“What is it?” I asked her. But she’d stopped watching me. She was staring at the hall.

A few more swipes and my fingers finally pulled it toward me. It was a string, and I managed to loop a fingertip through it and pull. To my surprise, it was a tiny black velvet bag.

“Ha!” I said, holding it out to her. “I got it!”

Suddenly, she went stiff.

“Ags?” I asked.

She grabbed my arm and yanked me off the trash can. I almost fell to the floor but managed to land upright—barely—just in time for her to pull me toward the door and drag me down the hall and out the double doors.

We rushed across the hall and stopped just outside the nursery. I had my hand on the doorknob when Laura’s voice called up from the bottom of the stairs.

“Girls?” She sounded alarmed. Her footsteps approached rapidly. “Girls, what are you doing out of bed?”

She’d said girls, but she clearly meant the question for me. She reached the top of the steps.

I didn’t have time to think. I lied as fast as I could. “I was just coming to find you,” I said, hoping words would form themselves. “Agatha was—”

On cue, Agatha bent over and threw up all over the floor.

“—um, sick,” I said.

“Oh my goodness!” Laura cried. “Run into the bathroom and get some towels, please.”

As I was hurrying back from the bathroom, the door at the end of the hall opened, and Barrett stepped out, wearing flannel pajama pants and a T-shirt.

“What’s going on?” he asked blearily.

“Nothing,” Laura said. “We’re fine. Go back to bed.”

She shepherded Agatha past me, and I heard the shower turn on. So it was just me, Barrett, and a gross mess on the floor.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Your sister’s sick.” I tossed a towel over the dirty spot.

“I can clean that,” he said, stepping closer. “You shouldn’t have to.”

“It’s fine,” I said, even though it was actually very gross. He came closer, and I instinctively backed away. I couldn’t even stand to be near him; his presence made me irrationally angry. He was a snob, a bad person.

But even if he was those things, he suppressed them long enough to clean up the mess on the floor, for which I felt a twinge of gratitude.

“Does this happen a lot?” he asked, balling up the towels.

I shrugged. “Not since I got here.”

“Poor Aggie,” he said, and the quiet kindness of his words momentarily disarmed me. “It must be confusing for her.”

“I guess,” I said, glancing over to the nursery door. Should I tell him good night and make my escape?

“What else does she need?” he asked. “Did she throw up in the nursery, too? Does she—”