The Spires

by Moretti, Kate

  Penelope saw it at once, the way her face was thinner. The athletic build of her body, so different from Willa’s soft puff. Her hair, flaxen gold, when Willa’s had been brassier, a hint of orange that she never bothered to get toned out. These were things that Penelope had automatically dismissed, things that came with age, money, or both.

  Then, other things. The shape of her nose was narrower than Penelope remembered. The swell of her bottom lip fuller. Things that Penelope fitted to the Willa in her mind, a face she hadn’t seen in twenty years, that she once knew as well as her own but knew how much a face could change in their forties. She dismissed the pull of skin tight at the bridge of her nose, the pinch around her eyes. Botox, she’d thought, with a private smugness that had felt uncharitable at the time.

  She stared at Willa’s face, the set of her shoulders, the curve of her backside, with her new thinness, and she gasped.

  “You can’t be Grace,” Penelope stammered. Her heart caught and skipped on the word, and she felt like she might faint.

  “Grace is dead,” Jack said, flatly and quietly. He seemed to be in shock. Penelope held Willa’s gaze until all that seemed to exist was the two of them, locked together.

  “You’re finally right about something. I’m not Grace.” Willa laughed. “Do you remember me? Because I remember you.”

  Penelope gasped and reached out, clutched Jack’s arm. He stared at Penelope, uncomprehending still.

  All her features rearranged almost immediately, and Penelope could see it. Willa, who looked like Grace’s doppelgänger, and Talia, Grace’s younger, ugly duckling sister. Dark haired, mousy, quiet. The one quick visit to the house and no one thought a thing about her. Grace’s comments, taking phone calls quietly in Jack’s room. The needy cling of her troubled sister.

  “Talia,” Penelope whispered.

  “See? The smartest one.” Talia smiled. “If I had to bet, you’ll also be the last one.”

  “Talia?” Jack said incredulously. “That’s impossible.”

  “Family genetics are a miraculous thing. Underneath the hair and glasses, turns out Grace and I bore a strong resemblance. Plus a little plastic surgery, a fun afternoon with a straight-bladed hunting knife.” She shrugged, turned her head to the side so the scar shimmered, then the other way. “You were all so easily fooled. Dumb little rich kids with ridiculous educations, and you can’t spot a counterfeit person.”

  “Oh, God.” Penelope felt her stomach lurch, the bile in her mouth. “What did you do with the real Willa?” She thought of Grey. The little Violet, her braids glossy and bouncing.

  Talia waved the gun in a circle before training it back on Penelope. “Would you just shut the fuck up? Willa was a bored little housewife who got sick of her life and took off to have some fun.”

  Penelope shook her head, willing herself not to vomit. She did not do that. She did not. “You had to make her disappear if you wanted to become her. To lure us here. Why?”

  “Having you both here was just a bonus. I only planned on one at a time. But then you went and emailed Jack, and you know, it wasn’t too hard to make it work.”

  “How do you know that?” Penelope asked, buying time, her mind racing.

  “Haven’t you figured it out yet? I know everything. Everything there is to know about all of you. I know what you love, what you hate. I’ve read your diaries, your secret internet blogs, your emails, even some of your texts—you should really put a pass code on your phone,” she admonished Penelope. To Jack, she said, “And you. Remember Ioana? Oh, my height but maybe twenty pounds heavier? Curvy, some would say. Dark-black hair. Romanian accent?”

  Jack paled. “The night in Gaborone.”

  “I thought for sure the way to your secrets was through your dick, but as it turns out, you keep your closest secrets guarded very tightly. Either that or you have a lot of regrets.”

  “Jack, what is she talking about?” Penelope felt her whole body grow cold. She could barely think about it. She could hardly catch her breath. “Jack!” She felt the panic growing, a clawing thing.

  “After all, the two of you have a few bombshell secrets, don’t you?”

  Penelope inhaled, too fast, the rush of February air paralyzing her lungs. It couldn’t be. NO.

  “Even if you are Talia, what do you want?” Jack asked, covering his fear. “You have what you know about me from the night in Gaborone. You know my sin the night of the fire.” He turned to Penelope. “Right before the fire started, I was with Flynn. I left you upstairs and went to Flynn’s bed. We’re all a little guilty. Of something, okay?”

