by Alex Flinn
When we pull in to the Guzmans’ driveway, Stacey has just pulled in too. She must be coming back from the kids’ school. She’s taking Jeron out of his car seat.
This situation is so . . . awkward. I don’t know this woman, but I’m moving in with her.
But as soon as Stacey sees me, she turns around. “Welcome to our home.”
“Oh, thank you.” I want to hug her, but her hands are full, so full without me, fuller now. “You have no idea—”
“It’s fine, sweetie. You’re safe here. Come on inside.”
I turn to say good-bye to Kendra, but she and the car are both gone. How does she do that? And will I ever even see her again?
I follow Stacey inside. I offer to take Jeron, but she says she’s got him. She hands me her keys. “Lock the door behind us,” she says.
I notice the door has three locks, the regular one and two dead bolts. She sees me looking at them. “I’ve fostered kids who were removed from their parents’ custody. Drug dealers, really bad people. It seemed like a good idea to have some extra barriers.”
I nod. I know that, if Violet finds me, no door will keep her away. And yet, here with Stacey, I do feel safe, safer than I’ve ever felt since I was little.
I lock all three locks. Each makes a satisfying clunk.
With Jeron on her hip, Stacey takes me on a tour of the house. “Your room’s in the back, where it’s quieter. You have to share with Izzie, I’m afraid.”
“That’s okay. She’s sweet. I’ve always wanted a sister.” The room has bunk beds. The bottom is made up with Little Mermaid sheets. The top is more sedate, but still pink, waiting for me. The walls are Pepto-Bismol pink with giant snails and starfish painted all over them. Stacey must have painted these, and I love it all.
“See if you think so in a week. We had to clean for a couple of hours to get it presentable for you. But Isabella helped. She’s excited about having a big sister.”
I smile, feeling good for the first time in a week. “I’ll help her clean up. I’ll help with all the housework.”
Stacey doesn’t protest or say I’m a guest. She just thanks me. I’m glad. I have no intention of sitting on my butt all day, sponging off them. It strikes me that I never saw Violet clean the house. She must have used magic. Still, I’m guessing I can figure it out.
Stacey shows me around the rest of the house. It’s big and pretty and most of the walls are bright yellow, cheerful enough to maybe let me forget that, even though I’m with these great people, I’m a prisoner here. There’s a piano in the living room, and I ask Stacey who plays.
“I used to, when I had more time. Now, the boys do.”
“Goose plays the piano?”
She laughs. “Can’t picture him sitting still that long, huh? I made him learn when he was younger. He complained so much, said the teacher was mean, but now, he plays great. I’ll make him play for you.”
I say, “I’m so grateful to you.”
“Stop being grateful. This family, we help kids who need it. You need it. Besides, my spoiled son can talk me into anything.”
“He’s a talker.” I grin.
“He wanted to stay home today.” She steers into the kitchen and puts Jeron in his swing. She starts taking out stuff for a bottle.
“Can you show me how to make that? I want to help.”
She hands me a canister of powdered formula and the bottle. She shows me how much water to add. “I only got him to go today by saying it might be suspicious if he missed too much. He’s a little lazy.”
“He gets good grades, though. I saw him at the honor roll assembly.”
“Because I stand on his neck.” She laughs. “Not literally. He doesn’t like homework, though.”
“I can help you with that too. I’m good at homework.”
“Don’t worry so much, Celine.”
But I do. Still, I nod and offer to give Jeron a bottle.
After that, Stacey puts him down for his nap. “I have to get some work done now.”
“What do you do?”
“I illustrate kids’ books. I can show you my studio later. We built out the garage. But right now—”
“I know. You’ve got to work while you can.”
“Make yourself at home. You must be exhausted from all the stress.”
I don’t think I am, but she probably needs to work, so I go to my—our—room and climb the ladder to the top bunk. I survey the room. The sea creatures watch me. I guess Stacey painted them. It’s something my mom would have liked. When I was little, my room had a border of cows jumping over moons. I kept it long after I was too old, but eventually, Violet redecorated. From above, I can see that Isabella didn’t do that thorough a job of cleaning. Clothes and papers are stuffed behind the dresser and desk. I’ll offer to help her, or maybe just clean up myself.
But first, I want to shut my eyes.
I crawl under the crisp, pink sheets that smell of laundry detergent and bury my head in the pillows. I wish I could have brought my own pillow from home—I’ve had it for years, and it’s smooshed just the right way—but it was too big. Also, my music, which was on the phone. I have the CD I made of Jonah, but no CD player. I’ll have to ask Goose if he has one. Still, the bed is comfortable, and I close my eyes.
In the dream, I am little. Or, at least, everyone else is bigger. I’m someplace cooler than Florida, and it is fall, apple-picking time. I’m at an orchard with Dad. Then, I realize my mother is there too. She’s so young and beautiful, her blond hair flying behind her. We are so happy, running, stumbling, falling through the piled red and gold leaves to trees heavy with fruit. Mom holds my hand as my father hoists me onto his shoulders. I reach for the sky, grasping a crimson apple instead. I start to bite into it.
It falls apart in my hand.
