“Think,” I mutter, rocking back and forth, knocking my fist against my skull. “Think think think.”
Mary's face. Mary's eyes. Open. Wide. Looking at…she’s looking at me.
The poker. I remember the poker. Iron. Firelight catching it. Someone holding it, someone's hand around the handle, and the hand is—whose hand is it?
Valeria's hand. It was Valeria's hand.
Wasn't it?
I was screaming. On the floor.
Blood. So much blood, soaked into the floorboards, into Mary's hair, and my hands were—my hands were where?
Did I?—
No.
No, I saw. I was there. I watched Valeria?—
I was screaming. On the floor. Beside her. With…with blood on me. I remember the blood on me. I thought it was from being close to her, from holding her, but —
But what if…
What if it wasn't from holding her…
The thought arrives, and I try to push it away and it doesn't go, it just sits there, getting heavier, and underneath it another one starts forming, slower, worse.
Hate.Just for a second.
Mary said—Mary told me—she knew, she'd always known, and something happened in my chest when she said it, something huge and black and?—
And then what?
What happened next?
I don't…
I can't…
The poker. Iron. Firelight. A hand.
My hand.
No.
No no no no no.
I'm on my feet. I don't remember standing. My back's against the wall, and I'm pressing into it like I could go through it, like there's somewhere else to be, and the gray light doesn't change and the smell doesn't change and Mary's eyes are right there, right in front of me, open, looking at?—
Looking at me.
Did I do it?
Did I kill her?
Did I kill my sister?
"No." Out loud. My voice. Wrecked. "No, I didn't, I was—I saw Valeria, I saw her hands, I saw?—"
