The Breathless

by Tara Goedjen

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Tara Goedjen

  Cover art copyright © 2017 by Arcangel and Shutterstock

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Goedjen, Tara, author.

  Title: The breathless / Tara Goedjen.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Delacorte Press, [2017] |

  Summary: Sixteen-year-old Mae Cole is determined to uncover who is responsible for her sister’s mysterious death, but Mae’s search takes a terrifying turn when she starts to dig up long-buried secrets about her family’s dark past.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016040460 | ISBN 978-1-5247-1476-5 (hc) | ISBN 978-1-5247-1477-2 (glb) | ISBN 978-1-5247-1478-9 (el) | ISBN 978-1-5247-7068-6 (intl. tr. pbk.)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Death—Fiction. | Secrets—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.G62 Br 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9781524714789

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  For my mom

  I looked with timorous joy towards a stately house: I saw a blackened ruin.

  —CHARLOTTE BRONTË, Jane Eyre

  We die with the dying: See, they depart, and we go with them. We are born with the dead: See, they return, and bring us with them.

  —T. S. ELIOT, Four Quartets

  IT ISN’T A NIGHT FOR raising. It isn’t night yet at all. It’s a hazy gray afternoon, with the promise of rain. A layer of fog covers Blue Gate and the woods that surround it, but we can see inside the windows.

  Here a family gathers at the kitchen table near a girl with hair that gleams. Her green eyes have a hint of gold, and she is a pretty thing. The kind of girl everyone points to and says: something big is going to happen to her one day.

  Today is her sixteenth birthday. In two years she’ll be dead, but she doesn’t know that. What she knows is a secret. It’s shiny and tempting, glistening like the girl’s blond hair. But she doesn’t tell anyone—not yet.

  Her father carries in the red velvet cake with pink candles. Somehow he has never figured out that his girls don’t like pink. Like all fathers, there are so many things he doesn’t know. He just wants to see his trio of daughters as perfect, he wants to believe they are happy and normal and safe. But who is ever safe?

  His oldest girl blows out the candles, and then after her stomach is full of sweetness, she tugs on her quiet sister’s hand. “Come with me.”

  “All right,” the quiet sister says. She is good at saying yes, and this will get her into trouble later. Thirteen and small for her age, she trails Ro upstairs like a shadow.

  “Listen,” Ro says, “there’s more to our family than you’ve ever imagined.” She does this, makes grand statements—when she speaks, everything seems bigger. The younger sister wants to be exactly like her when she grows up. “The stories are real,” Ro says. “I’ll show you.”

  She pulls her sister into her bedroom with a body sculpted from swimming, her white tank top revealing strong tan shoulders. She grins, a bright smile that makes people feel special and loved. The younger sister looks at these things and thinks, How will I ever be like her?

  “There it is. I found it in the house.” Ro’s voice is filled with awe. Sitting on her desk is a book. It is old and green and thicker than the Bible. “Go ahead,” Ro says, “open it.” But the younger sister remembers their grandfather’s words, and her body goes stiff.

  “Don’t be scared,” Ro whispers, her sugary breath at the girl’s ear. “Trust me, okay? I want us to share this.”

  So they sit down on the bed together and look at one page, just one. The very last page of the book. It has a thumbprint in the bottom corner, and staring at that smudge makes the younger sister’s world go dark.

  Neither girl realizes that life is both good and bad, dark and light—the way it has been since the beginning of time. Neither of them can see the shadows swirling around them, hovering close, because all shadows are drawn to the light. She is a bright one—this older sister, this sixteen-year-old girl who melts everyone she touches. But a single flame is not enough to hold back the world’s darkness.

  Like we told you, she will be dead soon. So it happens. Though when a light goes out, it can be raised again. You just need a book that is like a box of matches.

  STEAM SETTLED OVER THE BATHROOM mirror. In the candlelight, Mae traced a name on the glass. The more she stared at it, the sicker she felt. When she couldn’t take it anymore, she stepped out of the pile of wet clothes at her feet and eased into the hot bath. A flush shot through her body, all the way to her toes, and she watched the paint streaks running from her hands in faint trails of color.

  Mae thought of her sister and shut her eyes, trying to block out everything else. Small waves sloshed against the cracked sides of the tub, and she turned on the faucet so it was dripping, making ripples. There was a slight lift underneath her, that feeling of being raised by the water. She’d read once that you could rid yourself of pain by pretending you were floating outside your body. Or you could breathe into it, make yourself feel the edges of the pain, try to find the end of it.

