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“Are you going to?” I tried not to betray the panic I felt at that idea. With Desmond gone, there would be so few people I knew I could trust.
“No, I’m staying the summer. Like you asked.”
“I asked you to stay the summer?”
He sighed. “Yeah, but it was when you were sick, so I guess you don’t remember. Anyway, it’s my choice, and it’s the choice I’m making, and that’s that. I just needed the time to make it and know it wasmine, you know?”
“I think so.”
He laughed darkly. “God, this sucks. I’m going to get unpacked. I’ll talk to you later.”
“I’ll leave you alone,” I said, feeling relieved. “Where’s Celia’s room, by the way? I wanted to check in on her.” And ask her about her little habit.
“Three doors down,” he said. “The wildflower room.” He rolled his eyes.
I walked the few steps to Celia’s room. I could hear her moving around inside, opening drawers. I tapped cautiously on the door. “Celia?” I called.
She squeaked. “Just a sec!” she called, and I heard frantic rustling. I had a guess about what she was doing. She opened the door looking flushed and startled, as I’d so often seen her. She wore a soft pink sweater covered in little bits of sparkly thread and she’d painted her fingernails to match. She looked bubblegum sweet, and not at all like a thief.
“I know you took your mom’s earring,” I said.
“What? No,” she said, her eyes flaring comically wide in obvious panic.
“Okay, if that’s how you lie, I cannot believe you haven’t gotten caught before.”
Her cheeks flamed red, and she grabbed my sleeve, tugging me into the room. “Stop talking so loud,” she told me. Inside, she shut the door and bit down on the tip of her thumb. “Did you tell anyone else? I mean, I didn’t do it, but did you tell anyone you think—”
“I didn’t tell anyone. I’m not mad,” I said gently. “But you should at least give Desmond his pen back.”
“I didn’t—” She gripped her elbows, hunching in on herself. “I don’t know why I do it.”
“Honestly, I’m surprised you guys don’t have worse coping strategies,” I said. “As ways to sublimate constant creeping dread go, this is pretty healthy. I mean, unless you’ve stolen something way more important than a pen.”
“Just random stuff,” Celia said. She hesitated, then scurried over to her vanity. She took a small key from around her neck and unlocked the bottom drawer. “I stick everything in here.”
I held my breath. The drawer was full of junk mostly—a tiny silver spoon, a few coins, a gaudy ring, a Starlight Motel room key, a few papers—and the journal.
“I’m not going to tell anyone you took this stuff,” I said. “But I need that journal back.”
“I thought it was Desmond’s,” Celia said.
“He was translating it for me. It’s Nicholas Vaughan’s,” I said. Itook it out of the drawer, flipping through quickly as if to reassure myself it was all in one piece.
“I don’t think Harrow wants you to have it,” Celia said nervously.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because... normally I just take things on impulse. Little things people won’t miss that much. But sometimes I take things and I don’t remember taking them. I just have them. And if I try to put them back, it’s like—it’s like there’s someone with a hand on the back of my neck. Squeezing. Stopping me.” Her voice dropped to a whisper—as if the very walls were listening in.
“What else have you taken like that?” I asked.
She knotted her fingers together nervously. “Promise you won’t tell?”
I sighed. “I promise. Really, Celia, I do.”
She knelt down next to the drawer and picked out one thing after another. She set aside three things: a letter in a plain envelope, a plastic butterfly barrette, and a heavy silver ring with the Atwood crest stamped on it. It looked just like the ring Caleb had been wearing.
The barrette looked old, the plastic faded. The ring was engraved on the inside: C. V.—Caleb Vaughan. So it was his after all. I set both aside for now. I teased out the folded paper. It looked like it had been crumpled into a ball and then smoothed out again. The handwriting was formal, cursive written on a perfect slant. “Have you read this?” I asked.
