I plopped down into a chair, staring at the plate of pastries. Suddenly I wasn’t hungry anymore. I felt like I’d already had breakfast—something made of dust, that had left a dry coating over the inside of my whole body.

I said yes?

I couldn’t have said yes. I would never have said yes. Living here with the Suttons for a couple of years while I finished high school was one thing. But living with them—being part of this world forever—no, I couldn’t do that. I knew it without thinking about it. I’d go crazy. I’d lose my mind.

But if I hadn’t said yes, Laura wouldn’t have said any of what she’d said just now.

If I hadn’t said yes, she wouldn’t be happy—she would be hurt.

She would be angry.

I DIDN’T USUALLY go looking for Barrett during the day. I knew he spent part of the day in his room, doing summer homework. Sometimes he went out for a jog around the perimeter of the property— presumably to stay in shape for lacrosse. And he spent another part of the day with his father. The rest of his time was a mystery to me, and it had never occurred to me to find him.

Now it occurred to me. Because I was restless and bored, and Agatha and Laura would be gone until dinnertime. Reading was okay, but after I finished a book, I had trouble getting up the motivation to immediately pick up another one.

I would have done some tidying, but there was nothing that needed to be tidied.

I stood outside the nursery, freshly showered and dressed, and wondered whether he was in his room thinking about me and wondering what I was up to. Probably not, right?

No matter how lonely I was, it wasn’t my style to stand around waiting for a boy to remember my existence. So I picked up another book, stationed myself in the library where I would hear him come down the stairs, and waited. I mean, read. I read so much that I fell asleep almost instantly.

I was awakened later by a sound, a rolling peal of music that reverberated through the halls. I stood up, feeling like a rat following the Pied Piper, and went to find its source.

I had seen the music room a couple of times—a cozy tucked-away space at the far end of the hall, where the music wouldn’t dominate the house—but I’d never seen a human being in there. But now I followed the sound of the piano and rounded the corner to see Barrett sitting on the piano bench, his face frozen in concentration.