Contents
Prologue
Book One: Susan
Chapter 1
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Chapter 2
Chapter 3
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Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
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Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
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Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
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Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Book Two: Max
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
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Chapter 28
Chapter 29
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Chapter 30
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Chapter 31
Chapter 32
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Chapter 33
Chapter 34
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Chapter 35
Chapter 36
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Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Book Three: Nell
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
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Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
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Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
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Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
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Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
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Chapter 58
Chapter 59
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Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Book Four: Kate
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
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Chapter 70
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Chapter 71
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Chapter 72
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Chapter 73
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Chapter 74
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Chapter 75
Chapter 76
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Chapter 77
Chapter 78
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Chapter 79
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Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
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Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Book Five: Jean
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
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Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
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Chapter 93
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Chapter 94
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Chapter 95
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Chapter 96
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Chapter 97
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Chapter 98
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Chapter 99
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Book Six: Susan
Chapter 100
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Chapter 101
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Chapter 102
Epilogue
If Max were to begin this story, he would tell you that one day science will discover the seams of the universe, the edges where things lie side by side, unnoticed until they bump together in the strangest ways. He would say that one day, someone brilliant, maybe even he, would know the reason for what unfolded that long winter’s eve.
If Nell were to begin it, she would start, of course, with Mrs. Grady, the cheerful lady next door, who liked to tell her neighbors that if her kitchen light ever went out, she’d be gagged, bound, or possibly dead. This was, after all, why Nell was watching Mrs. Grady’s window that night. Part of her hoped the light would go out, just to see what would happen.
If Kate or Jean were to begin, they’d say it started with an accident. So many things seem accidental when you’re eight and seven, hours of the day pieced together like a patchwork quilt, one square fastened to the next because someone once discarded something colorful and someone else picked it up with needle in hand.
But it’s Susan who begins this story, because Susan is the one who names things. She finds words for the summer wind that blows through before an afternoon storm or the awkward pause when you’ve forgotten what you wanted to say after beginning to say it. It’s Susan who marks the texture of moments and wonders why they might mean what they do.
Though she loved the word dusk, which felt like smoke, and evening, which spoke of romance, Susan called the span between day and night blue window time. Somehow she knew the blue that filled the window was the essence of the hour, turning clouds into filigree and trees into lines, obscuring some things and revealing others. And perhaps it was the blue, after all, that last, stubborn hue clinging to the sky, that opened the door — or, in this case, the window.
On the day before it all began, Susan found herself wishing mightily that she could melt into light-gray paint, which by no coincidence was the color of Ms. Clives’s classroom wall. Lucy Driscoll was making a scene, and Susan stood at the center of it.
“But, Ms. Clives, you promised!” Lucy sobbed. “Don’t you remember? You said I could be Juliet!”
Criminations! Susan thought. Exactly what I deserve for opening my mouth.
She stared out the window at the December sky, where the clouds had swallowed the sun. It winked feebly from beneath a smear of gray, looking half suffocated. Which was exactly how Susan felt, trapped up there in front of everyone as Lucy moved from sobs to conniptions. Five full minutes of it left Ms. Clives looking fatigued. She turned a pained and apologetic face to Susan.
“Susan? You don’t mind, do you? And you can have a turn next time?”
Susan had only been waiting to get a word in edgewise anyway. Her cheeks were on fire, and she thought she’d combust if she had to stand near Lucy for another second.
“Of, of course not! That’s okay!”
She darted to her seat, thinking that wild horses couldn’t drag her back to the front of that room for another tryout. It was a phrase of her grandmother’s she particularly liked. Wild horses and an eight-hundred-pound gorilla seemed to be the two things that could drag a person anywhere, at least according to Grandma. Susan was certain she could withstand both of them more easily than further drama from Lucy, along with the humiliating, gossipy glee the rest of the class took in watching the whole thing.
Unfortunately, thanks to Max, the scene wasn’t over. The entire time Susan had been at the front of the room, her twin brother had been mouthing, “Stand up for yourself! Say something!” and she’d answered with the tiniest shake of her head. Now that she’d taken her seat, he began lecturing her in a low, insistent whisper. “You could at least say you worked for it! You don’t have to act like you don’t care! It’s not just about you, anyway; it’s about what’s fair. . . .”
She turned and shot him a look hot enough to singe his eyebrows. Apparently, he was flameproof.
“I don’t want to talk about it!” she hissed. “So stop already!”
Flameproof and deaf.
Max leaned forward, gripping the edges of his desk. “How long did you practice? All this week, remember? Lucy doesn’t know the first thing about —”
“Max, do you have something to share with the class?”
It was Ms. Clives, glowering from the front of the room, tapping a purple manicured nail on her desk. Ms. Clives had started the year as one of those aggressively cheerful, pretty teachers the class tended to love — the kind that arranged the desks, including her own, into a circle so everyone could be friends. The kind that made Susan nervous, because in her experience, the Ms. Cliveses of the world generally lost their patience by about December. By winter break, all the cheerful good humor would have drained away, replaced by the temperament and patience of Godzilla. The worst of it would be the whiny, peeved reminders of the good old days back in September, when the kids
