“Olivia Greene,” I tell him bluntly, “is Marguerite Swan. She was waiting for you out in the harbor; she would have pulled you to her, her lips on yours, and then she would have drowned you.”
He leans forward against his knees, teeth clamped shut. I stare at the scar beside his left eye, his cheekbones are starting to blaze from the heat of the fire. My focus slides back to his lips, to the way they felt pressed to mine. “But how do you know that?” he asks. “How can you be so sure it’s Marguerite Swan who’s taken over Olivia’s body? And not one of the other sisters?” He squints, like he can’t believe his own question, that he’s even asking it.
“You just need to trust me,” I say. “Marguerite wants to kill you. And she won’t stop until she finds a way to do it.”
“Why me?” he asks.
“Because she saw you with me at the boathouse.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
My fingers tremble slightly; my heart pushes against my ribs, warning me not to tell him the truth. But the truth tastes like letting go, like the sharpness of sunlight on a spring day, and my head begins to pulse with every heartbeat. “I can see them,” I confess, the words tumbling out before I can catch them.
“Them?”
“The sisters. I can see Aurora inside of Gigi Kline and Marguerite inside of Olivia Greene. I know whose bodies they’ve taken.”
He straightens, lifting his elbows away from his knees. “How’s that even possible?”
I shake my head, the air gone from my lungs, and a shiver races up my entire body.
“You can see them and you haven’t said anything?”
“No one knows.”
“But...” His mouth dips open, eyes narrowed on me. “You can see what they really are?”
“Yes.”
I stand up, crossing my arms. I can tell he’s trying to piece it all together, make everything fit. But his mind is fighting him. He doesn’t want to believe what I’m telling him could be true. “How long have you been able to do this?”
“Always.”
“But how?”
I lift my shoulders. “I don’t know. I mean... it’s just something I’ve always been able to do.... I...” I’m rambling, getting lost in the explanation. In the deception beneath the truth.
“Can your mom see them too?”
I shake my head.
He frowns and looks down into the fire, rubbing the back of his neck with his right hand. “Do they know... do the sisters know you can see them?”
“Yes.”
Again his mouth parts open, searching for words, for the right question to make this all make sense. “What about the third one—the third sister?”
“Hazel,” I answer for him.
“Where is she? Whose body has she stolen?”
“I don’t know.”
“You haven’t seen her yet?”
“No.”
“But she’s out there somewhere?”
