Thirty-One

I felt tense the whole way there, but my pulse slowed when we turned onto the lane that led deeper into the boulder-strewn forest. This was sacred territory. My sister had been here. I had visited her grave. I had spoken to her, heard her voice.

I looked around for Fitch’s car but didn’t see it.

It was just past sunrise on this early summer day. In the attic, I’d somehow forgotten that it was the season of the beach, of carefree fun, of sea breezes. Sunlight came through the green leaves and pine needles, creating shadows that danced across the ground as the soft wind ruffled branches overhead. Matt and I drove slowly along the forest road, not saying a word.

That’s when I saw it.

The trees had shaded the spot where Fitch had parked. His car had merged into the low foliage of rhododendrons and mountain laurel, and it had been invisible at first.

“He’s here,” I said.

“You knew it,” Matt said.

Matt parked. I started to open the Jeep door, but Matt grabbed my wrist.

“Wait,” he said.

My heart was pounding now, and there would be no waiting. But he kept talking, trying to reason with me.

“I don’t know what he might do,” Matt said. “He’s hurt you enough already. I know him better than you. You know that, Oli. He is—he was—my friend. Let me go talk to him, get him to turn himself in.”

“He was my friend, too,” I said. “I have to do this, Matt. For Eloise.”

Matt hesitated, then nodded. “I get it,” he said.

He and I walked along the trail. Matt reached out, took my hand. I felt a charge go through me—a tiny lightning bolt, like a burst of magic. So much of the day had felt enchanted, taking me beyond the terror of Fitch: the presence of Eloise, the protection of Daphne, and, now, the touch of Matt.

He turned to me then, as if he felt my gaze, and I saw that familiar smile. The space between his front teeth had always melted my heart. It wasn’t perfect, but it was his. How could I have ever believed he was on Fitch’s side, that he would ever hurt me? This was the Matt I had always known. A boy who had given me his rope bracelet, who I still hadn’t kissed, but it didn’t matter: He was the love of my life.

Sometimes you just know.

Sometimes you just know.

We kept walking. The last time I had come here, I’d been carrying a bouquet of sweet peas for my sister. I had approached her grave, and a voice had called out from the dirt. It had been Iris. And now, slowing down, Matt and I could hear the digging—shovel hitting rock. Rounding the bend, we saw Fitch.

He was standing in the granite crevice that had been Eloise’s—and almost Iris’s—grave. He seemed to be scraping away bits of dirt, leaves, and moss that the wind had blown in. Nature had done most of the digging for him—it was a five-foot-deep fissure scored in the rock ledge by the last glacier. But there he was, excavating the grave, ready to bury his notes and equipment. Evidence.

“Hi, Fitch,” I said.

He looked over at us, barely any expression on his face, and kept working. Why had he come back here? Didn’t he realize this would be one of the first places law enforcement would look for him? Now that Iris’s story was out, this would be a crime scene again, as it had been after Eloise’s murder.

“You shouldn’t bother with burying all that,” I said. “The police are going to find everything.”

“I don’t care,” he said. “Nothing matters now.”

“Give it up, Fitch,” Matt said.

“You’ve destroyed everything I’ve worked for,” Fitch said to me bitterly. “It was all for my sister.”

“What about my sister?” I asked.

“I told you, I am sorry for what happened. But I was doing something important, that would have saved people.”

“Are you thinking of Eloise right now?” I asked. “How you buried her right in that very spot, where you’re digging?”

“I’m thinking of Gale.”

“What about Iris? How you put her in that hole while she was still alive?” I asked.

He stopped and leaned on the shovel.

“Don’t you get it, Oli? Other girls were casualties that couldn’t be helped.”

“Other girls?” Matt asked.

My blood ran cold. “How many people have you murdered? You’re a serial killer?” I asked. “Or are you talking about the future? Girls you would have murdered?”

Fitch glared at me.

“I couldn’t stand seeing what Gale was going through,” he finally said. “She was in pain. She couldn’t rest, couldn’t have healthy sleep, couldn’t look forward to a normal life. Every minute of every day she’s worried that she might not survive the night?.?.?.”

For a moment, I heard what I thought was compassion. But Fitch quickly changed direction, made it about him.

“It was unbearable for me. Do you know how it felt, to see her that way? No one could revive her until the spell ended—that’s what the stupid doctor in Boston called it at one point, when she was just twelve! As if she was Sleeping Beauty. As if a witch had cast a spell on her.”

“Is that why you turned to the Hammer of Witches ?” I asked. “And the gold dust? The feather? Covering all your bases?”

He reddened then, as if ashamed he’d gotten caught deviating from the path of pure science—his excuse for everything. But rage overcame embarrassment.

“I think of the sibyls as witches,” he said. “And all the girls who brought this on our family . Daphne, Circe, Athena. My sister. My mother. So I went out of my way to find the perfect ones. The AB negative girls who’d escaped parasomnia. Who managed to sleep through the night without dying . Like you, Oli. Like Eloise.”

I felt fury, hearing him say her name. But I needed to hear him continue, talk more about why he’d done this.

“I could have gotten you both that morning, if you hadn’t caught the early bus,” he said. “That had been my plan. Seeing Eloise alone at the bus stop messed me up so bad. It made me overreact, if you want to know the truth. I hurt her worse than I would have if you had been there.”

His eyes glinted. I could see he was trying to bait me, so I forced myself to stay calm.