  Penelope swallowed, her mind a fog. Jack and . . . Flynn? She recalled that night then, in fractured images: Jack and Flynn both appearing from nowhere in the great room, shirtless. She’d hardly given it a thought at the time.

  “That’s a lovely story, Jack, but that’s not what I was talking about,” Talia said, waving the gun impatiently back and forth between them.

  Jack said loudly, “You have the truth. Bree locked Grace in the stairwell. But she’s dead. You killed her after she told you her side of the story—which may or may not be true. What does it matter? We’re all a little guilty of something. We were a toxic, fucked-up family in this house. I know that now. What do you want from us now, twenty years later?”

  “Oh, so you think you just get to walk away? Start over? Grace was all I had in the whole world. I didn’t have parents. We didn’t have aunts or uncles or cousins or any other siblings. It was just us.” Talia’s mouth set in a firm line. “Do you know how that feels? To be utterly alone in the world?”

  The truth was, they all did. Who among them had been the loneliest?

  Somehow Jack had found Grace—a perfect sixth. So desperate to forge their own family, the six of them had fit their sharp edges together like a puzzle made of razors.

  “Even if you didn’t then, you will now,” Talia said softly, a grim little smile on her lips. “But first, you will know what it feels like when there’s no one left to care if you die.”

  Oh God. Tara. Linc. Brett.

  She turned to Jack, whose face had grown pale. His fingertips found Penelope’s in the dark, and he squeezed. He licked his lips before he croaked out, “What have you done to our son?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Then: The Fire

  By the time Penelope returned home, dinner was sizzling on the grill, and Willa and Flynn were clamoring for party decor.

  “What, no party favors?” Bree pouted from her perch on the island. Jack swatted at her to get off the counter and muttered something that sounded like kids these days, and Bree shot a raspberry in his direction.

  “You’re on your own.” Penelope laughed gaily, trying out her new persona. The laugh came out loud and false, and internally she cringed. No one seemed to notice.

  “It’s fine! I have something for all of us!” Willa said, a sly twist to her lips, and Jack laughed.

  Penelope began decorating the great room with the streamers and tossed the balloons in Jack’s direction. “Here, you’re full of hot air.” And behind her Flynn hooted. In the corner Willa poured drinks for everyone—old-fashioneds, orange slice and all. She saw Penelope watching and grinned. “Grace said they’re her favorite!” and Penelope shrugged, smiling. I wasn’t judging! Willa delivered them on a tray, wearing a little red A-line, Betty Boop–style.

  The final great room looked festive—red and blue and yellow and green everywhere, like a clown had spontaneously combusted. Penelope hadn’t known Grace’s favorite color, so she’d gotten the multipack of everything, and later Flynn grabbed her elbow, laughing. Jesus Christ, Pip, it’s a fucking Pride parade in here.

  Penelope sipped her drink very slowly, just to keep up appearances; her one to the others’ three, then four; then, because they all got lazy, they switched to vodka tonics, and within a few hours, they were cranking up the music and dancing. Even Pip got into the act, arms swaying above her head, blissfully aware of the grace of the ar
c, and she felt flooded with happiness. God, she loved these people. Maybe she could get over Jack. Do the right thing, find a boyfriend. They could all stay friends. In ten years, she imagined barbecues together with their families, children running around.

  The room had grown soft and blurred around the edges, and everyone looked so sparkly, their eyes and their teeth glowing white and happy. Willa came up and flung her arms around Pip and hugged her tight, and she smelled like gardenias—something fruity that had a memory attached to it for Pip; maybe her mother had worn it. She only had a handful of memories of her mother. She pulled Willa into her and smelled her neck, her hair, and Willa laughed and swatted at her hands—“What are you doing?”—and Pip said, “You smell like I remember my mother smelling! What is that perfume? It’s beautiful!”

