Fiona Read online

  Thankfully, my legs start working again, and I dart behind the dressing room curtain. I draw it back a bit and watch Blair approaching Mrs. Drummond.

  What is she doing?

  Poppy follows her over, and when Mrs. Drummond turns around, she utters an exclamation of surprise. “Well, what a treat!” she says, a smile flung across her face. “Ms. Rifely,” she says, nodding at Blair.

  How does Blair know Mrs. Drummond? Does she know my grandparents, too?

  I feel sick. Of course Blair knows the grandparents I’ve never met. She probably went to introduce herself as Charlie’s girlfriend or something, and they probably loved her. Just like they loved Lily.

  I let the curtain fall back and sink to my knees, nauseated.

  I listen as Mrs. Drummond and Blair talk about the cold weather and the shortening autumn days. “And how are Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish?” Blair asks.

  “Well enough. They had a touch of the flu that’s been going around, but they seem to be on the mend.”

  “Oh no,” Blair says, sounding concerned. “I’ll have Mrs. Mackenzie send over some of her famous chicken soup.”

  Suddenly, Poppy’s at my curtain. “Fee?” she calls. “Are you ready to go?”

  “Almost,” I say as loudly as I dare. “I just need to change. I’ll be right out.”

  The conversation has died off, thank goodness, and I don’t hear Mrs. Drummond’s voice anywhere else in the store. By the time I change into my regular clothes and peek out of the dressing room curtain, she’s gone, and I can breathe again.

  Blair taps her foot impatiently but feigns brightness as she asks, “Ready?”

  I nod. This girl knows my grandparents. She worries about their health and makes pleasantries with their housekeeper. I’m hit by a wave of hatred so strong that it makes my knees shake.

  It’s not rational, I tell myself. She hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s dismissive and fake, maybe. That’s it.

  But I don’t care. I hate her.

  • • •

  We spend the rest of the day flitting from village to village, hitting every boutique we spot, and I learn to ignore the price tags on everything Poppy shoves into my arms. Soon enough the car is piled with our shopping bags, and it’s time to go home.

  That evening, just before dinner, I spot Alice pulling her cart out of Charlie’s room just as I step out of Poppy’s. “Alice, hi!” I call.

  She glances up at me in surprise, and then her whole face clouds over. She looks shadowy and menacing, like the chilling approach of a thunderstorm. “What is it?” I ask, stepping toward her, the smile falling off my face.

  She takes out her cell phone and hands it to me. I look down at the screen to see a picture of me. With Gareth.

  My arms are around his neck, and we’re pressed against the wall of his cabin, our mouths locked together. It’s unbearably intimate, and I almost want to look away, as if I’ve just interrupted a pair of strangers.

  “Where did you get this?” I ask.

  “Someone emailed it to me. Anonymously. Said they didn’t want to get involved, but they thought I should know.”

  I can feel the blood draining from my face. “Alice,” I say quickly, looking up at her, but she snatches the phone back and shakes her head.

  “It’s fine. Be with him if you want to.”

  “I don’t want to be with him,” I say, my voice too loud and high.

  She looks at me, her mouth open in disgust. “Then what the hell are you doing?”

  I open my mouth to explain, but I can’t. I don’t even know how to explain it to myself.

  She bites her lip and shakes her head again as she watches me. “He’s a good guy,” she says finally. “I mean, he seems easygoing and funny and all that, but he’s had a really hard life, and he cares more than he lets on. He deserves a lot better than that.”

  “I know,” I say, dropping my head.

  “Look,” she says with a sigh, and I look up hopefully. “We have to live in the same house, so I’m not going to keep being mean to you. But from now on, we’re not friends. I don’t trust you. Don’t talk to me unless you have to, and I’ll do the same.”

  “Alice,” I say, but she’s already gone down the hall.

  Someone was outside the window of Gareth’s cottage that night, watching us. And I think I know who it must have been.

