Book of Lies

by Teri Terry

  I say thank you and study the novels in my hands to explain why I’m not introducing Zak. They’re old and worn—​one a detective story by someone I’ve never heard of; the other Emma, which put me to sleep in English class last year.

  Zak takes the initiative. “Hi, I’m Zak.” He holds out his hand.

  “I’m Lyndsay,” she says, and smiles. “It’s lovely to meet any friend of Quinn’s.” I look up, and her eyes are bulging with curiosity. Ness barks.

  The woman from the desk—​Karen?—​returns with tea things and a bowl of water for Ness, and I give Zak an apologetic glance. This won’t be quite what he had in mind for a drink at the pub.

  Lyndsay goes to check in some guests, and Karen sits with us. “So, tell me everything,” she says. “How is your grandmother?” The way she says the words, the hesitation—​like so many others, she’s nervous of Gran.

  “She’s much better. She’s out of the hospital now, and at home. I can’t come back to work because I’m looking after her.”

  Karen’s eyes are on Zak. “And you—​where did you spring from?”

  He looks at me, uncertain what to say. I opt for vague. “Oh, we met when Gran was in the hospital. He’s visiting for a while.”

  “Have you been seeing the sights of Dartmoor?” She chatters on about the moors, walking, and some craft market that is on next weekend while my hand touches the photo in my pocket and I try to think of a way to ask about it that won’t be too weird.

  She pauses for air and I dive in. “Karen, I was wondering if you could help me with something.”

  “Of course. What is it?”

  “Gran’s memory isn’t so good now since she had the stroke. I’ve been going through old photos with her, to remind her who people are.”

  “Oh, dear.” Sympathy replaces the discomfort in her eyes.

  “And we found this one of someone I don’t know, and she can’t remember who he is. It’s upsetting Gran that she can’t remember. I wonder if you might know who it is. It says ‘W.H.’ on the back.” I hold out the photo.

  She takes it, studies it, and frowns. She finally shakes her head. “No, sorry. You should come by tonight; ask some of the regulars. They might know.”

  Quinn

  When I wake up, I’m alone. I check the house. Gran is asleep in her room, and there is no sign of Piper or Zak. I wander outside. The sun says it’s late afternoon.

  I call for Ness, but she doesn’t come. Is Zak back; has he taken Ness for a walk with Piper? I try not to mind.

  My bracelet is itching, like it did earlier in Gran’s room when I was looking for her book, the one with the same symbol on it. Is the missing book the inheritance Piper seems to want so desperately?

  I should find it and give it to Piper, and leave this place—​leave Piper. The thought is a wrench, deep inside. We’re part of each other. We always were tied together; we didn’t know it, but we were. My mirror image. To think of leaving her is to think of losing my reflection.

  But there was a reason we weren’t together. It was because of me, I’m sure of it: I’m dangerous, just like Isobel always said. Everything Gran said about me spirit traveling with the hunt confirms this. I should leave Piper before it’s too late.

  I sit on the front step to watch for their return, leaning against the door. Thinking of leaving makes we want to see Piper, right now, so much. My sister, so like me but not like me at the same time. I picture her smile, the spark she has, and then—​

  Everything changes. My stomach lurches in fright. I’m not by Gran’s house, not anymore. I’m floating above the moors. The ground moves past at speed; I’m afraid.

  All at once, I stop. I can hear voices.

  I focus below me, and drop lower. It’s Piper and Zak. Ness, too. They’re walking away from the hotel to the car. Opening the boot to get out bags of supplies. The ones Zak went out to get, not Piper. Whatever are they up to?

  Never mind where they’ve been, where am I?

  I’m not in my body. I start to panic: what if I can’t get back to it?

  How did I leave it in the first place? I wanted to see Piper, and I did. Now I concentrate on my body on Gran’s front step, will myself to go back there, to do it now.

  Fear speeds me along so fast that the moors blur past below. Gran’s house appears, my body slumped on the step.

  I slam into it, hard. So hard it’s like being hit by a truck. I gasp air into my lungs; tears spring into my eyes. I hold out my hand in front of my eyes. My hand. My face. My body. All back together again, the way it should be.

