Twenty-Three

Dreams came quickly, and they were full of Matt.

We were on Dauntless Island, and the sun was high overhead. We swam, and climbed out of the sea onto a raft, covered with salt, only the salt was made from diamond fragments. Our hair sparkled, and Matt ran his hand across my shoulders, and his fingertips shimmered.

But then it got dark—not the way night falls slowly in real life, with a sunset and twilight, but all at once, as if someone had pulled a black curtain over the sun. There were stars, though, and it wasn’t diamond dust on our skin but embers falling from burning stars. I was terrified—not just for myself, but for Matt. I thought hard about how we could escape, and my fervor turned the raft into a submarine, and we drifted underwater.

“How will we breathe?” I asked, realizing I had gotten ahead of myself: By creating one solution, I had caused another serious problem.

“We’re like whales,” he said. “We took a big breath of air, and it will last until we need another one.”

“Don’t we need it now?” I asked.

“No, we have each other,” he said. “I’m saving you, and you’re saving me.”

He kissed me then, and I felt a shiver of warmth, of air, of ?life, and in that weird way of sleep haze, I had the clear thought: I just had my first kiss, but it’s not real, it’s just in your mind, it’s only a dream.

When we pulled apart, we knew we needed to get to the surface. Matt started to swim up, and when he was above me, he glanced back to make sure I was on my way up. But my arms and legs couldn’t move. I stared at the rope bracelet he had given me, wanting it to save me. Matt swam back down and began to gently unravel it. He held one end of the nylon line and tugged it, pulling me up toward the sky.

I had a moment of fear: What if he was leading me to danger?

That’s when I woke up, in a panic. I heard a low pulsing sound filling the attic. I felt my heart racing like the tide, but then I thought about how calm I had been with Matt, how unafraid. How much I had loved his kiss. And then I realized I was silently sobbing because how was it possible that I could trust him so much in my dreams while remembering, now that I was waking up, that he was on Fitch’s side? I wrapped my hand around the Turk’s head bracelet on my other wrist and felt despair, wondering what it really meant, when I had thought it meant he had feelings for me like I had for him.

“Oli!” Hayley whispered, shaking me to make sure I was fully awake. The low buzz was louder.

“What?” I asked.

“Shhh,” she said. “It’s happening.”

“What?” I asked.

“That’s the alarm. Abigail is having one of her spells,” Hayley whispered. She grabbed my hand. I shook off the last vestiges of sleep, then eased myself off the mattress. I followed Hayley, tiptoeing across the attic.

Abigail was lying on her beautiful bed—an actual bed, not a mattress on the floor. It had angels carved into the wood. Tall posts rose almost to the ceiling, and they were draped with a white canopy of fine, delicate lace. It looked as if it had been created for a princess—or a goddess.

Hayley and I inched closer.

“Watch,” Hayley whispered.

Abigail was lying stiff and rigid, as if she was a doll whose limbs couldn’t move or bend. Her hands formed tight fists. Her jaw was clenched, tongue jutting out between her upper and lower teeth.

Her face was pink, then turned bright red, almost as if her blood was coming to a boil. Her fists seemed to swell to twice their size, and her arms shot straight up. Her eyes were wide open, their usual gentle expression flashing with aggression. She looked ready to attack. Her red skin darkened to purple, then shifted to dull blue, and her eyes rolled back into her head so only the whites were visible.

“She’s not breathing,” I said, lurching forward, grabbing her. “Abigail, wake up!” I shouted.

“It won’t help,” Hayley said. “She won’t wake up until the spell is over—until he stops it.”

I barely heard. I just kept shaking Abigail as hard as I could. This scared me so much, and I wanted to save her. Her eyes were pure white in the sockets, her non-stare like a lifeless doll, like a girl in a horror movie.

“She’s dying!” I cried out. Or was she already dead? Iris and Hayley had said she died in her sleep. Now I was witnessing it.

Just then the attic door burst open and Fitch came running in. He shoved me away from Abigail so hard I fell flat on my back.

“Give her the rescue medicine!” Hayley yelled at him.

