“Cally,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
I nodded, my gut churning.
She smiled and released my hand.
I wiped the blood on my jeans, and then I heard it again, something in the bushes. I turned to see what it was, but then something happened, something I didn’t understand. I felt it slip over my head, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. I reached for my throat. There was something there. A cord. The cord that had been meant for Noel had she chosen not to comply. I lurched forward, strange sparkles before my eyes, and the next thing I knew, I was pushed down with a great deal of force, my head plunging into the water. I scrambled. I clawed. I kicked, but the world began to dissolve around me, drifting into aqueous confusion.
And then something else happened. A jolt. The cord released and I lifted my head from the water, gasping for air. It burst into my lungs, inflating them, and at first it burned, the sheer force of it. My vision was floating and filled with spots. I collapsed onto the dirt, and it was only then that I understood what was happening. Asta lay there stretched out in the sand—unconscious. Her head was opened into a crimson gash and the blood was starting to seep into the dirt. I followed a pair of Doc Martens up to Chelsea Vetiver. She was holding a large bloody rock.
“Chelsea?” I gasped.
“You okay, Inspector Wood?”
“I don’t know. I think so.” I looked at Asta. “Is she … is she dead?”
“I don’t think so. I’m no doctor, but her chest’s moving up and down there. What the hell is going on here, anyway?”
“Noel. We need to find Noel.”
“I already found Noel. That’s how I knew to come looking for you. She’s messed up, though. I left her a ways back in the woods. I called 911 and then came back here looking for you. Good thing I did, too.” She raised her eyebrows and took me in, then grimaced.
“You called 911?”
“Yeah,” she drawled, hand on her hip. “Ten minutes ago. They should be here soon.”
“How? How did you call 911?”
“With my cell.”
“You have a cell phone?”
“Yeah, I do, because I’m not a fucking Luddite like the rest of you. Come on,” she said, giving me a hand up. “Let’s go see how Noel’s doing.”
I staggered a bit, and Chelsea had to hold my arm. Just before we reached the path, I turned back to look at Asta.
“You really just hit her with a rock?”
“Yeah.”
“My God, Chelsea.”
“You should be thanking me. I saved your life.”
“Thank you. I mean, that was … that was ballsy.”
“See?” She smiled. “I told you I’m a fucking art star.”
I leaned into Chelsea, and we started onto the path. Lightning tore across the sky. A moment later, thunder replied, and the sky opened up in thick, lush drops. We stepped under the cover of the darkening woods, blanketed—protected.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE EMTS GOT TO NOEL before we did. She looked terrible, but they told us they’d take good care of her. I felt fine, but I had to go to the hospital too, because apparently, being half strangled, half drowned was not an ideal health state. Chelsea stayed for a few hours and kept me updated until we were sure Noel was going to be okay. She also told me that Asta was downstairs in the hospital being questioned by the police while the doctors treated her wounds. I tried not to think about it.
Kim and Danny were driving down and were due to arrive sometime in the morning. They were taking me home, and I wasn’t coming back. I didn’t want to go back to school, even for a night, so I was pleased when the attending physician decided I should stay.
“You know,” Chelsea said, handing me a cup of hot chocolate and slumping into the chair next to my bed, “you’re much more punk rock than I thought you were.”
“I try,” I said, blushing.
The rain beat hard against the window, and I felt warm and safe in my womblike hospital room. The lighting was soft and yellow, and I found the steady beep and constant thrum of the machines tremendously comforting. I set the hot chocolate down on my little sliding tray and leaned back, closing my eyes.
“Richard Slater was messing around with Iris,” I said.
I could hear Chelsea move in her chair. She cleared her throat.
“So?”
“Look, Chelsea,” I said, eyes still closed, sinking farther into my paper-encased pillow. “I don’t know if you were serious or what that day at the pond, but I thought you should know. Just in case.”
“God, Wood.” She laughed. “You are so gullible. Even I wouldn’t do something like that.”
