Fifteen

“My last name is Bigelow,” Iris said. “Iris Cassandra Bigelow. I’m sixteen, Hayley is fourteen, and we come from a family of eighty-five siblings, but we’re the only human ones.”

“What?” Matt asked.

Iris laughed. “We always joked about it. My parents love animals, especially cats. We live in this old brick warehouse near the waterfront. Half of the building is our home, the other half is the Cat Castle—a refuge for stray cats.”

I tried to picture it, and came up with a magical image of sisters and cats and an old brick castle. The three of us—Matt, Iris, and I—stood at the top of the hill, looking out over the harbor, feeling the wind in our hair. It seemed enchanted, a moment out of time.

Iris continued, “Hayley and I grew up with the cats. We learned how to coax shy and terrified feral kittens out of their hiding places. We gave them treats and spent hours petting and talking to them. The oldest ones made us sad—often their owners had died, leaving the cats without anyone to care for them. We would set out heating pads for them and give them extra love.” She paused. “We knew that cats grieve like people.”

I swallowed hard.

Iris told us that the Cat Castle became known as the place to adopt the friendliest, sweetest, most cuddly cats anywhere. People came from miles around. The Bigelows carefully vetted potential adoptees, making sure they would take good care of the cats and requiring them to agree never to declaw the cats—that was inhumane.

“My parents made the Castle a kind of destination,” Iris explained. “It even got written up online. There are lots of cool features in it, like a library—tons of books in one room. My parents pick them up at tag sales and even the Book Barn, near here. The library has chairs and a fireplace, and the cats are allowed to roam free. People come for the cats, but we also let them choose a book to take home.”

“That sounds amazing, like a fairy tale,” I said.

“It is,” she said.

“We have to get you home,” I told Iris, reaching for my phone. “Do you remember your parents’ number? You can use my phone to call them right now?.?.?.”

“Shhh,” Iris said, as if speaking to an agitated child. “You know that’s not possible, Oli.”

“But—”

“The first thing my parents would do is call the police, and then you know what would happen to Hayley,” Iris said. Her lower lip wobbled, and her eyes glittered with tears.

“Maybe you could just text them, to let them know you’re alive?” I said. “They must be so worried.”

Iris shook her head. “I can’t contact them until I know Hayley is okay. Please don’t ask again, Oli. If you start me thinking about my parents, I won’t be able to do this—to find Hayley and save her.”

“Okay,” I said quietly.

“Do you get it?” she asked, looking from me to Matt.

Matt nodded. “I do,” he said.

“I do, too,” I said. “Keep going. What happened the day you were taken?”

“So,” Iris said, and she took a deep breath. “You have to understand that as close as Hayley and I are, we are also very different. Her idea of a big Friday night is taking a bubble bath and bringing a basket full of kittens into her room to snuggle up and watch movies.”

“And you?” I asked.

“I like going out,” Iris said. “Meeting new people. I think it’s because I had so much responsibility with the cats. I’ve been taking care of creatures my whole life, and I want to spread my wings a little. Have adventures.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” I said, understanding what it was like to have a lot of responsibility. Sometimes, too much.

“Maybe there is something wrong with it,” she said, looking down. “Considering what happened.”

I saw her tense up, and I did, too, scared of what was coming.

“Two weeks ago, my parents went away for their anniversary,” she said. “They were going to Block Island, and leaving me and Hayley alone. My aunt and uncle live nearby, and they’d check in on us. I was thrilled that my parents would be gone.”

“What were you planning?” I asked.

“Just?.?.?.?being free. They said they were closing the Castle for the weekend so we didn’t have to deal with strangers. But that was what I was looking forward to—seeing people.”

“What do you mean?” Matt asked.

“I’d been dating this guy, Andy. Well, nothing serious, but we’d sort of started hanging out, and I thought?.?.?.” She trailed off for a few seconds. “But then I found out he was seeing a girl from another school.”

“Ouch,” I said.

“Yeah, exactly. So I was like, we’re done. As soon as I changed toward him, he was suddenly texting me all the time, interested again, but there was no way I could trust him after that. I was really down about the whole thing. So I figured, it was a weekend, I’d keep the Castle open, stay busy, and hopefully meet some nice people. Distract myself from thinking about him.”

“Even though your parents didn’t want you to keep the Castle open,” I said.

“Yep,” she said. “They hung the CLOSED sign on the door, but as soon they left, I gave Hayley a wicked look. ‘While the parents are away,’ I said, and I turned the sign back to OPEN . Hayley was so mad at me. She hates when I break the rules. It really bothers her.”

