“Last thing,” says Gary. “Do you know who we should call?”

  I could throw Marie to the wolves. Because right now, she’s the only one who has actually broken the law.

  My problem is, the wolves Sheriff Gary has the power to summon are nowhere near savage enough for what Marie has done.

  “He’s…was…there were some family problems, but he was still in touch with one of his sisters. Angela Jimenez. She lives in Los Angeles. I’ve got her number. I think, I…”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Gary tucks the notebook back in his shirt pocket. “We’ll find her. You get your rest.”

  Gary leaves, and then, more slowly and reluctantly, David follows. Dad comes up right behind them, setting a friendly hand on each man’s back. Marie trails the masculine group, but only as far as the threshold. She closes the door and turns to face me.

  Because, of course, we need to talk.

  4.

  Marie sits on the edge of my bed, right where Dad was. It’s probably still warm. She takes a quiet moment to make sure she’s wearing the correct expression of sisterly sorrow.

  “Geraldine, I’m so sorry. But you’re strong. We will get through this. You can stay right here. You take as much time as you need.”

  Marie takes my clenched fist. I feel the rough line of her healing cut. My scar burns. My skin crawls. I need something. Just to get me through this. Because there is so very much to get through right now.

  “Right. Sure. Just like we planned it,” I say.

  “Yes. No. I don’t mean…”

  “Of course you don’t. But we had a plan, right? You had to stick to the plan.”

  “You cannot talk about this now,” she breathes. “We agreed. We wouldn’t say anything out loud that might be misunderstood.”

  Because once Dad was dead and Gary Scrope, or somebody like him, came to ask us about our father, we had to be able to say what we had said and done, and we had to tell the truth. We had to live the setup, just like Marie has been doing for years. And I agreed. I’d say God help me, but there is no help.

  “I tried, Geraldine,” Marie whispers.

  I want to go away and be sick. Because all I can see are Marie’s dead eyes that night in front of Aunt Trish’s when she turned from me to our father and smiled.

  I press my fingers against my bruised cheek. It hurts, but not nearly enough.

  “Tried what?”

  “To keep you out of it. To do this on my own. But I made a mistake the first time. Eventually, I realized hadn’t paid attention to the signs. I’d closed myself off, do you understand? I needed time, to learn to be open. I needed to plan more carefully, to make sure all the details were correct.

  “And I needed you. We had to do this together. It couldn’t happen any other way.”

  I remember the note. The note that has now gone up in smoke along with the rest of the house. Its ashes mix with Tyler’s now. I did it. I’m sorry.

  “You…what did you do?”

  “I took Mom’s pills. I meant to use them…The night she…the night you and she…and you…”

  My mouth has gone dry. I’m staring at her. “Which pills? From her table drawer?” The ones in the shoebox, down in the cellar?

  Marie frowns at the question, then nods.

  All at once, my stomach cramps up, hard. I have to roll over. For a split second, I think I’m going to be sick, but I’m wrong. I just start laughing. It’s a hard, hysterical, jagged waterfall of noise, but I can’t stop myself. I can’t believe it has come to this. I can’t. I won’t. Oh, shit, oh, shit. I hurt. I hurt so bad.

  “Please, Geraldine,” Marie begs. “We have to pull together. We—”

  And that’s when Dad walks back in, with his smallest smile turning up the corners of his mouth and lighting his eyes.

  That small smile that says, Gotcha.

  5.

  How much did he hear? What does he know?

  “Didn’t mean to interrupt the girl talk,” he says cheerfully. “But I wanted you to know, Geraldine, the doctor left you these.” He fishes in the pocket of his khakis, like he’s not sure what’s there. Then, he holds up a bottle of pills and rattles them just a little. “In case you need something later to help you sleep.”

  In case I need something. Staring at that amber bottle, I am nothing but need. I want to lunge for it. I’ll crawl across the floor and beg, if that’s what it takes. The thing that stops me—and it is the only thing—is that little tiny, gleam in my father’s bottomless eyes.

