No one noticed me when I materialized from the woods. The girls and their horses had disappeared. Mr. Holmes was kneeling next to Decca, had made himself small next to his daughter; Mr. Albrecht had his hand on her forehead. The first-aid kit was open next to him, the iodine overturned and running into rivulets. Sarabeth squatted nearby, rocking back and forth on her heels.
I focused on the pattern the iodine made in the dirty-beige sand. A complicated design, improbable and random. But I hadn’t seen any blood.
I went to Sarabeth and smoothed her dark hair, removed a leaf that had gotten caught in her braid. Someone had taken Luther back to the barn. Her upper lip was covered with mucus, and she was crying, silently. I’d never comforted anyone besides Sam. And that was second nature to me; or it used to be, when we were young and so much a part of each other. Now I went to Sarabeth with Sam heavy in my mind and embraced her, and I was surprised at how eager she was to be comforted: she rested her cheek on my shoulder, and clutched my waist.
“It’ll be all right,” I murmured. I don’t think Sarabeth heard me, but maybe later the memory of the words would resonate. She would believe me. She was a child. Father had told me things would be all right, and I had believed him.
Rachel was nowhere to be seen. I would have hidden, too. She had hurt the wrong sister. Rachel was the sister who needed to be told it would be all right, that her world and her family had not collapsed. But whoever told her this would be lying. And it would not be me—I did not have the heart for it.
W
ord spread quickly through the camp about the youngest Holmes girl. There was an unfamiliar car parked behind Masters, where a girl would not notice it unless she looked. The doctor’s car, I knew. Decca was hurt, it was just a matter of how badly. She had lost consciousness; I knew this was a bad sign.
On my way back from the bathhouse—for I was filthy, covered in dirt and sand—I saw a gaggle of young girls, Molly among them, whispering dramatically. She waved at me, brightly, and when I half-heartedly waved back she galloped over to me. She was still all arms and legs, like a filly. Her cheeks were bright red from the cold, her hair tied into some sort of knot. If Mrs. Holmes had been here to see it, she’d have sent Molly back to her cabin to repair her grooming.
“Thea! They’re saying Rachel lost her mind! That she tried to kill Decca!” Her voice was practically a squeal.
I wasn’t taller than many people, but I was taller than Molly. I bent down and encircled her wrist with my hand. I could feel her bones like a bird’s beneath her skin.
“Molly,” I said, “that is nonsense. Do you understand me?”
Molly nodded, slowly, and I saw a gleam in her eye that had not been there before. I had handled this all wrong—I should have laughed off the rumor, brushed it away as if it were no more than a speck of dust.
I released Molly’s wrist. She stared at me, her eyes wide in anticipation. What would I tell her next? What could she bring back to her clutch of friends, who were all waiting just ahead? Molly wasn’t part of a group of girls that mattered, but still—gossip multiplied so quickly here, spreading through our ranks. Katherine Hayes walked by, coolly, but she was listening to every word. She’d rush back to her cabin and disseminate the information thoroughly and coldly. I glared at Katherine, who hid behind her screen of curls. She, who had so recently been the subject of the camp’s scrutiny, should have sympathy for Rachel. But now her uncle was two months dead, and talk of him and the Hayeses’ errant ways had disappeared. I saw Miss Brooks across the Square, her nose in a book. The adults at Yonahlossee were useless.
And there was always truth to the rumors, sometimes just a morsel of it, but still. Everyone must have heard Rachel screaming. And what of me, who had put the girl I loved most in harm’s way because I wanted her father to watch me? I turned back to Molly.
“It was an accident,” I said, loudly and uselessly.
The last time something terrible had happened, I had tried to explain myself, also loudly and uselessly. But I was smarter now, or at least not as foolish. I retreated to Augusta House and pretended to sleep, ignored even Sissy, whom I could feel behind me once or twice, waiting for me to turn around, to give a sign. Finally she left, all the girls did, for dinner. Life went on, it always went on, and Decca could be near death but still Yonahlossee would feed its girls three square meals a day. It had seemed so cruel, at home, that Mother still neatened my bed in the mornings, that Father still left after breakfast to call on his patients.
I could not force the image of my cousin from my mind, and I was usually so good at precisely that, at living a life at Yonahlossee that had nothing to do with Georgie, or Sam, any of them. I saw Georgie when I opened my eyes, when I closed them: not as he was when I left him, but as he had been when I’d known him best. Mother would be so disappointed in me. I realized that part of Yonahlossee’s comfort was that it was a world completely separate from home, and now the two worlds felt like they were eerily merging, and why? Because of me, Thea Atwell, a wrong girl if there ever was one.
“Thea,” Sam had said, over and over and over. “Thea, Thea, Thea.”
