“You can’t stop me!”
“If you even try it, I’ll tell Mrs. Rawlins everything! I’ll tell her you attacked me! That you kicked me while I was lying in the dirt!”
The truth in Hazel’s words was almost enough to stop Pearl’s heart. While Pearl and Hazel had found many ways to hurt each other, they had never before done physical harm. Now Pearl had changed everything. Hazel may have tricked her, but this terrible step forward was Pearl’s own fault.
Pearl tried to sound uncaring. “Well, I’ll tell her that you and Matthew were the ones who started it all by pretending to be the Searcher!”
“You won’t get to tell her anything!” Hazel yelled. “Not when I get home first!”
Pearl glanced back at this.
Hazel had veered away from their usual track, rushing downhill toward the riverbank. Pixie ran loyally after her.
“Hazel, you can’t take the shortcut!” Pearl yelled. “Hazel!”
Hazel didn’t reply.
Pearl hesitated.
If she ran on, she had a decent chance of reaching the house before Hazel—but that would mean leaving Hazel to cross the half-submerged tree, in the rushing water, all alone.
Pearl turned back.
“Hazel!” she called, running down the bank. “You can’t cross there now! The water’s too high!”
Hazel was already clambering onto the dead tree. “Some people aren’t afraid of every little thing,” she retorted. The muddy black cloak trailed around her. Pixie, unwilling to follow any farther, skittered back and forth on the bank beside the tree’s dead roots, whining.
“It’s not because I’m afraid, it’s because I’m not stupid!” Pearl shouted back. “Hazel! Hazel, stop!”
Hazel refused to cast her a glance. She walked out onto the half-submerged trunk, one cloaked arm spread for balance, the other still clutching the ribs where Pearl’s kick had landed. The water beneath her was foamy, whirling, rushing.
Pearl turned away. “I’m going to take the bridge, and I’ll still get home before you!”
She jogged off toward the bridge, taking a last glance over her shoulder to see whether Pixie had followed her, for once.
And Hazel was gone.
Pearl spun toward the shore. Perhaps Hazel had thought better of her plan and turned back. But Pixie was still there, beside the downed tree, facing the water. The dog gave another bark. And another, louder still.
Its desperation made Pearl’s stomach twist.
“Hazel?” She hurried back along the muddy bank. The river was glutted with rainwater, sloshing so powerfully against each log and rock in its course that Pearl might easily have missed another splash. She ran down the slope into the water, letting it soak and ruin her leather shoes. Even one foot deep, she could feel its forceful pull. “Hazel!”
In the deeper water, far out of her reach, Pearl thought she glimpsed a flowing black shape. It was gone again in an instant.
Pearl shoved Hazel’s stolen knife down the front of her underdress. Then she plunged into the water on the tree’s upstream side. Both she and Hazel were strong swimmers, but they never swam in the river, even when the water was low and warm. Its current was too strong, its rocks sharp, its course deep. Now, in the swollen waves, Pearl barely managed to keep her head above water.
She dove beneath the surface, first reaching with both hands toward the spot where she had seen the dark shape, then reaching for anything at all. The water was icy cold. Soon her limbs would no longer do as she wished. Her numbed fingers wouldn’t grasp; her lungs wouldn’t hold air. Exhaustion seeped into her like the water itself.
Pearl knew the truth then. She had failed. She was too late to reach her sister. She was too late even to pull her own defeated body back to the bank. At least she and Hazel would be together, here, in the dark green quiet. And that seemed only right.
But somehow her body refused to sink.
Pearl rolled, groping through the waves. Her skirt had snagged on a jut of the fallen tree, keeping her from being swept under. She managed to clamber around the tree’s side and break the surface for a breath. She struggled to free herself, popping two buttons and yanking the sodden linen dress straight over her head, leaving her in her underdress. With arms like wet ribbons, she grasped the tree. From there, she dragged herself, very slowly, to the riverbank.