  She’d only had one drink, though. Why did she feel like this—free floating and happy and dizzy and laughing? She couldn’t stop laughing, laughing, laughing; across the room she saw Flynn and Bree slow dancing, and then kissing, Bree’s leg hooking around Flynn’s thigh, and she shook the confusion out of her head because . . . that wasn’t possible, was it? Bree didn’t kiss anyone, and Flynn, well . . . Penelope knew Flynn had slept with women before, so that one didn’t seem so odd, but God, Jack had been right. Together they were extraordinarily beautiful, Bree’s hair curled around Flynn’s dark skin—it was like a painting or something from a museum. It seemed like a waste for the world that they couldn’t be a couple; they could display their coupledom in public parks, and people could pay money to just come observe their perfection and donate the money to less-beautiful people . . . well, that didn’t seem right. Maybe a charity—the one about fixing kids’ smiles in underdeveloped countries, maybe? Penelope pushed her palm into her forehead and giggled.

  “Party favorsssssssss,” Willa hissed in her ear, and Penelope turned, feeling like her face would crack from smiling, eyes wide without understanding, and she felt like she weighed ten pounds. Before Willa could explain, Jack grabbed her hands and twirled her around, and the air whipped past her face and her legs, bare and cold in her short dress, and she could hear the swish swish of the fabric—so soft against her legs, and between her legs with a gentle then insistent pulsing, and then Jack was kissing her, his tongue grazing her lips, hands moving up her waist, and nothing had ever felt more warm, and God, he smelled like cookies, and musk, and man, and vanilla, and pumpkin pie, and fresh laundry. Jesus Christ, Jack, where’s Grace? The alarms sounded in her brain, but she couldn’t make sense of anything, his palms hot on her skin, her nipples through thin silk, and her whole body felt taut with pleasure, every sensation on fire, like a full-body orgasm—was that even possible? Could she have an orgasm in her arm? Her pinkie finger? And then suddenly, somehow, she was in Jack’s bed, hips rising and falling as she rode him, pounding and skin slapping and screaming words she didn’t know existed, and he told her he loved her over and over, and somehow it didn’t feel like a dream, but it had to be a dream, right?

  Right?

  When she woke, the house was silent, the bed cold and clammy, and she realized that she felt the breeze from an open window, but how? There was no window in the basement. She felt along the bed and opened one eye and saw Jack’s room. She pulled the sheets around her body and realized she was naked. It was still dark out, but she had no sense of time.

  Oh God. Grace. What happened?

  She must have said it out loud, because a voice from the corner said, “Willa gave everyone Molly.”

  Penelope felt the room tilt, but also couldn’t place the voice—it didn’t sound like Bree’s—and she squinted into the darkness.

  Grace sat on the chair in the corner, her hands folded in her lap, fully dressed. Penelope looked around, but Grace laughed, and it came out like a hoarse bark. “He’s downstairs. You fell asleep; he didn’t. I don’t know whose bedroom he ended up in.”

  A pulsing headache behind Penelope’s eyes made her groan. “Molly?”

  “E, X, Ecstasy, MDMA . . . it has a lot of names.”

  Penelope doubled over, clutching at her stomach. Oh, no. No, no, no.

  Grace moved across the room and sat down on the bed next to her, uncomfortably close. “I know you love him. But this night will fade away. He’s not yours. He doesn’t love you.”

  “Grace, I honestly thought I was in a dream. I don’t know if it was the combination of alcohol or what, but I would never willingly do anything—”

  “Oh, you would.” She smiled then. “You all would. Wouldn’t you?”

  Penelope scrabbled to standing, and finding her dress with one swipe of her hand across the bed, she slipped it over her head.

