Nadine looked away, and that was when she noticed the fountain. Really noticed it, because before she had just thought,oh, a fountain, nice. Now, the statue in the center captured her attention, though, because she had just realized that it showed a hunter violently slaying a deer.
But the deer had the head—and face—of a terrified woman.
C H A P T E R
O N E
?as long as we’re together?
Her memories of Ravensgate faded like a dream over the next year, but every so often, she would be doing something and her thoughts would snag on some visceral element of the day—the statue of the woman-deer in the courtyard, the rotten smell beneath the roses, the predatory glint in Cal Cullraven’s eyes—and just like silk catching on a thorn, Nadine would feel the slow unraveling of her own composure, of her certainty that nothing at that house was wrong.
She had been a nervous child, constantly in need of assurance and validation. As a young girl, she had worn her heart on her sleeve because she didn’t know of any other way to be, and people had always been quick to break it. Over and over this happened, until one day when she was twelve and crying over the latest in a long series of betrayals, Aunt Nikki had taken her aside and said, “Honey, you havegotto get a game face. One look at you and people know exactly where to twist the knife.”
And so she had learned to push the bad feelings down, bottling them up until she could come home and safely release them, safe from judgement or retribution when she fretted or cried. Noelle and Nikki would offer up their assurances and protect her the way she couldn’t protect herself. That was what they did; they all looked after each other, because nobody else would.
Ever since her parents had died in their fatal car accident, it had always been the three of them—Nikki, Noelle, and Nadine. They even had a matching set of lavaliere necklaces: a trio of gold Ns studded with tiny rhinestones. “Three is a magic number,” Nikki had told them, when they had opened up the white boxes at Christmas years and years ago, young enough to have been excited by the prospect of real adult jewelry. “Three means protection. As long as we’re together, girls, nothing bad will happen.”
Nothing bad will happen.Nadine fingered the necklace at her throat. Then she realized what she was doing and forced herself to smile. Her game face—sweet Nadine.GoodNadine. If she laughed loudly enough, often enough, people might be too distracted to notice when she was falling apart.
After the wedding, Nadine had returned to school. With finals to finish and graduation to plan, there hadn’t been as much time to worry about her sister’s changing circumstances. And then she had gone on a road trip with friends to Los Angeles—her first big trip without either her sister or her aunt—which had triggered a panic attack that had her sitting alone on the curb of their hotel parking lot at 3am, struggling to remember how to breathe under the wavering blur of neon lights.
Noelle hadn’t come to her graduation. She wasn’t even answering her cell phone anymore. When Nadine called, she got a message saying the voicemail box was full. She had tried searching for the Cullravens’s phone number online, but all that popped up was a shady-looking tour website that said appointments were “first come, first serve” and only available by “drop-in.”
So she tried not to worry, to push it all down, butGod. She was worried. So worried.
Because her greatest fear was that if she didn’t worry about the people who loved her, she would be punished for that lack of vigilance by having no one left to love.
It had already happened once before.
“Don’t take it personally,” Nikki had said after the graduation ceremony. Nadine had been trying not to look dejected as they went out to sushi dinner, still wearing her graduation robes. They hadn’t been the only ones with that idea; across the room was a large family, and they were taking lots of conspicuous photographs of a pretty blonde girl wearing multiple honor cords and sashes. Looking at the proud, smiling parents made Nadine’s insides feel like they were being constricted by small, painful metal wires.
“I’m so proud of you, darling,” the mother—was that the mother?—said to the beaming girl.
You can’t be upset at people for having families, Nadine.
“I’m not,” she said, sounding too defensive, even to her own ears.
Also watching the other family, Nikki said, “She’s always been flighty. You know that better than anyone. Remember how upset you used to get whenever she used to flake? Well, she has a husband now, and he’s her new priority, Nad. You know she’d come see you today if she could.”
If she could. That all too-familiar chill returned with a vengeance as she thought of the sinister Cullraven family. Corrine and Nathaniel, preserved like good suede, and their bevy of coldly beautiful children. She thought especially of Cal, with his cruel mouth and piercing eyes, saying, “How will you know if you’ll be next?”Maybe she can’t.
He had been going to kiss her beneath those roses. He hadn’t even asked her if she had a boyfriend, but he had been going to kiss her. And hiseyes—
(A raven needs a sparrow)
Nadine shivered.
She had only gotten a handful of postcards from Noelle since she left, postmarked over the last couple months. They seemed to erase what little worry Nikki might have had, but Nadine had found them . . . strange.
Two had been sent right after the wedding, from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Then a few weeks after that, there was one from San Francisco, announcing her return to the country. Finally, months after that—just a few weeks before, actually—she had received one from Argentum.
Hello to my favoritest little sister. Everything is going swimmingly. Let me know if you ever want to come visit—I have it on very good authority that you were a hit at the wedding. Please give my love to Auntie Nikkie now that we’re no longer together. xoxo
The postcard had been divided into quarters and looked as if it had been designed by someone who barely knew how to use Photoshop. At the bottom right was a row of 19thcentury storefronts, with a caption that said “OLD TOWN ARGENTUM.” In the bottom left was a craggy hill, with tufts of grass wreathed around the bald rock like a tonsure. In the foreground was a weathered sign that said DANGER: MINING AREA. The upper left quadrant showed an aerial view of the pine forest that surrounded the town. And lastly, in the top right, was a picture of Ravensgate itself, nestled into a bank of trees where the encroaching forest had been pared back to build.
Strange. But not as strange as the message it contained. Nadine wasn’t sure she had ever heard her sister use the word “swimmingly” in her life and she had misspelled Aunt Nikki’s name.
The handwriting’s hers, though. She had traced the bubble letters written in gel pen. That handwriting covered countless scraps of paper that still littered the room they had once shared, bittersweet now in its familiarity.
