Chapters (59)
- Cover
- About the Author
- Praise
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- January
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- February
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- March
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- April
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- May
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- June
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- July
- Forty-One
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- Author’s Note
- Ladies of the House - Reader’s Guide
- Questions For Discussion
- Excerpt
We were both wrong. It was Atlas. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten him. For weeks, I couldn’t get him out of my head, but the minute I do, he turns up. I watched for Wallis’s reaction, wondering if I should tell him to go, but Atlas was probably the only person in the world she could forgive for not being Blake Darley. She hugged him, drew him inside. I stood, feeling unprepared, and shaky, and—oh, God, he looked so nice and I hadn’t washed my hair since Thursday morning.
“I knocked on Daisy’s door downstairs,” Atlas said, obeying Cricket’s command and taking a seat in one of the wing chairs. “But then I thought since it was Sunday evening, you might all be up here.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I—we—” I checked Wallis, who shook her head. This stuff with Blake, it seemed, she wanted to keep quiet. “It’s been a day.”
The door buzzer sounded, and Cricket said something about how popular we were. This time, it was the pizza, and she made business of going downstairs to retrieve it.
“How are you? We haven’t seen you since—” Wallis stopped. I thought she was remembering, like I was, the events in the graveyard two weeks prior. “Well, it’s been a minute. Where have you been?”
I cast my eyes toward Atlas. I couldn’t resist. I thoroughly wanted to know what he would say. What had he been doing? Who was he with? Did he love me yet?
“Here and there,” he said unhelpfully.
“Not here,” Wallis said. “Unless Daisy has been hiding you.”
“He’s been in my closet the whole time.” I laughed, but it was high-pitched and graceless.
“You’re right.” He laughed too, just as stilted. “I’m the boogeyman. Reporting is just my cover.”
“Is this some inside joke?” asked Wallis. “I don’t get it.”
“I’m just kidding.” I was making the awkwardness worse, wasn’t I? “Boogeymen don’t live in closets anyway. They live in mirrors.” Yes, much worse.
“You’re thinking of Bloody Mary,” said Atlas.
“You’re right!” Someone needed to stop me. “And Candyman.” I made my hand into a hook and sliced it through the air.
“Oh, my God.” Wallis looked at me as though I’d jumped the shark, as though I was pirouetting over the shark. Or as though I was the shark. “I think we’ve exhausted this topic of conversation.”