He didn’t reply. He roughly turned Abigail onto her side, checked her mouth, allowing saliva to drain onto the pillow. When he did, Abigail began to raise her stiff arm. Her legs were rigid, toes pointing downward.

Fitch didn’t speak or try to get through to her. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a hypodermic syringe. He pulled off the cap with his teeth and quickly gave Abigail a shot in the top of her arm. Almost instantly she relaxed. Her body went slack, and her eyelids fluttered.

Neither Fitch nor Abigail spoke a word. But she was awake now, and she gazed up at her brother. He went around the corner and came back with a blood pressure cuff and thermometer. He took her vital signs, then sat on the edge of her bed and typed notes onto the keypad of a tablet. Her eyes were open. She smiled at him.

“Thank you,” she said.

He just kept typing.

“That was a bad one,” Abigail said. “I felt?.?.?.?someone was pulling me under.”

Fitch took a few more notes, then got up to walk away. I followed him while Hayley stayed sitting by Abigail.

I didn’t want Abigail to hear, so I spoke to Fitch in a low voice. “What’s wrong with her?” I asked him.

“Don’t tell me you don’t know,” he said.

“Of course I don’t,” I said. “How could I? You should know that, you drugged me and brought me up here. All I know is that she has seizures. But that?.?.?.?seemed like something else.”

“Kids at school make fun of her,” Fitch said, and I could see the effort it was taking him to sound calm. “They have, ever since they saw her have that seizure. Even if you’re not part of that clique, Oli, you still never defended her.”

“Fitch, I never saw anyone bully Abigail. I know she’s had health problems, but that’s nothing to make fun of. No one should have done that.”

“Everyone knows she’s different, and they say it straight to her face. She’s heard it all, and it devastates her. Can you imagine how that makes me feel, to see my sister crying because of bullies like them?” he asked. “And people like you just let it happen. You’re just as bad.”

“Me?” I asked, shocked that he would think that. “I thought you knew me! I thought we were friends.”

“No one knows anyone,” he said bitterly.

Maybe that was true.

“You’re right about one thing, Fitch. Standing by and watching bullying happen is horrible. But I would have stepped in if I had seen anyone doing that,” I said, anger building inside me. “And what about you? Kidnapping girls. Killing my sister! ” I couldn’t hold myself back and went crashing into him, banging at his chest with my fists. He held me off at arm’s length.

“Oli, that was an accident,” he said. “I didn’t mean for her to die.”

“But she did!”

“Things went wrong,” he said. “She was fine, and then?.?.?.?she wasn’t. I tried to revive her. It was one of the worst days of my life—I’d lost control of the research, and Eloise paid the price.”

“Don’t say her name,” I said. “You don’t deserve to.”

“You’re right,” he said. His words were humble, full of regret, but behind his glasses I saw a fiery glint in his eyes. His expression didn’t match his tone. I felt as if he was acting a part, trying to convince me that he was sorry for what had happened. But the look in his eyes gave it all away.

“How did you get her to go with you?” I asked, my heart pounding.

“She wanted to,” he said. “Sort of. It was pretty convenient, actually. She was waiting for the late bus that morning after we went birding. I offered her a ride to school.”

“What happened after she got into your car?” I asked.

“Don’t ask, Oli. You don’t want to hear it.”

“I do,” I said, steeling myself. I needed to hear everything my sister had gone through.

“I told Eloise that Gale was sick, couldn’t go to school that day. And that I had to stop by to make sure she had her medicine, and I asked if she’d stop by with me—that it would cheer Gale up to have a visitor.”

I thought of my sister and her big heart, and how she would definitely have wanted to help.

“So we came here, to the Miramar. Eloise was curious about why my sister was here instead of home, so I gave part of the story—how there was medical equipment here, that it was our family’s private clinic. She came right up the stairs, without any trouble. She wanted to,” he said.

“Only because you were lying to her,” I said.

“No,” he said. “I wasn’t. I told her the truth—that my sister was sick. And I told that detective the same thing. That I’d been a little late getting to school that day because I had to take care of Gale, and that I came straight home after school for her, too. No one even questioned it. My sister’s condition is in her records. She needed me.”