“But you opened, anyway?” Matt asked.

Iris nodded. “We headed into the cattery to make sure everyone had enough food and water, and to check on the cats who had had medical procedures and were wearing cones. Almost all of them were napping, either in patches of sunlight or under shelves or in little houses, or in the library.”

“And someone showed up?” I asked.

“Yes. He did,” Iris said.

She explained how her dad had built a cool feature—an outdoor play yard surrounded by a chain-link fence. The cats could enter it from the Castle, and the yard, full of real grass, was fenced on the other three sides and even above so they couldn’t escape. The Bigelows required everyone who adopted a cat to sign a document agreeing to keep the cats inside—to protect them from predators, animals that hunted along the docks, in the dumpsters. To keep them from being hit by cars. To save them from being picked up by terrible people who would harm them.

That afternoon, Hayley and Iris went into the fenced yard to check on the ten or so cats lounging in the sun.

“Right away,” Iris said, “I spotted a guy about my age crouched down outside the fence. He was playing with two gray tiger kittens, dangling a string between the slats in the fence. He was really cute, in a brainy sort of way.”

“The string,” I said. “That was part of what you first remembered. How could you tell he was brainy?”

She thought about it. “He was wearing a Brown University T-shirt, and these glasses that kept slipping down his nose—he reminded me of a boy at my school who’s in AP Calculus.”

“What did he do?” I asked.

“He just stayed there, playing with the kittens. Hayley got nervous right away. She whispered to me, ‘He’s weird.’ But I didn’t think so. And I thought of Andy, and how glad I was that there was a cute boy here?.?.?.?He asked me my name.”

“And you told him.”

“I did.” She swallowed hard. “And then he said something that made me suspicious. I should have walked away from him, but I ignored the warning sign. I just kept thinking of Andy, how hurt I was.”

“What warning sign?” Matt asked.

“He knew my last name.”

“Couldn’t he have figured that out because of the Cat Castle? If it was online? He’d heard about your family?” I asked.

“Yeah, and that’s what I figured. Hayley was mad at me for talking to him, so she stormed into the Castle. Left me alone in the yard. There was a fence between me and the guy. I saw him watch her go. But we were just talking and he seemed cool.”

I felt nervous, waiting for whatever she would say next.

“He said he had driven over from Connecticut, that it was really great to meet us. He said he was an animal person. He said he loved cats. I guess I felt flattered because he just stayed there, talking for the longest time, acting as if he liked me. He kept reaching through the fence to play with this little yellow kitten, and I started to think?.?.?.”

“That you’d let him in,” I said.

Iris nodded. “Yes.”

“And did you?” I asked, feeling almost sick, knowing that she could have stopped it right there.

She nodded. “I told him to go around the front of the building, but he pointed at a door in the fence. We only use it to get to the dumpster in the alley. But he asked if he could just come in that way.”

“So you unlocked the fence door,” I said.

“As soon as he came in?.?.?.” She paused. “He said, ‘I know you have a security camera in front. Do you have them here, too?’ Looking around, he asked, ‘So you can watch the kitties from inside?’ I knew the question was bizarre, but I answered him, anyway. I told him no, we didn’t.”

My stomach clenched—I wished she had lied to him. It might have scared him away if he thought he was on video.

“I knew right away I’d made the biggest mistake. His face changed completely. His eyes turned black—that might sound crazy, but they did. He went from being so friendly to looking like a monster. He told me to get Hayley. I said no. He pulled out a hypodermic needle, held it to my neck. ‘If you don’t get her, she’ll find your dead body out here. And when she finds it, I’ll do the same to her.’?”

I felt horror, wondering how close her experience was to what had happened to Eloise.

“He kept talking,” Iris went on. He said, ‘You’re perfect. Two perfect sisters, exactly what I need. AB negative—did you know there’s a registry? You’re both in the database. Now, be good and get Hayley.’?”

“And you did?” I asked.

Now it was as if Iris was in a trance. She recounted the rest, and I was numb, listening.

“?‘Get your sister,’ he said. ‘We’re going to do it quickly and calmly. There are rules. Rule number one: You can’t scream. Rule number two: You can’t call the police. NO POLICE. If I see or hear police, you die, she dies, and so do your parents. Everything you do from now on will make a difference, Iris. The difference will be whether you and Hayley stay alive. It’s up to you. You’re the big sister. Her life is in your hands.’

“?‘What would you do to her?’ I asked, terrified by his words and by the look in his eyes.

