“You mean Gram,” I interrupt as the pieces click into place in my mind. “She’s the girl you met in the woods? The fairy princess who had been locked away?”

Madeline nods.

“But we thought she was sick,” Fina says. “That’s why she couldn’t go out.”

“No,” Madeline snaps, slapping her hand down on the arm of her chair. She stops rocking. “Her parents were the ones who were sick.”

“What are you talking about?” I nearly shout. Why can’t she just say what she means?

She glances at me again. “You haven’t yet guessed?” she asks. “You do know that your condition can be hereditary?”

For a second, I don’t know what she’s saying. Then I remember the pamphlet Dr. Howard gave me. The one that said vitiligo can sometimes run in families. “But Gram didn’t have vitiligo,” I say slowly.

“Some secrets hide themselves away in the shadows like me,” Madeline rasps. “Others hide from us in plain sight.”

I picture Gram sitting next to me in the Spinney. Her long flowing dresses, fifty years out of style. Her fingers twirling the handle of her parasol. I always thought it was to protect her dove-white skin.

What had I thought when I first got diagnosed? I almost wish I’d inherited Gram’s skin color instead. Then you would barely be able to see a difference between my spots and the rest of me.

I think about the pictures I’ve seen online, of people with vitiligo who have lost all their color, who turn the most delicate shades of pale. Pale like Gram.

The pieces all fit so snugly, I can’t believe I never saw it before. But then, Gram hadn’t told me, had she? And until a few months ago, I had never even heard of vitiligo.

“She didn’t always look the way she did when you knew her,” Madeline says. “The paleness crept up on her slowly. It took many months for it to cover her completely. At least, the parts other people could see.”

“I don’t understand. If all that was wrong with her was vitiligo, why did she have to stay inside during the day?”

“I’ve told you, haven’t I, that her parents were the sick ones? They were the kind of people who did everything for show. All that mattered to them was their reputation. And things were different back then. Conditions like vitiligo were not well understood. They frightened people. People would have talked behind cupped hands. Your gram might have become an outcast, like me. Her parents couldn’t let that happen. So she spent her days with only her tutor and her books for company. They told her they were protecting her. That it was for the best.”