Cole swung his gaze to me. “What happened?”
Charlie the Stranger knew my name, and he knew where Ava lived. And he’d told me to keep my mouth shut in a way that made my face sting. I looked at Cole and blinked.
He kept his eyes on mine and shook his head. “I won’t tattle,” he said. “I swear.”
Cole Whitehurst was as mean to me as the meanest kids at S.J. Montgomery Elementary, but looking into his ice-blue eyes, my heart still racing in my chest, I realized that he might be mean, but I didn’t think he was a liar.
I took a deep breath. “He was trying to get us to go with him,” I said in a rush. “He was trying to take Ava.”
At my confession, Ava burst into tears. Her body curled like a question mark, and she shuffled to Cole. I watched him put his arms around her before I quickly looked away. I fidgeted with the drawstring of my bag, listening to Ava cry as Cole whispered to her.
I glanced up. Ava’s face was hidden against the front of Cole’s army shirt. His arms were crossed over her back, pulling her close. And his mouth was pressed against her ear as he whispered.
It looked…nice.
Not mean at all. But like it would feel really good.
I swallowed and looked down again. It was getting late. We were still the only ones on the street, but I wasn’t afraid of zombies or ghosts anymore. And even though I knew I’d now always be scared of strangers in cars who wanted to steal little kids, I wasn’t scared Charlie would come back.
I just wanted Mama. I wanted Halloween to be over, and I didn’t much care if I had any candy to take home or not.
Cole set Ava back from him, and she was nodding now, wiping her eyes. “O-okay,” I heard her whisper, her voice still shaky.
With his hands still cupping her shoulders, Cole looked at me, his eyes sharp now as though all the softness he’d just shown was all he’d ever have.
“We don’t need to tell anyone about this. Got it?” His voice seemed to startle the night air, and I flinched against it.
I nodded.
“Promise, Elise,” he said, using my name for the first time. “Promise you won’t say anything to Flora or anyone else.”
For a moment, I couldn’t find my tongue because now, almost yelling at me, he seemed nothing like the brother he’d been to Ava just a moment before.
Or maybe this was him still being that brother. Protecting her from the stranger’s threat and maybe from something else I didn’t understand.
“I promise,” I gulped.
He watched me for a while, his eyes like slits, testing, I guessed, if he could trust me.
“If Flora tells anything to our mother and father, I’ll—”
I shook my head. “She won’t say anything because I won’t tell her anything.” I decided I didn’t want to anyway. I didn’t even want to think about it. “I’ll keep my promise.”
Cole gave me a slow nod. “Good. Because I hate people who break their promises.” He hooked his arm around Ava and finally stopped staring at me.
I followed as he walked his sister back the way we’d come, all the while wondering who had broken their promises to Cole Whitehurst.
Chapter 3
ELISE
I never broke my promise.
And I was glad I didn’t because the year I turned ten, Mrs. Abigail Whitehurst took a spill down the family’s sweeping staircase, fracturing her leg, hip, and pelvis. After the first surgery, it was clear Mrs. Abigail would be in the hospital for weeks before she could go home, and then she’d be bound to a wheelchair for months after that, while she went through physical therapy, got her strength back, and learned how to walk again.
I probably would have only been dimly aware of this if Mrs. Abigail’s accident hadn’t had such a direct impact on my life. But two days after her fall, Mama and I moved into the Whitehursts’ guesthouse so Mama could be close at hand and help the family around the clock. The arrangement was meant to be temporary. Six months. Maybe a year, depending on Mrs. Abigail’s progress.
But Mama and I would live there for the next seven years.