  But why would Blair give a picture like that to Alice unless she specifically wanted to ruin our friendship?

  Despite my lack of sleep, I feel wired, every nerve ending in my body sparking. I wrap my new overlarge teal cardigan closer around me, shivering. What’s her endgame?

  I hurry down the stairs toward the library but stop when I see light shining from the cracked door of the office next door. I peek in to find Charlie sitting behind the desk. No sign of Blair.

  I should keep walking. I shouldn’t disturb him—or have anything to do with him. But I’m mad, and talking to Charlie is the one surefire way to show Blair any type of defiance. And if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t think it would be physically possible for me to walk past this room and the opportunity to talk to him alone.

  I take a breath, determined to appear and feel normal, and push the door open.

  It’s only when I’m inside that I notice how his head is propped up by his hands, and there’s a large crystal bottle of golden whisky on the desk in front of him.

  “Oh, sorry,” I say, immediately beginning to back out.

  He snaps his head up. “No, please, come in,” he insists. “Close the door.”

  Something in his tone gives me pause, but I do as he says. “Join me,” he says, pouring a bit of whisky from the decanter into a fresh crystal tumbler, then holding it out to me. “Unless you think I’m being horribly inappropriate again.”

  He probably is. I should have followed my first instinct and walked away. But I’ve just lost the one real friend I had here, after spending the day with a girl who seems to hate me and is carrying the baby of the guy I can’t stop thinking about. And that guy is here in front of me offering me the chance to forget all of that for a few moments. So I quiet my thoughts, move in closer, and take the tumbler.

  “What has you drinking this time?” I ask, settling down on the couch across from him, tucking my legs underneath me.

  He watches me as I take a small sip of the powerful drink. It burns in my throat, and I try not to wince. “I shouldn’t be talking about this with you,” he says softly. “Since I’m your employer and all that.”

  I shrug and take a larger sip. Having his eyes on me makes my stomach twist. “You need someone to talk to.”

  I wonder for a moment if he’ll insist that I play another piece on the piano before he reveals this new secret, but there’s no teasing in his voice tonight.

  He sighs. “I should be talking to Blair.”

  “Why aren’t you?” I whisper. I’m afraid of startling him, as if speaking too loudly will remind him that he shouldn’t be telling me so much. “Why are you here, alone, drinking?”

  “Because she’s why I’m drinking.”

  I circle my hands around the tumbler. I can think of plenty of reasons why Blair would drive him to drink, but I know there’s probably only one thing he’s truly worried about. “You know, you’re a father already in all the ways that count,” I say softly. “You’ll be a wonderful father for that baby.”

  He groans and buries his head in his hands. “I feel like I’m acting. Like I’m just pretending to be a good father figure for Poppy when really I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m terrified I’m going to mess everything up and everyone’s going to see right through me—”

  “Hey,” I interrupt. “You’re doing a great job, even if it feels like pretending to you.”

  He doesn’t lift his head. “I thought things between Blair and me were over. I
hurt her so much when we were together—that’s why I broke it off with her. I told her I didn’t want to be that guy anymore and that being alone was the only way to start fresh.”

  “You don’t seem like that guy to me.”

  “Yeah, well, you didn’t know me then.”

  I nod, knowing I probably wouldn’t have liked the Charlie he was then. “No, but I know you now,” I say. I don’t know if it’s the whisky coming on sudden and strong or just that it’s been such a long, hellish day, but the words keep pouring out. “And just like you said, you’ve changed. You’re not a boy anymore. You’re a man. And you’re the type of man who would never hurt someone he cared about.”

  He looks up at me with a tortured expression, but then drops his eyes back down to his glass before I can react. “Thank you,” he says quietly.

  I take another deep swallow, and it burns less now as it goes down.

  I hate that he doubts himself so much. I hate that he can’t see how much he’s changed, how good he is to Poppy, how much he cares. Does no one tell him that? Does Blair not tell him that?

