
“She says she doesn’t, but I know she does from time to time. She’ll keep track of the fact that you were here. She’s anxious that she hasn’t been able to meet you in person.”
“When is she coming back?” I ask. I’m not exactly looking forward to the introduction.
“Tomorrow. That’s why we need to talk,” Delphine says. She eyes me. “Your arm is worse.”
It’s true. My arm is throbbing in time to my pulse, worse than it’s been since it first happened. She approaches, stretching out a gentle hand, and lifts my arm to examine it, touching me only at the wrist and elbow.
“Were these here before?” she asks.
Four bruises stripe my arm. A fifth wraps around the other side to meet them. Like a hand, gripping tight.
Queasiness lurches through me. I pull my arm away. “No. They shouldn’t—it healed. It was healing.”
She grabbed me, hadn’t she? The ghost grabbed my arm in my dream.
But her hand was small. This hand had wrapped easily around my forearm.
I shut my eyes. My tongue bumps against my teeth, and the taste of blood fills my mouth. The pain makes my thoughts sluggish, and through them comes the sharp-edged shadow of panic, rising toward me.
“Come with me,” Delphine says. She touches my right wrist lightly before walking away. Numbly, I follow.
In the bathroom, she opens the medicine cabinet. There are two dozen prescription bottles, all of them with her name on them. Some of the dates look old, probably expired. She turns them to inspect the labels until she finds what she’s looking for. She dumps out the pills and places them in my palm. I know exactly what they are without looking at the label.
I almost laugh. I almost throw up. Open your mouth and stick out your tongue, Dylan had instructed me before placing the pill in my mouth. Now chew. His fingertip tasted sour. “I don’t want these.”
“They’ll help with the pain,” she says. A question behind the words.
I close my fingers over the pills, feeling the shape of them in my hand.
“Take them just in case,” she suggests. “Unless—you’re not an addict or something, are you?”
I choke out a laugh. “No.” I don’t think so. If I was, I’d be craving them, wouldn’t I? All I want is to fling them away. I make myself slip them into the pocket of my scrubs.
“Why do you have these?” I ask.
“Surgery last year. You know, it was the only time I’ve left campus in years. I didn’t even stay the night. They had to get me back here right after. I guess not even a hospital is enough of a controlled environment.”
And yet a refurbished house at a boarding school is. Why is Madelyn Fournier so set on her daughter getting an Atwood education?
“What’s it like?” I ask. “When you’re exposed to water, I mean. What happens? Seizures?” I remember her collapsing in the dining hall.
“Sometimes,” she says. She leans against the sink, chewing at her lip. “It’s like getting pushed against the back of my skull. Like something else is filling me up. And then I can’t breathe. It feels like I’m drowning,” she says, a distant look in her eye. “The smallest drop of water makes me drown. Isn’t that strange? And no one can explain it.”
She doesn’t sound self-pitying. She sounds angry. She looks away and wipes an errant tear from the corner of her eye.
“But filtered water is fine,” I say. It doesn’t make sense.
“There are a few people who are allergic to water. It’s called aquagenic urticaria,” Delphine says. “But it just gives you hives on your skin. You can drink water just fine. And it doesn’t matter if it’s filtered or not.”
She fell in the Narrow. And now she drowns on dry land. Oster knows something, and her mother, and Clarke. And Aubrey knew something, too.
“Did Aubrey ever say anything about . . .” I trail off. If I mention the Drowning Girl, will Delphine think I’m crazy?
“About what?” Delphine asks. When I don’t answer immediately, she clicks her fingernails idly against the white quartz counter. “Aubrey was my friend, but she also felt like she needed to protect me. There were things she didn’t tell me. Like that my mom was paying her extra to report on me.”
My eyes widen. Delphine doesn’t look bothered at the idea that her one friend in the world was spying on her.
“She needed the money. I didn’t mind. It’s not like there’s anything to tell, except for the AtChat stuff, so I never showed her that.”
“You showed me.”
Delphine pauses. For a moment I think she’s going to tell me that it’s because I’m different. For a moment, I long for her to. Then she clears her throat. “You’re going to lie to my mother,” Delphine says. “When she offers you the same deal, you’re going to take it, and then you’re going to lie to her.”
“You sound pretty confident about that,” I say.
“You don’t need extra money like Aubrey did,” Delphine says. She sounds like she’s laying out a logic problem. “But you do need the tuition, so you have to keep my mom happy.”
“Why wouldn’t I just spy on you for real?” I ask.
“Because if you do, I’ll know. My mother doesn’t lie as well as we do. I’ll know, and I’ll tell her I can’t stand having you here,” Delphine says. “She’ll make you move out, and you’ll have to leave the school.”
“You’re a bit ruthless, aren’t you?” I ask, trying to hide how much it stings.
“There are very few variables in my life. I like to know I have them under control. This works out for everyone.” Her expression is blank, and there’s something heartbreaking about that. Is this all she can hope for?
I know in this moment that if I agree to her deal, I will never have anything more. Only threats and secrets and a contract between us—not a friendship. Not trust.
I can’t stand the thought. So much is uncertain, but I know I want to be something more to Delphine—and if I’m going to be, I need to do something now to change things.
“You could just ask,” I say softly. I find myself taking a half step forward. There is not much space between us already in the tiny bathroom. She draws in a small startled breath.
“And you’d agree?” she asks. She is trying to sound strong, uncaring, but her voice quavers.
“I would. You keep my secrets and I keep yours,” I say. “You don’t need to threaten me.”
She looks at me with a perfectly still face, unsmiling mouth, wide eyes. She looks like a painting. Or perhaps she is more like a sketch I am making, roughing it in and then adding the details one by one as I start to understand her. The delicate arch of her brows, the sharp point of her chin. Those eyes so large in her face that a careless gaze would think them childlike, but they hold a weariness and a wariness beyond her years.
I’ve spent six years wondering about Delphine Fournier, the impossibility of her, and now I am inches from her, and she still feels unreal. As if I could reach out and touch her and she would disappear like a reflection on the surface of the water.
I promised not to lie to her. I didn’t promise to tell her anything. Yet what I know is like pressure building under my skin.
She deserves to know, doesn’t she? And if I keep it from her, I can tell myself that I’m not lying to her all I want—it won’t be true.
“I’ll keep your secrets,” I say again. “I always have.” Because it is her secret, not mine.
“What are you talking about?” she asks, head tilted curiously.
She needs to know. I need to know.
“I think I know why you’re sick,” I say. I hesitate.
She waits, eyes fixed on me, brow slightly furrowed.
“The night you first came to Atwood, Veronica and I went down to the Narrow. We jumped it. We didn’t realize that you’d followed us. You tried to jump, too. But you fell in.”
“That’s impossible. No one survives the Narrow,” Delphine says, confusion deepening.
“I know. You went under. We thought you were dead. But when we got back to get help, you were standing in the hall. You were soaked to the bone, but you were fine,” I say, dragging each word out in a dull, steady rhythm.
“That’s when all of this started,” she says, still staring at me, but now her eyes are wide.
“You don’t believe me,” I say. “You think I’m crazy.”
“No,” she says, and meets my eyes at last. “I don’t think you’re crazy. And you’re not lying. Which leaves only the possibility that you’re telling the truth.”
“That’s not all,” I whisper.
“Tell me,” she says.
And so I do.