“?‘The same thing I did to Eloise Parrish. You probably heard about her. The girl who’s missing, down in Connecticut? It’s all over the news.’

“I’d read about Eloise online—there were reels and TikToks of Eloise with her friends; her sister, Oli; and the grandmother they lived with.

“?‘What did you do to Eloise?’ I asked.

“?‘You don’t want to find out,’ he said, still holding the needle to my neck.

“So I did what he asked. I called Hayley to come out. He immediately grabbed us both and shoved us into his blue van. He was so strong, it was scary. Hayley and I jumped on him—we fought him, knocked him down. He hit the floor hard, and while he was down there, we tried to open the van doors—but we couldn’t unlock them. There were childproof locks. Something a kidnapper would use to keep victims from escaping.

“When he got back up, he said he wouldn’t forget that we’d attacked him. He said we’d pay for it. He put zip ties on our wrists and ankles, wrapped scarves around our eyes. Hayley and I both kept screaming, trying to escape, but no one heard us. We had made him angry. I heard him jab Hayley’s arm with the needle first. Then he did the same to me. It hurt, and that was the last thing I remembered until the van stopped—something partly woke me up—the sound of the brakes, I guess. And being dragged out, lifted up, made me less groggy. I felt myself being carried up all those stairs. I wound up next to Hayley in a room with panels painted with three classical-looking girls in white gowns, with dead birds hovering overhead. I didn’t know then, but eventually I learned it was an attic.”

When Iris finished talking, I realized my hands were fists. My nails had dug into my palms. Tears were running down my cheeks. I bowed my head, thinking of Eloise. I felt Matt touch my shoulder. I squeezed my eyes tight, wanting to press the images out of my head. I stood there on the hill in Pequod, overwhelmed by grief and anger.

“Do you remember anything after that?” Matt asked Iris. “What happened in the attic? How you ended up in the woods?”

“Not yet. It’s still fuzzy. But I think it will all come back soon.” She drew in a big breath. “Let’s go.”

“To Newport?” I asked her, opening my eyes. “Home?”

Iris shook her head. “I want to go straight back to the ghost signs and do what we said we’d do before—knock on those doors until we find someone who knows what they mean. Those sibyls are the answer to where Hayley is.”

“We can pick up Fitch on the way,” Matt said.

“We don’t have time,” Iris said. “Please, let’s go to the ghost signs now. I appreciate how much you’re helping me, Matt, but I have to do this my way. It’s my sister. I got her into this, and I need to get her out right away, before he does something worse.”

“What about the blue van we saw?” I asked. “You sure you want to go back there?”

“If it gets me closer to Hayley, I’ll do anything,” she said.

So we worked out a plan: Matt would drop us in downtown New London, and he would head to Black Hall to pick up Fitch. Then he’d return to New London to meet me and Iris near the ghost signs.

There was a lot to be said for following the rules. When life is so unpredictable, and you start losing the things—and people—you love most, obeying the rules provides a certain stability and safety factor.

Ever since finding Iris, the rules had been saying I should call Detective Tyrone, take Iris to the ER. But this time I was one hundred percent following my gut. Hearing what the kidnapper had said about the police, knowing that he was capable of carrying through with violence, convinced me that Iris was right. The police hadn’t found any clues about what had happened to Eloise, and already Iris, Matt, and I were unspooling Iris’s story—which would lead us to her sister, and to answers about mine.

As Matt drove us back to New London, I felt my strength and confidence building. Instead of just sitting around being sad, feeling helpless, waiting for the authorities to solve these crimes, we were on our own trail to find the truth.

We pulled onto the service road and stopped in front of the Sibylline sisters’ ghost sign. Matt and I gazed at each other. He looked at my hand, as if he wanted to touch it. And he did, just lightly.

“I’ll hurry,” he said. “It’ll take me about half an hour to drive from here to Black Hall and back.”

“Great,” I said, getting out of the car. “See you then.”

He took off, and Iris and I began walking. She glanced at the dusty blue van as we passed it. Her posture stiffened, but she didn’t say anything this time. There was no turning back.

The cobblestones were uneven—they had probably been there for over a hundred years—and I nearly twisted my ankle. There were a few back doors in the crumbling wall. I tried to open some, but they were nailed shut, as if they hadn’t been used in a long time. A walkway angled up the slight hill from dockside toward the street, and we took it.

Most of the old maritime establishments had given way to more modern businesses. Instead of sailmakers and chandleries, we found a florist, a jewelry shop, a coffee bar, and a bookstore. The only name I recognized from one of the ghost signs was the Barquentine Pub, ESTABLISHED IN 1850 in small print below it.