“She needed you to kidnap my sister?” I asked harshly.

“Gale had no part in that.” He smiled at me. “I wish you had been at the bus stop, too, Oli. I was going to grab you both.”

“I would have saved Eloise if I had been there,” I said.

“You would have tried,” he said. “But I would have stopped you.” He held up the hypodermic needle, and I felt my stomach churn. “This is how I stopped Eloise, too, once she realized I wasn’t going to let her go. That she was going to have to stay here in the attic.”

She must have been so scared, I thought. I imagined her fear and panic, and I squeezed my hands so tight, I felt my nails dig into my palms.

“Did she try to get away?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said. “I knew she would. So I increased her medication. I am sorry for that part, Oli. I didn’t mean to give her too much.” He shook his head sadly. “She seemed to fall asleep. I went to school after that but when I came back later that night, she was?.?.?.”

“She was dead,” I whispered, unwilling to hear his fake apology. “And then you buried her. We didn’t know where she was for two days. You knew how close she and I were. Didn’t you care how that felt, waiting with no idea of whether she was okay or not? Didn’t you care about her, Fitch? She was your friend.”

“I cared,” he said. “But there was no alternative. She was my friend, but Gale is my sister. My entire reason for living right now is to find a cure for Gale. If I got caught, my work would stop.”

I filed that one away: He was giving me fair warning that he couldn’t let me and Hayley go—because he would get caught.

“I had to be very careful,” he went on. “Studying science is helpful in so many ways. I made sure to wear gloves, I took steps to keep from leaving any DNA when I buried her.”

“In the Braided Woods,” I said quietly, thinking of how sick it had been of him, to choose a place she and I had loved so much.

Fitch nodded. “It was quiet there,” he said softly.

“If killing Eloise was an accident,” I snapped, “what about Iris?”

“Same thing,” Fitch said. “I made a mistake. I misjudged. Look, I’ve had enough of these accusations. You’re in a medical trial, think of it that way. This might not be a state-of-the-art research facility, but the work I’m doing will cure a disease. It’s more important than anything else.”

“Fitch,” Abigail said from the bed. “Just stop it. Stop making excuses.”

He blinked at her, almost as if he’d been slapped.

“I can’t listen to Oli,” Fitch said to his sister. “She doesn’t understand. You do, though. That’s all that matters to me.”

“You’re upsetting me now,” Abigail said. “Please go back downstairs, Fitch. I can’t rest when you’re like this.”

The fight seemed to drain out of Fitch. “Whatever,” he said. He gestured toward the tall panels painted with the ethereal Sibylline sisters. “You want to be like them, Gale? The two who died? Only one survived. I need you to survive, and you will.”

Abigail didn’t reply. She looked away from him. Fitch glared at me and Hayley in an accusatory way—as if blaming us for upsetting his sister. He locked the hypodermic in a metal cabinet, left the attic, and closed the door behind him. I heard the key click in the lock. I hurried over to turn the knob, to see if we were really locked in, and we were.

The Miramar was the kind of building my grandmother would call a firetrap. Architecturally beautiful, but built entirely of wood, with all those twisty and hard-to-navigate hallways, at the edge of the bay where a sea breeze could catch a spark and send the hotel up in flames. If there was a fire, we’d never get out.

I walked around the attic again. I paused at each window. I wished I could see out more clearly, but the glass was so salt-caked it was impossible. I tried to peer down to the street. We were four stories up; we could jump, but we’d break bones, might not even survive the plunge. I banged on the windows with both fists.

“We’ve done that,” Hayley said. “No one comes.”

“Then let’s break the glass!” I said, glancing around for something to use. I grabbed a heavy book from the top of a chest.

“Go ahead and try,” Abigail said. “It’s hurricane glass.”

I lowered the book. I knew what she was talking about. We live close to Long Island Sound, and when hurricanes come roaring north during the summer and fall, they can bring massive destruction that wrecks property. A category 5 hurricane can tear hundred-year-old trees up by the roots, lift outdoor furniture and fling it into the air, send massive waves and acres of beach sand across roads and into houses, rip shutters off walls and break windows, and splinter seemingly solid wooden structures as if they were made of matchsticks.

