As my eyes swept across the deserted hallway (because now I was paranoid), I saw something I hadn’t noticed before: the second door on the right stood slightly open.

Agatha’s real bedroom, where she lived before she became ill.

I walked toward the door, thinking I would close it. That was all—just close it.

Except I didn’t close it, did I?

I went in.

A FEW STEPS past the door, I had to stop and stare. It was as if two galaxies had smashed together—Copeland Hall’s stately, historical style, and a teenage girl’s bedroom from a movie about how messy teenage girls are.

Its fundamentals weren’t very different from the rest of the house: It was spacious, with high ceilings and tall windows. The floor was carpeted in plush pink, a shade too close to magenta to feel current, and the bed was a four-poster with a canopy of stiff, shiny fabric decorated with multicolored flowers. It exactly matched the skirt around the base of the bed and the drapes that hung grandly over the windows. There was also a matching armchair in the corner. The furniture was white wood, with little carvings tucked into the corners and crannies. The walls had lemon-yellow wallpaper in alternating lines of shiny and matte finish. And in the corner was an elaborate white vanity with a round stool that had a fluffy pink fur cushion.

It was a room built for a princess.

But no princess lived here—it looked more like the lair of a sloppy troll. Strewn, scattered, hung, and draped on all of its refined, feminine surfaces were clothes, bags, shoes, books, stuffed animals, papers, magazines, and even empty water bottles (the expensive glass kind, I couldn’t help noticing).

I walked over to the vanity. There were so many photos tucked into its frame that half the mirror was blocked. I carefully pulled one out and inspected it.

Even though I’d expected to see her face, I drew in a sharp breath.

Agatha.

She was nearly unrecognizable. Even in a still image, her spirit and life shone through. It was a photograph of her and a friend standing on the deck of what must have been a very nice boat. Agatha wore a red bikini with little bows on each hip. As a cover-up, she wore a loose white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Her feet were bare, her toenails painted to match her bikini. Her hair, in a thick braid, lay casually over her shoulder like an accommodating pet snake, and under a smattering of freckles on her nose and cheeks and berry-colored lips, her face was perfectly tanned.

She had one arm lazily slung over the shoulder of the girl next to her, who might as well have been wearing an invisibility cloak. No one could have taken the spotlight off Agatha. She was too pretty, too vivacious, too exciting. Too effortlessly cool and fun.