I’m sympathetic, and I understand, but I can’t tell her how this makes me uncomfortable – some sort of fetishizing of youth, of innocence, that makes me wonder, given these hang-ups, what she could possibly like about me. ‘That’s really why you’re worried, then? That we might find something and it’ll change Ellis for the worse?’

‘Do you have siblings?’

I almost smile, everything she doesn’t know too delicious even to bear. I shake my head.

‘So you don’t understand, Mona. I’m sorry. You can’t.’

‘Goodnight, Peyton.’

She says nothing.

What she doesn’t realize is I’m probably exactly what Ellis needs right now – someone who wants the same thing as him, clever and bullheaded enough to get things done, to show him that his desires and ideas aren’t inane. How ironic she wants him to stand up for himself, and all I’ve seen her do since I’ve arrived is patronize him.

I’m the only one who will gladly fight for Ellis and won’t ask for anything in return.

And when I go to sleep, there’s an expanse of nothing and I’m glad for it. There’s no Celeste, no lies, just churning black and in my ears, the dull thud of my heart, the only beast I know who keeps to a sure rhythm and doesn’t pull tricks.

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 17

SATURDAY 5 JUNE

Saturday morning, a mighty fog has draped itself over the island, the non-view from my dorm window all but swallowed up by the haze, the railing of the balcony giving way to a descent into grey nothingness. Everyone’s kind of giddy about it, the halls already bounding with activity.

Friday was odd – Peyton made no effort, really, to clear the air from the night before, but today she’s back to her normal self, acting as though nothing had happened.

I wake up thinking of Lenore, of Mary Anne and her anger, of Archie, of Baby Blue.

Ellis wants to meet up at ten in the morning to try and talk to Lenore – Sylvia will be on the mainland so he can leave without questions from her. I delight in the fact that I’ve clearly riled something in him, that he’s excited to proceed, to be thrust out of what was once his comfort zone into the full unyielding current of the investigation.

Lenore’s house is apparently near Ellis’s side of town, so I walk over the neck and towards the Willowwood and linger outside for about five minutes.

‘Everything go OK?’ I ask when Ellis emerges.

‘Yeah, all good. Peyton’s working the front desk and she asked where I was going – I said I had to get flowers. Which isn’t a lie because Mom did actually ask, so I should still do that.’

‘We can go afterwards.’