ash.
Her fingernails are black with it, too.
Cinderella.
—
Meer comes infrom the kitchen. “Too much indigo can be very intense,” he says solemnly. It takes me a beat to realize this is a joke.
“That and red-eye flights,” I answer, grabbing the arm of the sofa and pulling myself up. “Did you move me in here?”
“You were dead out,” says Meer. “Like a fainting lady in a movie or something.”
“Do you want to sleep?” asks Brock, peeking into the breakfast nook. And then to Meer: “She should probably sleep.”
June returns from the kitchen carrying a wooden tray on which are five dark brown bottles with eyedroppers and a tall glass of water. She sets the tray down and bends over it, squeezing two droppers of one thing, just a drop of another, and so on, until the water is a golden hue. “These will heal you.”
“What are they?” I ask.
“Herbal tinctures,” she says. “Some I make myself, others I buy.”
“But what herbs?”
“Passionflower, ashwagandha, star-of-Bethlehem, butterbur, and clematis,” she says. And in fact, the jars are labeled in the same lovely cursive as the signs in the mudroom, though the labels look waterlogged.
“I don’t know why I asked,” I confess. “I don’t know anything about herbs.”
“You can trust me. Ask the boys. I haven’t poisoned them yet.”
“That’s true,” Meer says. “I drink passionflower water and star-of-Bethlehem every day for breakfast and I look like this.”He puts his hands under his chin and smiles like a child in a photograph.
June swats Meer gently. “Don’t listen to him. He does no such thing.”
I pick up the glass of golden liquid. I take a small sip. Suddenly, I’m incredibly thirsty, but it tastes—well, bitter and deeply rotten, like oregano gone slimy in the back of a refrigerator. Like unspoken pain.
June, Meer, and Brock look at me.
“It’s good for you. Drink it,” says June. “Or don’t. No one’s going to force you.”
“Yum yum,” says Meer, then makes a gagging face.
I tip my glass and drink.
17
The four towersof Hidden Beach are known by paint color names, their doors labeled in June’s writing:Parchment, Bone, Chalk, Oyster.I follow Meer up the stairs in Parchment Tower. He gallantly carries my duffel and shows me to “the Iron Room” on the fourth floor.
“When I was little,” says Meer as we climb, “I always wanted a room at the top of one of our towers. Not because of the view, but because Kingsley has his studio at the top of Bone Tower. But I used to always wake up in the middle of the night, so my parents insisted I have the room next to their bedroom, on the second floor of Oyster. It’s better in the summer, because lower down doesn’tget so hot at night. But Tatum and I are top-floor boys now. We took over Chalk Tower.”
“Did Kingsley put you back to bed when you woke at night?”
“Mm-hm. He used to tiptoe in all exaggerated—you know, like a clown tiptoe—then sit on the floor next to my bed. He’d have me close my eyes so I could see the pictures on the insides of my eyelids. He’d ask me what I saw, and I’d fall asleep talking. Mid-sentence, I’d conk out because my eyes were closed.” We have reached the fourth floor and Meer stops in front of a door.
“He sounds like a good dad,” I venture.
“He’s a great artist,” says Meer, like that’s the most important thing in the world.
He takes me into the Iron Room. It’s curved on one side, like the tower. The windows are wide, dressed with plain white curtains. The bed, an ancient-looking ironwork four-poster, is covered in indigo-dyed linens. It sits in the middle of the room. There are no nightstands. The closet smells of wood and is lined with empty shelves. There is no bar for hangers. No mirror, nor a chest of drawers.