For a while—Pearl had no idea how long—she sat on the muddy shore. Pixie stood motionless beside her. It seemed to her that the sky began to darken. Perhaps afternoon had become evening. Perhaps the cold in the air was the approach of night. Or perhaps it was only the world around her realizing, as she had, that everything was now terribly, irreparably wrong.
When she finally rose to her bare feet and staggered through the woods toward Parson’s Bridge, Pearl did not know she was doing it. When she crossed the lawn behind the grand brick house, when she was spied and caught and bundled inside by the help, Pearl didn’t feel it. The story that she eventually told, of the Searcher stealing her sister away, didn’t seem like a story at all. It seemed more true, more possible, than the thought that Hazel had drowned, and that it was Pearl’s fault.
She hadn’t seen or heard Hazel slip, after all. The dark thing in the water might have been anything or nothing. Hazel might have swum away, slipped off into the woods, and tricked her once more. She might be—she must be—somewhere out there, even now.
Because how could Hazel be gone, when Pearl was still alive? Who could look at Pearl and not see the shadow of the sister who should have been standing beside her?
The questions drifted through Pearl’s whirling mind. When they settled at last, they had formed the start of a new story, one in which Hazel might still be found. One in which mystery and hope mixed together, and a dark-robed stranger would carry the blame.
The other version of the story would stay sealed inside her, buried like the pocketknife that Pearl would soon hide beneath the oak trees, known only by two people: Pearl, and her sister, who would never forgive her.
But who would also never tell.
Fiona flipped to the next page.
But this time, there wasn’t one. She had reached the back cover. This was the end of the story.
Fiona sagged back against the door.
Evelyn Chisholm had drowned.
Her little sister, Margaret, was the only one who knew the truth—and, because she blamed herself, she had kept it hidden all this time.
Something strong and ugly writhed through Fiona’s heart.
She didn’t want to believe it. She didn’t want Margaret to be at fault. Evelyn had brought the trouble on herself, hadn’t she? Playing tricks, using the Searcher to terrify her younger sister. She had chosen to take that dangerous shortcut. Fiona pictured her crossing that slippery log, the river rushing beneath, one foot starting to slide . . . and suddenly the girl in her mind didn’t look like Evelyn Chisholm at all. She had a sleek black ponytail and graceful posture, and when she plunged into the water, Fiona sucked in a breath so hard it made her own ribs ache.
Maybe . . .
Maybe what was haunting this place wasn’t the Searcher, or an unfinished story. Maybe it was guilt.
Memories of an untied skate lace and a hidden medal and a trashed bedroom flickered through the back of Fiona’s mind.
Maybe Margaret could still repair things somehow. Maybe if she faced the truth, that could be enough. Maybe she just needed someone—someone who truly understood—to help her move forward.
Shoving The Lost One into her backpack, Fiona wobbled to her feet. She peered through the creaking door into the darkness.
The second-floor walkway was empty. Fiona brushed the flashlight beam back and forth, making sure. No one else was in sight. The house’s soft hums and groans were the only sounds. But patches of thick darkness were everywhere, around every corner, lurking in every doorway. Anything could be hiding in it, watching and waiting for her.
No, Fiona reminded herself. There was no Searcher. Whatever
she had seen in the doorway was some mixture of Margaret’s guilt and imagination and memory. Maybe a bit of Fiona’s own guilt was tangled up in it too.
She just needed to find Margaret. And she couldn’t let an old story, true or not, get in her way.
Fiona crept into the corridor.
Where would Margaret have gone? Fiona was hesitating, still trying to guess, when from somewhere below there came the whine of a dog.
Fiona hurried to the grand staircase. The portrait of Margaret Chisholm, with its frozen smile and strange eyes, watched her scurry down the steps.
She crept across the reading room. Every tiny sound and shifting shadow made her heart stutter. Another, louder whine cut through the dark, and Fiona almost squeaked with surprise—until she realized it had come from a floorboard under her own foot.
She slunk toward the circulation desk. There were no more sounds to follow now, but as she turned to the left, Fiona sensed something else—a faint, cool, swirling breeze. The kind of breeze that comes through an open door.
She followed it into the STAFF ONLY hallway.
