By the time I got back to bed I was too tired to investigate any further. I needed to get some sleep before my meeting tomorrow.
But I tossed and turned all night. I kept sinking in and out of a nightmare where I was standing in our garage and it was pitch-black. I tried to feel around for a way out, but the walls were too smooth and felt like they just kept going around in a big circle.
Needless to say, the next morning I was exhausted. Trudging into the kitchen, I could barely keep my eyes open. Mom had prepared breakfast, leaving pancakes on the counter.
I decided what I needed was caffeine. Today was the day I would start drinking coffee.
I went over to the French press and poured myself a cup. It smelled smoky and acidic and totally gross, but I didn’t care. I had my interview later today and I had to stay awake.
“Since when do you drink coffee?” Helen entered in a gray blazer over a navy wrap dress.
“I need it. I have an interview today.”
“It’s strong,” Helen warned, without asking what my interview was for.
“I know,” I shot back, although I had no idea if strong meant caffeine level or flavor or both. I poured what was left of the coffee into a huge mug so that there was none left for her.
Helen glanced at the empty French press. “I’ll have Landon stop and get me some,” she shrugged. “What happened to the window in the living room?”
If Helen didn’t know about the branch, she probably didn’t know about Mae yet. I’d heard her come home pretty late last night. Maybe Mom hadn’t had time to talk to her. Although you’d think Mom would’ve at least texted a heads-up. Hey, there’s a strange girl with a bleeding back sleeping in our house. Was there an emoji for that?
“A branch,” I informed her flatly. “Do you even know what’s going on?”
Before Helen could answer, Mae entered the kitchen.
I started. Mae was wearing my clothes.
Mom had asked me to loan her some, which I had, but it was still weird to see the full effect. Mae had on a pair of my dark jeans and a black boatneck sweater Mom had bought me in eighth grade. I’d thought it would make me look sophisticated, but when I wore it, it always felt bulky and never sat quite right on my shoulders. On Mae it fell off her left shoulder, effortlessly highlighting her elegant collarbone. Over the top edge I could see a white bandage.
Mae must have caught me staring, because she quickly adjusted the sweater to cover her shoulders.
I glanced down at my coffee and forced myself to take a sip.
“Hello, I’m Helen. Are you a friend of Jules’s?”
Mae looked at me. Was she a friend of mine?
How was I supposed to answer that? I mean, we didn’t even know each other yet.
Luckily, Mom interrupted the awkward moment before either of us had to respond. Mom was dressed for the day in taupe slacks and a blue blouse.
“Oh good, you met Mae,” Mom said to Helen. “Mae will be staying with us for a few days.”
Mae was leaning her hip against the counter, as if she needed it for support. Looking at her long torso, I wondered if she had bled on my bed.
“Great boatneck,” Helen complimented. Mae ran her fingers over the bottom of her side-braid, which hung down to her elbow. Even though she had dark circles under her eyes and no makeup on, she still looked gorgeous.
“Oh, thanks,” Mae returned quietly. “Jules lent it to me.”
“It looks better on you than her.”
“Thanks a lot,” I shot at Helen, even though I knew she was right.
“Where’d the coffee go?” Dad asked, entering and seeing the empty container. He looked more tired than usual.
“Jules took it all. Bye!” Helen grabbed a protein bar and waltzed out.
Dad turned to me. “If you’re going to drink my coffee, Jules, at least make some more.” There was a hint of annoyance in his voice.
“I wasn’t sure how to,” I defended myself.
“It’s all right,” he said, softening. Dad could never stay mad at us for very long. “I’ll show you how sometime.”
“You look nice,” Mom complimented him, running her hand down his arm. “Is this the new suit we got?”
“Um-hmm.” Dad nodded, more tight-lipped toward her than I’d ever seen him.
Mom reached for her travel mug, then realized, “Your meeting! I forgot that was today.”
Dad didn’t reply, but it was evident that he was a little hurt she’d forgotten.