A moment later there was a noise from the hall. I recognized the sound of the approaching footsteps and sat up in bed. I found myself adjusting my hair and then felt stupid for doing so. Jack and Sophie came around the corner, clinging to each other like a long-married couple. There was something in the way they held each other that made me feel strange, though I couldn’t quite place why. Their faces lit up when they saw me, and they rushed to my bed, kissing my forehead, my hand, my arm. They tousled my hair, laughing and emitting cloying platitudes about friendship and health.
“God, you guys. I’m totally fine.”
“Um …” Chelsea sneered. “This is grossing me out and I have no fucking clue who you people are, so I’m gonna go see Noel now. I’ll be back, Cally, yeah?”
I nodded, and she slunk out.
“Who was that?” Sophie asked, her eyes wide.
“That was Chelsea Vetiver. She’s an art star. Thanks for coming, you guys,” I said, pulling a pillow from my side and clutching it. They beamed down at me.
“So you’re going to be okay?” Sophie asked, tears welling.
“God, yes,” I said. “I am completely fine. I can leave tomorrow. I’m going home, actually.”
“Home?” she asked. “Like, home home?”
“Yeah. I’m getting the hell out of here.”
“No, don’t go,” Jack said, brushing the hair out of my eyes. “I want you to stay.”
We stared at each other a moment, something strange and sad between us. Sophie backed away. “I’m gonna see if I can find some coffee,” she said, and then left the room.
“You should stay,” Jack said, taking my hand in his.
I shook my head. “I don’t think I can. I don’t want to stay here. I really don’t.”
He released my hand and wrapped his arms across his chest. “I’m sorry for acting like a jerk.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I acted like a jerk. My note was incredibly lame, wasn’t it?”
He ran his hand over his head a few times, then gave me a confused look. “What happened between us, Cally? I don’t really understand what happened.”
I laughed. “I don’t either.”
“I thought we were gonna go out. I thought we might be in love or something.”
I stared at him, trying to figure out why it hurt so much to look at him. If I could have loved someone, it would have been Jack Deeker, but I couldn’t. Not yet. I had a lot of work to do before I could give someone the kind of love that Jack deserved.
But I would have been lying to say that my emotional disability was the only problem with us. All along, there had been something else—something else that had stood silently between us. And then the light came flooding in, and I understood.
“Jack,” I said, words coming before I could expect them. “It’s not me.”
“What?”
“It’s not me,” I said, suddenly seeing clearly. “It’s not me. It was never me.”
“What’s not you?”
“The person you’re in love with—it’s not me.”
Images flooded my mind—Jack and Sophie entering the room, the way he held her arm, the way he looked at her each and every day no matter what mood he was in, that day in the bathroom, the way he’d freaked out at the mere thought of Sophie being with someone else. There was something there I hadn
’t seen because I hadn’t wanted to.
He smiled. “I’m probably not mature enough to be in love with anyone.”
“No.” I shook my head. “You are. You definitely are. It’s just not me.”
“Okay, so who is it, then?” He laughed.
I motioned with my head toward the doorway.
“That Chelsea girl? Sorry, but she’s terrifying.”
“No.” I laughed. “God, what is wrong with you? Not Chelsea.”
“Then who?”
I met his gaze and tried to communicate everything I knew, everything I felt, everything I saw in his eyes. “Who do you think?”
“Sophie?” He laughed and rolled his eyes.
It hurt me to realize he’d always loved her. Maybe he loved me too—maybe that was possible—but not like he loved Sophie. She was his everything. I tried not to let him see my heart break as I stared at him, and he stared at me, watching me watch it sink in.
“No.” He laughed, but he was clearly shaken. “Sophie and I aren’t like that.”
I nodded. “Yes you are.”
He shook his head, blushing despite himself. “No. Even if I did, she would never. She doesn’t think of me that way.”
“Give it a try,” I said, watching as something joyful and childlike spread across his face. “Trust me. I wouldn’t steer you wrong. Give it a try.”