Something is crawling out of it. Insects. Maggots. And then, they are all over me, down my hand, up my arm, devouring me, my mother, my father.
“No!”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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16
“Hey!”
Someone is shaking the bed, making the world vibrate.
I wake, staring at my hand. It is still there, still the same. Gradually, objects take focus behind it. I stare into the eyes of a blue stingray, then a red crab. Where am I?
I look down to where the shaking came from. Goose is there, by my bed.
“Are you okay? I wasn’t going to come in, but you were . . . you seemed . . .”
“It was just a dream, just a nightmare.” I smile. “I’m glad you’re here.”
He looks up. “Heights. My favorite.”
“I’ll come down.” I gesture for him to move over, then throw my legs over the side of the bed and slide down.
“How was your first day?” he asks.
You mean, other than the fact that my parents are dead and I’m living with strangers because a crazy witch is stalking me?
“Great,” I say.
“I doubt that.”
“I miss my house, and my school, and everyone—and especially, my dad. But I’m glad you’re here now. It’s a lot less lonely.” I reach for his hand. “You’re so sweet.”
He grins. “When my brothers and sister get home, you’re going to wish for lonely.”
“I doubt that. I’ve never had siblings. Laurel has a brother, though, and he messes with her, but they’re always there for each other. I always sort of wanted a big brother.”
He looks down. “I guess I can be your brother, then.”
“I didn’t know you played piano.”
“One of the many things I’m awesome at. Want to hear me?”
I remember my promise to Stacey. “Don’t you have homework?”
“What are you, in cahoots with my mother?”
“Maybe a little. Your mom is awesome.”
“That’s because you don’t know her.”
“I know she let me come live here. She’s the best.” I put my hand on his arm. “Come on. I can sit with you while you do it. I was taking chem this year too. I could do it with you. That way, when I retake it, I’ll be all set.”
I stop. Will I ever take chem again? Will I ever get to walk down the street again? Or will I be hiding forever? Goose is right. I barely know his family. I don’t even know him that well. Did Kendra put some kind of spell on them to make them have me? Or did she just know they were the kind of people who would?
Goose says, “Okay, deal. But first, let’s make smoothies. Our neighbor, Mrs. Ozanich, has a bunch of mango trees. She gives us tons of mangoes every year, and my mom freezes them. We still have frozen mangoes left from last year, and it’s almost time for the new ones to ripen. So Mom says we have to make smoothies every day.”
“I’ve never had a mango,” I say.
“Wow, how can you live here and not have mangoes?”
We go to the kitchen and take out the frozen mangoes, yogurt, and juice for smoothies. We make enough for Goose’s siblings too. “To keep them quiet,” he says. Then, we start on chemistry. Mrs. McKinneyis one of those teachers for whom copying from the book is a sort of religion. She’s assigned them to copy fifty-plus definitions. I offer to read them aloud while Goose writes them.
“I’d rather do it the other way around, I read and you do the copying,” he says, “but I guess they’d notice if I suddenly developed pretty, girly handwriting.”
“How do you know my handwriting is girly?”
“Hmm, one, you’re a girl, and two, I saw how you wrote C.C. loves J.P. which, three, is a girly thing to do.”
“Oh, it is?” Of course I know it is.
“Yup. A guy wouldn’t write that on a notebook even about his actual girlfriend.”
“So guys don’t express their emotions. Got it.” I gesture for him to get out some paper.
“I didn’t say that. Guys express their emotions by doing things.”
“Like what?” I say,
“I don’t know, taking care of a girl, fighting off bears, slaying dragons, repairing plumbing, going to work sixty hours a week to feed their families, like my dad does.”
I think, again, of my dad, about how mean I was the last time we spoke. He thought Violet and I loved each other when he married her. I did love Violet then. How did it all go so horribly wrong?
Goose waves his hand in front of my eyes. “You there?”
I snap to. “Women do things for people they love too.”
“Like what? Bake cookies?”
“I guess. Yeah, we make things nice, and cookies might be involved. What’s wrong with cookies?” There was a sign up at Offerdahl’s, the sandwich place near my house that said, Cookies are love.
He laughs. “Nothing. I love cookies. What else?”
I make a mental note to make cookies for his family, maybe tomorrow. I’ll ask Stacey if she has chocolate chips. Otherwise, there should at least be stuff for sugar cookies. “I don’t know. I’ve never been in love—other than with rock stars who don’t know I exist. Have you?”
He thinks about it a second before shaking his head. “No, not really.” He gets paper from his backpack. “We should do this. I want to dazzle you with my musical ability before I get stuck helping my brothers with their homework. What’s the first one?”
“Acid-base titration. That’s t-i-t . . .”
“Ha! Made you spell a bad word.”
“Idiot. R-a-t-i-o-n.” I wait for him to finish writing. “It means a procedure that is used to determine the concentration of an acid or base.”
“Got it.”
The definitions take over an hour, and then, he has pre-calc, which I can’t help him with except by keeping his siblings away from him. Isabella has developed a little girl-crush on me, so I get her to help me clean up behind the dresser while Stacey helps the younger boys with homework. Then, Isabella and I set the table.