  Inhale, exhale. Inhale. Mae dunked her head and held herself down, needing to know what her sister had felt. She opened her eyes under the water and looked at the dark ceiling, at her hair floating out in wavy strands. Then over at the foggy mirror, the melting white candles by the sink, the rusting tub. That waterline above her—the surface so close with the promise of air. Her lungs were burning, but she forced herself to stay under, staring at the line of water like a horizon, her chest hot and tight. Ro was found on the shore, the tide at her legs. Her head bloody, with no other sign of struggle. Ro dead and everyone blaming Cage Shaw.

  When her lungs were about to burst, Mae finally shot up for air, gulping it in. It was hard to drown yourself, maybe impossible, unless there was something or someone holding you down.

  She took in deep breaths as water coursed over her eyes. It was like being outside earlier that day, when she’
d tried to capture the rainstorm on canvas. Painting was the one thing that helped her forget. Now that it was summer and school was out, she couldn’t rely on the noise and bodies of the other kids to crowd out the dark thoughts, so she painted instead, kept her hands moving. If she had more friends it might help, but she didn’t want to answer questions about Ro, or go to parties with Elle and drink until she forgot. So today she’d set up her easel on the porch while the rain had poured from the sky, loud enough to water down her thoughts into colors.

  The other way to get rid of pain was to shove it behind a door in your mind and hope it didn’t leak out. Mae had assigned a door for all the memories that hurt. Black was the color of Ro’s door. Her mother’s was pale yellow. A red door held back her dad’s anger. And her granddad’s was white, the color of the milk and brandy she took to him when he couldn’t sleep and couldn’t find the words to ask for it. All the doors had faded to the back of her mind—all except for Ro’s.

  The black door usually kept the memories from seeping through, which was a good thing. You could wish a thousand times that something hadn’t happened, but you couldn’t undo it. You couldn’t feel sorry for yourself either, because then you’d just rot, starting with your heart. Mae wasn’t going to rot. She would paint until her fingers fell off before she did that. She’d keep the doors shut tight.

  She held out her hands. Her fingertips were starting to wrinkle, but at least the paint was gone. The bathwater was warm against her skin, her knees were sticking up like two little islands in the flickering candlelight. A breeze was coming from the bathroom window, leaking through the cracked glass pane, and outside everything was dripping. Her lids went heavier and heavier. Things would get better; maybe all it took was time….

  A noise startled her upright.

  Mae gasped because the bath was cold, like ice. The room was dark now. Every candle had burned down to a pool of wax. She must have fallen asleep. It was so cold in the water, colder than the air.

  A faint glow of moonlight was coming from the window, and the rain had stopped. All the fog was gone from the mirror but somehow Roxanne was still there, in thin smears across the glass. The name looked strange now; it didn’t look like her handwriting at all.

  Mae got out and wrapped a towel around herself, drying off over the uneven tiles. In the mirror was a shadow: long hair, dark eyes. She was going to smile more this year—she was going to try harder, like Ro would have wanted.

  As she got dressed, she heard someone singing in the hallway. Maybe Elle was still awake? She yanked her shirt over her wet hair and then pulled on her sister’s red sweatshirt, thin with a zip up the front, the one she hadn’t washed since it happened. She breathed in the scent—cloves and mint—then stepped out of the bathroom.

  Elle’s room was quiet and dark, and so was Sonny’s. Mae heard the sound again, now more of a whisper. Probably just Elle talking on the phone, but something felt off. Her heart started thudding as she moved deeper into the shadows, passing the long railing that overlooked the foyer and the old chandelier that trembled with her steps.

  The humming—it seemed more like humming than whispering—grew louder the farther she walked over the cold floorboards. Prickles raced across her skin when she got to the end of the hallway. The noise was coming from Ro’s room.

  Mae’s heart quickened. She leaned toward the door, listening.

  Nothing. There was nothing, because no one went into this room anymore. But she had heard…what? There was only silence now on the other side of the wood.

  She wasn’t supposed to go in—her dad’s rule. She touched the brass handle, and then opened the door and fumbled for the light switch.

  Overhead, the bulb flared bright and burned out. She blinked in the dark, her fist tightening around the handle.

  “Who’s there?”

  Moonlight was shining through the curtained window, casting shadows.

  “Elle?” she whispered. Then, because she couldn’t help herself: “Ro?”

  She wasn’t getting enough air; she really might faint. The room was dark, empty. She had expected to see her twin, or even her granddad, but there was no one. Just the shapes of furniture no longer used. Piles of clothes that hadn’t been worn in almost a year, books that hadn’t been opened.

  Then she whirled. A soft tapping noise was coming from the wardrobe. In the murky haze she could see its door was ajar.

  Mae forced herself to step all the way into the bedroom. The tapping was louder—it sounded like her granddad’s cane striking wood, tap thud, tap thud, tap. It was coming from the side of the wardrobe, behind its open door.