  “You got a doctor to hand you a bottle of pills for your junkie daughter?”

  Dad sighs at Marie. Her cheeks have gone pink.

  And I have my answer. Dad didn’t tell the doctor about my addiction, and he didn’t give Marie any chance to. Not because he’s ashamed, and not because he wants to protect my reputation in Whitestone. That kind of thinking is for other fathers. My father didn’t give the doctor a full history, because my father wanted those pills.

  “Dad.” Marie’s voice is almost as hoarse as mine. “I thought we’d agreed…”

  “Look at her, Marie,” Dad pleads. “She’s hurting.”

  Oh yes. Yes, I am. “You son of a bitch.”

  My father returns a beatific smile.

  “All right. All right. I see I’m not welcome here. You two know best.” He sighs, and he considers. “Tell you what? I’ll leave just one,” he says. He twists open the lid and shakes one little white circle into the palm of his hand. “You’re both right, of course. We do need to go easy on these. They’re pretty powerful and, well, there’s family history, isn’t there?”

  “She doesn’t need that,” snaps Marie.

  The pill clicks against the table. Dad does not bother to turn around. “It’s just one, Marie.”

  I don’t look at it, but I feel it, like sunlight against my cheek.

  “She just needs rest.”

  “Then we should let her rest.” He straightens up to face her. “Let’s go.”

  Marie draws herself up to her full height. It’s not something I’ve ever seen her do in front of him. I’m kind of surprised. Or, I would be, if so much of my mind wasn’t occupied in wishing they’d both go away. I want to be alone. Just me and the pill and the smell of smoke.

  Marie turns her back on Dad. She bends down and kisses my forehead. Her mouth is cool and soft. “I’ll be back to check on you in a bit.”

  Dad stands in the threshold, with his arm out, motioning for her to pass. I fall onto the pillows. The door closes. My hand gropes across the nightstand.

  And finds nothing. My whole body jerks upright without my telling it to.

  The pill’s gone.

  6.

  I want to throw myself after her. Shame crawls through every nerve, but it’s nothing compared to the need to be filled. The need to not care.

  To not feel the hatred roaring through me.

  I curl up under the sweat-dampened sheet, too exhausted to do anything but play back the conversation with Marie in my head. The memory of it spills out of my skull to fill the blank, white room.

  I think about the boxes in the shop’s old storeroom. I think about Robbie and all the secrets he’s keeping. I think about my reasons for coming here, and my reasons for staying.

  I think about how very much I have lost, and all that I owe. I have not yet begun to pay the bill that’s coming due.

  But I know who lit the blaze that killed Tyler Prescott. I am sure I know.

  Because Tyler isn’t all that’s dead and dust and ash. My files went with him—my computer, all my work and all my research, the papers that were going to help me cobble together some kind of future when I’d finished here. The two thousand dollars that might have been an emergency stash, that’s gone, too.

  Ashes to ashes. Dust to death. I came here because I thought I could finally break the ties that bind. Instead…

  Instead.

  The light fades around me. The room is stuffy and smells like nothing at all.

  Carefully, one limb at a time, I sit up and set my feet onto the floor. For the first time I realize I’m not wearing my own clothes. I’m in a pair of black yoga pants and a plain white T-shirt.

  I want my clothes. The last things I own. What did Marie do with them? Washed them, probably. Folded them neatly and put them into one of the dresser drawers to wait until they were needed.

  My stomach cramps again and I push myself to my feet.

  The house is quiet as I pad down the stairs. The kitchen is empty. So is the dining room. I drift into the great room and stare out between the roses and the trees for a long time.

  I’m still staring when I see my father’s reflection slide into place beside me.

  Mirror, mirror, on the wall…

  “You’re up,” he says.

  “Couldn’t sleep.” I smile at his scarlet and amber reflection. My scar pulls and twists. “What did you do with Marie?”

  “I told her she should go with Robbie and David. Get out of the house a little,” he says. “We had to cancel the party, of course.”

