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Lily was always my mother’s favorite daughter.
Rose was my dad’s favorite because she was beautiful and clever.
But Nana was supposed to lovemethe most. She saidIwas her favorite.
Seeing Nana and Lily together felt like some kind of betrayal.
Lily and I had had a squabble a week earlier, and Nana said something I’ve never forgotten.
“You should always fight, especially if you think you are going to lose. That’s when you should fight the hardest.”
So I did. Fight. But I did it quietly, and carefully, and planned the whole thing so that I wouldn’t get caught. I borrowed my mother’s sleeping tablets, I put them in my sisters’ hot chocolate before they went to bed that night, then I crept into their room and cut off Lily’s hair. Everyone thought that Rose had done it in her sleep—she was studying for exams, had been exhausted for weeks, and had already sleepwalked once before. I could tell that Rose—the clever daughter—didn’t believe she had done it. But she didn’t have an alternative explanation either. I’m not sure Lily ever really forgave her or trusted her again. Nobody suspected me.Nobody.As though a good person is incapable of doing something bad.
No one ever noticedmein my family except for Nana. Lily couldn’t have her too; Nana was mine. I hated her for trying to steal the affection of the only person who really loved me. And people can make a hobby out of hate. The more they practice, the better they get. The rage I felt when Lily and Nana sang together was all consuming. And it wasn’t just jealousy. I wanted revenge for all the horrible and unkind things that Lily had said and done to me over the years. I decided that cutting off my sister’s hair was just the start.
30
October 31, 3 a.m.
three hours until low tide
The tape comes to an abrupt end and ejects itself. Then the eighty clocks out in the hall inform us that it is three a.m. We all wait for the noise to stop.
“I don’t think we learned anything at all from watching that nonsense,” says Lily when it is quiet again.
“Maybe not,” says Rose, putting down the remote. I stare at it and can’t help wondering ifshestopped the tape just now, and whether there might have been more to see. “But this will be the first hour that someone didn’t… go missing. So I think we did the right thing by staying together in one room.”
“What do you mean?” asks Lily.
“Well, Nana was”—she looks at Trixie and sensors herself—“foundat midnight. Dad at one a.m. We… found Trixie at two—”
“You can all stop pretending. I’m not a child,” says Trixie. Though in pink pajamas and with her mess of curls, she does looklike one. “I’ve guessed that I didn’t just faint and that something happened to me too.”
“We didn’t want you to be scared,” says Lily.
“Why not? It’s obviousyouall are,” Trixie replies, staring at her mother.
“If Rose is right, and someone planned to do something to one of us on the hour, every hour, then we’re due another… incident,” says Conor.
“Well, I make it three-oh-three, so maybe we’re safe now,” says Lily.
“Maybe,” Rose replies, sounding uncertain. She stares at Poppins, who is lying upside down, stretched out in front of the fire. It’s one of the old dog’s favorite spots in the house. Poppins hasn’t moved or made a sound for quite some time. We exchange looks, and then Rose speaks in that special voice she only uses for animals.
“Poppins?”
The dog doesn’t move.
“Poppins?” Rose tries again.
Nothing.
“Wakey wakey, Poppins,” says Trixie.
Rose turns a whiter shade of pale when there is still no response.
“Poppins,” she tries one last time. “Do you want din-dins?”
The dog goes from upside down to up on all fours and wagging her tail in seconds, and we breathe a communal sigh of relief.
