“So she won’t get out tonight?” I asked.
“They had an awful argument, so loud even I couldhear it,” she said. “Ava was insisting she hadn’t gone anywhere. Seems like she had some new song she’d been singing. Her mother controls her life. She knows when her girl has new ideas, new thoughts, new experiences.”
The idea that I’d gotten Ava in trouble just by knowing her stuck in my throat, making it impossible to swallow. We’d have to be more careful.
My phone buzzed.
Stuck. Not sure I can make it out tonight. Tomorrow?
I quickly tapped out,of course.
Grandma Flowers waited, the streetlight bright on her gray curls. “You’ll do right by her. I have faith.”
“How long should I wait?”
“Only you will know that, child. But be careful. They don’t own a lot of things. They could spirit away at any time. They did it before.”
I thanked Grandma Flowers for her advice and hurried to my car.
Ava’s eighteenth birthday couldn’t come fast enough.
CHAPTER 11
Ava
Tucker agreed to wait at least a week before we saw each other again, to be safe.
Since our argument over the song, I’d been so careful to protect the secret of the window, volunteering to wash them myself, keeping my room as organized and clean as possible so that my mother would only give it a quick once-over and never look close.
But yesterday she’d wandered in with her paper towel and Windex.
And she’d seen the cuts around the edges of the frame.
Her eyes went wide, the paper towel fluttering to the floor. She pressed her fingers into the cracks where the paint had once sealed it shut.
I wanted to be fierce, to tell her I had a life of my own, and soon, she’d be no part of it. But the first sign of her wrath, eyebrows pointing toward her nose, mouth set tight, sent fear flooding through me. I’d been careful not to anger her now that I had a secret to hide. My notes told me she sometimes went wild, dumping drawers,clearing out closets, searching for my journals, my notes, anything that might be advising me to rebel.
As Mother lifted the window and leaned out, I pressed into the far corner of the room, wedged between my dresser and the paper flower wall.
“How many times have you left?” she asked, her voice low and menacing, like the angry dogs I sometimes saw on our walks.
I was so close. My birthday was mere weeks away.
I thought fast.
“Never. I only wanted fresh air.” The lie was smooth, convincing, and without even a waver in my voice. The fear receded. I was strong.
Mother studied me, her eyes blazing. “I don’t believe you.”
My mind raced again, and the answer clicked into place. I could kill two birds with one stone, as Tucker sometimes said.
“One of the neighbors plays their music loud. I like it. So I opened the window to hear it. That’s why I knew that song the other day.”
Something relaxed in her, her shoulders shifting down. She stood straighter.
She believed me.
“I used to have a record player,” she said, surprising me. “Then, in middle school, I used a cassette player until much later, when CDs became popular.”
