In addition, Gilman offers a harsh critique of medical treatments of women in this time, including false diagnoses of a now-debunked disorder called “female hysteria,” which was used to imprison women who dared to defy the conventions of male-dominated society. . . .

This wasn’t working. She was too tired. Lily’s eyes closed, then snapped back open a second later. She should just go to bed. Lily reached up to close the computer.

Wait. Something was wrong.

The paragraph she’d just typed was gone. In its place was a new line she didn’t remember typing. The font was red, and the letters were in caps.

MAKE THICK MY BLOOD.

What? What was that?

At first Lily thought that line about the blood was all there was, but then she saw the scroll bar. There was more, farther down. She scrolled—she must’ve hit the Enter key a bunch of times while she was typing (why couldn’t she remember that?)—and saw the next line.

IT WILL MAKE US MAD.

Lily shivered. Then she felt stupid.

What was this? Since when did she type nonsense in her sleep?

She couldn’t risk losing control. If someone had seen her they’d have thought she was crazy. What would happen to her and Maria if people thought there was something wrong with them?

Lily had to keep up her strength. Act as normal as possible. For her and Maria both.

She certainly couldn’t count on Maria to do it on her own.

11

BLOOD WILL HAVE BLOOD

Brandon waited all day to catch her alone.

It wasn’t easy. Since Delilah’s accident, Maria had become more popular than ever. Caitlin and Emily stuck to her side like conjoined triplets all through morning classes. He almost had a chance at lunch, but a girl from their physics class caught up with Maria in the salad line and started talking her ear off before Brandon could make it past the dessert station. He tried to grab the seat next to Maria’s in sixth-period history, but by the time he got there Ryan had already slid into it and was making her laugh with some story about lacrosse tryouts.

It was strange, the way Maria laughed now. It wasn’t the way Brandon remembered her laugh at all. She didn’t even smile anymore. She just stretched her mouth open.

Maria got up halfway through history. Acheron liked to tout how “progressive” it was—for a private Southern boarding school—so it didn’t have official rules about hall passes and things like that, but the teachers still got annoyed if you left during a lecture. Even so, Mr. Forres nodded and smiled at Maria when she left the room, as though he weren’t in the middle of explaining the Wars of Scottish Independence.

Two minutes later, when Brandon did the same thing, Mr. Forres glared at him, but Brandon kept going. This couldn’t wait any longer.