“Good. The weather will be cool.” She unlocks the doors and gets out.
We passed a gas station two miles back and there’s been no sign of civilization since. My legs feel rubbery when I step out onto the pavement, and then Iris takes my hand. “Come on,” she says. “There’s something I want to show you.”
“You’ve been here?” I ask. If I can keep her talking, eventually her tone will give something away. If she’s overly chirpy, I’m in trouble. But while she’s this unreadably calm, it could mean anything.
“I needed something to do,” she says. A drop of rain lands on my nose. We reach the base of the trail and I hesitate. If I scream, nobody will hear me. If I run, Iris will be faster. She always is. I have a box cutter in my pocket, beside Jade’s phone. I can’t reach for it now or Iris will see that I’m carrying it.
I only stop for a second, but it’s enough to make Iris’s eyes flash. I start walking again, and together we move along the jagged rocks and brambles. She puts her hand on the small of my back and it takes effort not to flinch. “Do you remember when I had meningitis? When we were nine.”
Elaine got a call from our social worker. I’d never heard the word before in my life, but I was worried for Iris nonetheless. Elaine wouldn’t let me visit her because the hospital was three hours away and it was the start of the school week.
“Moody ran away from her group home to visit me,” Iris says. “It was after hours when she got there, but she made herself cry and the nurse said she’d let us have five minutes.”
I’ve never heard this story. Iris barely spoke about her time at the hospital, said she didn’t remember it. I didn’t know that Moody was ever there at all.
“I was really sick,” Iris goes on. She takes a broad step over a jutting rock in the trail. “I could barely speak, but Moody laid down on the bed next to me and said it would be okay. She sang ‘Beverly Hills’ by Weezer, and when I fell asleep, I had a dream that we were walking through Hollywood Boulevard. I got better after that. She holds us together, Sissy. More than you realize.”
“Iris.” I stop walking. She’s five paces ahead before she realizes and turns around. “Cut the bullshit, okay?” My voice is soft, not angry. “What is this about?”
She smiles, and it’s a distracted, wistful smile, like my words have endeared me to her.
“I adore you, Sissy,” she says. “But I don’t trust you. Neither does Moody. You’ve kept too many secrets.”
“How can you say that?” My head feels light, and I think I may be sick again. I lean against a boulder and focus on breathing. “I’ve cleaned up every mess you’ve ever made.”
“But you haven’t made your own mess,” she says.
“Is this about the last time?” I ask her. “I told you. He didn’t feel right.”
“It’s about this time,” she says. “I don’t think you’re going to do it. You have three more months to go, and I think you’re going to try and keep him.”
I think of Edison writhing under me as I stop him from drawing a breath. His still body lying flat on the kitchen tiles as I undress him and fold him so his limbs will stiffen that way. Rolling the industrial trash bag into the dirt and covering it up.
It’s been weeks since I’ve let myself think of it, and now I realize it’s because I hate the woman who will do this thing to him. When that woman puts her hands around Edison’s throat, I want to lunge for her. I want to kill her, not Edison.
Too late, I let the hesitation cross my face and Iris sees it. The sadness in her eyes is almost enough to knock me over.
“That isn’t true,” I say. It’s a weak lie, but I say it with conviction.
“Then why haven’t you gotten rid of his baby?” she says.
There it is. “How long have you known?”
She doesn’t answer. I don’t know why she’s brought me here. I don’t understand. But I know that something is waiting for me at the top of this trail, and that it’s something bad.
Iris takes my hand in the same impenetrable grasp as when we were five and the social worker was prying us apart. She starts marching up the mountainside and I stagger after her.
As we round the corner, the rain picks up and the sky goes deep gray. There’s something bright in all the gloom. Crumpled in an alcove, a yellow-and-white dress, splattered with mud, being worn by a teenage girl with pure terror in her eyes.
“Sadie!” I run for her, throwing Iris off me. My sister doesn’t try to stop me.
Sadie crawls away from me, pressing her back against the rocks and whimpering hysterically against the cloth gag tied over her mouth. Her hands are bound before her with strips of cloth expertly tied. Iris is still where I left her, not visible from Sadie’s line of sight, and that’s when I realize Sadie has no idea there’s more than one of us. Whatever Iris has done to her, she did it as Jade.
“Sadie.” Her name is all I can think to say in my shock. I kneel down before her and peel the gag out of her mouth. It falls limply down her neck. “Sadie, it’s all right. I won’t hurt you.”
“Are you sure about that?”
When I look up, Moody is standing over me, Iris at her side. They’re wearing identical white T-shirts and shorts. Sadie looks at them and then at me, her breath coming in panicked gasps.