It’s after dinner before we go to the piano, but Goose actually does dazzle me, playing the Moonlight Sonata from memory. Then, he takes out a book of vocal selections from Oliver! and makes me sing along.
“You’re incredible,” I say.
“I wouldn’t say incredible. You mean because of my size?”
“No. I didn’t say that. I would never—”
“No, you didn’t. I’m sorry. People tend to underestimate me. When my mom first took me for lessons, the guy didn’t want to teach me, said I wouldn’t be able to play because my fingers would be too short or something. I believed him, but my mom found a different teacher, and she told me about this French dude, Michel Petrucciani. He had a genetic disease that not only made him small, but also made his arms ache when he played. He died young. But he became a really famous jazz pianist. They said he was a dwarf but played like a giant. So, after that, I knew anyone could play.”
“I’d like to hear him sometime. But I just meant you play really well for anyone. I wish I’d learned. I was begging my parents for lessons when . . .”
I don’t want to say it. It feels like I’ve been thinking about Mom a lot, like I’m always complaining.
“You didn’t because your mom died?” he finishes.
“I love singing, though.”
“I could teach you to play,” he says. “You could practice during the day, as long as you don’t wake Jeron. My mom will kill you if you wake Jeron.”
“Really? You’d teach me?”
“Sure, why not? I think they sell beginner books for older students in the school bookstore. But we have my brother’s books for now. It’s a little babyish.” He pulls one out from behind his book. There are cartoons of birds sitting on a musical staff. “Okay, it’s a lot babyish, but it shows all the notes. You start with middle C.” He gestures for me to sit down. I do, next to him, hip to hip. He picks up my hand and places it so the thumb is on a white key that’s next to another white one. “Each finger has a number. The thumb is one, forefinger is two, and so one. That’s how you know which finger to use, so you don’t tie yourself in knots. CDEFG.”
He guides my hand, playing each one. My blue nail polish is chipped. I’ll have to ask Stacey for nail polish remover.
“What’s that?” Goose points to a burn scar on my finger, the one from the curling iron.
“Oh, it’s weird. It’s a burn. Violet could make appliances . . . turn on me. I know it sounds crazy.”
“Nah.” He strokes it with his finger. “Poor little finger.”
“It didn’t hurt that much.”
“Mom wants you to take out the garbage.” Tony comes up behind us. “And I’m supposed to practice.”
“You could go a week without practicing. You only want to practice now because I am.”
Tony grins. “Recital’s coming up.”
I stand. “I’ll help you with the garbage.”
“No. You can’t go outside,” Goose says. “It’s not safe.”
“I just feel like I should help more. Your family is helping me so much—”
“You helped me do a ton of chem busywork. It would’ve taken twice as long without you. I hate that crap. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“You’re not going to watch me play, are you?” Tony says.
“Only if you want me to,” I tease.
“I don’t.”
So I go into the family room and watch a reality singing show with Stacey and Isabella. A few minutes later, Goose comes back in. He stands in the doorway, motioning for me to come over.
“Goose wants to talk to his girlfriend.” Isabella giggles.
“Shh,” Stacey says.
I head over to him. “What?”
He pulls me away. I can hear Tony practicing an unrecognizable song for the tenth time.
“There was someone out there, watching me,” he whispers. “Don’t go near the windows.”
“Someone? Like who?” I’m whispering too, so Stacey won’t hear. Or someone outside.
“I don’t know. I heard rustling. I saw . . . a shape. Our neighbor, she’s outside gardening a lot, but not at night.”
He’s worried. So am I. If Violet’s watching Goose, she’s as good as found me. How would she, so quickly?
“I’ll check,” Goose whispers. “I just want you to stay away from the windows, okay?”
The doorbell rings. We both jump.
“I’ll get it!” Tony starts to get up.
“No! You keep practicing. You have a recital coming up—and it’s not sounding real good at this point.” Goose walks to the door. “And remember, no one’s supposed to know about Celine being here.”
“I know, I know,” Tony says. “It’s your dear little sister that’s going to be the weak link there.”
Goose waves him off. At the door, he says, “Who is it?”
“It’s me,” says Kendra’s voice.
Goose starts to open the door.
“Wait. How do we know it’s Kendra?” I ask.
“Only Kendra would know you know Kendra,” she says from outside.
Good point. Still, Goose opens the door warily.
A woman who looks nothing like Kendra stands there, a blond housewife in yoga pants. She steps inside. “Close the door.”
I do, and as I do, she melts into Kendra again, dark hair, purple-streaked, wearing a veiled black hat and high-heeled boots that make her look from the Victorian era.
“It’s done.” She looks at me. “You’re dead.”
I draw in a breath. “You mean—”
“I mean Violet believes you’re dead. I brought her the proof she sought.”
“What proof?”
She opens her hand. I step back. In her palm is an object, a finger. My ring finger, wearing a turquoise ring my dad brought back from a trip to Arizona. The blue nail polish is chipped, and on the knuckle is a burn scar. I look at the finger that is still on my hand. They’re identical, other than the blood.