Iris and I entered the pub. Along the walls were port-and-starboard ship lanterns, glowing red and green. There was a wooden plaque adorned with sailors’ knots—bowline, sheepshank, monkey’s fist, square knot, clove hitch, and Turk’s head—like the bracelet Matt had given me. The wall was also covered with black-and-white photos of other venerable seaside buildings, including a beach pavilion in Black Hall, a row of shingled cottages, and the Miramar—an old Victorian hotel in Silver Bay. That hotel had always seemed so romantic to me, the corridors and cupola filled with a hundred years’ worth of stories.

The pub was empty, but then again, it was between lunch and dinner. Iris hovered near the front window—she was keeping watch, which let me know that in spite of what she had said, she was still worried about the blue van.

“Hello!” I called out, walking farther into the restaurant. “Anybody here?”

A door in the back swung open, and a girl in a waitress uniform stepped through. She was about sixteen, with long black hair in two braids. I didn’t know her—she definitely didn’t go to Black Hall High.

“May I help you?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “But it’s kind of a weird question.”

She gave a half smile. “My favorite kind.”

“It has to do with the fading signs behind this building,” I said.

“Those signs have been there for nearly a hundred years,” she said proudly. “This restaurant’s been in my family for generations, and my parents run it now. The town council always wants the businesses here to paint that wall, make it look new, but we’ll never do that. It’s part of the waterfront’s heritage. I’m Sirena, by the way.”

“I’m Oli,” I said. “That’s Iris.” I gestured toward the front of the pub where Iris still stood looking out the window.

“So, what’s your weird question?” Sirena asked.

“It’s about the painting of the three women,” Iris called from up front. “The Sibylline Sisters: Oracles, 1944 .”

Sirena laughed. “Of course. People always come in here to ask about that sign. Then they stay for a chowder or a plate of calamari. You want to order, by the way?”

“Uh, we don’t have time,” I said, because I could see Iris getting impatient and agitated. “We’d just like to find out whatever you can tell us about that sign.”

Sirena nodded. “I know all about it because of my friend Minerva Morelock. In Greek mythology, sibyls—oracles—were mediums. They made predictions and gave advice.”

“We don’t need a definition of oracles,” I said, knowing I sounded a little short but not caring too much. “We need to know who the women in the painting were.”

“They were three sisters,” Sirena said. “Just like the sign says.”

“Were they really oracles?” Iris asked.

“Yep,” Sirena said, seeming to revel in telling the story. “Sailors are very superstitious. This is a maritime town—ships coming and going, from all around the world. Navy, fishermen, smugglers. Sailors could be gone from their families for months at a time. And they wanted to know things: Would they return alive, would their wives wait for them, would they have success and come home rich?”

“What does that have to do with the three sisters?” I asked.

“Well, according to Minerva, the three sisters were able to tell fortunes,” Sirena said. “In fact, we’ve capitalized on the fortune-telling legend. We’ve learned how to read the tarot—Minerva’s actually good at it—and sometimes my parents hire mediums to come into the pub with their crystal balls. Brings in customers like you wouldn’t believe!”

I wondered who this “Minerva” was, but I didn’t want to interrupt Sirena until she was finished talking.

“So, the sisters had second sight—an ability to see into the future,” Sirena went on. “They traveled up and down the East Coast, appearing on stages, in theaters, even in taverns like this, drawing huge crowds who would pay a lot of money to learn their futures.”

“And the sisters came here?” I asked. “To this pub? Did they perform in New London?” I looked around; the tavern seemed small, hardly large enough to hold a crowd.

“Well,” Sirena said. “That’s what Minerva says. She has a great-aunt who’s, like, a hundred, and she’s somehow related to the Sibylline sisters. Apparently the sisters lived upstairs in this building for a while, but then they moved somewhere else. There was some kind of family tragedy.”

“Tragedy?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Sirena said, and I noticed her flinch. “Poor Minerva. She carries the weight of it. Even though it didn’t happen to her personally, she feels the old trauma.”

That pierced my heart—I thought about losing my parents, and Eloise. I knew what it was to carry the weight of family trauma.

“Have you ever seen other paintings of the sisters?” I asked, desperate to learn more.

“Apparently some exist,” Sirena said. “But Minerva would know more about that.”

“We need to meet Minerva,” I said. “Right away.”

“Yes,” Iris said, trembling so hard her voice shook. “Where is she?”

“That’s easy,” Sirena said. “Her shop is right next door. Mermaid’s Pearls. You can’t miss it.”