CHAPTER THREE

Lauren won’t come down to eat once the takeout arrives—she insists she’s not hungry—and Andrew takes his food into his room so he can finish his scholarship essay.

I’m not too hungry either, but I don’t like to waste food. I plow through my pile of lo mein and tell Ashley I’m going to do homework.

“It’s Saturday,” she says, as if she’s embarrassed her children are such dorks.

“It won’t take long,” I say. “We can watch a movie when I’m done.”

I shove my leftovers in the fridge and duck into my room, where my cell phone is charging on my nightstand. My screen is still empty.

I sit cross-legged on my bed and inhale. It’s still early; Bailey and Jade won’t be leaving for the party until ten, at least. I suppress the itch in my fingers urging me to text Bailey and tell her about what happened with Lauren.

Get her off me.

Bailey is fascinated with Josephine Leeds and the barn. I close my eyes and think about all the stories Bailey told me about the massacre. How there are people in town who are convinced Josephine Leeds escaped alive and lived out her days in the woods, a reclusive madwoman because of her grief.

According to Bailey, some people even claim that Josephine killed her children, staged her husband’s suicide, and set the fire herself before escaping. But the Leedses’ closest neighbor—a man who lived three miles from Sparrow Hill—came forward and said a barefoot woman in a white nightgown banged on his door the night of the fire. She was hysterical and covered in blood; the man was so frightened of her that he wouldn’t let her inside the house. The neighbor called the constable twice but couldn’t reach him; by the time he returned to his porch, she was gone.

These are all stories Lauren has heard, no doubt—she grew up here, after all.

When I close my eyes, I see Bailey holding the pendulum. I hear the roof caving in. I imagine the events from my little sister’s perspective and a shiver runs down my spine.

As I finally drift off, it’s to the sound of the wind howling, and I can’t tell if it’s coming from outside or from inside my head.

Sunlight streams through my window, prying my eyelids open. It’s morning.

I fucking fell asleep. I missed Kevin Sullivan’s party—I must have slept through Bailey texting me that they were on their way to pick me up.

They’re going to kill me.

Outside, a powdery snow is falling. I check my phone—it’s a reflex by now. I never had anyone to answer to, before I met Bailey and Jade.

My stomach turns inside out. My screen is empty.

But the party.

Part of my brain shouts, Maybe they didn’t go. I click open Instagram and scroll through pictures of the party in my feed. I don’t follow a ton of people from Broken Falls, which only makes it more obvious that everyone who isn’t me was at Sully’s party last night.

I stop at JadeInTheShade. Jade and Bailey are standing cheek to cheek over the beer pong table. Jade’s the one snapping the picture; Bailey’s eyes are off on something in the distance. Full-mouth smiles. Thirteen likes.

I’ve always been able to sense trouble coming on—almost like a headache. There’s a pulsing in the vein above my brow bone. They ditched me.

The house is silent, making the hollowness in my gut grow as I get up. Sunday is my day off.

I pad into the kitchen. There’s a note on the island from Ashley.

Dearest children: Please do NOT go out today. This storm is supposed to be a nasty one. Love you!

I head upstairs, check to make sure Lauren’s okay, and find her sleeping peacefully. No vivid nightmares of the Red Woman are making her scream this morning.

Guilt needles me. I decide I’ll bribe her out of bed with pancakes.

I didn’t know how to cook when I first moved here. Didn’t understand that food was its own form of affection, that a casserole or a pie was meant to have the same effect as a hug.

I drag Ashley’s cherry-red stand mixer out from the cabinet below the kitchen island and get to work.

While the cakes are bubbling in the pan—I added two drops of red food coloring to the batter, since Valentine’s Day is in two weeks—footsteps creak above the kitchen. The upstairs toilet flushes. Either Lauren or my dad is awake.

My heart taps out a steady rhythm against my ribs. This is the first time I’ve had Lauren alone since yesterday, when I asked her what had happened in the barn and she got upset with me. Now her eyes flick up to me as she shuffles into the kitchen, but she doesn’t say anything.

“Hey, Monkey.”

Lauren plops herself onto the stool closest to the living room—always the same stool, I learned quickly my first week here—and pulls the fleece sleeves of her pajamas up over her hands. “What are those?”

“Pancakes.” I flip one of the hearts, realizing with disappointment that it looks more like a lumpy ass. “How many do you want?”

“None.” Lauren props her chin on her hands. Her gaze darts around the kitchen, avoiding me, and rests on the window over the sink. Outside, Andrew’s dark figure is still hunched over the snow shovel.

I root around in the overhead cabinet for a plate, the edges of my pancakes browning. What really happened in the barn, Lauren? Did you and Bailey see something? Such simple questions.

The words are on the tip of my tongue as I set the plate on the kitchen island.

“You made them pink,” Lauren says, just noticing.

I pause, one hand on the back of a stool. “Mm-hm.”

Lauren squirms in her seat. Tugs at her sleeves. “Do you think we could make pink puppy chow?”

“Yeah. We could tint the cake mix, I think.” I allow myself a small smile.

I cut the stack of pancakes in half and pass half on a plate to Lauren. She shakes her head. “I’m not really hungry.”

I pick at the pancakes as I remind Lauren where all the puppy chow ingredients are. I set my plate aside; I’m not really hungry anymore, either. Lauren is quiet as we measure out the confectioner’s sugar and cake mix, but there are shades of her usual self peeking through; when Andrew comes downstairs, hair stuck flat to his head, and collapses onto an empty stool at the island, she swats him for snatching a handful of our M&Ms.

“You’re so rude,” she says, and I feel myself thaw a bit. Lauren is okay. We’re okay. It doesn’t matter if my friends hate me; I have everything I need right here in this kitchen.

And still, a dark voice comes into the back of my head and tells me to enjoy it while it lasts.

An inch of snow and a couple games of Mario Kart later, my phone rings. It’s Jade. My heart goes into my throat, because Jade never calls me. There’s never anything so important she needs to tell me that Bailey can’t get to me first.

“You guys play.” I get up from the couch and leave Lauren and Andrew to battle out who gets to be Toad this round. I hit accept call, and Jade’s raspy voice fills the earpiece.

“Is Bay with you?” she asks.

“No. Why would she be here?”

“Kace,” she says. “Something’s wrong.”