I gasped as it squeezed harder, as the light flared in my eyes.
“Wake up,” it said again, and this time I could feel its breath, smell something rancid and undead. My stomach turned as I reached a hand down and grabbed for something, anything.
The hand, its fingers mere bones and skin, wrapped tighter around my throat as the thing leaned in. “Wake—”
I spun, swinging my arm with all of my strength, the power and precision I’d once used to slice into the water. My arms were long, and my aim didn’t miss. Precision like an arrow, that was what you needed to be a diver. I hit with everything I had.
I hit something corporeal—there was no question there was a grisly thump. The grip on my throat loosened. I swung again, and I hit it—whatever it was—again. There was a cold clicking sound, and the hand let go.
The lights went out. The only sound was the hiss of my breath and the clatter of the vase as the broken shards of it dropped to the floor.
Darkness, and then a light went on—the overhead light this time, its familiar jaundiced yellow. Violet stood in the doorway, Dodie behind her.
“Did you see it?” My voice was hoarse as I spun in place. I scrubbed a hand over my throat, over my chilled skin. “Did you see the lights? I hit it. Did you see where it went?”
My sisters didn’t answer. Violet’s gaze was fixed past my shoulder. Dodie looked there, too, and her hands went to her mouth.
I turned. In the glow of the overhead light, I saw the wall, papered in a pattern of cream and soft blue. The colors were marred with red letters scrawled in two words. A red crayon—from the attic—lay discarded on the floor.
The three of us were silent as we read those two words over and over.
WAKE UP.
17
Violet
The vase Vail had broken had been a wedding present for our parents. At least I thought it was. I had a recollection of Mom telling me not to touch it when I was fascinated by the light refracting through the crystal. “When you get married, you can get your own,” she’d said. Hadn’t she? We were never supposed to touch anything in this house anyway.
I swept the shards into a corner and left them there.
We were all relatively sane in the morning, which was remarkable. Vail had receded into silent brooding, slouched in a chair he’d pulled away from the kitchen table. My thoughts were thin with lack of sleep, but my energy was powered by a red mist of rage. Anger, for me, had never needed a specific target. It was simply a constant of my entire adult life.
Dodie was oddly calm. She had always gone quiet after one of her outbursts of emotion, as if she’d been drained from a spigot, but this was different. She rummaged eggs from the fridge and scrambled them, dumping plates in front of Vail and me. She made toast and coffee. I had never seen my little sister cook before, though she livedsolo so must be able to create some kind of sustenance. She couldn’t live on cigarettes and Melba toast alone, like she did in my imagination.
None of us mentioned the words scrawled on the wall in the living room.
“All right,” Dodie said, pulling her chair up and picking up her fork. She was wearing baggy cotton pants—possibly men’s—and a turquoise top with a bow tied on the top of each shoulder. She had pulled her black hair into the messy twist on top of her head I’d seen before, and she had dabbed dark makeup around her eyes. She didn’t look like the same Dodie who had curled up in her bed yesterday, refusing to talk to me, or the same Dodie who had collapsed, weeping and screaming, on the stairs. “Tell me what’s in Ben’s file,” she said. “I’m ready.”
Vail glowered at her from beneath his dark cloud, his arms crossed over his chest. I let the red mist of anger swirl through my brain at the thought of Ben’s file. Then I looked down at my plate and realized I was starving, so I started eating.
“Well?” Dodie asked, picking up her fork.
“Why don’t you just read it?” Vail finally asked. He hadn’t started eating, but I’d seen his gaze flick down to the eggs and away again. He’d give in. We Esmie children had the habit of eating food whenever it was offered because we never knew when we could scavenge more.
“I don’t want to read it,” Dodie said. “I want you to tell me what’s in it.”
My mouth full, I aimed a glance at Vail. Dodie seemed calm, but she’d had a worse night than both of us. We didn’t want to upset her again. Vail held my gaze for a second, then shrugged. The message wasToo bad.
“You might be angry,” I warned Dodie.
“I never get angry,” my little sister replied.
“You burned my dolls when you were six,” I shot back. “Lit them on fire right in the backyard.”
“Did I?” Dodie asked airily, though her gaze darted to Vail. “I don’t believe I recall.”
I didn’t miss that look. I turned a wrathful glare on my brother. “That was you?”
