ANXIETY
"Were you expecting someone?" Dean asked. The expression on my face must have answered that question for him.
He stayed behind me. Dean Garnett stayed behind me, like I could defend us better than he could.
Maybe that was the reason I crept back, still facing the window. A black form shifted, obscured by white curtains.
"This way," I whispered, tracing my entrance, tiptoeing to the back door.
The hinges creaked, but the wind also rustled the leaves against each other. Around this house, any sound could be attributed to the place settling.
Isn't that what they always say in horror movies? Don't worry, it's only the house settling. A thing parents say so their children don't have nightmares.
Dean either thought I was brave or he was a coward. I further tested this theory, taking a left out the back door where Dean instinctively moved right, toward my house.
Did I convince Dean I really was a ninja?
The bulk of the house blocked most of the light at that angle, getting between the window rattler and the sliver of moon still hanging in the East.
And I was smaller, darker than the lanky figure at the window. A long-limbed figure in a black hat was much less intimidating than the indistinct shadow blurred at the edges outside the window.
A car rolled by on the street and the figure turned to catch any roaming eyes that might've noticed someone trying to break into the Driscoll house.
On silent feet, I inched up the wall toward the window.
"You should've tried the door first," I said.
Long limbs betrayed him, leaving him falling backward into the grass. Even in mediocre light, his eyes managed to catch just enough to be intense and bewildered.
"Don't do that to people," Rhys muttered.
"People who try to break in through windows?"
Rhys shrugged helplessly. "I don't try doors I expect to be locked."
"You break into a lot of houses?" I asked, trying to discern from his face whether or not I should have guessed him to be a serial burglar.
"It sounds so much worse when you say it like that," Rhys protested, pushing himself up off the ground. It was admittedly easier to drill him when he wasn't standing over me. I'd never had the luxury of looking down at him before.
"Guys," Dean interrupted, evidently deciding to grow a backbone and not just hide around the corner.
The line of his finger pointed at the window, his eyes trained on the wispy shape on the other side of the curtains.
Click.
The window squealed as it rose up, revealing Kate Haumann.
"What is going on here?" Kate hissed leaning out the window.
˚˚˚˚˚˚
Kate flicked on an antique lamp. "Is this some kind of sick party or something?"
She sounded so scolding and motherly for someone who equally had no right to be in the house.
Gathered into the living room, Dean and Rhys collapsed onto the couch almost immediately, on opposite ends.
I didn't. Standing meant people had to look up at me for once and not the other way around.
"This would be a terrible party," Rhys said, arms crossed.
"So, you all came here of your own accord?" Kate asked incredulously.
"You didn't?" Dean said, watching Kate shift in her seat.
"Your notes didn't tell you to come?" I swayed on my feet, fighting the urge to pace through the living room.
That seemed like the most obvious explanation, but Dean came before he even read his note, so there were a few holes in that theory. Even mine didn't explicitly say, break into the house, but it did say to watch it, and there was the key, so...
"They got notes, too?" Kate's eyes flicked to the boys, then to me.
"Yes! All of you did. Were you not friends in Kindergarten who drifted apart or something?" I shifted my weight, but took no steps. Their faces were all so blank, all so clearly disapproving of the very idea. These were not people terribly upset by Natalie's death.
"Look, Natalie didn't have any friends. She never did. I don't think she ever even wanted any," Rhys said, his gaze wandering to the odd antiques in the Driscolls' collection.
"Everyone wants friends," Dean shot back, then added more diplomatically, "she was just... a very private person."
Kate didn't speak, but the half-roll of her eyes didn't exactly say that she agreed.
I pursed my lips. For some reason, friendless Natalie Driscoll singled out these three people. The three of them—the four of us, I suppose, if I stopped excluding myself—had nothing obvious in common.
"Why are you here, Jane?" Dean asked.
Good question. Proximity? I supposed I, the person who sprinted out of the house at the sound of Mrs. Driscoll's screams, would probably also have done something if I saw three different people try to break into the house on the same night. Why not include me?
But there was another reason weighing down my pocket. Did I wait long enough?
"This..." I pulled it out of my jacket. "It was in my mailbox."
It didn't look like much. A few edges of colored sticky notes stuck out around the edges. Four different colors. Other notes must've been pressed between pages as well, like the envelopes were. It felt too thick for there to only be the original pages. I hadn't investigated enough to have all those answers.
"So, what is it? What does it say?" Rhys leaned forward, elbows resting precariously on his knees.
The single lamp lit them all strangely, letting darkness melt into their faces. Rhys' curled shoulders cut a dark line over his throat, his eyes bright and focused. Dean turned, only one side of him lit when he didn't look at anyone. The exaggerated circles under Kate's eyes almost detracted from her porcelain face.
"Feels pretty private to me," Kate said, rubbing her arms.
"She left it for Jane," Rhys said, "don't you want to know why?" He didn't back down, even while Kate did her best to murder him with her eyes.
Then came Dean's voice, quieter than his usual charismatic timber. "Maybe it explains why she did it."
For the first time, all eyes were on me. I hadn't had this much attention at once since I moved to Cullfield. It was a silent urging.
"I—alright," I mumbled, thumbing open the book, past wait.
It felt like getting called on in class to read out loud. Dry-mouthed, I scanned over the first few words. Well, time for a dramatic reading.
"It's time. I always knew it would come and before it did, I knew I would have to finish. For almost as long as I can remember, I've known more than I should. For a long time, I couldn't understand. It might've been better that way. On the other hand...
"It's safe, for now, but there is somewhere safer. Like for revolutionaries and slaves, the closet under the stairs can keep a few more secrets. If there's anything I've learned, it's that I don't mind the company of things I can't name. It's people I mind the company of. If they knew what I knew, they wouldn't want my company."
The page finished, leaving blank space beneath the last handful of words and leaving me without a clue how to feel.
My knuckles whitened around the book.
"What the hell?" Kate stood up, her arms wrapped around herself and feet shuffling toward the door.
"Wait." Dean rose up, stopping her in front of me. "You didn't come for no reason, did you? What were you expecting?"
"Not that," Kate protested.
"Kate, you wouldn't want to leave right before the big reveal, would you?" Rhys drew himself up, taller than everyone else in the room. If he thought his wide, toothy smile would put anyone at ease, he was more delusional than I began to believe. People smiled like that when they knew something.
"I suppose we should check it out, then?" I swallowed back exactly how much I did not want to check it out. Checking it out is what white people do in horror movies before they get killed or release the demons of the house.
But those were movies. This wasn't—but that only meant that whatever was in that closet was real. Real was always worse than fiction. People were capable of horrible things.
I glanced momentarily at Rhys, the only person I suspected might move before I could, but he only smiled. That was a look I could not reciprocate.
First in line, I led the way to the stairs. Rhys pushed passed Kate and Dean to cast his shadow over me. Kate's whispered protests continued, but Dean tugged her along, voice unintelligible and calm.
She should have seen how brave he was when Rhys was tapping at the window.
Without thinking, I grabbed Rhys' arm with one hand, the other on the doorknob, as if touching a person would keep me safe.
And—
Nothing. The closet under the stairs wasn't anything but a broom closet, a tiny space with one shelf of extra floor polish.
"It's empty. What a shame," Kate said dryly.
"Au contraire." Rhys gently shook me off, nudging passed me. He tugged at the little chain dangling from the light bulb and in the warm incandescent light, I noticed something I didn't before.
The ring in the center of the floor.
Rhys tugged at the ring, swinging open the hatch.
A ladder led down into the hidden basement.