  “Of course.” All those calls. All those apologies. Marie must have been frantic.

  He moves closer. “I was hoping we’d get a chance to talk.”

  I steel myself to face him. The last rays of the evening sun slide through the stained glass. My father stands in the center of a glowing scarlet patch. It tints his skin. Lips as red as blood. But it doesn’t change his eyes. Nothing will ever change those eyes.

  Both his hands are in his pockets. I know what he’s got in there. I know it like I know the feel of my heart hammering in my chest.

  I think how my whole life has been shaped and controlled by the contents of little plastic bottles with their big white caps and wraparound labels. And by all the people who held on to them. My mother. My friends. And even Robbie.

  “Is this about Marie?” I ask.

  Dad nods without breaking eye contact. And now I understand. Dad heard. Maybe not everything, but enough. He knows why I came back, and who set the fire that murdered Tyler and finally destroyed the old house. Just like he knows what really happened to Uncle Pete, and Mom.

  And, like always, Dad knows just what to do to make it all better.

  “I was talking to David,” I tell him. “He thinks Marie’s got…problems.”

  Dad sighs. “Well, you know how it is. Marie spends too much time in her own head. She needs a lot of understanding.”

  “About who people are and what they’re doing?” I suggest.

  “She gets a little confused.”

  “And sometimes she’s confused enough to do some damage, if she doesn’t get that understanding?”

  “What are you saying, Geraldine?”

  But he knows. He’s the one leading me on. Just like in the story. Come stand in the yard, daughter, because the devil is coming to take you away.

  All right, Dad. I’ll stand here, nice and clean and quiet. Let’s see which of us the devil can get his claws into.

  “I’m saying, Dad, that I wonder where Marie was when the old house caught fire and what she was doing.”

  “I’m not sure I know. I’m not sure anybody knows.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “No.” He pauses and looks at me from under his pale eyelashes. “But Marie’s fragile, Geraldine. She needs to be handled carefully. For everyone’s sake. Especially Robbie’s.”

  Ah. Robbie. Of course. Robbie. We all want to take care of Robbie.

  “She told you, I suppose, that I’ve been playing games with the family money?” he says calmly.

  “Even Marie knows I don’t care about the family money.”

  “You didn’t used to. But now, things have changed. You’re going to need something to get by on. Until your book sells, of course. Marie knew I’d set aside an account for you. Just in case. So, she would assume you had a stake in all this, and with you two being so close…I know she confides in you. Despite everything.”

  “Yes, she does,” I agree. “And I’d say she’s been under a lot of strain lately.” The cliché slips smoothly off my tongue. “It’s starting to show.”

  “I’m afraid so, yes. That’s why I was so glad you came back.” He reaches out and puts a hand on my shoulder. His palm is cool and soft, his blunt fingers strong despite his age.

  I’m trying to remember the last time my father touched me. Oh, yes. Right. In the gully, where they found Mom. That was it.

  “This can all be handled quietly, Geraldine,” he tells me. “Things that look complicated in the beginning are usually pretty easy to resolve. As long as we’re careful, everyone can get exactly what they need. But we don’t want anybody putting two and two together and getting five, do we?”

  “Especially not Marie, right?”

  “Poor Marie.”

  “Poor Marie.” My mouth twitches and I put up a hand to cover my scar. “Sorry. I’m just on edge.”

  “Well, this’ll help.” He pulls the bottle of out his pocket, twists the cap, and shakes out one white pill into the hollow of his palm. “Just the one, now.”

  I pluck the pill out of his hand with my cold, numb fingers. And just at the moment I open my mouth to place it carefully, reverently, on my tongue I look through the rose glass again, and this time, I think I see Marie.

  But when I turn, of course, there’s nobody there.

  In the original stories, the happy ending is not the wedding. The happy ending does not come until the bad guys are all dead. Sometimes this takes a while.

  —Out of the Woods: Musings on Fairy Tales in the Real World,

  Dr. Geraldine Monroe

  MARIE, PRESENT DAY

  THE ROSE HOUSE

  1.

