“She’s never nested in the Elmhursts’ barn before,” Marysaid. “I don’t even think anyone looked there. She was in the rafters, high up. They found pieces of her nest up there. Do you think she was hiding because of the weather? It’s been raining so much lately.”
“I don’t know. It’s possible.”
I imagined someone placing a ladder against the loft in the Elmhursts’ barn, taking their time climbing up to Annabella. She was trusting; she was used to people getting too close, taking her picture, measuring her eggs with delicate tape measurers. She would let you put a finger on her head and rub. When she’d had enough, she would nip you ever so gently, like a cat who doesn’t want to hurt you but just wants you to leave it alone.
“I keep dreaming about it,” Mary whispered. She squeezed her eyelids shut and shook her head back and forth.
I put blush on her cheeks, because I didn’t know what else to do, because she looked so pale.
“I think you need some more sleep now,” I said.
I brought her back into her room and handed her pajamas, waited while she got dressed and then helped her crawl into bed.
“Is it even bedtime?” she asked, her eyes already closing, her hair quickly soaking the pillow.
“It’s bedtime. Look, it’s dark outside.”
Mary looked to the window, where it was, indeed, dark and gray and wet.
“It feels like I’m still there,” she said quietly.
“Where?”
But she didn’t say anything, so I covered her and tucked her in, then sat on the edge of the bed while she struggled to stay awake. I didn’t know what else to do for her, how to help her. She looked lost, too small, a shrunken shadow underneath the blankets.
“You don’t think it’s weird, to be so upset?” she asked again, eyelids heavier, face relaxing.
“Of course I don’t.”
“Because everybody is upset about Annabella, right?”
“They are. You just need a little rest. When you wake up, Mom will make you something to drink.”
“You’ll get yours, Georgie. You’ll get yours or I’ll renounce mine,” she said, and her eyelids shut with an almost audible, minute crash.
I waited a few minutes just to make sure she wasn’t going to get up again, and then I pulled all the curtains shut and turned the lights off and closed the door behind me when I left.
I got dressed and went downstairs. The inn was packed with people but eerily silent; the birdheads didn’t know what to do with themselves, so they were eating a very long and slow breakfast, and Aggie was quickly running out of food.
I made myself a plate of pancakes and went into the kitchen, where my mother was sipping a cup of coffee and picking at a muffin.
“Is your sister still asleep?” she asked when she saw me.
I nodded and poured myself a cup of coffee. I looked down at the brown liquid as I raised the mug to my lips and paused. “What about if you put something in everyone’s drinks? And if they’re a murderer, their hair would turn blue?”
My mom smiled and touched my own hair. “It doesn’t work quite like that. Any kind of big thing like this... It takes a bit of planning. A lot of time, energy.”
“But you’re working on something?”
“I’m working on something, yes, Georgina.”
“And how long do you think it will take?”
“A few weeks, at least.”
“Weeks?”
“The moon needs to be good again. These are difficult things to do; they take time.”
