Chapter 45

I paint some more whileKennedy makes dinner. My last memory of Mila on the night of the murder, her standing on the dock, beckoning for the others to follow her out to the starlit lake. It was such a small, meaningless moment at the time. Now it feels like a puzzle piece, one I just can't place. Ominous, foreboding. Only hours left until they came back without him.

Chelsea lies upstairs in her little make-believe headache cocoon. Go ahead, get your rest. Close your eyes and drift away. I'll be right here beside you. After everything you've done, I'm still here. Chase and Mila are outside at the dock, but I don't hear splashing. Instead, their voices rise and lower sharply. It rather sounds like they're fighting. It lightens my mood considerably. But the sound of Kennedy in the kitchen unnerves me. A thick, sharp knife; precise, staccato beats on a chopping block. Ryan's warning hovers over me. You're next. A goner. She dices tomatoes, cuts thick slices of buffalo mozzarella, and soon the house is filled with the aroma of sizzling garlic cooking in rosemary-infused olive oil, but all I can think of is the blood red of the sauce she's making, the gleaming edge of the blade. She's really gone all out this weekend with five individual flatbreads, each with different toppings, and there's something about the extravagance that makes me feel uneasy. No one plans a feast for an ordinary gathering of friends. Feasts are for weddings and funerals, greetings and goodbyes.

I'm packing my paints away when Kennedy asks for a hand bringing the flatbreads outside to the grill, and I rise reluctantly to help.

"How do you feel?" Kennedy asks as we balance the flatbreads between us on a baking sheet and attempt to fit it through the back door.

"About?" I try to kick the door open with my foot, but it's stuck. I balance the pan precariously on my shoulder and run my hand over the door behind me, finding the heavy lock bolted. I turn it. "Door was locked." I push the door open and carefully pick up the flatbreads again.

Kennedy frowns. "It shouldn't be. I didn't lock it. We never lock it. Chase and Mila are outside…" She trails off and her eyes float up toward the attic as she steps out onto the grass.

And Chelsea's upstairs. Which means she's implying that I lied. Or she's lying to me and playing mind games. I eye the flatbreads. There's something about them that just doesn't sit right. This was my favorite food, back when I had an appetite, but Kennedy hated the messiness. Maybe the food is an apology. But maybe it's an expression of guilt. What did we eat at Ryan's last supper? Did Kennedy know that's what it was?

"I'm lactose intolerant," I say.

"Since when?" She pauses for a second, bent over the grill, like a weird, modern-day Hansel and Gretel witch, and a little voice in the back of my mind says, Push her and eat the house. But that would only result in Kennedy having striped grill burns on her hands and me getting sent to juvie with splinters in my gums.

"Trauma-induced," I lie.

The back door swings shut and Chelsea steps out, shielding her eyes from the sun. "I'm starving."

Kennedy stretches her lips into a smile. "Fifteen minutes." I can see her brain basically hovering on the edge of explosion.

Chase returns from the dock, Mila trailing behind him, an unlit cigarette dangling between her lips.

"Chelsea, do you mind eating the chicken flatbread? Emily's lactose intolerant, and yours is the only one without cheese."

Chelsea hugs her stomach and makes a face. "I'm not eating meat these days. I can't take a bite without picturing the slaughterhouse."

You don't belong here.I stare at Mila, willing the words from my brain to hers. Nobody wants you. She casually leans her head to the grill, lighting her cigarette. The sun is beginning to set, and a sudden chill settles over us. I shiver, my eyes trained on the warm glow of the fire as Mila tilts her face close to the flames.

"Please be careful," Kennedy says, pulling her back.

Mila rolls her eyes. "It's not a volcano." We all stand there uncomfortably for a moment. "Jesus Christ. You people got a lot less fun in the past year."

"Maybe you just got a lot more fun, and we seem less fun in comparison," Chelsea says, deadpan. It sounds like the old Chelsea, and it stings me to hear for some reason. I like the drifting Chelsea better. She deserves to be lost. And never return.

Mila makes a face at her. "I've always been fun."

"Eh. Fun is subjective." Again, old Chelsea seems to be making an appearance. Out of nowhere. For the first time in forever. I don't like it. She slides into her seat, across from Mila.

Chase grins at Chelsea over the table, then sits down beside Mila. "She's just being difficult. Let's all agree that we've never been any fun and that Mila needs a new lighter. That grill thing? Lose your eyebrows that way. And your eyebrows are exactly right." He puts his arm around her, and she reluctantly smiles.

"I'm fun."

"No." He shakes his head. "You're calculus."

"I saw myself as more like anatomy," she says, snuggling up against him. He looks uncomfortable.

Kennedy slides the flatbreads out of the grill and arranges them on the table. "Mila, yours is the tomato and cheese."

Mila makes a face. "I don't like—"

"They're flatbreads, not trading cards," Kennedy snaps wearily.

"I'll take that one," Chelsea says.

Kennedy smiles tautly and hands her the plate. I glare at Chelsea. What the hell is going on? An hour ago she was freaking out in the attic. Now everything is fine? We're back to the good old days, minus Ryan?

"I'll get drinks," I volunteer. "Kennedy, please. Sit."

"Chianti on the counter," she instructs. "Right next to the basil plant. Not the one by the spice rack."