  Grace continued, stepping toward Penelope. “I’m not one of you. I’m not a Spire or whatever the fuck you call yourself, like you’re the goddamn height of human existence—it’s the most ridiculous bunch of drivel I’ve ever heard.” With every step Penelope backed up, Grace came forward, closing in, her breath sour and hot on Penelope’s face, her hair a tangled mess, until the loft railing was at Penelope’s back, and without warning, Grace’s hands were at Penelope’s neck, choking, and she could only eke out the slightest breath. She wrenched herself away, flailing, and connected with the hard roundness of Grace’s skull. Grace advanced again, and Penelope felt the fury surge inside her—she was being attacked! For a mistake. She reached her hand out; her fingers curved and carved four neat slices down Grace’s cheek. She wailed, retreated for a moment, holding her face. Then screamed, “I hate all of you—your stupid games and jokes and the silent way you communicate and how Jack never, ever wants to hear a thing about any of you. Bree can cook me pasta with mushrooms in it—even though she knows I’m allergic—because none of you give a shit. And you’re the worst one. He never has and never will love you. You sit around with your silent judgment and watch me, and you know what? I know your little secret now. I do. And no, none of it is going to happen, do you understand me?” Grace lunged at Penelope, her hands once again on Penelope’s neck, whose back jammed against the railing of the loft, the cavernous dark below her. She writhed, tried to flip Grace around, without luck. Grace was taller, stronger. Penelope had always been a little mouse. Penelope was beginning to see little blinding pricks of light, unable to take a breath in or out. She kicked her legs out, connecting with Grace’s stomach, and Grace doubled over, finally letting go of Penelope’s windpipe, and she gulped air, desperate for it.

  “Pip!” a voice from below shouted, and Flynn ran into the great room from the basement doorway, with Jack following close behind him, both bare chested. Flynn had a blanket wrapped around him like a cape, the air in the great room whooshing and cold. The fire had died down to cinders, but the blanket brushed along the hearth and dislodged a hot ember that skidded out along the wood floor. From the kitchen, Bree screamed.

  Penelope didn’t see it happen, but she heard, in the distance, Jack’s voice. “Fucking hell.” And later, when the police came, Flynn described it as an inferno. The ember skidded along the shining plank floors, thickly layered with years of linseed oil polish, and within seconds the fire had chased into a single straight line. It hit the pile of games with the loose and flowing cardboard, papers, and balsam boards and whooshed into a full-blown bonfire. The room was soon ablaze, and they watched, for what felt like minutes but couldn’t have been more than seconds, as the line of fire chased across the room, sparking small spreading fires in its wake, hitting the wooden staircase, oiled and shining, exploding the pine like a bomb, splinters flying. The fire sped down the railing, Penelope and Grace crawled backward toward the bed as the inferno spread to the bedroom.

  The house had filled with smoke, and Penelope felt her throat, sore from Grace’s assault, close up. She coughed into her arm and pressed herself as low as possible to the ground. In front of her, the trapdoor opened a few inches, and Bree’s white face appeared. She motioned come on to Penelope—who had forgotten entirely about the trapdoor!—and Penelope followed Bree down in
to the small enclosure.

  They shimmied down the ladder onto the landing and came to the steps, when Penelope turned to Bree and said, “Do we just leave her up there? Grace?”

  “She tried to fucking kill you. Yes, we leave her up there.” Bree gripped Penelope’s arm and pulled her around. They heard the creak of the trapdoor reopen above them and the soft thump of Grace hitting the landing.

  “Go!” Bree hissed, and Penelope took off, her feet skidding down the steps and through the small crawl space. The smoke was starting to fill the tunnel; the room upstairs was likely consumed. Gone. The door loomed in front of them, and Penelope crashed into it, into the cool cement wall of the storage closet. The basement had not yet filled with smoke, and her lungs ached with every breath.

  Bree fell against her, the door falling shut behind them as they both gasped for cleaner air.

  Bree stood up and looked wild eyed at Penelope, who followed her. They stared at the door. Grace would come crashing through any second. Penelope lifted her hand and rested her fingertips on the dead bolt, the instinct to get away from her so deeply ingrained in such a short period of time, and then recoiled in horror.

  “She won’t do anything to me now. I can’t do this,” she whispered to Bree, who gently covered Penelope’s hand with her own and, with no time to spare, gently clicked the dead bolt into place.

  No. No! everything inside Penelope screamed.

  Grace beat the door with a heavy fist. “Help!” she screamed.

  “Bree. Please. This is awful—I can’t do this.” Penelope’s voice was a rasp, a whimper, and Bree pulled her by the hand gently away from the door, from Grace, down the hallway, and up the stairs. Out the back door, and into the cool mist of early morning, the sky dark gray and beginning to lighten. Willa and Flynn huddled in the corner of the garden, and Penelope glanced back at the house for the first time: a complete and utter fireball. A crash as a window exploded out.