Page 102 of Buried in the Woods Below

My dad would be better off.

The open window in Emma and Penelope’s room. The curtains billowing in the night air.

She must have jumped. She’s out here somewhere.

Thoughts burst and catch in my brain like shrapnel. It doesn’t make sense. It can’t. But—

She said she was happier when her mother was gone. She said the Adwanis deserved it.

My breath snags. I can feel it now—the awful certainty metastasizing inside me.

Olivia is out here somewhere.

I raise a hand to my mouth, bile stinging my throat.

“Oh my God,” I whisper.

Eric stiffens. “What?”

I swallow hard. “Olivia. It must have been Olivia.”

I expect Eric to respond with emotion. Shock. Surprise. Anger. Denial. But his brow simply furrows, his mouth forming the beginning of a question before it simply falls open. His arms drop to his sides, both knives dangling uselessly from his grip. His eyes shift—shock, pity, horror colliding all at once.

For the first time, I see it.

Doubt.

I take a step forward, chasing an answer. “What?”

His lips barely move. His voice an echo.

“Charlotte… Olivia is dead.”

Chapter 47

The world tilts. A sickening lurch in my stomach.

Olivia is dead.

No, that’s not right. I just talked to her. I search the trees. The muddy path. The carousel. Spinning, spinning, spinning. Looking for what? Proof that I misheard? Someone to tell me Eric is wrong, that he’s lying? That my best friend hasn’t been ripped away from me again?

But there’s nothing. The lonely frog, the creak of the carousel turning without its riders. The reminder that I’m alone. A slow, sinking numbness spreads through me. I don’t care if Eric kills me anymore.

I meet his eyes. “How did she die?” My voice barely holds. “Did you kill her?”

His eyes pulse. His grip tightens around the knife. I brace myself.

But then he exhales, the fight draining from him like the wind. A shudder rolls through his shoulders, and the knife clatters to the ground. He drags a hand down his face, his mouth twisted, his breath uneven.

“Charlotte…” His voice is barely above a whisper. “Olivia’s been dead for eighteen years.”

I stare at him, waiting for the words to make sense. They don’t.

A small, involuntary breath slips from my lips, half a laugh, half a denial. “What are you talking about? I saw her. She slept in my room last night.” I force my mind to replay it, to hold on to it. That was last night. Wasn’t it? Yes. I said “Good night” to her. She was there. But then she wasn’t.

Eric runs a hand through his hair, pacing through the mud. He looks up at the sky, as if hoping for some divine intervention. The storm clouds have thinned. A few stars peek through.

“She died eighteen years ago, Charlotte. You were there. She fell off the Ferris wheel at the State Fair.”