“The regional manager is going to love you,” Mom said as she prepared her Earl Grey. “I’m sure they’re going to give you the promotion.” From what I gathered, Dad was going up for the position to oversee a merger at the bank he worked at.
“Let’s hope so,” Dad replied warily as he spooned fresh coffee grounds into the press.
“Peter,” Mom started, “I know you have a big day, but would you mind dropping the girls off at school again? Mae and I have to take care of some paperwork at the courthouse.”
“Sure,” Dad agreed, rolling up the bag of coffee. “Mae, are you hungry?”
He might have been irritated, but my father was a midwesterner through and through—constitutionally incapable of being anything less than polite to a visitor.
“No,” Mae answered quietly. “Thank you.”
“Mae and I are going to get breakfast at the diner,” Mom explained as she capped her to-go tea.
I knew the diner she meant. Mom used to take me there for lunch whenever I’d visit her at work. I loved the periwinkle vinyl seats, the shiny tabletops. But what I loved most about going was that when I was there, I had my mom all to myself. There never seemed to be time for just us anymore.
There did, however, seem to be time for Mae.
I looked at the strange girl in our house. Overnight, she had managed to cause a rift between my parents, my mother was now taking her out to breakfast, and she was wearing my clothes.
But what really bothered me was that I had no idea who this girl was.
CHAPTER 10
“THIS WILL DEFINITELY LEAVE A SCAR,” CONNIE CONCLUDED, staring at the girl’s back. “But looks like the lacerations are healing well,” she added in an effort to find a silver lining. “And your vitals are looking good.”
“That’s great!” Suzanne exclaimed. Connie looked up at her, hovering over the examining table looking on. Mae was sitting on the edge of it, gown open in the back so Connie could clean the wounds. Mae didn’t say anything, just stared at a tree branch out the window of the Medical Floor room, a floor up from the trauma unit she’d been in previously.
“Now this is gonna sting a little.” Connie dipped a cotton ball into some disinfectant, then admitted, “Okay, maybe more than a little.”
Mae wrapped her fingers around the sides of the mattress, steeling herself.
Connie pressed the cotton to Mae’s cuts, cleaning the wounds quickly and efficiently. Mae didn’t move a muscle.
“So,” Connie started as she wiped down the blood-caked wounds. “They found you a place in foster care real quick, didn’t they. I’ve never seen Child Protective Services work that fast! Have you, Dr. Mathis?”
Connie glanced at Suzanne, who forced herself to answer.
“Mae didn’t stay in foster care. She stayed with me.”
The nurse stared at Suzanne, her cottonball now frozen in mid-air.
“I’m a registered foster care provider,” Suzanne informed. “Peter and I did it before we had the girls. We got the judge to approve it this morning.”
“But you took her home last night.” Connie resumed cleaning the wound, trying to keep her voice down in front of Mae, even though it was useless because Mae could obviously hear this entire conversation.
Suzanne folded her arms across her white lab coat. “So I was supposed to leave her here with that man coming around—”
“What man?” Mae whipped her attention toward Suzanne, who realized she’d put her foot in her mouth. “Did someone come
for me?”
Connie applied sanitizer to her hands, suddenly becoming very busy cleaning up the supplies.
“Yes,” Suzanne explained slowly. “A man tried to check you out of the hospital. Yesterday afternoon.”
“Well, I’m just about finished here,” Connie concluded, forcing an upbeat tone. “Lots of patients left to see. Call me if you need anything!” She fled the room.
An uneasy silence settled in.
Suzanne stepped over and perched on the edge of the bed next to Mae, whose palms still gripped the mattress. They sat there for a few moments in silence. Finally, Mae spoke, her voice low.
“What did he look like? The man?”
Suzanne dug her hands deep into her coat pockets. “He was tall,” she started. “He had gray hair, and his skin was very tan. Kind of reddish.”
“Did he have a hat?” Mae didn’t remove her gaze from the floor.
Suzanne nodded. “Yes. A cowboy hat.”
