A note would prompt Coach Everson to sit the girls down and question them, in that way adults had of breaking kids down. Confession. Suspension. Expulsion.
Relaxation.
A vision with an easy fix!
Neely would go to the Catholic school that billed itself as the area’s only “genuine prep school.” All rich delinquents went there. It would serve her right—the little ewe.
Merry had finally promised to deliver the note, even though she was worried about everything from hidden cameras to fingerprints.
So, happily, Mallory set out for her jog, wondering if a lean pale shape would slip along beside her among the scrub trees as she trod the path up the ridge. Cooper had flown back to Boston. But Mallory had woken sure that she could save Eden—even from herself. Her heart pounded, and she felt its strength blooming, a warmth throughout her. She and Cooper, in on this together, would stop Eden from her plan to give up her destiny. And then she and Eden, together, would find their way out of her destined prison.
Edie would have a normal life. One of the two of them would have that. There had to be a way.
She would make this gift of hers do some work for her.
Mallory picked up her stride.
Back at home, Merry nestled down into her quilts. The morning was chilly and she needed all her rest for tryouts. Tryouts were today. . . . She wasn’t even tense. There was no reason to get up early. Merry’s bed was angled toward the door so that she could survey the array of outfits she’d laid out the night before, to choose from in the morning, without even getting up. She planned on the luxury of another half hour of drowsing.
Then Merry sat up and whammed her head so hard she saw double. Reaching up, she felt for blood. How? She looked down at her comforters, in a tangle around her feet. She’d clearly scrooched herself around in bed until her head was facing the footboard, the way she used to do when she’d sneak into bed with Mallory! But she hadn’t done that for years.
Why now?
Then she heard the voices downstairs. Way downstairs, on the first floor. These were what had wakened her. They were familiar—they were her parents. They were having a fight, and making no effort to cover it up.
This was interesting, in a creepy way.
So was her head!
The first tryout she’d had to go to school looking like a refugee from the burn ward, and now she’d have a lump on her head the size of a fist! Great! How could this happen in her one life?
“You’re scaring them with the way you’re acting,” Tim said, in a voice so harsh Merry could hardly recognize it. Normally, the Brynns (quite proudly) explained that, despite their low-level sarcasm and minor bickering, if one of them was really mad, the angry one had to go outside and walk it off. But no one was walking it off now. “You’re acting weird and it’s time you told them why, Campbell.”
“Tim, you know they’ll hate me for it,” their mother said.
“You should have thought of that back in July when you decided!”
“When I decided! I wasn’t the only one, as I recall!” Campbell said. “I think both of us agreed that night up at the camp!”
“I didn’t think you’d moan and complain and snipe at everyone every day because of it. I thought this was what you wanted.”
Campbell said, “I’m sorry, Tim. I’d love to go on talking nonsense with you but I have to go try to keep some people from dying.”
“Right. We lowly merchants stand in awe of you professional folks,” Merry’s father said.
Merry came around the corner of the landing and saw Tim and Campbell, face-to-face in the kitchen. Tim was looking down at her mother as if he really wanted to get in her face, and Campbell, fierce as a terrier, wasn’t about to back off. As Tim turned to stomp away, he saw Merry.
Merry smiled at her father.
“I hit my head,” Merry said.
“You hit your head?” Campbell asked. “How did you do that?”
“I hit it on the ceiling. I turned around so my head was at the bottom of the bed, by the window.”
“Just like you used to do when you were little,” Tim said. He pulled Meredith up into a hug but she stiffened in his arms. “Listen, Merry Heart, you overheard your mom and me . . .”
“I don’t want to know!” Merry said, struggling. “I don’t want to know about you guys’ stuff.”
“Well, we were just being jerks,” Campbell told her. “It’s no big deal.”
“Are you getting a divorce?”
“Getting a divorce?” Tim was flabbergasted. “No one’s getting a divorce.”
