“It was Gertie, who I warned you about. I’m here to do this the right way.”
“The right way is to be invited,” Bianca said. “She hasn’t been.”
Sebastian sighed. “Jessica knew Peter better than any of us. She’s not the aunties’ pet you think she is.”
“Really.” Bianca turned to me. “What’s your favorite class?”
“Forensic Accounting.”
Xavier pulled the imaginary arrow from his heart, made a dying sound.
“Just because you putforensicin front of something,” Bianca said, “doesn’t make it sexy.”
“Math is the music of reason.”
“Accounting is the canned peas of math,” she said. “And you Mortons are all accountants at heart.”
“My grades beg to differ,” Sebastian said.
“You’re adopted.”
“So I’m told.”
“Tell me what’s going on.” I was already blooded—on a member of my own family. My secrets were better than theirs. “Do you seriously think you can scandalize me?”
“We think we can’t trust you,” Bianca said. Her hands were in her pockets, as always. As always, I wondered if she was holding a weapon.
Sebastian stepped between us. “Jessica just wants to know what you were doing with Peter.”
“Okay,” Xavier said. “How about a show of good faith? If you want our secrets, Jessica, tell us one of yours. Like…whatever happened to those lovely children? Yvonne, Tillie, Katie, Olive, Tobias, Zach, and Ramsey?”
“Seven children,” Bianca chimed in. “All gone at once. And the rest of you, suddenly different.” She took a step closer. “Except for the little accountant, unfazed.”
Sebastian put a hand on my shoulder. The proper response was to ignore this prying, as if it didn’t matter. The other families could never know what Uncle Max had done—it sent the message that we were prone to madness and despair.
But I couldn’t let a Lindqvist make light of our dead. My hand drifted toward the knife in my jacket.
Voices rose from the forest below.
We froze, listening.
Five or six ordinaries, their voices pitched with drunken, nervous excitement. They dared each other to take the next steps—onto the creaky porch, into the darkness inside, across the rotten floorboards.
“Midnight feast!” one said, ending in a hiss that made the others giggle.
We heard them settle in. Something heavy thumped to the floor, bottles clinking inside. They were having a picnic in the dark.
Bianca’s breathing grew audible. Her hands twitched in their pockets again—she was gearing up to send them running.
Halcyon Hall really was the Lindqvists’ home.
What if I made it mine too?
I raised my hand to pause her. Phone light was coming up though one of the holes in the floor, shadows twitching on the ceiling. I took a few silent steps closer, peered down.
The interlopers were directly below. I saw sandwiches in white paper wrappers, the glint of beer bottles. They prattled about the croquet team’s latest match, about how everyone reallyshouldtake Civilization in Question. One declared that the Old Campus wasn’t nearly as scary as everyone said.
As the others watched, I drew my knife and slid the blade across the heel of my left hand. An arc of red opened, blood pooling in my palm.
