The acidic coffee felt like it was burning a hole in my stomach. I picked at my muffin but couldn’t bring myself to eat any. “I leave day after tomorrow. So does my father. I’m sure we’ll be all right at Sparrow Crest until then.”
When we said our goodbyes, Ryan hugged me extra tight. “Be careful,” he whispered. It came out sounding more like a threat than a warning.
“Folie à deux,” Barbara said.
I’d called her as soon as I’d left the bakery, and told her everything as I walked back through town and up the hill to Sparrow Crest. “I’m sorry?”
“Or more properly, folie à trois, or, if we include your father, folie à quatre.”
“I’m sorry, but my French is limited topleaseandthank you.”
“It’s a shared delusional disorder. Delusional beliefs and even hallucinations are passed on from one person to the next. Technically, I think yours is more a case of folie à familie.”
“I’m not feeling very comforted here,” I said. “Am I losing my mind or not?”
There was a long pause. Too long for my liking.
“You’re grieving, Jackie. You’ve been gutted by the unexpected loss of your only sister. You’re dealing with a lifetime’s worth of guilt and regrets and old memories. And you’ve thrown yourself into this project, this idea that if you go through your sister’s papers, you’ll be able to make sense of what happened in some way. All of this has made you very open to being caught up in all kinds of shared delusions, conspiracy theories, legends, what have you.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“Keep your head, Jackie. Keep yourself safe. I think you should box up your sister’s papers and deal with them later, when you’re out of that house and the grief isn’t so raw and fresh. Come home on Sunday, and give yourself time and distance to heal.”
“Okay,” I said.
“And above all else,” she continued, “I think you should stay the hell away from that pool.”
I walked back to Sparrow Crest, and when I reached the driveway, I saw not only Diane’s car, but a little red Volkswagen Beetle. The gate to the pool was wide open. I steeled myself, thinking of Ryan’s and Barbara’s advice, and went to latch the door. The pool seemed to be waiting for me, perfectly still, black as onyx, the sun above reflecting off it like a mirror.
Someone was there, at the water’s edge. My heart jackhammered.
But no, this wasn’t Lexie or little Rita. This was no ghost.
Diane was crouched at the edge of the pool, leaning down, over it. She was talking. Saying something to herself—or to the water? Was she making a wish? I watched as she dipped a jar in. Then she looked up, saw me, and started.
“I didn’t know you were back,” she said. She was pale. There were dark circles under her eyes.
“What are you doing?” I asked. There were three big glass jars of water beside her. She put the one she’d just filled next to them.
“It’s for Terri.” Diane blushed a little. “Her symptoms have been better since she started drinking it and swimming in it. More than better, actually. She was in a wheelchair this time last year.”
“So you think the water’s… healing her?”
She thought a minute. “I think she believes it is, and maybe that’s enough.”
I looked at my aunt. “You and Terri—” I began.
I was so tired of all the secrets. Of everything we’d all been keeping from one another.
“Terri is one of my oldest, closest friends,” Diane said.
“If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. I just feel like all of us, this family, we’re drowning in secrets. You were absolutely right yesterday when you said that’s what our family does.”
I thought of what Ryan had said Lexie believed about the pool: that all the secrets were what gave it its power.
Diane was quiet, looking at the jars she’d just filled, then at the house and the shadow it was casting over us.
“Terri was my first love,” Diane began, voice low and hesitant. She smiled a bittersweet smile, looked down at her own reflection in the black water.
