“Ridiculous?” she repeated softly, violently. She lifted the glass bowl of china shards off the coffee table. “Balancing a platter on your head for an hour is ridiculous.”
She whipped the bowl at the wall. I gasped as it shattered. “?‘Treasonous’ is the word you’re looking for,” she roared.
“This man is deranged. I think you might be in real danger. We have to get you off of Wisewood.”
Teacher paced the room, crunching in leather boots over glass and porcelain. “No, we must fight back.”
I shook my head. “Neutralizing a threat doesn’t always mean staying to fight. Sometimes it means running for your life.”
Our eyes met across the room.
She stopped pacing, face pallid. “Then take me away from here. We’ll depart as soon as I pack my bag.”
“There’s no time. We’ll leave out the side door. Grab your parka on the way.” I paused. “Do you trust me?”
Teacher nodded, wide-eyed. After all these months, she finally believed in my devotion.
I made sure the coast was clear in the hallway, then moved carefully down the spiral staircase. The house was a tomb. We snuck outside, directly across from the same Staff Only door I’d entered for initiation. That night in the water—my rebirth—was a million years ago. I hurried Teacher through the hedge entryway. We stuck close to the wall as we made our way around the island to the front gate.
The sky was a patchwork of moldy clouds. I hurried to move faster than nightfall—I had only an hour of sunlight left. When the iron pickets of the gate came into sight, I craned my neck for a view of the water. The Hourglass bobbed dutifully at the pier. A shaky laugh escaped my lips. I nodded once to Teacher. We made a run for it.
“Go ahead and get in,” I said, panting, when we reached the boat. Fingers frozen, I unwound the ropes from the cleats, jumped in behind her, and pushed the Hourglass back from the pier.
We’d made it. No one could stop us now.
I paused for a moment to watch Teacher, huddled there on the L-shaped seat. She pulled Mom’s scarf tighter around her neck, more exhausted senior than revolutionary. This was a big day for her.
“Thank you, Kitten. I knew I could count on you.”
I tipped my chin. “Let’s go for a ride.”
I turned back to the task at hand: getting us far away from Wisewood as quickly as possible. I started the engine and grabbed the steering wheel. We’d been driving for only a minute or so when Teacher cried out.
I whirled around, half expecting to find her sprawled on the floor or gone altogether, having leaned too far over the side of the Hourglass. Instead she was transfixed, her mouth forming a perfect O. I followed her horrified stare back to the pier.
Silently watching us with his hands in his pockets was Jeremiah.
45
Natalie
JANUARY 10, 2020
I POINT TO the dripping scarf in Gordon’s hand. A lump fills my throat.
I dig a thumbnail into my palm, leaving a crevice in my skin. The pain focuses me. “Where’d you get that?”
He pulls the scarf to his chest. “It’s Teacher’s.”
“It was my mother’s.” One of Mom’s regulars at the bar had it custom-made for her. There are no others like it.
Gordon glowers. “Ms. Collins gave it to Teacher a few months ago. She’s been wearing it ever since.”
My temples pulse. How dare she give away one of the few remnants of our mother? “How did you get hold of it?”
“I need to talk to Ms. Collins.”
“Why is it wet?”
“I found it.”
“Where?”
We both peer at the scarf. Gordon’s hands are shaking. I glance up at his face. His eyebrows are knitted together.
“Gordon, where is Rebecca?”
“Gone.” He presses a fist to his mouth.
I gape at him. “What do you mean, gone?”
“I haven’t seen her in weeks.” His voice trembles. “She was convinced that some of the staff had turned on her. She’d summon me in the night, positive that intruders were lurking outside her bedroom door.” His words come faster. “I followed up on every suspicion, every supposed lead, but couldn’t find any evidence to substantiate her claims. It’s healthy to be cautious, but . . . I think she’d slipped into paranoia.” He shakes his head, puts his nose to the wet scarf. “This reeks of seaweed and salt water. Her scent is gone.”
He chucks the scarf at me. The wind howls around us, shoving me off-balance.
“Then what?”
He drags his fingers down his cheeks. “Ms. Collins said Teacher demanded to be driven to the mainland, that she wouldn’t be safe here until we’d ‘neutralized the threat.’ I’d been stuck in a half-day workshop, didn’t know she was gone until Ms. Collins had returned with the Hourglass. She told me Teacher wanted us to operate the business as usual in her absence.” He cracks his knuckles. “Supposedly Teacher put Ms. Collins in charge. No one was to know she wasn’t at Wisewood, not even the other staff members.” Gordon wrings his hands. “I haven’t heard from Teacher since.”
My stomach turns. “Rebecca left Wisewood before I ever got here?”
He nods.
Then the order to steal my phone, to torment me in the forest, hadn’t been Rebecca’s idea.
It was my sister’s.
46
Kit
DECEMBER 28, 2019
I GRIPPED THE wheel of the Hourglass as she bounced on the water.
“The sea is irascible today,” Teacher said from her perch.
I calmed my breathing. “We’ll be okay.” I waited a few seconds. “Should I head to Rockland?”
She quit jiggling her leg. Her eyes had plum-hued rings beneath them. “You know I’ll never set foot on the mainland again. That wretched society has cost me everyone and everything I held dear.”
“Where should I take you, then?”
“This was your plan. Figure it out.” She mumbled something about Jeremiah, how she’d always known there was something wrong with him.
After that we drove in silence. With each wave the Hourglass rode, an old stopwatch slid back and forth across the dashboard. When I couldn’t take another second of the rattling, I flung the watch into the bucket of my seat. Then there was nothing but the pounding of the current. I slowed the boat.
Every bone in my body warned me not to, but I steeled myself and turned around anyway. With control I asked the question that had been pounding in my head since I’d seen the death certificate: “Why didn’t you tell me how my mom died?”
Teacher stiffened. Her eyes widened a touch.
I felt everything tightening—my jaw, my shoulders, my hands—and forced them to slacken. “You knew she signed up for assisted death. Why’d you keep it from me?”
Traitor! my brain shrieked.
Teacher made a noise in the back of her throat but said nothing. A seagull squawked overhead.
“You preach that even white lies are poison,” I said.
This woman gave you a new life.
“What happened to honesty at all costs?”
This is how you repay her?
Teacher had tamped down the surprise, recovered her haughtiness by now. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“I’m asking you to explain yourself.”