Page 34 of The Paradox Club

But the voices never answered such questions. Conversations with the voices were distinctly one-sided. One night, when she still heard their echoes even though she had written down all the integers from one to a thousand, she cracked her door, hoping the unintelligible whispers of her father and Vivian chatting by the fire, as they did every night, would lull her to sleep. But as soon as the door was open, she felt drawn through it by those voices. She crept down the corridor and hid behind the couch, close enough to hear every word—words that imprinted in her psyche and made this the second of the nights on the island she would never forget.

“Are you sure want to do this?” asked Vivian. “What about Marie?”

“I’ve given the past fifteen years to Marie,” said Harry. “It’s time we did this. This may be our only opportunity.”

“And Tess?”

“If everything goes well, it won’t affect Tess at all.”

“That’s a big if. We can’t do it while they’re on the island.”

“They’ll be in the house; we’ll be in the woods. They’ll never know,” said Harry.

“I’m still not sure.”

“What do you think is going to happen? Do you think lightning is going to strike us dead?”

“What if they find out? You know how Marie feels about this.”

“And she knows how I feel. Marie will forgive me.”

“For doing something she’s begged you again and again not to do?”

“Marie will forgive me.”

“And Tess?”

“We’ll explain it to Tess. When she’s older.”

“Sometimes I think that girl is smarter than you and me put together,” said Vivian. “We shouldn’t wait too long.”

“She’s twelve,” said Harry. “It will wait.”

“I worry about her.”

“Don’t.”

“Have you ever heard of obsessive-compulsive disorder?” said Vivian.

“OCD? Sure, I’ve heard of it.”

“I think Tess might have it.”

“That’s ridiculous. Tess is fine.”

“You don’t know Tess, Harry, not like I do.”

“Of course I know her.”

“When was the last time you went into her room in the daylight?” asked Vivian.

“I can’t just barge in there. She deserves her privacy. So do you, for that matter.”

“She organizes things, Harry.”

“Okay, so she organizes things. Big deal. She gets that from her mother.”

“I don’t mean she keeps her socks matched and her T-shirts folded. I mean she lines the Legos up along the closet wall—one day by color, the next day by size. She sharpens pencils until they’re all exactly the same length and if she uses one to write, she starts all over again.”