"I got it." I go inside and grab the bottle, then hesitate. Why was she so insistent that I take the one by the basil plant? I examine the two bottles side by side. The one Kennedy wants is a twist cap. I turn it and it opens easily. Did she specify this one because she was sipping from it all afternoon? Or did she request it specifically for me because there's something wrong with it? I stare at the bottles for another minute and decide that I can't take chances. I have to switch the bottles. She'll look, so I pour the wine into a decanter before bringing it out. The slow, steady stream of crimson into the smooth, serene glass is mesmerizing, and the sound of the wine flowing, swishing, dripping, calms my nerves. The cold seems to have followed me inside, and little crystals bloom on the surface, like snowflakes falling in pools of blood. I stir them with my pinkie and they vanish. The moment they're gone, I'm sure I imagined them. But it is cold, almost unbearably. The Hartfords must have had central air installed. Just as I'm funneling the second bottle of chianti into the first, the door swings open and Chelsea leans back against it.

"What are you doing?"

I stand there for a moment shivering violently, a decanter of wine next to me on the counter, a half-empty bottle in one hand, the damning funnel swirling the contents away into the other.

An expression of disbelief crosses her face. "Did you do something to the wine?"

"It's a joke. You know how Kennedy is. I'm switching the bottles. To see if she notices. Two chiantis." I show her the labels. "No poison." I take a sip from each. "See?" It is a joke. I'm not the one who makes people disappear.

She gives me an odd look but nods. "Okay. Do you want to talk, Em?"

I shake my head. "Starving." But I couldn't eat if it were my last meal. I imagine the two sips trailing down my throat, one innocent and one wicked, and I feel the vomit rising.

"All right. I'm going to run to the bathroom." Chelsea jogs upstairs, and I immediately throw up into the sink. I have to stand there for a moment to allow my heart to stop racing. Why did her mind immediately go there? As if she knew there was something in one of the bottles that shouldn't be there? Her sudden change of mood. I tiptoe up the stairs and into the master bedroom and unzip her bag. She packs light; there are only a couple of T-shirts, a dress, a light sweater, and some toiletries, including—bingo—an orange bottle filled to the brim with little pills, plastered with warning stickers. Controlled substance. Do not mix with alcohol. A dozen other warnings. The temperature is even colder in the bedroom than in the kitchen, and I grab a sweater from my suitcase after pocketing the pills. Then I head back downstairs and carry the decanter outside.

"I bring the gift of wine," I say, filling everyone's glasses.

But Chelsea comes out of the house with a six-pack of soda, which she conspicuously places at the center of the table. She pops one open without looking at me and doesn't touch the wine even after Kennedy begs her to.

Mother always used to say Kennedy was a young soul. Born from the blue, no previous lives, everything so new. An excuse for ignorance, selfishness, the mercurial lack of focus that people mistake for passion.

What's Chelsea's excuse? She's died over and over and never learned a thing.

Every time the same mistake—the cards never lie: She isthe Queen of Cups. She loves a fool. She's crossed by the Ten of Swords. And she falls from the tower.

But she is not the innocent girl my brother believed.

Why was she allowed to survive last year?

Why wasn't she the sacrifice?

I don't think it's fair.

"So." Kennedy saws at her flatbread with her fork and knife. The rest of us usually eat it with our hands, like a pizza, but Kennedy has her way. "What's the after-dinner plan? Emily? You wanted to leave the candles up."

I chew and swallow my food before speaking. It's like rubber in my mouth. Fake. "I did. I do. But I can't ask all of you to join me again. I don't think Ryan will be able to communicate with everyone here."

"Oh?" Chelsea says.

"Well, many people believe that even one nonbeliever in the room will break the connection," I say.

No one looks at me.

"That's okay. I know Chelsea's the only one who thinks it's possible. So I think the rest of you should go out on the lake tonight. Exactly like you did last year."

Chase, Mila, and Kennedy all stop eating.

Chase speaks first. "I don't think I can do that."

"The boat isn't even ready," Kennedy says.

"I thought your dad was up last weekend." I peer over her shoulder to the dock. The sailboat tilts back and forth in the blazing early-evening sun.

"He was, but…" She hedges. "It's possible to sail the boat—I just haven't in a long time."

"You did last year," I point out.

She makes a pained expression. "Please don't make me."

"What if that's the only way to reach him? We have to recreate the conditions as perfectly as possible." I'm making all of this up. I want to see them squirm. I want to burn it out of them like a bug under a magnifying glass. I'm going to telltale-heart the truth out of them.

"Fine." Kennedy folds her napkin. "I can do it after we clear up. For whoever wants to go."

"I don't want to," Chase says. "But if that's what you need, Em." He looks at me, pleading in his eyes.

No mercy.

"That's what I need."

"Then that's what I'll do."

I look at Mila, not expecting much.

"Me? God, no. I'm not stepping foot back on that thing. It's cursed. You should have sunk it."

"Maybe it's not cursed. Maybe you're cursed," I say.

Mila flinches. "Fine. I'll go, and nothing bad will happen." She pauses. "You'll feel better?"

"So much." A light breeze lifts my hair off my shoulders, and I twirl it into a bun and wrap an elastic around it. The air is beginning to cool nicely. "So we're agreed? Kennedy, Chase, and Mila out on the lake. Chelsea and I will make one last attempt to reach Ryan."

There are a series of nods around the table, and we clean up without much conversation. Kennedy changes and goes down to the dock while Chase and Mila have another whispered fight in the guest room. I go from room to room, inspecting, feeling the air, picking up objects and putting them down, repositioning the candles. This time I light them all. It will take some time for them to burn all the way down, and everyone will be gone for a while. I do have to be careful, though. The place is so old and the wood so dry that if there was an accident, the house wouldn't stand a chance for very long. Nearly everything in it is made of wood. There are old books everywhere, artwork on the walls, and my painting supplies, which are highly combustible. And if that weren't enough, Mr. Hartford keeps extra cans of gasoline in the cellar for the boat. But I am careful. I set each candle firmly in place. And to keep them from blowing over, I close all of the windows tightly, fastening them with a wrench. They're not opening anytime soon.