I passed the afternoon restlessly puttering around the nursery. I’d lived there long enough that it felt like my space, too, and so exploring didn’t feel like I was getting into anyone else’s business. As an excuse, I dusted and tidied as I went, fluffing the pillows on the beds, straightening Agatha’s textbooks, sitting up the stuffed animals on her shelf, and tearing out the outdated blank page from her school notebook. I thought about simply erasing today’s date and writing tomorrow’s in pencil—maybe doing the same every day, saving a little paper. But then I had second thoughts. Agatha’s school ritual was purely artificial, and everybody (probably even Agatha) knew it. But the performance was obviously important to Laura—otherwise she wouldn’t dress Agatha up like a doll and do her hair every day. When you thought about it, everything about life at Copeland Hall was a little show. Laura was the director, and we all played our parts.

So I ripped out the old page and dropped it in the trash can.

Outwardly, as I completed these chores, I was calm. But inwardly, I was an anxious mess. Angry, too. What if Barrett was, at that very moment, convincing John and Laura to send me away? Of course Laura would defend me, but I knew instinctively that Barrett’s words would hold great power with his parents. Just from the way they said his name, I could tell that he was their great hope for the future. His importance was even more clear because Agatha was sick. He was the heir now. Who was to say they wouldn’t let him start to make decisions about the way things were run?

Another hour passed, and I felt like I was going crazy from the suspense. I imagined them all sitting around a table, deciding my fate.

Finally, unable to stop myself, I brushed my hair, put on some lip balm, and headed downstairs. I would go to the library, and if I came across them and was invited to join, I would do so. Surely they would hear me come downstairs. Surely they’d catch sight of me through an open door. John would say, Come on in, Margot! Where have you been hiding?

Except, nope. I made it all the way to the library unimpeded and then had nothing to do but roam around the room, searching the shelves for something that interested me. On the far side of the room, near a door that I’d always assumed was a closet, I stopped suddenly.

I could hear low, serious voices: Laura’s, John’s, and Barrett’s.

So this door wasn’t to a closet. It must have been a passage to another room. I got as close as I dared and focused all my energy on making out their words. Even Agatha must have been in there with them. I felt profoundly left out.