“Well, you were so absorbed in fighting you didn’t even hear me yell! I practically got knocked out!” said Merry. “Before, I had the flaky skin. Now I’m going to have a huge bruise!”
“Do you have more of that makeup?” Campbell asked, pressing an ice pack to Merry’s head.
“Yes.”
“If you get a bruise, that should cover it up. No one will see it on the stage. Are you dizzy? Do you think you have a concussion?”
Merry said, “MOM.”
“Well, take some ibuprofen for the swelling,” Campbell told her. “And keep that ice on.”
“Okay,” Merry said. Slowly, she went back up to her room. Just then, Mallory banged in the door and rushed up the stairs, two at a time. She stopped in the door frame of their room. “What’s wrong? You usually have four outfits out by now.”
“Mom and Dad had this huge fight.”
“Merry, what’s that on your head? You’re not saying that they hit you?”
“As a matter of fact, I hit my head.”
“How?”
“I turned around in my bed.”
“Like I did that other time?”
“Like that exactly.”
“That’s so weird.”
“But it wasn’t because of a dream. It must have been because I heard them fighting . . . subconsciously.”
“Well, I’m sorry you got that . . . Wow, that’s some egg, Merry!”
“Thanks, Mal!”
“But that explains it. You’ve got a concussion. Mom and Dad would never get divorced.”
“You didn’t hear them,” Merry wailed.
“They’re not the divorce type,” said Mallory. “Don’t you want to do some splits or something? Warm up? Change the subject?”
“You didn’t hear them!”
“Are you nuts?” Mallory asked Merry. “Don’t answer. You are nuts. They so wouldn’t get a divorce.”
“How do you know? How do you really know about anything? Did you think David Jellico was a killer?”
“Yes, I did, in fact. It was you who wanted to marry him.” Mallory added, “Merry, take it easy. It’s because Mom is a boss now like Dad, and they have nervous tension times two. Mom doesn’t like being an administrator. I wish she’d go back to her old job. You know, there is something going on. Maybe Mom is sick. She’s being too nice one minute and too crabby the next minute. She’s yelling at us to pick up lint on the carpet at night and the next day, she walks right past the room without yelling at us to make the beds. Maybe Dad, like, gambled a bunch of money away or something.”
Merry snorted. “Dad? Gambling? Now you’re hallucinating. Dad won’t spend a dollar on the $179 million Power Ball.”
They both heard Drew laying on the horn.
“I haven’t got my makeup on!” Merry cried.
“You may have noticed, you haven’t got your clothes on either. And I haven’t even had a shower,” said Mallory. “But it doesn’t matter. I have gym second hour.” Mallory pulled up the window and yelled, “Drewsky! Go ahead. We will grab a ride with my dad! The little princess doesn’t have her game face on yet! Tryouts today!”
Fifteen minutes later, Mallory had ducked in and out of the shower, and Meredith, with shaking hands, applied her “no-makeup makeup.” Even though it was tryouts day, she was so rattled that she pulled on the first white shirt she found in the closet over her jeans.
; When they came down, Tim was zipping his windbreaker.
“We need a ride,” Mallory announced.
“You need a ride, what?” Tim asked.
“We need a ride to school,” Merry said. “Things were so nuts here this morning Drew had to leave without us.”
“You need a ride . . . please,” Tim said.
“Well, please, of course,” said Mallory. “And thanks for telling us you were about to break up or something. You made her smack her head!”
Tim looked at them. He thought they were kidding. “She smacked her own head!”
“Why’d you build the room like a danger pit?”
“Mallory, most people don’t spin around in their beds while they’re asleep!”
“Most people aren’t in danger of losing IQ points if they do! Your room is the size of the YMCA in Deptford. We can barely fit in ours!”
“That’s enough from you, young lady!”
“Fine!” Mallory snapped. She glanced up at her dad. “I’m sorry. I was rude.”
