House of Thorns by Isabel Strychacz

Author:Isabel Strychacz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 2024-08-20T00:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

I’m halfway to the front door, jumping over the duffel bags that are piled in the entrance hall, by the time Rafferty catches up to me and grabs my arm.

“Lia—Lia, what’s going on?”

I just shake my head, unable to speak. My heart is a rabbit’s heart, tiny and racing and fragile. I don’t know how to tell him what I’ve seen. I don’t want to tell him because that would mean I really saw it—saw something. It can’t be real.

It wasn’t real.

Raff’s fingers grip each of my upper arms as I suddenly sag in his arms.

“This place…”

“It’s not good for you to be here,” Rafferty replies. “Let’s go, Lia. You found your sister and she’s fine, so—so you did what you came to do.”

I shake my head silently. You found your sister. One of them, yes. Is that the only reason I came? I know that Ali is looking for Avery, and there’s a part of me that needs to look for her too. Even though it’s fruitless. We searched. The police searched. The town searched. Avery was never seen again after the night of the storm.

I know she’s gone. There’s no other explanation.

My own face, little and wide-eyed, staring back at me through the kitchen doors. Or maybe there are just so many explanations that don’t make sense, that my mind just can’t figure out.

“This place is getting to me,” I whisper.

“Then let’s go,” Raff says again, more urgently, and I wonder what I must look like to have him look so worried. I want so much to just nod and agree and let him lead me out the front doors and away from Brier Hall and all its memories. I don’t realize I’m crying until Rafferty gently wipes under my eyes, his fingers coming away wet. “Lia. Lia.”

“I can’t,” I whisper. “I have to stay.” I straighten up, clenching my jaw hard in an attempt to stop the errant tears. I make sure to grab one of the duffel bags—to give myself something to do with my hands—and then walk stiffly back toward the heart of the entrance hall where Ali waits, her thin, bruised arms tightly crossed.

Like this.

Her eyes track me. As I brush by her, the edge of the duffel a barrier swinging between us like the pillow walls we used to make when we sometimes shared a bed, she whispers, “You saw us too.”

It’s not a question, but I can tell by the way she watches me go that she wants an answer. A confirmation. I’m halfway up the grand staircase when she suddenly shouts, the loudness of it jarring in the too-quiet hall: “You saw them too, didn’t you? You know there’s something weird going on here!”

There’s nothing going on. Ali is paranoid. Ali is troubled.

You know this. You know this.

I take the rest of the steps two at a time, the duffel bumping unceremoniously against my hip as I run down the upstairs hallway. I enter a room and slam the door behind me, then lean against it.

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