I sat up in bed and pressed my fingernails into my forehead. I wished I could dig through my skin and skull into my brain, remove my memories of Georgie, of that day, entirely. But what of my soul? I knew from Father that though our brains stored our memories, our souls were the reason we remembered in the first place. And there was no way to get at the soul. The pain from my fingernails, though small, distracted, brought relief.
I was still in bed when Mary Abbott brought me a roll from dinner, knelt beside my bed, and unwrapped it from an embroidered handkerchief.
“Here,” she whispered. The other girls filed in: Eva, Gates, and then Sissy, who raised her eyebrows behind Mary Abbott’s back.
“Thank you.” The roll was cold and doughy in my palm. When warm, these rolls melted in your mouth. The air ruined them.
“You’re welcome.”
Mary Abbott stayed beside me, twirled a piece of hair around her finger, avoided my eyes. There was a faint rash across her forehead, where her wool hat chafed. The sight of her, so peculiar, suddenly enraged me.
“Do you need something?”
She looked at me, unsurprised. “Aren’t you going to eat that?”
I shook my head.
“That’s fine,” Mary Abbott murmured. The other girls were preparing for bed; Eva’s creamy shoulders, her back dotted with black moles; Sissy’s fine, knotty hair, freshly brushed, a pretty gold bracelet on her wrist, which meant Boone would be coming again, two nights in a row. I felt like something awful was going to happen. I could smell it.
“Mr. Holmes came out and gave us a speech. I thought you’d want to know. Was I right?” she asked, suddenly bold, her cold, sticky hand upon mine.
I slid my hand from under hers, nodded.
“I knew you would.” She smiled, but to herself, she’d made a bet and won. “He came out for prayer. He asked us to pray for Decca and his family. And then he asked us to pray for you, Thea.” She paused. “For you and Decca.”
Sissy watched us, from her bed. But I was all Mary Abbott’s now.
“Are you glad he asked us to pray for you?”
“I’m flattered,” I said, and closed my eyes, “and tired.” Though it was not unusual to be mentioned in Mr. Holmes’s prayers, right now his request felt like a betrayal. He hated me. Why had he ever agreed to put me in charge of his children? He knew something of my life in Florida. He knew enough to know I shouldn’t be trusted. But now he hated me, he had to—since I had hurt one of his girls, what choice did he have?
“I thought you’d be glad, when I was walking over here I thought you’d be happy.” Mary Abbot leaned in, conspiratorially. Her breath was dry and hot. “Because he’s not mad.”
I made my voice as cold as ice. “Leave me alone.”
Mary Abbott backed away, but not before leaning forward, so quickly I could not shield myself. I turned, and she caught my lips with hers.
—
I
slept dreamlessly, hot and itchy, woke up dozens of times, unreasonably frightened, the tall bunk beds and the white-clad girls in them unfamiliar, terrifying. Then I calmed myself, it was a trick sometimes, remaining lucid, convincing yourself that the world had not arranged its enormity in opposition—to you, against you. I say I calmed myself but truly my mind was merciful in deciding not to unhinge itself as it had in the days before I was sent away, when I wept until my eyes were ugly pouches in my skull.
“Thea.”
I sat up, startled.
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Sissy soothed, “you’re fine.”
“I’m hot.”
“Are you feverish?” She felt my forehead with the back of her hand. “No. You were talking in your sleep.”
“What did I say?”
“Nothing, babble. Are you all right?”
I nodded. “Have you heard anything about Decca?”
She shook her head. “I prayed tonight. I haven’t prayed in so long . . .” She trailed off. “What happened? Everyone’s saying Rachel tried to kill Decca, that she lost her mind.”
“An owl,” I whispered.
“An owl?” she repeated. When I said nothing, she continued, “The doctor is here. Mr. Holmes must be worried sick.”
“Mr. Holmes is alone,” I muttered. Eva stirred above us. “I’d forgotten,” I said, lowering my voice. I brought my hand to my mouth. My fingers smelled of leather.
“Thea, I have to go. Boone’s here.”
“Don’t go,” I said, “please.”
“Oh, Thea,” she whispered, and kissed my forehead. “I have to. But I’ll be back.”
She stood. Her hair was tucked into the back of her coat, her gloves stuck out of her pocket like hands. I felt the unpleasant bite of jealousy: I wanted so badly to be Sissy, going to meet a boy who loved me.
Sissy waited for a second, and then pointed to her bed impatiently.
“Oh!” I whispered, and went to her bed, a little wounded—all of these things had happened to me today, and still a boy was more important.
After she left, I rose, put my coat on, and stepped outside. Then, nervous I might have woken Mary Abbott, peered back into the cabin through the window. Mary Abbott slept almost peacefully. Eva’s arm and head were flung over the side of the bed, hanging inertly. I couldn’t see Gates, but I knew she slept in a tight ball, like she always did.
