I look at Harper, who looks back at us like we’ve lost our minds.
Naomi’s chin quivers. “I swear to you, Harper, there’s no other explanation for what I saw last night. Her eyes wereglowing.”
Harper twists her fingers. She looks uneasy. Uncertain. Confused. And a little hurt, like maybe we’re playing a cruel joke.
“We have proof,” I blurt. “All of it’s in the crypt beneath St. Fortuna’s. The portrait. The gemstones. Ezra Vandenberg’s journal entries. Photographs of Rafe from the 1900s.”
“Okay, then,” Harper says. “Let’s go see it.”
My shoulders sag. “We can’t.”
“Why not?”
I heave a sigh, wondering why on earth I was so eager for closure, why I was so quick to put everything behind us. “The key that gets into the crypt is at the bottom of the Vandenberg well.”
16
A NEW LEAF
Icrawl into bed feeling like a wrung out rag. Today was a catastrophe. Kate won’t speak to us. Twig is distraught about it. Harper is hurt and confused. Naomi is still in shock. Jude is somewhere in Seattle. And I’m filled with regret. Why did I throw that skeleton key into the well? How hard would it be to retrieve it from the bottom?
My phone vibrates with a message from Jude.
Hey. You’ve been quiet. All good?
My stomach twists.
Allgood. Just a hard day.
Scrolling ellipses appear.
I quickly type some more before he can send me something that will only make my stomach twist tighter.
Thinking of you and your grandpa. Don’t worry about me here. XOXO.
I hit send and close my eyes. Lying to Jude doesn’t feel good, but interrupting his final days with his sick grandfather would feel worse. As much as I’m dying to tell him about Lainey and Griffin, to talk through this latest and most alarming puzzle piece, I refuse to do it. There’s nothing he can do about the situation, and there will be plenty of time to tell him when he returns.
I swap my phone for the journal on my nightstand.
Property of Simon Vandenberg, with my fingerprints all over the pages.
The early entries are thick with loneliness.
Simon didn’t have any friends.
Just his sister, and his tutors, and his books.
But then my mother showed up—a foster kid, new to town, spending her free time in the library readingThe Great Gatsby. She had to have been just as lonely. Which is probably why theyconnected so deeply. Simon’s feelings are certainly intense.
I yawn and turn the page.
His love sounds like the wild things in my mother’s favorite picture book. Like he could eat her up, he loved her so.
At the moment, I can relate.
I miss Jude so much, my stomach aches.
You woke a great hunger. Now it will hunt.
