Chapter 21

21

We decided to spend the next part of the night in the living room. By we, I mean someone. I was feeling hazy, out of my body. I nodded at whatever anyone said.

No one knew I had Dr. Henson's tooth, I reminded myself. This was secret knowledge. So yes, I was almost certainly trapped on this island with a possible murderer—but they didn't know what I knew. Plus, because of the blackout, we were sticking together. At least, that seemed to be what was happening.

So we trailed up the basement steps in a line, carrying our phones or holding battery-powered lamps. The house whistled from the winds. There was air coming in from somewhere, spinning around the vast hall, causing a frigid draft. The living room was maybe not the best room in this regard, but it had a big fireplace. Someone had the foresight to stack firewood in there. It seemed we were going to ignore the "no fires" rule tonight. Who was going to stop us, anyway?

Liani and Tom stacked the wood into a pyramid and got it going, and soon we had some light and warmth.

"So how are we going to spend tonight?" Van asked. "What kind of storm party are we going to have? You want to drink? Are we smoking? Are we playing a game? Having a séance? Doing each other's hair? What's going on?"

No reply. The fire crackled.

"Hey. What are you doing?"

We all turned. Riki had emerged from her turret and stood in the doorway.

"It's not your house, Riki," Liani answered, not looking over.

"I didn't say it was my house. I just asked what you were doing."

"Having a storm party," Van said, extending his arm. "Join us."

"What part of this is a party? It just looks like you're sitting in front of the fire."

"A party is a state of mind."

"Don't do this to her," Liani said.

"Do what? I asked her if she wants to come."

"You know what."

"Not everything is about you, Liani," Riki said. "Anyway. I'm going. Enjoy whatever this is. I'm upstairs, Marlowe, if you want to come up."

I half listened to all of that. I had become all-absorbed in the fire. Fire is hypnotic. Look at it long enough, and that's all you'll see. Faces appear in the swirls of orange and red. Images. I saw a star. A dragon. A man wearing two hats. A long, twisting face that reminded me of the picture of Phillip Ralston.

"I think I'm going to bring up some more wood from downstairs," Tom said. "We'll run through it tonight."

"I'll help," Liani added.

"We won't see them again for a while," Van said as they disappeared through the dark doorway. "Tonight's the magic night."

"About time," April added.

This brought me back to the situation at hand. The murder. The tooth. I'd forgotten it while looking at the fire, which was odd. I wasn't worried, though. If I remained here, still, quiet, nothing would happen. I was safe here by the fire while the rain pounded the windows.

I had to pee. I tried to get up, but my body weighed more than I realized. I stumbled a bit, and April steadied me.

"You okay?"

"Yep," I said. "Just going to the bathroom."

But was I? The shift from the mood of my friend the fire to the cold and dark of the hall was almost too much. It made life feel wild and unpredictable. I decided to lie down in the middle of the grand foyer in the dark and look up at the shadowy contours of the stained-glass ceiling. Of course, I could barely see it, and certainly not in detail, but I knew the ceiling women were there, looking down at me through their blue glass eyes. They had seen it all. They knew the truth of Morning House—the truth about Max, about Dr. Henson—but they weren't talking. That struck me as funny and I burst out laughing.

Van came and lay down next to me.

"What are you laughing at?" he asked.

"The ceiling."

He accepted that and tucked his hands behind his head.

"Do you want to know something fucked up?" I asked him.

"Always."

"I think there was a murder here."

What? Did I just say that? Why had I said it? My mouth was dry and tacky, but the floor was so cool and relaxing. The dark soothed me, and I wanted to tell Van everything.

"You mean the Ralston kids?"

Say yes. Say yes to that.

But that wasn't what I meant. I couldn't bring myself to say anything.

"Are you high?" he asked. "No shade, I applaud you if you are. I've just never seen you high before."

"No. What's high like?"

"Well, it looks like you look right now—down on the floor, laughing at the ceiling. You were also staring into the fire saying nothing for almost an hour."

I wanted to explain that the reason I was laughing was because the glass women in the ceiling wouldn't tell me who committed the murders, but then I ran that statement through my mind once more before committing and realized that I did sound high.

"Could I get high without meaning to?" I asked.

"No? Well, yes, if you ate an edible without realizing it, but I didn't leave any out. You really do seem high, though. Not to worry. You're in good hands. Best thing to do, relax and enjoy. I'll go get you a pillow and a blanket."

That was nice of Van. A pillow and blanket sounded good. That way I could watch the ceiling in comfort.

Wait.

How did I get high? I rolled back my memory of the evening. We hadn't done much. I'd found a murder victim's tooth, we ate ice cream, I called Akilah, the lights went out. And I'd had a Coke at some point—a can of Coke. I was trying to reassemble the puzzle of my night like an archaeologist trying to explain the past with a handful of broken clay. Maybe there had been something in my drink, something that was making time stretch and constrict, making the fire as exciting as a Marvel movie and causing the ceiling to mock me. I knew I hadn't taken anything of my own accord, which meant that someone else had done this to me. Someone else in this dark house. Where I was sure a murder had occurred.

I had to move, except I could tell that someone was watching me. Not the women in the ceiling. They may have been up to something else, but I wasn't worried about that now. One of the people in this house was looking at me in the dark. I could feel their gaze on me as physically as I could feel the floor. I heard them looking.

"Hello?" I said.

Only the storm answered. The storm, the dark, the essence of Ralston that swirled around the space.

I had to get to Riki's room. I had to tell her what was happening. Riki would help me.

