“How?” Constance’s voice cracks with fresh fear. “There’s no landline.”
Damien pulls out his cell phone. “No service either.”
“And none of us drove,” he points out, a detail I hadn’t considered until now. “Everyone took Ubers from the city.”
Everyone looks to me for answers. This is Marmee’s house, my childhood home. Its privacy and seclusion have always captivated me, but now, in the wake of tragedy, the remoteness presents a colossal complication. There’s no way to contact the police. Even if we could, nothing can bring Marlowe back.
Oliver’s threatening notes flash through my mind.
Don’t have too much fun without me.
Are you going to tell them the truth about what happened between us?
Maybe Opal’s tarot reading wasn’t the only omen of bad things to come. Is it possible Oliver’s messages and Marlowe’s death are connected?
A hand traces my shoulder. My eyes flicker upward to find Ava staring back at me.
“You should talk to Evelyn,” she says. “If there are no phones, she must have a car we can use.”
“Who is Evelyn?” Damien asks; his ignorance angers me.
“My grandmother,” I say. “This is her house.”
He nods but doesn’t seem to listen or care, just stares ahead as though in a trance. Somewhere nearby, I hear the swishing of Preston’s agitated pacing, Constance’s quivering cries. I taste salt on my lips from my own tears.
“Tippi?” Ava touches my shoulder again, the sensation making me flinch. She holds out her hands in a surrender. “We should go inside. There isn’t anything to do here.”
Anger rumbles inside me, temporarily eclipsing my sadness. I force myself to look at Marlowe one last time, her angelic white dress now dyed a deep rust. Above, jagged balusters stab at the star-riddled sky, protruding into nothingness. A fall from that angle is improbable—unforced, it’s impossible. These details adhere to my memories of tonight, everything I know about the house’s sound structure and Oliver’sominous messages and Marlowe’s mysterious temperament evolving into a nerve-deep understanding.
What happened tonight wasn’t an accident.
Marlowe was pushed from the library balcony.
And someone here did it.
Tippi’s Takes Presents:
What Hitch Taught Me About Life
An exploration of life and cinema from the viral sensation
by Tippi Rathbone
Chapter Two
Strangers on a Train(1951): Be Kind to Strangers
How does one go about planning the perfect murder? Hitchcock’sStrangers on a Train,based on the psychologically complex novel by Patricia Highsmith, aims to answer this question. The plot is brilliantly simple: Two men encounter each other on a train and decide to “swap murders,” thus extricating themselves from future suspicion.
Guy Haines, an acclaimed tennis player hoping to divorce his unfaithful wife and marry his true love, encounters Bruno Antony, a flamboyant, high-flying playboy desperate for his father to die and leave behind an inheritance. Bruno’s bizarre game of hypotheticals veers into reality when he hunts down Guy’s wife, Miriam, and strangles her, a crime the audience sees reflected in the thick lenses of her fallen glasses.He spends the rest of the movie pestering Guy to fulfill his end of the deal.
Hitchcock and his team made several changes to the source material to meet censorship guidelines and make the characters onscreen seem more sympathetic. Some of the most memorable scenes, like the climactic fight on a winding carousel, were never mentioned in the novel yet created cinematic magic.
The film reminds us to be nice to strangers…but maybe not too nice. After all, the more someone knows about you, the easier it is for them to hurt you, and you never know when they might decide to take matters into their own hands.
18
Before