  “I told you a secret,” he says, his voice lower. Deeper. “Now you owe me a song.”

  Just when I thought we were done with games. “No piano in here,” I point out.

  “Then you’ll have to tell me a secret of your own.”

  My eyes widen in shock and nervousness, and he laughs. “It’s only fair,” he says.

  A secret. Which secret could I tell him? This predicament definitely makes it seem easier to play the piano instead, to open up to him that way, rather than to say something out loud.

  I consider telling him something small and unimportant, like the name of my favorite song (the “Skye Boat Song” that Mom used to sing to me whenever she felt haunted by the memories of her homeland) or my earliest memory (climbing the stairs up to the Austin apartment with my mom, her voice bright and encouraging as I eased myself up the tall steps).

  But I don’t. I find that I actually want to tell him something real. I just don’t know what.

  “What do you want to know?” I ask finally.

  He thinks for a second. “What do you want from the future?”

  His question is deceptively simple, but for me it’s a minefield. Because what I want most from the future is something I can’t reveal: that I don’t want to end up like my mother. I don’t want her disease, her sadness, her fragile, breaking mind.

  So I give him the less dangerous answer.

  “I want a family,” I say. “I want people around me who are part of my blood and part of my heart. I want to be part of a unit that looks toward the future together.” I pause, wondering if what I’m saying is making any sense to Charlie, who grew up with all of these things as givens. But when I look at him, I see a mix of sorrow and admiration in his eyes that lets me know he understands. And I think I see something more in his gaze, too. Something so wonderful I’m afraid to hope for it. “I just don’t want to be so alone anymore,” I say anyway, looking right into the wonder in those eyes.

  “Fiona,” he says. I blink, trying to stave off the tears I feel coming.

  Everything before me is swimming in a blur, and I realize my tumbler is nearly empty. Charlie notices it, too, and he grabs the decanter and stands up. He walks to me, and I don’t break my gaze from his. He stands over me for a long moment, the intensity in his eyes reflecting onto mine, then pours a bit more whisky into my glass. “You’re too easy to talk to,” he says. He kneels in front of me, and the change in perspective makes me see stars at the edge of my vision. Somehow, I’ve forgotten to breathe. “It must be your eyes,” he says. “They invite all sorts of secrets.”

  He brings his hand up to my face, and the stars at my periphery burn brighter. I need to breathe, I scream to myself and take one shaky breath, in and out. His hand cradles my chin, his thumb brushing my cheek. He catches a tear in its tracks.

  “You’re crying,” he says. “Why?”

  I couldn’t answer him even if I wanted to. All I can do is stare as he brushes his thumb over my mouth, pressing gently on my lower lip. When I part my lips, I hear him take a harsh breath in.

  Suddenly he stands and walks back to his chair, as if that moment—that wonderful and dizzying moment—never happened. But I can still taste the salt of my tear on my lips.

  My head is spinning as I look down at my glass. I finish the rest of my drink in one gulp and stand, swaying only slightly. “I should let you get back to work,” I say.

  “Fiona?” he says. He stands up, but before I can find out why, I skirt around the couch and practically hurl myself out of the room.

  I go upstairs and curl up in bed, trying to clear my head of anything at all, hoping to fall into a dreamless sleep, uninterrupted by any strange noises or whispers.

  It doesn’t work. I sleep in fits and bursts, stirred awake every few minutes by every creak and crack of the floorboards and walls. By every loud, garbled whisper, words I can’t make out.

  But despite all of that, the loudest sound I hear is the echo of my own voice telling Charlie that I don’t want to be alone anymore. And all I can feel is the echo of his thumb pressing against my lip.

  CHAPTER 16

  Over the next few weeks, Alice proves that she’s a girl of her word. When we pass each other in the hallways, she smiles and says hello to Poppy, but she hardly even looks at me. It’s like I’m a ghost. Like I don’t even exist to her.

