“Are you satisfied?”
My head whips around in time to see a second shadowy figure climbing down from the nearest turret of the castle. My blood goes cold, and for a moment, it’s like I’m seeing a ghost all over again. She’s changed out of the feathery purple gown into black leggings and a sweater, but her platinum hair is still piled elaborately on her head. She walks toward us with a big smile, takes the phone out of Marcus’s hand, and replays the last few seconds of me talking.
“That should do nicely.”
I shake my head, looking from Kirsten to Marcus and back. Blood roars through my ears. I scan the rest of the woods in a panic as the setup sinks in. I haven’t just confessed. I’ve been caught.
“You were in my room,” I say slowly. “But the memory card—”
“I figured you probably didn’t get your kicks looking at it every night, so I left you a blank one.” Her eyes are flat. “You know, at first I just wanted you to be guilty. Gretchen treated you more like a sister than she ever did me. I kept the bracelet they found with her body as a kind of memento. But when my mom pulled the matching one out of Gretchen’s jewelry box, I got suspicious. I just never thought he’d actually get you to say it.”
I turn to Marcus, my voice shaking. “You knew?”
He looks away.
“Cut the guy a little slack, I only told him the truth an hour ago.” Kirsten frowns. “I don’t think you broke his heart until you said it yourself.”
My chest feels like it’s caving in. I look at the phone in her hand, the implications of every word I said buzzing through my head. Admitting the truth to Marcus was awful, but it felt safe somehow. It was almost a relief. But if I’d known I was confessing to the sheriff, the town . . . Gretchen’s family. It can’t be like this—I need more time. I plead with my eyes, begging Marcus to look at me, but he stares past me like I’m not even here.
Kirsten folds her arms. “So, do you want to call the sheriff and turn yourself in, or should I?”
I drag my gaze back to her.
“It’ll be such a shock to him.” Her lip curls. “This isn’t going to make him look good in the next election.”
My mouth tastes of metal. “Kirsten, please. I—I can’t do that to my family.”
“You had no trouble doing it to mine.”
I lower my head, my face flooding with shame. “Gretchen tried to kill me.”
“But you killed her first.”
“It was self-defense.”
She holds up her phone and starts dialing. “Why don’t we let the justice system decide.”
I glance at Marcus, but he just turns away, looking broken.
“Kirsten, think about it.” I struggle to breathe. “Gretchen was horrible to you too, just in a different way. She knew what you wanted most in the world and she never let you have it.”
“You don’t know what I wanted,” she says, but her voice hitches.
I cup my hands together, trying to hold on to whatever nerve I hit. “I used to wonder what it was like to have a sister. I don’t think it’s supposed to be like that.”
Her lips pull back into a sneer. “She was my sister.”
“She was my best friend. She was crazy, she was scary, and I still miss her.” I gasp. Kirsten finishes dialing, her thumb hovering over Call. “Please, there must be another way.”
She lowers the phone, her eyes uncertain. She studies me for what feels like an age, and as she does I see the face of a little girl sitting outside a closed door listening to tea parties she wasn’t invited to; a preteen who would take insult and injury from her big sister just because it meant a moment of her attention; a young woman so lost in the shadow of someone else, she hardly knows herself.
“Maybe you should just jump.” Her voice is dull.
I blink at her, unsure I truly heard what she said. Marcus stands next to her, openmouthed, and all I can do is stare, but then I think of the sheriff listening to that recording and a heavy sickness twists in my gut.
“If—if I did, would you still tell everyone the truth?”
Marcus’s gaze snaps to me, but I keep my focus on Kirsten.
Her eyes widen, like she can’t quite process what’s happening either, but she answers, slowly. “I wouldn’t have to. . . .”
I nearly choke thinking of my mother waking up to that—my frozen body pulled from the water after all; just when I’d fooled her into thinking I’d be safe. But wouldn’t it be worse if she woke to find out I’m a murderer?
“How can I be sure?”
“I guess you’d just have to trust me,” she says, but there’s something Gretchen-like in her eye that convinces me. She’ll keep it secret if I do this.
“What the—are you both out of your minds?” Marcus asks.
A lump rises in my throat, but I don’t look at him. I can’t. “What about Marcus? If I don’t turn myself in, what happens to him?”