“Kit,” says Poppy pithily, “is the picture of health.”
As if to punctuate her point, the possum goes suddenly limp in her arms. It looks halfway dead, its tongue lolling, its legs jutting stiffly skyward.
“You’ve scared him.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
The silence that widens between them feels like a chasm. In it echoes thoughts of Camellia—a half dozen secrets Shea can’t bring herself to say. Poppy is the first to breach the gulf.
“He’s home, isn’t he?”
Shea doesn’t need clarification—she knows Poppy means Asher. Her lollipop clicks against the backs of her teeth. “He is.”
“I knew it. I saw his bike outside on my walk home from school.”
Asher Thorley had gotten that dirt bike the summer he turned sixteen. Against his mother’s wishes, he’d hauled it home from the junkyard and then spent the next twelve months slowly fixing it up in his garage. Shea had seen him there every day after school—an oiled rag slung over one shoulder as he nursed the heap of rust back to life. She’d wave at him from the road and keep going, his promise thrumming between her ears:I won’t let you die here.
She hadn’t realized how quickly things would change once he left.
On the stairs, Poppy rises to her feet. “We should go by the house tomorrow after school. We’ll tell him everything we know.”
Her insistence startles Shea. “And what is it we know, exactly?”
“That Ellie didn’t leave on her own,” says Poppy, indignant. “She wouldn’t have. You know she wouldn’t have. Somethingluredher. She could be at Mercy Ridge.”
Thoughts of Lys pop back into her head, unbidden. She pictures the crumbling grandeur of Mercy Ridge, the fires in the hearth and the chatter in the rooms and the cold, mercurial boy at the helm of it all. A veritable prince, holding court in the shadow of the mountain. Camellia isn’t atMercy Ridge and Shea knows it, but she can’t tell Poppy that.
“Maybe she got sick of Little Hill,” Shea says instead. The truth sits on the tip of her tongue:We fought. She ran. And now she’s gone.
“We’reallsick of Little Hill,” says Poppy. “That doesn’t mean you just wake up one day and leave without warning. Without even saying goodbye.”
And suddenly, they’re both thinking of Shea’s father. How he did exactly that.
“Shea, I’m sorry,” says Poppy, backpedaling. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“I should get inside.” The taste of cherry sours in her throat. “My mom will be expecting me for dinner.”
Over Poppy’s shoulder, the house is dark. There’s no hint of movement behind the curtains. Shea hopes Poppy doesn’t notice. She hopes she doesn’t see the way her stories never quite make sense. The way the lies are piling up.
The way she hasn’t invited her inside in months.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Poppy adds as Shea edges past. “I wasn’t thinking. But Shea, wehaveto go talk to Asher. Tomorrow. He deserves to know whatever we know.”
Shea pauses on the threshold. She feels as though guilt might split her apart.
“We don’t know anything,” she says coldly, and pulls the door shut.
Alone, she breathes in deep. The foyer is empty. The air smells wet—there’s a leak in the kitchen she hasn’t gotten around to patching. On the stairs, several balusters have popped loose. The wallpaper has been gashed open in places. It ribbons down the wall in thin, floral ravels, a stark reminder of the violent secrets she keeps.
Some days, she thinks she is entirely composed of secrets. They live within her, chewing at her bones like beetles. One day soon, there will be nothing of her left. She gives herself thirty seconds to feel sorry for herself. Thirty seconds, and then she shrugs out of her blazer and heads for the basement.
A dark shape darts out from underfoot the moment she takes her first step. She yelps, leaping to the side to avoid stepping on Hemlock, the old tortoiseshell her father found under the porch nine long winters ago. Her mother’s cat, through and through. A pair of yellow eyes peer sulkily out at her from beneath the hall tree. At her feet curls a small, dead mouse.
“Good thinking,” Shea tells the cat, pushing up her sleeves. With only the smallest amount of disgust, she leans down and pinches the mouse by the tail. It dangles in front of her as she walks, its little body curling on itself. Still warm. Still fresh.
Just the way she likes it.
It takes Shea nearly a minute to unlock the basement door. She’s installed extra security in the past few months. A rusted padlock. A thick barrel bolt. A sliding steel chain. Prying it open, she’s met with a cool, ubiquitous dark. The stairs are steep, wood worn smooth.