  The house feels a lot colder now.

  Poppy and I spend a lot of time in her room, gearing up for midterms. She’s in good shape for every subject except math, so we do equations for hours until we both want to curse whoever came up with algebra. I try to stay positive and enthusiastic about her progress, but I’m pretty sure she can see right through me.

  One afternoon, Poppy’s tackling yet another worksheet when I wander over to the window and see Blair, flung across the stones of the courtyard below, as if thrown. I have to press my palms against the window and get super close against the glass before I realize that she hasn’t fallen to her death but is just lying there, relaxing. Even though there’s no sun on this early November day, with its overcast skies and temperature that has crossed over from chilly to definitively cold.

  The image of her lying there, her limbs at such violent angles, sends a shiver through me so strong that it feels like my blood has frozen under my skin. I blink a few times, as if she’s a delusion that I might make disappear.

  But no, she’s there. She’s real, and I’m just tired. Between the disembodied whispers and the persistence of my own black thoughts, I haven’t had a real night’s sleep in ages. The circles under my eyes are growing darker every day, and I have to drink cup after cup of coffee just to stay awake. This constant cycle of being both caffeine-wired and exhausted is taking its toll.

  But who is this girl who lies outside on cloudy days and knows my grandparents? What does she do all day? She has to be doing something when Charlie’s working; her weekly doctor appointments certainly don’t take up all her time.

  “Done!” Poppy calls.

  I tear myself away from the window and the unsettling sight below and try to focus back on Poppy.

  But it’s no use. I pore over Poppy’s careful work, but I can hardly make anything out.

  A harsh copper taste, like I’m sucking on a penny, floods my mouth, and I feel like running fast and far away. Adrenaline. I remember reading about it in a psych book that I snuck out of the public library back home, too embarrassed to check it out. A hormone that courses through you when you when your fight-or-flight response has been triggered.

  For a moment, I think about running. Quitting and going back to Texas. I could get back my old job at the Buffalo Head Café and work with Hex. I would be back among the familiar, living in some tiny, horned-toad-infested apartment with my friend, broke and directionless but relativ
ely happy.

  I linger in the fantasy for only a few seconds, but then forget it. I can’t let Blair win. I can’t let her drive me away. And then there are all the questions I have about my mother’s past, about my grandparents. I can’t leave before I find out what happened to my family and why they don’t want anything to do with me.

  So if I’m not fleeing, I might as well fight. Now I just have to plan how.

  • • •

  The next morning, while Poppy’s at school, I decide I’m going to figure out what Blair does all day.

  I find her in a first-floor sitting room that I’ve barely spent any time in. It’s a grand, formal space, with ornate, centuries-old furniture, decorative baubles on every surface, and walls full of more portraits of dead kilted guys.

  Blair lounges on a cushy crimson couch, staring at her laptop. She looks up at the sound of my creaking footstep in the doorway, and I try not to cower at the sudden venom in her gaze, which she quickly replaces with a look of indifference.

  I step inside the room, determined not to retreat.

  “Good morning,” she says. There’s a hint of a question in her tone, as if what she really wants me to do is say what I’m doing there and then get the hell out.

  “Good morning,” I say as casually as possible. I clasp my hands together to hide their shaking. “I was actually hoping to run into you. I wanted to thank you for the shopping trip this weekend.”

  She brightens, putting on her fake friendliness. “Of course! I had so much fun. I love getting to know Poppy better. She’s such a special girl, you know?”

  “Yeah, she is.”

  “She’s so trusting. She believes whatever you tell her. And she clearly adores you.”

  Her words freeze me in place, and I just stand there, staring at her. What does she mean by that?

  Her calm expression and bland smile give nothing away. “Oh,” she adds, as if she’s just remembered. “I need to tell Mrs. Mackenzie to send some of her chicken soup to the Cavendishes. I promised their housekeeper I would. They’ve been sick, poor things.”