None of my sleeping cabinmates needed to concern themselves with the danger outside—as far as I knew, there had never been so much as a Peeping Tom at Yonahlossee. Danger presented itself, every girl knew, from within the family—your father’s mistress; mother’s thorny relationship with her mother-in-law, your grandmother; the first cousin who had tried to kill himself. But we were no one, nothing, without our families.
If anything happened to Decca, the youngest, the best and favorite of the family, Rachel would have ruined her own life as well as her sister’s.
With a brief and distant shock I noticed a light beyond the Square where Masters was, not a part of the Square but not completely away, either; within eyesight, in case something happened, in case a girl needed something.
My boots stuck in the mud as I walked, their soles made a quick, sucking sound each time I lifted a foot; the noise was disgusting, and that was all I could hear, the night was so quiet, so utterly dead: Florida nights were never like this. There was always a chirping, a scuttling, a howl.
It was cold, the air was still, the sky was dark, but it’s necessary to understand how dark. The stars were barely there, the twin gas lamps that bordered the Castle burned steadily, always, even during daylight, but they meant almost nothing in the face of so much black. So the small light, illuminating a Holmeses’ window—it felt to me like it
meant
something: the light surged, ignited the reptilian part of my brain, and I wanted to move toward it, I wanted to be inside that house, that home, so badly I could feel the desire rise in my throat.
I began to run, clumsily, through the mud, stopping twenty feet from Masters. I confronted it. I was frantic, I knew that I could not trust myself but I also knew that I needed to speak to him.
I turned and retched into the mud. I felt dizzy, suddenly, unmoored. Beyond Masters was the forest, which led to the mountains; I could disappear into those woods. And who would miss me, if I left? And for how long, before my absence brought relief? I was already mostly gone from my family’s life. Because I had done this once before, I had been careless. I had let desire dictate everything. I closed my eyes, tried to stop the world from spinning. If Decca was hurt beyond repair, then I would disappear into the woods. If Mr. Holmes hated me, if I had ruined another family, I would leave this place.
“I thought we knew each other,” Mother had said, in my parents’ room, where I had gone to find her on that other horrible day; she lay on their made bed, the yellow light of the late afternoon illuminating her delicate features, her head propped up at an odd angle. “You’re not the girl I thought you were.”
Who was I, then? When Georgie was pressed against me, I lost all reason. I acted dangerously with him and I would not have cared if both my dead grandmothers were listening at the door. All the various pressures of a boy against my body, the kneading, insistent pressure of his hands; the light, live pressure of his tongue; the almost unfelt pressure of his penis pushing through the fabric of his pants.
“Enough.” I spoke now, startling myself, one of my tricks.
And because I was acting dangerously, I bridged the distance between myself and the Holmeses’ front door, noticing how Mrs. Holmes or one of the girls had taken care to cover the pots of rosemary that flanked their door with old sheets, then fasten them with a neatly tied ribbon. The door was unlocked, as I had expected; I opened it slowly and slipped through; it was all darkness inside, a warm, dense darkness.
The Holmeses’ stairs were spotless, the walls hung with family photos, silver frames dusted, gleaming. The portraits surprised me: to me, the Holmeses were a family without a place or past, even though I knew everyone had a past, and even though I knew specific details of their past: my mother, Boston.
The light came from upstairs.
It had been months, I realized, since I’d climbed stairs in a home—I’d forgotten how noisy they were, and my boots were still on. I half hoped the groaning stairs would announce me. I shrugged my coat off when I reached the top.
I could see the light at the end of the hall, pooling out on the pine floor so clearly.
I passed closed doors. I wondered where Decca and her sisters lay.
I noticed all his books, first, so many books the room reminded me of a library, a place I had been only once, in Gainesville, with Georgie and Sam. Those boys were on the tip of my brain tonight; everything I saw reminded me of them.
Mr. Holmes stood at a desk in front of the window, reading a newspaper. He turned a page, and I saw a grainy photograph, but I could not tell of what. It was an impractical place for a desk, where he could not see anyone enter, where the sun would bleach his things, his books, his letters, his photographs. But I understood why the desk was there: he could see everything below, all us girls coming and going through the Square; and beyond us, the mountains. Always the mountains. I touched the door frame.
“Who’s—” He turned and glanced at me, startled. He was fully clothed, in a white dress shirt and herringbone trousers. He wore monogrammed slippers.
“You shouldn’t be here, Thea,” he said. He set the newspaper onto his desk, and I thought how different this man was from my father, or Uncle George. Or Sam or Georgie, for that matter. He didn’t know me—that was why, and how, he was different.