Her flashlight gleamed over the wood-paneled walls. The office at the end of the hall was shut. But the door to the former kitchen stood wide open.
Fiona aimed her flashlight through the doorway. Its beam struck packed storage shelves, old counters, scuffed wooden floors. Another cold whirl of air swept past. And carried on it, from somewhere not too far away, was the sound of a sob.
Fiona scurried across the kitchen, winding through the shelves until she came face-to-face with a gaping black hole.
An open door.
A door to the basement.
Fiona could think of at least ten thousand things she would rather have done than wander around in the basement of this particular house.
But as she stood there, poking weakly at the darkness with her little flashlight, there came another sob. Clearer now. Closer.
Before any fears could stop her, Fiona flew down the creaking staircase.
The basement had the clammy coldness of wet laundry, or of mossy river stones. By the beam of her flashlight, Fiona could make out a cavernous, twisting chamber that bent around corners and through passageways. She spotted mounds of broken old furniture, piles of empty crates, crusty cans of paint. The rafters hung with cobwebs as thick as wool.
A stifled sob floated toward her.
“Margaret?” Fiona called. “Where are you?”
There was a moment of quiet.
Then, very softly, a voice answered.
“Here.”
As soft as it was, the voice had an echo, as though the cold stone walls all around were answering too.
Fiona inched closer. Her flashlight cut a wavering path through the dark. And there, looming in the darkest corner, was a huge stone box.
A SARCOPHAGUS! shouted a voice in Fiona’s mind.
But that was ridiculous. There wouldn’t be an ancient burial vault in the basement of an old New England house. Besides, this box was even larger than a sarcophagus, with walls that were nearly eight feet high.
“Margaret?” Fiona whispered. “Are you in there?”
“I’m here,” said the small, sad voice. “In the empty cistern.”
Cistern. A big tank for storing water, Fiona remembered. That made more sense. “Why are you in there?”
“It seemed like the safest place,” the voice whispered. “Evelyn always said that if we hid inside, no one would ever look for us in here. But I was always afraid to do it.” There was a sniffle. “Now that doesn’t matter.”
“Margaret.” Fiona stepped to the cistern’s side. Its stone was rough and damp, unpleasant against her palm. “I read the rest of your story. About how you and Evelyn fought. How she took the shortcut across the river and fell in. All of it.”
There was another moment of quiet.
“Then you know it was all my fault,” said Margaret’s voice at last.
“But it wasn’t,” Fiona argued. “It was Evelyn’s choice to cross where she knew it wasn’t safe. What happened was just an accident.”
“That wasn’t all,” Margaret’s voice came back. There was a cold brittleness to it now, an icy layer covering its words. “I lied. I made up a story, and I told it over and over, so no one else ever knew the truth. No one even knew where she was.”
“I understand why you did it.” Fiona pressed closer to the cistern wall. “You wanted it to be true so badly, you almost made yourself believe it. It was barely a lie at all.” She put one palm against the stone. “But you can admit the real truth now, Margaret. And maybe you can let the story—and the Searcher, and the guilt, and everything . . . maybe you can let it go.”
“How?” asked the voice.
“I’m not totally sure,” Fiona admitted, wishing that Charlie and his confident know-it-allness were here to help her make a plan. “Maybe if you just apologize, and then if you forgive yourself . . . maybe that would help. Maybe the Searcher will disappear for good. Maybe the curse, or whatever it is, will be over.”
“I can’t,” said the voice, growing smaller still. “I’m afraid.”
“You could try,” Fiona urged. “I’ll be right with you the whole time.”
“You’re not even with me now,” said the small, sad voice.
Fiona twitched the flashlight across the basement again, homing in on a sturdy-looking wooden box. She dragged it to the cistern and climbed on top.
“Come on, Margaret.” Setting her backpack against the cistern wall, Fiona hauled herself up on both arms, just managing to peep over its stone rim. “I’m right here.” The flashlight pointed at one inner wall of the cistern, and Fiona couldn’t lift her weight from her arm to move it. But by its reflected light, she could catch part of a dark shape huddled below her.
