Thankfully, Billy hasn’t gone completely delirious at the sight of so much delicious food. “Of course not, Mother,” she murmurs respectfully, dropping her head. “I was just offering my help, if you wished it.”
“I donotwish it.” Evelyn sneers at her. “What Idowish is for you two to vanish from my sight before you give me a migraine.”
We’re already halfway up the stairs when she calls out, “Wait!”
Shit.
Reluctantly, we trudge back to the kitchen door.
“Since you have so much time on your hands, you will both write a paper on the topic of gratitude.” Evelyn bends to fiddle with the oven’s dials, and I have to force back the urge to rush over and shove her head inside.
Instead, I glance at Sybil and find her already frowning at me.
“Three thousand words,” our mother continues. “Due by dinner.”
“Gratitude, as in what we’re grateful for?” I venture bravely. Talking back to Evelyn is dangerous, but making assumptions is worse.
“Did you misplace your dictionary?” Evelyn rises to full height, but as she turns to us, I grab Sybil’s hand and tug her upstairs behind me.
My mind is racing as I try to figure out what Evelyn’s endgame is.
“This doesn’t make sense, Bash,” Sybil says as soon as I’ve closed our bedroom door behind us.
Evelyn prefers we stay hidden so we don’t give her migraines with our ‘incessant nattering.’ We don’t have a key, but she only enters for her weekly inspection.
“Is she going to take us to The Bad Place?” Sybil asks.
“I don’t know,” I mutter.
“Maybe she’s poisoning the food. Do you think she’s poisoning the food?”
“I don’t know, Billy!”
Sybil glowers at me, because I’ve made a habit of knowing things. It’s one of the few ways I can pass the time without dying of boredom. I’ve read nearly every book in the house—twice.
I already suspect our mother is an antisocial narcissist, but even what’s happening right now doesn’t fit any of her usual patterns of behavior.
So Idon’tknow, and that’s frustrating as hell.
What Idoknow is that something is very,verywrong.
Ever since she finished her latest paper a couple of months ago, Evelyn has been acting strange. Where before she hardly ever left her study in the attic, these days she’s been flitting off at random times during the week on all manner of mysterious errands.
When we dared ask, she gave vague replies about meeting her publisher.
She began wearing lipstick and reeking of perfume. Taking calls in her bedroom with the door locked. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was dating someone.
But Evelyn never seeks pleasure. She exists solely to torment her children and write labyrinthine academic papers that never get published.
Not after being abandoned by her children’s fathers.
She always made it out as if she was the one who sent them packing, and we believed her because no one ever comes to this house. Not twice, anyway.
Then I found the letters in her closet.
They’dbothleft her—Sybil’s father, and mine.
From what I could piece together from the letters, my father, Jonathan, was a traveling salesman. He came through our town on business one day and, most unfortunately, met my mother. They had a whirlwind affair that appears to only have lasted a couple of days, maybe a week, before he took off again.
