“Violet, come on. You know you want to.” This was said, for once, without Bradley’s usual unearned confidence. It was just a fact.
“Bradley, it isn’t happening,” I shot back. I ignored the question of whether I wanted to sleep with him. Part of me did, but it was the part of me that had made similar bad decisions, like snorting cocaine up my nose or sleeping with Clay the first time. “We’d hate each other after. It wouldn’t even be good.”
He looked perplexed, his brows drawing down. “What does that mean?”
“The fact that you just asked that question means I’m right.”
“What?”
“Forget it.”
“I just think it would clear the air,” he said, as if this was a valid argument.
“Wow, that’s flattering,” I commented.
“What?” he said again.
I pinched the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger. “No, Bradley. The answer is no.”
“Whatever.” Then, “Dad made some calls. There aren’t any cases of stolen babies. No closed cases, and definitely no open ones. He says your father probably screwed around and your little brother was his.”
“That’s the theory we were going with, too,” I said. I told him about the attic, the marbles.
Bradley, as always, questioned nothing. “It’s reincarnation,maybe,” he said. “He was another kid before. TheNational Enquirerwrites about reincarnation, but it’s always Elvis being reincarnated, or…Actually, just Elvis.”
“Ben was a real baby,” I said. “I fed him, I changed him. So did my siblings. I know what ghosts look like, and he wasn’t one. He was real.”
Bradley nodded. “Reincarnated people are real.”
“But reincarnated people are born,” I argued. “Ben must have been born, but we don’t know to who, or how my parents ended up with him.”
“Maybe it doesn’t matter,” Bradley said.
“Of course it matters.” I waved my hands in frustration. “That’s what this whole thing is about. Finding out who Ben was, finding out what happened to him. Because they’re connected.”
“Who cares where he came from twenty-six years ago?” Bradley argued back. “What matters is where he came from the first time. That’s what the marbles mean. That’s what he’s trying to tell you.”
My temples throbbed and my eyes stung.He’s been telling you and telling you,Alice had said.You have to go back to the beginning. The real beginning.
How long ago had my little brother really been born?
“Has anyone written a history of Fell?” I asked.
Bradley shrugged. If there was ever a person disinterested in history, it was Bradley Pine. “Who knows? One of those nerds at the college probably has.”
I looked at him, and our gazes caught for a second before he turned back to the road and sighed, flicking his signal on.
“Yeah, I get it,” he said. “I’m turning around.”
32
Dodie
“It’s time for me to tell you the truth,” Ethan said. “I’m a Russian spy.”
“Are you?” I leaned against the kitchen wall and twisted the phone cord around one index finger. I had meant to tidy the kitchen, truly I had, but it was so boring, and I got distracted. The phone was right there on the wall. I took a chance, calling Ethan in the middle of the day, and he had picked up. He told me it was his day off. From what, I still had no idea.
“If I’m lying, you’ll never know,” he said.
