That night, she was taunted by her dreams. So much so, that it almost felt like punishment. In the dream, Noelle had returned, but always once step out of reach. Every time Nadine turned to look at her, she was gone. She could only ever see her in the corner of her eye.
People kept saying, “She’s back! She’s back!”
And she was screaming, “Then why can’t Iseeher?”
That sense of fearful frustration stayed with her as she woke up, with tears slowly running down her cheeks. She felt as if she were very close to remembering something important. Something to do with the green book. A line formed between her dark brows as she struggled, caught between wakefulness and sleep.
It was something Thomas said, she thought.Or something he didn’t say—
Her eyes opened and the tail end of whatever thought she had been chasing slipped away, along with Noelle. Her sister wasn’t here. She was still missing.
“Shit,” said Nadine, sitting up in those fresh sky-blue sheets with their white paisley pattern. The greenish light coming into her room was painfully bright, slashing through clouds that seemed dark and menacing, almost throbbing with the promise of violent, torrential rain.
I shouldn’t have drunk so much.
She still felt tender from last night. She had messed around in college, of course, but never all the way and never that rough. Her college boyfriend had never restrained her and she had never asked. It had never really occurred to her to ask; she mostly did whatever he told her to.
Maybe that was toxic, but it was what felt comfortable. Always giving, never asking. She gave him oral without demanding a return exchange, and even though he had offered—so he could say hehadoffered—she had never allowed him to reciprocate, since he’d usually follow up the offer with some comment that made her feel bad enough about her body to pull away.
Yes, it had been a very comfortable arrangement—forhim.
Until it wasn’t.
He had broken up with her at the end of term and it hadn’t been nice. He’d called her a prude, and needy, and all sorts of other hurtful things that had her crying her eyes out, too ashamed to repeat what he’d said to anyone else, out of a fear that they might agree with him. Later, she’d found out that he’d been seeing another girl, who wasn’t shyoranxious, which had only exacerbated her sense of failure, and her secret conviction that she really was a hopeless prude.
She hadn’t felt like a prude last night, though.
Cal made her want things that weren’t safe, which was confusing because safety was all she had ever wanted. But how could that be when she also wantedhim? He wasn’t safe.
And he wanted her.
The memory of getting to her knees for him made her face burn hot. With her clit still fluttering from orgasm, she had taken him into her mouth, and let him fuck her throat in slow, shallow strokes. He was gentle at first, which was a surprise after his hands had been so rough. Right before he came, though, the pace had shifted to a cadence she suspected he preferred, and he had taken her hands and put them on him brutally, covering them to control the depth.
It had made her wonder what it would feel like to have him inside her.
You’re not here for that, she scolded herself, as that familiar shame returned to peck at her like a vicious bird. She pulled a flannel shirt on over her tank top before rolling up the sleeves, and straightening her necklace.And he just thinks of you as a quick lay.
She paused in front of the painting of Caledon Cullraven and the bloodied stag. She had just realized what it was about it that had been bothering her all this time.
The eyes of the deer were a bright blue.
She looked at those pale irises with their blown-out pupils and felt a chill. It was so . . . unnatural. What had possessed the artist to paint the animal like this?
The more she stared, the more uneasy she felt. Something about its expression looked—
Human.
I need to start covering this painting again. She looked around for her red cardigan but it had vanished from the floor and wasn’t on one of the hangers in the closet.
Maybe one of the maids had thought it was a rag and thrown it out.
Still, she didn’t like it. It was just more proof that people in this house came and went where and how they pleased, even when you didn’t see them.
That sense of unease followed her to the kitchen, where the light was already starting to fade prematurely as it was swallowed up by the clouds again. She could see thunderheads swelling like blisters over the treetops, and the wind was starting to pick up.
“There’s a storm coming,” Odessa said redundantly, by way of greeting. Cal, over in the corner, had only raised a hand. “I hope the power doesn’t go out.”
“Does that happen?” Nadine asked, still half-thinking of the deer in the painting. She might have asked about it if she had been alone with either one of them, but Cal’s presence was making her feel shy in front of his sister. She wasn’t sure how to look at him now that the two of them had seen each other come, and she was afraid that would show on her face.
