Could I really spend the next two years in this suffocating, isolated house? Trying to live up to Laura’s expectations, trying not to overstep in any way that might be annoying to her or John—or, God forbid, damaging to their family’s vaunted legacy?

So much of me was already numb. If I closed the curtain on the rest, what would be left? But maybe that didn’t even matter. Misery was misery, right? So what if I was miserable here versus being miserable somewhere else? At least here I could take long showers. And the food was good.

Enjoy it, purred the cynical voice inside me. The air was still and quiet, and I began to coast downhill toward sleep. Give up and enjoy it . . .

“Go!” said a voice.

My eyes flicked open.

“Agatha?” I asked, my voice groggy with sleep.

Slowly, I sat up and looked around, but I knew even before my eyes made it all the way around the room that I was alone. That I’d been alone the whole time. No one could have come in here, could have opened that creaky door while I was—

I froze.

On the wall behind the door in streaky, handwritten black letters was a single word:

GO

I climbed off the bed and approached the wall, thinking that I must be seeing things, that this was a trick of light and shadow and my exhausted imagination.

But no. When I touched it, my fingertip came away black. I stared, dumbfounded, wondering who could have done such a thing.

I mean, there was only one explanation, right?

Agatha must have sneaked in here after I’d fallen asleep.

The weird thing was . . . I didn’t really think I had fallen asleep.

It didn’t make sense. Just say she did get through the loud door and move in utter silence across the squawking floorboards while I dozed. There would still have been some noise. The sound of a bottle opening? The swish of a brush?

One thing was clear, at least: the meaning of the word GO. I didn’t need that spelled out for me.

There was a knock at the door, and without stopping to think, I leaned against it with all my weight, holding it shut.

“Yes?” I said, trying to disguise the tension in my voice.

“Hello, Margot.” Laura’s voice was softly insistent. “Could you please open the door for me?”

I froze. Why, no, in fact, I cannot.

“Margot?” she repeated.

I opened the door. What would she say? Would I have a chance to explain, or would the sight so enrage her that she would immediately send me away? Would she think I had done it?

Laura stepped into the room. She turned to the right. A half step more and she would see the word. But then her eyes flashed back to mine.

“Looks nice,” she said. “You’re very tidy.”