  I don’t know what to do.

  I planned, every day. I acted with care. I made myself perfect. I laid each stone and I tested each step, even as I was tested. I passed. I perfected the image of myself until no one bothered to look for anything else beneath.

  I trusted one person. One.

  But she did not trust me. Not enough. Now, that single stone has shifted, and the whole world is falling.

  I don’t know what to do.

  2.

  Robbie is down by the garage when I get there. He leans against the Mustang in the driveway, flicking his thumb against his phone. The light shines into his face and shows me my son—grim, distant, seeking his escape in that private world he carries with him.

  I was appalled when I saw Robbie walk in behind David and Gary. But David told me Robbie wanted to make sure I was okay. He stayed, even though his father left hours ago. Here at the end of the world, he came back for me.

  That must mean I’ve done something right. Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know anything.

  Robbie sees me, or at least my shadow, and shoves his phone in his back pocket.

  “Mom?” he says. “You okay?”

  I do not answer that. It wouldn’t do either of us any good. “I need you to drive me to Uncle Walt’s.” As I speak, I feel my maternal tones and expressions all fitting themselves into place. It is automatic. I need to be sure Robbie is out of the way. This is the only way I can think to do that. “And pick me up again afterward. I’ll text you. You can go get a pizza…”

  “I don’t want a pizza, Mom. And you don’t want to see Uncle Walt.”

  “You think you don’t, but you must be hungry…”

  “Mom! Cut it out!”

  I close my mouth.

  “Just…just stop it!” he shouts. “A guy is dead, Mom! You can’t just pretend it didn’t happen this time!”

  Oh, my dear son, you have no idea. “I know, Robbie, and we’re all very upset, but you need…”

  Horror rises in Robbie’s eyes. Not the pained embarrassment of adolescence, but the genuine terror that comes with understanding a truth too huge and too awful to encompass. “You’re letting him get away with it,” he whispers.

  Why doesn’t the ground shift? Why doesn’t the air move? Where are the familiar secrets crawling out in answer to my pain? There’s nothing to help me remember how to act. Not even my mother’s cold, angry presence behind me. This time, I have gone too far for them to reach.

  “Robbie,” I make myself say. “I promise…”

  “He killed that guy and you know it!” Robbie stabs his finger up toward the house. “You know and I know and Dad, he knows…”

  “Robbie!” I grab his shoulders and shake him, hard. He’s so startled, he lets it happen. “Did your father say anything to you about this?”

  “No,” he admits, but there’s no time for relief to set in. “But I saw the look on his face. I’m not a goddamned little kid, Mom! Grandad was pissed off about Aunt Geraldine’s boyfriend and now he’d dead! It doesn’t take a genius to figure out somebody ought to be asking questions!”

  Somebody is asking questions. He’s asking questions and he’s laying plans, and he’s watching us. He’s staring out from under the night-black roses and watching us right now.

  “Robbie, you cannot say this, not to your father, not to anyone. Do you hear me?”

  “Why the hell not? Why should I protect him? I’m not like you!”

  He regrets the words as soon as he speaks them. I see that. He shoves that regret beneath his anger, but it’s hard and it hurts.

  “Robbie, listen to me. I know you’re angry. But you cannot go around saying things like this.”

  “Why? ’Cause he’ll hear me? You think I care what he hears anymore?”

  No. No. Stop it. Stop it. Robbie. You have to stop. He’ll hurt you. He’ll kill you, Robbie. He will kill you and he’ll make me cover it up.

  My hands hurt. The pain runs up my arms into my mind. Bright lines in the void.

  “You say you’re not a little boy anymore. All right. You’re not. That means you need to think about what you’re saying, and who you’re saying it to.” I meet his eyes. “You know what words can do, Robbie.”

  Look at me. See me. Please. Just this once. Really see me.

  He says nothing. He just steps back out of my grip. There is a smear of blood on his arm. My scab has broken open again and marked him.

 

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