“Apology accepted. Mally and Meredith, your mom and I have had fights before, and you didn’t even notice. All parents have arguments. Listen, get in the car. We’ll talk on the way. Even though I’m not saving lives like Campbell, I do have a business to run. I’m going to be late.”
In the car, Mallory asked, “So what’s going on, Dad?”
Tim wondered if the twins had some weird hormonal condition Campbell would know about. Or maybe, as he’d told his wife, they really did sense what was going on. “Mom’s been a little off her feed,” Tim admitted. “She hasn’t been feeling well. She’s tired.”
“Off her feed? You mean, she won’t eat?” I told you she had an ulcer, Mally thought, extra loudly, to her sister, who nodded. “She eats! Crazy stuff like tea and chocolate milk shakes and steak sauce on salad! You keep making these vague statements, and it’s like she has cancer and you won’t tell us.”
“She’s just got a little bug,” Tim said cheerfully. “I said that.”
“Months ago! Flu doesn’t last that long, Dad,” Meredith said.
He doesn’t even care, Mally thought. Thank God it wasn’t him. Every time her father had a cough, he treated it like it was leukemia.
“Dad, would you tell us if anything was really wrong?” Mally asked. “We need a really stable life right now.”
“Of course. Look, things are fine. Don’t worry, Mally. Merry, I’m sorry we argued in front of you, though, technically, you eavesdropped.”
Tim leaned over and gave each of them a kiss. “Good luck today at tryouts, Mer. By the way, Kim called you last night. I left a note under your door.”
“I didn’t see it because I was unconscious, Dad. Sorry.”
Tim made a huffing sound.
They headed into school. Suddenly, Merry put both hands on Mallory’s shoulders. “Stop for a second,” she said.
“What’s wrong?” Mally asked.
“Maybe I did hurt my head. I was dizzy there for a minute. I’m fine now. It just hurts like crazy!”
“Are you sure you weren’t . . . passing out?”
“No,” Merry said. “Really fine, Ster!”
But it was Kim’s name that had done it, brought back what had really spun her around like a top in the bed before she ever heard her parents bickering. She’d dreamed of Kim, in a place that was nowhere that Merry recognized—somewhere outside in the dark with two guys, one with long dirty ropes of hair, one with no hair at all—her Halloween costume top ripped, her makeup smeared, staggering while the guys held her up, pretending to laugh.
But Kim wasn’t laughing. She was crying. Hard.
She had called Merry before this happened. But when?
SECOND TRY
How could someone who looked just like you be as hard to find as a needle in a haystack?
There were five minutes left before sixth hour and Mallory was searching the lunchroom frantically for Merry. She’d already combed the gym and the library. Merry had to be somewhere!
Finally, she spotted her.
Calm down,Mallory told herself. It’s going to be fine. As long as Merry had talked to Coach Everson, or left a note, all would be well. None of it will happen. Mallory tried to drag her tense shoulders down from around her ears. How could she have believed anything would ever be simple that involved them?
“Merry!” she called. “Wait up! I have to talk to you.”
“What?” Merry replied impatiently. “I’ve got a vocab quiz in French in five minutes. And then I have to concentrate and be centered. Can’t it wait?”
“No, it can’t. I have to be sure you left Coach Everson a note about how somebody might try to hurt somebody again at tryouts. You did, right?”
“No,” Merry said.
“Meredith! But I told you to!”
“And I thought about it. I decided that nobody would be stupid enough to try anything like that twice no matter what I saw in my dream.”
“But you saw it yourself!”
“It was just a warning.”
“No, it wasn’t. It was real.”
“Well, I think it was a warning. I have a brain.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Mallory said. “Listen. You can’t be limp about this. You promised you’d tell Coach Everson. You lied to me!”
“You’re overreacting, Mal. If I really thought there was a danger, don’t you think I’d have left her a note?”
“There really is a danger! You have to get in touch with her! Why don’t you get this?”