So it didn’t really surprise me that there would be hurricane windows in the Miramar.

But for Fitch, the benefit of having such thick, strong, impenetrable windows was not only to keep storms out, but to keep girls in.

“Oli, I’m sorry he brought you here,” Abigail said, sitting up in bed.

“So am I.” I stood next to her, feeling churned up inside. “Abigail, you came to Eloise’s memorial at school. You looked straight at me and said how sorry you were that she died.”

“I meant it,” Abigail said quietly. “I was sorry. I am sorry.”

“When we couldn’t find her,” I continued, “when we didn’t know what had happened to her, your brother was in the search party. So was Matt. They helped put up flyers. Passed them out at school. And the whole time you knew. You knew she was never coming home. You knew she was already dead.”

“I didn’t want my brother to get caught,” Abigail said. “As much as you love Eloise, that’s how I feel about Fitch.”

“There’s no comparison,” I said. “My sister was wonderful, loving, innocent. Your brother is a murderer.”

“No,” she said vehemently. “He was telling the truth. What happened to Eloise was an accident. He never would have hurt her on purpose. He didn’t mean for her to die. He panicked, that’s why he buried her, so no would connect it to us, to what he’s trying to do for me?.?.?.”

“What about Iris?” I asked.

Confusion crossed Abigail’s face. “He let her go,” she said. “That’s why she wasn’t here anymore. We woke up and she was gone. Right, Hayley?”

“That’s what he told you,” Hayley said. “But, Abigail, did you seriously believe him? He thought she died—and so did I.”

“Abigail, he was sure he’d killed Iris,” I said. “He took her into the Braided Woods, and he buried her there.”

“No!” Abigail said. “I don’t believe you!”

“In the exact same grave where he put Eloise,” I said.

Abigail shook her head, covered her eyes with the heels of her hands. “He didn’t,” she whispered. “He promised he wouldn’t do anything bad to her. To any of you. Not on purpose.”

I stared at Abigail. In what warped world could she imagine that kidnapping girls and keeping them locked up here wasn’t doing anything bad?

“Tell me how Eloise’s ‘accident’ happened,” I said, not believing that it was anything but on purpose.

“Too much electricity, too much medication,” she said.

That sounded terrible, and I found myself looking at the wires leading to her bed, the ones attached to an alarm. Had he done that to Eloise?

“Did you see it happen?” I asked.

She bowed her head.

“You did, didn’t you?” I asked. And the next words tore out with a part of my heart. “Was Matt part of it?”

“Matt Grinnell,” Abigail said. “I know you like him. Eloise told me.”

“Did Matt hurt my sister?” I asked.

When she raised her eyes, I saw fire in them. She spoke as if I hadn’t just asked the hardest question in the world.

“You’re not going to make me say bad things about Fitch,” she said. “I know he’s not perfect. He’s making mistakes. But he’s doing this for a good reason. To save me and people like me. You could have the gene, too. All of you could. Your blood type is AB negative, too, right?”

Hayley and I nodded.

“So,” she said. “You see? In a way, he’s trying to help you, too.”

My emotions were wild. I despised Abigail for protecting Fitch, but I also felt sorry for her. I knew that if I wanted to get any real information out of her, I would have to calm down. I would have to stop my brain from crackling with static, from thinking about Matt and how he was involved in this nightmare. I would have to find as much kindness toward Abigail as I could, and try to understand her.

That’s what Eloise would do, I told myself. My smart, clever, kind sister, subversively feisty, intractably fierce, patient only when she had to be, but when she was, no one could shake her. That’s why she was such a great birder—she could sit still behind the hedge and wait forever.

“Abigail,” I said in the gentlest voice I could manage. “Tell me, if it’s not too painful, about what you have.” Should I call it a disease, an illness, a condition? I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to offend her. “The thing Fitch is trying to cure.”

It seemed my tone of voice had worked, because I saw the tension go out of her jaw, saw her shoulders lower and her fists unclench.

“Do you really want to hear about it?” she asked.

“More than anything,” I said, and that wasn’t a lie.