She’s talking about all the missing kids. The elusive Shadow Man rumored to be behind it all. I always figured it was easier to push the creatures in front of the tragedies than to accept that sometimes horrible things happen. And usually the monsters in the stories are people.
“That was…” Margot starts.
“Interesting,” I say.
“I was going to say weird and rude as hell.”
I can’t help a tiny laugh. The sound surprises Margot, who stills and looks my way. Her tense, hardened expression softens for a beat. She gives me a lopsided smile, and I return it.
“I didn’t know you could do that anymore,” she says. I think she means to say it sarcastically, but it comes out wrong. Gentler.
Heat rushes up my neck and across my cheeks.
“Do what?”
“You know what,” she says. As if she’s given away too much, she clears her throat and returns her attention to her phone.
I do know what. Laugh. Smile. I haven’t done much of either in the last six months. For a little while, I didn’t think I ever would again.
I clear my throat.
“We should probably get going.”
“Let’s give it five more minutes. In case that mom sees us and thinks we took her advice.”
It’s my turn to snort. “God forbid.”
Margot looks at me again, that odd look on her face. The one that reminds me that we weren’t always this way; once upon a time, we were so close, it was hard to surprise each other. Every action was expected, every reaction predictable.
Then my best friend died, and it left me stranded, bobbing on a life raft, too far from shore for anyone I love, anyone who loves me, to reach.
Three
I know she’s coming beforethe knock on the door.
In a house this old, noise seeps through every plaster-covered crack in the walls, under every uneven gap beneath the doors. It gives the place a living quality. It also makes sneaking anywhere impossible.
First, there are the squeaky stairs, each louder than the last. The shrill whine of the ancient flooring as someone steps onto it or the groan of pipes in the walls if they continue up to the third level.
But they don’t continue.
Seconds later, the knock.
I’ve been expecting it since I crept upstairs after we came home from the park. The fact I made it all the way up here without badgering is a miracle in itself. And I don’t believe in those.
“Come in,” I say, hoping my face resembles something impassive. Emotionally stable. I’ve gotten pretty good at the face in themonths since Harper died. Sympathy runs dry, and grief makes people squirm. Even my family must be sick of me by now.
The door groans open and my mother walks in, eyes flitting to the instruments in the corner of the room before settling on me in the bed. It takes a second to hide her disappointment, but she’s had practice.
At least when I holed up in my room for hours before, it was for a reason. Never intentionally, I’d get lost chasing some melody, and four hours later, Mom would force some microwaved meal into my hands.
Tonight, the digital piano’s cord is still wound up from the move, and I am curled up in bed with my laptop and a sitcom I’m only half watching.
Five weeks since we left behind my childhood home near Denver. Since Mom promised that the change of scenery would change everything. I’d hoped going along with the move would extricate my mom’s talons from my back. I can’t exactly blame her for lodging them there, but this move was supposed to be a fresh start for all of us. Six months ago, right before the accident, my uncle took off with a bartender and left my aunt with a mortgage and the bookstore. Fresh off our own tragedy—technically mine, but we’ve always been a sharing family—Mom dragged us here the moment my siblings and I finished the school year. To help with the store. To hide from the things, the people, we’ve lost.
Grief has become an honorary Griffin. He sets the table for himself.
“Hey,” Mom says. She’s wearing her favorite robe, the one Jasper picked out for her last Christmas; it’s this horrid bluish green, but she swears it’s her favorite color. She chews on her bottom lip, pausing before she speaks like she’s afraid to ask aquestion she already knows the answer to. “We’re about to start a movie. Feel like joining?”
