Something sinks in my middle at his words. His face is totally calm.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
His smile is soft as he gazes at me. “I’ve just always been good at lying.” I don’t know what to think, and he shakes his head at my nervousness. “The trick of it is, I never, ever lie unless it’smassively important. I know people think that the more you lie, the better you get at it, but I find it to be the opposite.”
My breathing levels at his lightened tone. My paranoid brain was ready to shoot me through the roof, but I should have known better. “And what have you ever lied about?”
Simon takes a dramatic breath. “I told my older sister that no man would marry her because she couldn’t cook a meal. That wasn’t the lie. She really hadn’t cooked before. But then she tried to do it, so she could prove me wrong. And when I tasted the raspberry tart she made, I told her it was good, which was the biggest lie of my life.”
It’s annoying. And adorable.
“That’s what was so massively important that you had to lie?”
“Well, she worked rather hard on it. I was only sick for a few days after, not that anyone was worried. Neville was still alive, so I was very much replaceable at that point.”
“Hey,” I tell him, stealing his hand back. “You’re not replaceable.”
He holds my hand tighter. “Now you tell me something that no one else knows about you.”
If only he was aware of just how loaded that question is.
He’s probably expecting a silly answer. Some mischievous little thing that I did and never told him or anyone about. But what I really want to tell him, what I’m tempted beyond all reason to tell him, is the truth. I want to tell him who I am.
But I can’t.
Can I?
If I tell him the truth, that I’m not Catherine, what will he think? He’ll think that I’ve had too much to drink. That I’m making things up for attention. Or he might believe me.
My mind is racing a million miles a second. Here in this time—here as Catherine Howard—I keep so much internalized. A world-changing, life-altering thing happened to me, and Matthias is the only person I can really talk to. Matthias, who barely lets me through his door. And then there’s Francis, who would absolutely vampire-stab-me with a wooden stake through the heart if it would resurrect Catherine’s soul.
I know that I have friends here, and I trust them, but I don’t know if I can trust them with this. When I stop and think of the fact that I may be stuck here for an indefinite amount of time, I’m riddled with questions and plagued with anxiety. But when I’m with Simon, everything goes quiet. I can hear myself and I can hear him, and I trust him.
I take a steeling breath. “What if I told you that I’m not who you think I am?”
This is a mistake. I should stop. But I want him to know me. Ineedhim to know me. Simon stays quiet, and I go on.
“You kept telling me that I was different that day I crashed into you in the hallway. That I changed from who I was before. What if there was a reason that I changed?”
His gaze clouds with worry as he inadvertently shifts closer to me. “Did someone hurt you? Did something happen?”
I shake my head and smooth my other hand over his. “Not like that. Something did happen, but I don’t know how to explain it.”
He goes quiet again, until he says, “Try.”
This is it. Heaven help me.
“I’m not Catherine Howard.” I blurt the words out, thinking the planet might explode once I say them. But nothing happens, and Simon keeps watching me. So, I go on. “My name is Lily Whitaker, and I was born in the 2000s in Santa Monica, California. That’s in America. I livedwith my mom and my grandma, but now I have my own place. I’m a PhD candidate in psychology. We have electricity. I drive a car and have a phone and I’m free to live my life the way I want to because that’s how it is in the future. I’m from the future.”
The words fall out of me in a dizzying tumble. I want to take them back, but I’m also absurdly glad that they’re out. Adrenaline swirls in my gut, and it feels like I’m standing on the edge of a diving board as I wait for Simon to respond.
“You’re from the future?” he asks lightly. He thinks I’m kidding. I still keep talking.
“I was visiting England with my friend Zoe, and we came to Hampton Court Palace. This place is more like a museum in my time. I don’t think anyone even lives in it. I heard singing, I felt kind of sick, and then I’m pretty sure I fainted. When I woke up, I was here. In this body. In Catherine Howard’s body. This isn’t what I really look like. This isn’t my voice. These aren’t my hands or my face. None of it is me. And that’s why I’m so different from the Catherine you originally met and remember. That’s why I was so confused and running and trying to escape the day I bumped into you. It’s why I asked you to call me Lily. It’s because that’s who I am—Lily. I’m Lily.”
Simon stands up from the table. He’s still looking at me and smiling, but it’s falling little by little. “Is this another drinking game?”
I get up from the table, too. “It’s not a game,” I tell him. “I know what happens here, in history. I know that Henry will end up having six wives in total. I know that his daughter Elizabeth will be his longest-living heir. And I know that if the old version of history comes true now, then I’m eventually going to be executed for adultery. That’s what happened when the real Catherine was here. It might happen to me unless I’m able to change it, but I don’t think I’m doing a very good job.”