  I did that. I wanted to see Piper . . . and I did.

  This is crazy.

  I get to my feet, start pacing around the ruins at the front of the house. Back and forth, back and forth. To move and feel and breathe, to feel connected to my body once again.

  Finally, I stop, and lean against the stone fence under a tree by the gate. Idly my hand pulls lightly at a tree root. Something stings, and I pull my hand away. There’s a bright spot of blood on my finger.

  I brush aside some dead leaves, and there, twisting around a tree root: a thorny green plant, green even in October. With red berries.

  Like the plant that used to grow in Gran’s garden. The one I crushed berries from to color red eyes in the dirt, and then made a monster. The plant vanished from the garden after that happened, but Gran must have replanted it here, hidden under roots and leaves.

  I stare at the berries, remembering: it wasn’t a dream. Just like traveling without my body wasn’t a dream. It is real; I did it today.

  What am I?

  And what about the hunt, and the blood? Even though Gran said it was real, it seemed too crazy to believe. Then.

  Panic twists my belly. I run back into the house. I need to get away from this place, and I need to do it soon, or . . . or . . . I don’t know what, but it’ll be bad.

  Like me.

  I need to find the book for Piper so I can go. Or try to find it. If I try and fail, that is enough.

  The door to Gran’s bedroom is still closed; she must be asleep. Piper and Zak will get back soon. I rush through the rest of the house—​the kitchen, the front room, the spare room upstairs—​hunting for the book in earnest. I even peek into my room, the one Zak is sleeping in now. The blankets are mussed where his body has been. I fight the urge to go there, to lie down in the same place and hide.

  I don’t find the book, but somehow I knew I wouldn’t. At least I tried.

  “Quinn?” Piper’s voice floats up the stairs. I hurry down.

  They’re in the kitchen. Zak is unpacking the supplies he’s bought—​lemons and all.

  “Where’s Gran?” Piper asks.

  “Asleep, last I checked.” I look at Piper again. Where did they go? She’s bursting with something; her smile is wide on her face. “What have you done?”

  “Well. We—​Zak, Ness, and I—​paid a visit to Two Bridges Hotel. Of course, they thought I was you. I think I covered that pretty well.”

  “You did what?” I’m shocked. “Why?”

  She draws the photo out of her pocket. “To see if anyone knew who this is.”

  My blood quickens. “And? Did they?”

  “No. But someone named Karen suggested we go back tonight and ask around at the bar. Do you want to go, or shall I?”

  “I . . . I don’t know,” I say.

  Piper reaches across, hugs me. She’s in happy, excited mode, so pleased she’s done this for me. If Gran knew, she’d be furious. Despite that, I’m gripped again by this compulsion. I stare at the photo. “I want to find him,” I say.

  “I know,” she says, but I can see that Piper isn’t as bothered about wanting to find our dad as I am. Is it because she has a dad already, one she’s always had?

  But she said she’d find him—​that she’d do it for me.

  Everything inside me says to leave this place, and do it now. But I need to find our father, too.

  “Shhh,” Zak says. He
gestures toward the door. There are footsteps outside it, and they are getting closer.

  Piper stuffs the photo back in her pocket.

  The door opens. Gran steps in.

  Piper

  Quinn hands me a small metal whatsit and a lemon. I study the metal thing for a moment, but am none the wiser. It looks too modern for this kitchen of museum pieces.

  “What’s this?” I ask.

  “Are you serious?” Quinn says. “It’s a lemon zester. Here, I’ll show you.” She runs it across the lemon over a bowl, and neat shavings of yellow come away.

  I try, and it skims too light. Then I overcompensate, and it gouges in too deep. Gran peers over, shakes her head. “Try an even, firm touch—​drag it across without pushing in,” she says.

  I try again, and this time get the pressure right. Sprinkles of yellow drop into the bowl.

  Ness is curled in front of the kitchen fireplace. Zak is beating butter and sugar, carefully measured by Quinn using metal cups instead of scales. Gran surveys it all from a chair to make sure we do it right—​a matriarch and her clan, matching granddaughters, a dog, and a boy. What would it have been like if Quinn and I had grown up here, together, with Gran and Mum?

