Darcy was silent for a moment. She was staring out the window, as though lost in thought, the brush limp in her hand.
“Do you want to hear something really sick?” she finally said in a disgusted voice. “I actually liked Mr. Nell. He always explained math in ways that I might actually use it in real life, which made it way more interesting. And I liked how he did speed-math contests for the last five minutes of every class because he knew that otherwise everyone would be watching the clock tick.” She shuddered.
“I know. I liked him, too,” I admitted. And I had. I liked how he carried his coffee in a Beatles travel mug, how he always had a dog-eared copy of Auto Repair for Dummies tucked under his arm, and how he never had bad breath when he leaned in to check my work, unlike every other teacher at Princeton Hills High. I used to smile when I saw him strolling the halls, holding the strap of his gray messenger bag with both hands, whistling like he hadn’t a care.
“I guess you can never really know what’s going on in someone’s head,” Darcy mused, beginning to brush her hair again.
I glanced over at her bright green eyes, which were so much like our mother’s. We hadn’t been the best of friends in a long time, not since before our mom died. But after Christopher dumped Darcy, she’d completely changed. Every other sentence out of her mouth was a snap or an insult. The only thing that had stayed the same was her standing up to Dad. She was always the one to talk back to him while I cowered in the corner. I was grateful to her for that—for getting in his face a little so I didn’t have to. But I didn’t know how to tell her.
My mother would have told me to just say it. That it was important to let people know how I felt. My heart pounded nervous energy through my veins at the very thought, but I decided to try anyway. I could have been dead right now, after all. Then she never would have known. Apparently, “Life is short” was going to be my new mantra.
“Darcy, I—”
She stood up abruptly. “I’m gonna
go check out the rest of the house,” she said, turning away, avoiding looking me in the eye. It was as if she’d heard the emotion in my voice and it had scared her.
“Um, okay.”
I tucked my hands under my butt, embarrassed, but she was already out the door. Sighing, I turned toward the window and glanced out at my new neighborhood. It was quaint, with brightly colored houses in lemon yellow and mint green. Each garden contained a riot of flowers and neatly trimmed trees. Only the house across the street seemed out of place. It was light gray with painted black shutters. It had no trees, no garden, no shrubs. The only interesting thing about it was the square grate in the center of the front door—one of those old-fashioned peepholes that opened like a mini door from the inside.
As I watched, a curtain fell over the window directly opposite Darcy’s and I saw a hand disappear from view. My heart hit my throat. Was someone watching us? I leaned forward, squinting as the curtain fluttered.
Something crashed downstairs, and my hand flew to my heart. My father cursed at the top of his lungs. I got up and made my way to my new bedroom. Shaking off the quick scare I’d had in Darcy’s room, I closed the door quietly behind me. We were safe here. No one was watching me anymore. People were allowed to look out their windows.
I climbed the stairs, sank down on the bed, and stared up at the wood-beamed ceiling with a sigh. So this was it. This was my new life. With my family but entirely alone. At least something about this place was familiar.
“Rory…”
I sat up straight in bed. My eyes darted around the unfamiliar room, the dark corners, the distorted shadows. Someone had just whispered my name.
“Rory Miller!” the voice sang again. “Can Rory Miller come out and play?”
I flung the covers aside, my bare feet hitting the cool wood floor. A quick turn of the room convinced me that no one was there, but the voice came again.
“Come on, Rory. Come out and play with me.”
Goose bumps popped up all over my bare arms as I shakily stepped toward the stairs and peeked over the guardrail. No one was there. Just the bare steps winding down into the dark.
“Rory?” It was Darcy this time. “Rory!” she screamed. “Rory, help!”
Heart in my throat, I stumbled down the stairs. When I opened the door, it stopped with a thud. I looked down, and there was Darcy, curled up in a fetal position on the floor. Her eyes were open and staring, dead. Her head was so crushed it seemed impossible it was ever whole.
“No!” I screamed, covering my eyes. “No! No! No!”
I whirled around on the stairs, right into Steven Nell’s waiting arms.
“No!”
I startled awake on Sunday morning, my hands over my stomach, the bright sun assaulting my eyes. Sweat covered every inch of my body and my skin felt like it was on fire. My belly ached like I’d eaten too many bags of cotton candy and chased them with an entire bottle of Coke. I covered my face and told myself it was just a dream. It was just a dream. It was just a dream.
Breathe, Rory. Breathe.
As my breath started to calm, I heard the sound of my father slamming pots and pans around in the kitchen. I shoved my feet into my slippers and yanked on my E=mc2 sweatshirt before padding down the two flights of stairs. I tiptoed through the foyer and paused by the table near the door. My father had placed the family photo there—the one that used to hang on our upstairs wall. I hadn’t even seen him take it from the house. When another crash sounded, I slid over to the kitchen door and peeked inside. My dad was bent over in jeans and a T-shirt, rummaging through a low cabinet, every so often tossing a Teflon pan or a copper pot behind him onto the floor.
“Tell us we have to leave our house and then send us to some backward island with no phone service and no Wi-Fi,” he muttered into the hollow of the cupboard. I’d noticed the Wi-Fi problem last night when I’d tried to log on to the Internet from my iPad, but I’d hoped it was a temporary glitch. “What the hell kind of way is this to run a government agency?” He started to pull himself up and slammed his head on the edge of the opening. “Motherf—”
I jumped back to hide before he could spot me and start yelling at me, too. Outside I heard a bicycle bell trill, and I made my way to the front door. I slipped onto the porch, closing the door quietly behind me. The warm summer air enveloped me from head to toe. I tiptoed over to the porch swing and sat, wrapping my arms around myself. Even from the front of the house, I could hear the waves rushing against the beach out back, and the air was filled with the tangy salty scent of the sea, plus that sweet floral infusion I couldn’t quite place.