“I can’t,” the voice whispered. “You’re just going to trick me too.”
“I’m not. I promise.” Fiona wriggled forward, using her feet and elbows to heave herself farther over the cistern’s edge. “Margaret, I—”
But at that instant, the flashlight flew out of her hand. It clacked against the cistern’s inner wall, its beam of light catching a figure in a long black cloak before dying away.
A cold grip took Fiona’s hands. She smelled mud. Rot. River water.
And then the coldness pulled her in.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“It’s the perfect place,” said the figure beside Fiona in the cistern’s blackness. The voice wasn’t Margaret’s anymore, high and shivery, but it was still a girl’s voice. Another girl’s voice.
Something moved, and Fiona saw the blackness pull backward, the hood revealing a girl’s fog-colored face. It wasn’t Margaret’s face. It was older. Sharper.
“It’s just like I always told Margaret,” said the girl. “No one will ever look in here.”
Fiona reeled back. She couldn’t feel hands wrapped around her wrists; there were no fingers, no flesh. But the coldness held on to her, as solid as stone. She couldn’t get up. Couldn’t pull away. The clammy fabric of the cloak stuck to her arm, and beneath her, filling the bottom of the cistern, several inches of cold water seeped quickly through Fiona’s clothes.
“Evelyn,” Fiona choked out. “I just—I just want to help.”
The air grew icier as the other girl leaned close.
“This is how you help,” she said. “You’ll do what Margaret wouldn’t. You’ll stay.”
Fiona wrenched her arm backward. She tried to wriggle to her feet, but the cold grip was unbreakable. At the same time, the water around her grew deeper. Chilly waves splashed against her legs.
“Even if I let go, you can’t climb out,” said Evelyn. “The walls are too high. That’s why I tried to get Margaret to climb in with me. We could have helped each other out again. But she was a coward.”
Fiona pawed at the cistern wall with her free hand, but Evelyn was right. There was nothing to climb. Nothing to hold on to.
“No one’s going to find you,�
� said Evelyn. Her voice wasn’t cruel or taunting. It was merely calm. “No one will know where to look. Just like when they tried to find me.”
Fiona thought of Charlie, dragged away by his grandmother. She thought of her parents, fast asleep in their bed. She thought of Arden.
Evelyn was right. No one was coming.
“Evelyn.” Fiona squinted through the darkness, trying to meet the girl’s eyes. “Please. Please let go.”
The water rose higher. It seeped to the bottom of Fiona’s ribs. The smell of the river—wet moss, dead leaves, rotting things—washed around her. And Evelyn held her down, as hard and heavy as an anchor.
“What happened to you wasn’t fair,” said Fiona desperately. “I know you’re angry. You should be. But it wasn’t anybody’s fault.”
“Not anybody’s fault?” said Evelyn. “Margaret lied and lied and lied. She finally wrote the truth in a book that no one would ever read, and that no one would understand even if they did read it, and then she hid it in a room no one ever used. I had to move the book all around, hoping someone would finally find it. I had to put back the ending that Margaret erased, so that maybe, finally, someone would fit the pieces together and realize it was all true.”
“You?” whispered Fiona. “You were the one who . . .” Panic squeezed her throat, and the words cut off. “So you were using it to—to lure me in?”
For a moment that felt like ages, Evelyn didn’t answer.
“I don’t like being alone,” she said softly, at last.
“Margaret shouldn’t have left you, Evelyn. She shouldn’t have lied. But couldn’t you just . . .” In the inky darkness, Fiona felt the water lapping against her neck. “Couldn’t you forgive her?”
Evelyn ignored the question.
“It happens fast,” she said instead. “You just go under. It doesn’t hurt. And I’ll be right here with you.”
With a last, desperate burst, Fiona lunged sideways. She kicked both legs against the cistern wall, writhing, struggling to get her feet under her. But Evelyn’s grip was like a clamp. Fiona couldn’t stand up. All she managed to do was fill the cistern with waves, which crashed over her face. She spluttered, choking.
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