Mae started to shake, wrapping her arms around each other as if she were trying to make herself smaller.
“Is that one of the men who hurt you?” Suzanne ventured.
Slowly, Mae nodded yes.
Suzanne absorbed this. Then she asked, “Is he your father?” She tried to sound calm, but her escalating pitch betrayed her dismay.
Mae continued to shake in silence.
“It’s okay, Mae,” Suzanne soothed. “I’m going to protect you.”
At this, Mae looked at Suzanne, her eyes pleading.
Suzanne forced herself to hold the girl’s gaze. “You won’t have to go back home to him, I promise,” she said firmly.
Mae released her arms, her shaking starting to subside. She took a deep breath, then tilted her head to the side, resting it on Suzanne’s shoulder.
Suzanne was surprised by the contact and remained very still.
Mae’s thin shoulders slowly rose and fell unevenly as she breathed. Suzanne waited out the quiet, giving Mae time to process.
After a while, Mae spoke again. Her voice wavered—
“He isn’t my father.”
Mae lifted her head from Suzanne’s arm and faced the far wall, her body becoming very still.
“He’s the sheriff.”
CHAPTER 11
AT LUNCH ISAAC AND I SAT IN A corner of the cafeteria and picked at stale ham sandwiches, while Isaac complained about Victoria Liu’s tendency to end sentences with a question mark.
As Isaac cited numerous examples of Victoria’s grating vocal pattern, I experimented with filters on a photo of a limp fry drowning in industrial-grade ketchup. I thought I’d save it to post at the end of the week and call it #frydie.
“It’s just, like, legitimately annoying? To talk like that? All the time?” Isaac mimicked the upward inflections of his self-proclaimed nemesis.
I nodded as he continued, but inside my head I was giving myself a pep talk about my meeting with Sebastian and the Regal staff.
“Are you even listening to me?” Isaac asked.
He knew that I wasn’t, so I didn’t pretend. “I’m just nervous about my interview.”
I tugged at the collar of my wool dress, feeling warm in the crowded cafeteria. “And I didn’t sleep.”
Isaac rolled his eyes. “Great, so you’re going to be grumpy all day.”
Which reminded me—I hadn’t had a chance to look up that upside-down star symbol from the Tisdale link! I tapped around on my phone to find it. I’d seen the sign in TV and movies and thought it had to do with something bad, but I wasn’t sure exactly what.
Scrolling down, I read a few descriptions. The sign was a pentagram.
My eyes fell on:
“An upside-down pentagram was used in Renaissance-era occultism. It continues to be associated with the devil, and is often considered the sign of Satan.”
What.
The.
Eff.
Pentagram? Did this girl worship the devil? Or had she lived with people who did? Most of the people I knew were Christian and went to church. Different kinds, yes, but none of them were the devil kind.
“If you’re not going to eat those nuggets, I’m getting in there,” Isaac claimed, pointing to my plate.
I quickly clicked off my screen.
“Go for it,” I said, covering my alarm at what I’d just read. I couldn’t deal with this right now—I had to focus.
I stared at my tray. I wasn’t really hungry. I was, however, dead tired. I reached for the cup of coffee I’d bought at the café next to the cafeteria. It tasted like charred water.
“We have to discuss our Social Studies project,” Isaac pressed, pulling out a notebook. “I started working up thesis ideas.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I had been this tired. I had to keep myself alert so I could impress Sebastian and his staff after school.
“Seriously, Jules. What is going on with you?” Isaac queried. “And since when do you drink coffee? Late night with your boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Whatever. He will be, and then you’ll forget about me and I’ll be all alone,” Isaac accused me, only half joking.
“Okay, yeah, that’s exactly what’s gonna happen,” I replied, not having the energy to argue.
Isaac eyed me. “I am going to forgive you because clearly something is going on. And I know it’s not your time of the month, so don’t even pretend to use that excuse.”
