But I barely take two steps before I whirl back around. I can’t do it.
“Eliza,” I blurt out. “I have to tell you something.”
This wasn’t how I’d pictured it all happening. I had wanted Eliza to hurt the way I hurt, to know what it felt like to have a mother disappoint and embarrass her. I realize with horror how much I want this part out of myself now—?the part that chooses bitterness. The part that makes me more like Stefen and less like Mother or the Clifftons.
I feel the grit of the road in my mouth, and I’m starting to shake. “Your mother isn’t coming,” I confess. “She sent a telegram, and I . . . I took it. She said an auction came up and she’s not coming. I’m so sorry.”
Eliza studies me coldly.
“What?” she asks.
The last bit of my pride struggles against me as I try to choke it down.
“I know. It was horrible, and I don’t know why I did it. I’m sorry,” I repeat.
Eliza’s mouth sags open. I have actually rendered her speechless.
“You were right about a lot of things,” I say. “I hope someday you can forgive me.”
Before Eliza can regain her composure, I turn and begin to sprint again, running until I can’t see her or the broken-down car anymore. A piercing pain hitches in my side.
But I force myself on.
I slow to a half jog when I glimpse the iron gates of the Clifftons’ property. The setting sun throws golden pinks and oranges in streaks above my head. I’m limping by the time I make it up the curving gravel drive.
I know, already, that something is wrong. The house seems strangely silent, as if it is holding its breath. The chimney isn’t smoking. The lights are off. Everything is too dark.
I’m climbing the last stair to the front door when I hear it, coming from the garden.
The air splitting apart with the sound of Mrs. Cliffton’s scream.
I bolt for the garden. When I round the corner, I stop short.
Will stands just beyond the stone wall. His expression doesn’t change when he sees me. A man is between us, dressed all in black, with his back turned to me. He’s holding dark, glittering Variants in one hand, and in the other is a carved wooden bird. I can’t see his face, but I know who he must be.
He has found us, just like the bird in Miles’s dream.
Juliet’s twin.
My uncle.
Stefen.
I drop down behind the wall just as he begins to turn in my direction. My lungs burn, but I hold my breath so that I don’t make a sound. Suddenly I can’t remember: Did I tuck the final, losing Star back into my pocket or is it lying uselessly on the floor of my room?
I must have hidden myself just in time. Stefen’s voice turns back in the other direction, away from where I’m crouching. I scoot closer to the wall, running my fingers soundlessly over it until I find a peephole.
I peer through it and will myself to come up with a plan for what to do next.
“Matilda,” Stefen says softly. “Malcolm.” His voice turns hard. “I’m going to ask you one more time, with an added incentive to cooperate.” He gestures to the Variants in his hand. They are slate-colored ones I don’t recognize. But I watch as Will freezes at the sight of them. “There’s no need to threaten anyone, Stefen,” Dr. Cliffton says. A faint glisten of sweat appears on his forehead. His glasses have ridden down the slope of his nose. “Now, I’m going to ask you to leave my property before I call the police.”
My fingers fumble in my pocket for the Star, and my heart sinks. I feel nothing but fabric. I want to scream.
Where is Miles?
“Of course,” Stefen says to Dr. Cliffton. “I understand.” He closes his hand over the slate-colored Variants and returns his hand to his pocket. How odd, to see the flashes of Mother in him when he turns his face in profile—?features that always meant softness and protection in her, now jagged and distorted on his face. For a second it seems that he’s going to leave. That maybe it’s all going to be that easy.
But then he turns back around. Whips his hand out of his pocket again, and before I can even cry out, he’s thrown a shower of Variants into the air.