“Give what a try?” Sophie asked as she entered, juggling three cups of coffee. Jack stared at her, pure wonder in his eyes. She laughed at him. “What’s going on? Here, take your coffee.”
He took it from her, his fingers, I noticed, lingering just a second too long on hers. He looked back at me and smiled, shaking his head, fantastically bemused.
“Give me one of those coffees,” I said, choking back an acerbic combination of pain and joy.
“I don’t know if you’re allowed to drink coffee,” Sophie said.
“Then why’d you get me one?”
“Because I’m awesome,” she said, and handed it to me.
The hot bitter liquid was wonderful. I vowed to drink coffee every day for the rest of my life. They stayed a half hour or so, Sophie doing most of the talking. Jack hardly spoke; he just stared at her as if she were a fantastic creature—something no one thought existed—that he was seeing for the first time, face to face in the wild.
Cryker came by just before I drifted off to sleep.
“How you holding up?” he said, taking a seat in Chelsea’s squeaky blue chair.
“Okay, I guess. Nothing’s broken. I’m just a little confused.”
He nodded. “I wanted to let you know she gave a full confession.”
“What?” I sat up in bed. “When?”
“A couple hours ago. It’s over now. I wanted to let you know.”
“Really?” I said. “She confessed? So is that it?”
“There will be a trial, but this will make that go a whole lot smoother.”
“Wow,” I said, grasping at the bedsheets as if they could calm me. “Thank you for doing that. Thank you for getting the confession.”
“Ptsh.” He waved my compliment away. “It was like cracking a rotten watermelon. After the first strike, the whole thing came out soft and easy.”
“So she admitted to all three murders?” I asked, my voice cracking.
He shook his head. “Not exactly. She admitted to Iris straightaway—killed her because she found out about Laurel and Clare, but with the girls, things get a little fuzzy. She admits to killing them, but her story keeps changing as to how she did it. First she says they both drowned, then she says she strangled them both. She admits her guilt, but she can’t seem to settle on a story. My guess is that your sister drowned while Asta was sleeping, and then she strangled Laurel. Honestly, Cally,” he said, shaking his head, “I’m not sure we’re ever going to know the complete truth of what happened that night.”
“But you’ve got enough, right? Enough to put her away?”
He nodded and smiled. “That we do.”
“Will she plead insanity?”
He shook his head. “If she does, it won’t take.”
“She seemed pretty crazy to me,” I said, leaning back against the pillow.
“I’m not saying she’s a healthy woman, but she knew what she was doing. And she can go on about keeping the bones as some kind of sacred hoo-ha, but she got rid of them quick when she thought they might bite her in the ass. She framed Mike Reilly on purpose. Did she tell you that up there?”
“No.”
“Out of vengeance, she said, over some professional slight that probably never even happened.” He shook his head. “Anyway,” he said, pushing himself up to stand. “I have to get back downstairs, but I wanted you to know about the confession. I don’t know, maybe it will help you get some closure or something.”
I squinted up at him. “Is that a real thing, closure?”
“Eh.” He shrugged. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but for you, I hope it is.”
He patted me on the head and walked out of the room. I closed my eyes and listened to the squeak of his rubber boots receding down the hall, eventually eclipsed by the steady hum of medical machines.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I NEVER WENT BACK TO ST. Bede’s. Sometimes it almost felt like I’d never been there at all. It was easy to forget the buildings, the classrooms, the food, but the woods I couldn’t forget. The woods I carried with me.
My mom showed up about a week after I got home, but she went straight into rehab again, and I moved in with Kim and Danny. I was sick of waiting for something that would never happen. I went back to my crappy school, where I could goof off and still get good grades. I went back to playing too many video games and watching too much TV.
I let go of St. Bede’s nearly completely. My only remaining ties were Sophie and Jack. They’d started dating soon after I’d left. Sophie had actually called to clear it with me. I’d given my blessing and told her she should get Harlow arrested, but nothing transpired, and when school let out, Harlow informed the students she was leaving St. Bede’s to get an MBA at Harvard. Sophie thought Reilly and Dr. Harrison’s wife ran off together, but she wasn’t sure, and I didn’t really care. In general, Sophie said it was pretty much like nothing had ever happened at St. Bede’s. Business as usual.