  At least Gran seems to have got over her anger at my door tampering earlier—​though that would soon change if she knew about the second photograph and my trip with Zak to the hotel.

  Gran looks in Zak’s bowl. “Yes, it’s ready. Eggs next.” Quinn carefully cracks an egg into his bowl.

  “Mix it in slowly,” Gran says, and Zak stirs while Quinn adds another egg, and another. Then flour and the lemon zest, and I watch over Zak’s shoulder as they become part of the batter.

  “Haven’t you ever made a cake before?” Quinn asks.

  “Of course not. Cakes come in boxes from bakeries.”

  “What was Isobel thinking?” Gran shakes her head, and sadness overtakes her face.

  “Did Mum make cakes here with you?” I ask.

  “Of course.”

  “She never did at home.” Now that I think about it, Mum never seemed comfortable in our big, bright, modern kitchen.

  The cake mixture is poured into a greased pan. Quinn proclaims the oven—​if you can call that box over the fire an oven—​to be at the right temperature, and in it goes.

  “Now we wait,” Gran says.

  Zak goes to build up the fire in the other room against the night while we settle around the table. Quinn puts the kettle on a stand over the fire, gets out teacups. The small kitchen is cozy with the fire raging, and it all feels a bit Happy Families, like an occasion, like baking a cake is a big deal. And I try to picture the mother I knew—​the elegant, distant one with the perfect hair and designer clothes—​in this place, but I can’t.

  “What was our mum like when she was young?” I ask.

  Gran stirs sugar into the tea Quinn has handed to her. “Isobel, ah. She was a sunny child, always into mischief. Always trying to get out of things. I was too lenient on her.”

  “How about when she was our age?” Quinn asks.

  Gran doesn’t answer for so long that I think she won’t. She shakes her head at last. “She rebelled; she wouldn’t see sense. It got her into trouble.”

  “Into trouble, meaning us?” I say.

  “Yes. You shouldn’t have come here, Piper.”

  The warmth eases out of the kitchen for me, even as there is a blast of heat when Quinn turns the cake around. She closes the oven door, straightens, and looks at me.

  “I just wanted to find Quinn, to be with my sister, and my family,” I say. “Is that so wrong?”

  Quinn’s brow wrinkles. She shakes her head. “But I found you. I saw that article about Isobel in a paper at the hotel, and I came and found you. And you said you didn’t know about me until I showed up at Isobel’s funeral. So what do you mean you wanted to find me?”

  “Piper knew about you from Isobel,” Gran says. “Isobel shouldn’t have told her, but she did.”

  I shake my head. “No, no; it’s not true. I—”

  Quinn interrupts. “Stop it, Piper. Stop lying to me. When we first met, I thought you must have known about me: you didn’t seem shocked enough to see me. But when I asked, you told me you hadn’t, and I believed you. Why did you lie to me, Piper?”

  I take Quinn’s hand. Why doesn’t she believe me? “I begged Mum to take me to you. But she wouldn’t.”

  Quinn pulls her hand away.

  “Piper, do you see what damage lies cause?” Gran’s face is grave. “Lying is dangerous. Especially for women in our family. Didn’t Isobel teach you this?”

  Whispers from the past say she tried. But I would never listen, would I?

  Quinn leaves the kitchen, and a moment later, I follow her. She’s standing by the fire in the front room.

  “Leave us for a moment, will you?” I say to Zak.

  I wait until the door shuts behind him.

  “You lied to me, Piper,” Quinn says. “Why?”

  “What I did, I did for love. To find you, the sister I wanted to know and love.”

  “I don’t understand. How did lying help achieve that? I was already there with you. Tell me the truth.”

  And I’m scared of the look in Quinn’s eyes—​the hurt, and disappointment, and where they might lead.

  “I’m sorry, I thought it was harmless. I did it because I didn’t want to upset you.” I wanted you to like me. Please like me.

  “Have you done anything else? Are there any more lies?”

