“What about Alex?”
I’m still trembling, but Ellis pushes me back enough to look at me properly, her gaze traversing my face as if she can interpret something new from my tears and snot.
“The…the book,” I say, after taking a few unsteady breaths. “The one we left at her grave.”
“The Secret Garden,”Ellis provides.
I nod. “It’s…It’s in…It showed up in my room. The same…the same copy.”
Ellis’s gaze sharpens. “The same? You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure!” My voice pitches loudly enough that Leonie opens her door down the hall and peers out at us, blearily asking what’s going on.
“We’re okay,” Ellis says, and she tugs me into her room and kicks the door shut behind us.
“It’s the same book,” I tell her again. My voice is a little calmer now at least. I don’t feel quite so much like I’m suffocating. “It’s…Alex. Itoldyou. I told you going to that graveyard was a bad idea! Now she’s angry. She’s…she’s never going to leave me in peace!”
Any other day, perhaps I’d have taken a moment to be pleased with myself; I’ve clearly presented a mystery to which Ellis Haley has no ready answer. She stares at me with a look on her face I’ve never seen before, like she doesn’t believe what she’s hearing.
It occurs to me in that moment—away from the proximity of the book itself—that there’s another explanation for its reappearance.
“You,” I choke out. “Youput it there. Didn’t you?” I shove her with both hands, and she falls back on her heels, which for some reason strikes me as not good enough. I push her again, harder.“Didn’t you?”
“No,” she snaps, and when I move to hit her, she grabs both my wrists, squeezing tight. “Felicity, are you even hearing yourself?”
“I should think you’d prefer an explanation that doesn’t involveghosts,” I snarl. “You were at the graveyard. You saw the book. Youbroughtthe book. It would have been so easy for you to go back and get it again.”
Ellis’s grip strengthens, and she shakes me slightly. “Why? Why would I do something like that? I’ve been trying so goddamn hard to get you to realize you’re delusional—”
“Delusional?”
“Well, you are! What else do you call all this nonsense about ghosts and witches and magic books and…I wouldn’t mess with you like that.”
I don’t know how to believe her. The Ellis I know—the Ellis I thought I knew—wouldn’t do that, it’s true. But…
“Then explain the book,” I demand. “If the ghost isn’t real, explain that to me!”
She shakes her head very slowly. “I can’t. I…I’m going to have to think about it. I’m sure there’s a normal reason behind all this.”
“Right. The only normal reason I can come up with is that you put the book in my room.”
“Yes, you’ve mentioned that option.” Ellis makes a harsh noise, exhaling through clenched teeth. “But I don’t know when I’m meant to have chased down this book of yours. We’ve been practically inseparable since that graveyard trip—you’re always with me. And if you aren’t with me, one of the other girls is.”
Only that isn’t true. Yes, we’re together a lot; Ellis and I are constantly studying, or working on our project. Other times we’re with the rest of the girls: on a Night Migration; in the common room, reading poetry; on an outing to a nearby farm to pick up fresh meat and dairy, fascinated as the farmer shows us the beehives on her property, a thousand buzzing insects settling over our arms and the nets over our heads.
But we still have to sleep. Ellis could have crept out at night and returned to the graveyard for the book, carried it back home, and bided her time until she could slip it onto my bookshelf.
Ellis wouldn’t do something like that,I tell myself. She might be a lot of things, but she isn’t malicious. The whole point of this project outside of researching for her book is to prove to me that ghostsdon’texist—so why would she do something to convince me that they do?
Alex,a voice in the back of my mind insists.It was Alex. That was your first instinct, and it’s true.
“I’ll show you,” I say. “Come up to my room, and I’llshowyou the book.”
Ellis takes a shallow breath and says, “Tomorrow. Yes, I want to see it, but…Felicity, it’s really late. I was half-asleep when you knocked.”
Of course. I can only imagine what a madwoman I looked throwing myself against her shut door at one in the morning, crying about books and ghosts. Accusing her of torturing me. I scrub both hands over my face, rubbing away what’s left of my tears. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Ellis says.