Over the summer, Helen and Noel sent me a box of chocolates and a polite thank-you note. Sophie told me that their little group had kind of dissolved when Freddy went to Harvard, which neither surprised nor interested me. I was finished with those girls.
A month and a half after I’d officially withdrawn from St. Bede’s, the school sent me a letter to inform me I was not being asked back. Whether it was meant to be a slap in the face or was simply the product of bureaucratic idiocy, I had no idea, but the administration wished me luck in all my future endeavors and sent me on my way. I gave the letter to Danny, who promptly lit it on fire. We watched it burn in the backyard.
I muddled through the fall semester. School wasn’t great, but at least I had Danny. I got myself a dog, a rescued mutt I named Sancho Panza. She slept on my feet and woke me up at three in the morning when she needed to pee.
Over winter break, Sophie and I went to Jack’s parents’ house in Vermont. Kim used her miles to fly me out. On Christmas night, they made hot spiced cider, and I was pretty sure Jack’s little sisters sneaked brandy into their mugs. We ate goose near a little stone fireplace and listened to Handel. We played board games until the sisters insisted we watch them make snow angels in the dark while Sophie danced around them, sprinkling them with powder. Snow was falling in large flat flakes, the stillness of the night wonderfully incongruous with the squealing snow angels, when Jack smiled at me.
“I’m glad you came,” he said, snowflakes clinging to his dark lashes.
“Me too.” I smiled.
Sometimes my heart still constricted when I looked at him, but if I was sad, it was a good kind of sadness. Someday, I told myself, someday I would find w
hat Jack and Sophie had. Maybe I just wasn’t ready to find it yet.
I was at peace standing there, snowflakes kissing my cheeks, and I watched as one drunken snow angel pounced on the other, combing snow through her hair and laughing until her sister suddenly lurched up and over and puked prostrate in the snow. Sophie ran shrieking to us and threw her arms around me.
“Oh my God. Gross!” she wailed.
We all headed up to bed after that. Jack wished us good night and deposited us in our snug guest bedroom with its arched ceilings and sconces fashioned to look like candles. As we changed for bed and climbed under our covers, Sophie was uncharacteristically quiet.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
She smiled. “Things are good. It’s just … I’ve been worried about you.”
“About me? Why?” I rolled over to face her.
“I don’t know. You’ve had a tough year. I just wish you still went to school with us. I wish we could still hang out. I just don’t like you being all alone.”
“I’m not alone,” I said. “I’ve got Danny and Kim. I’ve got Sancho Panza. And soon we’ll be in college. Maybe we’ll even get into some of the same schools, and then we can hang out for four more years.”
She smiled. “And maybe we can have an uneventful friendship where nobody commits any crimes, and we can just hang out and eat pizza.”
“I’d like that,” I said.
She smiled at me. “I think you’re gonna be all right, Calista Wood.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I think so too.”
That night I had a dream. In it Clare and Laurel lived in a glade in a stone cottage with a white witch who taught them how to bake pies and never made them go to school. I visited them, and Clare held my hand and told me she missed me. On my way back home, I saw Iris. I wasn’t sure it was her at first, but when I took a closer look, there was no one else it could have been. She stood there at the base of the woods, a puzzle box in one hand, a chalice in the other. She pointed to the trees that surrounded her, and slowly they transformed into a thick velvet curtain of bark and leaves. She pulled it back and stepped inside, holding the box out to me like a lure. I walked toward her, reaching for it. It was a new puzzle box, one she’d made just for us, and inside was everything we’d ever wanted to know. She smiled at me with the mien of an enchantress. She had scarcely opened the box, and I had witnessed but the first glimmer, the first inkling, of the gnosis held therein, when I stopped myself, not wanting to see—not wanting to step over that threshold. The heavy curtain fell, and I turned to go.
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