“Because I am not listening to you,” Merry said. She shifted her backpack and opened her voluminous yellow purse, pulling out a blue-and-brown scarf. She twisted it and made the “New York knot” around her neck. Merry’s scarf didn’t coordinate with anything she had on, except her big rubber jelly purse. Without meaning to, Mallory made a quizzical face.
“I’m updating my look,” said Merry. “Matchy-matchy is out. Your shoes aren’t supposed to go with your jewelry.”
“Thank heaven you told me,” Mallory said. “I was about to put on the wrong scarf myself. Listen, dumb girl, we don’t have time to talk about scarves. You have to listen. I have a strong feeling. Something really, really, really bad is going to happen unless you fix it. I counted on you.”
“Well, if you’re so sure, and you can’t count on little old me, you do it, then.” Merry slammed the door of her locker closed, which went unnoticed because of the flurry of activity, kids throwing away their yogurt containers and half-finished sandwiches and rushing to class. “If I talk to her, she’ll think I’m in on it.”
“Why? What about a note?”
“She’d know my handwriting! I can’t take that chance.”
“That’s what you really care about, Meredith. YOU! So it’s okay with you if somebody ends up in a coma?”
“What do you mean?”
“Meredith,” she said quietly. “I had a dream that was real.”
“And when did you have it?”
“Last hour.”
“You had study hall last hour.”
Mallory asked, “What do you do in study hall?” Meredith’s cheeks flushed. “Okay, well, sometimes I sleep too. And I saw. Meredith. Some. One. Is. Going. To. Get. Hurt. And this time it won’t be a ligament. I saw the ambulance lights. I saw a person on a stretcher in the Ridgeline uniform. Do you want something bad to happen to Alli or Erika or Caitlin or Kim?”
Merry paled. “If you’re such a real life-changing psychic, go do some wonder work, wonder girl.”
“Why are you so hostile?” Mallory shouted. This time heads did turn, and the whole south hall went quiet. Mallory lowered her voice. “I see now. You’re scared. That’s what it is! You’re scared you’ll make it happen. Why did I trust you? What if it was your uniform? I didn’t see the girl’s face.”
Meredith stopped and studied her twin’s face. “I wasn’t scared!” Merry, who was in fact terrified, lied. “Not until now. And worse, you’re going to thin
k I didn’t do it because I didn’t care about another girl getting hurt.” I did care,Merry thought. I cared about Kim. Oh, Kim, I should have called you back!Mally said the girl was little. But any girl would look little on a stretcher! Was Kim going to be hurt?
Or was Kim going to hurt someone?
“I don’t really think that,” Mallory said softly. “I’m sorry I made fun of you. You’re not dumb. But what if it was you? It wouldn’t be worse, but it would be worse. For me.”
“Well, okay. I’ll do it. But not because I think you’re right. It was . . . how you look now. Weird. And I . . . I would have done something by the end of the day. Was the cheerleader . . . was she hurt . . . hurt?”
“She looked unconscious. She wasn’t moving.”
“Was it the same thing? Shoe tape?”
“I didn’t see anything like that. But she was little. A flyer. So you or Erika or Caitlin. Or Neely. Except I think . . .”
“That Neely’s behind it.”
“I guess I do but I don’t have any reason to think that except she’s such a jerk.”
“She’s not really, Ster. She puts it on. But I don’t know why.”
“Look,” Mallory said. “I’ll do it. It’s important. I don’t want you to change your mind. I actually go past Coach Everson’s office now on the way to choir. I’ll do it. But what exactly will I say?”
For a moment, Mallory had forgotten that she had a new schedule now. Two weeks before, she’d dropped her second study hall and joined choir. Mallory had no idea why singing suddenly had such a big appeal for her. The tastes she thought she’d have forever were cartwheeling. But she absolutely loved singing the old French traditional songs with their complex unison harmonies and the traditional American gospel and old pop songs. They made her feel the way she felt as a little girl when she first heard “The Moonlight Sonata,” happy and tearful at the same time.
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