I attempted to lift my head, but it weighed too much. It felt like someone had put an invisible ten-pound hand weight on my forehead.

I could stay here. It would be fine.

No. I had the tooth. I had to get up. Get to Riki. Riki was the safety zone. She would know what to do.

Since lifting my head was hard, I decided to roll onto my stomach and push myself up. This worked. I got to my knees and then managed to get to a standing position. Once I was on my feet, I was much steadier. My shoes squeaked on the floor, though. Someone would hear me. I pulled them off by stepping down on the heels. Now that I wore only socks, I glided across the floor. My movements were effortless. I was the night itself. Why hadn't I always walked this floor in socks? I couldn't go up the main staircase. That was too out in the open and, frankly, looked too hard to climb. I would go toward the gym and use the back stairs.

I slid along. I was a creeper, creeping through the exercise room. The hairs on the back of my head were prickling. Someone was following me. I skidded into the music room and dropped to a slide along the floor, banging my knee hard in the process. I didn't care. I had a plan. I was going to climb under the piano. It was draped, so no one would see me under there. Who looks under pianos in the dark?

"Marlowe?" Van was calling for me. I remained where I was. My heart was beating heavily. Not fast, just percussive, shaking my bones. The wind wrapped its tail around the building. I listened to the floors creak. Was that the wind too? Were those footsteps? Was someone still calling my name?

I peeked out from under the fringed end of the piano skirt. I couldn't see anyone, but I felt their presence as distinctly as I felt the texture of the floorboards under my fingertips.

Creak. Creak.

A step. The sound was distinct, and it came from the doorway of the music room. I willed myself to stone. I would stay here, under this piano, all night if I had to.

Creak. One step into the room. Creak . A step out.

If I stood, they might see me. I would crawl to the back steps. That was the plan—stay low to the floor. By doing this, I got to the door to the back stairs. I reached up and turned the handle slowly. I was hyperaware of every movement of my wrist. I got the door open quietly and slithered through, then made my way up the steps by pressing my hands into the walls of the stairwell as I went.

It took me six hours to get to Riki's room. Being high seemed to take a lot of time. My logical brain told me it probably wasn't six hours, but what was time, anyway? My journey through the house tonight was evidence it wasn't real. I finally made it to the fourth floor and shuffled upright to the passage that led to Riki's turret. Just one more set of stairs to go. I managed these pretty well. Knocking was out of the question. I let myself into Riki's room. She was on her beanbag, reading something on her laptop. The glow of the laptop and a single battery lamp provided the only light in the room.

"Hello," I said.

Riki stared at me, wobbling in the doorway.

"I came to talk to you," I explained.

"Okay."

"But someone is watching me."

"Okay?"

"I have something very important to tell you," I said. "You should know I might be high. I've never been high, but I think I'm high right now."

"You think you're high?"

"I think someone gave me something," I explained.

"Who would dose you?" she asked, ignoring all the nonsense that was coming out of my mouth. "Van would never dose anyone."

"It was Van who noticed I was high!" I said excitedly. We'd made a breakthrough.

Riki sighed loudly and pushed her laptop aside.

"Okay," she said. "Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to put you in this beanbag here..."

She started to get up, but I held up my hand, indicating that she shouldn't move. I kicked the door shut. Then the words came.

"I need to tell you about teeth. Tooth. I need to tell you about tooth. The tooth."

"Huh?"

"You don't understand—you were right. There was a murder here. But not the one you're talking about. Dr. Henson. She saw what happened to Chris Nelson that morning at sunrise. She was here, looking over at Mulligan Island. Probably doing her sunrise yoga and maybe looking through her camera, but she saw something . And she was hinting at it at dinner that first night. She was telling me all along. And just before we came in, I found a tooth in the rubble of the patio. Don't you get it?"

"You're sure it's a tooth?"

" It's a tooth. Don't worry. I hid it. It's safe."

"I don't care where you put it. Why do you think it's her tooth?"

"Who else's tooth could it be? And it's new. New tooth. People don't just leave their teeth around. Doesn't matter. They can prove it..." I waved my hand at the wall indicating the police, technology, the woman from Bones . "I just have to get the tooth to them. But we're stuck here tonight and someone here did this so you need to tell me what to do."

The effort of saying all that both exhausted and exhilarated me. From the look on her face, I could tell Riki had a lot of questions. Luckily, I had more words.

"When Dr. Henson showed me around my first morning, she told me she did yoga every day on that high balcony and that she kept the mat upstairs, in the storage closet by the window. When I went looking for her that morning, there was a dry spot on the balcony in the shape of a yoga mat. The mat was gone. I found it when we went looking for documents in her room. It was in her closet . Whoever killed her didn't know about that."

I sounded smug, and it was because I felt smug.

"I think the first thing the killer did that morning was take the paddleboard and paddle and throw them in the river. Make it seem like she drowned. She didn't drown. That's why I have her tooth. Oh my god, my mouth is so dry. Do you have any water? Anything?"

"Yeah..."

Riki got up and moved slowly toward her stash of energy drinks and waters. I wavered in place a bit and looked around at her room. So circular. So pleasing. And all the things she had in here enticed me. The wind chimes. I walked over to look at them. They swung ever so gently in the bit of swirling air that was getting in somewhere. And there was one of the suncatchers with the small, mirrored disks, the ones she'd first seen me through. That's how she caught knee creepers. I was a knee creeper!

"You need to sit down," she said, "and start from the beginning."

I began to turn back but I tripped over something. I looked down.

It was Dr. Henson's enormous camera.