“No, it doesn’t look good, does it? You spending all this time with a sixteen-year-old girl, just the two of us. Especially considering two teenage girls were murdered last year and they’re still looking for the killer.”

He takes a step toward me and I feel a lurch of fear. Why did I even come here tonight? What was I thinking? Does he see it on my face? He stops anyway, runs both his hands through his hair.

“You need to go,” he says. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come back.”

The following night I wake up, disturbed by the door opening. It’s dark, middle-of-the-night dark. I’m sweating, my nightshirt clinging to me, my hair damp on my head. Bella comes in and, silhouetted in the light from the landing, I can see she’s disheveled, hair tangled, her feet bare. She climbs into bed next to me and I can smell damp earth, dead leaves. She must have been in the woods; I know the smell. Her arm is cold against mine and she’s shaking.

“What’s wrong?” I whisper.

She doesn’t answer, curled away from me, cold and shaking.

“Where have you been?”

“I went to see…” Her voice drifts off and her shoulder stiffens when I touch it. Her T-shirt is torn.

“Doesn’t matter, Tess,” she whispers, barely audible. “I just want to sleep in here with you tonight.”

“Okay,” I say. I close my eyes as my sister trembles next to me, but I’m no longer sleepy.

I can feel there’s something wrong, something awful. There’s a wrongness in the room with us. “Bella?” I whisper. “Please…tell me what’s wrong.”

She’s so tense next to me. “Do you ever wish they’d never moved here? Julia, Greg, all of them? Do you ever wish…?”

I bite my lip. “All the time.”

She sighs, a deep, shuddery sigh. “Go to sleep now, Tess. It’s fine. It’ll all be fine. Just go to sleep.”

NOW

Chapter 31

Chapter 31

Jack is in my room when I get back to the house, looking at the books on the shelf. I stand in the doorway, shoulders tense.

“What are you doing in here?”

He glances back at me and smiles. “I was bored—looking for something to read, but the choice is a bit limited.” He pulls the book of fairy tales off the shelf and holds it up. “Seriously? You kept this? How old were you when you moved out again?”

I march over and snatch it off him. Of all the books on the shelf, why did he pick up that one? He’s watching me, waiting for a reaction, and I work hard to keep my face blank. “My mother gave it to me,” I say, putting it back on the shelf.