  My hands are clenched in fists. Can’t Quinn see that what I’ve done, I’ve done for us? To bring us together, here, the way we should be.

  But what else have I done?

  Full of unease, I push the question away. I don’t answer Quinn; I don’t answer myself.

  Quinn

  Zak and I walk to the hotel in the dark. He has a torch, but I don’t need one. The moon and stars are out tonight, and I know the path very well. I lead the way.

  “Is everything all right, Quinn?” Zak asks.

  I shrug. “Just Piper stretching the truth again.”

  “Ah, I see. Do you want to talk about it?”

  I pause in my steps, and turn to face him. Yes, I want to talk, but I shouldn’t. He’d run a mile if I told him everything, and didn’t I vow to keep this distance with Zak, to guard against my feelings? Because of Piper, and her forgiving me. But my certainty about that is wavering.

  Moonlight and Zak go well together, and my hand aches to reach up—​to touch his cheek, to put my fingers in his dark hair and pull him close. To kiss him, like the first, last, and only time. But it isn’t just that, is it? I’m not just attracted to him, even though I am. It’s more than that. And he waits to hear what I might say, his dark eyes on mine—​interested and concerned for a friend. He may be close to me now, but for all he really sees of what is inside me, I might as well be Cathy’s ghost, lost and cold on the moors.

  But he’s not my Heathcliff—​he doesn’t want me. I sigh.

  “Quinn?” he says.

  “I don’t think so. But thank you.”

  I turn away, continue down the path. We walk in silence, and I can hear his steps behind me, fewer than mine with his longer legs. His breathing. His heart that beats th-thump, th-thump for Piper—​always for Piper.

  Piper and her lies. She lied about Gran’s room being unlocked. She lied to me back in Winchester when she said she hadn’t known about me. At least today she finally told the truth about that, but only because Gran made her.

  Gran said that lying is dangerous, especially for women in our family. Why? Is this yet another way we are different, or is it something about our lies?

  All my life I’ve had a distrust of lying drummed into me over and over again by Gran. And fear of the darkness it could bring from inside of me. But Piper does it all the time. And here I was thinking I was the one who had to leave her, to keep her safe.

  Piper says we are family; she says she wants
me in her life. She also wants her life in Winchester and her dad who isn’t her dad; she wants Zak. She wants this place, too—​she wants to inherit whatever there is to inherit. She wants it all—​Piper, who has always had whatever she wanted.

  Why should she have everything and leave me with nothing?

  It seems strange to be here at night. The bar is warm, too warm with the fire and bodies and their drinks.

  It’s easy to tell the locals from the visitors. The latter are in couples or small groups, settled into sofas and chairs. The locals—​farmers, mostly—​are standing by the bar, talking of crops and sheep, waving their hands about and laughing about some incident involving a tractor, a tourist, and a passing place. A few of the older ones see me and lower their voices so I can’t hear. What are they saying?

  I’m not comfortable here, in this part of the hotel. As if he knows it, Zak takes my hand. His warm fingers squeeze my hand lightly and don’t let go. He pulls me toward the bar, orders drinks for both of us from someone I don’t know. They’re either new or only work at night.

  I stand there, awkward. How can I just go up to these strangers, and ask about the photograph in my pocket?

  Then the two I thought were talking about me walk over to us. “Say, aren’t you Isobel Blackwood’s daughter, Quinn?”

  “I . . . yes. I am,” I say.

  “Your hair is brighter, but you’re the spit of her when she used to work at the bar. She moved away years ago, didn’t she? How is she?”

  I look at Zak, not sure what to say.

  “Sadly, Isobel died recently,” Zak says.

  “Ah. So sorry to hear that,” one of them says, and buys a round for his friends and us.

  They’re raising their glasses. “To Isobel!” they say, and clink them together.

  And the older ones are talking about her, remembering a lively girl who flirted behind the bar, and I’m thinking—​is this the cold mother I barely knew? It’s hard to believe.

  A sudden surge of inventiveness hits me.

  “Before she died, my mother wrote a letter to a friend she had back then,” I say to them. “But I don’t know where to post it. I’ve got his photo here.” I take it out. “Do you know him?”