“That’s creepy,” I said, but it was sort of sweet that Isaac knew me so well. I pushed my nuggets over to him as a silent apology. He ate one, accepting my truce. I slurped down a long sip of coffee, wincing at the taste.
“Now, are you going to tell me what’s really happening with you or what?”
I hesitated. Should I tell Isaac about Mae? I never kept secrets from him. I even told him when I’d gotten an ear infection in seventh grade and had such a bad reaction to penicillin that my whole body broke out in red spots. But I didn’t feel like talking about Mae right now. I’d already been up all night because of her. I didn’t need her interfering with my life any further.
“I’m just nervous about my interview at the paper,” I finally replied.
For the first time ever, I had lied to my best friend.
CHAPTER 12
THE REMINGHAM REGAL OFFICE WAS BUZZING WITH ACTIVITY. There were students typing rapidly on laptops, a guy in the corner at a large monitor editing a clip of some football footage. There was a standing chalkboard with story ideas, and a second one that two freshmen were wiping down.
My heart rate picked up with anticipation. Or maybe it was just jitters from all the caffeine I’d consumed. Likely both.
“Jules!”
Sebastian stood up from a desk, finishing up reading something on his tablet. He turned to one of the editors. “Looks great, Greta. Let’s proof it and get it in for the print edition.”
He grinned at me. “Come sit!” he said, indicating the communal worktable in the center of the room. I slung my bag onto a chair and sat down.
“Naomi, Zeke, join us,” Sebastian called.
Dressed in all black, Naomi was a tall, slim senior. She paced over to the table, followed by Zeke, a lanky junior in a backward paperboy hat and plaid flannel.
“Naomi is our social media editor and Zeke, our chief content editor.”
“Hey.” Naomi extended her elegant hand. I shook it. Her fingers were thin and strong. “You’re Helen’s little sister,” she asked-slash-stated.
I nodded, then waved hello to Zeke.
“I think we met,” he remembered. “My mom works with your dad at the bank. We were both at that Christmas party last year? The one with the all-you-can-eat shrimp?”
“Oh yeah,” I replied, even though I had exactly zero memory of meeting him.
“So,” Sebastian started. “Wanted to share an idea for a new section Jules and I came up with.”
Naomi gave a measured smile. Then she and Zeke listened intently to Sebastian, as he
talked about what would hopefully be my column. I realized my face must be in Overly Excited mode—I was so close to this all coming together and getting my own column. I made a concerted effort to relax my cheeks. Keep it together, Jules.
“The column will include a portrait and short interview each week with a different student,” Sebastian explained. “We’ll feature it on the back page of the print edition.”
“What’s it called?” Naomi wondered, her hands now folded delicately on the table. Sebastian looked to me.
“Oh, um—” Deep breaths, Jules! “I thought we could call it ‘People You Don’t Know.’”
The upperclassmen took a beat to absorb this. I was sweating. From the wool dress, from the coffee, from the nerves—but mostly from the fact that I was thiiiis close to having my own column and working with Sebastian—if I didn’t blow it.
Finally, Naomi spoke. “I like it.”
“It’s excellent,” Zeke agreed.
I inhaled relief.
“So Jules, tell us a little about your vision for the project,” Sebastian said.
Thankfully, I had spent all of Geometry preparing my thoughts on the column. Yes, I would have to get Isaac to give me his notes on the Pythagorean theorem, but at least I was prepared.
“Well, I’ve always thought of portrait photography as, you know, capturing the spirit of a person,” I started. “Exposing the inner world of the subj—”
“There you are!”
I heard a familiar voice, but the sound was so out of place I couldn’t believe I was actually hearing it. I turned to see …
My mother standing in the doorway, smiling. What in the world was Mom doing at school? It must be some kind of emergency.
“Hi, Jules!” she beamed. If something was wrong, why was she acting so upbeat?
This was so weird.
“How’d you find me?” I managed to say. Mom had been so busy this morning worrying about Mae that I hadn’t told her about the meeting.
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