I checked my phone: 2:38 a.m. Definitely not time to be awake, but I’d had trouble sleeping for years. I tried breathing deeply, tried counting sheep, tried counting backward from one thousand in Spanish. Nothing worked. In fact, I felt like I’d taken a shot of adrenaline. Eventually I caved and looked at my phone, but nothing on all the interwebs intrigued me.
By 3:40, irritated and exhausted, I got out of bed, figuring a change of scene might at least distract me. I wandered through the ancient halls of Golden Doors. Moonlight provided the only illumination, sliding in through the windows and across the floors. This house was surely haunted; how many people had lived and loved and died here? I kept wandering, no clear destination in mind. The moon kept me company through every window, half full, gleaming, bloated.
I climbed a steep, narrow staircase, my hand steadying me against the wall. At the top stood a heavy door, and I pushed it open. Cold night air rushed at me, and I looked out at a spacious deck jutting out amid the pitched gray roofs of the rest of the house, enclosed by a white fence.
Ahh.The widow’s walk.
I stepped outside. The door closed behind me, and I grabbed it, struck by an instant’s certainty it had locked, but it opened easily. With a deep exhale, I looked out over the rolling lawnsand wooded gardens. The dark silhouette of a gazebo stood out in the distance, followed by the dunes and the crashing sea. The view was overwhelming, almost too beautiful, the kind of beauty that slipped inside and twisted and choked you, leaving no room for anything else.
I leaned my head back and breathed.
There were the stars, bright and glittering. The June sky, which my father had taught me to know and love, the constellations he’d painstakingly pointed out to pint-size me, all so much brighter here than near the city. I couldn’t wait to watch the Arborids together at the end of July. Though—Dad had been watching the Arborids with Ethan for the past three summers, hadn’t he? I shivered involuntarily. Ethan, my father’s perfect replacement child.
Breathe.
There, the tilted summer dipper; there, past Polaris, the queen Cassiopeia, chained to her throne by a vengeful god for taking pride in her beauty. There, the Arbor, the tree of life from which it looked like the Arborids meteor shower originated each summer. And there, the Summer Triangle. The brightest star, Deneb, was two hundred thousand times brighter than our sun. The other two stars, according to Chinese folklore, were lovers separated by the Milky Way.
I breathed out and lowered my head.
And jolted. In a wing of the house curved toward me, a figure stood in a glowing window. I swallowed a scream, then peered at the figure more closely—easy to see, given the illumination of his window, the only lit window in the entire house. Ethan Barbanel.
He lifted a hand, but I ignored it and retreated quickly inside.
Four
By 8:00 a.m. I was already stressed.
I’d fallen back asleep, but it’d been broken and unsatisfying. Now the idea of going downstairs and interacting with the Barbanels made me burrow deeper in my—very luxurious—sheets. I considered myself extroverted, but maybe I was only extroverted in groups of people I already knew? I scrolled through my phone, wishing I’d brought snacks to ward off rumblings of hunger.
At ten thirty on the dot, someone knocked on my door.
Great. Hiding had made me conspicuous. “One minute!” I made sure I didn’t have yesterday’s underwear flung about before opening the door.
Miriam, Ethan’s younger cousin, stood there, her hair in two braided pigtails. “Morning!” she chirped. “Mom wanted me to tell you there’s pancakes for breakfast, if you want any.”
“Thanks.” I didn’t move.
Miriam took pity on me. “Most people’ve already eaten, so you don’t need to worry about a huge crowd of strangers.”
“Oh. Okay.” I unfroze and followed her down the hall. “Do you come here every summer?”
“Yeah.”
“Must be nice.”
She grinned wryly. “Bit of an understatement. My family’s apartment could fit into one of the bathrooms here.”
My surprise embarrassed me. I’d assumed all the Barbanels were as painfully rich as I was not. “Same.”
Downstairs, Miriam showed me a room spanning the length of the house. Large windows and open French doors overlooked the rolling lawn. The soft green scent of summer wafted in, fresh-cut grass and delicate lilac notes. Inside, a few adults draped themselves over sofas, coffee at their sides. Two women with the tight dark brown curls all the Barbanels seemed to have stood in the open kitchen, chatting as they brewed tea. A four- or five-year-old played with a toddler, moving the child’s limbs, and at a small table sat three identical girls, eating pancakes. I blinked.
“Iris, Lily, and Rose,” Miriam said. “They’re thirteen.”
“How do you keep track of them?”
“We don’t.”
I caught the whiff of coffee and pivoted, homing in on a carafe sitting on the kitchen island. “Is it okay if I have a cup?”