“I really should have grabbed you both when we were bird-watching at the blind,” he said. “You were so excited about the black-throated blue warbler. You and Matt. It was almost cute. And then Chris asked Eloise to track owls that night, and she swooned, she couldn’t wait for it. And, Oli, you were so big-sister-y, all ‘are you rushing it?’?”

“You heard us?” I asked.

“I know how to listen,” he said.

I felt Matt wanting to charge at him, but I took Matt’s hand to hold him back.

“This place must mean a lot to you,” I said to Fitch. “To come back here today.”

He nodded, glaring at me.

“Why here?” I asked. “Why did you take Eloise and Iris here? And why come back here now?”

“My parents’ marriage fell apart because of Gale,” he said, a total non sequitur. “They just gave up. My dad left, and my mom stopped bothering with either of us. Because she’s a doctor, and how do you think it made her feel, Gale having this condition?”

“Pretty terrible,” I said.

“Fitch, you’re sick,” Matt said. “Come on, Oli, let’s go—the cops can get him.”

“ I was going to make it all better, come up with a cure,” Fitch went on, ignoring Matt. “If I’d just had more time. We could have been famous, Fitch and Abigail Martin, the brother-and-sister team. She had the disorder, I was going to find the cure. That would have shown my mother.” He took a deep breath. “And that’s why I came here those times?.?.?.?to show my mother.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, feeling the back of my neck tingle.

“This place,” he said, waving his hand. “This beautiful, scenic spot in the Braided Woods. She used to bring us here when we were little. My dad was still with us then. She’d pack a picnic, and she’d set it up right over there?.?.?.” He pointed at the clearing just beyond the crevice, where I had found the charm. “We’d eat sandwiches and fruit salad, and drink lemonade, and play hide-and-seek.”

“Where would you hide?” I asked, feeling sick because I already knew.

“In there,” he said, pointing at the crevice where he had buried Eloise and Iris. “And guess what? No one ever found me.”

He stood right there leaning on his shovel, next to the open grave, staring defiantly at me and Matt.

“Matt, if not for you, the girls would still be in the attic,” Fitch said. “You turned everyone against me. And if the cops catch me, you’re going down, too. I’ll lie, I’ll tell them you were part of it.”

“Go ahead,” Matt said. “As long as you’re in prison, it will all be worth it.”

Fitch muttered something under his breath and bent back into his work, digging faster. It seemed that he was done listening and talking, and he wanted to bury his material.

I heard Matt talking, trying to convince Fitch to give up, telling him that he had no hope of avoiding the police. But I tore my hand away from Matt’s, running as fast as I could, flying toward Fitch in a tackle. Fitch had barely a second to turn around, but it was just enough time to raise the shovel over his head and bring it smashing down toward me.

“No!” I heard Matt shout.

I ducked just in time, and the shovel’s blade missed my head and hit rock instead. Fitch tried to scramble away, but I grabbed hold of him and held on. My fists clenched his shirt so tightly, it tore as he tried to wrench himself away. The harder he tried to get me off him, the tighter I held on. He knocked me off for a second, but I jumped onto his back, and we rolled to the edge of the crevice.

“Let go, Oli,” he yelled.

“No, this is it, Fitch,” I said, out of breath.

He tried to hit me, but I ducked again and he barely caught my shoulder. He used the moment to wriggle away. I wasn’t going to let that happen—it just made me more determined. Matt came running and grabbed Fitch. I still had hold of Fitch’s arm; the momentum of Matt’s running jump and my yanking Fitch’s sleeve sent Fitch tumbling into the crevice.

I stared down, saw him lying in the dirt.

My heart skipped. For a moment, I thought he was dead. But then I saw his eyes open. He had thrown girls into that fissure, and it had become their graves. It wasn’t his, though. I saw his chest rise and fall. He was still breathing.

“Oli,” Matt said, putting his arm around me. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“You got him, Oli,” Matt said. “You did it.”

“For Eloise,” I whispered.

Fitch sat up, looking toward me and Matt. There he was in that crevice where he had hidden as a child, where he had thrown my sister and Iris as if they were trash. There was no way he was going to climb out with me and Matt guarding him. There was no way he’d ever hurt another girl.

Matt handed me his cell phone, and I texted Detective Tyrone’s mobile number. She had given it to me last October, when she first started investigating my sister’s murder.

I told her where we were. And I knew she would come right away.

While Matt and I stood watch over Fitch, I looked up at the sky.

Hardly any time passed before we heard sirens. A stream of police cars drove into the Braided Woods, up the road past our birding blind, the owl trees, all the way to this place that had become my sister’s grave.

The officers surrounded Fitch, hauled him onto his feet. I heard the click of handcuffs go around his wrists. I watched Detective Tyrone come toward me, concern in her eyes, as if she knew what this moment meant to me.

But she couldn’t know, not really.

“It’s over,” I said out loud, and Detective Tyrone nodded.

“It is,” Matt said, but I wasn’t talking to him.

I was talking to Eloise, who had been buried here in this very spot, who had seen me through, who had brought us to this moment. I think Matt understood. Because he put his arms around me.

And I heard him whisper, as if he felt her spirit just as strongly as I did:

“Eloise Parrish, you have the best sister in the world.” And then, “Oli, that’s you. That’s you.”

He was wrong, though.

Eloise was the best sister in the world.

No contest.