Page 61 of The Sisters of Crimson House

He bent down to scrutinize it. “I don’t see anything there,” he said.

“It was from a long time ago.” She could see it in her mind’s eye. A crude rendering, made by a child’s hand.

“Not possible,” Sy was muttering, his eyes looking wild.

Miranda and Charley shared a glance.

“What’s not possible?” ventured Miranda.

“Cricket,” he said, turning on her so abruptly that Charley took a step back. “How did you know?”

“I don’t know anything,” she said, but looking at him, she realized that wasn’t true. She knew the pain. She knew it in the man in front of her, recognized the way it dimmed his light from within, knew it in the way she still felt it in her bones. Knew the way her hand throbbed with it now.

“Who told you?” he demanded, looming over her in a way that prompted Miranda to defensively flank Charley.

“Sy,” said Miranda, her voice low in warning.

“Who told you?” he asked again. He seemed like he was about to come apart, not take notes for a scientific experiment.

“Who is Cricket?” Charley asked him.

“It’s not possible,” he continued to mutter.

“Was that the name of the little girl?” Charley asked. “Was this her room?”

He sank onto the bed, staring at the bedspread. “I hated baseball,” he said finally. “They told me little boys like baseball, and I should be proud of such a nice bed.”

Of course. “This was your room,” said Charley quietly.

“It was our room,” he said. “Mine and Shelly’s.” He went silent for before finally finding his voice again. “Cricket. It was the name she gave me.” He looked haunted, running his hands through his hair, a nervous tic. “We watched lightning bugs from the window. Caught a cricket and hid it in her bed. Shelly never let me forget it.” He looked at his thumb as if he might cry. “She bit my hand. Of course, she knew it was me who had done it.” The next sentence, barely a whisper. “She was adopted before me. I never saw her again.”

“You’re using us to investigate your own foster home?” Miranda crossed her arms, staring at him. “What the actual hell, man?”

“Miranda,” Charley said gently. There was a time and a place for being a hard-ass, but the man was clearly having a reckoning.

“You don’t understand,” said Sy.

“What don’t I understand?” said Miranda, folding her arms. “You’re going to have to help me understand this scientific method of yours.”

Charley suddenly felt bone-tired. She didn’t want another fight. She wanted to go home. “Miranda, please, let’s just go.”

“No, we need to know what else he’s been lying about, Charley,” she said. “This is what I’ve been talking about. All he does is lie.”

“We need to know what you’ve been lying about,” Charley said, her temper surging. She took a hold of her sister’s arm. “Why have you been keeping so many things from me? You can’t tell me you’re not hiding things from me.”

Miranda slowly turned and stared at her.

“Talk to me!” Charley begged. It was the worst possible moment to force a confrontation, but she couldn’t go another moment without knowing the truth. “Please,” she begged, looking into her sister’s eyes. They were black, a doll’s eyes boring into her own. Charley barely had time to register it before Miranda’s hands were around her throat, squeezing.

She was vaguely aware of Astrid screaming, Sy yelling, and possibly a little girl’s ghost hovering in the middle of the fray. But all Charley could see was her sister, the famous Miranda Bryde, intent on choking the life out of her. She clawed at those icy-cold hands, desperate to pry them loose. Her vision began to blacken, and she was staring at two Mirandas, one trying to kill her and one that seemed to vibrate just around the edges of the murderous Miranda, like she was a thought, an impression hovering, bearing witness. Or maybe Charley was just hallucinating because she was dying.

A new volley of movement and a tremendous crash finally loosened those frozen fingers from her neck. Charley slumped to the ground, gasping and wheezing for breath. She felt Astrid hovering over her, scared of hurting her but desperate to help. Miranda lay opposite her on the floor, staring at her, surrounded by broken shards of pottery.

“Charley, you’re going to be okay,” said Astrid, panicked but working to keep her voice steady. “Just focus on getting your breathing under control. Help me,” she said, calling out to Sy, who, dazed, scooped Charley up off the floor so that she was cradled against him. He smelled like oranges and freshly cut grass, she thought, as he gently sat her down on the bed.

Astrid knelt in front of her, modeling taking a deep breath. “You’re okay,” she said again, and Charley didn’t think she was, wasn’t sure she ever would be, but she watched Astrid’s slow breathing, gradually getting hers to a point where it didn’t feel like her windpipe was caving in.

Charley looked at Sy, who had retreated to the other side of the room, following his stare to the smashed vase on the floor. Miranda was no longer next to it.