“That witchy woman did something to myhead,” Lily says, her voice noticeably strained. “Or maybe it was the seizure.
“I keep having these visions. Not dreams or nightmares. These are happening while I’m awake, like flashes in my brain that I cannot control. They just come. Only they’re not flashes. They’re dark and twisted and I don’t understand them. So, I just keep drawing them. Like maybe if I can look at them on paper, they’ll start to make sense? Simon wants to know what’s wrong. He keeps asking what’s bothering me. He wants to know what I’ve been drawing, but I can’t tell him. I certainly can’t show him.”
I fast-forward some more, to the last recording on the tape.
Lily is spiraling.
Her visions get so bad, she tries to find Mother Bramble again, but Enola isn’t in the woods foraging for herbs. And when Lily pounds on her cabin door, nobody answers.
“I can’t stop thinking about what she said to me. ‘The sight will plague you.’ We thought it was a joke. She was just messing with me. But I don’t think so anymore. I think, somehow, I can actually see the future. And if it’s real, it’s bad. Really, really bad.”
The cassette stops.
The tape has reached its end.
The five of us stare at one another.
Then a knock sounds on the door and Mrs. Calloway peaks her head inside with a smile and a big bowl of Muddy Buddies.
I wake the next morning with a Lily-sized hangover. I listened to the tapes late into the night. I couldn’t stop. As soon as I crawl out of bed, the urge to start again is so strong I have to physically hide the boombox.
I need to cut myself off.
So I dress warm, lace up my shoes, and go for a run.
It’s a good decision.
The cold air is invigorating. It fills my lungs and clears my head and nips at my nose. Dad has cleared several trails for me, a perk of knowing the groundskeeper. All around, icicles glitter on the trees. A cardinal flits from one branch to the next.
I jog toward the back of the estate with every intention of circling around the stables and returning the way I came. But when the paddock comes into view, I stop quite suddenly.
Jude is there, standing in a flattened patch of snow, his dark clothes stark against the white, a quiver strapped between his shoulders. He facesthe far fence line where a target has been set. I stand very still and watch as he draws back his bow, aims, and releases.
The string snaps.
The arrow flies through the air and hits the center of the bulls-eye with a dull thunk.
He’s not wearing a coat. It’s been discarded on the ground beside him. His fitted sleeves are tight against his arms. His lean body, taut and controlled as he shoots twice more, hitting the bulls-eye both times. He strides toward the target, and I step behind a tree.
Tonight, we will be together at Isabel’s Christmas Eve soiree. Dad and I will walk up the front lawn to the Vandenberg manor. Like every other holiday, neither of us will mention Mom, but both of us will be thinking of her. And I will spend the evening in Jude’s presence, counting sheep as best I can.
I glance at the stables, where Mom carved initials inside a heart with Simon.DG + DB.Something niggles in the back of my mind, only I can’t pin it down. I look toward the Water Garden, where Lily died. She sketched her own death—claw marks slashing down the paper.
Jude retrieves his arrows, and when he turns around, he stops and peers into the trees, like he knows someone is watching him.
I shift deeper into shadow.
He puts his head down and resumes his place in the clearing.
I run home.
Up in my bedroom, I pull off my beanie and lay several items on my bed—Simon’s journal, Lily’s sketchpads, the shoebox of my mother’s things, and Enoch’s copy ofThe Great Gatsby, the same novel my mom had been reading when she and Simon first met. He’d been readingA Picture of Dorian Gray, which is why they called one another Daisy and Dorian.
DG + DB.
Daisy Buchanan.
Dorian Gray.