  She took a step closer, willing her heart to stop beating so hard. In front of the wardrobe she hesitated, and then she pulled the door back.

  Ro’s jewelry box was on the ground, overturned. Its gears were whirring and stopping, whirring and stopping. Mae stared at it, relief making her legs go watery. On top of the lid, the delicate ballerina twitched, hitting the floor over and over. One of its ceramic legs had broken off, but the rest of it was intact, its arms clasped together like a halo as it shuddered.

  Her dad wanted this room kept exactly how it was—he needed it that way. She scooped up the jewelry that had spilled: dangly feather earrings, threaded shell bracelets, a gold locket, the sand dollars Ro had kept for good luck. Her sister’s wide bangles were scattered across the floor, and she gathered them up one by one, then found a ring by the bookshelf.

  Strange—a ring she’d never seen before. She picked it up and held it in the moonlight. It was a gold band studded with tear-shaped rubies. It looked like an antique. The black door in her mind creaked open, and it came to her. This was the ring Ro had been wearing that last day. Elle must have rescued it, stored it away in the jewelry box.

  Mae turned it over in her hand and then slid it onto her finger. It was too big, so she took it off, slipped it into the jewelry box, and put the box back on the wardrobe.

  As she turned to leave, the curtains billowed out. A breeze swept through the room, and Ro’s sketches on the wall fluttered. Mae tensed on instinct and then almost laughed aloud. The old windows in the house opened outward and sometimes rattled loose in the wind. Some animal, probably a squirrel, had gotten in and tipped the jewelry box off the wardrobe.

  She closed the latch and turned to go again, but as she stepped around the edge of the mattress she kicked something sharp. It skidded across the floor and under the bed. Another piece of jewelry? She crouched down to grab it and froze, her hand outstretched.

  Lying beneath the bed was a leather book.

  Mae stared at it a moment and then pulled it out, a knot tightening in her stomach. Just as she started to open it, a floorboard creaked in the hallway. She shoved the small book into her sweatshirt pocket and hurried out of the room, closing the door behind her as softly as she could. One side of her sweatshirt was heavy now, dragged down by the weight in her pocket. She’d made it halfway through the hallway and had almost reached her own room when—

  “Mae?”

  She spun around, startled. Her dad was standing in the dark with a glass in his hand. “Thought I was the only one awake.”

  “Me too,” she said, her voice coming out strained. But he hadn’t seen her in Ro’s bedroom—he wouldn’t be this calm.

  Sonny held up his drink. “Nightcap.” He was in jeans and a T-shirt, like he hadn’t gone to sleep yet and wasn’t planning to. He turned, and Mae thought that was the end of it, but he waved her on. “Come downstairs.”

  “I—” Mae started, but her dad cut her off.

  “Come on, you need a glass of milk,” he said. “It’ll help you sleep.”

  She nodded. It was clear she had no choice but to have the milk, but she didn’t know what to expect. Sonny mostly kept to himself; a conversation alone with him was new territory.

  Mae followed him down the curving staircase, the book heavy in her pocket, as if aching to be read. He flipped on the light in the kitchen and she blinked at
the brightness. It hit the windows and the French doors that opened into the overrun garden. Light streamed over the stone cherub by the roses and the pink lantanas and trickled onto the high green hedge. Everything was still glistening from the rain.

  Sonny grabbed a saucepan and poured milk into it. “Trick is,” he said, “can’t heat it up too long or it makes that sticky layer on top.”

  “That’s the milk skin,” Mae murmured. “It’s from the protein, Dad.”

  He shot her a look and then switched off the stove, his long ponytail swaying across his back. He always told them to use his first name, though he never said why. Maybe that was less painful, since there was no one to call Mom.

  “Try it.” He tipped the milk into a mug and set it on the table next to his glass of whiskey. His chair groaned as he lowered himself into it. “When I was a kid, your grandpa would heat up milk when I was scared and couldn’t sleep.”

  “He did?” Mae stilled—it felt like if she moved, her dad would stop talking. Sonny never talked about when he was young. He never talked much to anyone, though neither did she. “What else did he do?” she pressed.

  He held his whiskey, seemed to think a moment. “I’d get nightmares. Blue Gate seemed so old, even back then. Your grandpa would read me stories about magic. Said it could protect me.” His face broke into a smile, the way it hadn’t in a long time.

  Mae’s hands flexed—she wanted to draw him like this. She edged into the seat beside him, cupped her palms around the warm milk. “And then what happened?”

  He swirled the whiskey, the scent sharp and heady. “And then I grew up, Mae, and I told him he was full of shit.”