Charlie’s heart was racing and her fingers had gone cold with anxiety. “I don’t want to go in there alone.”
“I’ll meet you by the side door. How’s that?” He glanced toward the gate. They might be hidden from the front of the house, but if another car came through their little conference would look extremely suspicious.
“I don’t think I can do this.”
He put his hand on her chin, tilted her face up. “Too bad,” he said impatiently. “Mess this up, and I will have a long talk with your mother. You decide which is worse.”
She shook off his grip. What he wanted her to do—sneaking into the mansion, playing some trick on the people inside—felt impossible, but losing her mother would be worse. Mom would never forgive Charlie, not just for the deception, or costing her a marriage, or making her act like a fool in front of her friends, but for ruining the magic. Charlie would get sent to her father and his off-the-grid experimental homestead with chickens and a composting toilet that wasn’t installed right. And his new wife would never let her stay. “I’ll say you’re lying.”
“You got your sister in on it, didn’t you?” Rand smirked. “She’s still a little kid. You really think she wouldn’t admit everything if your mother pressed her?”
“Posey hates Travis,” Charlie said. “More than me, even.”
There was something in Rand’s face, some calculation that hadn’t been there before. Maybe he hadn’t guessed why she’d played the part of Alonso; maybe he’d thought it was for fun, to mess with people, or even to get something from her mother: Alonso says you better buy me a brand-new Xbox. The spirits demand it!
Charlie wasn’t sure if she was in more trouble or less.
“Travis was a dick,” he said finally.
She gave him a half smile, not a real one, but not nothing either.
And so Charlie walked across the grounds, hands in the pockets of her coat, head down. Above her, the sky was overcast. As she walked, she realized that to be really convincing she should have put on the wig upstairs. But she didn’t trust herself to get all her hair into it again. And besides, it was better for her to be disguised the whole time. That way if Rand got in trouble later, she wouldn’t get in trouble with him.
She put her hood up anyway.
The side of the house where she’d been directed had been taken over by caterers. They had a tent up and a grill going. Whole cookie trays of puffs and shrimp and other things Charlie had never seen before were being prepped and then sent inside, presumably to be put on some fancier plate.
Near the door was a small stone patio where some of the staff, in their black-and-white server outfits, were sitting and smoking. One drank coffee out of a paper cup, their breath and the hot liquid clouding in the air.
Another spoke Spanish in a low voice to a coworker. She didn’t understand all the words because she didn’t pay enough attention in class, but she thought he was complaining about a guy who was hot but also terrible.
Even though they were distracted, she didn’t dare walk right past them. They would take one look at her and know she was in the wrong place. Her sneakers were muddy from the walk, and they were sneakers. With glittery laces.
But as much as she couldn’t walk past them, she couldn’t stay where she was either. They’d notice her lurking around the bushes eventually and then she’d have no chance. Her feeling that Rand had no idea what he was doing returned. Maybe she should take the cell phone and call her mother. If she got Rand in trouble, maybe Mom wouldn’t believe anything he said.
“Hey, kid?” His voice startled her. “C’mon. Quick.”
She found him holding the door open. She could see distant movement in other rooms, but no one close by. Ducking her head and not looking at anyone else, she hurried into the house.
For a moment, she was so startled by the fanciness of it that all she could do was look around. Polished wood. Cream-and-gold-striped wallpaper. Paintings in heavy antique frames with no glass protecting them.
He steered her toward the staircase.
“Remember the job.” His voice was low and intense. “Third door on the left. A little kid’s room. Take off everything but the nightgown. When I give you the signal—not before—you stand in the window. Behind the filmy curtain, so your face is blurry, okay? Got it? Not before the signal. Stand there for one minute, then put back on the coat and get the hell out of the house. Your job is not to be seen and to leave no trace.”
Charlie nodded, feeling clumsy and afraid. She was sure she was going to be caught and then he would tell her mother everything anyway.
“Okay, well, don’t just stand there. Go!” He turned his back on her, heading toward the party.
Charlie hurried up the steps.
The air in the upstairs hall was hushed. Crystals hung from sconces, gleaming, spilling rainbows onto the wooden floor.
Her hand turned the knob on the third door and she found herself in a massive room, the whole thing done up in pink with a bed in the shape of Cinderella’s carriage at the center. The walls were muraled in vines.
Unlike in the hall, though, there was dust covering the furniture.
As though whoever had once slept in this room had been gone a long time. As though someone didn’t want it disturbed.
Charlie took off the coat, placing it gently on the side of the dresser, next to a music box. At the vibration, it gave off a few eerie notes. She toed off her sneakers too, since they were muddy and there was an expanse of pale pink carpet between her and the window. Then her jeans.
In her mind, she challenged an imaginary Rand. See? You didn’t have to tell me to do that.
When she was done, she crossed the room. But instead of going near the window, she opened the interior doors. The first led to a bathroom painted in pink as well, with a crown gathering cloth above the bathtub. A bar of pink soap rested in a little dish by the sink, but it was dried and cracked.
The second led to an enormous closet, so big that there was a sitting area with a vanity. Photographs of a blond girl were stuck to the frame around the mirror with rainbow tape. Hailey. There was her name, on the back of a pink soccer jersey. And there she was, arms around her friends. In another picture, riding an enormous chestnut horse. She looked happy. She looked alive.
But obviously, she wasn’t.
Charlie sat down at the vanity. She understood what Rand had brought her here to do.
She imagined what he was going to say to Hailey’s bereaved parent: Look at your daughter in the window. Want to keep talking to her? Well, I’d love to help, but I am going to require a financial contribution. Yerba mate and mustache wax ain’t free.
Inside the drawers she found a comb, a hair tie, and two sparkly barrettes.
Charlie pulled off the wig and used the tie to pull her hair back so that when she put the wig back on properly, strands weren’t constantly falling out. Then she took the comb to try to arrange the wig like the girl’s hair in the photos.
She stared at someone who was herself and not herself. She felt a little giddy at the thought of sliding into a different life. Of trying on a different self, one that had been loved so completely that her bedroom had become a tomb, missing only its mummy.
Rand still hadn’t signaled, so she went through the girl’s things until she found the most nondescript t-shirt and a bag big enough for the wig and nightgown. She placed those near the door just as the phone buzzed. When she looked down at it, the screen had one word.
Now!!!!!
Charlie moved to the window, careful to keep the gauzy drape between her and the glass.
She expected to see Rand outside guiding the action, but she couldn’t spot him. For a long moment she thought nothing was going to happen, that no one was going to look up. But then a woman did, and she screamed.
It wasn’t a scream of horror or fear, but pure agonized grief. Charlie had never heard a sound like it.